Worlds of the Domain of Gateway: Rukirligi (Ley 2435)

[Psion]

WORLD DETAILS
Rukirligi 2435 C243678-4 N Ni 213 Im G7 V

Rukirligi is a small, hot, dry planet, at the edge of habitability. It was originally colonized during the twilight period of the Rule of Man, by a group of (primarily Vilani) primitivist idealists, though during the period of the Sydimic war, a number of other colonists migrated to the world looking for a simpler life or fleeing from the devastation of the Sydimic war.

The people of Rukirligi were ultimately peaceable, but the influx of settlers alarmed the more conservative members of the society. This led to the establishment of a number of secret societies involving senior members of the societies aimed at controlling political power. Soon, however, the idea of secret meetings became somewhat fashionable on the world, and now even relatively low level members of society participate in some sort of fraternity or cryptic group. Further, long term relationships are looked upon with suspicion. Inside a group, they create the possibility of a smaller pact of interest. Outside a group, they suggest that the members in such a tryst might betray the group to their lover’s affiliated group. Eventually, it became the norm for any marriages to be strictly limited in duration.

Though the secret societies helped maintain stability in the society, the influx of settlers took its toll. The three major inhabited regions (each around an ocean in the north polar region) soon drifted apart due to differences between the evolving cultures. Owing to the influences of corporate-minded immigrants who became part of one of the controlling secret societies, one of the smaller nations, Kirlishagi, evolved into a corporate state and started offworld contact in earnest. This has been a matter of much aggravation with the other two nations (as well as many of their own people) who have a somewhat more xenophobic stance.

As the Imperium looked to expand further into the Diamond Prince and Outworld subsectors, they sought a forward base from which to operate security patrols in an effort to bring in prospective imperial clients peaceably. Taking advantage of the rare non-xenophobic stance of the Kirlishagi Corporate State, the Imperium inducted the world and established a modest naval station in 911, and started upgrading the local facilities to support operations in the remainder of the area beyond the Imperial border and to create a starport that would closer approach the standards of an Imperial Naval base. However, since the Solomani Rim War began, many forces and funds have been pulled away from the Rukirligi base and development efforts remain in question. This is complicated by that fact that much of the populace, though peaceable, do not consider themselves Imperial citizens.

Technology levels are still steam age (TL4) as a norm, with some backwater regions only espousing TL 2 or 3 for technologies not directly related to surviving the environment. Given the limit on environmental technologies, many domiciles are shared between large multi-family groups and are extravagantly decorated. The Kirlishagi Corporation has imported a small amount of offworld technology and, to assist in trade, have upgraded their local air transport tech to TL6 standards. However, though other nations – and even their own citizens – are becoming more reliant upon offworld technologies, they remain suspicious of merchants and couriers any typically only allow interaction at certain specially designated areas outside their homes.

Extended world details: No guarantees here; I used WBD to make this, and I've noticed it can do some really odd things. I tried to patch it up a little, but something might have slipped through.

SATELLITE DETAILS: Number: 2
Satellite 1: UWP:YS00000 3, Orbit: 9
Satellite 2: UWP:HS00000 3, Orbit: 8


STAR SYSTEM ORBITAL ZONES
1. Orbital Zones: Primary Star: 2 (Bodies Orbit around Primary Star)
SIZE RELATED DETAILS

1. Basic World Type: Planet
2a. Planet Diameter: 2,200 miles (3,520 km)
2b. Planet Density: Molten Core, 0.92 terra
5. World Mass: 0.014 terra
6. World Gravity: 0.23 terra

Revised size figures:
World Mass - .215 terra
Planet Diameter: 4928 miles (7888 km)
World Gravity: .57 terra

7. Planet Orbit Period:
7a. Stellar Mass: 0.89 terra
7b. Orbital Distance: 0.7 AU
7c. Orbital Period: 226.747 standard days
9. Rotation Period: 22.271 standard hours
10. Axial Tilt: 14 degrees
11. Orbital Eccentricity: 0.0
12. Seismic Stress Factor: 0.0

