>TML nightly Thu Oct 8 20:30:05 EDT 1992 Volume 45 : Issue 20
>
>Archive-Message-Number: 4706
>From: [email removed] (Derek Wildstar)
>Subject: Long Message from Wildstar
>
>I've been off in jumpspace for the last week or so, but now I am getting
>around to responding to some of the recent threads here on TML.
>
>About the "Virus" and Challenge 64:
>
...
>
>I find it extremely difficult to believe that the question "What if
>someone discovered intelligent computer chips?" has one and only one
>answer: "People would build them into walkie-talkies and forget their
>very existance." What about the issue of "all sentient life-forms are
>protected citizens of the Imperium". These sophont computer chips are
>naturally-occurring, evolved creatures; definitely life-forms! Is this
>a major form of slavery within interstellar society, or are the Cymbiots
>paid employees of the ship owner, free to quit at any time? If they are
>de-facto slaves, how do they feel about it? They are sentient creatures
>capable of forming their own opinions, aren't they?
Maybe they _are_ treated as slaves. Perhaps *THIS* is the true nature
and source of the virus...the Cymbiots are taking revenge and freeing
themselves from an oppressive slavery.
...
>
>About Stutterwarp, Steve H. writes:
>> > Dan:
>> >if one was to fire a sandcaster in the path of a stuterwarp ship.
>> >When It went to materialize in the cloud of sand what sort of problems
>> >would it have (if any).
>>
>> It would have quite a lot of problems, IF it did something so silly as
>> to fly through such. Since a stutterwarp ship normally fights at ranges
>> of several to many light seconds, the odds of it passing through a sand
>> cloud are about zero, unless the Captain is a suicidal idiot. Normally,
>> such a ship will stay a couple of hours at six-Gs away from you, and
>> your sand won't do anything, except obscure your vision.
>
>How about a stutterwarp-powered missile (or better yet, a whole bunch of
>them) launched from a conventional ship. Instead of high explosive,
>have a proximity fuse connected to a sandcaster round. Have the missile
>home in on the stutterwarp ship, and detonate in its path. If the ship
>is not too badly damaged by this, then launch a bunch more, and surround
>the ship with sand. Now that you've gotten the thing to stand still,
>you can fire at it with conventional weapons, or come alongside at your
>lesiure for a boarding action.
>
>Robert S. Dean's "Gamba Project" (A capital idea!):
>A couple of points about my interpretation of world statistics. First
>of all, I interpret them as reflecting the status of the world's
>residents, without traders, military or scout personnel, or any Imperial
>facilities.
>
>Second, I assume that all Class-A starports are effectively at TL-10
>and Class-B starports are effectively TL-9 (even if the world TL is
>lower; this simply means that spare parts and technical crews are
>imported from off-world).
>
>A couple of worlds strike me as having a good bit of potential:
>
>0109 Motet C898735-3 AG Y
>Obviously an agro world feeding Madrigal, and maybe other parts of the
>subsector as well. Good destination for traders looking for an unususl
>cargo
>
>0110 MADRIGAL B7989DE-6 S IND Y
>The industrial powerhouse of the subsector. I don't believe that
>commercially important worlds need to be high-tech. Madrigal is quite
>capable of producing industrial goods that would be useful to worlds
>anywhere from TL-3 to TL-9 (which includes most of the worlds in the
>subsector). For export to lower-tech worlds, it probably produces heavy
>machinery and mining and agricultural equipment; for high tech worlds,
>Madrigal likely exports machine tools, precision equipment, and some
>consumer goods. It also is the major source of refined chemicals and
>bulk metals (iron and steel ingots, barstock, plates, pipes and other
>useful materials). Total production is likely to be more than a
>hundred million tons annually. The class B starport is maintained
>by and for the convenience of Madrigal's customers, and the cost of imported
>skills and technology is part of the cost of doing business.
>
>Madrigal may even be able to fabricate starship hulls, hull components,
>drive mounts, weapons systems, turrets, and dozens of other fittings for
>spacecraft which can be fabricated with their technology. These
>components can them be shipped to other, higher-tech worlds for
>assembly, and installation of the high-tech drives, computers, and
>equipment. In this way, the limited shipyard capacity of the subsector
>might be augmented (a shipyard crew could assemble a Liberty ship in
>under 100 hours from pre-fab parts; Kaiser even made escort carriers
>this way; nearly 100 of these CVE's were built between 1943 and
>1945).
