 April 3, 2011 - 7:50am | The Frontier Sector and its immediate surroundings has a very high population density. Humans, dralasites, vrusk, Yazirians, and sathar Ifshnits, humma, osakar, and mechanons Eorna and their 3 uplifted sentient species, clikks, heliopes, lokuku, mhemne, saurians, s'sessu, zuraquor, and zethra, and of course the ancient tetrarchs There is also the hypothetical Unspec (the unknown species that threatened the clikks enought to cause them to build bolo sized tanks) I may have missed 1 or 2 but the above represents 23 in an area we can speculate to be aproximately 150 ly by 150 ly. and if you include any races from the fan zine the number climbs higher still-though most people have races they dont really like and ignore those like the s'sessu so if you drop one of the above and include your favorite from the fan zine then you still have a huge number of races in the local galactic neighborhood of the Frontier. Even with the tetrarchs and the clikks seemingly not being around anymore that till leaves you over 20. This of course begs the question of what style of game you wish to play: a star wars like game with hundreds of worlds and races then its no problem, something with a little bit more realistic feel then you may need to pare these down. the fact that the eorna uplifted 3 primitive species isn't a big deal IMO I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 4, 2012 - 11:40am | I am in total agreement that it feels crowded, and add that it feels cramped. As a suggested explanation: If the Enora uplifted three races, the Tetrarchs are suggested to have done some unspecified uplifting, the Mechanons and the Unspec likely could have, and the worms(both) regularly make their own attempts, of a sort. Most of the races found in 200ly, or more, are likely to be forgotten clients, complete with various B5 style inherited tendency to worship thier original patrons. As a suggested defence: Though it isn't necessarily realistic, it is in the vein of much of the sci-fi from the first have of the century, that being the model most influential to the Star Frontiers intended theme. If you reduce the number to just those that were space capable when discovered, it drops to about half, and arguably even three of the Core Four are set aside as immigrants. Viewed as three 'dead' races, four native young interstellar, eight immigrants, and the rest being up-lifted or pre-industrial and rare spacers, it seems a bit easier to take. This brings the question to how did so many just happen to move into the same small area, with so much space available? It seems far less likely that there would be that many interstellar races struggling for room in an any area of space that they are not native to, than having an unusually large number of young-ling races coming of age, in the fading cold wake of a few precursors. All that being said, this was my first complaint with the Volturnus modules, I was initially excited about the idea presented, in exploration of a fresh new alien planet, but with every module introducing yet-another-alien-primitive, it became cliche', and quickly I started to feel cramped on this 'open unexplored world'. The whole story unfolding as it did, set me back to feeling better about it, thinking this was an isolated case... but it wasn't. Now having read all the modules, I still lament the never seen promise of the virgin unexplored planet I had hoped for, and was so hyped on by the flavor text as being out-there... somewhere... without an honest example, or s suitable location to put it. As a result of feeling hemmed in by this, I have tended to populate the frontier much less than I would have liked to, because I really don't need another race, but I do need to take the game off the provided map if I even want to consider the possibility plausible. How far do I have to go to get past the PGC? The CFM? StarLaw? UPFSF Forward Recon, Observation & Threat Scouts? They have all had time to map and entrench into those regions beyond their 'offical' operations, too much time for it to still be considered unknown and unexplored, [imho]. If it gets too big, does it still feel like a frontier, or does it feel like an empire? Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 April 3, 2011 - 1:45pm | ummm as a proponent of bigger is better, all those many moons ago when I first started reworking Star Frontiers in the late 80's early 90's, one thing I did was to space out the Frontier worlds and over time that continued to happen until we are where we are with the Frontier and Rim covering about 700 light years. of course most of the star systems in this wide area that have been colonized have colonies of maybe 1,000-40,000 people (about the size of a small or mid-sized town) depending on the size of the colony and age, but in that 700+ light years there are less then 100 races that can be classified as higher races (those who's technology is close to Frontier norm). the ratio of 7-10 races/hundred light years seems to me a bit more sensible, even if that means that in an area as large as my Frontier sector you are looking at 70+ races. Oh and of course there are several races in that area that logically have carved out their own spheres of control and have very little to do with the UPF or Rim, or might be hostile towards the UPF fearing that one day the UPF might decide to annex them. It makes for a different type of campaign then what is traditionally Star Frontiers having so many races, but I don't see it as Pseudo Star Trek, or Star Wars (I save that for other campaigns I've run using the Star Frontiers (URS) rules...Shameless plug). "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
