Traveller: My 3I: Imperial Nobility

Imperial Nobility

The Imperium is huge and travel is slow so the Capital may be a year or more away from the frontier.

Historically this sort of problem is solved by decentralization and the problem that arises from that – risk of rebellion – is solved with some kind of feudal structure – hence the importance of the nobility in Traveller.

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There are a lot of different historical models for this so the question is which suits the Traveller OTU best.

Apparently the Traveller nobility were based on the Russian Imperial model of Boyars and that does seem to me to be a good model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyar

So I’ll use that as the basis for the nobility IMTU

The key distinction is that being a member of the Boyar class doesn’t automatically imply actual Imperial authority. Imperial authority comes from Imperial titles. Being a member of the Boyar class is pre-requisite for getting a title but the two are separate.

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Becoming  Boyar

When someone reaches certain ranks in the Imperial service (particularly the Navy) they get either a lifetime or hereditary knighthood and become part of the Boyar class e.g. a Navy Captain gets an honorary knighthood and lifetime membership of the Boyars, an Admiral gets a hereditary knighthood.

A lifetime knight gets the title and some standard perks like the right to bear arms. A banner knight gets those and also a knight’s fee – ttile to some land and a hereditary source of income.

Knight’s Fee

Let’s say the Imperium taxes 25% of star port revenue traditionally divided

– 5% to Capital

– 5% to Sector

– 5% to Sub-Sector

– 10% as knight’s fees

Say traditionally a knight’s fee was 0.001% of a star port’s revenue so the 10% above would be 10,000 knight’s fees however this was A class star ports on the core worlds so the percentage may vary greatly. A knight’s fee from a C star port on a backwater planet might be 1% and ten knights. The fee from an even more backwater D star port might the full 10% and a single knight.

Once a Boyar then additional promotion to an Imperial title gains extra fees.

If a later member of a Boyar family also reaches such a rank they get additional knight’s fees.

Titles

The Imperium is governed through titles. For example the commander of a sub-sector’s scout service might have the title of Baron-Commander. The commander of a sector scout service has the title Count-Commander. The commander of a particular interdiction or imperial prison planet might be a knight-commander.

So knight and banner knight simply denote Boyar status. Knight-commander, Baron, Count, Duke etc denote Imperial titles and the titles confer imperial authority over their assigned facet of imperial governance.

Sample Career

A commoner joins the navy and rises to Captain and is knighted, switches to “Noble” career and spends a term as the Knight-Commander of a prison ship followed by a term as the Baron-Commander of a designated colony project, then a term as the Count-Commander of the sector scout service then a term as sub-sector Duke and then finally a term as sector Duke.

Each promotion would get a fee so five fees in this case.

If their great-grandson becomes an admiral later they would add another fee to the family collection.

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Types of Noble

The distinction between Boyar and title means there are various types of noble.

1) Standard Banner Knight

The family gained a fee or two some time in the past but haven’t added more to it since. They have an estate and some funds but they are not wealthy. Most join the Imperial service in some form for some amount of time.

2) Wealthy Banner Knight

Often these are families that got fees on under developed planets that have since developed. A Boyar family who owned a lot of the land around a D star port on a low population world which eventually grew into a B star port on a developed world might own 10% of everything on the planet. The family would still only be Boyars and have no imperial authority but could be fabulously wealthy with a great deal of unofficial authority based on their wealth and local status. A family like that could actually run things behind the scenes with any government type.

3) Imperial Title

A Knight (from either of the two backgrounds above) who has an imperial title will have authority and power commensurate with their position: a Knight-Commander of an interdiction might have a squadron of ships, a Knight-Ambassador on a minor system might have an Imperial Ambassador’s yacht, an escort ship and a company of marines, a sub-sector Duke will generally have a massive war fleet. Once the person leaves the position the assets that came with the title are lost.

4) Hereditary Imperial Title

Although the system is designed not to be hereditary at various times and places hereditary titles were granted generally due to a temporary weakness of central Imperial authority. Once given they are hard to get back although the imperial center tries whenever it can.

