Far Frontiers Gateway Sector #2

[Murph]

146-2511 Gateway News Service- Nidhogg

The New Parisian Cruiser Turenne intercepted a Hercules class freighter, the Oberon as it jumped into the Nidhogg system. The cruiser’s marines conducted a boarding action onto the freighter where they seized a meson gun which was being illegally shipped to New Drakkensburg.

The weapon was found to have been officially declared damaged and destroyed by the Gateway Armament Ministry back in 2510. However, cross checking serial numbers shows that this weapon, which was allegedly destroyed was not, in fact, destroyed, instead the fully functional meson weapon and its ancillary equipment was part of the cargo on the Hercules class.

We are told that the New Parisian Navy was tipped off by an unknown source about the shipment of the meson gun, but the Hercules had already jumped from New Paris. The cruiser was sent on an emergency mission to stop the ship and seize the weapon. Meson guns are on the embargoed list of items that cannot be shipped to New Drakkensburg.

We are told that the government of New Paris has issued a communique that both Shiva and Nidhogg are in their exclusive “Sphere of influence”, and the Emperor Napoleon IV has decreed that New Paris will enforce the embargo on New Drakkensburg strictly. The combined clans, miners, and others on Nidhogg have filed a protest at this action on the part of the New Parisians. The Ambassador to Nidhogg said: Dommage. Tu dois respecter les règles, ou tu seras déçu.(Too bad. You need to play by the rules, or be disappointed.)

With stability returning to New Paris, the Emperor has apparently decided to flex his muscles by declaring the worlds of Shiva and Nidhogg were part of the Sphere of Influence of New Paris, and would strictly enforce the anti-slavery and embargo against New Drakkensburg.

It is known that the route to New Drakkensburg through Nidhogg is a well traveled smuggling route, but the New Parisian fleet is still recovering from the Civil War, and is too small to do more than station a ship or two outside of the New Paris system. But they have ordered quite a few new ships to replace their losses.

 

[Murph]

149-2511 Gateway News Service-Shiva/Rajguna

Our correspondent C. Snively reports on this colony and its tea business. Rajguna is a corporate state which has the highest tech level on Shiva. It adjoins the Cricket enclave and is popular with people who live and work there. On Shiva, the Rajguna Tea Company has started offering opportunities for refined ladies looking to start a business, to open a franchised tea room. Ashok Kumar, the President and General Manager of the Rajguna Tea Company has said that in his colony, and several others, tea is extremely popular with all segments of society. The model for his franchises that he is offering, is the Tea Room that his family set up in the Rajguna downport which has been a fixture for over a century.

Tea, being important to the social life of the colony, has seen many tea plantations started in the lush growing areas of the colony. The quality ranges from your average quality cup of tea, which is either made into Chai, or drunk with milk in the British style. Rajguna tea has proven popular as far away as New Canberra which is a major importer of the fine leaves. Being a very culturally/socially conservative colony, meeting for prospective spouses at a tea room has become common in this colony.

The Tea Rooms would have a nominal cost, but Mr. Kumar has set strict standards for the tea rooms to ensure a good class customer base and ensure that all the citizens of Rajguna can enjoy a fine cup in a relaxing and genteel setting. One such lady Miss Prianka Udaipuri, who is well known in the Chamraj neighborhood told GNS that: "As a proper lady, owning my own tea room allows me to interact with properly brought up citizens, serving them a proper tea so that they can head back out to the hustle and bustle properly refreshed. The franchise fee is low, and the Rajguna Tea Company offers a great deal of help in setting oneself up in business."

Rajguna is one of the more vibrant colonies on Shiva, with heavy off world investment which has allowed the colony to become a tech leader for Shiva. Every citizen is a shareholder in the corporation that runs the colony, which allows for some interesting stockholder meetings. Embracing a strict neutrality in world affairs, Rajguna is seen as neutral ground for many opposing colonies to come to in order to reach a diplomatic settlement for those disagreements which occasionally end up in gunfire.

Rajguna is also the culinary capital of Shiva, since the colonists take their food VERY seriously. It has more three star restaurants than any other colony on the planet Shiva. Located in the foothills of the World Spine Mountains, the climate is almost perfect, and in the winter, sledding, skiing, and other winter sports are very much in evidence.

 

[Murph]

151-2511 Gateway News Service- Rama

Teams are starting to arrive for the Rama Road Rally. This years course is different from the last course, taking a more “southerly” track than before, as well as being over 300 kilometers longer, which means that the racers will have to go through a bit more desert and steppes. To the unbridled fury of McBruce V, the course takes the racers far south of Bruce’s Billibong which will certainly be a disappointment for many of the racers, since Bruce’s hospitality has left several teams, shall we say, worse for wear.

