TAS News Bulletin

[far-trader]

:alpha:

Efate/Spinward Marches : 010-1108
​

The Far-Trader Empress Licinia arrived in port from Whanga and reported to the IISS Survey Branch that the entire population of Whanga, and most of the world's infrastructure, had been transported to Efate by the ship.

This is not the first time the lonely planet has emigrated en-mass, and it's unlikely to be the last. These periodic abandonments are cyclical and there always seems to be someone who stakes a homestead claim there and tries to make a go of pioneering.

TAS members are advised to consider the abandonment of Whanga if their travel plans include that world. A temporary Amber Zone classification of the system is in effect until further notice.

mega:

So, what's that all about eh?

Well, I was doing a little solo playing about in Regina subsector and it hit me, there's a good chance that a Far-Trader (my Far-Trader in this case) could end up with more passengers than the total population of Whanga!

It's a Pop 1 world (20 souls according to the SMC expanded digit) with TL7. Announcing our destination as Efate (Pop 9 with TLD) results in a +9 modifier for passengers and +7 for freight.

No one here is interested in high passages so rolling 1D-2 for middle passengers we get 2-2+9 for a total of 9 middle passengers (presumably 4 of them won't mind double occupancy in our 7 open staterooms). Wow, that's almost half the population! Rolling 2D-6 for low passengers we get 10-6+7 for a total of 11 low passengers. Hey, that's the rest of the population!

Actual rolls folks. I moved the entire population of a world in one trip on the old far-trader! That's gotta be worth a mark in the history books

Anyway, I just found it amusing that given the right circumstances it was entirely possible for a small ship to end up clearing out an entire world. There must be others out there too. Anyone want to add to the list?

 

[aramis]

I'd presume that those were stranded tourists, or temp workers, not the "population" of the planet.

 

[far-trader]

Aww, but that takes the fun out of it

I'd agree, normally at least.

This time though the idea hit that it would be fun, both for my solo play and for a typical campaign. Imagine the players when the ref tells them the whole planet is bugging out on their ship.

Will the players wonder why? Will they think they can claim the planet for themselves? Maybe the NPC residents will offer to sell it to them, cheap :smirk:

Of course most of the time, yes, any passengers (on any world) aren't going to be residents but tourists, aka travellers.

Even then can you imagine it, a total population of 20 with 20 tourists, who suddenly pack up and leave?

It's not like there's a lot of traffic TO Whanga. How long would it take for 20 tourists to end up there? And if they leave faster than they arrive that pretty much means it's the residents who are the ones leaving, n'est pas? At least some of the time if not most.

Whanga probably only sees the odd Free Trader and the rare Far Trader because it's on the main. Anything else is likely to go around or past. Maybe there's even an ancient Fat Trader subbie stuck on a route that hits there a couple times a year just to keep them Imperial but it would be a pretty boring stop for them. I haven't looked at the actual trade balances, it's just an old trader's gut check so I could be wrong. I will probably run the numbers just out of interest sometime.

Anyway, mostly I was looking for some discussion on the twists the rules can imply for extreme situations. Like the above, for the fun for all. Things to turn those boring backwater ports into interesting situations. There must be more...

 

[Border Reiver]

There is bound to be a few and the reasons for doing so would surely make an interesting tale.

On a thought as to why, here in the Borders we still retain some bizarre local holidays. One that springs to mind is Spittal Day where entire town populations would up sticks and visit the coastal village of Spittal, the town would be deserted (although only for a matter of hours, say 15 or 16). It used to be quite disconcerting for travellers coming across these abandoned towns though most of the shops and facilities would have signs up saying "closed for Spittal Day." They still follow the tradition of closing on Spittal Day but no-one goes on mass day trips anymore.

Would there be a world with a small population that had a tradition of "closing down" for a month while they visit a neighbouring world for religious pilgrimage/traditional holiday/compulsary census? What would happen if a vessel arrived after Dan's far trader to find the world abandoned?

 

[rancke]

Actual rolls folks. I moved the entire population of a world in one trip on the old far-trader! That's gotta be worth a mark in the history books

Anyway, I just found it amusing that given the right circumstances it was entirely possible for a small ship to end up clearing out an entire world. There must be others out there too. Anyone want to add to the list?

I must admit that it's a fun event. Sadly, I'm too obsessed with plausibility for something like that to occur in any game run by me. I would have assumed that most people on a low-population world were there for a purpose (IMO very few (if any) low-population worlds can exist as a sovereign entity; they're all outposts of some kind, whatever the Scouts claim[*]). Behind the Claw claims that Whanga is owned by Sternmetal Horizons and that the "population" is a SH survey team, and that's what I would have gone with (Don't ask me why the Scouts list it as an independent world run as a participating democracy or why Sternmetal equips its survey team with TL7 equipment). Any free trader that visited Whanga IMTU would be told that there were no passengers and no cargo available, since the team got everything it needed (including transportation) from the regular Sternmetal supply ship.

Incidentally, I wrote an adventure set on Whanga for JTAS Online. There's a lot more to Whanga than meets the eye. Take a look if you have a subscription: http://jtas.sjgames.com/login/article.cgi?901 . And if you don't, you can find the public information about Whanga (but not the fun adventure ) here: http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Whanga_(JTAS_Online).


Hans


[*] And IMTU they don't even claim that low-population worlds are sovereign (with a few interesting exceptions).

 

[Andrew Boulton]

It'd be more fun if it'd been everybody *except one guy*

 

[Plankowner]

But Will Smith was in New York that time!

Actually, you could come up with some interesting reasons why.

Supposed that once every 10 years or so, the planet goes through some kind of climatic crisis? Say a double star where every few years the companion comes close enough to heat up the world. The locals just pack up for the six months that the planet is uninhabitable and the local life is hiding in caves. Then they come back when it cools down.

Probably doesn't match the previous descriptions of Whanga, but its YTU...