5) Hereditary non-Imperial Title

In some situations the rulers of a system incorporated into the Imperium may have been given an honorary title. The power and authority of the family depends on their local power base and has no imperial backing. The title is a status and courtesy thing (but may include perks like right to bear arms and huscarls).

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Noble Perks

The standard Boyar perks are the right to bear arms and a fee (land and income) if hereditary. Further fees can include the right to armed household retainers known as “Huscarls”.

Further fees can be taken from a random table from issue #2 found here

https://sites.google.com/site/reaversdeep/file-cabinet

Noble Careers

Using this char gen  shoul dhave two noble careers.

1) An independent noble with lots of varied skill tables to choose from from farming to space exploration to business.

2) An extension of the standard char gen such that a character that reaches a Boyar rank can switch to an Imperial administration career path. This would be a bit like the Roman Cursus Honorarum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_honorum

Traveller: General Ideas

General Ideas

from around

Scout/Small Ships

1) movable partition walls -> 4 x cramped state rooms, 2 x okay size, 1 x large

2) TV walls – programmable electronic wallpaper

3) ambient sounds

4) hitch hikers

5) scout couples – even families

6) scout service report database – updated at star port, search on a planet for fugitives, missing persons, anomalies etc

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Marines

Cutlasses

In Classic Traveller, Marines gain cutlass skill at basic training. This makes no sense but going with it for the sake of argument you could say that’s how they train vacc suit and zero-g combat. Marine ships and bases have zero-g training courts like squash courts with a viewing platform for spectators that involves dueling with cutlasses – bouts are a bit like jousting as contestants have to push off surfaces and strike as they pass.

This could then have turned into a major sport.

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Skills

Jack of All Trades

Could treat JoT as a natural talent for a related set of skills. Characters pick one when they get it and it gives the equivalent of rank-0 in that set of skills.

Examples

• JoT (repair)
• JoT (melee)
• JoT (ranged)
• JoT (animals)
• JoT(starship) (imtu scouts are get trained with this at basic but in reality are selected on the basis of having this as a latent natural talent)

Traveller: My 3I: Imperial Army

Imperial Army

Generally IMTU the Imperial arms are the Navy and Marines with the army being a planetary thing.

The doctrine is generally marines attack, army defends but there is a special case when the Imperium are on the offensive where arny units come in directly after ground has been taken by the marines. This is where the Imperial army comes in. The sub-sector capitals maintain a planetary force but also Imperial Army units who are designated as priary backup to the marines. These units are also used in police action and rebellion situations where the marines would be overkill.

The IA is maintained at TL12 for consistency.

The core unit of the IA are regiments and sub-sector capitals will generally maintain divisions of these troops containing four regiments.

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IA Regiment

Squad: Grav + 2 x squads of 4

Platoon: 4 x Squads, 1 x Platoon HQ

Company: 4 x Platoons, 1 x Company HQ

Battalion: 4 x Companies, 1 x Battalion HQ

Regiment: 4 x Battalions, 1 x Regiment HQ, 1 x Training Battalion

c. 6,250+ men and 400 gravs

nb the training battalion remains at base.

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A key element of the IA is maintaining an Electronic Intelligence Battle Grid (EIG). Each squad has intelligence gathering sensors and each tier of HQ has an element dedicated to collating the electronic intelligence from each combat element and also gathering more of their own via radar, ladar, drones etc.

nb C&C = Command & Comms, S&R = supply and repair (includes vehicle salvage), IF = Indirect Fire

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Platoon HQ:

1 x Command Squad (C&C / EIG)

Company HQ:

1 x Command Platoon (1 x C&C Squad, 1 x EIG Squad, 1 x S&R squad, 1 x Medical Team)

1 x IF section (2 weapons)

Battalion HQ:

1 x Command Company (1 x C&C Platoon, 1 x  EIG Platoon, 1 x S&R Platoon, 1 x Medical Squad)

1 x IF Battery (4 weapons)

Regiment HQ:

1 x Command Battalion (1 x C&C Company, 1 x EIG Company, 1 x S&R Company, 1 x Medical Platoon

