I wouldn't divide between legations and consulates then, I'd just have the consulates. What we really need is how this fits in with T5's nobles redo. I'll make sure this gets added to that list.
T5SS Update: X Starports
- Thread starter DonM
- Start date
I wouldn't divide between legations and consulates then, I'd just have the consulates. What we really need is how this fits in with T5's nobles redo. I'll make sure this gets added to that list.
I don't see the Imperium getting involved in the day-to-day lives of most citizens at all.
Take CT4: Mercenary:
Traveller assumes a remote centralized government (referred to in this volume as
the Imperium), possessed of great industrial and technological might, but unable,
due to the sheer distances and travel times involved, to exert total control at all
levels everywhere within its star-spanning realm. On the frontiers, extensive home
rule provisions allow planetary populations to choose their own forms of government,
raise and maintain armed forces for local security, pass and enforce laws
governing local conduct, and regulate (within limits) commerce. ... Conflicting
local interests often settle thier [sic] differences by force of arms, with lmperial
forces looking quietly the other way, unable to effectively intervene as a police
force in any but the most wide-spread of conflicts without jeopardizing thier
primary mission of the defense of the realm. Only when local conflicts threaten
either the security or the economy of the area do lmperial forces take an active
hand, and then it is with speed and overwhelming force.
It's true that the Imperium won't get involved in the day to day lives of MOST citizens. But it will get involved in the day to day lives of SOME citizens. Travelers, veterans, and that sort of people. The Imperial consulate on Zila has people who handle a number of problems for citizens (Whoever that term may cover). There's a Vice-Consul for Visas, Pensions, and Veteran's Affairs, a Vice-Consul for Citizenship, Protection, and Welfare, and a Vice-Consul for Shipping and Mercantile Affairs. There's a Clerk in the Consulate Visas Section, implying other sections and other clerks. The consulate on Alell has an Imperial Assistant Consul. And that's just the ones that are mentioned in the two adventures as potentially relevant to the PCs' problem. There could easily be more than that.
It sounds to me like Imperial consuls are pretty much analogous to present-day consuls (and Imperial legates to ambassadors).
EDIT: I started a thread about Imperial consulates a couple of years ago; it may be of interest to this discussion:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=26023
Hans
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IMHO I think the Imperium would need this for SOME citizens on MOST worlds ... but not necessarily ALL worlds. Consider the hypothetical example of a xenophobic world in Imperial territory. Perhaps it signed up to be an Imperial member world for reasons of defence. Or perhaps it wasn't always xenophobic. Whatever. Such a world would be an Amber Zone, probably with a class E starport, and both the Importance extension and the Acceptance factor of the Cultural extension of the UWP would be very low. I submit that those worlds may lack Imperial consulates.
There may be other cases too.
There may be other cases too.
I'm all in favor of allowing for variations in individual cases. However, the Imperium has two functions it needs to have performed vis-á-vis member worlds: contact with the world's government and helping people on the world that it wants to help. For the first, I see an Imperial legate, for the second I see one or more consuls. A high-population world, for example, would have a legation in the world's capital and a consulate in or near the starport (if the capital is also the startown, the legation might house both functions), plus a number of consulates in other big cities (or in different countries on balkanized worlds). For a world with a high-medium population there might only be a legation in the capital and a single consulate (at the starport). For a low-medium population there might not be a legate, his functions being performed by a mere consul. (On Tarsus the entire consular staff numbers three, a consul and two clerks).
For your example, I might reduce or completely eliminate the usual consul on the grounds that there'd be almost nothing for him to do. But the Imperium would still need a conduit for communication with the world government. That applies equally well (or perhaps even more so) if relationships are strained, since the Imperium would want to be able to shake its big stick at a recalcitrant world government.
Hans
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I was always under the impression that X meant no publicly available starport run by the Imperial Port Authority. That said, there could be a class D starport to serve the locals in an interdicted system (Lewis), a starport no longer supported by the Port Authority due to quarantine (Corfu) or xenophobia (Zykoka), or a privately owned class A starport.
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
I usually interpret a starport rating to indicate the facilities a visiting starship can expect to have available to it. (e.g. Class E: A place to park your ship.) I admit that there are instances where that does not appear to fit (I'm thinking about Andor and Candory's Class C starports -- being interdicted the class should be 'X: You're not even allowed to land'). But mostly it works.
Hans
Maybe I missed this in all the above...
Say I'm running a scout campaign, and we're getting into new territory - never visited before. I want to distinguish a scouted world, with at least a beacon, from a world with absolutely nothing.
Remote scan is done, so I generally know size, atm, and hyd for the UWP; I know number of worlds, stars, yadda yadda yadda.
For an unexplored (never visited) portion of a sector/subsector, what should be used to indicate no port/beacon or any other thing in T5?
X would make all those worlds forbidden as discussed above.
E would mean somebody dropped a beacon, and that isn't right either.
Y might be possible, but that is for non-mainworlds.
So, maybe a U for Unvisited, or R or S for remote scan only?
Say I'm running a scout campaign, and we're getting into new territory - never visited before. I want to distinguish a scouted world, with at least a beacon, from a world with absolutely nothing.
Remote scan is done, so I generally know size, atm, and hyd for the UWP; I know number of worlds, stars, yadda yadda yadda.
For an unexplored (never visited) portion of a sector/subsector, what should be used to indicate no port/beacon or any other thing in T5?
