Pirates of Drinax - GMs thread

[Bardicheart]

Glad something in that wall of text was useful. LOL Honestly did not mean to post so much but it was late and I didn't edit it down so... hazard of being wordy. :?

During the campaign definitely agree they aren't getting any ships, wouldn't be til after the final big battle they could trade for some in most scenarios. Even if they did cut a deal with the Sword Worlds early on the problem there is going strictly by OTU, the Sword Worlds don't have any big ships, all the examples of their ships are far smaller (which has always annoyed me, PLEASE MGT, update that! It is LONG overdue to have an official update on their ship and fleet sizes IMNSHO) But there again, there's several descriptions of them having "battleships" that fought head to head battles with Imperial battleships in previous wars so you can make the case that they do and we just inconveniently don't have any examples. The Sword Worlds are lower tech generally and I would imagine the Imperium has worked to keep it that way as much as possible (their economic clout has a very long reach). I also doubt the Zhodani have been over eager to equip them with high tech, they're a pawn to the Zhodani, one more buffer state. So on the down side that means some TL 12 capital ships are the best the Swordies could offer and they'll bargain dearly even for that (for them its a big deal, they'd be giving up some of their best capital ships at a time when tensions are high and war is looming, that's going to be some HARD bargaining and could be a bit of fun to role play with bribes, espionage, etc. as both side wrangle for influence and bargaining chips). On the upside it would mean they are very eager to get their hands on TL 15 designs and schematics which the Tower of Scholars has a plenty with whatever old Sindalian designs they still have on file. With the 5th Frontier war looming it could be a game changer depending on how fast the Swordies could ramp up their shipyards to produce new ships and how much time they have. Figure maybe 3 years minimum to roll out a new cruiser or battleship? They'll also need time to produce more than just a couple of ships, a dozen TL 15 heavy cruisers could make a big difference early on, but if they come late and fewer it'll end up being like the Me-262 in WW II, too little too late to make a real difference.

As for GeDeCo and infrastructure, they aren't the only game in town. They have competitors and here again smart players would play them off against one another. Are there any equivalents to GeDeCo among the Aslan or Zhodani? Could get a nice little bidding war going. Not to mention they have the extra card to play against GeDeCo that the company didn't think Drinax could survive but it did and if they want to have any trade representation in the new kingdom they have some serious making up to do. Again, good potential for role playing doing some industrial espionage and such to get influence over key people, build up your bargaining chips, meanwhile the other factions will be doing the same... wonder what dirt they can get on the players or individuals at court?

Or the players could find a 2000 dT TL 15 Sindalian frigate in repairable condition (ala the Black Prince from The Forgotten War) and just take off in that as freewheeling part time pirates and all the big stuff with capital ship deals and trading deals and infrastructure becomes rumors and news they hear at various star ports. All depends on which way the players go.

There... much shorter and to the point. LOL 8)

 

[Old School]

I got no right to complaine about other people’s long posts, that’s for sure.

Actually running the kingdom after a successful Finale would be interesting, but largely outside the realm of Traveller as an RPG. They arent actors trying to influence sector wide powers anymore. They ARE the power. But I could definitely see them getting Imperium ships even as an independent power. Perhaps on a friendly lease arrangement. All those trade duties from the Imperium go right back to pay for the fleet, and the Imperium gets the buffer they want between them an the Aslan.

The new kingdom would have to cut deals with somebody. My point with GeDeCo is that they ARE the only game in town when it comes to Class A starports, tech level, and the industrial scope to build out a fleet and infrastructure. My interpretation is that GeDeCo controls the staports at Acrid and Tanith. Theve is GeDeCo sponsored, off the beaten path, limited in size and also unsustainable. Tech World, which is likely Drinax’s best bet, has unknown??? ship building capacity without GeDeCo spport. Drinax has tech but no ship building capabilities. GeDeco has competitors, for sure, but who else already has all the pieces in place? No one. Cordan and Pourne also have class A ports but those appear to be run by the local governments, so would be tech level limited. I suppose instead of striking a deal they could just declare GeDeCo an enemy of the State (certainly not an unreasonable conclusion) and nationalize their assets. That would be fun. Thats what I would do as the leader of a new Drinaxian Kingdom. Diplomatic kerfluffles mixed with cloned assassins for everyone!