1 x IF Battalion (16 weapons)

1 x Recon Company

1 x Engineer Company

(Recon = grav belt and stealth suit infiltrator unit, Engineers = battle dress bunker assault unit)

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Squad Equipment

The gravs

– at TL 10 hover tanks & IFVs

– at TL 11 flying tanks & IFVs

– at TL 12+ more like gunships

A quote from the Traveller forum seems appropriate:

Standard Kit is combat armor, plus a Gauss Rifle and under body RAM GL, one fire team has a PGMP-12 replacement, the other has a Gauss SAW. Two members of each fire team carries a Plasma LAW, the final two carry extra rounds for the Gauss SAW.

Traveller: World Stats: Star Ports and Trade

World Stats: Star Ports and Trade

I’m treating Star Port class as an indicator of trade value. The actual star port class will generally follow the trade value more or less but in a flexible way.

See the “My 3rd Imperium: Trade Network” post for more details

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A = extensive trade

B = moderate trade

C = low trade

D = minor trade

E = minimal Trade

nb treat as order of magnitude differences rather than linear

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with rules like that and a trade network map like this

Click to access spinward_canonports_routes_map.pdf

then you can tell a lot of things about a system at a glance

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Alpha Systems

Class A star port, high population, high tech – these are the trade hub systems and will generally have a strong 3I presence, lots of fleets, lots of interstellar trade ships plus most of the system planets and moons colonized also so masses of in-system shipping as well.

Hinterland Systems

A and B star ports within c. 6 parsecs of an alpha system signify systems that produce something the alpha system wants in exchange for tech.

Truck Stop Systems

Systems with C, D, E star ports aren’t part of the main trade network but if the system is on a main trade route between more important systems these systems will generally be truck stop systems providing refueling and repair facilities for passing merchant ships. Sometimes the truck stop portion is on the system’s main world but more often there is an orbital B grade space station that acts as a truck stop for the merchant ships, refueling etc. All stops on main trade routes have refined fuel. These truck stop space stations often act as a base for Belters.

Boondock Systems

Systems with C, D, E star ports that aren’t part of a main trade route. Free Trader territory.

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Glisten Examples

From my trade map

• alpha system: Glisten
• hinterland system: Aki
• truck stop system: Windsor
• boondock system: Caledonia

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Special Cases

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Class A star ports with low population

A class A star port like this might represent the standard book description or one of a variety of B+ star ports.

For example
1) ship repair but no shipyard (population 5-6)
2) only a shipyard (population 4-5) (company town or 3I)
3) B+ facilities and only seasonal production (population 1-3)
4) B star port enhanced by government or military presence (population 6-7)
5) combination of space station and planetary facilities (any)
6) systems with a particularly valuable trade good

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Star Port C, D, E on a seemingly developed world

The star port only represents the value of interstellar trade and doesn’t mean the system has nothing to sell only that they have nothing to sell which a nearby system needs. So potential explanations:

• system doesn’t have much in tradeable goods
• system has regressed – maybe recent conflict of catastrophe
• isolationist system

A high pop, tech 9+ system like this could potentially have well developed solar system trade and system defenses.

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Traveller: My 3I: Fleet Composition

Fleet Composition

Having a clear concept of this helps with creating the scenery the players move through.

The naval concept in the OTU is heavily influenced by modern naval carrier task forces and the fighter heavy naval combat of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica imo.

I prefer the naval concept IMTU to be more like WWI battleships or Napoleonic era ships of the line blasting away at long range.

I want to use as many of the original CT ships as possible.

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Principle of Naval Combat

Basically longest range wins so from Napoleonic up to WWI-ish the quest is bigger guns with longer range which then need bigger ships to carry them.

The limit to the range of direct fire weapons is the horizon.

When that limit was breached by planes battleships were replaced by carriers (and maybe at some point carriers will be replaced with drone / missile battleships).

How does this apply in space?