X would make all those worlds forbidden as discussed above.
E would mean somebody dropped a beacon, and that isn't right either.
Y might be possible, but that is for non-mainworlds.
So, maybe a U for Unvisited, or R or S for remote scan only?
I would use X to mean 'no facilities available'. The reason why there were no facilities available might be an interdiction or it might be that no one had ever been around to provide any.
E starports on barren worlds in and near the Imperium are usually attributed to the Scouts having provided a starport beacon near a suitable landing spot.
Hans
There is a HUGE difference between an interdicted world with an A-Quality facility and one that's a pre-Industrial proto-sophont preserve..
See, even an interdicted world with an A-Port is a suitable emergency landing spot - if I have to land, I have to land. And I'd rather land where there's a chance I can take off again. Further, an interdicted world likely does want to trade - while a world with no facilities is unlikely to want to trade.
I much prefer X to mean no facilities at all.
The difference between an E with a failed beacon and an X is...
This is why X should NOT be used for interdicts.
See, even an interdicted world with an A-Port is a suitable emergency landing spot - if I have to land, I have to land. And I'd rather land where there's a chance I can take off again. Further, an interdicted world likely does want to trade - while a world with no facilities is unlikely to want to trade.
I much prefer X to mean no facilities at all.
The difference between an E with a failed beacon and an X is...
- The knowledge that there is a solid enough spot to safely park
- The expectation of the locals to trade with whatever lands there
- The ability to buy food
- Potential passengers knowing to be waiting
This is why X should NOT be used for interdicts.
That might be nice, but we know for a fact that not all Class E starports are limited to class E facilities, and I much prefer to be able to explain how high-population worlds that are 'the primary producer of processed and refined metals and minerals for the subsector' can nevertheless have a mere Class D starport.
Hans
Well, I guess that would depend upon the worlds TL. If they are the equivalent of 1910's, It would mean that the starport is probably a Zeppelin field, with hangers, ect. such as was the case in one of the CT Double adventures (The name of which escapes me entirely), or is the trade outpost made by those who come from off world in the case of even lower TL worlds. They have the manpower and tech to process the materials/resources, but not necessarily enough to build a better port on their own. As far as the processed and refined metals and minerals trade goes, you don't need much more than a D port anyways.
For higher TL's.....I would hazard that it would be to due to environmental or cultural reasons, as like you, I kinda feel that certain starports just come with having a certain level of technology. Looking at at modern Earth for example, you can re-purpose any modern airport for an instant C class rating, even though technically we probably only "qualify" for an X rating according to the rules.
The one I'm alluding to directly is Forine. There are plenty of worlds in the OTU where you wonder just how they manage to have as low a starport as they supposedly have whith the traffic that their population and trade modifiers imply. But Forine also has a text statement to the effect that it is "the primary producer of processed and refined metals and minerals for the subsector". How does it manage that without being visited by a sizable number of ships? And how does it manage to service a sizable number of ships with only the facilities of a class D starport? We can also, I submit, deduce the existence of a goodly number of passenger liners to service this high-population world. Just the traffic between Collace and Forine would be sizable.
(Just where the commercial ships used by Collace and Forine are built is another mystery).
But apart from that, we have the statement in HG that worlds with the requisite resources and TL can build ships for their own navies even if they don't have class A starports. Which means that there are worlds with shipyards that nevertheless do not have class A starports.
Hans
I would say that you have answered your own question about where the ships of Colace and Forine come from with your last paragraph, and postulate that class D starports are all that the Forine government (Gov B: Non-charismatic leader) will allow off-worlders access to.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Another problem low Tech Level worlds would have with a star port is the quantities of Liquid Hydrogen that would be required, both in production and storage. That would be reached at about Tech Level 6.
Oh, there's much less problem explaining why worlds without the technology to maintain their own starport facilities don't have high-class starports. Though with any kind of major starship traffic, less than starport C (maintained by offworlders) is IMO hard to justify. Not A and not B is, of course, easy to explain.
Hans
Sorry for my stupidity, but I just caught this thread. What happened with the No Starport "X" designation?
Went away because the trade rules for other supported editions (namely, MGT, but also CT, MT, TNE, T4) make distinctions between "none" and "just a field that they expect traffic at."
Well, it's better than no explanation, but there are problems with it. First, and least, the HG rule only allow governments to build warships; nothing is said about civilian traffic. But more importantly, it raises another question: WHY would a government not want its civilian sector shipyards to repair, maintain, and sell ships to offworlders? It's all taxable income (and offworld currency to boot). Especially since there's no question of a ship monopoly: offworlders can just buy their ships at places like Glisten.
Hans
In a polity the size of the Imperium there are going to be all sorts of strange and unusual combinations of governmental, private and public facilities available. The rules can't possibly be expected to enumerate and detail every possible combination. Unless we want a specific starport code and supporting rulebook text for "Governmental starport A only available for official business, plus several corporate owned Starport Bs under special government license on condition of non-public access in order to facilitate social control, leaving only Class D facilities for general public use", we're going to need to be able to exercise a bit of creativity and freedom of interpretation.
I can think of half a dozen reasons why a dictatorship might want to restrict the publicly available facilities while allowing and maintaining more advanced facilities for other uses, possibly including special economic or military purposes. I don't expect to need special dispensation in the rules for every one of them.
Simon Hibbs
