Adjusting World Sizes for Atmosphere

Recently I was taking a hard look at the Traveller Map data for a handful of Aslan sectors. Afawahisa is a sparse border region three sectors from Dark Nebula and really only developed in Mongoose’s The Great Rift boxed set (2017). Given that the sector had been subject to such a recent publication I was surprised to find that the Afawahisa data was still listed on Traveller Map as “In Review.” But what does that mean?

Much of the sector data for the Charted Space setting was originally developed in the 1980s and the 1990s using a wide range of world generation methods. The resulting data was of highly varying quality and consistency, and in some cases reflected dramatically different historical periods such as The New Era setting. As people began to collect these different datasets and place them side-by-side the glaring differences in data became increasingly apparent.

For over a decade all sector data for the Official Traveller Universe has been subject to ongoing review as part of the T5 Second Survey project. The T5SS is an informal, fan-run effort originally coordinated by Don McKinney, who described it on the Citizens of the Imperium boards as “driven by Marc Miller to stabilize, correct, and control the UWPs of the OTU so that there’s a solid canon base of data for future reference.” The T5SS updated the legacy sector data to reflect both Traveller⁵ worldgen and a consistent 1105 dating. Since 2013 Joshua Bell’s Traveller Map has hosted the results.

One common change a T5SS review pass would make to sector data would be to adjust world size to reflect the Atmosphere code in the Universal World Profile. As described over on the Zhodani Base, “A problem with the random generation of worlds in Traveller is that small worlds (where size < 4) … might get an ordinary breathable atmosphere. This is a problem, since the minimum molecular weight retained for a [small] planet shouldn’t allow that.” Basically, small worlds cannot retain most atmospheres over billions of years: the constituent gases escape the gravitational pull of the planet and dissipate into space.

Don McKinney came up with a very elegant hack to fix this common problem. As he described it in comments on the Zhodani Base post, “I prefer changing the UWPs: if Atm 1/A/B/C, Size 3+; if Atm 2/3, Size 4+, and if Atm 4-9, Size 5+.” The great benefit of Don’s adjustment is that it neatly addresses the size problem without affecting the trade codes or (usually) past write-ups of the world. I was surprised to find, then, that the adjustment wasn’t made to the Afawahisa data.

Sadly, Don passed away unexpectedly in 2015 and I suspect that Afawahisa just didn’t receive a full T5SS review while The Great Rift was in development. I wanted to write this blog entry because Don’s nifty size hack was never well publicized and even today folks will occasionally wonder why Traveller Map UWPs don’t line up with the published UWPs from early GDW supplements like The Spinward Marches.

One problem with the way the size hack was generally applied to UWPs was that the Size code was often adjusted to the lowest possible result, which inadvertently created an inordinate number of worlds with Size 3 and Atmo 1, Size 4 and Atmo 2 or 3, and Size 5 with Atmo 4–9. This drove me nuts working on Magyar and Dark Nebula, and is a good example of how, when working with sector data, it’s very easy to accidentally create new problems when trying to fix old ones.

I wanted to develop a simple table that would allow me to apply Don’s hack but also introduce a random element to the revised Size code. In traditional Traveller worldgen planetary size is generated with 2D - 2, which creates a range from 0 to 10 (A) with a median result of 5. The distribution of results falls along a bell curve, with a 16.66% chance of producing a Size 5 world and a 2.77% chance of producing a Size 0 or 10 world. A Size of 5 is roughly 6 times more likely than a result of 0 or 10. Atmosphere is then generated by Size plus Flux, which can create an Atmosphere code ranging from 0 to 15 (F).

World Size Odds

World Size	Surface Gravity (Gs)	Odds
0	–	2.77%
1	0.05	5.55%
2	0.15	8.33%
3	0.25	11.11%
4	0.35	13.88%
5	0.45	16.66%
6	0.70	13.88%
7	0.90	11.11%
8	1.00	8.33%
9	1.25	5.55%
A	1.40	2.77%

To create a Size adjustment table that included some variability, I first looked at what world Sizes were appropriate for each Atmosphere code from 1 to 9. I zeroed out the inappropriate results and then prorated the percentages for the appropriate entries. The proration maintains the relative frequency of world sizes: for a world with a thin oxygen-nitrogen Atmosphere (5), a Size of 5 is still roughly 6 times more likely than a Size of A.

A trace oxygen-nitrogen Atmosphere (1), for example, requires a minimum world Size of 3 with a maximum Size of 6. So I removed results of 0–2 and 7–A and prorated the percentages for Sizes 3–6. A Size of 5 is still the most common result (30%), with a Size of 3 being the least common (20%).

Prorated Odds of World Size by Atmosphere

Atmo Code	World Size
	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A
1	20.01%	25.00%	30.00%	25.00%	-	-	-	-
2	-	25.00%	30.00%	25.00%	20.01%	-	-	-
3	-	21.74%	26.09%	21.74%	17.40%	13.04%	-	-
4	-	-	30.00%	25.00%	20.01%	15.00%	9.99%	-
5	-	-	28.58%	23.81%	19.06%	14.29%	9.52%	4.75%
6	-	-	28.58%	23.81%	19.06%	14.29%	9.52%	4.75%
7	-	-	28.58%	23.81%	19.06%	14.29%	9.52%	4.75%
8	-	-	28.58%	23.81%	19.06%	14.29%	9.52%	4.75%
9	-	-	28.58%	23.81%	19.06%	14.29%	9.52%	4.75%

I then recast the table to use a d20 to generate adjusted world Size based on Atmosphere code. (I know, I should have reformulated this as a native 2D table but a straight d20 was so much easier—and I primarily use this in an Excel lookup table.)

Adjusted World Size

1d20	Atmosphere
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5
2	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5
3	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5
4	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5
5	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	5
6	4	5	5	5	6	6	6	6	6
7	4	5	5	6	6	6	6	6	6
8	4	5	5	6	6	6	6	6	6
9	4	5	5	6	6	6	6	6	6
10	5	5	6	6	6	6	6	6	6
11	5	5	6	6	7	7	7	7	7
12	5	6	6	7	7	7	7	7	7
13	5	6	6	7	7	7	7	7	7
14	5	6	7	7	7	7	7	7	7
15	5	6	7	7	8	8	8	8	8
16	6	6	7	8	8	8	8	8	8
17	6	7	7	8	8	8	8	8	8
18	6	7	8	8	9	9	9	9	9
19	6	7	8	9	9	9	9	9	9
20	6	7	8	9	A	A	A	A	A

A world with a UWP of X164000-0 has a standard oxygen-nitrogen Atmosphere code of 6 that could not be retained with a Size of 1. To adjust the Size, roll a 1d20 and consult the column for Atmosphere 6. A result of 4 produces an adjusted Size of 5. A result of 17 produces an adjusted Size of 8.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2024 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.

Betelgeuse Sector

I was recently reading Leroy W. L. Guatney’s archived Traveller site, IISS Stellar Cartography. In the 90s and early 2000s, Leroy did a lot of development work on the trailing and rimward regions of Charted Space, particularly the Hive Federation. Many of his names for sectors appear to have been incorporated into Traveller canon.

I noticed something I hadn’t before: Leroy had named a “Betelgeuse sector” four sectors rimward of Magyar. This sector, which lies roughly 135 to 180 parsecs from Terra, is currently unnamed on Traveller Map.

The star Betelgeuse is a M1 Ia red supergiant, the tenth brightest star in the Terran sky. It is located in the constellation of Orion, which lies roughly rimward/spinward-rimward from Terra—so Leroy’s Betelgeuse sector is in the right direction relative to Terra.

Betelgeuse is normally listed as 642.5 light years (197 parsecs from Terra), which would unfortunately put the star outside the boundaries of Leroy’s Betelgeuse sector.

However, the star’s distance has been notoriously hard to pin down. A recent study found Betelgeuse to be about 25% closer than currently understood: an estimated 548 light years (168 parsecs) from Terra. And happily, this finding would put Betelgeuse squarely within Leroy’s sector, in either subsectors I/M, N, O, or P, somewhere on an arc from hex 0130 to hex 3234, plus or minus a lot, due to the vagaries of projecting 3-D stellar data unto a 2-D jump map.