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Core Assumptions

In space there is no horizon so if

• there is no stealth in space
• sensors can target ships at extreme ranges
• energy weapons are accurate enough to be able to hit even small targets at extreme ranges
• energy weapon penetrating power is controlled by the inverse-square law

then if all those assumptions are true – and I don’t know if they are but various people on forums seem to think they are – it seems to me the pendulum might swing back to battleships again because to get minimum penetrating power at the longest range means the biggest weapon possible – big in the sense of the maximum power at source.

Using abstract numbers

• a weapon with a penetration of 4 at range 1 will have a pen of 1 at range 2
• a weapon with a penetration of 16 at range 1 will have pen of 4 at range 2 and a pen of 1 at range 4
• a weapon with a penetration of 64 at range 1 will have pen of 16 at range 2 and a pen of 4 at range 4 and a pen of 1 at range 8

So back to big weapons needing a big power supply carried by a big ship.

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At the limit where weapon tech > ship tech there should be single weapons which can take all of the biggest ship’s maximum power output. Even in that case though if there’s physical space for them a battleship could have redundant weapons. For example (again using abstract numbers) a 64 ship with 64 max energy output could have a single 64 spinal and 4x16s and 16x4s and switch power as necessary.

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Again, I don’t know enough to know if the assumptions hold but some people seem to and I prefer the idea of monster battleships to monster carriers so that’s that.

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Ship Types

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Battle Fleet

• capital ships
• fleet escorts
• scouts
• auxiliaries

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Capital Ships (Battleships and Dreadnoughts)

These operate together to form the core of the battle fleet.

Assuming big energy weapons as the core there are two models.

If weapon tech > ship tech such that weapons can be built which use all the ship’s power then capital ships might become dedicated to a single large, long range weapon – I’ll call this the Dreadnought model.

If ship tech > weapon tech such that ship size / power output is always higher than the biggest available weapons then you have a more traditional battleship type with multiple large guns – I’ll call this the Battleship model.

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In either case if physical space is available the ship could also have redundant smaller weapons and allocate energy according to need.

For example a 64 ship could have 1 x 64 weapon or 4 x 16s and in both cases firing those weapons would take all the ship’s energy. The ship could also have 16 x 4s in reserve for close range but they can only be fired if energy is taken away from the big guns.

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If ship size tech and weapon size tech advance separately then which model is dominant may cycle over time e.g. every time max ship size increases it might take a while for weapon size to catch up so

• mature size and weapon tech -> dreadnought with single spinal weapon using all power e.g. a 64 with 1×64
• new ship size and old weapon tech -> battleship with multiple weapons e.g. a 64 with 4x16s

Fleet Escorts (Destroyers)

Fleet escorts are ships designed to protect capital ships from specific threats their long ranged weapons can’t deal with or can be overwhelmed by, like

• submarine – stealth close range attack
• torpedo boats – swarmed
• planes – swarmed
• missiles – swarmed

If there is no stealth in space (assumption) and if sensors can see and hit small targets at extreme ranges (assumption) then in theory even a few long range weapons might be able to take out a swarm especially if a capital ship has secondary short range weapons that can take over when the swarm gets closer.

For example a 64 with

• 1 x 64
• 4 x 16s
• 16 x 4s
• 64 x 1s

getting swarmed from range 8 then even if the targets can cover one range band per turn (not necessarily likely given these range bands are measured in thousands of Km) that’s

• 1 shot each at ranges 5-8, total 4
• 4 shots each at range 3 and 4, total 8
• 16 shots at range 2
• 64 shots at range 1

for a total of 92 shots – so you’d need a pretty big swarm.

However it’s possible so let’s say the second ship type would be fleet escorts called destroyers carrying lots of short range weapons who move with the capital ships as insurance against swarming.

They can range greatly in size, their main distinction being their focus on multiple short to medium range weapons to deal with swarms.

For example

• size 16 with 4x4s and 16x1s
• size 8 with 2x4s and 8x1s

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Fleet Scouts (Escort Carriers or Shipborne Fighters)

The capital ships main advantage is range so to avoid ambushes – enemy fleets hidden behind planets, moons or inside gas giants etc – a battle fleet needs scouts.

These scouts travel with the fleets and provide recon within the current system as opposed to ships who recon systems away from the fleet.