ATMOSPHERIC RELATED DETAILS

1. Atmospheric Composition: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with low oxygen taint
2. Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 0.55 atm
3. Surface Temperature:
3a. Stellar Luminosity: 0.86

3c. Energy Absorption: 0.86
3d. Greenhouse Effect: 1.05
3e. Base Temperature: (FI) - 323.5 K (50.5 C, Very Hot)

7a. Length of day and Night: 11.136 standard hours

12. Native Life: Exists
13. Atmospheric Terraforming: Has not occurred
14. Greenhouse Effect Terraforming: Has not occurred
15. Albedo Terraforming: Has not occurred

HYDROSPHERE RELATED DETAILS

1. Hydrographic Percentage: 28%
2. Hydrographic Composition: Tainted liquid water
3. Tectonic Plates: 1
4. Hydrographic Terraforming: Has not occurred
5. Terrain Terraforming: Has not occurred
6. Continents and Oceans: 3 major oceans, 8 minor oceans, 11 small seas, 5 scattered lakes
7. Volcanoes: 6
8. Resources and Goods:
Natural Resources: Agriculture, Ores, Compounds
Processed Resources: Non Metals
Manufactured Resources: Consumables
Information Resources: Recordings, Documents
9. Weather Control: Is not practiced

POPULATION RELATED DETAILS

1. Total World Population: 2,000,000
3. Cities:
3e. Medium Large Cities (UWP Pop 2): Cities=35, Population/City=50,000
3g. Moderate Size Cities (UWP Pop 3): Cities=34, Population/City=5,000
3i. Small Cities (UWP Pop 4): Cities=80, Population/City=500
3k. Very Small Cities (UWP Pop 5): Cities=800, Population/City=50
4. Primary Cities: 10
5. Starports and Spaceports: C/F/C/F/C/C/H/C/C/C
6. Orbital Cities: Present
7. Social Outlook:
7a. Progressiveness: Conservative, Stagnant
7b. Aggressiveness: Passive, Peaceable
7c. Extensiveness: Fragmented, Aloof
8a. Number of Customs: 4
8b g. Local Customs/Practicing Group:
Have extravagant quarters/All population.
Unusual secret societies/All population.
Very long marriages prohibited/All population.
Quarters are taboo/Certain occupations.

GOVERNMENT RELATED DETAILS

1. Representative Authority Guide: Balkanization
1a. Balkanized Worlds: 3 states
State 1
1. Representative Authority Guide: Self perpetuating Oligarchy, Elite Council
9. Law Level: 4
State 2

1. Representative Authority Guide: Company/Corporation
2. Representative Authority: Several Councils
3. Division of Authority: No division
9. Law Level: B
State 3
1. Representative Authority Guide: Impersonal Bureaucracy, Several Councils
9. Law Level: D

LAW RELATED DETAILS

1. Uniformity of Law: Personal
2. Legal Profile: 8 A9470

TECHNOLOGY RELATED DETAILS

1. High Common Tech Level: 4
2b. Low Common TL: 2
3b. Energy TL: 4
4b. Computer/Robotics TL: 4
5b. Communications TL: 4
6b. Medical TL: 4
7b. Environment TL: 4
8b. Land Transport TL: 3
9b. Water Transport TL: 3
10b.Air Transport TL: 6
11b.Space Transport TL: 4
12b.Personal Military TL: 3
13b.Heavy Military TL: 3
14. Novelty Tech Level: 6

 

[Malenfant]

Unfortunately, this world is a mess from a physical UWP perspective.

First, it's too small to hold on to its atmosphere, especially at those high temperatures (the density would have to be much, much higher - so high as to make it very unrealistic. So either way you lose). That alone kills your world right there from a realism point of view (this is unfortunately one of the major problems with the UWP generation system in Traveller). I'm not sure what's going on with your max. day and night temperatures either - how do you figure that the temperature can go up to 447 degrees? Or is that in Kelvin?

Second, even if it could miraculously have an atmosphere, liquid water is going to have a hard time being stable there. At those temperatures and at that low pressure, it's going to be evaporating much more easily (I don't have my spreadsheet handy here to check exactly when it would boil, but it'd be lower than 100C for sure). It might be stable at the poles, but that'd be about it.

