Government in the human sense does not exist In Aslan space. There is no central authority for the Aslan as a race, and Aslan have little concept of racial unity, purpose, or pride.…The Aslan equivalent of government is best equated with social structure. The head of the family settles disputes between family members. The head of the pride or a delegated male member of his clan or a delegated vassal settles disputes between prides. —Referee’s Companion 72.
As world governments in the Aslan Hierate are all variations on feudalism, the CT alien module created alternate government codes for Aslan worlds to reflect the on-world power structures:
- G. Small Station or Facility. An off-world clan or a corporation operates a military, mining, or research base on the mainworld.
- H. Split Clan Control. Several on-world clans own different parts of the mainworld.
- J. Single On-World Clan Control. One local clan dominates the mainworld, though other small clans may also be present.
- K. Single Multi-worlds Clan Control. A single clan whose span extends over several worlds, not necessarily nearby, dominates the mainworld.
- L. Major Clan Control. One of the Tlaukhu controls the mainworld.
- M. Vassal Clan Control. A single local clan controls (but does not own) the mainworld in fief to a larger clan.
- N. Major Vassal Clan Control. A single local clan controls (but does not own) the mainworld in fief to one of the Tlaukhu.
The Aslan world generation sequence used a special table to determine government code, which was modified by population. Lower population worlds had a higher likelihood of code G, and higher population worlds had a greater likelihood of code H. The overall odds of each government are as follows:
| Government Type | % |
|---|---|
| Small station or facility | 14% |
| Split control | 17% |
| Single on-world clan control | 14% |
| Single multi-worlds clan control | 14% |
| Major clan control | 14% |
| Vassal clan control | 14% |
| Major vassal clan control | 14% |
All Hierate worlds in CT used the two-digit allegiance code “As.” MegaTraveller used the same government codes as CT but added specific allegiance codes A0 through A9 for worlds with government code L (major clan control) to identify worlds controlled by one of the ten different Tlaukhu factions, or power blocs. Although I can find no write-up of how these faction codes were assigned, looking at the data each power bloc appears to directly control roughly the same number of worlds, so I assume this was assigned using an unweighted random roll.
MgT uses the old CT government codes for Aslan worlds, but with a slightly simplified generation procedure and some alternative base codes to distinguish on-world facilities. The sector data in Pirates of Drinax, however, uses standard government codes for Hierate worlds.
The T5 Second Survey project, which reviewed and updated legacy sector data, moved away from the species-specific government codes used in the various Alien modules and replaced them with a combination of standard government codes 0-F and more detailed 4-digit allegiance codes. For Aslan space, many of these T5SS allegiance codes capture the same information used in the old CT government codes:
| Allegiance Code | Control Type |
|---|---|
| AsMw | Single multiple-world clan dominates |
| AsSc | Multiple clans split control |
| AsT0, AsT1, AsT2, AsT3, AsT4, AsT5, AsT6, AsT7, AsT8, AsT9 | Tlaukhu control |
| AsTv | Tlaukhu vassal clan dominates |
| AsVc | Vassal clan dominates |
| AsWc | Single on-world clan dominates |
| AsXX | Unknown |
As each Tlaukhu bloc seems to control roughly the same number of worlds, for convience I’ll group all ten Tlaukhu codes into a single code (“AsTX”).
Ten sectors of the Aslan Hierate have been reviewed and declared official by the T5SS: Dark Nebula, Ealiyasiyw, Hlakhoi, Iwahfuah, Reavers Deep, Riftspan Reaches, Staihaia'yo, Trojan Reach, Ustral Quadrant, and Verge. There doesn’t seem to be much documentation of how the team converted legacy data to Traveller5 standards, but the resulting sector data lets us make some educated guesses.
As an aside, I discovered a serious problem in the Staihaia‘yo data: the original data only used government codes G (small facility) and L (major clan control). The T5SS conversion masked this problem, but the resulting data that’s currently on Traveller Map has allegiances and governments so skewed I had to remove them from my analysis. At some point I’ll work up a proposed fix and submit to Joshua.
The following table demonstrates the various ways the T5SS converted a single CT Aslan code into a T5SS standard government code and a 4-digit allegiance code. Each entry shows the original government code, the new T5 allegiance, and the number of worlds that were reassigned to each new govenment code:
| Old Code | New Alleg | New Government Code | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | Total | ||
| G | Various | 7 | 49 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 132 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 196 |
| H | AsSc | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 308 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 329 |
| J | AsWc | 1 | 5 | 14 | 19 | 24 | 28 | 9 | 7 | 96 | 28 | 16 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 265 |
| K | AsMw | 4 | 3 | 12 | 21 | 40 | 28 | 5 | 4 | 93 | 36 | 21 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 288 |
| L | AsTX | 0 | 3 | 8 | 15 | 29 | 30 | 6 | 3 | 79 | 23 | 14 | 17 | 7 | 5 | 239 |
| M | AsVc | 0 | 7 | 3 | 16 | 33 | 24 | 8 | 12 | 101 | 36 | 23 | 17 | 7 | 2 | 289 |
| N | AsTv | 2 | 4 | 10 | 18 | 37 | 29 | 7 | 4 | 82 | 28 | 21 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 265 |
Most code Gs (small facilities) were reassigned to code 6 (captive) or less frequently, 1 (corporate). Most code Hs (split control) became code 7s (balkanized). All other Aslan codes appeared to have been reassigned using a weighted roll that moved most to code 8 (civil service bureaucracy), or else codes 4 (representative democracy), 5 (feudal technocracy), or 9 (impersonal bureaucracy) with much lesser chance for other codes. The T5SS conversion also enforced keeping the new government code within +/- 5 of the population code.