The main distinction of a fleet scout is to be expendable.

Scouts could be small ships but fighters seem like they would be more cost effective.

They could be carried in an Escort Carrier or alternatively each battleship could have a squadron of scout fighters.

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Auxiliaries

The ships of the line offload some of their cargo, medical, repair capabilities onto auxiliaries to free up space for more weapons and armor.

In particular imtu fuel purification takes a lot of space so fleets generally include specialist fleet tankers as auxiliaries. They are generally not tankers in the usual sense but carry fuel shuttles and fuel purification equipment to refuel a fleet as fast as possible.

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Detached Duty Ships

• cruisers: patrolling, recon, raiding, anti-piracy etc
• merchant escorts

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Cruisers

In modern parlance cruiser generally has a size connotation but originally it was functional – ships that performed cruising duties separate from the the fleet. I am using the functional description.

Cruising duties would include things like

• couriers
• anti-piracy
• patrolling
• courtesy visits
• raiding
• deep raiding

Cruisers can be vary greatly in size depending on task and often labeled by size

• corvette
• frigate
• cruiser

The general pattern will be

• smallest: corvette to frigate
• medium: frigate to light cruiser
• largest: cruiser to heavy cruiser to strike cruiser etc

There are a lot of different varieties for different tasks but the common thread is their primary trait is movement so when necessary cruiser design tends to sacrifice weapons or armor for speed and self-sufficiency.

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Merchant Escorts

These might be Corvettes (cluster patrols) up to Frigates (silk road patrols) or sometimes obsolete Destroyers i.e. a fleet escort design from an earlier era that continued in production for merchant escort duties.

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Main Battle Fleet Composition

The main battle fleets are generally restricted to the alpha clusters and the trade lines between them partly because defending the alpha clusters is their primary purpose and partly because refueling is such a major undertaking.

The main component of the battle fleets are battleship squadrons where each squadron is a unit comprising one battleship and its various support ships and auxiliaries.

Battleship Squadron

• 1 x battleship
• 1 x escort carrier
• 3 x escorts
• 1 x auxiliary (medical, workshop, supply)
• 1 x tanker
• 1 x frigate (odd jobs)

A battle fleet is then made up n battleship squadrons and a flagship squadron.

Flagship Squadron

• 1 x largest battleship
• 1 x escort or maybe a strike carrier
• 3 x escorts
• 3 x auxiliary (large medical, large workshop, large supply)
• 1 x large tanker
• 1 x frigate (odd jobs)

and one cruiser squadron (frigates) for recon in systems around the main fleet.

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Cruiser Squadrons

Cruisers are organized in squadrons of eight by function but generally operate in smaller groups.

Raiders and deep raiders may operate in squadrons or half squadrons.

Sizes vary greatly – from smallest to largest

• colonial cruisers – sub-sector patrol
• frigates – silk road patrol or battle fleet recon
• heavy cruiser – raider
• battle cruiser – deep strike raider

A standard colonial patrol squadron might be

• 2 x colonial cruisers
• 6 x colonial frigates

“Colonial” in front of the name generally means one size lower than the fleet equivalent so

• a fleet corvette of c. 1200-1600 dtons -> a colonial corvette of c. 400-600
• a fleet light cruiser (frigate) of c. 3k to 5k dtons -> a colonial cruiser of c. 1200-1600 dtons

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Relative Sizes

just for example assuming max size was 500k dtons

• colonial corvette/frigate 400-600
• colonial cruiser 1200-1600
• fleet corvette 1200-1600
• patrol cruiser (frigate) 3k-5k
• strike cruisers (raider) ??
• battle cruiser (deep raider) ??
• fleet escorts (destroyers: ??
• capital ships 500K

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Player Encounters

So in my 3I the type of naval ships players might encounter would be:

(1) in alpha systems and occasionally other important space, some or all of a batron or multiple batrons of

• battleship
• carrier
• fighters
• escorts
• tenders
• corvette/frigate

which could be IN or colonial navy, plus any of the below.

