Goldilocks Worlds should dominate

[Sageryne]

Hi all,

One thing has always bothered me about all of the Traveller maps (Atlas of the Imperium, etc), in my humble opinion, Goldilocks worlds (Size 7 - 9, Atmosphere 6, Hydrographic 5 - 7) should be the ones with the biggest populations and they should be the local economic hubs, mainly because they are "shirt-sleeve" worlds where people can live without vast and expensive technological supports.

Of course, there will always be systems that are just in the "right place" (i.e at the intersection of key trade routes or choke points) that will grow and become hi-population systems regardless of their size, atmosphere or hydrographics.

I realize that the UWPs were largely generated randomly. However, I wish that once the size, atmosphere and hydrographics had been generated, then some human intervention had been applied to the data set. To me, this would have resulted in the Goldilocks worlds having the largest populations and likely the highest technology. The X-boat jump routes should have then been developed accordingly.

However....

This is all water under the bridge. The UWPs have been published and become canon. It is largely impossible to change it now.

I just felt like ranting today.

Have a great day!

- Kerry

 

[paltrysum]

I'll offer you a counter-rant to add some discussion points or food for thought.

For many Goldilocks worlds, yes, you'd think so. I'm sure they'd be big draws. And many show that in their stats, even if those are random results. Here are some reasons why they are not the only draws:

• Resources: Worlds with easily extractable resources would have high value regardless of their environmental qualities. There's an argument for having people on site in the Traveller motif: it takes a week to jump from system to system and there are no instantaneous interstellar communications. Being there to claim and manage your resources in person is how it could be done. You could say that advanced societies use robotic proxies, and that would make for a fine story, but not in the vein of Traveller which is based more on the sci-fi of the 40s-70s. An example: A world like Mercury, which has experienced a "fortuitous" collision that tore away its mantle and exposed the metals underneath makes it valuable for resource extraction.
• Location: A vacuum or hostile world might be the hub of several other worlds on a trade route, making it significantly more important than its environment would suggest and therefore worthy of settlement.
• Narrative variation: It'd be kind of boring if those were the only types of worlds where there were tons of people. Wearing vacc suits and dealing with environmental challenges makes for much more exciting narratives.
• Problems with some Goldilocks worlds: The whole story might not be revealed in the stats. Sure, B767 is a great first four UWP stats, but what if there's an invasive fungus that pervades the planet, one that tech cannot or has not eliminated? Also atmospheric taints can be a big detractor to colonisation.
• Ideal habitats: I read a book called Imagined Life that scientifically explores lots of possiblities for life on other worlds. While those explorations are great, one of the things the authors propose is that the environment on our Goldilocks world is not ideal for life. Terra has killed 99.9% of all life on its surface over time. Evolution made us, but it doesn't care if natural or human-made disasters kill us. The authors of the book suggest that artificial habitats in space could be consciously designed that are vastly safer. That's a whole topic worthy of a separate discussion, but it does justify the idea that the environment of the world itself is less important if the technology exists to replace it.

 

[Limpin Legin]

"Goldilocks Worlds" are called Garden Worlds in Traveller.

Traveller’s trade codes define a Garden World as having a Size code of 6-8, Atmosphere 5, 6 or 8 and Hydrographics 5-7. In other words, a garden world has large amounts of surface water plus a non-tainted atmosphere that is thin, standard or dense. It must also be about the right size and therefore have gravitational conditions suitable to human habitation.

As well as being more suitable to humans, they are also more suitable to dangerous animals and the Chamax Plague (see Traveller Referees Briefing 6: Garden Worlds.)

 

[Sageryne]

Resources is also a big issue, though looking at our own world, it is not uncommon for resources to be extracted in one place and then be transported a great distance for processing. This also raises another personal pet peeve of mine, I think there should be more mega-sized bulk carriers for moving such raw materials from place to place.

I agree, location is always going to be a factor. Even if you have two garden worlds (to use the more Traveller correct description), it is likely there will be a number of lesser quality systems in between them that traffic will have to traverse just to get from one to the other.

