[T5SS] TL 0 Imperial Worlds

[Enoki]

One should expect a between 2 and 3% of all systems to have a population of 0 (zero) in them. That's the percentage of the time a two would be rolled in generating a system on average. Once that happens, TL can only be 0 if you have a government of D or starport of X (CT / MT). Otherwise it will be 1 or greater. Note, however, there is nothing precluding a TL > 0 even if population is 0 technically for the main world. Same goes for government and law level.
For the last two rolling greater than a 7 gives you a government >= 1 and the same for law level. These are generated independently of TL.
Now, with subordinate worlds in a system using extended generation, a population of 0 means TL, LL, and Gov = 0, but this isn't true for the main world... If you follow the system precisely.

Note: It is also possible for this combo to arise: A14A05(0-A) - B

That is, a world with an A class starport, 0 population, a feudal technocracy, law level of 0 to A and TL B...

:devil:

Maybe Harry Mudd runs the place...

 

[Garnfellow]

By the way, I just shot over to the Traveller Map. I think Garnfellow got the result he did because he specified Imperial worlds (???)

That's correct -- I was specifically looking for TL 0 Imperial worlds.

 

[creativehum]

That's correct -- I was specifically looking for TL 0 Imperial worlds.

Then my guess is GSW forced results through a formula that wasn't rules-as-written when creating Imperial worlds. (Which make sense... The rules as written wouldn't produce The Imperium!)

 

[creativehum]

Note, however, there is nothing precluding a TL > 0 even if population is 0 technically for the main world. Same goes for government and law level.

Absolutely. This is what the rules allow, and how I would use them.

I understand why the default "0 pop means 0 gov and 0 law" rule was added -- for some people, how they looked at the result demanded it.

But the original rules, of course, stated clearly that the Main World genertion system was "a prod to the imagination."

The UPP was not, originally, an objective, beaureacratic summation of a planet (i.e., a report from the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service), but a tool to help the Referee in an RPG come up with a few dozen novel and interesting worlds in a subsector. (In the original rules, there was no IISS, since there was no Imperium.)

Thus, the Main World generation rules were not written for people who look at nonsensical results and think, "This makes no sense. Let's change the result."

They were written for people who looked at nonsensical results and thought, "This is nonsensical. What exotic, unique, SF-themed world would make sense of these results?" That is, the kind of player who would use the prod to ask more questions instead of shutting questions down.

I understand that the enjoyment of asking these sorts of questions would not fit into what Traveller became over time. But I've been reading the books that Miller, in a 1981 interview, said where the primary inspirations for the game (Tubbs' Dumarest series, Vance's The Demon Prince series, and Anderson's Domonic Flandry series). And reading them makes everything in the original Traveller rules (from archaic weapons to nonsensical UPP results) fall into place.

It isn't that Miller "mimicked" these stories (in the way, say, that WEG tried to recreate the feel of Star Wars.) But from these books Miller took the inspiration for a certain kind of tale -- adventure stories full of action and exploration on unique, exotic worlds. These worlds were often uncanny, even preposterous. The kinds of worlds that the Main World generation system was perfect for creating.

 

[Garnfellow]

Then my guess is GSW forced results through a formula that wasn't rules-as-written when creating Imperial worlds. (Which make sense... The rules as written wouldn't produce The Imperium!)

GDW certainly tweaked sector data back in the day, but they didn't tweak it to eliminate all barren worlds. The Spinward Marches and Solomani Rim both have several barren systems in their original, CT incarnations.

It looks like the systematic elimination of barren worlds might have occurred during the T5SS review process. Does anyone know for sure if this is the case?