(2) silk road truck stop systems

• patrol frigates from alpha to alpha usually in pairs
• fighters from orbital station
• SDBs

(3) hinterland systems and truck stop systems in between

• colonial cruisers from colonial navy – solo or in pairs
• gazelles – local planetary navy

(3) backwater

• colonial cruisers from colonial navy – solo or in pairs

(4) anywhere but generally only in wartime

• patrol frigates – solo or in pairs
• strike cruisers – squadrons or half squadrons
• battle cruisers – squadrons or half squadrons

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Cost

Trillion Credit Squadron uses a rough rule of thumb of 500Cr per person as the yearly navy tax so that’s 500 billion Cr per billion population (modified by TL etc).

TCS then says multiply that by ten to get total allowable fleet tonnage, say

• 20% of it goes on static defenses and sundry other admin functions
• 40% goes on colonial navy
• 40% goes to the sector

Total populations are given in the Spinward Marches supplement.

So for example Glisten is listed as c. 4.5 billion so that’s c. 2,250 billion x 10 in total, or x 4 for just the colonial fleet so that’s 9000 billion Cr. This sum can be used to roughly figure out the size of Glisten’s colonial navy.

A Tigress is c. 340 billion, so say that is ballpark for a capital ship generally and with the other ships a standard Batron comes to c. 500 billion in total.

So we can guesstimate Glisten’s colonial fleet at 8 Batrons plus sundries.

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Conclusion

So a Glisten sized Colonial Fleet might be:

• main battle fleet of 8 x Batrons and 1 x cruiser squadron (frigates)(recon)
• cruiser squadron (frigates) (silk road patrol)
• colonial cruiser squadron (hinterland and backwater systems)
• various SDBs and orbital stations in important systems

As a defensive force a colonial fleet generally won’t have raider or deep raider cruiser squadrons but might do in some situations.

 

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Traveller: Orbital Refueling Station

Reference for orbital refueling station’s fuel tanks.

 

Traveller: Early Vilani: Backstory

Early Vilani: Backstory

There is a canon version of Vilani history but i’ll modify it a bit

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Vilani

The world of Vland, while possessed of a hospitable environment, boasted an alien ecology based on its own independently evolved biology, a biology that produced amino acids, proteins, and sugars that were difficult for humans to digest and metabolize. The humans just could not use local plant and animal life for food.

One of the oldest occupations in Vilani society is that of shugilii (Anglic: shugilii) (which translates roughly as miller). The shugilii was a person who could transform raw food into edible food through special aging and chemical treatments. The shugilii position was more akin to that of shaman or witch doctor than that of cook. Since virtually no food on Vland was edible without some treatment, shugilii were powerful members of society.

The alienness of land was reciprocal: humans were unsuitable as food for predators, parasites died because humans provided no nutrition, bacteria could not infect the human system, and even viruses were unable to invade and take over human cells. Consequently, the primitive human society found no need for medically oriented shaman.

 

Change this to Vland being especially hostile to human life in every way from nutrition to bugs to predators. Vilani engineered by the Ancients to have greatly improved immune systems to compensate. This gives Vilani long life on less hostile planets (including Vland once Vilani tech developed enough to suppress the threats.) The “Angels” (Ancients) of the Vilani religion taught them how to treat native foods to make them more edible via the Shugili food-priests.

(Vilani +2 bonus to con.)

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Vilani medical understanding was very slow to develop because of this.

Opposite. Make the food-priests superb doctors because it was the only way to provide a reasonable lifespan on Vland. This led to the priests also being the scientists of Vilani society.

 

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Vilani legends are full of accounts of the wars of the gods, terrible destruction, and occasional intervention in human affairs by the gods. Legends exist of early explorers who found lands with great living stone-metal gods possessed of immense magical powers. Modern archaeologists now believe these “gods” were actually great robot warriors and juggernauts used by the ancients in the Final War.

Vland a major Ancients naval base so when their fleet AI went rogue Vland was the venue for major battles leaving Ancients tech scattered across the world. This sped up Vilani development gaining them a head start on other species.