Given this serendipity, I propose naming the sector located at (-1, -7) Betelgeuse. And while we’re at it, let’s place the following system in hex 1632 of that sector:

Betelgeuse Sector (-1, -7)

Hex	Name	UWP	Remarks	{Ix}	(Ex)	[Cx]	N	B	Z	PBG	W	A	Stellar
1632	Ardra	X000000-0	As Ba Va	{-3}	(500-5)	[0000]	-	-	-	000	4	NaXX	M1 Ib

Betelgeuse sector lies directly rimward of Holowon sector, and is a wilderness area only eighty parsecs removed from the edge of Charted Space. Betelgeuse would be a bright star from almost any world in Magyar sector, as well as any of the rimward sectors of the Solomani Confederation.

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.

Starship Encounters and Traveller

Here we go: three of them, small ships, above us in the well. JUNO makes them as Type Js, weird configuration. Must have been hiding on one of those little moons. They’re signaling. Anglic’s pretty bad. They want us to cease skimming . . . and proceed to low altitude to be boarded. Oh, it’s on, it’s so on.

The very name Traveller implies character mobility—and with an interstellar scope, many Traveller campaigns are run as wide area sandboxes. Sandbox games often rely on good encounter tables in order to accommodate player agency: if the players decide to go upriver instead of downriver, or venture into the mountains rather than the swamps, encounter tables help the referee respond to these decisions in real time, keeping the game moving forward.

A good encounter table should be easy to use, provide results that are interesting and useful, and reflect the game setting. It’s enlightening, then, to look at the evolution of starship encounter tables over the history of the Traveller.

Classic Traveller

Book 2 of the original 1977 edition had starship encounter tables that were significantly changed for the 1981 revision. In the 81 edition, starship encounters are determined based on Starport Class. The encounter tables in the Traveller Book (1982) are essentially the same as the ones in the 81 rules, except for the addition of safari (Type K) and laboratory (Type L) ships.

There’s a lot to like about these encounter tables, beginning with their simplicity and broad applicability. A single roll determines whether an encounter occurs and if so, the encountered ship type, whether it is a pirate or not, and whether an additional small craft is encountered.

Since every star system in Traveller has a starport code, these tables can be used anywhere and the results reflect the local context: systems with higher class starports, presumably representing higher volumes of traffic, have higher chances for encounters with a wider variety of starships than systems with lower class starports. They also tend to be better patrolled: a naval or scout base further increases the chances for an encounter with an armed ship. A system with a Class E starport, in contrast, is a reasonably risky proposition, with an 8.32% chance of encountering a pirate in a mercenary cruiser or patrol frigate. Either one would be a tough fight for a free trader.

The very same strengths of this encounter system can also be considered limitations. As I’ve noted, it’s easy to have a simple, generic starship encounter table when you have only seven different ship types. But this becomes harder and harder to do as more ship types are added to the game. And a small number of results can begin to feel redundant after a dozen jumps or so.

And unless it’s a pirate encounter, the tables give no indication of motivation or activity. All you get is a ship type: it’s a solitary noun in search of a verb. Why is this scout ship in the system right now? What is it doing? Good encounter tables should leave something for the referee’s imagination, but they don’t need to leave everything. Just a little more detail would be helpful.

Finally, starports are at best an imperfect indicator of interstellar traffic. In Traveller, starports are generated separately from mainworld population, and presumably population is an equally important driver of ship traffic. A Starport D, Population A mainworld in Core Sector is likely to have far more traffic than a Starport A, Population 2 mainworld in the Trojan Reach. The Starport X table works well for an unexplored or backwater system with no port facilities, but not so well for an interdicted mainworld that is patrolled by the Imperial Navy.

The appeal and limitation of the CT tables reflect the inherent tensions between specificity and universality in game mechanics, and between simplicity and complexity. You can have simple, universal tables for encounters in any system, but by necessity these will have very little detail and personality. Or you can create more detailed tables with much more flavor that are only applicable for specific areas or circumstances.

CT Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats (1980), tries to address some of the limitations of the earliest starship encounter tables. Encounters simply occur in any system on a 2D roll of 6+.

If an encounter is indicated, the referee then rolls on one of six different subtables, categorized by encounter groups: (1) Express Boat Network, (2) Large Miscellaneous Vessels, (3) Merchant Encounters, (4) Gunboats, (5) Small Craft, and (6) Frontier Encounters. These tables incorporate the new ship designs detailed earlier in the supplement, providing more variety in encountered ships.

Another nice thing is that this system returns not just a starship type but also a mission or motivation—a noun and a verb—and thus establishes a more dynamic setup for the encounter. For example, “Subsidized merchant (type R) on charter.” But with only eleven entries per table, the results can also become redundant after a while.

The first encounter group is not applicable to areas outside the Imperium that lack an Xboat network; the sixth group is not applicable to highly populated, interior regions of an interstellar state. But by sacrificing universality the Traders and Gunboats tables create much more flavorful results by embracing specificity, and encourages referees to do so likewise:

The referee using these encounter tables should keep in mind that these tables are not immutable; they are intended to provide a basis for starship encounters. Similar tables may be constructed for use in specific star systems, or these tables may be modified to better reflect any specific region of the referee's campaign (42).

The FASA Adventure Class Ship supplements take this idea and run with it, providing even more specialized tables. Volume 1, for example, uses encounter groups that reflect not just a specific region in Charted Space (the Zhodani border), but a specific time (the Fifth Frontier War), as illustrated just by the titles of the subtables: (1) Planet is Zhodani Controlled, (2) Planet is Imperial-Controlled but Besieged by Zhodani, (3) Planet is Imperial-Controlled but Near War Zone, (4) Planet is Near the Front Lines, and (5) General Encounters.

Volume 2, in contrast, provides tables for regional and thematic encounter groups: (1) Within the Imperium, (2) Outside the Imperium, (3) In Reaver’s Deep, (4) In Far Frontiers, (5) Small Encounters, (6) Orbital Stations.

I was somewhat surprised that The Traveller Adventure (1983), which lovingly fleshes out Aramis subsector and introduces several new starship classes, does not contain specialized starship encounter tables.

MegaTraveller and TNE

One way to balance universality and specificity is to create flowchart tables that generate complexity within a generic system. This approach is used by MegaTraveller, but unfortunately the encounter system is confusingly split between the Referee’s Handbook and Imperial Encyclopedia (both 1987).

The Referee’s Handbook table for “Space Encounters” works much like the CT encounter tables. The referee makes one 2D roll, modified by starport, bases, and population. The result determines whether an encounter occurs—but rather than return a specific starship, it directs the referee to different encounter group subtables in the Imperial Encyclopedia.

The encounter groups are Merchant, Civilian, Non-Starship, Xboat, Scout, or Naval. Each group has associated subtables for specific ship type and mission. (Irritatingly, one has to go back to pages 38–39 of the Referee’s Handbook for an explanation of the various missions.) A final table determines the ship’s disposition. If the mission tells why the ship is in system, the determination tells what the ship is doing (coming, going, waiting, etc.). Using these flowcharts, you might roll a civilian encounter which consists of a “Yacht” on “Pleasure Tour” making a “Hasty Departure” from the system.

MegaTraveller Journal 4 (1993) contains, without any commentary, an updated and streamlined version of the encounter tables that fits on a single page. Nothing earth-shattering, but much better usability than the tables in the core books.

TNE Uses a very similar system to MegaTraveller, though the results are modified for the New Era setting. So it’s possible to roll both quarantine and vampire encounters.

The beauty of the MT/TNE encounter system is that it generates fairly robust, varied starship encounters with only a little more complexity than CT.

T4, Traveller Hero, and Traveller⁵

None of these systems, as far as I can tell, have starship encounter tables.

T20

Although the T20 ship list is fairly similar to CT, this edition uses its own starship encounter system with some interesting new twists. The chances of a T20 encounter are roughly similar to CT, with class A or B starports having more chances for an encounter than lower class starports.

If an encounter is indicated, the referee rolls on a table of encounter groups modified by starport class, bases, and interestingly, the players’ cargo: the more valuable the cargo, the more likely pirates are encountered. T20 has six encounter groups: (1) Pirate Vessel, (2) Merchant Vessel or Liner, (3) System Defense Vessel, (4) Other Vessel or Craft, (5) Scout Service Vessel, and (6) Navy Vessel.