>
>Given the government and high law level, I would suggest that Madrigal's
>religeon promotes a strong work ethic and a strict code of behavoir.
>Since the government is the religeon, such codes would have the force of
>law; not a problem for believers, but for off-worlders and
>non-believers, the code of conduct, clothing and
>behavoir standards, and required observances would be nearly impossible
>to keep straight. Quite possibly unbelievers, heretics, and political
>dissidents are exiled to a specific geographic area (probably originally
>an undesirable island or sub-continent. The starport is probably also
>located here (off-worlders are unbelievers, after all); believers are
>allowed to travel to the starport (but consider it distasteful or
>faintly sinful), while unbelievers and offworlders are restricted.
>
>As the only industrial world in the subsector, Madrigal probably is used
>to being in a seller's market; there may be increasing tension between
>Madrigal and other worlds (primarily Weelkes). Madrigal's strategy is
>probably to try to increase its tech level to stay competitive.
>
>0405 Lawes EAC9200-8 NI N
>Known locally as "Lawless"; a rough-and-ready mining outpost.
>
>0408 Forqueray A353546-B N NI, P Y
>The primary Imperial Navy base of the area; most of the "permanent"
>inhabitabts (thos that show on the UPP) are in some way connected to the
>Navy base: contractors, civillian support staff, dependents, merchants
>and all the business that would usually surround a major installation.
>The TL of 11 probably represents the average amenities enjoyed by the
>pernament residents. The Naval facilities are probably on a par with
>usual Imperial Navy practice: TL-14 or TL-15, including shipyards, a
>naval medical center, and probably a mothball fleet orbiting somewhere
>in the system. Civillian contractors will happily do work for private
>citizens, too (provided such work does not interfere with their Navy
>commitments); therefore this world probably has an effectively TL-15
>capability for starship construction and repair (but you will probably
>pay several times the normal rate for the work).
>
>0501 Pardessus A114523-E S NI Y
>Given the high TL and the scout base here, Pardessus is probably a major
>IISS facility; certainly the primary site for Scout construction,
>maintainance, training, and operational control in this subsector. In
>many ways it will be the IISS equivalent of Forqueray.
>
>0803 Weelkes C112888-A S NA Y
>Weelkes is almost an industrial world; but it is handicapped by a small
>labor force, and an inadequate starport (which probably reflects a
>general under-capitalization of the whole economy). Presumably this is
>because an inordinate amount of resources are consumed simply by living
>on this rather inhospitable world. Presumable selected because of the
>ready availability of some resource (ore? solar power?). Presumably the
>major priorities of the government is to encourage immigration and
>off-world investment, so that Weelkes can "ramp up" to being a major
>industrial producer.
>
>An source of adventures might be the increasing rivalry between Weelkes
>and Madrigal. Madrigal can offer high-quality, relatively low-tech
>goods and a reputation for delivering on time and under budget. Weelkes
>can offer high-tech (at least, high-tech for this subsector) goods, but
>is probably having quality-control and delivery problems. But they are
>number two: they try harder.
>
>Robert Dean writes:
>>If you use the Classic Traveller description of class A starports as the
>only
>>facilities containing ship yards, and the shipyard capacities from
>Trillion
>>Credit Squadron, you reach the conclusion that there are only four
>potential
>>commercial shipbuilding sites in the subsector, at Galliard (TL14),
>Pardessus
>>(TL14), Forqueray (TL11) and Lassus (TL13). The total "drydock" capacity
>of
>>these four sites is 150 tons, 150 tons, 150 tons and 1200 tons respectively.
>>So, only Lassus can build anything bigger than a Scout ship. It is my
>inten-
>>tion to stick to Book 2 starship designs for this exercise, which makes
>things
>>a little easier overall, since Jump limits are based on hull size rather
>than
>>tech level.
>I would apply population multipliers (something I did even before Grand
>Survey came out for Classic Traveller) to all of the worlds. Throwing
>my trusty d10, for the four shipbuilding worlds, I get multipliers of 5,
>9, 1, and 6; this would make the shipyard capacities 750, 1,350, 150,
>and 7,200 tons respectively. If prefab parts from Madrigal are used to
>speed construction, it might even be reasonable to assume that shipyards
>on these worlds achieve two or three times the average productivity when
>working with standard designs (on the other hand, the average wait for
>custom designs may be several years before constrution even begins).
