The Authority, Human Space, & beyond

[BwapTED]

First, some Library Data:


• The Authority
Short form of
Federated Interstellar Commerce and Transit Authority

The Authority operates star-ports and merchant banks across Human Space. A tangle of treaties, concessions, and inter-world compacts resolve to a practical division of power: Authority governs the space between worlds while the worlds in its network rule themselves.

Authority credits—scrip redeemable at company stores in the all the star port— enjoy favorable rates of exchange with local currency on many worlds.
Need a starship? Put together a convincing business plan, offer sufficient collateral, and Authority bankers might fund construction of your vessel. Do not skip unless you fancy living on the run.

The Authority maintains or subsidizes paramilitary and military forces to protect its assets.
The Authority’s Marines typically carry snub guns and cutlasses, armament meant to minimize property damage during repossessions and port security actions. The cutlasses also produce a desirable moral effect. Nothing says ‘pay your mortgage’ like leaked videos of the aftermath of a boarding action.

• Brotherhood of Spacemen
Once a union for space workers, forced underground by the Authority it has degenerated into an organized crime group that relies on sabotage and intimidation to secure illicit profits.


• Doctor Alina Volkova
Historical person 21st-early 22nd Century
Lomonosov State University Moscow
Lead developer of the first jump drive.
Starship crewmen place her image in their joss boxes for good fortune and safe jumps.

 

[Diveguy]

First, some Library Data:


• The Authority
Short form of
Federated Interstellar Commerce and Transit Authority

The Authority operates star-ports and merchant banks across Human Space. A tangle of treaties, concessions, and inter-world compacts resolve to a practical division of power: Authority governs the space between worlds while the worlds in its network rule themselves.

Authority credits—scrip redeemable at company stores in the all the star port— enjoy favorable rates of exchange with local currency on many worlds.
Need a starship? Put together a convincing business plan, offer sufficient collateral, and Authority bankers might fund construction of your vessel. Do not skip unless you fancy living on the run.

The Authority maintains or subsidizes paramilitary and military forces to protect its assets.
The Authority’s Marines typically carry snub guns and cutlasses, armament meant to minimize property damage during repossessions and port security actions. The cutlasses also produce a desirable moral effect. Nothing says ‘pay your mortgage’ like leaked videos of the aftermath of a boarding action.

• Brotherhood of Spacemen
Once a union for space workers, forced underground by the Authority it has degenerated into an organized crime group that relies on sabotage and intimidation to secure illicit profits.


• Doctor Alina Volkova
Historical person 21st-early 22nd Century
Lomonosov State University Moscow
Lead developer of the first jump drive.
Starship crewmen place her image in their joss boxes for good fortune and safe jumps.

Interesting - I like it. Certainly gives an great alternative to a universal currency and some non-government options.

 

[wellis]

Interesting. Is humanity here under some form of united government across space?

Is this a setting where humanity is the only known sophant around?

As for the Authority, interesting~. Are free traders here a little more tied down due to the Authority holding onto their receipts and loans that said free traders will have to pay back?

 

[BwapTED]

Interesting. Is humanity here under some form of united government across space?

Is this a setting where humanity is the only known sophant around?

As for the Authority, interesting~. Are free traders here a little more tied down due to the Authority holding onto their receipts and loans that said free traders will have to pay back?

RE gov't

Although it does not call itself a state, the Authority is in effect the principal human interstellar federation.

I have some ideas for human polities that exist outside the sway of the Authority, but those remain vague as yet...




RE Free Traders

Yeah, if you default on your loans, the Authority will not forget.
Information doesn't travel any faster than in a typical Traveller setting, so it is possible to stay a jump ahead of one's creditors for a while, but eventually the new will reach to one too many starports operated by the Authority and then you're in trouble.

On the other hand, it is convenient to make payments to the Authority because it has offices all over the place.

RE Sophonts

Humans are the primary species in Human Space, as you'd expect.
But there will be aliens out there.
I'm working on those now.

 

[wellis]

What is the general tech level of YTU?

And are OTU3I Traveller techs that are essentially banned or not around in your setting?

Like meson guns are an impossibility or something, for example?

Hmm is Earth around in your setting? Or is it a dead world, scarred in some manner?

 

[mike wightman]

I like what you are doing here - looking forward to seeing more

One question, who builds the starports? Is it the Authority itself and is so where does the Authority call home?