April 3, 2011 - 2:00pm | Actually the mechanons evolved from eorna robots so technically they are uplifted by the eorna but since they resent biologicalls and the eorna deny that they are sentient its probably not suitable to assert client status for the mechanons to the eorna. Their uplift being an accidental result of their own programing and a lack of supervision which if they had had proper supervision by the eorna they would never have come to sentience as roboticist would have deleted the corrupted lines of code that would have led to their uplift. if we credit the eorna with 3 up lifts The Clikks with the heliopes The sathar with the zuraquor We can easily ignore the saurians, s'sessu, zethra, and all the fanzine offerings that brings us to the core 7 of the Frontier and Rim. Plus the mhemne it leaves us with 10 species in a rough 150 X 150 ly area which is still high Imagine though if neanderthals had survived as a separate species of man until the modern day and we had grown up on a planet hosting 2 separate species; would we find the idea of 9 species in an area all that hard to swallow? I believe that we have to discount all client/uplifted species and focus on the "native" evolution produce species; If a race develops advanced biotech and uplifts a bunch of species then we cant say that's way to many for evolution to have done it. Plus I generally treat humans as interlopers and Johny Come Lately's through an accident to a colony expedition destined for Epsilon Eridrani (thats my personal bias and the topic of discussion elsewhere) which then drops us to 8 species. in all of the above the Tetrarchs have not been mentioned and since their name means rule of 4, I have often toyed with it being 4 entities or polities that worked together to build their civilization and each one of those entities or groups was responsible for planting, nuturing or guiding the evolution of 1 race. Typically I make at least three of those races members of the Core four (excluding humans) and the fourth being one other eorna or saurians. and the tetrarchs looked at their work and saw that it was good and established these 4 races in their own individual gardens of eden. But their was a snake in the grass, one of the tetrarchs entities or polities was not satisfied with creating one race but chose to experiement and develop many others. Then the rest of the ruling 4 discovered this the were angry and demanded that the extras be wiped out. the renegade revolted and was imprisoned in a pyramid on Laco. The remaining 3 determined to sort out the excessive species and proceeded to destroy one world. after having wiped out that world and its "illegal" species they had second thoughts. It was intended that the 4 races would grow and evolve and replace the tetrarchs and each entity had the choice of what his "race" would be. Since the renegade was not going to follow the plan it would somehow be wrong for the final 3 to choose the renegade's race. Thus they hatched a plan to let evolution and chance sort out the violation of their grand design. Taking the renegade's first race, the s'sessu, they recrafted them as the sathar with a programed them genetically to react xenophobically to all other races. there was also a bit of genetic code inserted into their DNA that would ensure that they died out as a race once only one other race created by the renegade was left. The problem with this is that things dont always go to plan. The arrive of humans up set the apple cart, possibly being the catalyst for the sathar attempting to wipe out races they were never intended to wipe out. If the imprisoned tetrarch entity is ever released from the pyramid on Laco that would be very bad if someone could unravel the key to the sathar's genetic code they may be able to turn on the gene coded self destruct and wipe them out on a clan basis (i perfer that any weapon of mass genetic destruction to be only on a clan basis and not the whole race- no point in totally throwing away the whole race) if a renegade tetrarch ran around sewing the genetic seed of a dozen to 2 dozen species that leaves us with only 1-2 species that evolved- humans (the interlopers) and maybe the tetrarchs. But then maybe the tetrarchs are not even from this galaxy but intergalactic scientist that came here to run millenial long experiments because they needed a closed system (a galaxy deviod of sentient life so that their experiement would not be contaminated). I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 3, 2011 - 8:30pm | I am in agreement with this. My own presumptions, however may be more conservative. - I discount what i consider to be the precursors completly on the basis that they serve only as dying ancients at best, too few and scattered to be considered a 'population' of significance. This includes the Clikk, Eorna, Unspec, Tetrarchs, and any others that qualify for Clarke's Angels Status. - I discout the canon Core Four immigrants (Dralasite, Human, Vrusk) - I discout the clients and sibling And here it gets a little ambiguous, because I consider the Angels to fall into 'both' of the previous catagories by majority, maybe Zebulon is the origin of the Enora, but more likely it was one of the last standing administrative capitals. I consider forgotten clients to be possible anywhere. Even the Dralasite, Humans, Vrusk, and Yazirians could be uplifited/influenced by some past angel long gone, but lets not get too nit-picky. Those that are known or at least highly suspect of uplift, definitely count, and could have been brought in by a from anywhere by the precursors, so could also count as immigrants. As I understood