Speaking of GeDeCO and diplomatic kerfluffles, my travellers will soon get word about the “treaty”GeDeCo planted on the Treasure Ship. Word thst it is a fake will come much later. My question is: since they had nothing to do with it, do they still get the possible benefits (roll for systems moving closer to Haven) and penalties (lower standing with both powers)? I’m thinking yes to both. In this case they are getting psuhed around by the scheming of others, which than they can capitalize on, but also get lower standing simply due to increased tensions. What do you guys think?

 

[Bardicheart]

Building a class A starport (and more to the point a class A shipyard, which unfortunately Traveller does not handle separately, wish it did) is less of a problem than having the industrial infrastructure to support said shipyard. Technically both Drinax and TechWorld already have class A starports and therefore the shipyards, going strictly by the book, could somehow mysteriously build capital ships. But, I defer to common sense, no they can't.

Both lack the kind of industrial infrastructure the Imperium, Aslan, Zhodani or even the Sword Worlds have (or the Darrians but who want's to deal with space elves?) By industry I mean all the different manufacturers that never get mentioned. Who makes the miles of fiber optics that get used? Who supplies the tons of hull plating? Who makes the bulkheads? Who builds the jump drives or the maneuver drives? Who makes the avionics, the sensors, the targeting systems? Who made the seals that go on the airlock doors, and who made the actual airlock doors and assembled them into units ready to be installed? Who made the armored plas for the portholes (and does it have UV filtering, I don't want the upholstery to fade ya know)? Who made the carpeting or the toilets... I mean it all has to come from somewhere? All those things (and countless more) are usually different specialized manufacturers. My point is like a real world luxury liner or freighter or naval warship there are literally hundreds of contractors and suppliers involved providing thousands of things most of us would never even consider because we've never had to manage such a project and had no idea what goes into it. That's the infrastructure that will be needed and I see little evidence of it among the various worlds with a high enough tech level. I'm not saying its completely absent, but I tend to doubt there's enough there to support a full on class A shipyard cranking out capital ships. There's the rub.

Then there's the personnel for the shipyard. You need a lot of experienced people, that's more than just skills, its on the job experience doing something really complicated and working in sync with a lot of other people to make that really complicated thing happen before your kids have kids old enough to go to college. I could see a group of Travellers and their trusty robots tearing a 600 dT ship down to its frame themselves and rebuilding it the way a friend of mine does with cars. " Oh man Kan Bolo, this is gonna be one sweet ship once we swap out the maneuver drive for the Kaldorian X9980 and slap on that new Mrenxian Bonded Superdense hull plating. You said it Duke Dirtsniffer! An don't forget the high yield Phrethian fusion reactor, its got twice the output of the old one. We'll be able to mount those pulse lasers that fell off that freighter and still be able to make jump under fire! Gleep doop bleep! said K9D2, their trusty astromech " But you just don't do that with a 80,000 dT warship, there are engineering issues that go way beyond what you'd deal with in a small ship and that needs a lot of experienced personnel, even if they do have a million robots with the proper software to do the actual work. That's where I wish we had some sort of rules for how much it takes to build a ship, time frames, materials consumed, etc. or more to the point, what is the construction capacity of a given shipyard? The "1 day per 1 MCr" rule in HG 2e just completely breaks when you deal with capital ships (a 50,000 dT strike carrier costing 30,000 MCr would take just over 82 years for a class A shipyard to finish... really???? :roll: ). But just with common sense it shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 years to build a battleship, if it did, it wouldn't be practical.

But hey, if players want to refit a smaller ship at TechWorld, looks like they might be able to help them out with some pretty advanced tweaks and it seems like they've got enough robots and supplies to handle that sized job. That is, maybe Techworld can handle constructing 5,000 dT of ships in whatever combination at TL 15 at any given time, and let's say they can complete 50 dT of work of work per day (pure guess there, but good enough for an example). So you have say a 1,200 dT Aslan ship you want to turn into a pocket flag ship, they could handle that, even if you do a complete rebuild which means tearing down and refitting all 1200 dt of it in just 24 days if there were no other ships there. Or they could be working on a 800 dT ship, a 600 dT ship and two 300 dT ships at the same time for a total of 3200 dT and the work would instead take 64 days (give or take). Now whether those numbers are really realistic as to how much work they can do per day or week... that's entirely open for discussion cause I'm just making it up as I go.

That's just my two bits on it.

 

[paltrysum]

My player group’s pilot has Pilot (Spacecraft)-4 with an expert program enhancing his ability even further. I’m not sure how excited he’d be to start spending his experience on Pilot (Capital Ships) to get up to snuff. But I’d kind of like to see him have to face the choice.

