How many wars in your subsector?

[dayriff]

Planetary wars that is, though limited interstellar wars between two systems would also be acceptable. Here's where I'm coming from.

Having rolled up a subsector, I'm taking on the ambitious job of doing a short write-up for each world. Physical description, culture, and a few plot hooks. Pretty time-consuming, but it lets me scratch a creative itch. One of the issues I'm wrestling with is war. War has been a constant for humanity for all of recorded history, and it doesn't seem likely to go away soon. More importantly, wars can create lots of plothooks for games and character backstories. PCs can run guns for wars, be driven off in a new direction by threat of war, be drafted into intrigues between warring states, and so on.

The UWP gives the impression that most worlds have a single government, but it's an abstraction. For a high population world, once can just as easily assume a number of competing states with one dominant and (most importantly) controlling access to the starport. Each 'faction' could be a nation or group of nations that aren't dominant but are still capable of fielding planetary-level armies.

The Imperium takes a harder line on interstellar wars, but there's still plenty of room for cold to lukewarm conflcits where two systems are deadly rivals that oppose each other through espionage, sabotage, and proxy wars on less-developed worlds, only occasionally erupting into starship combat that has to be put down by the Navy.

So tell me about wars in your Traveller universe. What conflicts do you have boiling and how have the PCs gotten themselves into the middle of it?

 

[rust]

My Demara Sector (the size of a Traveller subsector) has a number of
young human colonies with comparatively low populations, so there are
no real planetary wars and no interstellar wars between the colonies.

However, a neighbouring region is under occupation by two interstellar
powers, and there are a number of revolts, warships gone pirates, ter-
rorism, experiments with genetically modified slaves by megacorpora-
tions, and thelike.

This spills over into the otherwise peaceful Demara Sector, with pirates
raiding small colonies, capturing supply ships and traders, and so on,
and megacorporation-backed terrorists attacking certain colonies (for
example ones that grant asylum and citizenship to escaped slaves).

Since my campaign's characters are important leaders of one of the co-
lonies, they also have to deal with these problems, from fighting raiders
and terrorists to negotiating cooperation amongst the colonies, in order
to protect their colony.

 

[Shiloh]

The UWP gives the impression that most worlds have a single government, but it's an abstraction. For a high population world, once can just as easily assume a number of competing states with one dominant and (most importantly) controlling access to the starport. Each 'faction' could be a nation or group of nations that aren't dominant but are still capable of fielding planetary-level armies.

I think any world that has more than one sovereignty aside from the Imperial reserve would be catalogued as "Balkanised"... How accurate the catalogues are is entirely up to you, though

 

[dayriff]

The UWP gives the impression that most worlds have a single government, but it's an abstraction. For a high population world, once can just as easily assume a number of competing states with one dominant and (most importantly) controlling access to the starport. Each 'faction' could be a nation or group of nations that aren't dominant but are still capable of fielding planetary-level armies.

I think any world that has more than one sovereignty aside from the Imperial reserve would be catalogued as "Balkanised"... How accurate the catalogues are is entirely up to you, though

I knew somebody would respond to that effect. I think I personally am going to take an expansive view on what the government entry means. For smaller population worlds of 7-, okay that's few enough that I'll go with a single government. Once you get to populations 8+, though, that's probably enough sapients that different groups are going to have very strongly competing interests.

At that point I am going to go with the idea that the government code is there to answer the question, "Right then, who do we need to call about getting supplies for the starport/warn about Solomani infiltrators/complain to that the Duke's daughter better be treated well/threaten with interdiction if they don't shape up." Basically whoever the Imperium feels they need to talk to as the Guys In Charge. The existance of other polities on the planet isn't so important as long as the Imperium (thinks it) knows who the Guys In Charge are. The Balkanized category is reserved for instances where the Imperium can't figure out who to tag as the Guys In Charge or feel that the Guys In Charge change so often that they can't reliably tag any one group.

