if you could change the map to give the 3I an open border...

[jcrocker]

...where would it be?

Would you drop out a Vargr state and give the Imperium a chance to compete with the Zhodani Core Expeditions?

Adjust the Confederation a bit, open up space to Rimward?

I confess, I wouldn't have minded if, among the other changes, T5 had tweaked the map to give the Third Imperium a frontier that wasn't running smack into someone else's space.

And I know the Spinward Marches have that, but the Zho have fought a few wars to keep the Imperium from spilling over into what it sees as their own backyard. I was thinking of a little elbow room that wouldn't trigger a war!

I'm sure the Scouts would appreciate a chance to do some, you know, scouting, instead of just running the Xboats.

 

[rancke]

I'll refer you to a post I made some time ago about turning Vanguard Reaches and the Beyond into such a frontier:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=23382&highlight=nomad#post23382


Hans

 

[RandyB]

I'd drop either the Aslan (personal reasons stemming from a bad case of Referee's Significant Other) or the K'kree and Hivers together. Either one opens up major frontiers.

Dropping the Aslan would have the most impact on the TU, I think. With expansion room to spinward (including direct access to the J-5 route across the Riftspan Reaches) without having to maintain a corridor through Corridor, the story of the Spinward Marches would likely be significantly different. Other effects are left as an exercise for the reader.

Dropping the trailing empires gives definite expansion room, especially from the period when J-4 became common. (Looking at Travellermap, I'm left wondering about the trailing client states. Of course, Hiver Psychohistory covers up a lot of inexplicables in that region.) Again, effects on the history of the TI as a whole are left unexamined.

 

[jcrocker]

I'll refer you to a post I made some time ago about turning Vanguard Reaches and the Beyond into such a frontier:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=23382&highlight=nomad#post23382


Hans

That's a good region and it looks like you did interesting work on it - but is close to the Zhodani Consulate, who have fought a few wars with the Imperium when they felt their region was threatened.

Of course, if the Aslan are happy with a buffer space a sector wide, the Zhodani might be too.

But I was looking at ideas for a re-write. Not removing a major player, but adjusting boundaries.

When I first saw the map of Charted Space that had been published in I think the early/mid 80s, a couple things become very obvious. It looks kinda funny with the 3I smack in the center, but that was about all they could fit on a single page and have anything readable.

Now the website map seems to be the default one - yes, there are very nice reprints of the map in the T5 book, but now the map isn't constrained by what fits on a single page.

 

[Timerover51]

I raised the same issue in another thread. Restating my views, I dropped the Zhodani (as too many human races played with by the Ancients), the K'kree ( I have major problems with intelligent herbivores), and the Hivers. That does open up a lot of area. It also massively rewrites the history of the Imperium as no Zhodani mean no Frontier Wars.

I should add with respect to the Zhodani that their whole societal concept is totally repugnant to me.

 

[CosmicGamer]

If you want to have adventures in unexplored space, why can't you do so? They occur a long way from Imperial controlled space. What is wrong with that?

I'm almost as far from an expert on the topic of canon 3I history as possible as I know just enough to think I know something when I really don't. I gave up on T5 before even getting through the beta documentation and don't even have a copy on my computer to reference. But my understanding of the concept is that mankind (and others) have reached out and explored a vast area but controlling such a vast area is difficult. The 3I is a region well within the confines of explored space because it is difficult to maintain control of such a vast region so far from central government.

So how much does one wish to stray from the general principles of the setting to have their unexplored space on a open Imperium border vs one of the locations available on the map?

 

[GypsyComet]

I should add with respect to the Zhodani that their whole societal concept is totally repugnant to me.

It can be interpreted several ways, which was intentional. Imperial culture and workings can also be interpreted across a broad range from enlightened to very dark indeed.

 

[GypsyComet]

Discussions about exploration and "open borders" have come up before, and sometimes, as with this one, even the definition of "open" is in dispute. The default 1100s map has a two sector deep frontier between the Imperium and the K'kree/Hiver stalemate. The K'kree-Hiver borderlands are essentially a different setting, a perpetual Cold War set far in the mysterious "east", between two groups we only barely understand. Beyond them the real darkness begins.

Compared to the Imperium, much of Vargr space is just a rough suburb. Even now you have to get through the suburbs to reach the country.

The other two Human states are also implacably different, but small.

Let's be honest here. Much of the desire for an "open border" is to allow the Ref to put his own replacements on the map. Some other Evil Empire (TM) will take the place of the Zhodani/K'kree/Whoever. They may be another sector or two out to provide some perception of breathing room, but they'll be there. Star Trek had its Klingons and Romulans, the American Old West had the Russian and Spanish presence on the west coast.

If there is nothing out there but darkness and silence, the Imperium would not have stopped growing 700 years before. The culture that wants to explore is going to keep going and keep claiming until it hits an obstacle. This doesn't just apply to the Imperium, either.

Without the Zhodani, the Vargr don't have any spinward limitations and do have a 2000 year headstart. Your "open" spinward frontier now has Vargr *everywhere*.

Without the K'kree the Hivers remain really low key (that war is what catalysed the Hiver Federation to gel), and without both only the thin star distribution to Trailing slows down the Imperials.

What do our alt-Imperial explorers find out there to Trailing? Odds are that it will be something, or multiple somethings, filling the same political/mystery niche as the Hivers and K'kree, and in about the same place.

 

[infojunky]

...where would it be?

That's Easy, Everywhere if we are talking T5, as is the 3rd Imperium is History.

Would you drop out a Vargr state and give the Imperium a chance to compete with the Zhodani Core Expeditions?

Adjust the Confederation a bit, open up space to Rimward?

Done and Done.....

Plus don't forget the introduction of the Hop drive, Frontiers are everywhere, except the civilized cores...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Towards the Vargr extents, and around the Vanguard reaches.

 

[Meeko100]

I'd just rotate the K'kree around the Hivers a bit, and then bam. 3I has a frontier.

I personally though, just slap the guys in the Solomani Confederation after turning the Confederations Racism down a bit. Works fine for me. That, and I can get the PC's stuck in the factions and motives of the internal factions, while on the lawless rimward frontier.

I personally find the idea of frontier to me to be like the wild west. There's a pretty good idea what may be there, but certainty is rare, and the best place to keep safe and rest up/find a job is in the hi-tech core worlds, a fair good ways back from the less developed frontier worlds

 

[aramis]

...where would it be?

Would you drop out a Vargr state and give the Imperium a chance to compete with the Zhodani Core Expeditions?

I'd put it over in the Domain of Antares. But turn the coreward edge of the domain to rift.

The problem is that, in order to have a true frontier, you have to have a new drive that can get places the prior drives couldn't reach. So... put a 20Pc wide rift just coreward of the extents and Antares... and add a Sabmiqys engineer who came up with Hop-1 drives... and suddenly, there's a REAL frontier... for a couple years.

Now, in canon, the area coreward isn't well developed, and serves as a frontier, but it's not, because it's been settled for centuries, and well scouted.

 

[Selandia]

I vote for the Trojan reaches, "cleaned-up" of anything more than micro empire or Aslan outpost/weak colony.

Re-writing the OTU with "The difficulties of maintaining contact across the the Rift limited the expansion of the Hierate to weak outpost and scouting expeditions beyond the Riftspan Reaches" is easy. Theoretical claim that can't be backed would exist, but leave ^penty of space for a new frontier.

Have fun

Selandia