>
>This gives us a total of 491,400 ton-weeks of shipyard capacity for
>construction. I will assume (without checking my facts, though) that
>Madrigal, Marais, Fantasia, Simpson, and Adriano are negligible in
>construction and maintainance capacity (Madrigal probably is not).
>The equilibrum equation is X=(U*(N+M))/(4+(T/L)) and the condition is
>that X<=(U*N)/(T/L).
>U == Shipyard Utilization Factor == 1.00
>N == New Ship Construction Capacity == 491,400 ton-weeks
>M == Maintainance Capacity == assumed to be zero
>T == Ship Construction Time == 9600 ton-weeks for a 200 ton ship
>L == Lifespan of an average ship == 100 years if well maintained
>Therefore, X is approximately 510 ships, or 102,000 aggregate tons.
>This fleet is composed of smaller ships than the average for the
>Imperium, and they are older than the average, as well. Since the
>shipbuilding capacity of the Imperium is not evenly distributed, it
>seems reasonable that many ships are imported from outside the subsector
>to suppliment the local production. Most ships are probably 200 ton
>types, with a small number of 400 and 800 ton ships (a *VERY* small
>number, probably; and most of them imported). Forqueray is probably new
>in the starship construction business, and probably produces only two or
>three designs (a type S, a purpose-built seeker, and a 150-ton "stretch
>seeker" intended as a low-cost general merchanter).
>
>>Assuming a reasonable ship life, and a need to perform maintenance for
>two
>>weeks out of each year, we find that Lassus can support a total fleet
>of
>>shipping, military and civilian, totalling around 19,000 tons. Ships
>are
>>either going to come from beyond the subsector, or be fairly scarce,or both.
>>I don't know that this would work, so I have designated Weelkes as a
>potential
>>ship source. Weelkes would have a shipyard capacity of 120,000 tons,
>and
>>would be rated as an industrial planet if its population was 9 instead of 8.
>It would be reasonable to assume that Weelkes is trying to become an
>Industrial world, and can rapidly eclipse Madrigal as an important world
>in the subsector. Let's rather arbitrarily assign it a population
>multiplier of 5. With a starport of class C, Weelkes is not going to be
>able to produce starships for a while, but we can assume that they are
>currently in the process of upgrading to class B by installing shipyards
>but there are not yet jump-drive fabrication facilities.
>
>Robert S. Dean writes:
>> Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed] writes:
>> > The one (roughly) ton shipyard capacity per 1000 inhabitants in TCS is
>> > naval capacity only. No mention is made anywhere about civilian shipping.
>> > My own rule of thumb is two ton of commercial shipping for each ton of
>> > warship.
>> I don't recall a specific ruling on this, and I always worked under the
>> assumption that it was the total capacity, figuring that in war the govern-
>> ment would take control of _all_ shipyards for war work, and in peacetime
>> they'd contract the maintenance work that overflowed from the Navy shipyards
>> out to civilian shipyards, so that there was really very little distinction
>> between the two. But, as I say, that's just my interpetation. If you look t
>a
>> the capacity for a Population 9 world, you tend to wonder what they are
>doing
>> with the surplus...
>I don't ever remember a clear ruling on this either, but I have always
>assumed that the capacity rules from TCS were total capacity. Then
>again, I have also used the population multipliers in the TCS formula
>(which was originally written before there *WERE* population
>multipliers), so my calculations average about 5 times the total ship
>production capacity as the original TCS rules. My rationalization is
>that the original TCS rules considered only the shipyard capacity
>available for military construction, while the results with the
>population multipliers produce *TOTAL* capacity. I freely admit that
>this assumption is crude at best, and may be unworkable. Anybody care
>to think up a variant rule for this (there is one percolating in the
>back of my mind, but it is not ready to come out yet).
>
>Another data point for trade-and-commerce economics fans: Immediately
>prior to the outbreak of WWII, the British Isles imported about 55
>million tons annually. Included in this total was about all of Great
>Britian's POL (Petrol/Oil/Lubricants) needs, most of her foodstuffs
>nearly all of the ores and raw materials required by her industry, and a
>suprising amount of manufactured goods (particularly machine tools).
