Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Failure takes many forms.
Catastrophic failure usually is at the last link of a chain of a series of major ones.
Catastrophic failure usually is at the last link of a chain of a series of major ones.
World building new major races
- Thread starter Nelphine
- Start date
Ok, I'm going to hijack my own thread back to its topic again.
So, I've been thinking about the consequences of the above chart.
On the surface its fine, except..
It means that if there are any space people higher than TL10 near you, then by definition, they have found you prior to you leaving your homeworld. While this doesn't have to mean contact, if there is something like the Prime Directive in play, it does mean that all the space around you is already claimed, or going to be claimed Soon*.
If no TL11 species has made contact with you, then by definition, that must mean that there are either no nearby TL11 species OR the one that claims your space must have their own equivalent of the Prime Directive AND enough strength to prevent any OTHER TL11+ species from contacting you.
This.. causes issues with Charted Space. Most of the major races have never had anything like the Prime Directive. But, canonically, they didn't contact say, Earth, prior to it gaining its own Jump. So, given that Charted Space is roughly what we are trying to replicate as a Good Model, how do I modify the chart above, or otherwise explain how a new major race can emerge (for the players to start from so that they can explore 'the unknown') without prior contact by an existing major race?
Following on this, in order to get the populations to work out for the totals (so that we can generate 3I in terms of total population), the following chart will be used for determining the population of a planet populated by a major race:
For a major race non-homeworld, roll 2d6:
2: Roll 2d6+(TL/2 round down, except TL15 rounds up)
If you roll 17+, re-roll. If you roll 17+ the second time, keep the result.
- 6-9: Pop 0
- 10-16: Pop 1
- 17-18: Pop 9
- 19: Pop A
- 20: Pop B
3: Pop 2
4: Pop 3
5: Pop 4
6: Pop 5
7-8: Pop 6
9-11: Pop 7
12: Pop 8
After determining the population rating of the world, IF determining the population is needed, half the population. So population 6 is 500,000 - 5,000,000.
If the world is not in the same sector as the homeworld of the major race, half the population a second time. So population 7 is 2,500,000 to 25,000,000 if outside the sector with the homeworld.
(I did NOT do this because of my personal beef with Belford's law as mentioned in the other thread, this is just necessary to make the population numbers work properly, as I was getting an average about four times as high as 3I at TL15. Yay happy coincidence! Although this is because most TL15 polities in this system will have ~30,000 planets over 15 sectors, as this system gives an average of 2 significant planets per system, instead of the 1 in the base rules.)
Despite the population numbers, for all the other rolls to determine UWP style statistics of the planet, use the population rating that was rolled. So, on a planet outside the sector with the homeworld, population 30,000 is still Pop 5 for determining law/govt/trade/etc. The actual population will impact GDP of the world.
Note: The homeworld does NOT use this chart. The homeworld starts around 25-30 billion at TL9, and increases up to about 100 billion by TL11 and then holds roughly steady.
For a major race non-homeworld, roll 2d6:
2: Roll 2d6+(TL/2 round down, except TL15 rounds up)
If you roll 17+, re-roll. If you roll 17+ the second time, keep the result.
- 6-9: Pop 0
- 10-16: Pop 1
- 17-18: Pop 9
- 19: Pop A
- 20: Pop B
3: Pop 2
4: Pop 3
5: Pop 4
6: Pop 5
7-8: Pop 6
9-11: Pop 7
12: Pop 8
After determining the population rating of the world, IF determining the population is needed, half the population. So population 6 is 500,000 - 5,000,000.
If the world is not in the same sector as the homeworld of the major race, half the population a second time. So population 7 is 2,500,000 to 25,000,000 if outside the sector with the homeworld.
(I did NOT do this because of my personal beef with Belford's law as mentioned in the other thread, this is just necessary to make the population numbers work properly, as I was getting an average about four times as high as 3I at TL15. Yay happy coincidence! Although this is because most TL15 polities in this system will have ~30,000 planets over 15 sectors, as this system gives an average of 2 significant planets per system, instead of the 1 in the base rules.)
Despite the population numbers, for all the other rolls to determine UWP style statistics of the planet, use the population rating that was rolled. So, on a planet outside the sector with the homeworld, population 30,000 is still Pop 5 for determining law/govt/trade/etc. The actual population will impact GDP of the world.
Note: The homeworld does NOT use this chart. The homeworld starts around 25-30 billion at TL9, and increases up to about 100 billion by TL11 and then holds roughly steady.
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Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The TL 9 Vilani made contact with many races that were more advanced on the TL scale with one major difference.
They hadn't discovered the jump drive.
