TRAVELLER GAME CONCEPTS
The following information, and much of the Traveller background, setting, concepts, etc., come from the Traveller Wiki. For further information on almost anything Traveller related, please visit the Imperial Encyclopedia. |
INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL:
Depending on the Technology Level (TL, See below), within a system, most travel is done via a spaceship, not a starship, but a spaceship. These are ships capable of space flight using manoeuvre or reaction drives, but lacking a jump drive making the capable of interstellar travel. The time necessary to make an inter-planetary trip depends on the drive rating (power / strength) and the distance of the journey. It can take minutes to days.
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL:
Moving between stars or systems, or simply parsecs, requires a starship. Starship have jump drives which allow them to create and enter a jump bubble and move, or jump, one, two, three, up to six parsecs. If everything goes according to plan and their isn't a engineering difficulty or misjump. Due to the size of the drives necessary and some physics, starships are always 100-tonnes (displacement) and larger.
JUMP SHADOW:
The area within 100-diameters of any celestial body is known as the jump shadow. Attempting to initiate a jump-bubble within a jump shadow will almost definitely create a misjump. Moving through a jump-shadow when in jump-space will like cause the ship to precipitate into normal space and likely cause damage to the ship and possibly the people. Thankfully, the Astrogator knows how to plot a course around these celestial bodies and the pilot knows how to fly the ship to avoid them.
FUEL:
Hydrogen is used in most spacecraft and starships. Depending on the quality of the starport, they may have fuel available for purchase. A high quality will likely have refined fuel. A lower class starport may only have unrefined fuel, which can still be used, but is more likely to cause a misjump. Unrefined fuel can also be drawn from bodies of water and from system gas giants, if the ship is equipped with fuel scoops. An onbaord fuel refinery makes things even better.
TIME & COMMUNICATION:
The time required to make a jump, regardless of the distance is fairly consistent: 154 - 184 hours, approximately 6.4 to 7.7 days. AS there is no sub-space or faster than light communications, all information, news, communication of any type from one system to another can only go as fast as the fastest ship. This means that the further away a system (and anyone in that system) is from an event, the longer it will take news of that event to reach them. Which also means that if an individual needed to request something from the system right next door (one parsec), it would require a week for the request to reach that person and another week for a response to return: two weeks minimum.
With the Third Imperium being so large and spread out, something could happen at the capital and news would not reach the most distant fringes for over a year. And what happens on the fringes takes that same amount of time to reach the capital.
FEUDALISM & NOBILITY:
Because of the lag-time in communications, the Imperium practices feudalism in order to govern its thousands of worlds. The rights trickle down from the Emperor (Strephon Aella) and the Moot (Senate) to the Sector Dukes and Subsector nobility and so on, each charged with governing a smaller and smaller polity, and each charged with keeping the peace, keeping trade open and safe, and to support the citizens of the Third Imperium.
MAJOR RACES:
There are SIX major races: Humaniti, Hiver (-4698), K'kree (-4142), Vargr (-3810), Aslan (-1999), and Droyne (?). Within Humaniti, so named because the races originated from Terra, there are actually three separate groups that discovered Jump technology independently of the others: Vilani (-9235), Zhodani (-5415), and Solomani (-2431). The current date is 1105. Each is considered a major race because they discovered (invented) jump drive without outside intervention.
MAJOR POLITIES:
THE THIRD IMPERIUM: Dominated by Humaniti (The decendents of the Vilani who were star-faring almost 7,000 years before the Solomani of Terra
and the Solomani themselves). The primary setting.
SOLOMANI SPHERE: The polity of the youngest race of Humaniti to discover jump technology and reach for the stars. The purist of the Humaniti
races as they came from Terra itself, though Sol is currently under control of the Imperium. Time will tell if it remains so.
THE ZHODANI CONSULATE: A society accepting of psionics who have over the centuries come in conflict with the Imperium. The Zhodani, like the Vilani,
are a race of Humaniti that were transplanted by the Ancients from Terra to Zhodane hundreds of thousands of years ago.
THE ASLAN HIERATE: Large bi-pedal race that vaguely resemble Terran lions. A society built on honour and loyalty, and the acquisition of
territory for the males of the race.
HIVER FEDERATION: A loose-knit polity dominated by Hivers, a race of non-humanoid sentience who are peaceful and altruistic, and also
manipulative.
TWO-THOUSAND WORLDS: The area of charted space controlled by the herbivore anti-carnivore centaur-like K'Kree. While conservative, the K'Kree
have an agenda they do not mind backing up with militaristic genocide.