But Abishek’s Dhaba is still in the course, which with the new rebuild it is going to be popular with the racers. Some are questioning why Abishek’s is still on the course and not Bruce’s which has puzzled many since both have been stopovers for the entire history of the race since they were on the original trek route, and also both places have been major supporters and popular stopping spots for the racers. There are some questions if money changed hands to cause this change in the stops.

At this time complaints have been lodged with the Racing Authority over the course change and its failure to hit the Billabong. A source close to the Racing Authority tells us at GNS that the Chairman who made the decision has been taken aback by the level of outrage at removing Bruce’s Billibong from the stopping points for the race. An emergency meeting is being held to discuss the change in route, and to see if there is any possible way to add Bruce’s back into the mix. Rumors are that the McBruce family voted for the other candidate for Race commissioner, and this is a political payback, which if true represents an unwanted and unneeded change to the historically non political nature of the race.

It is looking like most racers are either using the New Texas Motors Rangestar XII chassis as the basis for their vehicles, or the Gateway Automotive Racing Thunderstreak XIX chassis. Both are the best in the field for racing ATVs. As is usual for the race, only emergency gravitc units are allowed in case a vehicle falls into a crevasse, a river, or such.

Also per the last race no advanced navigation systems will be allowed, only maps, map boxes, and inertial nav systems. Some racers have compared this to navigating using a sextant and the stars, but others welcome the challenge. The race recreates the early days of the colony so high tech is forbidden to the racers, although every race some team decides to try and be creative, and when found out are unceremoniously ejected from the race.

This years purse stands at roughly 600,000 stellars, with Mr. Bilmont Cockvalve throwing in 50,000 stellars to the purse. The bookies are looking over the racers, and should start offering odds in a few weeks as the remaining teams arrive. This year’s race is going to be crowded with almost 397 entries. That is one of the larger numbers in the almost 200 year history of the race, which started out as contractors hauling goods to isolated stations in the outback.

This years race also contains no less than FOUR K’Grech teams, one from Dustball, and three from Coffeeville. In a complete shock to everyone, there is going to possibly be an Aslan team entering this years race. The Meow, Meow, growl, purr, hiss spit, hiss, or as translated, the Group kicking the hairless aliens buttocks is looking to enter the race. Now we have seen everything! What next? A Droyne entry? Unreal.

The Friedland team has arrived early, and the Panzerknackers are looking very impressive in early practice runs. The Freedonian Blue Bells are also here, along with the Nacogdoches Stone Fort, with both teams running New Texas offerings. The Dustball team has been sponsored by Matoshi’s Dustball Hardluck Speculative Mining Company, and is also using the Rangestar XII chassis.

 

[Murph]

153-2511 Gateway News Service- Rama

After the uproar over the removal of Bruce’s Billabong from the race route for this year, the Commissioner of the Rama Racing Commission said that they had no plans to change the route, and he was sorry if some people felt that they were singled out, and despite claims that the Commission had kept Abishek’s Dhaba in the course to assist them in recovering from the fire which leveled the famed Dhaba were simply not true.

Bruce McBruce V, the great great grandson of Bruce McBruce who built the Billabong said that he was not finished yet with this, and would see what other steps he could take, but if this year he had to not host the racers, then he understood since the Race was more important than just a single business, which despite being one of the cornerstones of the race since it was founded, and despite their years of helpful and faithful support and contributions to the Race, he understood, and would manfully bear up under the knowledge that the Racing Commission had other plans, that unfortunately did not include Bruce’s Billabong. He told GNS that he will, of course, be prepared to support the race despite this unfortunate and ridiculous ruling on the course.

The Rama road rally brings in an immense level of tourism, and is one of the larger parts of the tourist economy. In off years, the route to Bruce’s and Abishek’s are the scene of tourists renting vehicles to cover part of the route. We suspect, based on the level of outrage, that the saga of Bruce’s Billabong is not over yet.

 

[Murph]

158-2511 Gateway News Service- Sulawesi

Gunfire broke out once more as Enclaves Burcepherous and Donar-Sulawesi continued fighting. Enclave Burcepherous has gotten reinforcements from a newly hired mercenary unit; Patel’s 20th Sikh company. The company landed under cover of darkness, and almost immediately entered the fighting, pushing the Donar-Sulawesi forces back 10 kilometers before they were able to stop the advance of the mercenaries.

Another recently hired mercenary unit, the famed Atrocity Mercenary Group has hit the Sulawesi-Timur forces in the Gold Canyon, and after three days of intense fighting, where the Atrocity Company called in ortillery strikes on the Sulawesi-Timur forces, they have been pushed out of the Canyon except for a small garrison around the fortified town of Nuggetville which so far has proven to be too tough a nut to crack for the Atrocity mercenaries.

