These are playtest notes, so they include everything from major problems to minor quibbles to comments and suggestions. Also, the final text may have changed from the playtest files.
Five Sisters Subsector
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>DD 0133 Emape (Imperial) Amber Zone.
>Emape is a frontier world, whose Starport employs over 90% of the population.
This is a difficult one. I can't say that it is an impossible setup, but it
sounds highly peculiar. For one thing, either no one enforces any law in the
starport or the control rating is based on conditions that apply to less than
10% of the population. Strange. For another, a society where 90% of the
population is employed in a service industry is hard to imagine. Someone has
to grow the food and manufacture the goods they consume. There's more than
450,000 people employed at the starport. Just what do they all do?
>With its temperature and atmosphere, the world should be a garden, but there
>is too much easy money to be made at the Starport, with traders coming in
>from the client states, Aslan and even Zhodani.
The only place trade that goes through Emape can come from is Urnian. It
wouldn't have been my prime candidate for a boom trade planet.
>The Naval base built in high orbit over the largest gas giant
What is the reason for that curious arrangement?
>...and the detachment of Marines assigned to the Starport represent the only
>law in the system.
However, 90% of the population is proctected by it.
>Outside their compound,
A compound housing 450,000 people.
>... mob law rules, or whoever has enough money to invent the law.
With 90% of the population working for the starport I'd expect the starport
to be the most lucrative business on planet. Otherwise, why would so many
people work there?
>There are a number of 'unofficial' landing areas on-planet, where illegal
>cargoes can be dropped without going through the starport. These are
>periodically raided by the authorities, but it is easy enough to find
>somewhere else to land if offloading is all that is required.
What isn't so easy is for the smugglers to sneak up on the planet.
>DD 0231 Saxe (Imperial)
>...Saxe has a population of 900,000 sentients...
>Saxe's population are all Darrian in ancestry. They appear to be the remnants
>of a pre-Maghiz scientific colony. The Saxen Darrians live in a submerged
>'ball' environment which floats in Saxe's slow sea currents. The city itself
>appears to be TL 13, but it is very old and completely automatic.
>Saxe itself is very young, but does show signs of creating carbon life.
>Perhaps that's what the Darrians were doing here?
Why did the Darrians put a scientific station capable of supporting 900,000
people indefinitely on Saxe when most of their other outposts were incapable
of supporting a few hundred people for more than a few generations? (Note:
It's the sheer size of the installation rather than the durable nature of the
life support system that puzzles me).
>DD 0236 Andor (Droyne World)
>Diameter 8750km. Dense atmosphere. Slightly high background radiation.
Background radiation is not an atmospheric taint within the Traveller
meaning of the word. An atmospheric taint can be removed by the use of a
filter mask (radioactive dust now... THAT would be an atmospheric taint).
>Andor has a population of 60,000,000 Droyne, governed by their leader caste
>in each Oytrip.
If each oytrip was independent the government code would be 7 for balkanized.
The Droyne of Andor have some sort of unified government.
SUGGESTION: _Droyne_ does not explain how Droyne cooperation above the level
of an oytrip works. This is what I use IMTU:
Many Droyne worlds are balkanized, unable to cooperate above the level of
the oytrip. Those, like Andor, who can, do so through a type of organization
known in Oynprith as a YATROY (pl. yatroyin) which means something like
'mandate'. A yatroy is a group consisting mainly of of Leaders and Speakers,
but with at least one member of each caste. A yatroy's functions resembles
those of a government bureau; each yatroy is responsible for one segment of
the needs of a large society. They are set up and manned (droyned?) by the
oytripin involved whenever a problem demanding inter-oytripin cooperation
occurs.
Yatroyin originated as temporary groups of Speakers from different oytripin,
that was formed when they needed to cooperate in major undertakings. With
primitive oytripin this might, for instance, involve a shared hunt or mutual
defense against a common enemy. The yatroy was dissolved as soon as the
project was over or the problem solved.
The first permanent yatroy on Andor appears to have been The Canal Authority,
which was formed to dig a canal linking two large groups of oytripin on xxxx,
Andor's main continent.
>Discovered in 802,
Preliminary survey of the Marches was 'substantially finished' in 100. The
Floriani in Trojan Reach was contacted in 185. The Scouts are surveying Trojan
Reach E in 204. First survey was finished in 420; District 268 was surveyed as
part of that. Iderati was settled between 400 and 500. Five Sisters was made an
Imperial district in 610. How can the Scouts possibly fail to visit Andor and
Candory until 802? Andor and Candory were most likely interdicted in 802, but
they must have been at least superficially surveyed long before that (and it is
far more likely that it was surveyed quite thoroughly, since they housed a
spacefaring race). Also, Droyne from Andor are allowed to leave the system and
conduct normal business with the outside world, a strange thing to allow
inhabitants of an interdicted world. But if Andor and Candory were client
states prior to the interdiction, it becomes much easier to explain (cp. the
somewhat similar state of affairs in connection with Shionthy).
>DD 0240 769-422 (Imperial)
>Diameter 7600km.
Size is 7 which means somewhere between 10400 and 12000 km.
>769-422 has a population of 90,000 sentients...
>769-422 is inhabited by a minor human race
Not another minor human race! Only 49 or 50 human races survived until 1100.
And since most Traveller writers seem unable to resist the temptation to
introduce a new minor human race at every opportunity, the list is rapidly
filling up. Wasting one slot on an dull, unnamed one is... wasteful. The
least you could do was to give them a name and a thorough description. BTW, a
human population that after 300,000 years is still only 90,000 strong is not
very plausible either.
>developed (it is thought) by the Ancients to happily live in the thin
>atmosphere with few edible plants.
A thin atmosphere is by definition breathable by baseline humans. You don't
need a special genetically modified version. As for the paucity of plants, the
planet is a garden world according to Regency Sourcebook. Besides which the
free oxygen that makes the atmosphere breathable requires plant life to exist.
>DD 0332 Gothe (Imperial)
>Diameter 5880km.
Size is 2 (between 2400 and 4000 km)
>The population has recently been introduced by the Third Imperium,
Gothe becomes part of the Imperium between 622 and 979 [SMC:14-15]. One would
think that it had a population back then. I suppose they could have died out,
but wouldn't that rate a mention (quite apart from having been used a lot)?
>0333 Mirriam (Imperial) Amber Zone
> Starport: Class IV.
Naval and scout base is not mentioned.
> Atmosphere: Dense oxygen-nitrogen, tainted by plant spores. Surface water:
Diameter is missing.
>90%. Climate: Warm. Population: 92,000,000.
In 1117 population level is 8 and population multiplier is 5.
> The population mainly lives in underwater (swamp) cities, with only a few
>complexes other than the downport above sea level.
10% of a planet Mirriam's size is a respectable amount of dry land. There
would be more than a few people living on it.
>Mirriam has a huge moon, Pam, which is the site of the scout way station.
>The tides and currents caused by Pam can be extremely hazardous, and Mirriam
>is designated an Amber Zone accordingly.
Tides are harmless except where shallows and dry land cause purely local
conditions. Even so they are only hazardous to ships, not to fixed
installations (at least with the construction techniques available at TL 9).
That's simply not something that would warrant an Amber Zone classification.
>0336 Candory (Droyne World). Red Zone.
See comments for Andor concerning atmospheric taint and date of discovery.
>...this world is an almost perfect copy, right down to background radiation
>and stellar type.
Andor's sun is a F3 V, Candory's a F6 V (with a M3 dwarf companion). Similar,
but hardly a perfect match.
Continued next post...