Each T20 encounter group has a flowchart of subtables, very similar to MT but with a little more flavor. A Pirate Vessel encounter, for example, could constitute four Type S scout/courier ships lying in ambush for ships skimming the local gas giant; they will order the PCs to heave to and be boarded or they will automatically attack.

It seems notable that pirate vessels have their own set of flowchart tables. In T20, a ship carrying highly valuable speculative cargo (worth MCr10+ per ton) in a system with a Class E starport has a 7% chance of encountering a pirate (20% of an encounter, and 35% of that encounter being with a pirate), which is roughly comparable to the 8.32% chance in CT.

I can see the logic in having cargo value influence the odds of a pirate encounter. Smart pirates probably bribe or extort starport brokers, fences, technicians, and customs officers to report any vulnerable merchants carrying valuable cargoes. The pirates probably get tipped off long before system control receives a flight plan.

T20 assumes that a pirate encounter might involve 1–4 pirate ships, while other editions generally assume that an encounter is with a single ship. Multiple pirate ships make complete sense: after all, pirates should be expected to play unfair.

The T20 encounter system produces results with a good balance of detail and broad applicability. The book also has a thoughtful section on “Fleshing Out Starship Encounters” which is well worth the read.

GURPS Traveller

Neither the GURPS Traveller core rules nor Starships supplement have generic starship encounter tables, but GT: Behind the Claw has tables specific to the Spinward Marches. The GT books are generally faithful to the spirit of CT/MT, but are often have mechanics just different enough to make me reconsider some familiar game elements.

The Behind the Claw tables are divided into five different encounter groups: (1) Main Shipping Route, (2) Feeder Route, (3) Backwater System, (4) Frontier System, and (5) Outer System. The first three groups map directly to CT starport codes, but the last category is new and compelling. Even in a high traffic system, an encounter in the outer system is probably more like one in a low traffic system than an encounter within the 100 diameter limit of the mainworld.

Each category table determines the type of ship encountered: (1) Scout Vessels, (2) Navy Vessels, (3) Large Merchant Vessels, (4) Small Merchant Vessels, (5) Port Authority Vessels, (6) Local Commercial Vessels, (7) Alien/Non Imperial, and (8) Miscellaneous Private Vessels.

While most of these subtables map directly to MT encounter groups, the Alien/Non-Imperial table is also new and worth consideration. This table is very specific to the Marches with Darrians, Zhodani, Vargr, and so on. A similar table for Magyar sector would look very different with Aslan, Solomani, and maybe Wuan or Vegan encounters.

Finally, the BtC system has a Destination table similar to the MT Disposition table. Putting all of this together, we could generate a Backwater System encounter with a Sword World merchant leaving port.

Mongoose Traveller

Both 1st and 2nd edition Mongoose Traveller forego “Starship Encounters” for a more generic D66 table of “Space Encounters” that include starship encounters alongside unusual events such as “solar flare,” “asteroid,” or “collision with space junk.” Since the MgT core books are a generic sci-fi system only loosely tied to the Third Imperium setting, such a generic table makes some sense, though this is probably the least satisfying approach of any edition—somehow feeling simultaneously too generic and too specific, with only 36 potential results.

But that said, some of the non-spacecraft results could certainly make for interesting game encounters. I might be inclined to use some of these events for botched pilot or astrogation rolls:

• Derelict vessel
• Dumped cargo pod
• Escape pod
• Micrometeorite storm
• Rogue satellite or navigational buoy
• Solar flare
• Space junk

Closing Thoughts

Surveying the various starship encounter systems across editions, all had some compelling elements. For my money, the MegaTraveller system probably represents the best balance of trade offs—though I was surprised by the strengths of the T20 system. As I develop my own encounter tables for Magyar sector, I’ll probably look to all of these systems for inspiration.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 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.

A Guide to Minsk

The Minsk mainworld. Planetary data courtesy of the Solomani Ministry of Information (1099).

The Reavers led by Admiral Pranee Roydon had sacked at least eight worlds of the Terran Mercantile Community before turning spinward in -1457. When her rag-tag fleet entered the Minsk system she expected to find easy pickings. Instead, she found her doom. —The Savage Main: Dark Nebula and Magyar Sectors, 3rd Ed. Farstar Publishing (Marlheim: 1095).

Minsk (Magyar 1512 C7319BB-C). Amber Zone. High Population, Non-Agricultural, Poor. Capital of the New Slavic Solidarity, a member-state of the Solomani Confederation.

Minsk has successfully defended itself against would-be raiders and conquerors for over 3,000 years of recorded history. The inhabitants are notably stubborn, independent, and wary of outsiders—but also industrious, innovative, and fiercely loyal to their friends. The Slavs generally do not hold to the racial prejudices common within the Confederation, and non-Solomani travellers should find Solidat worlds relatively safe and accommodating destinations.

System Data

The Minsk system is located in the Minsky Cluster, an astrographic grouping of twenty-six systems located in Eery (B), New Town (F), and Voyager (G) subsectors of Magyar. The Cluster is located entirely within the borders of the Solomani Confederation.

Primary Mati. Spectral Class F2 V. Mass 1.48 M☉. Stellar Radius 1.67 R☉. 100 Diameter Limit 1.55 AU. Luminosity 6.0 L☉. Absolute Magnitude +2.793.

Minsk System Navigation Data

Orbit	Name	UWP	Remarks
Primary	Mati	F2 V
1	Pirsi	YDB0000-0	Tz
2	Zodino	YA30000-0
3	Grodno	Y901000-0
5	Minsk	C7319BB-C	Hi Na Po Cp Pz
8	Aposni	YDB5000-0
IS Form 11		Star System Data

The Minsk system has no planetoid belts or gas giants; the mainworld is the only significant source of fuel and the only inhabited planet. This allows Minsk defense forces to concentrate on defending a single world. Belters work the distant Kuiper Belt for supplemental sources of water, and fuel tankers regularly shuttle between the mainworld and the extreme outer system.

Minsk has a small, irregular moon, Kameshek, approximately 97 km in diameter with a striking red color due to the presence of sulphur on the surface. The moon has a highly eccentric orbit at approximately 27,000 km. Minsk maintains a small planetary navy base on Kameshek with a fuel depot and repair facilities.

The Minsk-Mati L4 Lagrange point, popularly known as Witness Point, serves as a grim warning to any travellers entering the system. Over the centuries the Slavs have towed the shattered hulls of all felled raiders and invaders to this location, which is now filled with ancient wrecks, swirling junk, and desiccated corpses.

Planetary Data

Mean Orbital Radius 382.97 million km (2.56 AU). Period 768 days 14h 53m. Rotation Period 16h 50m 24s. Axial Inclination 16° 19′ 12″. Diameter 10,658 km. Mass 0.60 M🜨. Density 5.7 g/cm³. Mean Surface Gravity 0.86g. Escape Velocity 9,474 m/s. Surface Atmospheric Pressure 0.345 atm. Composition Very thin oxygen nitrogen. Hydrographic Percentage 12%. Mean Surface Temperature 6.42° C.

Minsk is a cool, dry, medium-sized planet with only a very thin oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. There is no native life and most Terran plants can only be grown in domed habitats.

The planet’s major waterbodies are all grouped in a single hemisphere. The largest waterbody, the Severny Sea, is located in the northern hemisphere while the smaller Yuzhny and Vuzki seas are in the southern hemisphere.

Most settlements are clustered around these waterbodies. Because water is relatively rare within the system, Minsk has extensive water recycling systems onworld. The dry hemisphere, known as the Minsk Outback, is largely uninhabited beyond scattered mining settlements.

World Map Grid
World Name (and UWP) Minsk C7319BB-C	Subsector and Sector Location of World New Town/Magyar
Date of Preparation 113-1102	Hexagon Scale (km) 1,005
IS Form 8-G	Size 7 World Map Grid

Socio-Political Data

Total World Population 4.43 billion. Primary Cities Tsentr, 232 million; Korolya, 159 million; Fedorov, 67 million; Kir, 53 million; Yermolai, 47 million. World Government Non-Charismatic Dictator (Minsk Implementing Committee). Law Level Extreme (rigid control of civilian movement). Tech Level Average Stellar (C). Primary Trade Goods Raw ores and crystals, processed metals, and manufactured parts, durables, and consumables.