My handwavy future history goes something like this:

near future industrialisation of space - moon and mars bases, orbital stations, O'Neill cylinders at L points.
The Earth is cleaned up since heavy industry is offworld, but overpopulation remains an issue and cities continue to grow...
space based corporations become the new internet billionaires - note that several can trace their line back to said billionaires


a bit further off - FTL is discovered and the corporations and the few remaining Earth governments all via to establish new colonies...
the Earth governments would rather harvest their own resources and construct their own stuff in a colony system and then ship it in rather than continue to shift wealth to the spacers...
the spacers are quite content to build new stations etc in the colony systems, underwrite the Earth government colony efforts (this is where I can fit in your Authority if you don't mind me borrowing it)

far future - of course there was war. Colony vs colony, Earth government vs colony, Earth government vs earth government, Space Corp vs Space Corp, Space Corp vs colony, Space Corp vs Earth government. After the time of conflict there came rebuilding and re-contact (this is another place your Authority idea first in)

 

[kilemall]

Interesting.


Just a bit of color to consider......
US banking had US currency in play, but also bank scrip and other such private currency going on. That might be something to consider, including some future cryptocurrency in play, especially given the extragovernmental nature of the Authority.
The other item that comes to mind is that if you are going to have a robust interstellar multi-currency interstellar trade/finance entity promoting standards, you are going to have a clearinghouse.


Here is the current biggest US clearing house- as you can see, it is still a privately held otganization that does 2 trillion in transaction resolution- every day.
https://www.theclearinghouse.org/about

Here is the 'public' version operated by the Federal Reserve, smaller monetary total but allows for banking operaitons outside the private one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Clearing_House

A discussion about what a clearing house actually does-
https://www.techchecks.net/how-the-federal-reserve-check-clearinghouse-operates

The relevant aspect for YTU would be the version of the Clearing House before the advent of the Federal Reserve, functioning as a de facto interstellar central bank on the private level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_House_Association
https://www.americanheritage.com/content/magnitude-j-p-morgan

The Authority would have to likely do several such interventions to retain it's position and protect interstellar trade and finance.
However, the seamier side of the pre-Fed private clearing houses is that if you were on the 'outs' with the people who used it, you were refused payment of money owed you or allowed to pay someone through it, you could be ruined. This didn't happen often as there had to be general confidence in the system.


But it's a starting point for how the mechanism can affect the players.


Could be the Authority or one of it's local signatories/private org may have it in for the players and attack them financially this way.



Other player material-


* Just a clerical error with horrible consequences the players have to handle Exit Visa style.
* The Authority's transaction systems themselves may be a hacking target, for the players to penetrate or defend.
* A financial panic could be a background event that sweeps the players up in consequences, or maybe even missions like discretely moving currency.
* A competing governmental clearing house or even another private one has to be 'convinced' to not set up shop and an overeager local Authority leader authorizes 'executive action' and hires players for sabotage, attack, intimidation, etc.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

few questions:

Piracy: is there a significant pirate problem? if there isn't, why does the Authority need any military (as opposed to a few police cutters)? if there is, who is supporting this piracy effort and shielding it form the Authority just nuking the pirate bases form orbit?


worlds: I assume the various worlds are notionally independent or tied into small local polities under the umbrella of the Authority. do these member groups fight? is their some form of limited warfare allowed, or does the FICTA (to give it is proper name) enforce some variant of the Pax Authorita?


the marines: I'd suggest adding a few more damaging weapons into their loadout options, like las-guns of various types, or else they are going to struggle against the first bunch of adversaries that wear body armour (like, say, the players, or pretty much any potential rebel group, considering how cheap light body armour is these days).

 

[BwapTED]

I'll try to answer most of the questions in one big post.



Some brief notes on Sol System

• Earth
Yes, it is still around.
I have not decided on all the details, but global warming really shook things up.


Russia

Earth’s most powerful state, Russia, maintains a network of research and industrial stations across the Sol System but its glory days of extraterrestrial exploration and colonization have passed.

Spacer jargon includes a lot of Russian words.


Russian farms feed much of the planet.


• Luna


The Authority moved its central offices to Luna a long time ago.
Administration and banking form the principal industries.


• Inner System

Research stations and listening posts but no big colonies.

Mining of the Belt has slowed because Earth simply does not need all the metal available.


• Outer system

The earliest jump drives could only safely manage microjumps, but that was enough to open the resources of the gas giants and create a long economic boom.

Jovian, Saturnian, and Uranian moon stations make extensive use of robots and host transient/contract labor rather than large permanent populations. Extraction industries: powerplant/jump fuel and volatiles


---------------------------


Authority marines

The snub guns and cutlasses are standard gear for security jobs and dealing with scrubs; marines will use other weapons as the mission requires. Laser rifles sound good to me. Thanks for the suggestion.

Pirates: Yes, they are a problem. How big , I've not decided. It will be worse in some sub-sectors.

Note that "pirate'' includes hijackers, terrorists, human traffickers, and in some cases reckless flyers (if it looks like a suicide run...).
They may attack planetary targets as well as star-ships.