 

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Early Vilani society was dominated by three groups: the shugilii, the aristocrats, and the merchants. Aristocrats were the natural leaders of society, the shugilii were the all important food processors, and the merchants controlled trade.

Change this slightly to be: food-priest caste, conservative tradition-bound and hearth-centric, aristocrats warrior / elite caste, merchants – hostile environment including burrowing predators leading to Vilani settlements being scattered and built on top of rocky plateaus safe from attack from below – the merchants therefore are more scouts / rangers / caravaneers plying trade routes across the wilderness slightly disreputable and slightly outcaste.

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The Vilani discovered intelligent lifeforms on other worlds within 60 parsecs of Vland. None of the races had progressed enough to have begun interstellar travel. The Vilani found it easy to dominate these less technically advanced races. The Vilani were able to impose Vilani culture and law on these other races among the stars. However, the Vilani conquering was not of a militaristic nature, but was economic subjugation.

Check. *Some* military conquest and subjugation of critical worlds but mostly economic.

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As their sphere of influence was expanding, the Vilani found it difficult to maintain control across such great distances with jump-l their maximum rate of travel and communication. At the same time, each of the three power classes of the Vilani society found themselves threatened by the forces around it.

Maximum J1, check.

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Three bureaus were established, each independent of the other two, and each assigned a territory among the stars for which it was responsible. Each of the three bureaus was effectively identical, but they initially espoused different philosophies, which were based on their origins. The bureaus maintained their own governments within their territories.

Scrap this part. The three bureaus are the three castes. The merchants caste are the initial explorers and scouts. They find and colonize settlements first in the Vland system and then outside. The warrior/elite caste follow behind, they maintain military power and use it to take away the most important settlements from the Merchants. The Merchants houses are very non heirarchical and independent so they are constantly looking for new systems and colonies but always have the best worlds they discover taken off them by the warrior/elite. The merchants thus always have more ships and colonies while the warrior caste always has the most militarily important industrial ones with the big warships. Individual merchant houses rule many systems / worlds. The nobility – still Republican at this point – are hereditary like Roman senators but are given governorships of systems temporarily for fixed terms of office as Praetors and Proconsuls in a way similar to the Roman republican model.

The food-priests are just that – a priesthood that follows the colonies and tries to keep the peace between the aristocratic families and merchant houses. They are also the scientists.

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Sharurshid: merchant houses

Makhidkarun: aristocracy / warrior caste (the only route into the aristocracy is through military service)

Naasirka: priesthood / later scientists also

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In Classic Traveller terms the aristocrat / warrior castes would be a mixture of Navy and Marines career. The merchant houses would be a mixture of merchant / scouts / other. The army would be for regular citizens. The priests would need a unique medical / scientific / diplomat type career.

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The friction between the merchant houses and the aristocracy leads eventually to Vilani downfall. When they come across Terrans the merchants feed them Vilani tech and try and use them as an army against the aristocracy.

 

Traveller: Early Vilani: Campaign

Early Vilani: Campaign

An alternative to the early 3rd Imperium idea is to take the time back even further to the early Vilani expanding out of Vland.

http://travellermap.com/?scale=64&x=-14.056&y=61.777

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Say the basic tech sequence is fusion -> grav -> jump drive

(Assuming jump drive is somehow connected to manipulating gravity.)

Seeing as humans (and earlier pre sapiens hominids) have supposedly been around for 500,000 years (or whatever the actual number is) and only had agriculture and everything that spawned from that for 10,000 years or so and before sentient stone age humans there were supposedly chimps for however long we’ve only been at like TL1 for 1% of our total history or less so it seems to me the species who got to jump drive first would likely expand dramatically while most other species were either pre sapient or stone age sapient. The Traveller setting has that with the Ancients.

So you have your “angels” (or demons) from the skies, responsible for uplifting some species e.g. maybe even chimps to human, maybe keeping them as pets, maybe enslaving, maybe eating who knows. Then they collapse for some reason – maybe a virus, maybe they develop AI and it turns on them. Their AI fleets take over space and destroy all the Ancient’s planets that have any industrial capacity leaving surviving Ancients trapped on backwater planets where they revert in various ways – immortal space vampires, brain in a box, whatever. That provides a say TL15 to TL18 layer scattered and buried across thousands of planets. Then one of the uplifted species develop (Vilani in this example) and reach the fusion / grav / J1 spot and expand out.