Novislav (Language)

The official language of the New Slavic Solidarity, a descendant of several ancient Terran languages, including Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and others from the Eastern European region. Novislav is notable for preserving use of the Cyrillic alphabet, which is nearly unknown outside of the Solomani Sphere. On Solidat worlds without Slavic populations, other ethnically derived languages are common.

Terran émigrés from various Eastern European nation-states, fleeing the cultural hegemony of the Terran Confederation, first settled the Minsky Cluster during the Interstellar Wars. These unsanctioned and unsupported colonies initially struggled with harsh conditions and relatively low technology levels, but eventually stabilized and began expanding to new systems. By -2000 Minsk was colonized by the neighboring garden world of Ogorod (Magyar 1411) and soon grew into an industrial center for the Cluster.

During the Long Night, Reavers and Aslan terrorized the Cluster with threats of devastating raids. Fortunately, the worlds of the Cluster had retained a small fleet of jump-capable ships and organized themselves into a mutual defense and trade coalition. The coalition proved highly effective at staving off raiders and developed a reputation for its unwavering defense of Cluster worlds—a reputation that remains intact today.

This coalition was formalized in the landmark Minsk Treaty of -1377, which laid out the constitutional foundations of a Slavic multi-world polity. The principal architect of the Treaty, Zoya Gorodok, is widely considered the mother of the modern Solidarity.

The coalition preserved trade and cultural links that gave rise to an entirely new Neoslavic identity, an amalgamation of disparate Eastern European cultures and languages. Slavic culture exhibits an extremely high level of social cooperativeness and emphasizes self-sacrifice and civic duty.

The Slavs emerged from the Long Night as the Neoslavic Bloc, a multi-world polity strong enough to stand against the Aslan clans or other Magyar states. The Bloc, valuing its hard-won independence, spurned overtures from both the Third Imperium and the reinvigorated Old Earth Union. While the Slavic worlds never joined the Imperium, they would become signatories to the Solomani Charter of Confederation in 871: the Slavs considered the Confederation an important counterbalance to the Aslan clans to spinward and the Imperial megacorporations to trailing.

The New Slavic Solidarity was established in 892 with a constitution that preserved the independence of member worlds as well as its citizens’ civil liberties. The Solidarity has generally rejected the racial policies of the Solomani Movement and welcomes non-Slavic, non-Solomani, and even non-Humans into their communities. The Solidarity also extends protections to clones and synthetics.

The Slavic-Dootchen Wars

The Slavic and Dootchen worlds have probably launched hundreds of cross-border raids and engaged in dozens of low-intensity conflicts over the years. But they have also fought three full-blown wars since the end of the Long Night:

First Slavic-Dootchen War (337–338). Tralp opened this war with a surprise invasion of the Minsky Cluster, quickly capturing Nethery (1612), Namedih (1713), and Headley (1714) before entering the Minsk system. Tralp forces landed on the mainworld and quickly seized the city of Kir but became bogged down in a brutal nine month siege of Tsentr. Only the intervention of the Old Earth Union broke the stalemate.

Second Slavic-Dootchen War (784–787). During the Solomani Autonomous Region period the Dootchen Estates launched a lightning offensive through Nethery (1612), Roblig (1513), and Zhenya (1412), finally capturing the Slavic breadbasket of Ogorod (1411). Over the next 26 months the Slavs conducted a grinding counter-offensive that steadily drove the Dootchens back, recapturing Namedih (1713) and Headley (1714) before Tralp sued for peace.

Third Slavic-Dootchen War (1073). The Reformed Dootchen Estates, still recovering from the Solomani Rim War, quickly grabbed Namedih (1713) and Headley (1714) but encountered stiff Solidat resistance on Nethery (1612). After nearly 6 months of intense ground fighting, Solidat Major General Iliana Mugato skillfully negotiated a cease-fire before Confederation Army forces arrived.

The Solidarity is wary of increasing interference by the Solomani Confederation government in Solidat internal affairs. While the Solidarity maintains strong relations with the Wuan Technology Association, they have clashed repeatedly with the neighboring Dootchen Estates. Despite the Solidarity’s smaller population, its higher technology level and superior organization have generally allowed it to hold its own in these conflicts. The Solidats are repelled by the Estates’ use of chattel slavery and have provided safe haven to escaped bondmen.

As of 1100 Minsk is the Solidat capital and contains approximately 60% of the Solidarity’s population. Like all Solidat worlds Minsk has an exemplary civil defense system, able to quickly respond to military invasions as well as natural disasters ranging from viral pandemics to earthquakes to asteroid strikes. General Secretary Wolfe reportedly used Minsk as his model for the Solomani Home Guard system.

Minsk civil authorities are engaged in near constant planning and drills in anticipation of various emergencies. The entire planet is honeycombed with fortified shelters said to be stocked with enough food and medical supplies to sustain the entire population for years.

The Solidats are extremely wary of electronic communication systems, and use only hardened, distributed networks that are resistant to hacking or datacaster attacks. These relatively primitive systems also limit the ability of Solomani Security to monitor Solidat citizens.

Although not classified as an industrial world, Minsk has abundant deposits of ores and crystals and remains a manufacturing center for the Solidarity. Approximately 7 million tons of cargo and 300,000 passengers pass through the Minsk starport per year; most of this traffic consists of Solidat flagged ships. The Class C highport, Lida Station, contains a Solidat museum commemorating the most storied defenders from Minsk history.

Minsk is ruled by an overwhelmingly popular Implementing Committee, which directs the agencies of the world government. The mainworld has a relatively high law level that can feel constraining to outsiders: even minor anti-social behaviors can incur civil penalties ranging from fines to incarceration. Minsk citizens are generally able to navigate these regulations without significant problems, but the mainworld has an Amber Zone travel advisory to alert unwary travellers.

The Congress of the New Slavic Sodality is located in the city of Tsentr. The current Premier of the Solidarity, Tamara Mironova, is a charismatic leader who has held the office since 1098.

Military Data

Solidat Integration

Normally, military units in the Confederation are segregated between Solomani and non-Solomani personnel. The Solidarity, however, has rejected these racial prejudices even though a substantial proportion of the Solidat population are pure strain Solomani. The Solidat military does not segregate military units by race or species, so mixed-heritage Humans serve alongside Solomani, uplifted Apes and Dolphins, and even Aslan. As such, Solidat units are rarely deployed outside New Town subsector.

The Solidarity has a long and distinguished military tradition that stretches from the Long Night to present day. As a loyal member-state of the Confederation, the Solidarity is allowed to maintain and direct the combined military forces for all sixteen Solidat worlds. The Army of the New Slavic Solidarity, with headquarters on Minsk, consists of four TL9 field armies, three TL11 field armies, and two TL13 field armies, along with approximately three times that number in Home Guard Army reserve units. These forces generally remain within Solidarity space unless activated by the Confederation. Minsk also hosts the Solidat Military Academy for Planetary Actions.

Minsk sponsors two Solidat armies as well as six Home Guard armies. With assistance from the Solidat and Confederation governments, Minsk maintains all of its military forces at TL13, the median level for regular Confederation units. The mainstays of the Solidat armies are the Bucephalus grav armored infantry fighting vehicle and the Ziska medium grav tank. In 1096 Minsk armored units began employing the TL13 Kolesnitsa light grav tank. Designed and manufactured by Roblig Military Industries, the Kolesnitsa is relatively cheap to produce at a common Solomani technology level and as such has drawn the interest of Confederation Army planners.

The Minsk Combined Arms Army includes the 404th "Double Eagle" Armored Infantry Division and 280th "White Star" Rifle (lift infantry) Division. These elite units are backed by 14 lift infantry divisions, 3 grav tank divisions, and 2 armored infantry divisions.

The Minsk Tank Army comprises the 331st "Mother Bear" Armored Infantry Division and the 176th "Blue Banner" Tank Division. These elite units are backed by 9 lift infantry divisions, 8 grav tank divisions, 2 armored infantry divisions, and 1 lift cavalry division.