As for narrative variation... that is an absolutely legitimate requirement for an adventure based game. No debate there.

Problems not captured by a simple UWP. Again, I think that is reasonable. But personally, it seems simpler to solve that problem so you can take advantage of the hugely significant advantages of the right gravity, atmosphere and water levels.

Another issue and my own critique...

I also thought that Garden Worlds should be the highest tech... until I thought about Earth. We have widely different tech levels on just one planet (a Garden World at that). We range from TL1 to early (pre-fusion) TL8. I guess it really depends on resources and development.

- Kerry

 

[Limpin Legin]

Yes, well, we know at TL8 that resource mining and Tech production can add to the carbon in the atmosphere, and destabilise the environment. Not mentioned as a rule dynamic, but a scrupulous referee could manually follow that line of plot and world development/destabilisation.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Consider a minor human race existing on a garden world.
Once you achieve TL8 you can start building space infrastructure and begin industrialisation of space. Air/rafts, fusion power, military maneuver drives.
By TL9 you should have moved the bulk of your industry and resource harvesting into space so your world can be returned to a natural environment.
You can build asteroid and space station habitats, tunnel into moons etc.

You discover the jump drive.

The next system you visit has no garden world but lots of resources, so you build space habitats etc, and the population grows.

There is money to be made by the resource harvesting, industrial processes and production of goods, all of which can be done in space.

Then you find another garden world, not wanting to wreck it it is once again used as a bio-home, just as your native world is.

 

[MonsterX]

Might be that life-bearing planets are the best places to settle. Might be that the life will inevitably eat you, or infect you, or plant itself on your face to use you as a convenient surrogate to lay its eggs in. We'll only find out if and when interstellar travel takes off. See

Spoiler: SF book

Kim Stanley Robinson's Auror

a, or even just War of the Worlds for elaboration on that thesis. In Traveller, it's quite clear from the large number of high population garden worlds that it's not inevitable existing life will make new settlement impossible. But it does make a good explanation for the significant number of desirable worlds that are not settled. These also present many dramatic possibilities for the evil referee to draw on.

 

[Vormaerin]

And keep in mind that lots of space was explored/settled first when jump 1 or Jump 2 was the maximum. So even if Awful World sucks, you have to put a colony there (even if its a small one in orbit) because that's the only way to get to the next place.

Also, keep in mind that just because the mainworld is a hellhole, that doesn't mean that the colony is ON THE PLANET. You could have a giant space colony operating robo-miners from orbit or whatever.

 

[Arkathan]

As Limpin Legin said, but even a less dramatic example would make the entire planet an episode of Jurassic Park if you catch an Earth-like planet 65 million years off, or without meteor storms.

 

[CordwainerFish]

"Goldilocks Worlds" are called Garden Worlds in Traveller.



As well as being more suitable to humans, they are also more suitable to dangerous animals and the Chamax Plague (see Traveller Referees Briefing 6: Garden Worlds.)

Beware of stobor.

 

[Arkathan]

Beware of stobor.

Rod, is that you?

 

[Limpin Legin]

Beware of stobor.

Indeed. Stobor is just "robots" spelt backward and Legin is just "Nigel" spelt backwards!

 

[G'Naakbusters]

I've noticed a couple of places on the Map where a High Population world with inhospitable conditions is only a parsec from a Garden World that is uninhabited or has a very low population. I tend to justify this by assuming that the governing power keeps the Garden World as a reserve for the purpose of holding the population of the exploited world should it become unfeasible to remain there. Maybe even the population are promised that their descendants will have that world as reward for their dutiful toil.

One of these situations was in Zhodani space, one Hiver; both seem the type to set worlds aside for later development or as careful failsafes. It wouldn't work in, say, Aslan or Vargr space, of course.

 

[Nelphine]

Personally, I'd like to steal Starfires suitability score concept. Any world that has any kind of atmosphere, gets a random suitability score (d66 maybe?), modified by the other scores (size, atmo, hydro). Idea is to simply have a number that encapsulates things like temperature, biological makeup, chemical makeup, etc, without needing to actually detail all of those factors.