it, the S'Sessu count as a sibling of sorts, offshoot from the Sathar who are supposedly immigrants and near-angelic call them the 'Supermen' to Neanderthals, rather than 'Angels' to Apes, I prefer to think of them as ancient, and the closest glimps of the precursors you are likely ever to see, but probably not survive and tell about it. This leaves how many, Ifshnits, Lokuku?, MHemne?, Saurians?, Yazirian*, I know one of these are a native Interstellar, and the Yazaerian*Native Pre-Ind, brought up to Interstellar by the PGC, was how I understood this, and their youth excludes the likelyhood of being a lost client (unless it was the S'Sessu  looking for warriors to aid in an ill-fated civil-war maybe? but they are fine as a evolved native). seems a few are missing here, Humma could be evolved or lost client like the Yaz, Osakar are a real wild card coming across as being both ancient and young, maybe another Angel, diplomats in the Enoran territories had a late sibbling they left behind? Am I now counting at Two or Three natives, in an overly conjested galactic intersection? As far as 'native sentients of earth' goes, I consider this to be a three race planet as is, supporting the recent inclusion of Dolphins as our exotic near-equals, and with enough other candidates around to count one more as a potential unrecognized third. Granted there is still only one major-tech race capable of developing interstellar travel. I don't think that is a requirment to be included as equal in a more general sense, for statistical probability of races. Earth: sentience factor = two-point-six. My take on it, in short, is not 60+ races in a ~1000ly region but more like 10-20 evolved free races in ~1000ly, and lots of crumbling ruins from a galaxy spanning civilization. Maybe another 40+ scattered lost and/or faulty clients, mostly primitives or in a genetic regresive state, tossed in the mix spanning three or four times that distance. But I still think it 'feels' crowded in the Frontier, yes. And while I want more open space to explore, I want more open space to explore. One of the ways I have handled that is by playing up the 'dark-bodies' in assosiation with the area. Just by putting more simi-stable rocks out there it gives a feeling of more places in a fringe frontier to go, Sathars and Pirates to hide out, Corporations to exploit, Villans to do vile things, and racists to set up a members-only club. It helps, but it only helps, other considerations still need to be looked into. But yes, it feels crowded to me too. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
March 4, 2012 - 11:41am | Basically the Clarke Angels exist solely to cater to fiat. In the course of a campaign, what and who they were will never be known, never be understood, and likely never seen. Everything else is the after effects. More you release as knowledge into the setting, the less mysterious they become, but the bigger they were before they fell, the less likely one campaign would ever see it all. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
April 3, 2011 - 10:05pm | I believe the Yazirians as well as the other core races came into the frontier sector from beyond the great expanse, so they are not really native to the area. That being said, I can really only talk about the Frontier as I used it in my campaign, which was definately never following the canon information because in my youth I fell victim to the "I can do it better bug" and missed out on a lot of great material that was created by TSR. I think that in my own expanded universe with its hundreds of inhabited worlds the feeling of the "Frontier' exists when you consider that most planets that have been colonized have 1-5 settlements each maybe the size of an old west town with less then 2,000 people, and most of the planets being unexplored wilderness. The homeworlds of each race of course have a population in the millions, but with only 7 or 8 major species in 100 light years that is not overcrowded. Also even with the advent of faster than light speed communication communication breaks down after 24 or so light years, so there is still a need for pony express syle couriers and many planets have a "Gotta be self sufficient" attitude because of the communication problem. The problem I have always had with the cannon Frontier has always been that the star systems are so close together, and not the number of races therein. If the distances between systems were perhaps doubled I think I wouldn't have had that much of a problem. I also think that there were not enough star systems that were left as blank slates for Referees to develop, unless individual referees decide to map out adjacent sectors of space. As for the number of races in the cannon Frontier why are we counting races that have not reached a tech level to join the interstellar community? These races are land locked and have no real impact on the Frontier as a whole. If you knock out the number of races that are not technologically at a level to truly interact with the Frontier races doesn't that reduce the number to a more reasonable spread? "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
April 4, 2011 - 3:12pm | We all agree that the canon maps are a bit cramped, and that seems to be a regulary occuring sentiment. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
On that map(set) no more than the 20 active races, as mentioned in the OP.. excluding the three-four dead ClarkeAngels, and the Sathar/S'Sessu(who cover a larger region). Two thirds of those 'natives' (not Human, Dral, or Vrusk) are tied into one of the four Angels or the worms, in some fundamental way, that effects thier deep psyche.