The four elite Minsk divisions also double as regular Confederation Army units, with approximately half the troops drawn from across the Confederation—with many originating from the non-Solidat world of Ekar (Magyar 1018 C7839DE-8). The Confederation Army maintains its New Town subsector headquarters on Minsk.

The Solidat Navy consists of five TL13 squadrons, largely composed of Rim War-era ships. The Minsk Squadron is anchored by 4 Minsk-class heavy cruisers and 6 Tau Ceti-class destroyers, plus support ships. Although the ships are old they are extremely well maintained and each carries a long and illustrious history of service.

The Minsk Home Guard Navy consists of twenty wings of Viper-class fighters, four wings of Orekh-class 300-ton SDBs, two wings of Oplot-class 600-ton SDBs, and twenty Valiant-class 3,000-ton monitors.

Any invasion force that overcame Minsk’s naval defenses would then have to contend with the planetary Close Orbit and Airspace Control Command (COACC), which is largely controlled by the Minsk Home Guard Army. The Home Guard is divided into four lift infantry armies and two grav tank armies, with two divisions on active duty at all times.

Minsk COACC forces include four wings of Orekh-class SDBs, two wings of orbital patrol fighters, and scores of Strazh-class robotic orbital battle stations. COACC units also man Minsk’s numerous deep meson gun sites and mobile laser and plasma gun batteries, as well as the mainworld’s formidable missile defense system. The Solidats have developed deadly TL12 Strelka kinetic kill (KK) missiles that utilize kinetic rather than explosive energy, and are able to destroy even heavily armored targets in far orbit.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 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.

A Guide to Tralp

The Tralp mainworld. Planetary data courtesy of the Solomani Ministry of Information (1099).

Travellers should carefully weigh the risks before entering any system held by the Reformed Dootchen Estates and in particular the high population world of Tralp. The Travellers’ Aid Society urges Imperial citizens to treat any Confederation world as an Amber Zone and has issued a specific advisory bulletin for the Estates due to its racial purity policies. Non-Human sophonts and non-Solomani Humans may be subject to harassment, detention, and even violence while within its borders. —The Savage Main: Dark Nebula and Magyar Sectors, 3rd Ed. Farstar Publishing (Marlheim: 1095).

Tralp (Magyar 1913 D968998-8). Pre-Rich, High Population. Member of the Reformed Dootchen Estates, a member-state of the Solomani Confederation.

One of the most polarizing worlds in all of Charted Space, Tralp is revered by its admirers and reviled by its critics in almost equal measure. The world is the cultural heart of the Reformed Dootchen Estates, one of the few remaining polities to openly engage in chattel slavery, a practice explicitly outlawed by Article VI of the Imperial Warrant of Restoration. Militaristic and expansionistic, Tralp is championed by racial purity factions of the Solomani Party while condemned as a pariah state by the Imperium.

System Data

The Tralp system is located in the Tralp Cluster, a small astrographic grouping of five stars located in Voyager (G) subsector of Magyar. The Cluster is located only a few parsecs from the Third Imperium, within the borders of the Solomani Confederation.

Primary Moderster. Spectral Class K5 V. Mass 0.65 M☉. Stellar Radius 0.715 R☉. 100 Diameter Limit 0.67 AU. Luminosity 0.17 L☉. Absolute Magnitude +6.65.

Tralp System Navigation Data

Orbit	Name	UWP	Remarks
Primary	Moderster	K5 V
0	Skroi	YBC1000-0	Tz
1	Grood	FC55665-2	Fa Ho Tz
2	Tralp	D968998-8	Hi Pr
	Aitan	F311665-9	Sa
3	Stort	Y9A5569-8	Pe Co
4	Koe	Y000100-7
5	Roi	Size V LGG
6	Gron	Size M SGG
7	Gris	Size P IG
8	Verwerld	H101331-7	Fr
IS Form 11		Star System Data

In addition to the mainworld, the Tralp system features several notable secondary worlds. Grood is a hot, tidally-locked, high gravity farming world orbiting the primary at 0.25 AU. Tralp’s only moon, Aitan, has a Class F spaceport that actually sees more traffic than the primitive Class D downport on the mainworld surface. Stort is a cold, large world with a very thick nitrogen-helium atmosphere, orbiting at 0.77 AU. Tralp uses the world as a dreaded penal colony and Solomani Security is rumored to maintain a black site somewhere onworld.

Planetary Data

Mean Orbital Radius 64.3 million km (0.43 AU). Period 195 days. Rotation Period 35h 47m 24s. Axial Inclination 14° 51′ 66″. Diameter 14,011 km. Mass 1.41 M🜨. Density 5.9 g/cm³. Mean Surface Gravity 1.17g. Escape Velocity 12.722 km/s. Surface Atmospheric Pressure 1.19 atm. Composition standard oxygen-nitrogen. Hydrographic Percentage 84%. Mean Surface Temperature 21.56° C.

The Tralp mainworld is sometimes described as superhabitable: slightly older, larger, wetter, and warmer than Terra, the planet supports a vibrant native ecosystem that is broadly compatible with Terran life. Most of Tralp’s landmass is concentrated in a single supercontinent divided into four distinct subcontinents: Ooslin, Hartlan, and Weslin are generally located in the northern hemisphere, while Berglan is primarily located in the southern hemisphere. Two large islands in the southern hemisphere are often classed as small continents: Dane, located south of Osslin, and Laurika, located south of Weslin. The great, deep Gevarlik Ocean stretches from pole to pole and touches all six continents. The smaller, shallow Hawin Sea lies along the eastern coasts of Hartlan and Berglan and the western coasts of Ooslin and Dane.

All native life on Tralp is water-based, dominated by a diverse and abundant range of plant-like forms that occupy ecological niches similar to Terran plants. Most of these plants utilize a form of photosynthesis and are notable for the vibrant red and purple coloration of their leaves, which give Tralp its distinct appearance. The fertile plains of Hartlan have a variety of grasses, including the iconic savannas of tralpstalk. The equatorial canopy jungles of Dane and western Berglan teem with life.

Tralp has only one phylum of animal life, viervoetia, strange four limbed creatures most closely resembling the Terran starfish. They have hydrostatic skeletons and relatively simple anatomies; many utilize defensive neurotoxins and so are inedible to Terran life. The phylum has proven astonishingly adaptable, producing entire families of burrowers, crawlers, and swimmers. And while Tralp does not appear to have evolved any true fliers, some viervoetia are gliders, able to soar through forested areas.

World Map Grid
World Name (and UWP) Tralp D968998-8	Subsector and Sector Location of World Voyager/Magyar
Date of Preparation 223-1102	Hexagon Scale (km) 1,005
IS Form 8-J	Size 9 World Map Grid

History

Timeline

Year	Event
-2408	The Interstellar Wars begin between Terra and the First Imperium.
-2348	Terrans survey Tralp system.
-2323	Terran Confederation émigrés establish a colony on Tralp.
-2219	End of Interstellar Wars era and defeat of First Imperium.
-2204	Military coup replaces Terran Confederation with the Rule of Man.
-2000	Scattered Terran colonies now well-established throughout Magyar.
-1850	Long Night begins in Magyar as contact is lost with Rule of Man capital.
-1700	Aslan explorers out of Dark Nebula venture into Magyar.
-1690	Terran Mercantile Community established on Terra.
-1500	Long Night deepens. Reaver and Aslan fleets raid throughout Magyar. Tralp seizes Giiri Cluster.
-1400	Tralp institutes racial caste system on its occupied worlds.
-1200	Terran Mercantile Community withdraws from Magyar.
-1120	Aslan Border Wars begin.
-1100	Reaver activity slows and eventually stops.
-500	Tralp establishes a pocket empire. Aslan begin seizing spinward Magyar worlds.
-242	Aslan expansion is checked by Tralp and other Magyar states.
0	Foundation of the Third Imperium.
150	Imperial scouts reach the coreward regions of Magyar.
180	Old Earth Union recontacts Magyar worlds.
212	Magyar states drive many Aslan clans out of the sector. Treaty of Dark Nebula is signed.
374	Four major and 16 minor Aslan clans declare war on Old Earth Union, Tralp, and additional Magyar states.
378	Third Imperium signs Peace of Ftahalr with major Aslan clans, ending Aslan Border Wars.
400	Many worlds in Magyar are abosorbed by expanding Third Imperium. Tralp resists pressure to join.
704	Solomani Autonomous Region formed.
850	Solomani political theory becomes increasingly racist and chauvinistic. Tralp’s influence grows.
871	Solomani Confederation founded with its capital on Terra.
920	Tralp pocket empire reorganizes as the Dootchen Estates.
990	Solomani Rim War begins.
1001	Imperial forces raid Estates and sack Tralp. Estates collapse.
1002	Solomani Rim War ends with defeat of the Confederation. An armed insurgency emerges on Tralp.
1007	Dootchen Estates reform.
1016	Tralp security forces crush onworld insurgency.
1065	Estates seize Last Pine but withdraw after Imperial Navy captures Tralp. Estates capital moved to Dreesen.

