Wagon Train to the Stars

[Reynard]

A lot of the original US american colonization also involved indentured criminals. I believe Australia had that problem too? That could also be added to the mix; give criminals a choice to live in spartan, maybe harsh conditions to either serve their sentence or buy off their crime. Exile colonies for many situations and there's always the popular trumped up criminal charges to have a ready supply of workers.

 

[Condottiere]

Space Amish might have capped their tech level pre-fusion, and will have electricity derived from renewable sources, like wind, wave, water or solar.

They seem the type to use non-FTL low berth starships.

 

[tolcreator]

Thanks for all the replies... I was really stretching to try and get an Oregon Trial feel, but in space, with free traders as prairie schooners. I imagine there is at least something on the world before this migration (the pop 5 indicated) ... the initial colony, now spreading out, but there is plenty of world left to settle. 1 ton each is a bit light, but again, thinking of a prairie schooner. It does make more sense for a (maybe extended) family to use an entire free trader (or several to pool for a far larger ship).

 

[Reynard]

If you're trying to keep to the original feel of the Oregon Trail, try researching what the settlers actually carry for the trip and if they need to replenish supplies along the way. Since the trail was blazed before settlers started, there may have been settlements along the way for resupply. Of course it helps to have the settlers on ice. Big thing was Oregon and everywhere in between had food and simple building material not much different than at their hometowns. You may not be able to make a direct interpretation but at least keep the spirit with reasonable logic.

You mention those stats for Oregon are an indigenous population. Human? Alien? Are they going to be displaced or were arraignments previously worked out allowing settlement or is there going to be trouble? That could definitely explain the settlers having minimal 'luggage' on the trip. They have start up resources waiting for them. That becomes immigrants rather than settlers. Maybe the wagon train people wanted to get away and found a world with a lifestyle they find preferable, made arraignments to emigrate and register at Ellis downport.

 

[Condottiere]

The aliens could also be a food source.

 

[dragoner]

The Donner party in space. Now I have heard everything. :roll:

 

[Askold]

You know, I've been thinking... For a family, or a group of settlers, to be able to afford a Far Trader, Free Trader or whatever ship they can, they are going to have a lot of money put into it and then they are not getting much back if they are abandoning the ship at the end of their journey. Even if they get a barely functioning used ship and try to save money by doing only minimal maintenance it is still a lot of money and the resale value is going to be miserably low with so many other similar ships from all the other settlers. And using it as the worlds most expensive house is kind of a waste too...

On the other hand, you could have them travel by low berth and putting their money into paying cargo fees for transporting the tools, vehicles, animals and pre-fabricated buildings. Rather than having a "wagon train" all the way across the galaxy you could start the wagon trains at the port on the planet. With Far traders emptying their cargo of settlers and their trucks and carriers and near constant flow of shuttles bringing in more settlers from the bigger freighters that can't land on the planet. Heck, they could simply land on sufficiently flat terrain in the wilderness close to promising looking lands...

I admit that this would harm the original imagery of "wagon trains."

 

[Condottiere]

How distant is the promised land?

You could have a quasi battle tender shuttling along a series of spaceships, like ornaments on a Christmas Tree.

 

[Reynard]

Considering the number of worlds in most Traveller game that are or were colonies, there should be standard purpose built colony ships more efficient that rebuilt traders. Several sizes for the intensity of colonization from hundreds to thousands of tons with jump engines based on the emigrating world tech or there might be higher tech companies specializing in colonization for a fee to various worlds.

 

[Condottiere]

If it's a big trend, colony ships could be prefabricated so that they could be taken apart into useful components, reconstructing planetary shuttles from the power plant and manoeuvre drives, or just the power plant as the settlement's primary energy source.