"Back-dating" Worlds

[daryen]

I have a question for the group here.

Let's assume I have good data (or good enough data) for a sector. Now I want to "back-date" it by 119 years. (Or, for that matter, how about moving it forward by 119 years?)

What would be a good process?

What should be the percentage chance its TL would change? Its population? Its government/LL?

Has anyone else already tried to go through this, or am I on my own here?

BTW, this is not intended to be in a "volatile" situation. No Civil War, no Virus, no conquests, no massive invasions, etc. Just the passage of a century.

 

[Psion]

Do you have "hard times"? It has a system for "regressing" worlds in the absence of interstellar society. You might try building a system like that, except more mild. For example, assigning random rolls to tweak down pop and tech digits, reroll government, remove bases that haven't been built yet, etc.

 

[flykiller]

What would be a good process?

for an entire sector? yikes. must be one tremendous campaign.

for each world:

population: d6
1 +1, 2-3 +0, 4-5 -1, 6 -2

govt: d6
1-5 no change, d6 reroll government type

law level: d6
1 +d6, 2-3 -1, 4-5 -2, 6 -d6

tech level: d6
1 +1, 2-3 -1, 4-5 -2, 6 -d6

yard:
(reroll by tech and population)

base: d6
1 previous base present, 2-5 no change, 6 existing base absent

 

[Malenfant]

It depends on a lot of things though. Just doing the same random modifiers means that everything ends up evolving in the same way. 120 years is a long time - populations, governments and law levels can change significantly, depending on what's going on. Wars could break out that reduce the population or balkanise the world. New ideas could spread that topple governments, or create terrorist ideologies that increase the law levels. Ideas could spread from planet to planet even and gain new footing elsewhere. Planetary disasters may spawn huge exoduses, or decimate the population. New investments or new discoveries on the planet could increase the starport quality, which itself has knockon effects on the other social UWPs. Plus of course even if nothing else happens you have 120 years of population growth from childbirth and immigration.

 

[flykiller]

completely agree. but he's talking about doing an entire sector. heck, I have trouble drawing up detailed info for a handful of existing planets, let alone a specific history for an entire sector. I don't know, maybe he's smarter and faster than me - wouldn't take much - but it still seems like a fairly big project. I'd say do them all the same, then put in a few specials.

sat down and looked at the spinward marches one day, with an eye to redoing the whole thing. it ought to be. but after a while I realized it that to do so was pointless, that it was good enough for a game.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by daryen:
I have a question for the group here.

Let's assume I have good data (or good enough data) for a sector. Now I want to "back-date" it by 119 years. (Or, for that matter, how about moving it forward by 119 years?)

What would be a good process?

What should be the percentage chance its TL would change? Its population? Its government/LL?

Has anyone else already tried to go through this, or am I on my own here?

I've been doing something like that, on and off, with the Spinward Marches for going on ten years now. It's a lot of work. I have worked out some tables for generating historical events and use them to get a feel for each world in turn (note that I'm very far from having done that for all 400-odd worlds in the Marches).

Population changes can be interpolated if you have the population figure for two different dates.

Here are a few examples taken from my notes about some of the Sword Worlds:

Hrunting:

Population growth suggestion (17%/century):

55: 6,000,000
125: 6,700,000
200: 7,500,000
300: 8,800,000
400: 10,000,000
500: 12,000,000
600: 14,000,000
700: 16,000,000
800: 19,000,000
900: 22,000,000
1000: 26,000,000
1100: 30,000,000
1200: 35,000,000

Alternative is more growth at first and Near Zero Growth for many centuries.


Tizon:

Population growth suggestion (40%/century (3.3%/decade)):

55: 5,800,000
125: 12,000,000
200: 15,000,000
300: 22,000,000
400: 30,000,000
500: 42,000,000
600: 59,000,000
700: 83,000,000
800: 116,000,000
900: 162,000,000
1000: 227,000,000
1100: 318,000,000
1200: 444,000,000

Narsil:

Population growth suggestion:

97%/century (7%/decade)

55: 6,000,000
125: 27,000,000
200: 54,000,000
300: 105,000,000
400: 207,000,000
500: 407,000,000
600: 800,000,000
700: 1,600,000,000
800: 3,100,000,000
900: 6,100,000,000
1000: 12,000,000,000
1100: 23,600,000,000
1120: 27,000,000,000 (Drops to 3%/decade)
1200: 35,000,000,000

Colada:

Population growth suggestion:

About 15%/century after 500.

-396: 2,000
-298: 18,000
-105: 290,000
-5: 1,100,000
55: 6,400,000
125: 24,000,000
200: 98,000,000
300: 1,000,000 (est.)
400: 1,000,000 (est.)
500: 1,000,000 (est.)
600: 1,100,000
700: 1,300,000
800: 1,500,000
900: 1,750,000
1000: 2,000,000
1080: 2,166,000
1100: 2,236,000 (growth increased to 3%/decade)
1110: 2,303,000
1120: 2,372,000 (growth increased to 6%/decade)
1200: 3,780,000


As you can see, each world requires individual interpretation (IMO, anyway).