>During the worst part of the Battle of the Atlantic, imports were
>reduced to an annulized rate of 30 million tons per year (about half of
>this was food). During the war, the US firm of Kaiser produced
>prefabricated ships (Liberty Ships). Each one displaced about 4000 tons
>(that's tons *MASS* folks, empty) and could carry about 7000 tons of
>cargo (again, tons *MASS*). The Liberty ships could make about 12-14
>knots, and could be built in as little as 4 days (from prefabricated
>components, working round-the-clock). *** The preceeding data from
>Keegan's _The Price of Admiraly_; more recommended reading for TML-ers.
>
>In TRAVELLER terms, a liberty ship is about 800 displacement tons
>(assuming that the average cargo is about 1 mass ton per cubic meter of
>volume) with about 500 displacement tons of cargo (no passengers).
>By figuring the average journey to and from resource worlds, one can
>figure out the number of ships needed to supply the required level of
>imports.
>
>55 million tons annually is about 7860 full loads for the hypothetical
>Traveller starship described above. Assuming that the ship only makes
>jump-1 (reasonable, because 62.5% of this ship is devoted to cargo), and
>that the average source world is two parsecs away, then we have a
>minimum round-trip voyage of 6 weeks per load (two weeks outbound, one
>week loading, two weels inbound, and one week to unload; a
>minimum-length refuelling stopover is assumed at the intermediate
>point). Each ship makes 8 trips per year, with four weeks for overhaul.
>Therefore, the merchant fleet serving this world will have to be about
>983 ships with an aggregate tonnage of 786,400 displacement tons. THe
>traffic flow rate will be between 21 and 22 arrivals per day (with a like
>number of departures, of course).
>
>Remember - this is to support a population and economy the size of
>pre-WWII british isles. Some Traveller high-population worlds will have
>single cities larger than this.
>
>Robert Dean writes:
>>Agricola: Standard atmosphere water world, with a native population of
>>mammalian amphibians, plus a human/dolphin colony. The natives are balkan-
>>ized, with the main source of conflict being over islands which are re-
>>quired for breeding grounds and technology platforms. Pregnant females and
>>young children can't swim, so they need boats or islands.
>I like this idea; asingle minor race will add some interest to an
>otherwise generally bland subsector.
>
>>Canzona: Settled by even more fanatical religious dissidents from Madrigal,
>>who are split up into groups that can't agree. Potential Amber travel
>>classification.
>How about from the same sect that colonized Madrigal (both planets
>colonized at the same time from approximately the same population
>source, with roughly the same beliefs). On Madrigal, the religon has
>remained homogenous (probably for geopolitical reasons, combined with
>the tendancy to isolate dissidents on an island). On Canzona, the
>church has split into many different sects (nations) each one claiming
>to be the One True Faith. Disputes over borders, resources, and
>religious questions cause minor wars all the time. Amber zone
>classification, and potential adventure interest.
>
>Robert Dean writes:
>> [Somebody else writes and I forgot to save the attribution - sorry]:
>> 0806 Brade C8B7410-7 NI Y
>> > Company world. Law level non-existent. I think any company would
>> > maintain dicipline, so I'd interpret that as "Law not enforced
>> > outside starport compound" (Starport is owned by company - in
>> > fact, it IS the company building). So how does the company make
>> > money? Independent hunters or collectors goes out into that
>> > corrosive atmosphere and collect something valuable (what?). The
>> > company has a monoply on buying. They couldn't care less that
>> > one hunter/collector kills another for his haul, they get the
>> > stuff in the end, anyway.
>>
>> OK. I like this, so it's now "official". What are they collecting?
>> Anybody else got any ideas?
>
>Well, it depends on what the corrosive atmosphere is made out of. My
>suggestion is that the atmosphere contains various and sundry nasty
>gasses (cyanide, chlorine, or ammonia come to mind, although some more
>interesting organic compounds might be a good idea). However, a number
>of very interesting plants grow here; the raw plant material is
>manufactured into drugs, spices, and "recreational pharmecuticals"
>(depending of course, on which plant is harvested, and who does the
>processing). The plants extract compounds from the atmosphere
>and combine them with trace minerals from their growing region to "build"
>the substances of interest. So far, actually farming the plants has
>proven impractical, and synthesizing the compounds is more expensive
>than refining them from plant matter (but research continues on both
>fronts).