Tralp was first colonized during the Interstellar Wars by cultural dissidents who refused to assimilate into the Terran Confederation. The initial settlers, consisting of some 500 families, envisioned Tralp as an agricultural world: they divided the planet into separate estates. The colonists employed a crude slash-and-burn technique to clear land for Terran crops, which had difficulty competing with native Tralpean plants. Combating the native flora created an incessant economic drive for additional land and labor as well as regular chemical supplements and pesticides.

As the Rule of Man collapsed and technology levels crashed, the population of the Tralp exploded and the world began preying on neighboring systems, seizing technological resources and laying claim to entire worlds. The first worlds to fall were located in the Girii Cluster, nine systems centered on the high-population Vilani world of Girii, now known as Ownes (Magyar 1917). By -1400 the Tralpean occupiers had stripped the Vilani inhabitants of their property and instituted a cruel racially-based class structure that grew only more stratified as the Long Night deepened.

By -500 Tralp and its subject worlds formed a pocket empire strong enough to push back against the Aslan and the neighboring Neoslavic Bloc. While never a true naval power, Tralp maintained formidable ground armies to seize and hold new worlds. The fabled Azlaantroepe were elite armored units said to have been specifically created to combat Aslan raiders.

The arrival of the Third Imperium represented a significant threat to Tralp as surrounding worlds clamored for Imperial protection. The case for intervention was strengthened by the Tralp’s brazen use of chattel slavery, anathema to Imperial sensibilities. By 400 most of the surrounding worlds joined the Imperium while Tralp stood alone.

Tralp was encouraged by the creation of the Solomani Autonomous Sphere in 704 and became a strong advocate for formation of the Solomani Confederation in 871. This new government allowed Tralp and its subject worlds to join the Confederation as a powerful member-state. Tralp’s unsavory racial politics and enthusiasm for military intervention soon made the Estates the darling of more radical elements within the Solomani Party, and the Estates enjoyed an unusual degree of influence within the larger Confederation.

During the Solomani Rim War the Dootchen Estates were specifically singled out as an example to other Confederation worlds. The Imperial 9th Provisional Battle Fleet destroyed Tralp’s Class B starport and left the capital city of Tralpstad a smoldering ruin. After razing Tralp the 9th Fleet then harassed other Dootchen worlds until the Estates collapsed at the end of 1001. The Estates reformed in 1007, but were much diminished.

Tralp spent the next decade combating a tenacious onworld insurgency that had been initially encouraged by the Imperium. However, by 1016 the Imperium had abandoned the remaining insurgents, who were ruthlessly crushed by Tralpean security forces.

Over the next 50 years the Estates rebuilt and slowly regained influence within the Confederation, but not before one final setback. In 1065 the Estates invaded and occupied the Imperial system of Last Pine (Magyar 2312). In retaliation the Imperials dispatched the 413th BatRon and 105th AssaultRon to Tralp. The Imperial force quickly overcame system defenses, destroyed the newly rebuilt Class B starport, and stood off in high orbit above the mainworld. The Confederation was unusually slow to mount a response: within a month the Estates withdrew from Last Pine and the Imperials pulled out of Tralp. Shortly thereafter the capital of the Estates was moved to Dreesen (Magyar 1916).

Socio-Political Data

Total World Population 2.69 billion. Primary Cities Rodolph, 6.6 million; Magdalena, 3.9 million; Tralpstad, 2.3 million; Koen, 1.6 million; Mirte, 1.3 million. World Government Impersonal Bureaucracy (Tralpean Assembly). Law Level High (blade weapons controlled, no open display). Tech Level Pre-Stellar (8). Primary Trade Goods Agricultural, Minerals, Manufactured Goods.

Dootchen (Language)

The primary language of Tralp, where it originated, Dootchen is a distant variant of ancient Terran German with many Anglic loanwords. Dootchen is the official language of the Estates, where all other languages beyond Rim Anglic are strictly prohibited. Dootchen is common within Voyager subsector but rarely spoken outside it.

Low Dootchen is a spoken dialect used exclusively by bondmen, marked by syntactic fluidity as well as the preservation of numerous ancient Vilani words.

As of 1100, Tralp clings to its odious caste system despite intense criticism from outside the Estates. Tralpean society is divided into three hereditary classes, with virtually no upward movement and only occasional downward movement between the classes.

Approximately 60% of Tralp’s population are bondmen (slaf), who are considered the personal property of their owners. Bondmen, primarily descended from Vilani, lack the fundamental rights normally accrued to sophonts and can be bought, sold, or traded. Bondmen are generally used for menial labor, typically on vast agricultural estates.

Approximately 30% of Tralp’s population are freeman (vriman), who have rudimentary rights but do not own land and thus have no political representation. Most Freemen are found in urban areas, often employed by industrial or mercantile concerns.

Finally, some 10% of Tralp’s population belongs to the landowner (grondinar) class, who are exclusively of pure Solomani ancestry. Land is the fundamental measure of wealth and influence on Tralp: only landowners are able to own land and bondmen; only landowners are entitled to participate in Tralp’s government. Tralpean culture is not simply racist, but also deeply sexist: land can only be passed to male heirs and distinct gender roles are strongly enforced.

Tralp is governed by an Assembly of Landholders, which is headed by Secretary-General Henrik Peerts. The Secretary-General oversees the ministries and also appoints planetary representatives to the Dootchen Estates Senate on Dreesen.

Tralp also has an independent court system, expressly designed to validate, enforce, and perpetuate the caste system. As the landowner class lives in constant fear of a violent uprising from the bondmen, Tralp law gives considerable deference to landowners but imposes strict limits on bondmen and freemen. Only landowners, for example, are allowed to own personal firearms and enjoy freedom of movement between different provinces.

Although offworld activists have long dreamt of rekindling an insurgency on Tralp, the Ghenzi, the Dootchen Secret Police, are a highly effective internal security force with a counterintelligence program that rivals Solomani Security. Ghenzi agents are feared for both their ruthlessness and brutal interrogation techniques.

Despite the oppressive law levels imposed upon its own citizens, the Estates openly flout interstellar law. Technologies, products, and practices outlawed by neighboring systems can often be purchased at the starports of the Estates, which are rumored to be havens for pirates operating in Imperial space. The Estates mint their own currency, the Dootchen Stater: platinum coins worth approximately Cr1200. Although illegal in the Imperium, the stater is favored by criminals on both sides of the border due to its portability and easy conversion.

Tralp’s extremist racial policies draw sympathetic tourists from throughout the Solomani Sphere, including disaffected Imperials. All are drawn to a romanticized world that defied the Imperium and has embraced a destiny of racial purity. Tralp and the Solomani Party actively encourage these travellers if they are genetically pure Solomani.

Although not classified as an agricultural world, Tralp’s identity and primary economic products are closely associated with agriculture. Tralp settlers required centuries to domesticate any of the native plants, but the primary crops now are a native sugar grass (sukregrass) and starchy tuber (gronbeet). Other important agricultural products are the rundlebeast, a Terran beef cattle bred for Tralp, and Tralpean shiraz, a highly regarded wine.

The mountains of central Berglan contain significant mineral resources and the mines, some of which have been worked for hundreds of years, continue to produce tremendous wealth for the landowners. Large factory complexes ring all of the large cities and towns of Tralp, churning out inexpensive and relatively low quality consumer goods.