We’ll see what happens, but constantly pushing the envelope and morphing the campaign is something I like to do.

 

[ochd]

My Pirates campaign is in mid-1107 and the Fifth Frontier War is looming.

Mine, too, actually and I was going to start introducing news of the war. But thought it might be worth going off piste from canon and using the FFW as the background event to trigger the finale.

But, speaking of canon, is there a definitive chronology of events post 1105? I've read of things like the virus and the rebellion, but not sure where to get more info on when these happen and what they are.

Dan.

 

[ochd]

As for GeDeCo and infrastructure, they aren't the only game in town.

Rumour 46 says the Ine Givar are building a fleet. I like the idea of that and want to develop it, but there is already lots for the players to cope with at the mo.

 

[Bardicheart]

My Pirates campaign is in mid-1107 and the Fifth Frontier War is looming.

Mine, too, actually and I was going to start introducing news of the war. But thought it might be worth going off piste from canon and using the FFW as the background event to trigger the finale.

But, speaking of canon, is there a definitive chronology of events post 1105? I've read of things like the virus and the rebellion, but not sure where to get more info on when these happen and what they are.

Dan.

You could try DriveThruRPG, look for MegaTraveller and pick up a copy of HardTimes which covers the events of the assassination in 1116 and the subsequent civil war through 1128 as well as how it impacts various worlds and generally throws the Imperium into a new Long Night. Even gives you rules for reducing the tech level, populations, etc. of various worlds due to the effects (and determining how well some world do or don't survive).

Virus was added in the New Era rules and most players I know generally try to pretend those rules were never published. LOL

But the short version goes like this
1107 - Fifth Frontier war starts
1110 - Fifth Frontier war ends
1116 - Emperor Strephon assassinated
1117 - Succession crisis as the Imperium generally learns of the assassination and breaks up into factions
1117-1128 - Intense fighting between succession faction pretty much tears the Imperium apart, but if you ever wondered what would happen if fleets of Imperial Batrons went up against fleets of Imperial Batrons... make some popcorn, it was quite the show.
1128 - The 3rd Imperium is pretty much dead and broken up into entrenched factions that are running out of steam. The Spinward Marches are cut off and stand alone, but are holding it together (Norris was apparently the only Archduke who turned out to be sane). The area around Tobia is cut off and lost (of interest perhaps to Drinax players if they're still going)

The Virus / New Era stuff came later but... ewwww... ick... ick... not touching that stuff. :lol:

HardTimes will give you a fairly complete break down including major battles and even fleet compositions in some cases. Finally the empire gets a war with someone who can match its massive fleets... itself, and the results are pretty horrific. But I actually always enjoyed campaigns set in it, with all the chaos its a much more Wild West style campaign (kind like Drinax except its not the Outrim Void its the entirety of the Imperium) where what the players do can make a big difference. Reaction to it was very mixed, some players loved it, others hated it; the whole thing went over kinda like the death of Superman.

You can also get some of the info from online Traveller wiki's.

 

[Bardicheart]

My player group’s pilot has Pilot (Spacecraft)-4 with an expert program enhancing his ability even further. I’m not sure how excited he’d be to start spending his experience on Pilot (Capital Ships) to get up to snuff. But I’d kind of like to see him have to face the choice.

We’ll see what happens, but constantly pushing the envelope and morphing the campaign is something I like to do.

Likewise, its good to let things grow and change over time. At least I think so. On the plus side 2e seems to have more manageable rules for learning new skills and there's always software to run things until skill levels improve (they also added a lot more rules for ship automation which is handy). Besides, its not like you need to dodge stuff in a heavy cruiser... in a heavy cruiser stuff dodges you! LOL

 

[steve98052]

You could try DriveThruRPG, look for MegaTraveller and pick up a copy of HardTimes which covers the events of the assassination in 1116 and the subsequent civil war through 1128 as well as how it impacts various worlds and generally throws the Imperium into a new Long Night. . . .

Another course of action, if you don't like the Rebellion timeline, is to get the Far Furniture archives of the GURPS Traveller books. They follow an alternate timeline where the Rebellion failed due to the mysterious death of a principal instigator.

 

[ochd]

The Far Furniture archives? Are they records from the Imperial War Cabinet? Or maybe the Bureau of Intelligence?

Thanks for the tips. Hard Times sounds interesting.

Dan.

 

[Old School]

GURPS put out a lot of supplements, so it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[paltrysum]

Getting a little off topic here but I second the notion of using “Hard Times.” It’s essentially a campaign in its own right. With a little work, it could be used in multiple astrographic locations.

 

[paltrysum]

Getting a little off topic here but I second the notion of using “Hard Times.” It’s essentially a campaign in its own right. With a little work, it could be used in multiple astrographic locations.

 

[Old School]

So if the 5th frontier war is about to start, what impact does that have on the Pirates campaign? My thought is that it will put the Imperium in a mood to keep the peace with the Aslan for the time being, as fleet strength in the Reach will be drained to go coreward. Thats about it. The wsr only lasts a few years, and in the scale of the Imperium is a minor dustup (small consolation if your entire planet was a war zone).

That mindset could work against the pirates or in their favor, but I think smart players will try to use it to their advantage.

 

[paltrysum]

It means the Imperium is distracted and diverting it’s forces to the war, leaving the Reach vulnerable.

 

[Bardicheart]

Its part of why I suggested the Imperium might be looking for an excuse to arm a buffer state with enough strings (supply dependency, training cadres, "advisors", etc.) to ensure they remain a friendly client state to Imperial interest. It blunts the Aslan, keeps that issue at a simmer while the Imperium deals with the Swordies and the Zhodani. Its also why if said Drinax kingdom made a deal with the Sword Worlds it would truly be living dangerously.

On the Sword Worlds, I think I need to revise some of what I suggested. I don't think ship blue prints would be enough of a trade to the Sword Worlds. The more I've thought about it the more I think the Swordies would likely could have already obtained such ship blue prints. How hard would it be to send an agent to Vincennes (the only TL 16 shipyard in the Imperium) and have a naval architect draft some cutting edge blue prints? Probably not too hard. But then you have to build them and without a TL 15 industrial base you're out of luck. That is, if you want to build TL 15 ships you need a TL 15 industrial base. Otherwise you just can't make those flux capacitors because you can't refine the zuchai crystals to 92% purity, the best you can manage at TL 12 is 83% purity and under the higher energy demand they just burn out... if only you could figure out how they refine those crystals (purely made that up as a fictional example but I think it makes the point), now multiply that across a few thousand technologies and there's the real barrier. So unless the Kingdom of Drinax can trade TL 15 industrial methods to the Sword Worlds, enough to start uplifting them then they haven't got much to offer. Even if they did, its 1105, the war starts in 1107 and is over by 1110... too little way too late. So even if the players wanted to cut a deal there, it doesn't seem viable the more I think about it. At best they might get a few TL 12 ships, but that's only if they've got a lot of industrial technology to hand over, maybe they do, maybe they don't... just what is archived in that Tower on the Floating Palace?

So to come back to the question, how does it affect the Drinax campaign. Breaking it down by faction:

• Imperium - probably very interested in creating a buffer client state, provided they have guarantees it will be stable enough to do what they intend which is blunt the Aslan.
  Aslan - mixed reaction, in general they aren't going to be happy about this new barrier to expansion. But some might view it as a good target to aim ihatea at just to "expend" them and so would indirectly support the new state through trade, etc.
  Zhodani - will look for ways to exploit this new state as it could be a useful pawn against both the Imperium and the Aslan as well as local smaller states. The plot with Rao indicates they are aware and do have a serious interest in what's going on. If Drinax could distrupt trade during a 5th Frontier War it would drain off some of the Imperium's fleet reserves to deal with commerce raiding and that's an advantage to the Zhodani. If they can get Drinax to allow Aslan ihatea to pass through and into Imperial space, that also would be an advantage to the Zhodani.
  Sword Worlds - the more I think about it, the less I see this being a viable alliance. Between the distance and the lack of much to offer in trade, Drinax doesn't have many bargaining chips to bring to the table. So unless they can generally boost SW industrial tech, the Swordies will likely be too busy with their own problems to deal much with Drinax beyond a few small trade missions and diplomatic channels (but it would be an excellent excuse to send some out of favor SW noble to Drinax as another colorful personality at court. Score one new drinking buddy for King Oleb). After the 5th Frontier War, if Drinax is stronger and has built some sort of industrial base and fleet, said noble could find their star on the rise.
  Darrians - Probably little interest, Drinax has nothing to offer them, too far away and the Darrians have their own concerns. Drinax probably wouldn't even rate a diplomatic envoy, you'd be more likely to get a Darrian historian curious about the history of Drinax and the Sindalian empire. Now that could be an amusing character to add to the court.
  Florian League - They're an odd bunch, so my guess is that they'd send a diplomatic envoy, but they'd be an absolute fish out of water in the Floating Palace. That could lead to some interesting misunderstandings, some of it comical but also some potentially serious problems. The Florians have advanced weapon technology and are another potential industrial base Drinax could tap for ship building. Assuming the court doesn't piss off the Florians inadvertently due to culture shock and diplomatic misunderstandings.
  Strend - They'd be interested in any advanced cybernetics Drinax has archived away and could offer some trade in exchange for access to that tech. I'd picture a diplomat from Strend being kinda like a Decados if you're familiar with that, but that's just my spin on it.
  Belgardian Sojournate - Seems too xenophobic to even send a envoy, or receive one. They seem more likely to be a target of Drinax raids than any sort of partner. An likely nobody would care, in fact if Drinax invaded them and opened up trade the routes as a result the Imperium might be quite pleased by that, so would the Florians and possibly even Strend.
  Senlis - might send an envoy but they're probably going to be skeptical. Drinax doesn't yet have much to offer Senlis and likely looks more like a rival and potential threat, so said diplomat is probably more there to gather information and even spy a bit. That could lead to some interesting situations. Its worth noting that in some future histories Senlis is invaded and conquered by the Aslan in 1119-20 so... wonder who pointed the Aslan at em? (Unfortunately I can't find a specific source on that, it came from the Traveller wiki but I don't know where they got the info from)

One potentially interesting move by Drinax might be to pick one of the smaller Aslan clans and ally with them, allowing them to settle within Drinax as long as they pledge loyalty to the crown. Since some sort of conflict with Aslan ihatea seems inevitable, can you think of a better ground force to fend off Aslan ihatea than other Aslan who have a vested interest in defending their own homes? Allying with just one clan like that wouldn't threaten the Imperium (in fact they might be impressed by the move since it would bolster Drinax's ability to blunt the ihatea without making Drinax a threat to the Imperium) so they'd likely be okay with it. Being a smaller clan, it wouldn't rankle the Aslan and might even help ease tensions a bit in the short term (plus having a few loyal Aslan at court to help with understanding Aslan politics couldn't hurt). Just as long as those Aslan aren't the Glorious Empire... that would be... problematic.

Anyway, seems only the Imperium and Zhodani are likely to try to manipulate Drinax in regards to the 5th Frontier War, the Zhodani want a distraction, commerce raiders, etc. so they'd be big fans of continuing piracy and would be willing to support that (supplies and spare parts for a fleet of smaller commerce raiders, but not big ships). The Imperium wants a quieter border, increased trade, and the Aslan temporarily (at least) blunted; they'll tolerate some piracy as long as most of it is kept in check as aimed away from Imperial interests.

As always, just some thoughts.

 

[paltrysum]

I would argue that Drinax has a lot to offer both the Belgardian Sojournate and Senlis Foederate once they can translate all that technological know-how into industrial products.

Both pocket empires are within reach and could use some assistance competing with their much larger and more powerful neighbor.

 

[Bardicheart]

Once they get some sort of industrial base, yes, that's a game changer. Their problem now is they don't have that yet. Drinax doesn't produce anything much yet, and that's something they'll need to solve. Once they have some exports they can establish trade and use that as a bargaining chip. At the moment it seems the only thing they produce (or rather Asim produces) is food / grain and I'm not sure how much of that they have to spare. It seems reasonable to me they could probably feed the 9000 or so population of Belgard, but I'm not sure they have enough surplus for more than that. That's something individual referees should ponder carefully. According to Travellermap.com Drinax does have 1 planetary belt, plus there's little reason not to do strip mining on Drinax itself (not like you're going to screw up the ecology any more than it already has been), so a few prospector ships and mining drones might be a good thing to... ummm... acquire. That could give Drinax some raw mineral exports that places like Strend, Senlis, TechWorld, the Imperium and the Aslan would all be interested in. Might not be much at first but something is better than nothing and over time it could be increased. Maybe the first expansion to Drinax's highport (which what is that, the Floating Palace itself? I was never clear just where their Class A starport was located) would be some industrial smelters. Once you're exporting refined metals and minerals you upgrade some more and you've got a start on that industrial base.

