"Back-dating" Worlds

[Psion]

Nundis:

NUNDIS 1228 A300A99-A De Hi In Na Va 700 Im K3 V

It's a very high pop level. It seems to me that this means BIG changes in infrastructure over the next century.

By the 1112 era data, it's renamed Nundishaag and is TL G. Someone on the TML pointed it out as being, using various methods, one of the biggest producing worlds in the Imperium by that time:

http://lists.travellerrpg.com/pipermail/tml/2002-December/173755.html
http://lists.travellerrpg.com/pipermail/tml/2003-June/180412.html

I have a big plot developing around this. I'm just trying how to make it pertinent to the adventurers.

For one, I find that the gateway domain has many of these "hiveworlds." That is, hi-pop but uninhabitable worlds that probably have most of their population underground. It seems to me that there should be a minimum standard of tech in order to have worlds like this.

IMTU version of Stoner (and the other two "hiveworlds" in that subsector) are products of Galastrian Metal's world building tech. I plan on playing that card here, too (I like consistency...) But after the corporate wars, nobody was left to provide support after the sale. It was a nominially Vilani world first colonized when the Vilani were first warring with the Luriani, but it backslid in the years before the Luriani region was integrated into the third imperium. The population is growing to dangerous levels, and the natives are not capable of building new safe subsurfact chambers the way Galastrian Metals was able to.

Nundis, I predict, is going to have problems. Problems that could kill a lot of people. Those types of things tend to motivate change.

Stir in Solomani terrorists, an archduke tasked with restoring the economy of the Ley sector, explotative corporations and a political activist plucked from the 20th century, and I think you'll see where I am going with this.

 

[robject]

Thread Hijack

Browsing this useful thread, I've pulled out some general concepts for back-dating worlds.

The overall idea is that the Imperium is probably boring enough as it is, and that dramatic changes in general are probably a Good Thing.

More specifically, then:

1. Pop, Gov, and Law Level can change dramatically over the course of a century.

2. Paradigm Shifts are Fun (for those who don't go through them personally):
a. wars balkanize or depopulate
b. ideas topple governments or increase law levels
c. ideas can migrate to other worlds!
d. disasters can annihilate and/or cause mass exodus to other systems
e. investments or discoveries can improve TL/starport and can even affect the rest of the UWP
f. natural population growth "always" happens
g. worlds pop in and out of amber or red zone status
h. 100 years could change everything.

3. Stability
The nature of a population (size, government, cultural type) provides a general 'stability' number, by which you could make broad generalizations about how long the UWP will generally remain as it is before a dramatic change happens. Sort of a 'momentum' value.

4. Random may be just as good
If a complex set of rules and exceptions results in what appears to be mainly random results, then why not just randomly reassign (Pop, Gov, Law, Tech level and starport too) after some amount of time? Temper the total change based on the time frame and other considerations if need be.

 

[Flynn]

robject,

Check out Issue #3 of Stellar Reaches. There's an article on rolling back UWP data from the CT/MT Era back to 993/Gateway Era, based on a statistical analysis of the sectors of the Gateway Domain Sourcebook and their CT Era UWPs. This should give you something resembling the changes that we see in the Gateway Domain by rolling back 120 years.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by robject:
2....c. ideas can migrate to other worlds!

And, robject, they may mutate in the migration! Witness Santaria - the "Catholic" voodoo in the Caribbean.

Originally posted by robject:
2....f. natural population growth "always" happens

Are you saying it doesn't? Or does? Because right now, population growth is negative for most of Europe when you exclude immigration.

 

[robject]

Thanks Jason and Fritz... and excellent point, Fritz.

 

[robject]

I created a deterministic set of rules for regressing a world, and tried it out on Tureded, Rhylanor, Risek, and Porozlo for the years 1100 to 300, and came up with a mostly (but not completely) reasonable yet interesting history.

Naturally, Rhylanor's TL would have to be restrained a bit. But it's cool to see the program claims to know when Risek was settled. And it thinks Porozlo is a really old, well-established colony.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">1100 Tureded 2414 C465540-9 Ag Ni 614 Im M3 V
876 Tureded 2414 C4655AA-7 Ag Ni 614 Im M3 V
590 Tureded 2414 C465730-8 Ag 514 Im M3 V
230 Tureded 2414 C465330-A Lo Ni 414 Im M3 V


1100 Risek 2712 A325579-A N Ni 401 Im M5 V M3 D
894 Risek 2712 E325000-0 Ba 001 Im M5 V M3 D
575 Risek 2712 E325000-0 Ba 001 Im M5 V M3 D
215 Risek 2712 E325000-0 Ba 001 Im M5 V M3 D


1100 Porozlo 2715 A867A74-B Hi 201 Im M1 V M9 D
723 Porozlo 2715 A867A74-B Hi 301 Im M1 V M9 D
584 Porozlo 2715 A867A74-B Hi 101 Im M1 V M9 D
223 Porozlo 2715 A867851-B Ri 801 Im M1 V M9 D


