Red Zones - I wanna know why!

[Moxie]

Let me preface this by saying that I played Traveller in the early 80's for a few years and then wandered off in my own little world. I have recently been going back through my old collection and begun buying some currently available GURPS material.

What I want to know is this... where is the information on all those red zones in the Spinward Marches. What book is this in. I have been trying to get my hands on Behind the Claw and now have it on order. But, is this information in there? If not, where is it. I have been waiting 20 years in the dark!

 

[Jame]

As I recall, yes the red zone info is in BTC. Not so for Rim of Fire, though. I'm sure there are a few websites with the info, but I don't know which ones (sorry!).

 

[s-feige]

I do not know, if there were some 'official' declarations for the Red Zones in the Spinward Marches.

Some hints might be hidden in the sparse subsector-information of the Spinward-Marches-Supplement or be scattered through various other supplements or adventures(?)

IMHO, most of the red zones can be explained by interpreting the planet's UPP. Tech-level 0 or 1 and a low population would point to a self-developing culture. It would be obvious, if the systems description states a research base, prison or exile camp.

Also IMHO, much of the published information, especially star-charts, was deliberately left open for own designs. I might be wrong here.

Have a nice day,
Aldan Romar

 

[Forged]

I usually use my own reasons for the group:

-Naval Depot
-Prison System
-Hostile pre-stellar society
-left over remnants of last war

I use a lot of reasons and (so far) the players have gone along with it.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Tossing me heretical .0000000125Mcr in:

Nasty biological indigenous bug that kills human life.Imagine a super-ebola virus on a world waiting to hatch

Ancient site being exploited by Imperial Research

Quarantined population (Can you say 56th century leper colony?)

to the above posted reasons.

 

[Ellros]

Books like the Spinward Marches LBB did not list the "why" for all the red zones, but just a few. Leaving it to the Gm to explain it, as mentioned above.

 

[Forged]

I usually use my own reasons for the group:

-Naval Depot
-Prison System
-Hostile pre-stellar society
-left over remnants of last war

I use a lot of reasons and (so far) the players have gone along with it.

 

[Moxie]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:

Ancient site being exploited by Imperial Research

to the above posted reasons.

But as a player, this was exaclty why I WOULD want to go there!

I just always figured that GDW was reserving them for upcoming adventures they would publish. I didn't have a lot of money to spend back then and it always felt frustrating to get bits and pieces of clues of the big picture and yet never see a nice chunk of the tapestry.

I stopped playing and refereeing before Megatraveller came out or the release of info on the Marches other than the first little supplement.

 

[shield]

Reasons for red zones are:

Imperial reservation worlds
Military firing ranges etc.
systems with primitive developing cultures (IISS)
Systems with very hostile natives
Systems with massive xenophobia
Plagues
Severe navigation hazards.
Ancient sites
Now for the marches - from memory.

Victoria has an ancient site and a primitive culture.
One of the worlds in Aramis subsector had a plague - no antidiote, another has 2 colonies disappear.
Shionty has floating anti-matter from the ancients war
Marstan (down the bottom half of the sector) is an imperial reservation world - unqiue wildlife.
Two droyne worlds in the 5 sisters (andory / candory? are potential droyne homeworlds).
Grant is a military bombardment range (or has a flare star that erases computer memory)
Lewis in the Aramis was interdicted on orders of the Tukera family in an attempt to drive prospectors of a world with a family fief.
Dymman/lanth is a fertile world being kept for future development.
Algine has a primitive culture

Cheers
Richard

 

[shield]

The reasons for a few more marches red zones.

Nirton / District 268 has an unstable flare star, contaminated fuel sources and lots of spatial debris 9hazard to nagigation.

In the Aramis subsector, Corfu is interdicted because of plague, and Zykoca has the xenophobes.

Other examples of interdiction include: a resource world in the old expanses, a world in the solomani rim with a iron eating virus, spinstorme system over in the ley Sector with a black hole, one in reavers deep with an old but active planetary defence system, Sabmiqys over in antares has high tech hostile robots.

Most of the reasons for the interdictions are scattered in the original LBB adventures / supplements / early JTAS / even mercenary tickets in book 4 and supplement 6 - 76 patrons. Aramis subsector details are from the Traveller Adventure book. Best place to look is in the FFE reprints of the original LBB.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Shadowdancer]

There also is a red zoned world in the Solomani Rim interdicted because a large portion of the native population are psionic, and the use of psionics is openly accepted in their society.

 

[GBoyett]

Then there is Pscias in the Spinward Marches. According to several sources (Behind the Claw and Spinward Marches, IIRC) the Scouts interdicted the planet to preserve and observe a primitive human culture.

 

[plop101]

I asked about Grant/Jewell when I was on TML; there is a small write up for it in Challenge #50. Apparently, the star their emits a EMP pulse every so often, wiping out any electronic device not properly shielded, like the Mod1bis on your scout ship. Ships with ECP are not effected [presumably that includes all models that are fib].

As for Zeta 2, well that depends on YTU. In IMTU, you just don't want to go there. I heard some stories about a merchant ship that went there, and a colony that was set up there, and some colonial marines that went there.

None of them came back.

 

[GBoyett]

My favorite Red Zones are Huderu and Gerome in the Rhylanor subsector. Some interesting fact about both worlds:
</font>

• Both worlds Red Zoned by Navy and/or Scouts for reasons unknown.</font>
• Both worlds are almost identical in physical stats (X573000 vs. X575000)</font>
• Both have a handful of people (less than 10)</font>

Now you could say the populations are official teams assigned to the planets. If that is the case, why list them at all, unless the population is consider GM info.
Or they can be something else...

<Begin the Twilight Zone or X-File music>

 

[s-feige]

George Boyett : Now you could say the populations are official teams assigned to the planets. If that is the case, why list them at all, unless the population is consider GM info.
Or they can be something else...

The 'classic' lonely island to ban mutineers...

Have a nice day,
Aldan Romar

 

[Shadowdancer]

Or maybe they're involved in a Traveller version of "Survivor."

 

[trader jim]

thanx guys - with all this good info there has gotta be way to make a credit or two out there, in the red zones!!....think i will send out a few
"exploritory" expiditions!!!..se what i can find and "borrow"???

 

[shield]

Re Grant system - yes they needed the emp as a plot device. Supplement 6 had grant as a live fire planetary bombardment range.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Liam Devlin]

Twould be a bad day to be down range on Grant doin a soil sample survey, eh?

Hint: "Friendly fire" isn't!

Good scholarship, Richard!

 

[Moxie]

Thanks RichardP and all. This was exactly what I was looking for, especially Andory and Candory. I am trying to get some old friends of mine interested in getting some games together and this just might help a lot.