The Belgardians need ships or at least spare parts to repair what they have, plus you'll have to get past their xenophobia (according to the material they tend to shoot at anyone who enters their territory). Once Drinax could offer that, you've got something Belgardians would sit up and take notice of, but it'll likely be a long time before Drinax has a surplus of either of those things. So maybe shipping them food would be an option. But then there's the long term question, beyond fixing their ships and survival, what do the Belgardians want long term? If you help them fix their ships up they now have an active fleet of their own, did you just create a new rival? What's the upside to Drinax in that deal, what do the Belgardians have that Drinax would want... and that Drinax couldn't just take?

Senlis is a bit different in that it has a large population and industrial base of its own, its also oppressive of its own population and uses drugs to keep them passive. Overall they seem paranoid and more likely to be distrustful, they're also expansionistic. Drinax with a fledgling fleet and growing industrial and military strength would likely seem like a new rival to Senlis who appear to have their own dreams of being a regional power and probably don't want the competition. At least that's how I think Senlis would view it if I were them.

So rather than worry too much about these polities, if it were me, I'd look more at building influence on Clarke, Torpol and Pourne. For Pourne I think I'd be a bit dastardly, maybe convince a certain Admiral that it was the location of the hidden pirate base... and then happen to be around and recording when he attacks an innocent world, smashes its defense and causes who knows how much damage. A copy of which would find its way back to the Imperium (and that might just remove the Eurisko from the big finale all together as well as end his career). Then of course the shocked and frightened people of Pourne could turn to the benevolent Drinax for aid and comfort at a time when their own government couldn't protect them... so... coup. If it works Drinax gets a nice world added to its fledgling kingdom that brings a lot of much needed resources (including a big chunk of that desperately needed industrial base). If not, they maybe at least move one or two steps friendlier, unless the whole maneuver just gets botched. Don't botch it.

 

[Old School]

In terms of building a sustainable empire, a population base is definitely key, so I agree that Pourne, Torpol, and Clark are good candidates - population, close by, and decent tech level.

A bit farther afield, Vorito has the largest population and and a half built class A starport. Umemii and Iilgan are possible population bases as well. Cordan is an unknown - it's official population is only the ruling class. The true population is never actually described. Tech World is also a wild card - no population, but the descriptions make it clear that it is full of robot factories.

Asim is an ideal garden world, so I'm sure it can produce tons of foodstuffs given a little technological nudge, but I don't see that as worth much in that part of the Trojan Reach. The area is heavy with lightly populated garden worlds and water worlds. Not many high population worlds to sell to, and ample room to produce food (and also grow a population - don't get me started on the world generation system leading to billions of people on world with no oxygen, and almost empty garden worlds a parsec away.)

In the dustbelt: you have Ace, Number One, and Acis, all with a combination of moderate tech and population.

The King actually suggests moving the base of power as he is dying. If it were me I'd likely move the seat of power to Inurin. Lots of room, a good number of people, somewhat reasonable local governments, can't really challenge you technologically, and well located. Take the nobles you can work with to lend you credibility if need be, and the useless Drinax nobles (the majority of them) can stay on the palace with empty titles to placate them. Earn your keep or stay at the palace, the choice is yours. Assuming you go the feudal route, much of the nobility you actually rely on will likely be newly appointed ones with ties to the worlds they oversee.

Maybe the first expansion to Drinax's highport (which what is that, the Floating Palace itself? I was never clear just where their Class A starport was located) would be some industrial smelters.

Drinax doesn't have a class A port. That's a function of an out of date map. It's only starport is the floating palace itself. (see Pirates Book 2, page 15).

If you want to have a little fun building a power base in the campaign, take on this little tidbit:

The ruler of Ace is not a hereditary position – instead,
the king is chosen by the sages. The last king was killed
when Marga Dome was destroyed by Tyrian raiders.
The Sages have declared that the next king will be an
offworlder, and that blessed king will deliver Ace from
the threat of raiders.

So there you go, a few hundred million people just waiting on their king. The map has Ace at TL8, but the book has it at TL9, so do with that what you will.

 

[JMISBEST]

1 GM I knew let The Characters get The Space Stations from Wildemen and The Treasure of Sindal and gain a lot of planets by either building ships for them with their stations or buying on their behalf ships they couldn't or wouldn't build for them or giving them the money to buy themselves ships they couldn't or wouldn't build for them or gave them the money as outright bribes and/or bribe related gifts