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Mega-Structures IYTU?

An interesting fact about Human populations is that STABLE populations tend to cluster around a "multiplier" of "1", "2" or "5" with any other Population value likely rapidly rising or falling towards one of those stable "multipliers". Go find a list of CITIES in any State or Country and see how many start with "1, 2 or 5" compared to any other number. Try the same for TOWNS. It is an empirical quirk of human populations.

[... that was your "worthless fact of the day".]
I wonder if that is true even when they are clustered like the cities in the greater Los Angeles area. Does the proximity impact this or not. Would be interesting either way.
 
I wonder if that is true even when they are clustered like the cities in the greater Los Angeles area. Does the proximity impact this or not. Would be interesting either way.
The causation could go the other direction, too: the size of the city/county/state/oblast/whatever could adjust to include (and only include) populations of those sizes through either annexation or secession.

This could be a consequence of state or national government setting the size of subordinate governmental units at powers-of-ten numbers of residents, or those values being those that are most-amenable to that particular level of governance.
 
Keep in mind, statistically, one should expect about 5/6 of the Imperial population to be from Pop A worlds under CT/MT/T4... and 10/11 from pops A&B... But that's 1/36 and 1/18 of the mainworlds... 61,728,271,600 per 36 worlds is the expected population rate, of which 50,000,000,000 are on the 1 pop A

But the 2d6 throw was never intended to be every world, just the most important in the system. (with subordinate worlds being smaller, they seldom factor in.)

And Mongoose, by adjusting Pop by physicals, makes pop 12 possible. In a subsector, if present, a pop 11 or 12 is going to like be 90% of the pop of the subsector all by themselves...
and to dominate trade for 2-3 jumps around.
 
And Mongoose, by adjusting Pop by physicals, makes pop 12 possible.

I'm not aware of that in MgT2e unless it's in the Sector Construction Guide which I don't have. The Core Rulebook suggests that a world could have a B or even C pop code if the referee decides to do so; the World Builder's Handbook also allows them by referee fiat, but does make reference to the Sector Construction Guide.

My understanding is thar GURPS Traveller has some rules for adjusting the population code roll according to main world characteristics. Is that, perhaps, what you were thinking of?
 
I don't cite MGT 2e. It's safe to assume I'm NEVER talking MGT 2 unless I explicitly reference it.
 
I don't cite MGT 2e. It's safe to assume I'm NEVER talking MGT 2 unless I explicitly reference it.

My apologies. I've dug out my PDF of the MgT1e core rules and there is indeed a sidebar with optional rules for adjusting the population code for Size or Atmosphere - there are three conditions which give a -1 DM, but only one condition which gives a +1 DM, so the maximum pop code is B (hundreds of billions).
 
The only mega-structure in my Traveller that has been defined is my take on the concept of Clarke's Rama.

I have a number of slight differences with the history of my Traveller setting - no Ancients (as later placed in the game), preceding civilizations follow the Forerunner concept of Andre Norton instead (many different ones over the eons, none significantly higher-tech than TL18), with a few different ones transplanting hominid (and canid) populations from Terra to other systems in the "galaxy-local area" (and doing a little "uplift" work as well).

My mgstr is actually from Terra/Sol's past - the civilization of Atlantis/Mu/Lemuria did exist from ~35,000 years ago to the start of the last glaciation period ~29,000* years ago.
This civilization developed a philosophical split between those who wanted to advance and explore the cosmos and those who wished to return to a more "ecologically-harmonious" existence. The "outlookers" convinced the "indwellers" to help develop the means to leave the system permanently by promising to "clean-up" all of the ditrius and physical remains of 5,000+ years of civilization before departing, leaving just a civilization comparable to the agricultural early 1800s [plus just enough dispersed light industry to maintain medical care at about the "2,000AD" level].

Needless to say, when the glaciation returned in strong form around 29kya this remnant of civilization disappeared, with the "low-footprint" structures being either erased by the ice or just deteriorating into micro-debris over the following millennia.


As for the "outlookers", while some left on colony ships to plant themselves on other worlds (accounting for nearly all of the "minor human species"), a small group decided to do long-term exploration in gigantic self-propelled vessels (jump-capable but designed for inter-stellar normal-space travel as well.

These vessels (12 in number) were sent out in different directions and have long since lost contact with each other and with any surviving "Atlantean" daughter colonies.

Note that this history is quite different from the one the adventuring party is given in the attached document - I used this in a game I refereed in the late 1980s, and as the comments at the end of the document indicate, the party was blatantly lied to by the government of the ship.


Here is one such explorer craft:

Aimh plan.png

Aimh internal fore-aft.png

Aimh surface.jpg



* the period from 130kya to 29kya was an interglacial period with varying degrees of localized glaciation.



Terra glaciation periods.jpg
 

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