Clan Ranald has also entered the fray, and its 300 men have provided assistance to the mercenaries. Burcepherous’s forces are cleaning up the hold outs in the canyon, and unless Sulawesi-Timur can suddenly get more troops, it appears that Enclave Burcepherous might, for the very first time, be completely in control of the Gold Canyon which is the location of many very profitable mines as well as rich agricultural land in the bottom of the canyon. As always Sulawesi is a mercenaries favored location due to the good pay, easy looting, exceptional chances for good contracts, and low casualty rates.

 

[Murph]

Next one is going slowly, I did taxes yesterday, and the tax software took 2 hours to get installed and working, so I spent the day fueled on caffeine and hate.

 

[bookwyrm]

so I spent the day fueled on caffeine and hate.

This needs some Meme's! Totally made my day! But maybe in a new Thread. Hope you survived....

 

[Murph]

I did, but had a migraine by the end of it. I worked on the next newsletter a bit today. I hate tax season. I really do. Part of it was, I suspect, the tax software not liking my transfer to the Mac over my old Windows machine, plus the Mac version could not, or would not find the folder labeled Taxes no matter what I did, I finally had to move the entire folder to my main drive. On the old computer it would go: "Oh, your tax folder is on the "G" drive, ok, found it! Then I could not sign in, so had to create an entirely new account. But FINALLY I found out how much I owed our Lord and Master! Ugh...

 

[Murph]

In the sector I am looking at the map, and there are worlds which I have named, but are not explored, since the populations are still small and other than a few governments looking to colonize, there is a lot of unclaimed land on most planets. Gateway is having some issues with the Prime Minister in trouble over his support for not growing the fleet, and not being aggressive enough in foreign policy. New Drakkensburg and GeneCo are stirring things up since chaos works for them in the long run.

 

[coliver988]

In the sector I am looking at the map, and there are worlds which I have named, but are not explored, since the populations are still small and other than a few governments looking to colonize, there is a lot of unclaimed land on most planets. Gateway is having some issues with the Prime Minister in trouble over his support for not growing the fleet, and not being aggressive enough in foreign policy. New Drakkensburg and GeneCo are stirring things up since chaos works for them in the long run.

I'm thinking about running a Traveller game in my old college quadrant, and there are a bunch of "planet x" that I left open for later. Though one is now the world of Corsairs, and that game world is in my Traveller universe. So, one of the "TBD" planets is now determined there were even starships on planet though the players never took the bait sadly (and 2 of them would probably not really enjoy Traveller; but my other group will if I run it well. And there are 2 that are in both groups)

https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2025/09/traveller-mtu-world-of-corsairs.html

 

[Murph]

Yes, the main settled worlds have relatively small populations, with Xanadu having the largest at roughly 500 million people after 300 years of settlement. Even Gateway has less, and it was where all the colony ships came through the gate. The main worlds are looking at 300+ years of settlement which despite families being large (4-10 children) there is still a lot of land so there, until recently there has been very little incentive to expand and colonize worlds. But the political situation is changing, so colonies are now considered important. Most of the recently colonized worlds are under 50,000 people except in certain situations, where colonists have been "front loaded" to make as big a claim as possible.

The Gateway Treaty, which is still in effect, to the annoyance of Gateway allows any world to colonize anywhere in unsettled space, so this has resulted in colonies on worlds that have a Gateway Colony such as New Atlantis which has the Amaterasu Blue Bay colony, and New Montana an independent colony on the one large land mass. Also you have TWO space ports in orbit since neither Gateway nor Amaterasu want to share, but New Montana gets to use both. Shangri- La is another where Gateway has sent a LOT of colonists, but there are two independent colonies which the Gateway Colonial Governor is attempting, without success I might add, to absorb.

Gateway really, really wants to be an Imperial Power, but the other main systems are not eager for that to happen. Gateway has the largest economy in the sector, but Friedland has the biggest fleet.

 

[Murph]

On racial blending. At this point a name can no longer be used to determine a person's ethnicity. One character known as Hiroshi Yugana Bolivar from New Africa looks like a Viking warrior with blond hair, blue eyes, and his wife Janet Gordon despite having a very traditional anglo name looks like a Mongolian princess. So a Gordon Alvarez might look like a Chinese African or perhaps like someone from Keralia in India. See H. Beam Piper's novels for examples of this. Four Day Planet is a good one. While there are more "ethnically uniform" worlds, don't count on it being a universal rule.

 

[Murph]

I am very much a world builder in the style of H. Beam Piper. He is one of my most favorite authors. It is such a pity that he took his own life before he could write more.