The first race the Vilani came across that had jump travel were the Geonee, there followed a war and the demotion of the Geonee to second class status because they had "reverse engineered" their jump tech form Ancient tech, as if the same claim could not be made against the Vilani. Still the winners get to write the history books, and jump 1 tech was being shared by Vilani merchants and explorers 9there is a good chance that the Geonee jump 1 was better than the Vilani jump 1)
Following the strange events that lead to the Vilani "discovering" jump 2, the Consolidation Wars ensured only the Vilani has jump 2 tech throughout the Ziru Sirka.
Elsewhere the Vargr and the Zhodani were independently discovering jump tech, and eventually the Ziru Sirka would make contact with another human race that had independently invented jump tech...
and the winners write the history books
They hadn't discovered the jump drive.
The first race the Vilani came across that had jump travel were the Geonee, there followed a war and the demotion of the Geonee to second class status because they had "reverse engineered" their jump tech form Ancient tech, as if the same claim could not be made against the Vilani. Still the winners get to write the history books, and jump 1 tech was being shared by Vilani merchants and explorers 9there is a good chance that the Geonee jump 1 was better than the Vilani jump 1)
Following the strange events that lead to the Vilani "discovering" jump 2, the Consolidation Wars ensured only the Vilani has jump 2 tech throughout the Ziru Sirka.
Elsewhere the Vargr and the Zhodani were independently discovering jump tech, and eventually the Ziru Sirka would make contact with another human race that had independently invented jump tech...
and the winners write the history books
The TL 9 Vilani made contact with many races that were more advanced on the TL scale with one major difference.
They hadn't discovered the jump drive.
The first race the Vilani came across that had jump travel were the Geonee, there followed a war and the demotion of the Geonee to second class status because they had "reverse engineered" their jump tech form Ancient tech, as if the same claim could not be made against the Vilani. Still the winners get to write the history books, and jump 1 tech was being shared by Vilani merchants and explorers 9there is a good chance that the Geonee jump 1 was better than the Vilani jump 1)
Following the strange events that lead to the Vilani "discovering" jump 2, the Consolidation Wars ensured only the Vilani has jump 2 tech throughout the Ziru Sirka.
Elsewhere the Vargr and the Zhodani were independently discovering jump tech, and eventually the Ziru Sirka would make contact with another human race that had independently invented jump tech...
and the winners write the history books
Right, my concern is the volume of space TL11 Vilani would have explored (36 sectors).
Right, so why didn't they (economically) absorb earth long before jump drive was developed there?
The specific question is: how can a new major race A explore and meet other (unknown to the new major race) major races B as a result of that exploration? Wouldn't those other TL11+ major races B themselves be exploring and therefore meet any race A who might become a major race long before A develops jump drive, and therefore turn A into a minor race (and prevent A from ever becoming a major race)?
(If the answer is 'they cant' then with a 36 sector scout range, half of all potential major races would become minor.)
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The Ziru Sirkaa had reached the neighborhood of Earth, but not actually contacted Earth at the time. Terrans encountered Vilani at the first colony they reached after inventing J2 drives.
As to why that was the edge of the Empire? Who knows? We'd have to analyze their expansion patterns, the vagaries of the jump 2 routes (Vilani didn't do 2xJ2 deep space jumps), and what kinds of issues they had elsewhere that drained resources.
As to why that was the edge of the Empire? Who knows? We'd have to analyze their expansion patterns, the vagaries of the jump 2 routes (Vilani didn't do 2xJ2 deep space jumps), and what kinds of issues they had elsewhere that drained resources.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The consolidation wars started in 882BC, perhaps the Vilani never made it this far, or perhaps they visited and decided it wasn't worth the effort to trade for bronze, or perhaps the Anunnaki drove them off (or were the race responsible for the Annic Nova...)
One of the things Marc has mentioned in interviews is that the whole major race/minor race distinction is racist and flawed.
One of the things Marc has mentioned in interviews is that the whole major race/minor race distinction is racist and flawed.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Someone was probing us.
Maybe it was just a bunch of snotty aristocrats on a joy ride.
Maybe it was just a bunch of snotty aristocrats on a joy ride.
Right, so my question here is, regardless of what theVilani actually did, how do I modify my system to imitate that?
My current proposal is that they would have explored 36 sectors when they were TL11. It isn't reasonable for there to be a 'oh they happened to miss Earth, or didn't quite get there'. 36 sectors is so large they could have run into vargr, Aslan, hivers, let alone Earth.
Sigtrygg said:
I'm perfectly happy to use a different term. I just dont want to write out 'race that developed jump on their own, or more accurately, gained jump capability early enough that they were able to become a multisector polity that isn't (practically, even if not diplomatically) a vassal to another species'.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The Terrans made the trip to Barnard's Star with their TL9 jump 1 drive. The nearest settle Ziru Sirka worlds were 4-5 parsecs away.