 

[Timerover51]

I did a query on TravellerMap for all TL 0 Imperial worlds. I was surprised by the very small number of examples and the extremely skewed distribution:

• 728-907 (Spinward Marches 1214) E955000-0
• Tavonni (Spinward Marches 1520) E567000-0
• Djinni (Spinward Marches 2111) X559000-0
• Gerome (Spinward Marches 2818) X573000-0
  
• Huderu (Spinward Marches 3114) X575000-0
• 971-852 (Trojan Reach 2814) E78A000-0

I can't guarantee I got all of them, but this seems like a very odd result. I would not expect barren, TL0 worlds to be common or even uncommon in the Third Imperium, even in a "frontier" area like the Spinward Marches. But why so many in the Rim? And why so few everywhere else? I would expect almost every sector to have at least one or two barren systems.

Does anyone know what is going on here? It looks like all barren worlds not specifically mentioned in canon got mass scrubbed from the T5SS data. (This would explain why the Rim and the Marches stand out.)

If this were intentional, I'm not sure it's completely desirable. If an accident, can it be undone?

I have left listed the ones that bother me. Four of them are what Robject calls "Shirt-sleeve" habitable worlds, while the other two have "Standard-tainted" atmospheres, so are also reasonably habitable.

As for population "0" worlds with greater than "0" Tech Level, Andre Norton's books have a few examples. Either there are relics of an ancient non-human civilization, or non-human inhabitants that have not been detected, YET. Examples would be Limbo and Warlock, or a couple of the planets where the starship in Galactic Derelict stopped at, or Jumala from Star Hunter. Or the human settlers may have died out or left, leaving material behind.

 

[tjoneslo]

GDW certainly tweaked sector data back in the day, but they didn't tweak it to eliminate all barren worlds. The Spinward Marches and Solomani Rim both have several barren systems in their original, CT incarnations.

It looks like the systematic elimination of barren worlds might have occurred during the T5SS review process. Does anyone know for sure if this is the case?

If you are interested in a specific sector, you can go to the TravellerMap source files and read through the history. Select the <Sector Name>.tab, and press the "History" button to see the list of changes, and you can read through the diffs.

 

[Garnfellow]

Looking at the history of the Alpha Crucis data, I think I understand what was going on with that sector at least.

• The first source was CT Atlas of the Imperium, which only gives system location, names for high pop mainworlds, starport, bases, gas giants, and limited mainworld data (size or hydro = 0).
• The next source was Sunbane, which generally conforms to and expands AotI data into full UWPs. (I couldn't find a Sunbane file that named any of the Alpha Crucis worlds not named in AoI.)
• This was followed by Mongoose Traveller: Solomani (2012), which gave full system details for MgT.
• Then came Traveller Map. The earliest data is from 2013, but with several updates.

Key differences between the sources are summarized as follows:

Name	Location	AotI Starport	Sunbane UWP	MgT: Solomani UWP	T5SS UWP
Morningside	1608	C	C792033-8	E792000-0	C792533-8
Bootrosi	2106	C	C455003-A	E555000-0	C555113-9
Cirion	3103	C	C788020-8	E788000-0	C788220-8
Ovid	0713	C	C100001-D	E100000-0	C100201-D
Flyby	2212	X	X100043-6	X100000-0	X100443-7
Shac	2926	C	C6A2022-A	E6A2000-0	C6A2422-A
Merlin	1038	C	C110004-D	E310000-0	C310404-C
Yano	1235	A	A773004-D	E773000-0	A773654-D
Keine	2132	B	B100000-F	E100000-0	B100450-E
Elton	2339	B	B445000-C	E545000-0	B545788-A
Inchon	2931	D	B347014-C	E547000-0	B547614-A

For all of these cases, the Sunbane data had 0 for mainworld population but non-zero values for pop multiplier, government, law, and TL.

It appears that Mongoose and T5SS used very different -- but both defensible -- methodologies to reconcile this information:

• When Mongoose encountered a world with 0 pop in Sunbane, the pop was retained and the starport was downgraded to E and Gov, Law, and TL reduced to 0. I believe this is consistent with MgT worldgen.
• When the T5SS encountered a world with 0 pop, the pop was increased and all other data (mostly) retained. Don had mentioned that AotI was considered a golden source for the T5SS -- that wouldn't necessarily have been my preference, but there you go. The T5SS starport almost always matches the AotI starport. (I suspect Inchon was an oversight.)

