I am still tinkering with my Samar setting, and after some problems with
Traveller's standard assumptions concerning stellar densities, starship dri-
ves and all that I decided to rewrite some of my original ideas.
The basics of the background universe are still almost the same:
The background universe of the setting is the Terran Commonwealth in
2400 AD, several dozen inhabited planets separated by huge distances
and connected by a small fleet of big unstreamlined starships. In this
universe there are no Ancients and no known aliens. The technology of
the setting is comparatively low, the starship drive, which is both a hy-
perdrive and a 1 G maneuver drive, is the only typical science fiction
„magic“. Gravitic devices do not exist, energy weapons are not used,
and the few starships are not armed. However, computer technology
and biotechnology are more advanced than in a standard Traveller set-
ting, and for example comparatively intelligent robots are common.
The main changes to the basics of the setting concern the way space tra-
vel is assumed to work:
The hyperdrive has a speed of 5 parsec per day and minimum range of
120 light years, its maximum range is still unknown. The starship drive
„lifts“ the ship into hyperspace, but while it is there the drive does not
consume any energy, the starship just „glides down“ into normal space.
Precise astrogation and reliable knowledge of the destination system are
impossible, because the data available on Terra are at least 120 years
old, and the computer simulation of the movements of the destination
system and all the systems along the way give only approximate results.
The task of the astrogator is to „find the Now“, a flight path to the desti-
nation that is currently free of the hyperspace shadows of massive ob-
jects, like stars, brown dwarfs or rogue planets. If the starship does not
„sail the Now“ and collides with a hyperspace shadow of an object, it has
to stay in hyperspace for at least another 120 light years, which means
that it usually gets lost because there is normally no calculated „Now“ for
the new flight path available - the ship collides with more and more hy-
perspace shadows, forcing it to continue its flight again and again, and
turning it into a „Flying Dutchman“ that probably stops only when it has
reached the edge of the galaxy.
Traveller's standard assumptions concerning stellar densities, starship dri-
ves and all that I decided to rewrite some of my original ideas.
The basics of the background universe are still almost the same:
The background universe of the setting is the Terran Commonwealth in
2400 AD, several dozen inhabited planets separated by huge distances
and connected by a small fleet of big unstreamlined starships. In this
universe there are no Ancients and no known aliens. The technology of
the setting is comparatively low, the starship drive, which is both a hy-
perdrive and a 1 G maneuver drive, is the only typical science fiction
„magic“. Gravitic devices do not exist, energy weapons are not used,
and the few starships are not armed. However, computer technology
and biotechnology are more advanced than in a standard Traveller set-
ting, and for example comparatively intelligent robots are common.
The main changes to the basics of the setting concern the way space tra-
vel is assumed to work:
The hyperdrive has a speed of 5 parsec per day and minimum range of
120 light years, its maximum range is still unknown. The starship drive
„lifts“ the ship into hyperspace, but while it is there the drive does not
consume any energy, the starship just „glides down“ into normal space.
Precise astrogation and reliable knowledge of the destination system are
impossible, because the data available on Terra are at least 120 years
old, and the computer simulation of the movements of the destination
system and all the systems along the way give only approximate results.
The task of the astrogator is to „find the Now“, a flight path to the desti-
nation that is currently free of the hyperspace shadows of massive ob-
jects, like stars, brown dwarfs or rogue planets. If the starship does not
„sail the Now“ and collides with a hyperspace shadow of an object, it has
to stay in hyperspace for at least another 120 light years, which means
that it usually gets lost because there is normally no calculated „Now“ for
the new flight path available - the ship collides with more and more hy-
perspace shadows, forcing it to continue its flight again and again, and
turning it into a „Flying Dutchman“ that probably stops only when it has
reached the edge of the galaxy.
