New Fifth Imperium: Sectors

[Appelcline]

My newest Fifth Imperium published today. It's part one of a tour through the most well developed sectors of Charted Space:

http://www.rpg.net/columns/fifthimperium/fifthimperium4.phtml

 

[robject]

A minor edit for terminology, if you would...

The "Sector" is 32 x 40 parsecs. Four of those form the basis of a "Domain".

The most common group is the "Subsector", which is 8 x 10 parsecs. Four of those form a "Quadrant", which basically means one-fourth of a sector.


Other thoughts...

All of the Milieu 0 material for Traveller 4 (aka Marc Miller's Traveller) is set in the area, but some of it's pretty bad...

The Milieu 0 sourcebook is actually quite good. It defines the "Year Zero" setting and lays out history and polities just fine. Most of the rest of Traveller 4 material (i.e. the rulebooks) is not so good, and the Starships book is, indeed, pretty bad.

 

[RandyT0001]

Second, you have sectors, which are an official geographical designation within the Third Imperium. They encompass all of the stars within a grid that's 8x10 parsecs. Going back to Classic Traveller days, campaigns were typically defined by a sector.
Third, you have quadrants, which are also official Third Imperium geographical designations, and which include four sectors arranged in a square. A quadrant is also the basis of an Imperial Domain, which is ruled over by an Arch Duke. In the MegaTraveller era, DGP started to write about the Domain of Deneb, an area which included the Spinward Marches, the Deneb Sector, the Trojan Reach(es) sector, and the Reft sector. Some more recent books have also detailed entire quadrants.

A sub-sector is encompassed by the 8x10 parsec grid ruled by a duke. A sector is sixteen sub-sectors in a 4x4 pattern also ruled by a duke. A quadrant is four sub-sectors or one quarter of a sector. A domain is four sectors and is ruled by an arch-duke. The quadrant is not an official level of Imperial government organization but the other three are.

.....a superb resource that we only could have dreamed of back in the 1980s, when I was last an active Traveller fan.

Ah.

 

[Appelcline]

Thanks. I was apparently fuzzier than I should have been when editing that last night, as that's a very silly error--and now fixed.

(Well, the sector size was a silly error; thinking a quadrant was the same thing was a domain was genuine confusion, though I was sure I'd seen it used such somewhere. What do you call a domain-sized area that's not an Imperial domain?)

 

[Appelcline]

Ah.

Well, maybe a little bit later than that. I was still actively buying books through part of the T4 period, but the last time I ran a game was probably 1990.

Sadly, I'd bet I'm not the only fan who was put off Traveller by T4. It was the First Survey book which really got me, with all of its wrong UWPs. Very sad.

 

[rancke]

A sub-sector is encompassed by the 8x10 parsec grid ruled by a duke. A sector is sixteen sub-sectors in a 4x4 pattern also ruled by a duke. A quadrant is four sub-sectors or one quarter of a sector. A domain is four sectors and is ruled by an arch-duke. The quadrant is not an official level of Imperial government organization but the other three are.

In principle a subsector is a duchy is a subsector. But there are subesctors that are not populous enough to be duchies in their own right, and they either belong in their entirety to a nighboring duchy (like Jewell, which is a county under the Duke of Regina) or are split between several neighboring duchies (like Aramis, which is split between Regina, Rhylanor and Pretoria).

Sector-wide activities are overseen by one of the sector's dukes, who is called the sector duke, but he doesn't rule over the other dukes; he is merely first among equals.


Hans

 

[Frankymole]

My newest Fifth Imperium published today. It's part one of a tour through the most well developed sectors of Charted Space:

http://www.rpg.net/columns/fifthimperium/fifthimperium4.phtml

Very interesting and enjoyable. Thank you! Looking forward to more!

 

[robject]

What do you call a domain-sized area that's not an Imperial domain?

That's a good question, and I don't think there's an answer. So maybe "domain", until a better term comes along...

 

[kafka47]

You forgot about Reaver's Deep (has a sourcebook from Cargonaut Press) that comes pretty close to canon. Also, mention that Trojan Reach is highlighted in Aslan and Gurvodon(sp) is going to be in Vargr. These are significant as Mongoose is planning their own Great Big Traveller Map that will link these Sectors together.

 

[Appelcline]

You forgot about Reaver's Deep (has a sourcebook from Cargonaut Press) that comes pretty close to canon. Also, mention that Trojan Reach is highlighted in Aslan and Gurvodon(sp) is going to be in Vargr. These are significant as Mongoose is planning their own Great Big Traveller Map that will link these Sectors together.

That was just the first of two articles. Next month covers: Old Expanses, Reavers' Deep, Solomani Rim, (briefly) Spica Sector, Spinward Marches, Theta Borealis, and Trojan Reach.

Gvurrdon is mentioned in the Spinward entry. So are Deneb and Corridor.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

That's a good question, and I don't think there's an answer. So maybe "domain", until a better term comes along...

Doesn't have a name, it's just four sectors.

 

[Appelcline]

The other half of this published today:
http://www.rpg.net/columns/fifthimperium/fifthimperium5.phtml

It covers Old Expanses to Trojan Reach.