The Brotherhood of Spacemen is involved in piracy.

In a clandestine fashion, so are some worlds and corporations attempting to harm rivals or to bust free of the Authority's control of trade.

worlds:

Yes, unless they have type 6 gov'ts, member worlds run their own domestic affairs.
Alliances and blocs do exist.

Direct, large-scale military conflicts between worlds don't happen often.

What is much more common is hiring pirates to mess with a rival's shipping, sending mercenaries and 'volunteers' to support a revolution or coup on an enemy world, and things like that.

Wars on worlds can get very bloody and destructive.

The Authority uses economic pressure first and foremost, but it will use star-ships to protect a star-port from attack, if necessary. Attacking a port=piracy.


----------------------------


Technology
I have not set a general TL yet, but looking at LBB 3, TL 11 with TL 13 Computers looks like a good default for the Authority (member world capabilities vary, of course).



Some tech I plan to include:
o exo-wombs
o carniculture
o geneered animals


Robots

During the 21st century, faced with demographic decline and unwilling to accept mass immigration, Japanese gov’t and business leaders supported extensive R&D in robotics.
Scores of popular robot models manufactured today across Human Space descend from Japanese designs.



The Authority prohibits all vessels fitted with M drives or J- drives from operating unmanned, for reasons of safety and liability. Any such vessel is considered a derelict or a pirate, depending on circumstances and the judgment call of the nearest Authority official.

 

[BwapTED]

Starports

I haven't decided on how they are built, but the I know the Authority runs them.

Banking, clearing houses

It all bears thought. Thanks for the links and suggestions.
I like those PC related suggestions!



borrowing the Authority for personal use/home games/posts -- Go right ahead. I'm sharing to get ideas and to give ideas.

This isn't a commercial project but if I ever do one for MgT or Cepheus I expect to use some of this material, likely in a modified form.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

random thoughts:

ship prefix: I was musing over this thinking something like TAN (Transit Authority Navy), when I realised you could get TRAV (TRansit Authority Vassal), if for no other reason than having "trav" as a ship callsign (maybe for vessals financed by the authority, like player ships? possibly a backstory to the use of "traveller" for describing player character types).


Factionism: while the Authority might appear unified to the outside, a organisation of that size and power is going to have some serious internal politics. Given the lack of effective external oversight, i'd imagine that their is room for some major factionism, cronyism and other corrupt practices. starport governorships would be filled with politically connected types with an eye on advancing there careers over efficient running of their starports. cliques would form of Authority managers, often around one or two charismatic senior leaders, which jockey for influence and control of certain prestigious and profitable starports. the actual power structure may differ form the "official" one. For example, their may be a large Board of Control, with representation form many member worlds and other interests, but in practice the Authority is lead by small cabal of senior Authority members, such as the Portmaster of Luna, Admiral of the Transit Authority Navy, Secretary of Member Affairs/"Foreign Minister", etc)

titles: While I get and like the use of "Authority" as the primary term for the polity, I think a few others might be used, possibly as a regional slang thing. in formal contexts they would naturally use the full F.I.C.T.A. title, but alternative short versions for everyday use could include calling them the "feds¹", or the "TA", as shorter names than "authority"



1:I know that has a bit of a real world resonance with you American types, which might be good or bad depending on your opinion of the US government.

 

[BwapTED]

All good suggestions, Xerxes.

Factions, cronyism, and corruption will all be part of it.

Others titles I might use:

Chairman

Chief of -----

Comptroller/Comptroller-General

Director of -----


Ambassador (member world title, like ambassadors to the WTO in the real world)

Factor


RE ''feds''

It works. I've given some thought to ''Federat'' as another alternate short hand for the Authority/F.I.C.T.A. ( That's also a word used for the Federation in TMNT, a very different kind of polity--It's a military junta. )

From that you can get 'rats' as a bit of rough slang. Best not to let some pad-jockey at the star-port hear you say it, though.

 

[mike wightman]

How are the Authority starport 'managers' appointed?
Franchise, merit, nepotism, corrupt practices, hereditary title, rising through the ranks, made man status...

 

[BwapTED]

How are the Authority starport 'managers' appointed?
Franchise, merit, nepotism, corrupt practices, hereditary title, rising through the ranks, made man status...

I'd say appointment to important offices relies heavily on social and familial connections.

Rising through the commissioned ranks in the Navy offers an entrée to the elites for talented men and women from humbler origins.
But it's rather easier to get a commission in the first place if you've got family status.


(This tends to fit the CT Book 1 tables)
----------------

 

[wellis]

Is there an open nobility in your setting or would most of what people might consider nobles here be more like Bill Gates/Warren Buffet types and Old Money people?

