Amber and Red travel codes

[Red Bart]

I am rolling up and fleshing out a number of stars/planets using the system found in the back of the core rule book (about two medium populated subsectors). The assignment of travel codes (i.e. amber or red) is a bit problematic though. Amber codes are supposedly also assigned to worlds with dangerous atmospheres (10+), which shouldn't really be a problem as long as you don't venture out of the base/starport/settlement. And red codes aren't really specified at all, but should be planets that are interdicted by the imperial navy. Which sounds rather ominous, even though (as far as I can tell) there's not that much risk in trading with a red world (there is some but not nearly enough what might be expected).

My questions are: How do you deal with these travel codes? On what criteria do you decide that a world is amber or red? What exactly comprises a red world? Do you add additional consequences for a world that is amber or red, or do you stick to the consequences that might be found for instance in The Merchant Prince, Trade in the Galactic Market chapter?

 

[2330ADUSA1]

Amber zones could be for ANY reason, like hostile life form or culture! Be creative when defining why it is a Amber Zone.

 

[alex_greene]

Amber zones could be for ANY reason, like hostile life form or culture! Be creative when defining why it is a Amber Zone.

Most of the time, Amber Zones tend to be political - some factions are at loggerheads, a government is breaking up and becoming Balkanised, there's a famine or drought, or there's a religious movement that has taken over and turned the world into a dangerously crazy Theocracy. An Amber Zone is a sign of caution: you may proceed to the world, but entirely at your own risk.

A Red Zone is usually something much more serious, and by "serious" that sometimes means "seriously weird." Activated Ancient devices, planet killers or intact bases, unusual tectonic upheavals, dangerous levels of radiation from the primary star, a lethal plague on the planet that has killed every living thing with a spinal cord and left nothing but highly infectious invertebrates or a recent (last five years recent) nuclear war which has reduced a thriving TL10 civilisation to early TL2 overnight or something really strange such as antimatter floating in space, quantum black holes in eccentric and unpredictable orbits, disruptions to spacetime in-system preventing Jump drives from activating less than 70 AU from the primary (think "Omega particle detonation") or other kinds of fluctuations, such as the mainworld only being there "sometimes."

The best kinds of Red Zone and Amber Zone worlds should be the most mysterious - there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them at all. They are garden worlds, absolutely pristine, Terra-prime planets. That leaves the characters with a puzzle, trying to work out why the planet is so idyllic - until you discover that the human colonists of the Amber Zone belong to a cannibal cult, or that Red Zoned garden world is Like Eden from that Star Trek episode where every living fruit and plant was acidic and poisonous ... or they discover that due to some strange temporal distortion, one day on the surface of that garden planet equals one year in the objective universe beyond the 100 diameter limit ... (or worse - the reverse: one year on that world equals one day in the rest of the universe. Get ready to make those aging rolls ...)

An Amber Zone could easily be a world set up like some spacefaring pirate port, where if you land there you are liable to have your ship jacked and you pressganged into serving aboard a pirate corsair; a Red Zone world could get you killed painfully and imaginatively (think of Harry Harrison's "Deathworld" or the Deathworlds of 2000AD's Zombo).

 

[phavoc]

My questions are: How do you deal with these travel codes? On what criteria do you decide that a world is amber or red? What exactly comprises a red world? Do you add additional consequences for a world that is amber or red, or do you stick to the consequences that might be found for instance in The Merchant Prince, Trade in the Galactic Market chapter?

Codes can be assigned to a system, or a specific world within that system. Both the Navy and the Scout service will apply codes. According to the books, the Navy is one to use codes more punitively against a world, or to cover something up. The Scout service typically uses codes to protect cultures from outside interference.

Amber worlds can be from hazardous conditions, or perhaps the culture is a bit xenophobic and travelers there can be at risk just landing. It means while they won't necessarily cut your throat on sight, if you sneeze and something comes out of your left nostril around twilight, you might just end up on the pyre for offending a local god or ruler or whatever. Amber just means you need to exercise caution. As to what you need to be cautious about, that's up to the referee or source material.