These different approaches speak to a series of ambiguities in Traveller worldgen that have lingered across editions. Do starport (or base) personnel count toward mainworld population? If not, you could easily have a class A starport with a naval base on a pop 0, 1, 2, or 3 world. Does a 0 pop always have a 0 pop multiplier? Does a 0 pop world always have government and law values of 0?

I'm not sure that T5 clarifies any of these ambiguities, so the T5SS occassionally (and often inadvertently) steamrolled one solution.

As an aside, I'll also note that MgT and T5SS applied the exact same world sizes changes to the Sunbane data, so either they both started from a common cleaned dataset or used the same size correction formula.

 

[nobby-w]

Unless I am misunderstanding something, these worlds all have no people.
(although some still manage an E starport)

The starport needn't be manned by permanent citizens. Maybe there is a research outpost or some sort of forward logistics (even a mine or something commercial) run by an offworld party, but there is no permanent settlement or local economy on the world.

 

[Enoki]

The starport needn't be manned by permanent citizens. Maybe there is a research outpost or some sort of forward logistics (even a mine or something commercial) run by an offworld party, but there is no permanent settlement or local economy on the world.

That might work for a C or worse quality one, but it won't for an A or B. These have to have a considerable permanent workforce. They have shipyards of varying size and build and repair starships.

That means there have to be suppliers on the planet for many of the parts they use. This in turn means there are businesses that cater to their employees. These people aren't part of the starport.

The same could be said for fuel. It's unlikely the starport operates a huge refinery to make fuel. That's far more likely a private sector or local government operation outside the port, particularly as they couldn't just supply the port itself with fuel.

Then there are other amenities and services you'd expect at a top end starport. Restaurants, lodging, personal services, etc. These are likely not to be a direct part of the starport either. Now you need people for a service industry.

Then there's the question of starports not in the Imperium. These may not be run by a central authority. They may be run privately, or by local government with corresponding local rules and regulations. Now the people manning the port are locals not imports.

I suppose if you went high tech enough you could replace most of the people with robots and automation, but that'd be about the only way to operate a top end starport.

A class C or D "Interstellar gas station" is one thing. Running a first rate Interstellar space port (think major international airport) is another.

 

[ffilz]

That's completely understandable.

But that's not what I was discussing. I was pointing that every TL 0 world found on that list in the OP had 000 for pop, gov, and law... And by the rules, that's weird.

It's certainly possible at that all the worlds on that list were rolled as Pop 0 worlds, which forced the other UPP codes to 0.

But where are the Starport X worlds that ended up with Pop, Gov, and LL above 0 and still have a TL 0. Any Starport X worlds is likely to be such a world. Where are those worlds?

Ah, good point.

From Supplement 3 PDF:

Jewell/Grant 0807 X664100-0
Lunion/Gorram 0702 X554220-0

It does look like in Supplement 3, if population came up 0, government, law, and tech level are all forced to 0 unless my eyes missed something.

Most of the worlds with X startports wound up with pop 0, so those were obviously not randomly generated per the rules.

Frank

 

[Timerover51]

Take a look at Terra's UWP for say 7.000 years ago.

Starport: X
Size: 8
Atmosphere: 6
Hydrographics: 7
Population: 6 as a minimum, possibly 7, spread out over the entire planet

Government Type: This is where it gets interesting, as by 5,000BC, you had the beginnings of settled civilization in what is called the Fertile Crescent from Egypt to Mesopotamia, in the Indus Valley, and also China. Given that Jericho already had fortifications, and small city states were appearing in Mesopotamia, some form of government structure at the local level existed, so government type "0" does not work. For Terra overall, the government type would be "7", Balkanization. For local governments, the most likely candidates would be as follows.