Quite how the people of earth had not noticed the tell tale signs of a technological civilisation only 15 light years away, and how the Ziru Sirka had not noticed the same about Earth is a bit off a mystery.
The Vilani didn't do deep space jumps at all, the understanding of jump maths would require another few thousand years for that breakthrough for the Vilani/Solomani, no telling if the Zhodani and the Vargr could do it though.
To cross a gap you would have to spend time mapping Oort cloud objects you could jump to, and make your way to the Oort cloud of the destination system. This would take a lot of time.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
They only explored with the jump 1 drive and thus were stuck with jump 1 mains or very slow crossings of empty hexes until a transit point established.
They stopped exploring and expanding when they launched their consolidation wars with jump 2 ships.
In your own universe it can happen anyway you want it to. Fill the hull of an exploration ship with three or four jumps worth of fuel to transit empty hexes.
What happens if you came across a multiworld polity that hasn't invented jump drive but is TL28?
Right, so Vilani are 'we didn't explore, in order to make the setting make sense'? I'm perfectly happy to make that a rare occurrence, but I would expect the majority of E.T. to use J2 drives to explore when they're TL11. So if we stop talking about Vilani, pick any of the others who developed TL11 J2 prior to Earth developing jump (although Zhodani are reasonably far enough away to not be included here). My system assumes they also could explore 36 sectors, so why didn't they encounter Earth?
In this system, the assumption is that by TL11, you have jump. Of course it doesn't have to be that way, but no randomly generated species will get both that level of tech and not have jump. In addition, just getting TL15 is nearly impossible - the system won't randomly generate any species with more than TL15, as the goal is to make a playable setting, and Charted Space is being used as the example of what a 'good' setting looks like.
The point here, is to change my systems rules so that I could (roughly) randomly generate Charted Space. Charted space simply didn't have TL11 species exploring 36 sectors. This implies a fundamental mistake on my part, so I'm looking at changing my system to account for this.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Both the Zhodani and the Vargr had jump 3 long before the Terrans.
Trying to randomly generate charted space is tricky since it was a narrative construction.
How do you explain several different races, all within a few hundred parsecs of each other, rising to similar TLs at the same time and developing Jump drive at almost the same time, well with a few thousand years of each other
4717BC Vilani invent jump 1
912BC Vilani "discover" jump 2
897BC Zhodani invent jump 1
AD708 Vargr invent jump 1
AD1718 first Zhodani/Vargr meeting - Zhodani have jump 3 while Vargr have jump 2
AD2087 Terrans invent jump 1
AD2238-2245 Terrans invent jump 3 and meson weapons.
Trying to randomly generate charted space is tricky since it was a narrative construction.
How do you explain several different races, all within a few hundred parsecs of each other, rising to similar TLs at the same time and developing Jump drive at almost the same time, well with a few thousand years of each other
4717BC Vilani invent jump 1
912BC Vilani "discover" jump 2
897BC Zhodani invent jump 1
AD708 Vargr invent jump 1
AD1718 first Zhodani/Vargr meeting - Zhodani have jump 3 while Vargr have jump 2
AD2087 Terrans invent jump 1
AD2238-2245 Terrans invent jump 3 and meson weapons.
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Right. so why didn't they encounter earth prior to earth developing jump?
But not just a general why, but a 'what kind of limitation is there on jump capable species that prevents them as a whole from exploring as much as i thought they would in my post, which suggests that a TL11 species that doesn't artificially limit its own exploration should explore 36 sectors' given that nobody in charted space actually did that? What am I missing?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Possible, but I'd study their timelines.
Though I'd think the Zhodani would have colonized the Spinward Marches, unless the Darrians have been holding the line for a very long time.
As regards to the Vargr, I'm pretty sure they would have overrun the Vilani, with their dogships.
I'm inclined to think that the Americans might have had a go with a prototype jump drive.
Though I'd think the Zhodani would have colonized the Spinward Marches, unless the Darrians have been holding the line for a very long time.
As regards to the Vargr, I'm pretty sure they would have overrun the Vilani, with their dogships.
I'm inclined to think that the Americans might have had a go with a prototype jump drive.
I actually just make that as an assumption 'species near each other, will be affected by similar galactic great filters. Therefore, we can assume that any species that will develop jump, will do so within a few thousand years of each other. Any that would develop jump outside of that time period, simply won't develop jump at all, due to some great filter impacting them before they can.'
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Reduce your explored regions to fit what you are looking for and then reduce your actual settled regions. After you have done that, see if that makes sense for what you are looking for? Maybe?