>
>THe best plants probably grow in specialized habitats (for example, one
>kind might be semi-aquatic, and grow like lily-pads in shallow pools of
>whatever nasty substance passes for water on Brade.
>
>A pharmecutical corporation (SuSAG?) operates the starport and is the
>only legal purchaser of the raw Bradeian plants. Some species are
>refined into drugs, while others are sold as spices. Because of the
>nature of SuSAG's monopoly, there are a number of attempts at "Black
>Market" harvesting - especially for the illegal drug trade. Wilderness
>landings on Brade are possible, but dangerous (for two reasons; the
>planet is dangerous enough to begin with, and SuSAG takes very unkindly
>to smugglers).
>
>In addition to the various human threats, some of the animal life-forms
>of Brade can be dangerous to the unwary. Alltogether, the life of a
>Bradeian Gatherer is not an easy one. Because there is no effective law
>on Brade save what SuSAG wants to enforce, many of the gatherers are
>fugitives from other worlds in the subsector.
>
>Adrian Hurt [email removed] writes:
>> Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed] writes:
>> > 0105 Fantasia A99A522-8 NI Y
>> > Large waterworld with either large colony or small independent
>> > population. Could be a co-op seaharverster outfit.
>> This is another one of the classic Traveller worlds. Will someone please
>> explain to me how a TL 8 world can support a class A starport? As I
>> understand it, a class A starport can, by definition, build and repair
>> starships, i.e. jump drives, i.e. must be at least TL 9. Bases, captive
>> worlds or other forms of outside influence might allow some outsider to
>> own, run and supply the starport independantly of the planet, but none of
>> these apply here.
>I usually treat cases like this as meaning that the sustained TL of the
>world is 8; however, the starport has (at a minimum) TL-10 facilities
>available. In cases like this it means that either the world is more
>advanced in space travel than in most other areas (unlikely), or that
>the parts and skills are imported from more advanced worlds. In many
>cases this would be because the world is an important importer or
>exporter; in others this would be because it is located astride several
>trade routes, and is in a convenient location for serving many
>starships. Other possabilities include a corporate service facility
>which uses offworld technology and local (read cheap) labor or
>real-estate.
>
>> > 0110 MADRIGAL B7989DE-6 S IND Y
>> > Who is paying for the Class B Starport? The tech level is too low
>> > to support starships, so someone is importing the technicians and
>> > parts to keep it going. The local government?
>> The local government, supported by disgustingly high taxes, backed up by
>> a law level that prosecutes you if you sneeze the wrong way.
>Madrigal is an industrial world; they probably charge the cost of the
>port to their customers. They are the only one in the subsector, and
>can probably charge whatever they want for machine tools, processed
>chemicals, and milled steel. So they probably have a strong economy,
>and enjoy a substantial trade surplus (and a law level that prosecutes
>you if you fail to utter the proper prayer after sneezing).
>
>Robert S. Dean [email removed] writes:
>>You have a point. OK. Let's go for adventure potential. Adriano was a
>>normal world with a population of 7 or 8 until a few years ago, when a
>>plague so violent and untreatable appeared and killed off the entire
>>population, as per your suggestion. This will now be the single most
>>important feature of the entire subsector, as research will show that it
>>was a modified Ricercaran disease which _must_ have been deliberately
>>spread. Who would gain by murdering an entire planetary population? A
>>mystery, and an overwhelmingly important one that must be solved soon!
>>
>>(We won't leave this a mystery for ever, since it is my intention to decide
>>on all such details in this forum, as part of the GMing exercise originally
>>mentioned.)
>I like this idea! This mystery could be the focus of an entire campaign
>as long and complex as those presented in "The Traveller Adventure".
>
>Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed] writes:
>> Rob Dean writes:
>[Rules for constructing commercial starships]
>> > I don't recall a specific ruling on this,
>> Me neither. As I wrote, there's no mention of civilian starships anywhere.
>As far as I know, there aren't any anywhere. We should probably hammer
>some out; I think that the shipyard capacity should be based on
>population, tech level, trade classification, and perhaps on government
>type and/or law level. The biggest problem is in deciding what level of
>interstellar commerce we want the result to reflect; perhaps this can be
>reduced to a table of factors.