0: No government structure. In many cases, family bonds predominate. This would probably hold true for a lot of the planet, but not all.
3: Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy, except I suspect that the rulers would pay close attention to the needs of the citizens, otherwise, the rulers might change violently.
A: Charismatic Dictator
B: Non-Charismatic Leader
C: Charismatic Oligarchy
T: Theocracy (not Religious Dictatorship), which more closely matches what developed in Egypt and Mesopotamia, with the added factor being the Priestly Class were also the ones capable of writing and recording information.

You might get a bit of Type "5" in some of the smaller villages as well, depending on what the village might have in terms of special products, such as clay very favorable for pottery, dyes, animals, wood, salt production on the sea shore, or fishing.

That with Technology Level "0" for Stone Age. I guess you could start splitting hairs and say Tech Level of 0.5 for the Late Stone Age. However, in Classic, per Starter Traveller, Tech Level 1 runs from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, with Tech Level 2 starting at 1400. The Spinward Marches puts Tech Level 2 at the 14th through 17th Century, or 1300 to 1699.

Then you also have the question of what was the Tech Level of the Native American civilizations in the New World at the time of Columbus? None of them were really refining metal, although the use of gold and copper was known.

 

[tjoneslo]

Looking at the history of the Alpha Crucis data, I think I understand what was going on with that sector at least.

• The first source was CT Atlas of the Imperium, which only gives system location, names for high pop mainworlds, starport, bases, gas giants, and limited mainworld data (size or hydro = 0).
• The next source was Sunbane, which generally conforms to and expands AotI data into full UWPs. (I couldn't find a Sunbane file that named any of the Alpha Crucis worlds not named in AoI.)
• This was followed by Mongoose Traveller: Solomani (2012), which gave full system details for MgT.
• Then came Traveller Map. The earliest data is from 2013, but with several updates.

The Subane Data, also known as the GENII data, it terrible data. It is badly generated, and in several cases, generated in a way that violated Traveller Rules at the time, and every version since.

The Solomani Rim and the Spinward Marches are special because those sectors were generated by GDW (by hand and tweaked). Because they were officially published, the T5 Second Survey made fewer changes to those worlds. So that the Solomani Rim and the Spinward Marches are different from every other sector is unsurprising.

As an aside, I'll also note that MgT and T5SS applied the exact same world sizes changes to the Sunbane data, so either they both started from a common cleaned dataset or used the same size correction formula.

Depending on when the book was published either could be true. The T5 Second Survey project was started to provide a common clean dataset to Mongoose for their Sector books. So Mongoose knew of the T5SS changes and applied them or used the cleaned datasets as provided.

It appears that Mongoose and T5SS used very different -- but both defensible -- methodologies to reconcile this information:

The defense for the T5 choice was (IIRC) how do you have a system in an area where people have been stomping around for 5,000 to 10,000 years and not have anyone claim it.

My choice, were I writing rules, would be to set any population 3 or less world to population 0, and with a note in the rules: This world may be inhabited by a small group of people (up to 1000). A population this small can come or go at any time for any number of reasons. People showing up to claim a world or mysteriously vanishing are tropes of stories since there were stories.

 

[atpollard]

Then you also have the question of what was the Tech Level of the Native American civilizations in the New World at the time of Columbus? None of them were really refining metal, although the use of gold and copper was known.

I would place them at 0 or 1 based on the hunter-gatherer vs farmer models (which I think also splits along the use of native gold/copper as well).

 

[Garnfellow]

The Subane Data, also known as the GENII data, it terrible data. It is badly generated, and in several cases, generated in a way that violated Traveller Rules at the time, and every version since.

Totally agree, but on the other hand Sunbane is the source of 90% of the T5SS data. If one wants to understand what the T5SS did, you have to look at what was in those crappy Sunbane files.