Tralp has only a high pre-stellar tech level but the state-owned Koenwapen corporation is renowned for its personal slug-throwers and combat armor. Koenwapen products such as the EON heavy assault shotgun or the KW-8 bullpup SMG are favored by mercenaries throughout Magyar sector.

Miltary Data

Dootchen Armored Units

A mainstay of the Estates’ ground units are Renoster V heavy grav tanks, TL14 monstrosities manufactured by Cloete Systems on Dreesen. This model, introduced in 1088, is a little heavier and better armored than the Sartorius, the standard heavy grav tank of the Solomani Confederation Army. A Renoster V is equipped with a rapid-pulse 74 MJ fusion gun and is expected to stand up against the new Imperial main battle tank, rumored to be entering service some time before 1110. Renoster Vs are direct descendants of the famed Renosters used in the Solomani Rim War and said to share the same resilience and reliability as their predecessors.

Under the supervision of the Solomani Confederation, the Estates control the combined Home Guard forces of all member worlds. Frequently activated for call-ups, Solomani Party propaganda touts the fearsome reputation of the Army of the Reformed Dootchen Estates. Most sons of the landowner class are sent to Dootchen military academies at age seven for ten rigorous years of education. Some of these academies, such as the Mirte Institute, are so prestigious that Party members from across the Confederation pay dearly to have their own sons attend. All male landowners are expected to provide at least five years of military service before their 30th birthday, and many volunteer for even longer terms.

In reality, Tralp is severely constrained by its low technology level: a punishing amount of the planetary economy is diverted to the support of its military aspirations. Tralp also depends heavily upon subsidies from the rest of the Estates as well as the Confederation in order to field units that could compete with Imperial forces.

The Estates and Confederation navies provide most naval support to Tralp. The closest Confederation base, at nearby Namedih (Magyar 1713 B300430-D), hosts the 231st FleetRon and the 456th PatRon. The Estates Navy stations the Dootchen AssaultRon in-system at a small naval base in orbit around Aitan. The AssaultRon can quickly transport an entire division of ground forces to hot spots across the Confederation. The base also supports Tralp’s wing of system defense boats, made up of venerable TL9, 500-ton Skild-class SDBs.

The Tralp planetary defense forces include ten TL11 lift infantry armies not suitable for off-world deployment as well as three TL13 lift infantry armies and two TL13 grav tank armies. The most frequently deployed ground force unit is the Tralpkorps, a TL14 armored infantry corps.

The Estates stations on Aitan the storied Eerste regiment of the Azlaantroepe. This elite TL14 unit includes three lift infantry battalions and one grav tank battalion. During the Rim War the Eerste regiment fought in several major engagements in the Solomani Rim but was recalled just prior to the Battle of Terra.

The infamous Gidea Kommandos are a “foreign legion” military unit consisting of three battalions of assault infantry. Any genetically pure Solomani volunteer may join the Kommandos and receive a full pardon for any crime as well as freeman status upon discharge. The regiment is reserved for the most dangerous and desperate actions, such as the 1001 defense of Sinott.

Dootchen mercenary units are notorious for their no-questions-asked willingness to take on the dirtiest, most difficult tickets—missions no other unit would accept. Such units are sometimes encountered in Imperial space working for criminal organizations, unscrupulous nobles, or corporations. Mullen Security is a successful TL12 company-sized unit composed largely of veterans from the Gidea Kommandos. In 1097 contractors from Mullen were accused of participating in a massacre during a brushfire war on Higdon (Magyar 1818 C999775-9). To date no charges have been filed in the matter.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 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.

Superhabitable Worlds and Traveller

The superhabitable world of Hesselgrave (Magyar 2939 CA98696-8).

A recent article in the journal Astrobiology has reignited interest in superhabitable worlds: exoplanets that might represent the best opportunity for harboring extraterrestrial life. While many researchers have assumed that alien life would be most likely found on planets most closely resembling Earth, others have proposed that slightly older, larger, and warmer worlds would be even better candidates for extraterrestrial life.

Following this logic, a K dwarf star might be more likely to support the development of extraterrestrial life than our own G-dwarf type star. Although cooler, less massive, and less luminous, an orange K dwarf star has a much longer lifespan and may have a wider habitable zone.

Translating the superhabitable parameters into Traveller⁵ terms, we get a set of criteria something like this: 

• K-dwarf primary
• Orbit 2
• Size 89A
• Atm 6789
• Hydro 678

A few other superhabitable parameters—for example, the presence of a slightly larger or nearer moon than Luna—are not detailed in standard Traveller world generation, but can be determined during extended system generation.

[There] is life everywhere. Worlds naturally spawn their own life forms, and many produce intelligent species —MT Referee’s Manual 7.

The Third Imperium setting assumes that extraterrestrial life is fairly common within Charted Space, though no one game mechanic has been consistently used across editions to determine the presence or absence of native life. 

DGP’s World Builder’s Handbook (1989) has a nice, simple system for indicating native life: a 2D roll of 10+, modified by primary type, orbit, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. A garden world (Size 678, Atmosphere 568, Hydrosphere 567) orbiting in the habitable zone of a G or K dwarf could have a total DM of +6, meaning native life would have developed on 83% to 92% of the worlds meeting those criteria. In contrast, a desert world (Atmosphere 23456789, Hydrosphere 0) orbiting a type F star would have DMs ranging from -4 to +1, with odds of native life ranging from 0% to 28%. That’s quite high for my personal tastes, but seems roughly consistent with the published OTU. 

GURPS Traveller: First In (1999) provides a different determination method in which the age of the primary star is a fairly large variable. If we assume a K dwarf system might be anywhere from 1 to 12 billion years old, the modifier could range from +1 to a whopping +24! An ocean world (in this context, a world with some surface water and oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere) orbiting a 6-billion-year-old K dwarf star in the habitable zone would have a +14 modifier. Such a world has a 100% chance of harboring native life, the nature of which which breaks down to a 2.77% chance for protozoa, 5.55% for metazoa, 8.33% for simple animals, and a 83.33% of complex animals. A desert world would have no chance for harboring native life.

Traveller⁵, surprisingly, does not have an analogous mechanism—perhaps because that edition seemingly assumes any planet with an atmosphere of 2+ and a population of 7+ in the habitable zone has not just native life, but Intelligent Native Life. That's way too much for me. I'm not looking to Traveller for super hard sci fi, but not the Star Wars cantina either.

In any case, superhabitable worlds as we defined them above should be very strong contenders for native life in the OTU, if not total locks. In Magyar sector, three worlds meet the superhabitable criteria:

• Nosret (2807 A897477-D). This world was within the Vilani Ziru Sirka, so has potentially been inhabited for thousands of years. It's got a class A starport, is on the Xboat route, but only a population of 4. Perhaps it has native life, but that life is incompatible or inimical to Humans. Maybe the dense atmosphere is tainted with microbes or spores.
• Tralp (1913 D968998-8). This world has some canonical history: beyond the Ziru Sirka, it was settled by Terran emigres by -2204 and grew into the Reformed Dootchen Estates. Probably the native life was compatible with Terran life.
• Hesselgrave (2939 CA98696-8). Also beyond the Ziru Sirka, this world may have been incorporated into the Terran Confederation and/or the Rule of Man, but might not have been settled until after the Long Night. Like Nosret, the native life may not have been really compatible with Terran life.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2020 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.

T5 + First In: Stellar System Generation

The two primary methods I use to generate star systems for Traveller games are GURPS Traveller: First In and Traveller⁵. First In, as might be expected, takes a fairly granular approach and is pretty formula heavy. Not being an astrophysicist myself, I can only assume the additional complexity provides additional accuracy. In contrast, Traveller⁵ opts for simplicity in exchange for a much less granular product. However, it seems the Traveller⁵ designers tried to ensure that their results would roughly correspond with a more detailed system like First In. For example, Traveller⁵ assumes that worlds in orbit 0 or 1 are tide-locked to their star. And that simplification holds up fairly well.

In addition to being more granular, the First In design sequence is also somewhat more realistic than the sequences used by other versions of Traveller. It’s an open question how hard the science of Traveller is supposed to be. Purists might argue that any setting with FTL drives can’t be “hard science fiction,” and certainly many of Traveller’s most direct literary influences are pulp stories, where the emphasis was as much on adventure as science.

