District 268 research station

ResslynHalvik

ResslynHalvik

Cosmic Mongoose
There seems to be some disagreement about the research station in District 268.

 

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The research station is on Judice. Always has been. Anyone saying otherwise can't read sources.
See CT S:3 The Spinward Marches and the boxed adventure Tarsus which states:
"A situation Involving one of the Imperium's research stations {similar to the one on Judice)."
 
Just thinking laterally - could the one research station have moved from Judice to Mille Falcs, and thus appear in two different places on two different maps?
 
ResslynHalvik said:
There seems to be some disagreement about the research station in District 268.
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Two words - Plausible Deniability :)

Given the dubious things that go on in imperial research stations and the vagaries of funding etc. it is hardly surprising they have ephemeral existence. Also Judice is a very hostile world and has no other population. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen :)

"Such research stations are sited in areas which need the boost to the local economy, or in remote areas far from the potential disturbance of Imperial politics." GDW - Library Data A-M p33.

ResslynHalvik said:
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The link you site also designates the station as Theta (History & Background).
"In 1103, Imperial Research Station Theta was established just offshore of the largest sea with the mission of studying the world's exotic and fascinating lifeforms"

ResslynHalvik said:
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The Research Station data is for 1116. It notes that there is a research station at Judice but with a different designation (Eta). I am not sure what the designation represents off-hand but since multiple stations can have the same designation it clearly isn't a unique identifier of the location. It may be that stations can change designation depending on what they are researching, which branch of the Imperial bureaucracy is funding them etc. Someone with more knowledge on this area would need to comment.
ResslynHalvik said:
  • In Mongoose book Behind the Claw , the subsector map on p124 shows a research station station in Mille Falcs, but not in Judice (and the book doesn't mention it)
    but the poster map of the Spinward Marches included with the book shows a research station in Judice
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This is likely an oversight, but I don't have that book. It may be set at a different time and the base has closed down or moved or suffered some catastrophe.

Imperial research stations would be ideal spy bases and given the political flux in District 286 and the fact that Judice is on the Mertactor - Collace Main it is strategically important. The precarious nature of funding allocation would make any director extremely susceptible to political influence.

It may only have a class E port, and fuelling on the Gas Giant may be the default but an Imperial Base of any kind would be valuable. Sometimes it might be expedient to let it fall off the RADAR on occasion. ISS might not visit systems that already have Imperial assets and simply rely on the submitted reports. Those reports may be in error or deliberately falsified. In the research that has military application may sudden "disappear" from academic publications once it becomes more than theoretical :)

"Lost a research station the ISS has, how embarrassing."
 
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swordtart said:
Two words - Plausible Deniability :)

Given the dubious things that go on in imperial research stations and the vagaries of funding etc. it is hardly surprising they have ephemeral existence. Also Judice is a very hostile world and has no other population. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen :)

"Such research stations are sited in areas which need the boost to the local economy, or in remote areas far from the potential disturbance of Imperial politics." GDW - Library Data A-M p33.


The link you site also designates the station as Theta (History & Background).
"In 1103, Imperial Research Station Theta was established just offshore of the largest sea with the mission of studying the world's exotic and fascinating lifeforms"


The Research Station data is for 1116. It notes that there is a research station at Judice but with a different designation (Eta). I am not sure what the designation represents off-hand but since multiple stations can have the same designation it clearly isn't a unique identifier of the location. It may be that stations can change designation depending on what they are researching, which branch of the Imperial bureaucracy is funding them etc. Someone with more knowledge on this area would need to comment.

This is likely an oversight, but I don't have that book. It may be set at a different time and the base has closed down or moved or suffered some catastrophe.

Imperial research stations would be ideal spy bases and given the political flux in District 286 and the fact that Judice is on the Mertactor - Collace Main it is strategically important. The precarious nature of funding allocation would make any director extremely susceptible to political influence.

It may only have a class E port, and fuelling on the Gas Giant may be the default but an Imperial Base of any kind would be valuable. Sometimes it might be expedient to let it fall off the RADAR on occasion. ISS might not visit systems that already have Imperial assets and simply rely on the submitted reports. Those reports may be in error or deliberately falsified. In the research that has military application may sudden "disappear" from academic publications once it becomes more than theoretical :)

"Lost a research station the ISS has, how embarrassing."
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Thanks. I swear I read that wiki page twice and didn't spot that!

I'm a bit confused about the dates stuff. I thought a tag of 1116 meant the 1116 era, which covered everything from 1100 to 1116.
 
ResslynHalvik said:
There seems to be some disagreement about the research station in District 268.

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This page may have the information you are looking for -

https://travellermap.com/doc/secondsurvey

or

Imperial Research Station - Traveller

wiki.travellerrpg.com wiki.travellerrpg.com

or

Research Station Eta - Traveller

wiki.travellerrpg.com wiki.travellerrpg.com
 
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Checking the primary sources:

CT Supplement 3 Spinward Marches (1979), Lists the seven Spinward Marches Imperial Research Stations, but they aren't named in that product.

CT Adventure 2 Research Station Gamma (1980) names the one on Vanejen (Gamma, obviously...)