LANGUAGES:
The "universal" language used in the Third Imperium and in much of charted space is Anglic. However, every race has their own language. Many planets and systems have native or indigenous languages, sometimes many on a single planet. While computer programs are readily available to translate and are frequently updated, there can be times when these resources are not available. Some peoples, or races, may be offended if you do not speak to them in their language.
LAW LEVEL:
Each system has an overall law level. Among other things, the law level defines what kind of weapons can be brought to and carried on the planet, or starport, or whatever polity it governs. Often, the law level between the starport, the startown around it, and the greater system around them, are different. Law level is one of the first things people check when entering a system.
TECH LEVEL (TL): See below.
Depending on the Technology Level (TL, See below), within a system, most travel is done via a spaceship, not a starship, but a spaceship. These are ships capable of space flight using manoeuvre or reaction drives, but lacking a jump drive making the capable of interstellar travel. The time necessary to make an inter-planetary trip depends on the drive rating (power / strength) and the distance of the journey. It can take minutes to days.
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL:
Moving between stars or systems, or simply parsecs, requires a starship. Starship have jump drives which allow them to create and enter a jump bubble and move, or jump, one, two, three, up to six parsecs. If everything goes according to plan and their isn't a engineering difficulty or misjump. Due to the size of the drives necessary and some physics, starships are always 100-tonnes (displacement) and larger.
JUMP SHADOW:
The area within 100-diameters of any celestial body is known as the jump shadow. Attempting to initiate a jump-bubble within a jump shadow will almost definitely create a misjump. Moving through a jump-shadow when in jump-space will like cause the ship to precipitate into normal space and likely cause damage to the ship and possibly the people. Thankfully, the Astrogator knows how to plot a course around these celestial bodies and the pilot knows how to fly the ship to avoid them.
FUEL:
Hydrogen is used in most spacecraft and starships. Depending on the quality of the starport, they may have fuel available for purchase. A high quality will likely have refined fuel. A lower class starport may only have unrefined fuel, which can still be used, but is more likely to cause a misjump. Unrefined fuel can also be drawn from bodies of water and from system gas giants, if the ship is equipped with fuel scoops. An onbaord fuel refinery makes things even better.
TIME & COMMUNICATION:
The time required to make a jump, regardless of the distance is fairly consistent: 154 - 184 hours, approximately 6.4 to 7.7 days. AS there is no sub-space or faster than light communications, all information, news, communication of any type from one system to another can only go as fast as the fastest ship. This means that the further away a system (and anyone in that system) is from an event, the longer it will take news of that event to reach them. Which also means that if an individual needed to request something from the system right next door (one parsec), it would require a week for the request to reach that person and another week for a response to return: two weeks minimum.
With the Third Imperium being so large and spread out, something could happen at the capital and news would not reach the most distant fringes for over a year. And what happens on the fringes takes that same amount of time to reach the capital.
FEUDALISM & NOBILITY:
Because of the lag-time in communications, the Imperium practices feudalism in order to govern its thousands of worlds. The rights trickle down from the Emperor (Strephon Aella) and the Moot (Senate) to the Sector Dukes and Subsector nobility and so on, each charged with governing a smaller and smaller polity, and each charged with keeping the peace, keeping trade open and safe, and to support the citizens of the Third Imperium.
MAJOR RACES:
There are SIX major races: Humaniti, Hiver (-4698), K'kree (-4142), Vargr (-3810), Aslan (-1999), and Droyne (?). Within Humaniti, so named because the races originated from Terra, there are actually three separate groups that discovered Jump technology independently of the others: Vilani (-9235), Zhodani (-5415), and Solomani (-2431). The current date is 1105. Each is considered a major race because they discovered (invented) jump drive without outside intervention.
MAJOR POLITIES:
THE THIRD IMPERIUM: Dominated by Humaniti (The decendents of the Vilani who were star-faring almost 7,000 years before the Solomani of Terra
and the Solomani themselves). The primary setting.
SOLOMANI SPHERE: The polity of the youngest race of Humaniti to discover jump technology and reach for the stars. The purist of the Humaniti
races as they came from Terra itself, though Sol is currently under control of the Imperium. Time will tell if it remains so.
THE ZHODANI CONSULATE: A society accepting of psionics who have over the centuries come in conflict with the Imperium. The Zhodani, like the Vilani,
are a race of Humaniti that were transplanted by the Ancients from Terra to Zhodane hundreds of thousands of years ago.
