My ATU

[Robbo]

Greetings all,
I'm a long time RP-er who's return to Traveller after years of semi-retirement. I had an idea for a campaign and am not sure if I can or should fit it somehow into the OTU.

The premise is that Belters escaping a solar system wide war find a derelict alien ship in the Oort Cloud. It scoops their STL colony ship up and after weeks of travel deposits them in a subsector that is at least 6 pc from any Imperium worlds (sort of like the Islands subsectors in theReft Sector). There they find humans and aliens that were abducted and brought here over the centuries.

Is there anyplace on the map of Known Space that could fit this remote undeveloped location? The Islands are obviously already taken.

 

[phavoc]

If you want a sector, then probably not. However, if you are looking at a single star system, then yeah, you could easily set one up somewhere along the edge of the Imperium.

One way to "camoflague" your star system would be for it to be part of a large stellar cloud, that would prevent direct viewing of the system. To the outside it would just appear to be another thing to look at, but due to the distance, it was never explored.

 

[rust]

Since the kind of campaign you describe does not seem to require more
than a few systems at most, both Corridor and Reft would offer lots of
opportunities to locate these systems, hidden in or behind some cloud or
nebula.

 

[BP]

Within Known Space this would be very rare... but I did a 3D version of Known Space years ago (which collapsed directly to a 2D hex) and one feature was to color code all systems based on minimal nearest jump.

IIRC there were a handfull of J-6(+) only systems spread out within Known Space. I'll try to check today...

(While you could possibly find a hole to place a system - hiding it might become more problematic - dead sun; civilization hidden well within a moon/world; of course, extreme alien tech is always an option...)

 

[BP]

Ah - my program only went to J-4 stars...

But, looking at it - how about: Hoyt 1436 in the Ilelish sector (Lyystra subsector):

 

[Robbo]

I think I'll probably go with a whole new universe then. Otherwise I'm looking at a subsector so far away it becomes problematical whether there is a 3I or not. Characters probably wouldn't reach anyplace on official maps without years of travel.

Besides I doubt any planet could shield its radio and power emissions from the Imperium even if it was in a dust cloud.

So if I use an alternate universe I could use a different FTL drive. Maybe a hyperdrive, only instead of being limited by fuel its limited by zones of interference that throw a ship off course or damage it. Beyond the 'home cluster' hyper routes are undependable.

If I use hyperdrive then ships will have a lot of extra space for cargo and such. I may rule hyperdrive stresses a ship[ requiring extra reinforcement of hulls and components. Or I may have ships use chemical power plants.