This way you can have the players in a say TL10 to TL12 setting on the frontier of an expanding civ – say the Vilani drive tech only does J1 to maintain the frontier feel with deep space stations to cross gaps and lots of unexplored planets with weird ancient’s tech, occasional working ancient’s killer battle droids, maybe a working TL15 ship somewhere with a defective AI (i.e. it only occasionally tries to kill the crew), mostly low tech aliens, individual Vargr / Aslan planets but not space-faring yet, ancients ruins etc.

 

Animism Made Flesh

I watch youtube game videos for ideas and sometimes make comments but as the point of getting the ideas is to jot them down for future reference it makes sense to put it here as well so here’s another sparked by:

I think a useful first step with fantasy races is why?

The why could be evolution if the races were all on isolated continents for a long time and / or their evolution artificially manipulated through magical forces but in a fantasy setting I prefer races to be the expression of particular gods / magical forces.

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For example say the creation myth of your fantasy setting is that when the world was first created it was so full of magic races spawned out of principles and elements e.g.

– Dwarfs spawned out of the mountains

– Wood Elves from light woodland

– Satyrs and Dryads from darker woods

– High Elves from sea cliffs and tall peaks in rolling plains

– Orcs from shadows and darkness

– creatures/races could be spawned from any principle/element you could think of: greed, lust, love, hate, fear, kindness etc

basically animism made flesh.

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The traits of the race could then follow their spawning e.g. High Elves, tall and far-seeing, not just in terms of physical distance but seeing into the future, perception of what lies inside a person etc. Dwarfs would be solid, unbending, obstinate, majestic.

And a race might change accordingly

– Wood Elves pushed deeper into a forest away from the light might get wilder the deeper they go

-Dwarfs looking for gold who dig too deep into the dark places under the mountains might become as shadowed as the creatures that dwell there

Animism made flesh.

 

Traveller: Early 3rd Imperium

In the Traveller setting there was an earlier human Empire which collapsed. The current Imperium was rebuilt over the top of the previous from the same core. So imagining the situation 200 years after the collapse what kind of planetary options would there be?

1. Core worlds – as before

2. Colonized worlds where the colonists die out during the collapse – hostile mining worlds, planetoids etc – so lots of ruins.

3. Colonized worlds with a native prestellar species where the colonists might have died out or been killed by the natives or become like the natives or enslaved by the natives.

4. Colonized worlds where the colonists reverted in technology.

5. Colonized worlds with a prestellar native species where the colonists reverted in technology – maybe to the same level as the native species or still above (see Jorune or Tekumel).

6. Non-colonized worlds – maybe with a science base or two – with a prestellar species.

7. Other non-colonized worlds.

This setting could take one of the existing Imperium sub-sectors near the core with their exisitng planetary profiles, ignore the government, tech level, starport stuff and just keep the physical characteristics: size, atmosphere etc with the players operating at the edge of the expanding Imperial frontier whether for some official part of the Imperium , a commercial org or as freelance antique hunters looking for Vilani artifacts.

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Dividing the planets into three categories: habitable, habitable impaired, uninhabitable and assuming the original subsector capital was the best planet some random tables might be:

sentient alien species: habitable 8+, habitable impaired 10+ uninhabitable 12+ (these last would generally be very weird e.g. lava creatures.

previous colony: habitable 8+, habitable impaired 10+ uninhabitable 12+.

If previous colony and no sentient species, colony survived: habitable 8+, habitable impaired 10+, uninhabitable 12+ (a surviving colony on an uninhabitable planet may have survived in a strange form e.g. tunnel dwelling cannibals)

If previous colony and a sentient species: hostile relationship 2-5 neutral relationship 6-8, friendly relationship 9+

colony survival?

hostile relationship: habitable survived 10+, habitable impaired 11+, uninhabitable 12 (maybe in some strange brain in a jar type form)

etc