Hi Jim!
JV> Anyway, I'm continuing to mull over the sunbane data on the spinward
JV> marches despite my limited knowledge concerning the region's recent
JV> history, and (at the risk of getting into a really long discussion)
JV> I have to admit that I keep thinking the same thing over and over:
JV> "There's something wrong here." What I'm talking about is UWP's
JV> (formerly UPP's) which don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
JV> Sonthert/Lanth is a decent example of what I mean.
JV> #PlanetName Loc. UPP Code B Notes Z PBG Al.
JV> #---------- ---- --------- - --------------- - --- --
JV> Sonthert 1918 X6266AB-3 Ni R 314 Im
JV> Here we have a couple million folks making a living with their 19th
JV> century technology, and look what they have to breathe: a very thin
JV> (and tainted) atmosphere. For all intents and purposes, a vacuum. I
JV> know... I know... they can get by with combination
JV> respirators/filtermasks, right? All couple million of them? With
JV> technology which is over a century old? I can just see it now.
JV> "Don't go outside, son. Yer might have to breathe or somethin'."
JV> Hey, at least TAS had the sense to classify it as a red zone (don't
JV> go there if you're addicted to oxygen).
Let me offer an alternative for Sonthert. Like many other worlds during
the Long Night, Sonthert was cut off from the Imperium mainstream. As an
underground colony, isolated from the rest of the subsector it's inhabitants
lost much of their knowledge regarding their technology. The atmosphere
generators continued to provide the underground habitations with adequate
oxygen, and the colonists also found several variety of fungi that produced
small amounts of gases that were breathable and began using them to supplement
the atmosphere generators. As time progressed, the society grew more
structured along the lines of 19th century England (Earth). Although the
starport at Sonthert has been reestablished, the general populace retain the
societal views developed during the long night.
JV> Okay, all kidding aside, the thing that gets me about planets like
JV> this is that anybody decided to colonize them in the first place.
JV> Agreed, with a bit of technology, people can survive just about
JV> anywhere they want to survive, but why bother? I see a nice dirtball
JV> only five parsecs trailing.
Why colonize a planet with a difficult environment? Why look for gold or oil
in Alaska? <grin> Seriously, there might have been something of value there
when the colony was set up or it might have been a strategic point to occupy.
JV> #PlanetName Loc. UPP Code B Notes Z PBG Al.
JV> #---------- ---- --------- - --------------- - --- --
JV> La'Belle 2416 C564112-4 Lo Ni 701 Im
JV> Now this is sweet. We're talking primo-atmosphere (none of that
JV> chewable Los Angeles gunk). And lo and behold, who shows up to catch
JV> the view? A whopping seventy people. We have more folks on the TML
JV> than this. Yes... I know... the planet is corporate owned, but who
JV> really cares? Why waste a virtual paradise (at least compared to
JV> that other place) on seventy stinking corporate losers (or maybe
JV> corporate winners in this case). Ah, yes... I can see some cool
JV> scenarios... the corporate paradise. The wooing ground for potential
JV> investors. Perhaps it's just one big golf course. You tee-off from
JV> orbit.
JV> But the fact is, this would never happen. When the place gets
JV> colonized way back when, people are gonna zoom in on this little
JV> speck of rock like nothing you've ever seen, and any corporation
JV> that wants it is gonna have to pay through the nose (and a few other
JV> choice orifices) to get it.
Unless the corporation got there first. And was capable of providing enough
mercenaries to keep it private.
JV> My point: this situation shouldn't happen. It goes not only against
JV> intuition and common sense, it goes against the principle of greed,
JV> the fundamental root of human nature (yes, I'm down on humanity, but
JV> that's not the point here). The point is that this rule system is...
JV> flawed, no other way to put it. (I can see several people shaking
JV> their heads and saying "you mean you just figured this out?") Hey,
JV> I've always been a big believer in classic traveller, and the
JV> spinward marches are about as classic as you can get. But the point
JV> stands, there's something rotten in the Lanth subsector, and it
JV> mostly likely extends from the whole set of rules on UWP generation.
I disagree. Greed would be precisely why both might be the way they are.
However, I lean far more toward space opera than hard sci-fi when I'm running
FRP/SFRPs. However, there might be other factors as to why there are only 70
people on La'Belle. How about the only safe area in this paradise will house
about 70 people? I look upon the current system as the engine that makes me
use my imagination, to try to reason why an otherwise inhospitable world would
be colonized. However, that's my viewpoint and nobody else's. <grin>
JV> Think about it. You roll up some dinky little ice-ball as the main
JV> world in your star system and then you try telling me that the fact
JV> that this tiny speck of crud has no atmosphere, that it has no
JV> liquid water, and that it hasn't even a modicum (I like the word) of
JV> elbow room.... and then you try telling me it's just as likely to
JV> have 50 billion people on board as that garden terra-prime paradise
JV> just a couple of parsecs down the road. I don't think so. Yes... you
JV> can explain it away. You can say, "Oh, there's this wonderful
JV> lanthanum mine." Or you can say. "These people live here... because
JV> it's their home" (and then smile convincingly). But it doesn't work.
JV> This isn't a little inconsistency. This is whopping big one. It's
JV> gigantic. It's glaring. It's pesky and annoying (like me), but most
JV> of all, it's just plain stupid.
Nah, I'd say the little ice ball was the spiritual center of a culture and all
the populace lives ship board packed around the little ice ball either in
space stations or some other technological marvel that masks the true nature
of the ice ball (it's actually a size A world with one hell of a spacial
distortion <grin>). :-) Of course, if it's pesky and annoying to you, you
always have the option of changing the UWP. After all, when was the last time
the IISS came through here?
Chuck
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