Every sophont then has a suitability score that matches their racial homeworld, which would change by 1 (or some smaller value) for each generation that lives on another world towards that worlds suitability (which over time would lead to a race effectively changing into different races).

Goal is to simply have a number to compare rather than needing to know everything about the sophont racial history, in order to tell if a given planet is hostile to them.

Then it'd be much easier to tell difference between the different worlds and have an easier time determining who would want to colonize what, and then would be a better indication of what population should be on a given world.

The numbers would then be used as a basis for determining population on a randomly generated world.

 

[Arkathan]

Consider District 268's Dawnworld (Spinward Marches 1531)
Great place to live.
Not a great place to have kids, as males born there are universally sterile.

 

[Vormaerin]

UPP is a nice simple starting point. But it is like 10% of the story, if that. So many fun things you can do with a garden world that would make it politically or biologically unsuitable as a place to live, if that's what your campaign/story/whatever needs.

 

[Sageryne]

The thing that got me thinking about this is Star Trek: Supremacy (a completely fan built modern version of the MicroProse game Birth of the Federation). It is a turned based 4X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate). In the game, you start from your home system (usually pretty good) and expand outwards.

I totally agree with Vormaerin:

And keep in mind that lots of space was explored/settled first when jump 1 or Jump 2 was the maximum. So even if Awful World sucks, you have to put a colony there (even if its a small one in orbit) because that's the only way to get to the next place.

Quite often, you have to colonize sub-optimal worlds just to get to the next system.

However, I have also found that once you do find other Garden Worlds, they are easy to colonize and the populations grow quickly. These "new homeworlds" swiftly become key hubs. One of these new homeworlds can have the population of a dozen smaller systems.

I find that these Garden Worlds become the hubs for further expansion.

 

[Geir]

Beware of stobor.

I always thought it was robots backwards when I read that book, but no.

 

[Tobias]

Hi all,

One thing has always bothered me about all of the Traveller maps (Atlas of the Imperium, etc), in my humble opinion, Goldilocks worlds (Size 7 - 9, Atmosphere 6, Hydrographic 5 - 7) should be the ones with the biggest populations and they should be the local economic hubs, mainly because they are "shirt-sleeve" worlds where people can live without vast and expensive technological supports.

Of course, there will always be systems that are just in the "right place" (i.e at the intersection of key trade routes or choke points) that will grow and become hi-population systems regardless of their size, atmosphere or hydrographics.

I realize that the UWPs were largely generated randomly. However, I wish that once the size, atmosphere and hydrographics had been generated, then some human intervention had been applied to the data set. To me, this would have resulted in the Goldilocks worlds having the largest populations and likely the highest technology. The X-boat jump routes should have then been developed accordingly.

However....

This is all water under the bridge. The UWPs have been published and become canon. It is largely impossible to change it now.

I just felt like ranting today.

Have a great day!

- Kerry

Counterpoint:
Do most people on Earth live in small villages in the countryside, where they can freely wander into the (not so) natural landscape?

Or in big cities where the artificial nature of whatever greenery exists could not be denied even by a member of the Green Party?

 

[Geir]

The thing Marc Miller was especially proud of was that the UWP gave you a million different possibilities (more, if you account for starports and tech levels) and that made it easy to describe worlds you hadn't even imagined. And honestly, making up reasons why a world is that way is half the fun of Traveller (okay, not, like, 50% or anything, but up there on the ten best list). And even if the world has the exact same UWP (like, um C555555-7) it doesn't need to be the same as another world with the same UWP.

As Chris (paltrysum) said, there are a lot of reasons why some oddball world might be the high pop one (Louzy comes to mind... I always wanted to be the Count of Louzy, but that's just me). Even in the Spinward Marches there's a thousand years of history to explain how a world got to be the way it is, and there reasons are almost as endless as the UWP.