 

[Murph]

160-2511 Gateway News Service- New Caledonia

The Hereditary Prince and his government have issued an invitation to certain governments to meet on New Caledonia to “discuss the issues surrounding New Africa and its use as a secondary point of entry to the New Silk Road”. It appears that the Prince and his government are offering a potential olive branch to other governments over the ongoing trade dispute that erupted after ships began using New Africa as a transit point to Shurrupak due to economic issues with distance.

When asked by the Gateway News Service why the sudden change in attitude towards the New Africa Consortium, the spokesman for the Prince would only say that; “Bad trade relations are something to be avoided, and as everyone knows New Caledonia has always been at the forefront of free trade across the sector. We just want to ensure that potential dangerous items are quarantined. Also this unprofitable rush to place colonies could have a negative effect on their homeworlds, so we are showing the other worlds that there is no reason to have this ill considered rush to place colonies along the Loch Lomond Main.”

Some observers are wondering, if the newly conciliatory attitude by New Caledonia is due to the threat of other worlds placing colonies in an area that New Caledonia considers as their territory, and an area that they are rapidly attempting to settle worlds so as to ensure that they have control.

 

[Murph]

163-2511 Gateway News Service- Rama

The Road Rally Commission has taken a highly unprecedented vote today, and has kicked the Chairman of the Commission out of his seat. Evidence has been uncovered that the Chairman who approved the new map had been bribed by certain groups to approve the new race route, and he had a personal vendetta against the McBruce family due to events in the past when he had been referred to the police for illegal kickbacks when he was the head of food and purchasing for the Billabong.

The Racing Commission has appointed Sheila Chandrasekhar as the interim Chairman with a redrawn map putting the Billabong back on the route. Bruce McBruce V said that it was “bloody right, that nasty cobber had done a right googly, and he needs to be in front of a ‘Roo stampede bloody well soon!” Mr. Abishek who runs the family Dhaba said that it was only right for the Billabong to be on the route since both his place and the McBruces were part of the historical route taken by cargo trucks supplying the outback in the early days of settlement of the colony.

 

[Murph]

164-2511 Gateway News Service- Gateway

The Prime Minister has decided to send a full Embassy to the Aslan, complete with a Minister Plenipotentiary as well as military staff. As the first Military Attache to the Aslan clans, the Prime Minister has selected Commodore Larsson. Apparently the Commodore was put forth by a number of senior officers due to their unanimous desire to have the Commodore “expand his horizons”.

We are told that quite a few senior officers are annoyed that the Commodore was so conciliatory towards the other colonies, and not more aggressive in seizing the ancient city for Gateway, so he is, in effect, being sent into exile. He has since his return to Gateway, been assigned as a deputy assistant branch chief in the Navy office of Personnel since his return from Aki, having been told that he might consider retirement since no further promotions or commands were likely to be coming his way due his actions on Aki. Many in the high command consider his promotion to Commodore from Captain a mistake.

The PM has decided based on recommendations from the Foreign Minister and allies in the Parliament that this embassy will be a fully staffed one, with an anticipate staffing of 280 which includes a full Marine security detachment. The Ambassador will expect a five year tour as will all of the staff. They will get off world pay, hazard pay, and Dusk rates of promotion and leave accrual.

The Embassy will be on the world of F’tlhahier which is owned by the M’Rist clan, but has bases from other clans as well. A series of diplomatic courier vessels will be part of the chain, and so to pay for this, one of the battlestations which was to be build has had the funding pushed back and the funding approved for it has been moved to pay for the embassy and additional diplomatic couriers.

With this move, the Gateway Federation will be far ahead of the other major governments in starting an official embassy with a fully accredited Trade Representative to the Aslan clans, and their dozen worlds. In the absence of other worlds diplomats, Gateway has agreed to act as a Charge de Affairs for nationals of other worlds until proper embassies can be founded.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I am very much a world builder in the style of H. Beam Piper. He is one of my most favorite authors. It is such a pity that he took his own life before he could write more.

Your inclusion of East Asian cultures reminds me of Cordwainer Smith's worldbuilding (only, far less strange). Another writer I wish we'd not lost so young....

 

[Murph]

Your inclusion of East Asian cultures reminds me of Cordwainer Smith's worldbuilding (only, far less strange). Another writer I wish we'd not lost so young....

I spent three magnificent years in Japan in the mid 1970's. It was an amazing time.

 

[Traveller76]

What do Stellars look like? Is it folding money in various denominations? Or just a Credit or Debit Card?

 

[Murph]

I suspect that Stellars are both folding money, colorful like the Euro or Yen, as well as debit/credit electronic. Coins are called "cents" since there are 100 of them for each Stellar. Some places still want actual cash, but I would say that 95+% of all transactions are electronic in nature. The standard interstellar trade device is the New Zurich credit stick which looks like a credit card, and can be loaded with an amount for trading. The New Texas dollar is similar to the Stellar, although on New Texas people still like to have folding cash on hand.