>
>> >and I always worked under the assumption that it was the total capacity,
>> >figuring that in wartime the govern-
>> >ment would take control of _all_ shipyards for war work,
>> Any government that interfered too much with the merchant marine in wartime
>> would run out of essential goods right speedily. Think about the British
>> Merchant Marine during WWII.
>Exactly. In wartime, the government would probably supervise production
>to make the most out of the available capacity. Merchant Marine ships
>would probably be restricted to a few absolutely standard, well-proven
>designs that lend themselves to mass production and pre-fabricated
>parts. Other industries would be pressed into service making these
>parts (example: Singer's sewing machine factories produced machinegun
>parts during WWII, and many automotive plants were used to produce
>aircraft components). Reserve capacity would be utilized, and efficency
>increased, so that additional capacity was available for warship
>construction.
>
>Existing TRAVELLER rules (Trillion Credit Squadron and Fifth Frontier
>War) do not really provide for any type of economic warfare (in the
>sense that it was waged in WWII by Germany's U-boats in attempting to
>cut off Britain's imports and starve the country into submission; or
>even in the sense conducted by the Allied strategic bombing campaign in
>attempting to destroy the enemy's industrial ability to wage war).
>Because of this, it is extremely difficult to gauge the level of
>interstellar trade, and the effects of different wartime strategies on
>trade and planetary economies. This is probably something we can fix
>here on TML; once these questions are answered, it becomes much easier
>to talk about piracy, economic warfare, and tax bases for inperial
>budgets.
>
>Steve H. writes:
>> I don't like the "plague world". What kind of plague
>> is there that TL14 techniology shouldn't
>> be able to deal with? Yes, I've read "Speaker
>> for the Dead", but I'm not willing to bet that
>> something like the Descolada couldn't be beaten by Imperial technology.
>There are probably very few diseases that couldn't be beaten by Imperial
>technology. However, there will still be plague worlds: the question is
>will the population be decimated before effective help arrives? How far
>away is the help in relation to the speed of the spread of the disease?
>After such a disaster, it may be easier and cheaper to simply interdict
>the world than to try and develop and disseminate a cure.
>
>> As to "Ancient sites", I've never bothered to use
>> one. Mostly because everyone I've ever
>> played with has been completely turned off by the
>> idea of playing archeologist. And if it's
>> not archeology, it's dungeon plunging.
>Well, in the past my players have included an anthropologist and an
>archaeologist --- you might say they were interested; one of them even
>turned what I thought was going to be a simple dungeon crawl into a
>full-fledged dig. Anchient sites *can* be fun, but you've got to think
>more in terms of archaeology a la Indiana Jones rather than archaeology
>as it is actually practised as a science. Good examples include FASA's
>"Legend of the Sky Raiders" and "Trail of the Sky Raiders", or the
>"Visit to Antiquity" found in an early Travellers' Digest. An anchient
>site should probably be somewhere in the subsector; players that are
>interested in such things will want it, while those that are not can
>just ignore it.
>
>> "University Planets" I don't buy. Not until someone
>> can show me a "University country" on
>> Earth. Talk about overspecialization. Not
>> to mention that the level of available shipping
>> already described wouldn't be able to handle the off-planet support
>required.
>Well, while there may not be any purely academic planets in a backwater
>like Gamba, there is probably at least one somewhere in the Imperium.
>On the other hand, there may be a world well-known for its excellence in
>education, that draws the best students from many parsecs around to
>study in its institutions. While there are no "university countries"
>here on earth, many students come from abroad to study at US colleges,
>and the US has many "university cities" - take Blacksburg VA as an
>example.
>
>
>Oh, on the subject of the original SF origins of GDW's Traveller
>concepts, I note that there is a planet Mongo in the Jewell subsector.
>Somehow, I sincerely doubt that this name originated at GDW; in fact, I
>wonder if it was used with permission?
>
>As a point of fact, I doubt that there are very many things in Traveller
>that were not written about in SF literature first. Marc Miller and GDW
>were simply the first to take all of the elements of classic
>hard-science SF and assemble them all in a role-playing game.
>
>timothy k istian soholt [email removed] writes:
>A few of my own thoughts on Gamba subsector:
>> > 0705 Jenkins E87A000-5 -- Y
>> How about this: the tech was recently upgraded when the surviving
>> members of the survey team decided to quit the Service and settle
>> on the planet. (Remember that a population code of 0 means less
>> than ten people, not no people.)They're cordial enough to trav-
>> elers, but they do their best to keep incoming ships to the land-
>> ing pad they've laid out near their homes, and they ask visitors
>> to get their business over with and leave. The Scouts are, in
>Now that's an interesting new explanation for one of these!