1100 Rhylanor 2716 A434934-F A Hi Cp 810 Im M2 VI
728 Rhylanor 2716 A434834-G A Cp 410 Im M2 VI
542 Rhylanor 2716 A434634-J A Ni Cp 710 Im M2 VI
259 Rhylanor 2716 E434000-0 Ba Cp 010 Im M2 VI </pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[robject]

Using much simpler hashing rules, here are the "rolls" for each world at each stage, which could presumably be used to index into a table of appropriate changes to make to the UWP:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">1100 Tureded (4,9)
876 Tureded (0,9)
590 Tureded (2,1)
230 Tureded (1,7)

1100 Risek (8,6)
894 Risek (7,2) <== Risek's "colonization date"


1100 Porozlo (6,9)
723 Porozlo (7,9)
584 Porozlo (5,9)
223 Porozlo (0,4)

1100 Rhylanor (8,9)
728 Rhylanor (4,8)
542 Rhylanor (7,6) <== Rhylanor's "colonization date"
</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[robject]

Alright, then, here's my plan. Suggestions welcome.

First, decide on two hashing rules to produce two single-digit numeric indices -- essentially a pair from 0,0 to 9,9 (which can also be represented as a percentile value from 00 to 99).

My second try yields these hash functions:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">(column + government + popMult) % 10
and
(row + law + popDigit) % 10</pre>[/QUOTE]Second, gather the stats for those few worlds for which Second Survey data are known or required to be a certain way. Sylea, Vland, Regina, and others. Decide on the ideal time interval to use (I've tried this with 150-year steps with no problem, but what about shorter steps?).

Anyone have First Survey UWPs for Regina, Vland, and Sylea?

Third, produce a table of changes (kurash kisaa) for each index. Fill out entries based on the changes dictated by the driving world list above, then fill in remaining blank entries by backdating on untried worlds. Test extensively and note the problems.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> Here's a sample using the backdating examples in the post above as a guide for changes.

Years: 1100, 900, 600, 300

index changes desc
(00-99) starport pop gov law tl pm
00
01
02
...
07
08
09 +2 3 +1 +1 -1 immigration
10
...
20
21 -4 +2 -1 war
22
...
47
48 -2 +1 7 disaster
49 A -1 -2 revolution
50
...
58
59 -2 5 -3 8 bloody revolution
60
...
68
69 +1 peace
70
71
72
73
74
75
76 E 0 0 0 0 0 colonization
77
78
79 -2 famine
80
...
85
86 E 0 0 0 0 0 colonization
87
88
89 -1 +1 4 economic depression
90
...
99</pre>[/QUOTE]Fourth, build a list of general guidelines for when the modifications should be reversed; i.e. if the TL will be too high.

 

[robject]

Marc threw a monkeywrench into my grand scheme:

I think Population has a criticalmass of 6. If less than 6, it will vary wildly by year and certainly be decade. New research staff arrived, refugees arrive. Pl;ague, disaster. Corporate policy changes. Funding changes. etc. So an annual count of population for the Low and Non-Industrial worlds might go like this:



2
3
4
3
4
5
4
3
4
5
3
2
1
1
1
2
3
4


etc

Once the population hits critical mass, it tends to settle down, perhaps. Or, maybe his view is that logarithmically larger changes require more time.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Hmmm. Don't think I'd agree that 6 is the magical number (maybe 4), but I think the idea of a critical mass is right. Mainly because any changes in a small number are more visible - if you have a population of 1,000, setting up a new station on the other side of the planet might come close to doubling your pop. Having a population explosion in one place on a planet of 2 billion is going to take a bit to really change the overall numbers. Now, of course, if everybody on that planet becomes a convert to a - ummm - "mathematical" religion (go forth and multiply), your numbers will change very quickly....

 

[robject]

...or a different kind of "mathematical religion" (Church of the Holy Eugenics)...

Yes, hard to move hundreds of thousands of people around. But hey, that would lend OTU support to the "Faraway Sector" concept on that other forum topic... hmmmm. Enough infrastructure to relocate a "small" planet of people... imagine that...

Anyhow, maybe I need another column in the table (if pop < critical_mass, then pop digit changes to this number), and make the standard pop digit and pop mult changes rare.

 

[daryen]

From everything I have read, the magic number to have any sort of viable population is 500. Anything less than that is doomed to die out if left in isolation. And any population that small is incredibly vulnerable.

So, that means any population less than 4 is probably exceptionally vulnerable and likely to die out. However, a pop of 4 should be sufficient for a colony to survive and grow.

Using Traveller trade codes, I would focus on "low pop" and "non-industrial". A "low pop" world is always in danger of dying out if left in isolation. A "non-industrial" world is always in danger of losing its technological infrastructure if left in isolation.

As a result, it would seem that Traveller assumes that a world must have a population of 7 before it can truly maintain a high tech level necessary to interact at an interstellar level.

That may be somewhat conservative, but still seems reasonable to me.