Trade Station worlds of Deneb

[tjoneslo]

I've been working through adding the Regency Sourcebook 1201 era data into the wiki for Deneb sector. I've noticed an interesting pattern. There are some very small population worlds which none the less have these huge starports. Starport which require more people to run because of the number of ships and volume of trade than live on the world.

This is a consequence of the trade model given by GT:FT/GT:Starports and the geography of Deneb sector. There are several High population, High TL worlds in Deneb and Spinward Marches which have some level of trade into Corridor, Vland, and sectors beyond. The trade has to go through a narrow space of the Trailing Deneb sector and the Corridor sector.

In order to maintain the optimal, cost effective, J2 or J3 routes, this means selecting some less than optimal worlds as stop-over points for these routes. (See also http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/images/3/3c/Deneb_Sector.pdf )

Daumier (Deneb 0223). Population: 50,000, SPA employees : 57,565, Class B port. This is on the route out of the rimward side of the Spinward marches across one of the many gaps into the population centers of Deneb.

Hessel (Deneb 1018). Population: 80, SPA Employees: 56,875, Class B port. This is also the first stop on the X-Boat route from Vincennes coreward. There are five different worlds in the local cluster running their trade through here into Vincennes as well.

Jurburk (Deneb 2414). Population: 800, SPA Employees: 74,555, Class B port. Jurburk sits on the major trade route from Vincennes out of Deneb, to go across Corridor, and into the large Imperium.

Shinorasus (Deneb 1918). Population: 200, SPA Employees: 74,030 , Class A port. Another world on the Vincennes major route to the rest of the Imperium.

Wal-ta-ka (Deneb 2713). Population: 60,000, SPA Employees: 73,920, Class C port. The next world down the line from Jurburk on the same major trade route.

 

[Whipsnade]

That's a great list resulting from a sharp eye.

A (very) rough analogy for those worlds would be the huge Arrowhead Travel Plaza in Pendleton, Oregon on I-84. Pendleton has a population of ~15K and, while Arrowhead doesn't employ that many people, far more than 15K use the travel plaza each week.

Compared to the rest of the list, Wal-ta-ka's background is a bit more out of the ordinary. It was the site of an early DGP Four Knights/Grand Tour adventure. The planet is tidally locked with the usual "ribbon" of habitable territory between the "bright" and "dark" sides.

The official inhabitants are the TL0/1 descendants of a "bright side" mining colony which suffered a catastrophic dome failure centuries earlier. Everyone was presumed dead in the disaster so, when the planet was resettled over a century later, the discovery of the now primitive survivors was a surprise.

Considering the world's HYD code, port rating, and trade route location, much of the "mining" done there is likely fuel harvesting from the system's gas giant. The world is also likely to be an example of the public/private port dichotomy mentioned in canon. Much like how Al Morai operates private Class B facilities at a few public Class C starports, it's very likely that the various shippers and lines (or a consortium of the same) which fly that BTN-12 route through Wal-ta-ka operate better rated private facilities there too.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Interesting.

Happy Thanksgiving, Thomas!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.