The colour map that came with Deluxe Traveller (1981) DOES have the Greek letter designations of the Spinward marches research stations:

Retinae/Querion (Delta)
Froin/Five Sisters (Zeta)
Judice/District 268 (Eta)
Yori/Regina (Beta)
Vreibefger/Lanth (Epsilon)
Vanejen/Rhylanor (Gamma)
Duale/Mora (Alpha)

(Note those are the first seven letters of the Greek Alphabet. Either it's a naming strategy that started in the Marches, other sectors also start naming from Alpha, or other sectors use different naming schemes. YTUMV)

This is all well before the 5th Frontier War products, so can be taken as state of pre-war play. It's very possible that one or more of them may have been shut down or relocated as a result of the war, so if there are postwar differences, I'd go with that. It's not like they're cities or governments. And it's likely the one in Querion was at least occupied - possibly evacuated to save the research. Good mission seed there at the appropriate date...

And also note that the colour SM map was reissued with the MegaTraveller box set, but may not have been updated, or may have typos.
 
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Now I want to check my MegaTraveller era colour map, but couldn't find it after a search at home.
There are black and white versions of it in some MegaTraveller books, I think.
 
rinku said:
Checking the primary sources:

CT Supplement 3 Spinward Marches (1979), Lists the seven Spinward Marches Imperial Research Stations, but they aren't named in that product.

CT Adventure 2 Research Station Gamma (1980) names the one on Vanejen (Gamma, obviously...)

The colour map that came with Deluxe Traveller (1981) DOES have the Greek letter designations of the Spinward marches research stations:

Retinae/Querion (Delta)
Froin/Five Sisters (Zeta)
Judice/District 268 (Eta)
Yori/Regina (Beta)
Vreibefger/Lanth (Epsilon)
Vanejen/Rhylanor (Gamma)
Duale/Mora (Alpha)

(Note those are the first seven letters of the Greek Alphabet. Either it's a naming strategy that started in the Marches, other sectors also start naming from Alpha, or other sectors use different naming schemes. YTUMV)

This is all well before the 5th Frontier War products, so can be taken as state of pre-war play. It's very possible that one or more of them may have been shut down or relocated as a result of the war, so if there are postwar differences, I'd go with that. It's not like they're cities or governments. And it's likely the one in Querion was at least occupied - possibly evacuated to save the research. Good mission seed there at the appropriate date...

And also note that the colour SM map was reissued with the MegaTraveller box set, but may not have been updated, or may have typos.
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CT = the 1977 booklet rules? As someone who's come back to Traveller after a 40 year gap, why is it we still treat those as the primary source, rather than using Mongoose as a clean reboot?
 
Because the setting is over forty years old and has a lot of detail, details that Mongoose authors keep getting wrong.

Sometimes they claim it is a deliberate change, fair enough they own the setting now. Shame about all of those supplements and maps that pre-date this pointless change...

CT refers to everything pre-MegaTraveller.

MWM often said he was bound by previous canon, Mongoose authors do not appear to have the same ethos.
 
ResslynHalvik said:
CT = the 1977 booklet rules? As someone who's come back to Traveller after a 40 year gap, why is it we still treat those as the primary source, rather than using Mongoose as a clean reboot?
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Basically, and there are a couple of people who will strongly disagree, but it's like law: precedent is authoratitive but the latest law from a competent legislative body overrides conflicting older ones.

So sources from the 70s are great if there's nothing since then to contradict them: one of the amazing things about Traveller is how much detail there is for the Official Traveller Universe. But if the 1977 version says you need x% of the ship for a given component, and Mongoose (who own the rights now) say it is y%, then you can say it is x, y or z but canon is y%.

You get people saying "argh why don't the writers read the old versions?!?" but in many cases it's safe to assume that they do (in the case of MJD, who gets that a lot, he probably wrote the previous version). Geir knows his shit. Paltrysum knows the fiction of huge areas of the game better than anyone after so long. They've just decided to revise it, which is fine by some but anathema to others.

Edit: there are versions of Traveller that are later than others, which conflict with them, and which everyone sane just agrees to ignore (heplar drives lawl).
 
ResslynHalvik said:
CT = the 1977 booklet rules? As someone who's come back to Traveller after a 40 year gap, why is it we still treat those as the primary source, rather than using Mongoose as a clean reboot?
Click to expand...
It's probably the '81 books, actually :D

If Mongoose deliberately changes something about the setting, they can do that. Regina used to be TL10. Now it's TL12. Whatever. They changed several of the planet names when they produced a new version of the Trojan Reaches. That's fine.

Sometimes what they are doing is basically a reprint of an old book with better production values and minor updates (For example, Death Station or Mission on Mithral). Sometimes it is a complete rewrite just using the original as inspiration (Twilight's Peak vs Mysteries of the Ancients).

If Mongoose doesn't say anything about changing something and it looks like a typo or a misreading, like in this case, it is reasonable to refer to the source that the information originally came from. Because they are not inventing things from scratch and they have not declared all previous books de-canonized or whatever. And there is a lot of things that have not been addressed in anything the Mongoose 2e line of Charted Space material, so that keeps the previous material as the primary source.

Also, it's not like these are lost in depths of time. Mongoose is publishing them in pdf right now and, in fact, adding to the CT ruleset (they recently published Book 9: Pirates for Classic Traveller).
 
Also, some of the things that Mongoose has changed relate to Intellectual Property rights. Change a name, etc to remove any potential claim on the current IP holder. Changing the names of some of the systems in the Reach as an example.
 
Yeah, the original version had a number of worlds named after famous authors. I'm sure its not hard to guess which since they mostly just shortened them or slightly changed the spelling.
 
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