Third, any people there are going to be living at the poles, and only coming out at night. AFAICT, the daytime temperature at the pole is going to be about 50C, and night will be 13C. But that said, you're going to get longer days and nights there because of the 14 degree axial tilt, which will exacerbate the temperature differences. The lower latitudes are of course right out.

Fourth, we have a low gravity world (one-fifth that of Earth) populated by a TL 4 culture? How are they surviving?! They must have terrible health problems in those conditions without artificial gravity.

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Unfortunately, this world is a mess from a physical UWP perspective.

First, it's too small to hold on to its atmosphere,

I assmued the world is very young.

I'm not sure what's going on with your max. day and night temperatures either - how do you figure that the temperature can go up to 447 degrees? Or is that in Kelvin?

First off, I glossed over temps because it's not hard to tweak. I see you read closely but missed the important part. To wit:

"No guarantees here; I used WBD to make this, and I've noticed it can do some really odd things. I tried to patch it up a little, but something might have slipped through."

Second, you misread the entry:
Daytime Rotation Effects: 0.516 +per hour of daylight, 447.844 absolute maximum plus temperature

WBD has the tendency to give you extraneous information. It does this calculation in two parts- max daytime plus calculated from the atmosphere and primary luminosity, and an actual per hour of daytime increase. As the daytime is only 11 hours long for a net temp increase of about 5 or 6 degrees C, the "max plus" of 400+ is an irrelevant limit.

As for pressure, I could tweak it to the high end of what Traveller calls "low". This is not an issue.

Fourth, we have a low gravity world (one-fifth that of Earth) populated by a TL 4 culture? How are they surviving?! They must have terrible health problems in those conditions without artificial gravity.

Why do you think that? Zero g causes health problems. I have never heard anything suggesting that worlds with significant fractions of Earth Gs will have problems.

At any rate, that is a direct outgrowth of the UWP, which I am not tweaking. Assume genetically engineered colonists, social conventions requiring the appropriate calestenics, or whatever, if you wish.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Psion:
I assmued the world is very young.

It'd have to be - as in less than a billion years old. But then you wouldn't have a breathable atmosphere without terraforming.

I see you read closely but missed the important part. To wit:

"No guarantees here; I used WBD to make this, and I've noticed it can do some really odd things. I tried to patch it up a little, but something might have slipped through."

No, I caught that. I've made many systems with the WBH and know how it generates worlds and all its idiosyncracies (though I'm a little rusty on it since my copy is back in the UK).

WBD has the tendency to give you extraneous information. It does this calculation in two parts- max daytime plus calculated from the atmosphere and primary luminosity, and an actual per hour of daytime increase. As the daytime is only 11 hours long for a net temp increase of about 5 or 6 degrees C, the "max plus" of 400+ is an irrelevant limit.

True. But still, the day isn't going to be 11 hours long at the poles. Unfortunately I don't kno how to figure out day length in polar areas, but given that right at the poles on earth the day/night cycle is basically one year long, I suspect something similar might take place on your world. Though I don't think the temperature goes up by that much during the day there...

As for pressure, I could tweak it to the high end of what Traveller calls "low". This is not an issue.

Bear in mind that WBH defines "thin", "standard" and "dense" by atmospheric pressure - not amount of oxygen as CT does. The WBH way is much more sensible I think - but "what Traveller calls "Low"" has never actually been defined elsewhere in terms of pressure beyond "needs a respirator to breathe".

Why do you think that? Zero g causes health problems. I have never heard anything suggesting that worlds with significant fractions of Earth Gs will have problems.

A fair point. Though I'd imagine that low gravity could still cause some health problems. They may not be so severe, true, but they'd be there. It may be that it just manifests as a shorter lifespan. Still, the low gravity would have major effects on how a low tech society lives. Buildings could be taller, for example. I forget what TL bows and arrows are, but they'd be much longer range and would probably need to be fired differently from how we're familiar with in such conditions.

And also, this world is hardly an ideal spot to set up a low tech colony, is it? Temperatures are ridiculously high generally, the environment is harsh... why would they choose to settle there instead of somewhere more habitable?

