Colonisation Campaign Question

[alex_greene]

Has anyone run a colonisation campaign, where the Travellers become involved - even if only temporarily - in the establishment of a colony on some supposedly uninhabited planet?

Citing Mars colony novels as my examples, I was thinking of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and Greg Bear's Moving Mars, Paul J McAuley's Red Dust.

Beyond the Mars stories, I was also thinking of stories set in colonies such as Cachalot by Alan Dean Foster, where the colony is set on a waterworld in the form of a floating city.

Has anyone here ever run or played such a game? I'm just curious.

 

[AndrewW]

Not me but yup there is a forum member who specializes in that...

 

[rust2]

Has anyone here ever run or played such a game? I'm just curious.

Actually several such campaigns, on desert planets as well as water worlds - especially water worlds.

 

[PsiTraveller]

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/World_Tamer's_Handbook

Not sure if this will help, but the the TNE version had this book about rebuilding colonies.

The book "The case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars has the actual tech for settling Mars using Saturn V rocket level technology and creativity to have Mars provide most of the materials for its own colonization.

The tech and gear available will be important to see how tough a planet is to settle. If Earth today had a single Far Trader that could shuttle back and forth from Earth to Mars in a week or so it would be easy to set up a colony. Manufacture things on the parent planet and assemble on Mars. Page 153 of the Core book has the travel times between in system worlds.


If you are dealing with settling a planet by Jumping in from another system you now have to add a month to a return trip. Providing food for a new colony could be tough. You could use http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/culture/reference/shuluum.html

The type and quality of the world is important. Does it have plants on it already? Do you need a haz mat suit to walk outside? etc.

From the central Supply catalogue you have the TL 13 Fusion Stile that takes in liquid and organic material and gives out edible Glop. One of these machines and a lot of Ketchup/vicodin will help you colonize a planet with plants and water on it. More importantly the waste heat from the fusion pile allows it to produce alcohol.

From Highguard you have the Biosphere that can produce food. You also have the Space station production module that produces food on a daily basis. This could be similar to the Shuluum meals mentioned above, or some sort of algae processing, your choice.

So a colonization effort really depends on what tech you have available and what your infrastructure level is. Are you like a Firefly planet that is dumped on a planet and left to fend for themselves? Or is there a year of shuttle service bringing in several hundred tonnes of additional supplies? Does the system have an asteroid belt? A mining ship and refinery with TL 12 drones could provide all sorts of metal, but if the colony lacks any spaceships all the system resources are unattainable.

Hope this helps.

 

[DickNervous]

My group (going through the Pirates of Drinax campaign) haven't helped establish any new colonies, but they are attempting to help several of them grow by investing in either star port facilities or arranging for trade (or in one case, smuggling) routes to be established.

 

[-Daniel-]

Has anyone run a colonisation campaign, where the Travellers become involved - even if only temporarily - in the establishment of a colony on some supposedly uninhabited planet?

I played in one game where the GM used the Traveller rules and had adapted the setting from "Centauri Knights" published by Guardians of Order I believe. The whole campaign was set in the new developing colony. Quite an interesting setting I thought.

Are you thinking of adding such to your stable of offerings?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Here's an idea for a colonization campaign:

You ever see this movie?
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...2E5804C7452D12A0E9782E580&fsscr=0&FORM=VDFSRV
What do you think? It is a variation on O'neill's idea with artificial illumination of the interior. I wonder how close one can get to those light sources without getting fried? My guess is they are giant florescent light tubes or LEDs, what do you think? In the middle of it is a model of the island of Manhattan and its surrounded by countryside. Not a soul is to be seen, although the fields appear to be cultivated. One can see the Twin towers in the model of Manhattan.

What if it were an actual colony, your characters wake up in this thing, in the middle of the island replica of Manhattan, they don't know how they got here. Prior to this, they lived ordinary lives in our world. This model of Manhattan is based on it prior to the 9/11 attack as the Twin Towers are still existent. The roads are empty and still. The trees have insects and birds, who built this thing, nobody knows. Any theories or ideas?

 

[Jame Rowe]

My GM has had us dealing with the Imperial Army Corps of Engineers while a unit of it was building up a starport on an uninhabited world. The in-game reason is that they're putting it in so the world can be colonized, so we're also exploring old Vilani/Ziru Sirka bases crewed by robots.

This was using a subsector out of one of the old FASA modules though, after he expanded on the subsector it was in so we could have a campaign. We also started a revolution on another of the worlds!