The Solomani Rim and the Spinward Marches are special because those sectors were generated by GDW (by hand and tweaked). Because they were officially published, the T5 Second Survey made fewer changes to those worlds. So that the Solomani Rim and the Spinward Marches are different from every other sector is unsurprising.

Again, I agree -- and this is partly my point. The two most reliable sources of sector data available to us both include pop 0 worlds. Based on this, I don't think it's unreasonable to think more sectors in the Imperium should have pop 0 worlds than are currently in the T5SS. Pop 0 worlds should be fairly rare, and maybe nonexistent around Capital, but there's no need to eliminate them completely.

The defense for the T5 choice was (IIRC) how do you have a system in an area where people have been stomping around for 5,000 to 10,000 years and not have anyone claim it.

Barren worlds are not necessarily unclaimed. They are not necessarily unexplored. They need not have never been settled. They are simply, at the time of the census, generally uninhabitated.

You and I live in New England, which has been continuously inhabited since at least the Holocene period. And yet, there are plenty of barren townships throughout the region. All are mapped, all are claimed by one authority or another, some are close to populated towns, some even had sizeable populations themselves once. But for whatever reason, no one lives there now.

And what's more, it would be very hard to establish a settlement there right now. Oh, you could do a solitary off-the-grid thing easily enough, but to bring in roads, electricity, telephone, set up a governance charter? This would be extremely difficult and expensive. Could you do it? Sure. But why would you want to, when there are perfectly good towns already set up? The incoming Amish, who certainly have the wherewithall and inclination to settle these wild areas, are generally choosing instead to homestead in established towns, where the land is already cleared and the markets are nearby.

And because of all this, T10 R30 is gonna keep that Ba code for a long time.

My choice, were I writing rules, would be to set any population 3 or less world to population 0, and with a note in the rules: This world may be inhabited by a small group of people (up to 1000). A population this small can come or go at any time for any number of reasons. People showing up to claim a world or mysteriously vanishing are tropes of stories since there were stories.

I think that would be a great rule -- the difference between pop 0, 1, 2, or 3 is negligible.

 

[Whipsnade]

Barren worlds are not necessarily unclaimed. They are not necessarily unexplored. They need not have never been settled. They are simply, at the time of the census, generally uninhabitated.

While your post contained many other excellent points and observations, I quoted the part above because I believe it CANNOT BE REPEATED OFTEN ENOUGH.

Survery data is a "snapshot" taken at the time of the survey. Nothing more.

In some cases, that snapshot was taken recently. In other cases, that snapshot is decades or centuries old.

In some cases, that snapshot was as accurate as possible when it was taken. In other cases, that snapshot was a lie at the time it was taken.

New or old, truth or lie, in Traveller everything a star system knows about the universe beyond itself is at least 168 hours out of date.

 

[Timerover51]

I would place them at 0 or 1 based on the hunter-gatherer vs farmer models (which I think also splits along the use of native gold/copper as well).

Then is Tech Level 1 defined by agriculture or metal smelting? If agriculture, then Tech Level 1 would back up a bit to somewhere on the order of 7000 BC, with metal smelting a ways off.

 

[atpollard]

Then is Tech Level 1 defined by agriculture or metal smelting? If agriculture, then Tech Level 1 would back up a bit to somewhere on the order of 7000 BC, with metal smelting a ways off.

Years are too Eurocentric.
When did Central America start using Iron?
So the Incas are TL 0-1.

I, personally, paint with a big fat brush and view TLs as the sorts of changes that alter fundamentally, how the people live.

TL 0 is nomadic hunter-gatherer with no permanent settlements and little agriculture (possibly scattering seeds of desirable plants in favorable locations to encourage more fruit trees or berry bushes, but nothing like real agriculture)

TL 1 people settle into permanent communities, domesticate animals, farm. There is a dramatic shift in how people live and the skills they possess. I would personally argue that the Aztec are a TL 1 civilization with a note that they lag in the specific area of metallurgy ... they might even be TL 2 (pre-industrial urban population), like I think Rome was.