Sleuthing Out Tlaukhu Details

Hlakhoi (-4/-2) sector, known to the ancient Terrans as Albireo.

I turned in The Aslan Hierate manuscript back at the end of October; the book is currently on the Mongoose Release Schedule for next summer. Unfortunately, I have been too busy on various projects to catch up with this poor, neglected blog.

I haven’t been completely idle on the Traveller front, though: I’ve provided a few suggested tweaks regarding Aslan Traveller generation for the upcoming revision to Aliens of Charted Space Volume 1. I’ve also been hard at work outlining a campaign book with the working title of Kith and Clan. I’m shooting for a big, sandboxy romp very much in the same vein as Pirates of Drinax, but set in Hlakhoi sector.

As part of this work I’ve been playing with the clan generation system from Clans of the Aslan, and realized I’ve never really explained how I derived many of the details for the 29 Tlaukhu members that appeared in Clans. I’ve previously discussed a bit of this in an older post on Developing the Tlaukhu.

To recap, we know from the CT Aslan Alien Module (1984) that the “Hierate includes more than 4,000 clans spread across about 7,000 worlds in 17 sectors.” Aslan world generation and published sector data indicates how many of these worlds are controlled by members of the Tlaukhu.

Unlike other types of Aslan clans, we know the names of all 29 members of the Tlaukhu, their relative ranking to each other, and their associated power bloc and the ranking of those alliances:

Tlaukhu Power Blocs

Power Bloc	Member Clans
AsT0	Yerlyaruiwo (1), Hrawoao (13), Eisohiyw (14), Ferekhearl (19)
AsT1	Khaukheairl (2), Estoieie’ (16), Toaseilwi (22)
AsT2	Syoisuis (3)
AsT3	Tralyeaeawi (4), Yulraleh (12), Aiheilar (25), Riyhalaei (28)
AsT4	Hrasua (5), Eteawyolei’ (11), Fteweyeakh (23)
AsT5	Hlyueawi (6), Isoitiyro (15)
AsT6	Uiktawa (7), Iykyasea (17), Faowaou (27)
AsT7	Ikhtealyo (8), Tlerfearlyo (20), Yehtahikh (24)
AsT8	Seieakh (9), Akatoiloh (18), We’okunir (29)
AsT9	Aokhalte (10), Sahao’ (21), Ouokhoi (26)

This information allows us to estimate additional details about the Tlaukhu members. We know from our post on Governments and Allegiances in the Hierate that there are probably about a thousand worlds (16%) completely controlled by a Tlaukhu clan. Evenly distributed, this would be about a hundred worlds per power bloc or a little more than 34 worlds per individual Tlaukhu clan.

The composition of the Tlaukhu has been fairly stable for over 3,000 years, at least in terms of individual members: most current seats have been held by the same clan since the council’s founding. We also know that members are not completely equal, as they can be ranked both individually and collectively as power blocs. So I assume the most powerful Tlaukhu members are much more powerful than the weakest ones, but not so powerful as to bully their lessers with impunity. In fact, the various blocs probably arose to address persistent power disparities.

I further assume that the best indicator of power among the Tlaukhu members is probably the number of worlds controlled. While other considerations undoubtedly influence rankings, such as honor, cultural or historical importance, or economic and military might, the sheer number of worlds under direct control is probably the clearest signal of clout.

To start, I looked at dividing up a thousand worlds between the ten power blocs. First I ordered the ten blocs by rank. I assumed that the first ranked bloc (Yerlyaruiwo) would not be more powerful than the bottom two blocs (Seieakh and Aokhalte) combined. So I assigned the first ranked bloc an arbitrary strength of 1, and the tenth ranked bloc exactly half that: 0.5. I then did just a simple linear interpolation for the remaining eight blocs. An interval of 0.05556 separated each consecutive bloc. These strengths sum to a total of 7.5, which I used to develop prorated estimates of the number of worlds controlled by each bloc:

Tlaukhu Bloc Strength and Estimated Worlds

Power Bloc	Rank	Bloc Strength	Worlds Controlled
First (Yerlyaruiwo)	1	1.00	139.20
Second (Khaukheairl)	2	0.94	131.47
Third (Syoisuis)	3	0.89	123.73
Fourth (Tralyeaeawi)	4	0.83	116.00
Fifth (Hrasua)	5	0.78	108.27
Sixth (Hlyueawi)	6	0.72	100.53
Seventh (Uiktawa)	7	0.67	92.80
Eighth (Ikhtealyo)	8	0.61	85.07
Ninth (Seieakh)	9	0.56	77.33
Tenth (Aokhalte)	10	0.50	69.60

Thus, the first (Yerlyaruiwo) bloc was estimated to control 140 worlds, while the tenth (Aokhalte) bloc was estimated to control 70. Now that we’ve estimated the number of worlds controlled by each bloc, we can further break these numbers down to individual Tlaukhu clans.

We know the number and identity of Tlaukhu clans within each bloc as well as their individual rank. I simply grouped each bloc member by relative rank within their bloc: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. As a starting estimate, I assumed the second-ranked clan controlled half the worlds of the first ranked clan, the third controlled a third, and the fourth, a fourth. This resulted in the following distribution:

World Distribution within Tlaukhu Blocs

Power Bloc	No. of Members	Worlds by Member				Total Worlds
		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
First (Yerlyaruiwo)	4	67	34	22	17	140
Second (Khaukheairl)	3	72	36	24	–	132
Third (Syoisuis)	1	124	–	–	–	124
Fourth (Tralyeaeawi)	4	56	28	19	14	117
Fifth (Hrasua)	3	59	30	20	–	109
Sixth (Hlyueawi)	2	67	34	–	–	101
Seventh (Uiktawa)	3	51	26	17	–	94
Eighth (Ikhtealyo)	3	46	23	15	–	84
Ninth (Seieakh)	3	42	21	14	–	77
Tenth (Aokhalte)	3	38	19	13	–	70

I then laid out all 29 Tlaukhu members in order. I had honestly expected the result would need a lot of hand tweaking but the raw numbers seemed pretty decent:

Tlaukhu Worlds by Clan Rank

Rank	Clan	Bloc	Worlds
1	Yerlyaruiwo	AsT0	67
2	Khaukheairl	AsT1	72
3	Syoisuis	AsT2	124
4	Tralyeaeawi	AsT3	56
5	Hrasua	AsT4	59
6	Hlyueawi	AsT5	67
7	Uiktawa	AsT6	51
8	Ikhtealyo	AsT7	46
9	Seieakh	AsT8	42
10	Aokhalte	AsT9	38
11	Eteawyolei’	AsT4	30
12	Yulraleh	AsT3	28
13	Hrawoao	AsT0	34
14	Eisohiyw	AsT0	22
15	Isoitiyro	AsT5	34
16	Estoieie’	AsT1	36
17	Iykyasea	AsT6	26
18	Akatoiloh	AsT8	21
19	Ferekhearl	AsT4	17
20	Tlerlearlyo	AsT7	23
21	Sahao’	AsT9	19
22	Toaseilwi	AsT1	24
23	Fteweyeakh	AsT4	20
24	Yetahikh	AsT7	15
25	Aiheilar	AsT3	19
26	Ouokhoi	AsT9	13
27	Faowaou	AsT6	17
28	Riyhalaei	AsT3	14
29	We’okurir	AsT8	14

Note that “worlds” here refers only to main worlds directly controlled by a single clan. Each Tlaukhu clan has a comperable number of worlds held in fief by Tlaukhu Vassal clans, as well as additional holdings on Split Control and secondary worlds. All told, the main worlds might only represent about a third of a clan’s total holdings. Knowing the number of worlds held by vassals also helps us estimate the number of vassals sworn to each Tlaukhu clan.

These numbers help explain the importance of power blocs among the Tlaukhu members. Although the Yerlyaruiwo clan individually holds only the third-highest number of worlds in the Hierate, their leadership atop the most powerful bloc helps place them as the top-ranked clan. In contrast, the Syoisuis clan, which controls almost twice the number of worlds as the next largest clan, has no allies and thus is only ranked third in the Hierate. This also explains why the clan has adopted a “studied neutrality” in Hierate politics: it is vulnerable to an attack from any two blocs.