But then, I'm viewing the UWP as at least partially an in character thing that gets tagged on starmaps. And of course, I may change my mind or make exceptions as I make more worlds.

 

[StephenT]

But then, I'm viewing the UWP as at least partially an in character thing that gets tagged on starmaps.

Agreed - it's a quick reference guide for interstellar travellers telling them the eight things they most need to know about the world, assuming they plan to land at the starport, take a couple of days touring the startown, then load their cargo and leave. If the world is shown as 'Balkanised', it means that the different states actually have an effect on trade and travel - such as, they're at war, or the planet has wildly different laws or customs in different areas that might lead to trouble for travellers.

For more extensive requirements, there's doubtless entire encyclopedias available containing terabytes of data about each world. Some of it produced by the Scout Service (public record - like the CIA World Factbook), some of it by the Travellers' Aid Society (available at a price - like a Lonely Planet guide), and some of it by the local government(s) itself (doubtless full of propaganda and/or marketing-speak).

 

[Golan2072]

Keep in mind that there are several RL Terran governments ruling POP 9 countries (China and India) and Pop 8 ones (USA, the Russian Federation, and several more). So a single government could rule a high-pop world, especially if the world was settled by a single high-tech group (thus having a more or less uniform culture and ethnicity, making things even easier than for the above-listed Earth governments).

Secondary governments - that is, federal member-states, autonomies and so on - would probably be far more common than real independent states on non-gov-7 worlds. Gov-7 worlds, of course, would have several competing independent states.

However, I do agree with you that most high-pop worlds would have groups with sharply conflicting interests; just utilize the MGT Faction rules to their fullest potential and you could probably represent these well.

And yes, factions could cause wars. Not necessarily official ones, but insurgency, "police actions", terrorism, or even less-violent political maneuvering (i.e. more or less legit, but with occasional riots or assassinations). Still, plenty of work for mercs! :twisted:

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I usually assumed that there were coflicts on ALL Balkanized worlds. They may not be actively fighting a war, but there would be conflict.

Using the Mongoose Faction and Culture data available in the TMB, I would use that to generate conflict on worlds with supposedly a single government.

I am also of the opinion that the UWP and any other published data on a world is the Character's Information and the "real" situation could be quite different.

BTW, if you want to use China and India as examples of POP 9 single governments, don't forget that BOTH have internal conflicts right now (Tibet...) that could be considered a "war" under certain circumstances.

Even the US at POP 8 has had it's share of internal conflicts that could be considered war. If Scouts came to the US in the 1960s, they might not have listed the US as "Balkanized", they might have listed it as a GOV 4 and put an Amber Zone on it due to an "internal conflict". Had they landed in the Confederacy, they probably would have listed it as Balkanized.

I usually figure almost all Amber Zone worlds are involved in a war.

 

[dayriff]

Keep in mind that there are several RL Terran governments ruling POP 9 countries (China and India) and Pop 8 ones (USA, the Russian Federation, and several more). So a single government could rule a high-pop world, especially if the world was settled by a single high-tech group (thus having a more or less uniform culture and ethnicity, making things even easier than for the above-listed Earth governments).

Secondary governments - that is, federal member-states, autonomies and so on - would probably be far more common than real independent states on non-gov-7 worlds. Gov-7 worlds, of course, would have several competing independent states.

Good points, certainly. Your examples are actually pretty on-point for the sort of thing I'm looking for.

The Russian Federation has to deal with rebellious provinces (Chechnya) and as the Soviet Union had puppet states that were nominally independent but answered directly the Soviets. China is one nation... which officially includes Taiwan and Tibet. Pre-Civil War United States devolved much of its power to the state level, even though the federal government was the one that foreign nations dealt with. Indonesia has a long-running slowly simmering civil war with the Tamil Tigers.

 

[ninthcouncil]

Indonesia has a long-running slowly simmering civil war with the Tamil Tigers.

Tamil Tigers are active in Sri Lanka. Indonesia is a whole different kettle of fish.