As in they're not called nobles with various noble ranks but they're pretty much that in all but name.

Like is SOC handled similarly or differently here compared to CT?

 

[BwapTED]

Is there an open nobility in your setting or would most of what people might consider nobles here be more like Bill Gates/Warren Buffet types and Old Money people?

As in they're not called nobles with various noble ranks but they're pretty much that in all but name.

Like is SOC handled similarly or differently here compared to CT?

Originally, I'd planned to have the usual 1977 arrangement:

1. A titled peerage/nobility exists and enjoys broad recognition across the worlds.
   
2. Kings and princes rule worlds.
   
3. Emperors and empresses rule multi-world polities.

I toyed around with certain European states selling titles to investors in extraterrestrial mining schemes. But that one feels like a different TU.



Now I think it makes more sense, given what I've developed, to read high SOC as connections with the Authority and/or planetary rulers.

It might even show on your passport.
Gold star traveller?
Class 1, 2, 3 papers?


(Though discreet travellers of high status may wish to keep this sort of thing hush to avoid trouble with kidnappers and grifters).

The names and forms will differ, but I want to retain a strong sense of a stratified social and economic order. Old Money, for sure. And naval families, families with long histories of 'civil service' and deep connections in the Authority.
It may be that family trusts were able to evade regulations on corporate-Authority collusion, and so most megacorps are family enterprises.





Some member worlds will have very different systems, of course.

 

[BwapTED]

Page 44 of Book 3 has a line that inspires me:

The typical methods used in life by 20th Century Terrans (thrift, dedication, hard work) do not work in Traveller;instead, travellers must boldly plan and execute daring schemes for the acquisition of wealth and power.

Don't take that so literally that it means no one anyplace gets ahead by merit.
I take it as a good description of the position in which travellers find themselves in the context of the interstellar society.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

ideas for Authority factions:

Federalists: wish to centralise power into the Authority, and in the more extreme hardliner cases wish for the authority to shift form its current "soft power" system to a conventional, "hard power" nation-state, with them as a new aristocracy.

Mercantilists: greedy capitalist, in a nutshell, out to line their pockets by skimming off the Authorities many port fees, licencing systems and such.

Watchers: Semi-related to the federalists, wish to strengthen the Authority, but are concerned about an external threat (Aliens, the Brotherhood or other criminal groups, splinter colonies outside of the Authority, etc), and believe the Authority as the only thing that can combat this threat.

Regionalists: less a coherent faction and more a label for a myriad of similar local cliques, they seek to decentralise power from Luna and push it back out to the local Authority Portmasters, and as such are the major opponents of the Federalists efforts to centralise power. Motives range form altruistic desire to let local leaders sort local problems better to wishing to dump oversight so they can siphon off more cash to their personal bank accounts.

 

[BwapTED]

Those factions make sense to me. Thanks!


I made this world today, using a random roll UWP Book 3 style:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=39273

It's OTU/generic Traveller but would probably fit into the Authority verse. I'd probably lower the population and TL.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I'll comment here about the planet, as I have a few points that feed into its use in the Authority setting as opposed to a standard/OTU setting.


my first point is that on a planet with effectively no naturally drinkable water, control of the supply of (desalinated) fresh water is clearly the key to power, in a classic case of hydraulic despotism. maybe the reason the Abbey (who has legal right to the planet and could in theory demand the Laity convert, live by their rules, or leave) tolerates the Laity because they control the only supply of drinking water. Maybe their religion has some cultural taboos that mean they cant operate the machinery themselves? only certain jobs are considered acceptable occupations for the faithful (scholar, administrative clerk, solider, etc), and heavy industry/liquid refining was not one of them? maybe they are sworn not the leave the Abby once ordained, so require the Laity to tend those jobs that need external access?


Second, while I get that the Faithful (I will use this term to cover any member of the Abbey, ordained nun or externs) are not supposed to engage in...conventional reproduction, given the large number of men on the planet, and the fact that reproduction is a built-in biological drive that everyone has, the Faithful might find that it needs to choose between having some mechanism to deal with natural born children of the Faithful, or going down a somewhat darker road, and possibly mandating either contraceptive implants, or even sterilisation as a requirement for full Ordination. maybe they require the externs to take hormone suppressants that remove the (biological) urge. All of this would be public knowledge, and something applicants would know about before taking vows (possibly portrayed as a way to help them overcome their innate human weaknesses and stay true to the vows they made, maybe?).


third, a community like this sounds like either the sort of place that would be happy to have the Authority run its starport for it (), or possibly one of those hold-out colonies that doesn't grant privileges to the Authority. hell, it would work as a wilderness colony, set up by those that didn't want to live under the Authorities rule, or so they could found a "perfect", religious society away form the godless masses.