UWP extension idea

[hdan]

So while playing around with some Traveller programs (eh, who doesn't?), my sense of symmetry got me wondering about Universal World Profile values up to 'F' for stats that don't have them.

That got me thinking. Nothing too radical, just a few gaps filled:

Population D: Tens of Trillions (world city with heavily settled space and moons, maybe miles deep tunnels, etc.)
Population E: Hundreds of Trillions (ring worlds, rosettas, etc.)
Population F: "Hive World" of uncountable trillions

The last two Government codes represent government forms that do not interact with "normal" society, and probably rate a Red Zone classification.

Government E: "Trans-human Ascendancy" - all citizens live in a virtual environment, subject to the whim of who or whatever controls the machine. (Like Balkanization, but no one can get in without signing on for the full ride, so to speak.) Implies either current or past High Tech ability (The Matrix) or some odd form of psionic environment (like Avatar, but more so).

Government F: Hive/Commune Mind - all "citizens" share a common will. The hive will either Ignore, Attack or Assimilate outsiders as determined by the Referee. It may be possible to commune through psionics or slave species, depending on the form of hive mind. Law Level in these cases represents how aware the commune/hive is of outsiders. The Borg would be low LL, Bugs would be high LL.

Or in other words, stay away from Pop F Gov F worlds like Klendathu.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I went the other way with the population codes.

Above Population 9, I use the following definitions:

9: 1-9 Billion
A: 10-30 Billion
B: 40-60 Billion
C: 70-90 Billion

I don't see a world having a population of 100 billion. Even worlds like Trantor shouldn't be that high.

YMMV

 

[Gee4orce]

I always wondered why UWP doesn't have a code for Biosphere. The other big ones are there: Geosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere, etc. Would have made sense to include a code to indicate the presence and evolutionary stage of life on the world.

 

[Myrm]

I think because the Population code covers the sophonts which bureaucracies and census keepers are interested in, its kinda of hard to tax jellyfish and even harder to count bees - and the native wildlife just gets amber or red codes if its too violent.

Kind of a shuffling the extraneous stuff under the carpet.

 

[hdan]

Right, taking population codes to "higher" doesn't really scale up right.

How about taking a cue from Atmo - higher ratings are strange situations that don't map well to countable entities:

Population D: Uncountable Population

"Hive World" with a large number of (most likely alien) sophonts who are not countable in a practical way, either due to their life cycle or living arrangements. Effectively "infinite" population, though still technically countable in the number theory sense. Often paired with Gov F, but could be any government type. (Note: this could be a "Pandorum" type body pit setting, some sort of insect or other "squishy" swarming race, etc. The Gov type will determine the character of the society. Good opportunities to creep the players out some.)

Population E: Incorporeal population

Nonphysical or virtual intellects that can have zero or more bodies and thus are not easily accounted for. The referee should generate a "True population" number that is the number of such intelligences if the concept of individuals still applies. Note that the Gov type can be just about anything, and should be generated from the True Population number rather than the E rating.

(This is the Population equivalent of Balkanized, after a fashion.
It's possible that the inhabitants of the Pop E world have a way to determine their true population, and could desire to "set the record straight" with the Imperial Survey Department, depending on their cultural leanings.)

Population F: Intelligent Ecosystem

Fully symbiotic intelligent ecosystem (Chtorr). In effect, the entire ecosystem is the population. May be difficult to communicate with, though often will have a member species that can interface with the outside world. As with a Type E government, the referee should separately determine the size of the "interface" population species, if one exists. Often but not necessarily paired with Gov F.

------

Government E: Trans-physical Ascendancy

All citizens live in a virtual environment, subject to the whim of who or whatever controls the environment. (Like Balkanization, but no one can get in without signing on for the full ride, so to speak.) Implies either current or past High Tech ability (The Matrix) or some odd form of psionic environment (like Avatar but more so, or Stargate "Ascended").

Government F: Hive/Communal Mind

All "citizens" share a common will and memory. The hive will either Ignore, Attack or Assimilate outsiders as determined by the Referee. Note: Law Level in these cases represents how aware the commune/hive is of outsiders. An example might be the early Borg episodes - humans could move about inside their ships unmolested for the most part.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I created a Life Complexity and Compatibility generation method. It was published in the Freelance Traveller Fanzine, Issue 001.

It was an article called Wilderness Exploration and was about exploring space that has never been settled before. It might have what you are looking for...

 

[zero]

Heres a question to add to this topic, is there any specific stat in the UWP that makes it a Red Zone world from the off?

To clarify, in the Core, it states an Atmos of A+, a Gov of 0, 7 or A or a Law Level of A+ makes the world an Amber Zone. Is there anything like that makes a world a Red Zone?

I have just made my first randomly rolled subsector map, took near enough a day to stat 37 planets, all randomly rolled :roll: , and while I have some Amber planets, I'm not sure which should be Red ones... :roll:

 

[Gee4orce]

I think Red worlds are Referee's choice - so probably pick a couple one of your Amber worlds and upgrade it to Red.

In the world generator application I wrote, I decided to make a world Red if the roll came up a 12+, Amber if it was 10 or 11

(The app will generate an entire sector - with full colour maps - if a few seconds ;-) !)

 

[Blix]

Not that this makes a difference to any of your suggestions, but there already are government types E and F in OTU canon which were first introduced in Megatraveller - E is "Religious Autocracy" (government by a single leader instead of a religious minority) and F is "Totalitarian Dictatorship" (government by an all powerful minority which maintains absolute control through widespread coercion and oppression).