As seen in the table, all of the old government codes had corresponding new allegiance codes except for G (small facility or station). While the T5SS briefly introduced “AsSf,” this code appears to have been depreciated. Instead, the small facilities appear to have been randomly assigned allegiance codes. Worlds with pop 0 were often designated AsXX (unknown), while most of the others were designated as being controlled by multi-world clans:
| Allegiance | # Worlds | % |
|---|---|---|
| AsMw | 75 | 40% |
| AsSc | 35 | 19% |
| AsTX | 25 | 13% |
| AsVc | 23 | 12% |
| AsTv | 19 | 10% |
| AsXX | 7 | 4% |
| AsTz | 1 | 1% |
| AsWc | 1 | 1% |
| Total | 186 | 100% |
While I think the T5SS was correct to depreciate the AsSf code, I can envision a new allegiance code to describe worlds controlled by companies that are not tied to a single clan: “AsCo - Aslan Hierate, corporate control.” As CT Aslan notes, “Corporations are the domain of female Aslan.… For this reason, corporations are not clan-owned, since the clan is a masculine quasi-political structure” (7). (There are exceptions to this rule.) Further, some worlds with Government Code G are controlled by a corporation, “the only instance where a world is controlled by anything but a clan.” (25). Without an AsCo allegiance code we can’t quite capture worlds run by independent corporations.
Hierate Worlds by Control Type
So based on this, we can estimate the expected number of Aslan worlds of each allegiance code, which in turn helps us understand the composition of the Hierate:
| Control Type | % of Worlds | Number of Worlds | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | High | ||
| Split | 20% | 1,238 | 1,376 |
| Multi-world Clan | 19% | 1,222 | 1,358 |
| Tlaukhu bloc | 16% | 987 | 1,097 |
| Vassal Clan | 16% | 978 | 1,086 |
| Tlaukhu Vassal | 15% | 959 | 1,066 |
| On-World Clan | 14% | 879 | 977 |
| Unknown | 1% | 33 | 37 |
| Total | 100% | 6,296 | 6,996 |
As the ten power blocs within the Tlaukhu roughly control an equal number of worlds, we would expect each bloc (represented by allegiance codes AsT0 through AsT9) to hold somewhere between 98 and 110 worlds. (I’ll have a bit more on the Twenty-Nine in my next post.)
We can use the actual distribution of Aslan allegiance codes in the nine T5SS sectors to double-check our estimated distribution for the Hierate:
| AsXX | AsWc | AsTv | AsTX | AsVc | AsMw | AsSc | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sector | 1% | 14% | 15% | 15.5% | 15.5% | 19% | 20% | 100% |
| Verge | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 11 |
| Reavers Deep | 0 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 18 |
| Riftspan Reaches | 1 | 16 | 12 | 15 | 12 | 17 | 27 | 100 |
| Trojan Reach | 6 | 15 | 13 | 13 | 14 | 33 | 18 | 112 |
| Ustral Quadrant | 1 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 29 | 22 | 33 | 148 |
| Dark Nebula | 0 | 27 | 36 | 35 | 34 | 57 | 45 | 234 |
| Ealiyasiyw | 0 | 31 | 65 | 50 | 55 | 77 | 82 | 360 |
| Hlakhoi | 8 | 45 | 57 | 58 | 62 | 77 | 86 | 393 |
| Iwahfuah | 5 | 55 | 68 | 68 | 66 | 72 | 66 | 400 |
| Total | 21 | 211 | 274 | 272 | 272 | 366 | 360 | 1,776 |
| Predicted | 18 | 249 | 266 | 275 | 275 | 337 | 355 | 1,775 |
The actual numbers in the T5SS data fit the predicted numbers relatively closely. In fact, this exercise helped me spot problems with the Staihaia’yo data.
The Hierate is perhaps unique among the interstellar polities in that worlds within a single star system might regularly have different allegiance codes. Normally, all worlds within a single system would share the same allegiance. But consider Kusyu, the Aslan homeworld: the mainworld is a classic split control world (allegiance AsSc). But the secondary worlds, as described in Solomani and Aslan, vary. The innermost planet, Htealas, is also split control (AsSc), while the next planet, Iaoau, is uninhabited and apparently unclaimed (allegiance AsXX). And the third planet, Ulyei, is controlled by a corporation backed by the Tlaukhu clan Khaukheairl (allegiance AsT1).
I suspect that, given the powerful Aslan drive for territory, that the secondary worlds of systems inside Hierate space are much more likely to be developed than secondary worlds of other polities. And secondary worlds in Dark Nebula, being so close to Kusyu, are even more likely to be developed than in other Hierate sectors. But that said, even the Kusyu system has worlds too hostile or unpromising for even Aslan to lay claim.
Copyright Information
The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2021 Far Future Enterprises. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’s copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.
Materials produced by Digest Group Publications (DGP) are copyright © Roger Sanger. Any use of Digest Group Publications’ copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this Web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights. Usage is intended to follow the guidelines announced by Roger Sanger on the Traveller Mailing List for preserving the overall Traveller milieu.
No comments:
Post a Comment