Red worlds denote extreme risks, or outright prohibitions. Red worlds will typically have some sort of monitoring satellites as well as interdiction satellites or even a manned base. It could be there is a classified government installation, an ancient site, a world that is being punished, or even something mundane as resources that are offlimits to miners. But if it's a Red zone, you are going to have something or someone there to enforce it as much as practical. You could a mixture of a red system that has a gas giant in it, where ships are allowed to refuel, but not allowed to travel to other planets within the system. Again, much like the Amber zone, it's up to the referee or source material to explain why it's that way.

 

[locarno24]

a Red Zone world could get you killed painfully and imaginatively (think of Harry Harrison's "Deathworld" or the Deathworlds of 2000AD's Zombo).

If you've seen the 'After Earth' trailer, one classic red zone is like that - 'everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans'.

Other options are just as scary; nanotech swarms, ongoing nuclear conflicts, or generic ancient alien stuff.

Even a world where certain types of technology cease working.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

My character generator for Mongoose Traveller also generates homeworlds with governments and factions as part of the character's background story. The homeworld data is used during generation to decide if it could be an amber or red zone system.

 

[Mithras]

I assign travel codes last, along with trade routes. I write a couple of sentences about each world, sometimes paragraphs, and if that description or world explanation sounds like a nasty explanation, then I'll slap a travel zone on it. I limit myself to up to about 4 of these in a subsector.

 

[GypsyComet]

Any "X" starport roll was a Red Zone in prior editions. The rest of the UWP then lends itself to the "why".

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I use a more intuitive system. I look at the UWP and if something strikes me (balkanized government with low law level) then I might make it an Amber Zone, as will any world with a high law level (above A).

Red Zone, I actually make random (12 on 2D6), that gives about 1 per subsector. Once rolled, I then figure out WHY - Ideas above are used as well as natural hazards or whatever. I let my imagination go.

 

[Red Bart]

Thanks for all the great examples! It made me go back to my list of generated worlds and re-evaluate their travel code. If there is the possibility of danger when sticking to the regular "roads" I'll give it an amber status. If danger is all but assured when visiting a world, I'll give it a red status. Not a lot of my worlds will qualify for red status, and a bunch of amber worlds will be elevated to no travel code. After I'm done I'll probably add a few red worlds using the examples from this thread.

 

[Batgirl III]

I'm brand new to Traveller, despite having it on my periphery for decades, so this might be a silly question to any old hands... but why are there only two travel codes? It makes things nice and tidy from a gameplay standpoint, but it seems to me a lot of Traveller mechanics are meant to be "in universe," and it seems like two very broad codes is a lot less useful than, say, a dozen more specific ones.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I'm brand new to Traveller, despite having it on my periphery for decades, so this might be a silly question to any old hands... but why are there only two travel codes? It makes things nice and tidy from a gameplay standpoint, but it seems to me a lot of Traveller mechanics are meant to be "in universe," and it seems like two very broad codes is a lot less useful than, say, a dozen more specific ones.

That's what I use the government codes for in addition to the travel zones. And I have other government codes on the same world. Just the main government code makes the list. So it's useful to explore a world to see what else there is besides what the UWP says.

 

[GypsyComet]

Welcome to Traveller!

Technically there are three travel zones, with Green being the third. The Travel zones are actually commercially designated by the Travellers Aid Society (TAS), who also either license their travel ratings to the folks who make the sector data available to the public or they *are* one of those parties. As compiled by the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service (IISS), the sector data won't have Amber zones and will have Red zones marked as "Interdicted". Interdiction happens because an Imperial agency, almost always either the Navy or the Scouts, has determined that the world is to be avoided. The Scouts typically declare interdict to protect primitive and uncontacted races or cultures, while the Navy declares interdicts for navigation hazards, war graves, and secrets of the Imperium. Some interdicts apply only to the main world, while others apply to more (or all) of the system. Shionthy (Regina subsector, Spinward Marches) for example, is interdicted because the belt has a significant amount of antimatter in its free-floating makeup.

Amber zones are basically the same as we see today: Travel advisories. War zones and other forms of bad local behavior are the most common, including installed governments so restrictive that visitors might get locked up or harmed just for walking around. Some worlds suffer the Imperium overhead only because they can do nothing about it.

As for the specifics, that would have required that the creators of the setting come up with all of the possible reasons. That's asking a bit much, so instead the in-game Amber travel code is an invitation to the Referee to come up with an "I told you so" and for the PCs to look up the world in the big reference known generically as Library Data.