I am uncertain as to why these were not included in MGT.

 

[hdan]

Not that this makes a difference to any of your suggestions, but there already are government types E and F in OTU canon which were first introduced in Megatraveller - E is "Religious Autocracy" (government by a single leader instead of a religious minority) and F is "Totalitarian Dictatorship" (government by an all powerful minority which maintains absolute control through widespread coercion and oppression).

Really? Interesting. I guess that's what I get for only having CT and MgT stuff. So "God Emperor" and "Big Brother", huh?

Time to take a cue from High Guard and move up to G and H!

I keep meaning to pick up a copy of MT for historical reference. And part of me thinks that these days I might like the Virus/Regency period, though when it came out I strongly objected. Of course I'm also one of those types who rejected the arrival of the Clans in BattleTech.

 

[FreeTrav]

I created a Life Complexity and Compatibility generation method. It was published in the Freelance Traveller Fanzine, Issue 001.

It was an article called Wilderness Exploration and was about exploring space that has never been settled before. It might have what you are looking for...

URLs are always helpful; RTT's article can be found at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/wilderness.html

 

[simonh]

Looking at the world generaton system, it appears that the maximum technology level you can get is actualy 23.

That's quite a bit higher than the Traveller norm. I know there are occasional worlds in the OTU with a TL of 16, but 23 it a lot higher than that. I don't have my LBBs available, but was this the same in previous editions? How to handle this?

Simon Hibbs

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I created a Life Complexity and Compatibility generation method. It was published in the Freelance Traveller Fanzine, Issue 001.

It was an article called Wilderness Exploration and was about exploring space that has never been settled before. It might have what you are looking for...

URLs are always helpful; RTT's article can be found at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/wilderness.html

Yeah, sorry about that, my internet skills are minimal to say the least! Thanks FT!

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Heres a question to add to this topic, is there any specific stat in the UWP that makes it a Red Zone world from the off?

To clarify, in the Core, it states an Atmos of A+, a Gov of 0, 7 or A or a Law Level of A+ makes the world an Amber Zone. Is there anything like that makes a world a Red Zone?

I have just made my first randomly rolled subsector map, took near enough a day to stat 37 planets, all randomly rolled :roll: , and while I have some Amber planets, I'm not sure which should be Red ones... :roll:

X class starports are always good candidates for Red Zones. If there are people on a planet but no starport, then it is usually interdicted somehow. Even if it is just that the people will kill any "Sky Demon" that comes along.

 

[captainjack23]

Heres a question to add to this topic, is there any specific stat in the UWP that makes it a Red Zone world from the off?

To clarify, in the Core, it states an Atmos of A+, a Gov of 0, 7 or A or a Law Level of A+ makes the world an Amber Zone. Is there anything like that makes a world a Red Zone?

I have just made my first randomly rolled subsector map, took near enough a day to stat 37 planets, all randomly rolled :roll: , and while I have some Amber planets, I'm not sure which should be Red ones... :roll:

well, a combination of any two amber zone criterea would seem another candidate for getting Red zone status. "Crazy balkanized fascists PLUS domed cities in an insidious atmosphere ? And one of them wants a large shipment of...agricultural carbon-based insecticide ? I dunno, Cap, I dunno."

Red zones seem to indicate : personal danger, political danger, private property, fragility, or odd/scarey. The last can be approximated by the coincidence of really extreme cases of random result. And remember, red zones aren't a neccessarily a long term thing - they can be an immediate snapshot and suggest an immediate need for intervention or investigation:
"Hmmm. Pop 0 garden planet + Type A starport......wasn't that a Pop 8 world....last census/year/week ? where did everyone go ? Why is the highport still communicating ?"



This is what the UPP numbers are for...try and find a way to make an adventure out of them, not just an explantion, or rejecting them on first pass. Its a bit differernt mindset than gearhead planetbuilding, but makes a GMs life easier.

 

[zero]

Sorted the Star map for my campaign after, two Red Worlds, I gave them that status due to the hefty Law Levels on them (One world had a Law Level of 16!!! :shock: ).

I've built a ship up for the PCs from the Seeker mining ship, added a double laser-sand turret for its one weapon, removed the mining stuff to make 3 cargo holds (2xten tons, 1x eleven ton) and upgraded the electronics some. So now, its a Seeker Freight model (Any name suggestions would be great :wink: ).

Of course, the whole thing is a background to greater playtest the Xenomorphs I statted in my "Alien in Traveller" thread from this very forum, an idea forming is of a High Passenger being facehugged and the PCs (there are two :roll: ) having to battle a thing on the ship that if they can kill will burn through the ship with its Hybrid damage blood... :twisted:

 

[simonh]

My understanding is that the travell zones apply to the system as a whole, not just the main world. As such, main world stats by themselves IMHO should only be able to lead to an Amber classification at most.

A high Law Level and such, combined with an Average Stellar TL or higher might merit Amber Zone status because in theory these aren't just Nazis, they're potentialy Space Nazis with interplanetary reach.

A Red Zone is an actual ban on going to the system. Mainworld stats alone aren't going to be enough to merit that.

Simon Hibbs

 

[BP]

...A high Law Level and such, combined with an Average Stellar TL or higher might merit Amber Zone status because in theory these aren't just Nazis, they're potentialy Space Nazis with interplanetary reach.

And, with a dense atmosphere and high hydrographics they become...

• SOUP NAZIS!!! :lol: