The Zhodani Coreward Expedition? Is this official?

[Janitor_Prime]

So looking around the Travellermap (dot) com. I chanced to see a line of sectors, two or three hundred, starting two sectors from Zhodani Consulate space and going toward the galactic core.

That would be a thousand years of Jumps minimum. Combined, it is many times the total area of the Third Imperium. The map shows a line that is presumably the path of the expedition ships though every world in the sector has a name and UPP.


This does suggest that some of those worlds closest to the Zhodani Consulate were settled or seeded for colonization centuries ago.

 

[mike wightman]

The first core expedition was launched in IY -4000, they have been doing this for over 5,000 years by the 1105 campaign start date.

 

[TheDark]

Classic Alien Module 4 mentions that one of the Ancient artifacts on Zhdant projected a star map that was 30 parsecs wide and 8,000 parsecs long stretching coreward. It also provides occasional visions to psionics using the map.

A cruiser misjumped in -4,074 and returned to Zhodani space 40 years later, having wound up in one of the systems from the map and confirming that its information and visions were accurate. Between -4,000 and 750 they've mounted seven expeditions, with the eighth being planned to depart in 1150. The last expedition lasted for fifty years, including ten years of exploration time at a distance of 5,000 parsecs from Zhdant.

Individual ships exploring on their own are said to have gotten another 1,000 parsecs toward the core, and they also explore laterally outside of the 30 parsec corridor shown on the Ancient map.

Chtierabl is a sector of Zhodani territory 250 parsecs to coreward that was established "over 800 years ago," and Vlanchiets Qlom is a set of 30 subsector and partial-subsector regions past Chiterabl that reaches to 600 parsecs coreward, plus a handful of bases that are even deeper, as far as "halfway to the core."

Other than AM4, there's a fanon discussion in Security Leak #5 (1988), which looks at setting up a campaign playing out the Eighth Core Expedition. It includes random encounter tables and a list of "supersectors" that the expeditions have gone through (each 200 parsecs long).

Those are the two main GDW-era sources I can think of, although it's always possible I've overlooked and/or forgotten something else.

 

[Talifon]

Mongoose's release schedule lists a sourcebook for the Core Expeditions as being in the layout phase and to be released in PDF format later this month. So there will be more canonical information soon.

 

[Talifon]

Mongoose's release schedule lists a sourcebook for the Core Expeditions as being in the layout phase and to be released in PDF format later this month. So there will be more canonical information soon.

Oh hey, it's out now: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/the-core-expeditions

 

[Janitor_Prime]

This could make the Zhodani more powerful than the Third Imperium and with a logistics tail away from 3I reach.

 

[kilemall]

Real risk, a lot more stellar density so that much more civ/population to run into.

A lot more interstellar dust/debris radiation interactions too.

 

[tjoneslo]

So looking around the Travellermap (dot) com. I chanced to see a line of sectors, two or three hundred, starting two sectors from Zhodani Consulate space and going toward the galactic core.

That would be a thousand years of Jumps minimum. Combined, it is many times the total area of the Third Imperium. The map shows a line that is presumably the path of the expedition ships though every world in the sector has a name and UPP.


This does suggest that some of those worlds closest to the Zhodani Consulate were settled or seeded for colonization centuries ago.

The project of creating those sectors was the project of Clifford Linehan, now sadly passed. He was doing it as a project to keep busy, and posted the data files to several sites, including the TML. The data is all unofficial, though with the publication of the Core Route book, it may be come a little more canon.

 

[TheDark]

Oh hey, it's out now: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/the-core-expeditions

After reading a couple reviews/analysis, my snarky overreaction is that we may need to split Mongoose Traveller into an alternate universe like GURPS Traveller (more seriously, the book could have used some heavy revision to reduce how much it breaks canon).

It changes the ship that misjumped from a cruiser (which was explicit in AM4) to a freighter with an experimental J-3 drive (in -4074). That's relatively minor, but it also has TL-13 ships and J-4 on the Second Core Expedition in -3400, and has examples of Zhodani TL-15 fuel stations in the chapter on the Third Core Expedition in -2300 (and they're treated as mature tech, not prototypes) with a TL-15 automated scout ship on the Fourth Core Expedition just to prove it wasn't a lone typo. Tying this in to the Imperium, it has the Zhodani with J-3 around the time the First Imperium finishes forming and has them at TL-15 while the Interstellar Wars are still ongoing, before the formation of the Second Imperium. That wildly contradicts every prior edition I can think of and puts the Zho way ahead of the Vilani technologically. They end up needing to sit stagnant for around 3,500 years just to let the Imperium catch up.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Tying this in to the Imperium, it has the Zhodani with J-3 around the time the First Imperium finishes forming and has them at TL-15 while the Interstellar Wars are still ongoing, before the formation of the Second Imperium. That wildly contradicts every prior edition I can think of and puts the Zho way ahead of the Vilani technologically. They end up needing to sit stagnant for around 3,500 years just to let the Imperium catch up.

Good catch.

"Thine continunity has CONFUMBLUATED itself ... irreparably ... beyond all hope for plausibility."

So yes, the Core Expeditions are canon ... the same way that one of these was once cannon ...

"Move along, move along ... no evil mind control software anywhere near here. Move along, move along ..."

 

[Talifon]

After reading a couple reviews/analysis, my snarky overreaction is that we may need to split Mongoose Traveller into an alternate universe like GURPS Traveller (more seriously, the book could have used some heavy revision to reduce how much it breaks canon).

It changes the ship that misjumped from a cruiser (which was explicit in AM4) to a freighter with an experimental J-3 drive (in -4074). That's relatively minor, but it also has TL-13 ships and J-4 on the Second Core Expedition in -3400, and has examples of Zhodani TL-15 fuel stations in the chapter on the Third Core Expedition in -2300 (and they're treated as mature tech, not prototypes) with a TL-15 automated scout ship on the Fourth Core Expedition just to prove it wasn't a lone typo. Tying this in to the Imperium, it has the Zhodani with J-3 around the time the First Imperium finishes forming and has them at TL-15 while the Interstellar Wars are still ongoing, before the formation of the Second Imperium. That wildly contradicts every prior edition I can think of and puts the Zho way ahead of the Vilani technologically. They end up needing to sit stagnant for around 3,500 years just to let the Imperium catch up.

How much of this is an artifact of the different ways LLBs 2 and 5 treat starship construction, and the very gradual way that the history of Charted Space (and its technological development) was was developed across the publication history of CT and MT?

The CT Alien Module on the Vargr establishes that the Vargr of Gvurrdon Sector received jump-3 from the Zhodani sometime between -2800 and -1000, so any time prior to the Rule of Man to contemporary with he Long Night.

 

[TheDark]

How much of this is an artifact of the different ways LLBs 2 and 5 treat starship construction, and the very gradual way that the history of Charted Space (and its technological development) was was developed across the publication history of CT and MT?

The CT Alien Module on the Vargr establishes that the Vargr of Gvurrdon Sector received jump-3 from the Zhodani sometime between -2800 and -1000, so any time prior to the Rule of Man to contemporary with he Long Night.

CT Alien Module 3 establishes that the Gvurrdon had a story about the theft of a J3 ship leading to the establishment of their empire, but it doesn't firmly establish that as being what actually happened. It's presented as an in-universe story written on paper dating to roughly -1000 that claims to be about events that take place around -2480*. I'd place its authority below that of out-of-universe statements about what happened. It's petty close to being the in-universe equivalent to the Iliad recording the fall of Troy - there might be some historical fact involved, but the details are muddled by time and the objectives of the author(s).

*Possibly of interest, this is a little over 300 years after the Zhodani first recorded contact with the Vargr in Gvurrdon Sector in -2800.

As far as reaching TL-15 in -2300, the Zho are still TL-14 at the start of the Rebellion in Mega. While the newest Imperial vehicles like the Empress and Lancer are TL-15, the Consulate's new Qiknavra grav tank is TL-14.