As for government changes, I give each world a stability rating from 1 to 5, usually between 2 and 4 (A Vargr population might get a 1 and a Vilani population a 5, small populations tend to lower stability than large populations, that sort of thing). I then roll that number of dice to see how many decades a new world order at least lasts. I then roll one die. I the result is greater than the stability rating, I roll a new government (and law level, based on the new government). If I roll equal to or below the stability rating, the present world order survives (though I usually impose some minor change, like a change of dynasty or a move of the seat of government).


Hans

 

[DaveC]

A question to look at IMO is ...why? Lets say you derive a complex formula to backdate a sector 100 years. How are your players going to notice the difference? Isn't it easier just to redate the campaign, drop the overall Tech Level max, and adjust local conditions as fits the adventure (which is what most refs do anyway.)It just seems you are planning an awful amount of work for very little appreciable end result.

 

[Psion]

Someone here doesn't appreciate simulationism.

 

[daryen]

I didn't use Hard Times because there is no devistating war. Worlds are not being cut off from contact. There is no calamity. It's just the passage of time.

Why? Because this isn't for a specific campaign.

If it was for a campaign, I would just go through the set of worlds I wanted to use and make adjustments manually. If the players hit a world I wasn't prepared for, I would flat out wing it.

But this needs to be more organized, and I do have to cover all 400+ worlds of a sector. While I can hand modify all of them (yes, I can be that stupid), there would be too much of "me" in it. Better instead to have a random process that gives a result which I can then go through and adjust as necessary. Most will likely be "just a UWP" before and after the transformation, so a random process should be good enough.

 

[Flynn]

Daryen,

I'm going to be analyzing the overall changes in the Gateway domain sometime soon, so that I can figure out how to take a generic sector from CT Era back to the Gateway Era. It is essentially the same process that you are asking about. When I am done with my analysis, I'll give you some thoughts on a method for regressing your data, if you are interested.

-Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

I like Hans' "Stability Rating" idea...

 

[daryen]

Uh, Flynn? That is the process I am asking about.

While I would like it to be more general than just 1112 -> 993, that is the specific transformation I need.

And, yes, I am quite interested. I am always willing to leverage the work of others for my benefit.

(With due credit, of course.)

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by daryen:
I didn't use Hard Times because there is no devistating war. Worlds are not being cut off from contact. There is no calamity. It's just the passage of time.

That's why I said "but milder". Use the same general type of process, but not so extravagent. Minor tweaks, mostly, but there would be some wars or other major events that cause larger changes.

I'd say complex math isn't required for the space of a century. Just institute a normal pop reduction, randomized tech reduction, and a random "upheaval" chance for each world that, if rolled, suggests largers changes (rerolling government, larger or positive change in pop or tech, etc.)

 

[Malenfant]

I think any 'regression' technique would do well to include a way to have the world be a red zone or an amber zone (or for an existing red/amber zone to have been green once)

I think a big problem with the Imperium is that it's just too damn stable - worlds just don't seem to change all that much over a thousand years, let alone a century. Even in sectors and subsectors, the main worlds don't seem to change all that much.

I'd like to see the universe change noticeably after 120 years or even over the course of a few decades - so much so that if someone ventured offworld for the first time in 50 years they'd find that most of the places they used to know are very different now. (ever seen the movie "Battle Beyond The Stars"? In that, our hero heads out to a nearby planet that is supposedly a thriving, decadent den of mercenaries, only to find that in the intervening decades it's been cleared out and only one remains.)

 

[Flynn]

At the moment, I've only found a few canonical means to determine Red and Amber zones:

From MT, a combination of Government Type and Law Level can create Amber and Red Zone classifications if they are too restrictive.

From Challenge 26, a populated world with an X-class starport is considered a Red Zone.

Other than that, I've seen a lot of homebrew methods, but these are the only ones I've seen officially endorsed by MWM in print, so far.

Both of these can easily be applied to a regressed universe,
Flynn

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by daryen:
Let's assume I have good data (or good enough data) for a sector. Now I want to "back-date" it by 119 years. (Or, for that matter, how about moving it forward by 119 years?)

What would be a good process?

Have you taken a look at this Converting Worlds from Milieu 1100 to Milieu 1000 thread?
Not quite "generic" but it does assume no big catastrophic event.

IIRC there was another similar thread earlier.
[EDIT] The article linked above links to an article on converting from 1100 to the T4 setting but I think there was another article about converting to say 993.[/EDIT]

Casey

 

[daryen]

Thanks for the thread pointer. I had missed that one.

One other idea that I have had on this is that instead of worrying about "back-dating" things, just worry about how things move forward.

So, determine a process for how a world in the Imperium (or close enough) will progress over a century. That is much easier to handle, and more intuitive to think through.

Then, to get a regression, just reverse the results. Probably a backwards way to do it, but the result will be far more useful long term.

 

[Malenfant]

Speaking of starports, as I understand it "E" means that basically there's no deliberately constructed place to land, but anyone can land on the planet if they can find a clear spot. "X" means that nobody is allowed to land there at all. Is that correct?

 

[mike wightman]

Close
a type E starport is a big S painted on a flat piece of ground that is safe to put a ship down on (some people have even described it as a simple radio beacon).
A type X starport means no provision has been made for the safe landing of a ship but if you can find a spot you can put her down on it.

 

[Malenfant]

so why are X starports usually considered to be Red Zones?