THE ASLAN HIERATE: Large bi-pedal race that vaguely resemble Terran lions. A society built on honour and loyalty, and the acquisition of
territory for the males of the race.
HIVER FEDERATION: A loose-knit polity dominated by Hivers, a race of non-humanoid sentience who are peaceful and altruistic, and also
manipulative.
TWO-THOUSAND WORLDS: The area of charted space controlled by the herbivore anti-carnivore centaur-like K'Kree. While conservative, the K'Kree
have an agenda they do not mind backing up with militaristic genocide.
LANGUAGES:
The "universal" language used in the Third Imperium and in much of charted space is Anglic. However, every race has their own language. Many planets and systems have native or indigenous languages, sometimes many on a single planet. While computer programs are readily available to translate and are frequently updated, there can be times when these resources are not available. Some peoples, or races, may be offended if you do not speak to them in their language.
LAW LEVEL:
Each system has an overall law level. Among other things, the law level defines what kind of weapons can be brought to and carried on the planet, or starport, or whatever polity it governs. Often, the law level between the starport, the startown around it, and the greater system around them, are different. Law level is one of the first things people check when entering a system.
TECH LEVEL (TL): See below.
UNIVERSAL WORLD PROFILE (UWP):
Each star system has a UWP that provides basic important information about the primary planet / moon / asteroid belt in the system.
A sample UWP could be: E565568-6
The UWP provides the following information in this order:
Each star system has a UWP that provides basic important information about the primary planet / moon / asteroid belt in the system.
A sample UWP could be: E565568-6
The UWP provides the following information in this order:
- Starport type
- Primary planet / moon / asteroid belt size
- Atmosphere
- Hydrographics (percent of planet covered by water)
- Population
- Government type
- Law level
- Tech level (SEE BELOW)
TECH LEVELS (TL):
Every system / planet has an overall tech level. But, the tech level may vary within the system or even on a planet. A general guide of tech levels is below. There are some slight changes from Traveller canon.
Every system / planet has an overall tech level. But, the tech level may vary within the system or even on a planet. A general guide of tech levels is below. There are some slight changes from Traveller canon.
TECH LEVELS
TL |
Historic Era |
Terran CE |
Remarks |
0 |
Neolithic Age |
6000 BCE |
Polished Tools, Fire, Agriculture |
1 |
Bronze Age |
3500 BCE |
Water Power, Abacus |
1.5 |
Iron Age |
1300 BCE |
Wheel, Writing |
2 |
Age of Sail |
1500 CE |
Sailing Ships, Printing |
3 |
Industrial Revolution |
1730 CE |
Coal, Steam, Calculus, Musket |
4 |
Mechanical Age |
1900 CE |
Electricity, Skyscrapers, Image Capture, Antiseptics |
5 |
Broadcast Age |
1930 CE |
Oil, Electronic Calculators, Machine Guns |
6 |
Atomic Age |
1940 CE |
Broadcast Video, Room-sized Computers |
7 |
Space Age |
1970 CE |
Semiconductors, Solar Power, Organ Transplants, Cabinet Tape Computers |
8 |
Information Age |
1985 CE |
Personal Computers, Cell phones, Fiber Optics, Slow Drug |
9 |
Basic Fusion Age |
2100 CE |
Jump-1, Maneuver Drive (1) Arcologies, Fast drug, Computer Personalities |
10 (A) |
Gravitics Age |
2250 CE |
M-Drive (3), Anti-virals, Limited Self-learning Computer Assistants |
11 (B) |
Advanced Fusion Age Imperial Average |
3000 CE |
Jump - 2, M-Drive (5), Semi-organic brains, Anti-radiation drugs, Limited Self-learning robots |
12 (C) |
Positronic Age Imperial Average |
4500 CE |
Jump-3, M-Drive (6), Biologics, Advanced Self-learning robots, Early Anti-psi technology |
13 (D) |
Cloning Age Average Stellar |
5000 CE |
Jump-4, M-Drive (7), Wafer tech, Advanced Anti-psi tech |
14 (E) |
Geneering Age High Stellar |
5500 CE |
Jump-5, M-Drive (8), Stellar Collectors |
15 (F) |
Anagathics Imperial Maximum |
5750 CE |
Jump-6, M-Drive (9), Particle Collectors |
16 (G) |
Artificial Persons |
6000 CE |
M-Drive (10) Self-aware computers, Self-aware Robots |