 

[Psion]

To be clear, World Builder Deluxe is an application that rolls up things using the World Builder's Handbook. What I am saying is that, after seeing some temperature data it calculated, they seem off to me. It has screwed up city data, too.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
And also, this world is hardly an ideal spot to set up a low tech colony, is it? Temperatures are ridiculously high generally, the environment is harsh... why would they choose to settle there instead of somewhere more habitable?

Like I said, I can tweak the temperature down. But then, I don't always assume that colonits get a choice where they go. I still assume it's warm by terran standards (which is why I mentioned that most habitations are in the polar reagion), but could still tweak it down a few notches.

As for oxygen pressure, one of the possibilities that WBH has for "tainted" atmosphere types is "low oxygen", which would be consistent with a young world.

Anyways, this is an awful lot of detail for a world my PC group just LEFT.

 

[Malenfant]

As for oxygen pressure, one of the possibilities that WBH has for "tainted" atmosphere types is "low oxygen", which would be consistent with a young world.

That might work, though "no oxygen at all" might be more realistic. If you shifted the world out a few tenths of an AU that would probably make things a lot more bearable from a realism point of view. The global temperature would be much lower at least (if you got it down to about 10-20C that'd reduce a lot of the problems I think).

 

[Psion]

Okay, I have decided the best way to grapple with this size/atmosphere relationship issue is to re-define the size digit to mean mass, each point representing 1/8 terran mass. This should make many nonsencial size/atmosphere combinations more beleivable.

I also reworked the base temperature using the FI formula.

BTW, as for "hours of daylight calculations" for polar region -- I am pretty sure that is intended for the planet as a whole. The raise in temperature per hour would be less in polar regions due to the fact the planet is curving away from the primary and the luminosity is spread over a wider area.

 

[Malenfant]

I asked about the hours of daylight at the poles on the Celestia astronomy board - you can find the thread here

Someone there wrote a quick little program to calculate it for any tilt which you may find useful - the version provided in one of the messages near the end of the thread is what you should use.

I tried scaling down the temperatures for Earth at higher latitudes based on the surface area facing the sun, and they came out very wacky indeed (the poles were -168C, and the equator was about 20C). That tells me that there are some very complex features that need to be incorporated into the calculation - eg local albedo variations, day/night length, incoming energy, heat redistribution by the atmosphere and absorption by the surface, etc. Of course, climate modellers have devoted their lives to figuring this stuff out...

You're right in that the temperature drops at the poles primarily because the solar luminosity is spread over a wider area (which can be simulated by a drop in solar constant at higher latitudes). But the longer day and night at those latitudes means that the temperatures get more extreme. Apparently there are places in Siberia that can get up to 50C in the summer, because (a) they're in the middle of a landmass and (b) the day is several months long. In winter, the temperature there plummets to many tens of degrees below zero C.

I'm also not sure why the base temperature calculated is for a mid-latitude (eg hexrow 4). The formula in FI should be the temperature at the equator - there's a term hidden in the full equation from which that is derived for the solar constant, which is how much energy from the star is hitting the atmosphere per square metre. You only get the full solar constant at the equator for a planet with 0 degree tilt though - elsewhere, you do the equivalent of reducing the solar constant locally because the surface is tilting away at higher latitudes. It may be that they were assuming an earthlike tilt to say it was the temperature at hexrow 4 perhaps?

All of this makes it rather difficult to say what the temperature at a planet's polar regions is. It's certainly not just a case of simply adding +ve or -ve latitude modifiers (you'd need to take into account the type of surface and the thickness and cloudiness of the atmosphere at least, plus the heat distribution function). It's also not just a case of adding a fixed day/night modifier for the whole planet, because (for example) 50 hours of daylight at the poles will not warm the surface by the same amount as 50 hours of daylight at the equator. There needs to be some scaling of the hourly heat gain/loss at day/night with latitude to make it more realistic.

It's all horrendously complicated anyway

. I guess for now it's best to just stick with the formulae in the books and tweak with common sense...