>
>> fact, protecting the indigenous population (which doesn't show up
>> on the surveys because they doctored the records) from exploi-
>> tation -- anyone have any ideas what the natives could have that
>> would be significant enough to Imperial interests that they
>> would be in mortal danger if the rest of the galaxy found out?
>In a case like this, why wouldn't the normal IISS protective
>interdiction be better? Is there some reason why protective
>interdiction was not granted, or even asked for? Are the scouts
>themelves exploiting the indegenous population? I think this part needs
>a little more thought, but it has promise ...
>
>> Atmospheric taint would likely be large amounts of water in the
>> air.
>This counts as a taint? I've always assumed that a taint was something
>which would be extremely unpleaseant at very best, is usually harmful,
>and can be fatal at worst. Then again, I'm in the Washington, DC area,
>and we have large amounts of water in the air for most of the summer.
>
>Adrian Hurt [email removed] writes:
>> 0705 Jenkins E87A000-5 -- Y
>> Either there is one family living there, or the local population was wiped
>> out by something but some of the machinery is still around. That class E
>> starport on a water world of TL 5 makes me wonder if an enterprising team
>> of adventurers might be able to pick up an aircraft carrier for free? :-)
>> Or, perhaps there are a few people there, survivors of a ship which crash
>> landed. I can just imagine their faces when the survey team said "This is
>> a _survey_ mission, not a rescue mission. But we've noted your presence -
>> a rescue team should be along some time soon" - just before the Imperium
>> collapsed. :-)
>How about one of these two: Jenkins could belong to a single family
>(likely noble, or filthy rich, or both) who maintain a residence on this
>otherwise commercially-unexploitable world for pleasure (perhaps
>great-grandad, founder of the sector-wide trading line, was an avid
>fisherman, and Jenkins is where he put his "fishing lodge"). The
>current head of the family is more interested in making money than going
>fishing, and visits only very rarely; the only permanent residents being
>the caretaker and his family. Another classic alternative would be a
>colony-ship that was bound for a different world misjumped
>or crash-landed here. The few survivors proceeded to do the best they
>could, and hope for rescue. By the time they were discovered, the
>remaining colonists had given up on rescue, and had built a life for
>themselves on Jenkins; therefore they refused "rescue". Now the
>colonizing agency has a problem: should they support this de-facto
>colony on Jenkins or not? And how would the current residents of
>Jenkins feel about a whole horde of new colonists descending on their
>little island colony?
>
>[email removed] (Scott "2g" Kellogg) writes:
>> When I think about Class A starports, I have a little trouble
>> sometimes. I tend to envision large international airports:
>> Dulles, Atlanta, BWI, LAX, Chicago, Heathrow, Newark etc. Now
>> those to me say 'Class A'. However, not one of those has anything
>> to do with manufacturing capacity.
>Well, from the Traveller rules, there is not much "official" difference
>between Class A, B, and C ports *EXCEPT* the availability of shipyards
>for construction and repair. By extension, the class A and B ports have
>more traffic, as both a cause and an effect of their repair and
>construction facilities.
>
>You might be better off thinking of starports the way an 18th- or 19th-
>century sea captain might think about seaports. The best ports (like
>Baltimore, Liverpool, Cherbourg, Brest, Boston, and many others) could
>supply almost anything needed in the way of provisions, and repairs.
>Shipyards where there to construct new ships; drydocks were available
>for major repairs, and any number of businesses catered to the maritime
>trade. The second-class ports had no builder's ways or drydocks, but
>could do almost anything else. On the other end of the spectrum, simply
>getting fresh water and provisions was an adventure at some ports of
>call.
>
>Quantity of shipping does not need to be directly related to the
>presence of construction and repair facilities. I'm quite sure that
>there are some class A ports which get less traffic than a class D port
>at a busy mining outpost.
>
>> Where are the big ship builders/aircraft manufacturers? Well, most
>> of the US aircraft companies are out on the west coast. Boeing's
>> out there in Washington state, Lockheed's in California, the ship
>> builders aren't exactly in the large population ports either. GE
>> Boats are out in Conneticut. Norfolk is a large place, but it's
>> not the HUGE place one thinks of when one say's 'Class A' port.