But that said, Traveller does retain a certain level of grittiness. And there‘s some evidence that the Third Imperium setting is a little bit harder than the “raw” Traveller ruleset, which can be plenty gonzo if a referee wanted to run it like that. By incorporating just a few elements from First In to Traveller⁵, we can bring a little more realism to system generation without adding too much complexity.

Planetary Size and Atmosphere

Here’s a good example of where the Third Imperium setting diverges from raw Traveller rules. In Traveller⁵ a mainworld’s atmosphere is generated by Size plus Flux. But this can easily result in worlds much too small to retain the atmosphere generated. A size 3 world, for example, could have a dense oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of 8, even though the world simply has too little mass to retain oxygen molecules.

During the T5SS review of Third Imperium sector data, Donald McKinney employed a very simple hack to ensure that the atmosphere code was always paired with a plausible planetary size: If Atmosphere is 1, A, B, or C, adjust Size to 3+. If Atmosphere is 2 or 3, adjust Size to 4+. And if Atmosphere is 4-9, adjust Size to 5+. This simple adjustment goes a long way toward making Traveller worlds that line up with planetary science.

Orbital Zones

Traveller⁵ does not consider inner and outer orbital zones—the limit points beyond which planets are unlikely to form or be captured. While Traveller⁵ implies that worlds could be placed all the way out to orbit 17, First In assumes that most main sequence stars rarely have planets beyond orbit 8 or 9.

Rather than grind out a bunch of formulas to determine orbital zones, I use the following reference chart when fleshing out a star system. I keep a version of the following Orbital Zones table in an Excel file and just select the column that most closely matches the spectral type of the primary star. Then I cut and paste this column into a new worksheet that then forms a template for populating the system. Since giants, subgiants, and other stars off the main sequence are fairly rare, this chart works for 99% of the systems I work with.

Main Sequence Stars Orbital Zones

Orbital Zones by Spectral Class												Distance (AU)
A0	A5	F0	F5	G0	G5	K0	K5	M0	M5	M8		Min	Avg	Max
	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0.15	0.20	0.30
1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		0.30	0.40	0.55
2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2		0.55	0.70	0.85
3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3		0.85	1.00	1.30
4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4		1.30	1.60	2.20
5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5		2.20	2.80	4.00
6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	6			4.00	5.20	7.60
7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7			7.60	10.00	15.00
8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8				15.00	20.00	30.00
9	9	9	9	9	9	9						30.00	40.00	58.00
10	10	10										58.00	77.00	115.00

Light gray cells indicate orbits beyond the inner and outer orbital zones. No worlds should be placed there. Light green cells are the Habitable Zone (HZ) orbits, light orange cells are HZ-1 orbits (with hot or tropical climates), blue cells are the HZ+1 orbits (cold or tundra climates), and light blue cells are HZ+2 orbits (frozen climates). The dark blue line indicates the snow line, the point beyond which the largest gas giants are likely to form during planetary formation. Note that this chart reflects GURPS Space 4e data, which slightly tweaked the First In formulas.

One consequence of the chart is the Traveller⁵ “number of worlds” is occasionally much larger than the available orbits. An M8 V star, for example, only has 6 open orbits—but could potentially have as many as 20 worlds (the mainworld + 3 belts + 4 gas giants + 12 other worlds) under Traveller⁵. In such cases, one would probably need to count gas giant satellites in order to ever get to 20 worlds.

It’s worth noting that the T5SS review removed most primary stars with less mass than M3 V: another example of the Third Imperium setting using somewhat different rules than Traveller⁵.

Mainworld Type

Traveller⁵ uses a simple Flux roll to determine whether the mainworld is a planet or satellite, without consideration to orbit or mainworld size. In First In, tide-locked worlds do not have satellites, period. The maximum size of a satellite is 7, and the satellite needs to orbit a sufficiently large planet. Once you know the mainworld size and orbit, I use a simple method to determine whether the world is a planet or satellite.

• Orbits 0 or 1, always planet
• Orbit 2+, size 1 or 2, always satellite
• Orbit 2+, Size 34567, Roll 2D + Size. If > 9, the mainworld is a planet, otherwise a satellite
• Orbit 2+, Size 8+, always planet

Forbidden Zones

In First In, “If the star is a member of a multiple star system, planets will not form at certain distances. The presence of a companion star makes a stable planetary orbit impossible in these zones.” The following chart establishes forbidden zones by Traveller⁵ orbit.

Forbidden Zones

Companion Distance	Orbit	Forbidden Orbits
Companion	<0	0
( Close )	0	0,1
	1	0,1,2,3
	2	0,1,2,3,4
	3	0,1,2,3,4,5
	4	1,2,3,4,5
	5	2,3,4,5,6
{ Near }	6	4,5,6,7
	7	5,6,7,8
	8	6,7,8,9
	9	7,8,9,10
	10	8,9,10,11
	11	9,10,11,12
[ Far ]	12	10,11,12,13
	13	11,12,13,14
	14	12,13,14,15
	15	13,14,15,16
	16	14,15,16,17
	17	15,16,17

By looking at the data like this, it becomes clear how hard it is to have a close companion star and a habitable world.

Example: The Wair System

So, if we put all of these tweaks together and apply them to Traveller⁵ system generation, we get a bit more realism with not too much more fuss. Since I primarily play in the Third Imperium setting, I generally begin with some basic details of the system. The Traveller Map gives us the stars, the number of worlds, and the number of gas giants and planetary belts. We just need to arrange these details into a coherent pattern.

Let’s use, as an example, Wair: a high population world in Alpha quadrant of Magyar sector, bordering Dark Nebula. Here are the Traveller Map data:

Wair T5SS Details

Hex	Name	UWP	Remarks	{Ix}	(Ex)	[Cx]	N	B	Z	PBG	W	A	Stellar
0116	Wair	C89A98C-C	Hi In Wa Pz	{ 3 }	(C8E+5)	[CC8F]	-	-	A	701	11	SoCf	G2 V M6 V

Pulling the G0 V column from the Orbital Zones table, we pick up the Traveller⁵ worldgen sequence and roll for the mainworld placement and get HZ+1, which is orbit 4. With its high hydrographic percentage (A), Wair is a good candidate for being a Hoth-type ice world. Because of the world’s size (8), it is a planet.

Magyar 0116 Primary System

Orbit	[Primary]	G2 V
0
1
2
3
4	Wair	C89A98C-C
5
6
7
8
9
10

With the mainworld placed, we now locate the M6 V companion. We can use the Traveller⁵ placement rules for companion stars, but the Forbidden Zones chart establishes some restrictions: since the mainworld is in orbit 4, that precludes the companion from occupying orbits 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. With some fiddling, we determine that the second star is a near companion in orbit 8. This makes orbits 6 and 7 forbidden zones. We can cut and paste from the Orbital Zone table to establish the entire system template.

Magyar 0116 System Template

Orbit	[Primary]	G2 V
0
1
2
3
4	Wair	C89A98C-C
5
6
7
8	[Companion]	M6 V
	0
	1
	2
	3
	4

Now the entire system is ready to be populated using the rest of the Traveller⁵ Other Worlds sequence. We start by placing the one gas giant, and then move on to placing the 9 remaining worlds.

The Wair (Magyar 0116) System

Orbit	Braw	G2 V
0	Braw-1	Y400356-7	Mi Tz
1	Nevis	Y8C7000-0	Tz
2	Gale	FAB9679-8	Mi Ho
3	Dour	YB20000-0
4	Wair	C89A98C-C	Hi In Wa Pz Co
5	Bidean	Size P SGG
6
7
8	Merrit	M6 V
	0	Trune	YDB4000-0	Tz
	1	Opan	YC10000-0	Co Tz
	2	Tey	Y8B5000-0	Fr
	3	Min	F3108BC-7
	4	Hirta	Y300433-7	Mi

By using the charts, the system details were generated fairly quickly. The Wair system appears to be a resource-rich, highly efficient economic center that only lacks a nice shirt-sleeve world. The distant secondary world of Min, orbiting the M6 V companion Merrit, seems interesting: a small, airless, pre-high population world ruled by a charismatic dictator. Political exiles, perhaps? Maybe an Aslan community?

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2019 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.