 

[Psion]

I guess for now it's best to just stick with the formulae in the books and tweak with common sense...

Yes. I tend to think of things qualitatively anyways; the most I am typically looking for is something good enough to run a game with; for this purpose, the G:FI method of adding temp zones is usually close enough.

I usually take the base temperature as a typical temperate zone daytime temp, and assume there are hotter and colder regions as necessary. It's rarely necessary for me to determine the exact temperature in an game, though some conditions (like tidal locked worlds, worlds with long days like tidal locked moons of gas giants, etc.) make me curious how high the temp goes and makes me crunch a few numbers. Even then, I sort of see it as a ballpark figure.

 

[Morte]

Hmm, this system suddenly looms in the EA 4 frame. Adding something on the starport would be nice. Is it ground only, or is there an orbital component? Is it in any way shared with the naval base? Can it refuel Lorimar class merchant cruisers in a hurry, or will they need to skim a gas giant?

 

[Psion]

I could cop out and say "it's your Traveller universe now."

But looking at what WBD rolled under population details:

6. Orbital Cities: Present

BUT this doesn't jive with WBH, which says that you can only have population of TL-6 in orbit, which is approximately -2. So I assume the World Builder program is off the deep end here.

I would probably explain this away as saying that any orbital station is part of the naval base (the one that can't be there either since it's a type C starport.) Hope one of the PCs thought to take connections (navy).

When I ran, I didn't assume there was one. But you can do whatever you like in your game, naturally.

If that was of use for you for EA4, I have a description done for Gergigi and am working on Navarino, and have a variety of other worlds in the subsector (Holloway, Barely Planet) in the works and have "raw" worldbuilder data for them.

 

[Morte]

Originally posted by Psion:
If that was of use for you for EA4, I have a description done for Gergigi and am working on Navarino, and have a variety of other worlds in the subsector (Holloway, Barely Planet) in the works and have "raw" worldbuilder data for them.

Post 'em when they're ready for prime time.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Psion:
6. Orbital Cities: PresentBUT this doesn't jive with WBH, which says that you can only have population of TL-6 in orbit, which is approximately -2. So I assume the World Builder program is off the deep end here.

I would probably explain this away as saying that any orbital station is part of the naval base (the one that can't be there either since it's a type C starport.) Hope one of the PCs thought to take connections (navy).

Well, it's a TL 4 world, so I can't see any reason for it to have any orbital cities at all. An orbital station for a Navy base sounds reasonable (or maybe it's even on another planet in the system, or on a moon), but then you're saying that it shouldn't have that either...

This is why I think using dice to roll stuff up is better than using these programs though, it's much easier to spot things that don't make sense when you're making it by hand than when you're clicking a button and having everything done for you

 

[Psion]

To be clear, the naval base was as presented in GtD. It was not in the originating data and the tables don't allow naval bases on starports other than A or B. IOW, it sounds like it was put in manually. Which I have no problem with.

And I am trying to put it in the context of "is it reasonable to assume that the local civilians have a highport?" At that TL, it seems unlike.

Like I said, World Builder Deluxe is a little screwy.

 

[Morte]

Used this in my last session.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Psion:
To be clear, the naval base was as presented in GtD. It was not in the originating data and the tables don't allow naval bases on starports other than A or B. IOW, it sounds like it was put in manually. Which I have no problem with.

It was done intentionally. The base was originally planned for Mamikha, IF the Mamikhans were more receptive to Imperial membership. The fact that it ultimately went to Rukirligi is now a major sore-spot with the Mamikhans and has made the job of the Imperium's diplomats that much harder.

Hunter

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by Morte:
Used this in my last session.

Did you? Cool. Any thing interesting happen? Any aspects of the world get highlighted?

 

[Morte]

Originally posted by Psion:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Morte:
Used this in my last session.

Did you? Cool. Any thing interesting happen? Any aspects of the world get highlighted? </font>[/QUOTE]I played up the suspicious natives a bit. The crew went out in the boonies to pick up cargo, the kids wouldn't give directions to strangers (like parts of Sicily allegedly), the sellers tripled-checked their money for forgeries, things like that.