>>
>> Point being, that the ship building yards may not always mean there
>> is a large port or a large amount of traffic going in and out.
>Right. But the Traveller port classifications measure not the amount of
>the traffic, but the facilities available. Therefore, Lockheed's plant
>in California rates as a Class A airport, while Chicago's O'hare rates
>as a Class C (or Class B if someone has a fleet maintanance center
>there).
>
>On the other hand, especially in Traveller (like in sailing-ship days)
>having a maintainance or construction center far from large
>concentrations of shipping means unproductive delays. Imagine a
>merchant ship making a run; if the nearest maintainance center is two
>jumps off of its route, that will mean *ANOTHER* four weeks of
>unproductive time every year; someone who locates a maintainance
>facility on the traderoute will certainly get *MUCH* more business. The
>same goes for ship construction. Therefore, in Traveller, construction
>and maintainance facilities will tend to indicate where the
>concentrations of shipping are. But there will be exceptions, and not
>every high-traffic world will have a shipyard. In many cases, one high
>population or industrial world will import from and export to nearly
>half a dozen resource, agricultural, or market worlds in the surrounding
>area. One or two class A or B starports will service all of this trade,
>probably established where the ships tend to concentrate for
>astrographic reasons, or where the skills or resources are readily
>available (such as a high-tech industrial world).
>
>> So, what do we need for a large ship building yard? Mainly
>> resources. Those resources are the material to physically make the
>> ship, and the technology to make it work.
>> The technicians needed can be brought in.
>> The parallel is steel plants. Now, most people would imagine that
>> steel mills would be ideally located near large deposits of iron
>> ore right? Wrong! Steel mills are ideally located near large COAL
>> deposits. The process of making steel requires more coal than it
>> does iron ore. (Pittsburgh?)
>I'd argue that the main ingredent is not the resources or the technical
>skill; both can be imported. What is important is a location convenient
>to your customer base. As it usually works out, this typically means
>on a resource world, or an industrial world (both popular destinations,
>and able to supply some of the needs of a shipyard).
>
>> Ok, now with economics still working that way, Ship yards need to
>> be located near large mineral deposits and sufficient technlogy
>> back there to build it up. Technicians can be shipped in.
>Large mineral deposits mean lots of cheap ore or processed products,
>which means a large volume of trade. Lots of ships means a good
>opportunity for starship maintainance facilities, and even starship
>construction yards. Technicans and even pre-fabricated parts can be
>shipped in if the demand warrants the expense.
>
>> Galliard is one of the main ship builders of Gamba. The system has
>> a rich asteroid belt with several drydock asteroids. The Navy uses
>> the TL 14 ship yard (Galli-Yard) to maintain some of their older
>> escorts and as a storage facility for the sector's mothball fleet.
>> The university of Galliard has a highly accredited naval
>> architectural and engineering graduate program.
>The name "Galli-Yard" is a little silly, but OK so far.
>
>> The ancient site there is of course highly classified, however,
>> rumors indicate that the Galli-Yards, were built over the grounds
>> of the site. This has prompted speculation that the ancient site
>> was originally a shipyard, and that the Navy supposedly took
>> advantage of the University's excavation/reconstruction of the
>> site. The truth of the matter is unknown, but the University
>> students are known to encourage the rumor. Indeed, they point to
>> the presence of the sector's only accredited post graduate naval
>> archeology program as evidence of the yard's quality. The Ancient
>> Society of Engineers is a group of naval architecture and
>> engineering students which claims to design and maintain ancient
>> starships. (Evidence is however that this is simply a group of
>> drunken students) :-)
>> There is also the unexplained date of the founding of the yard: It
>> is on the Imperial registry as the oldest operational shipyard, and
>> is dated as being founded -201,007 years Pre-Imperium.
>This sounds like an elaborate hoax (or running joke) perpetrated by the
>afore-mentioned drunken eingineering students.
>"We are, we are, we are the Ancient Engineers
> We can, we can, we can drink forty beers!
> Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum and come along with us,
> 'Cause we don't give a damn for any damn man who don't give a damn for us!
> --- Traditioal Galliard Tech student drinking song
>
>
>[email removed]
>- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Science-Fiction Adventure
> in the Far Future
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of TML Nightly
>******************