Beyond the Frontier, star nations and independent worlds

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 19, 2016 - 11:07am

What, if any, independent planets and/or interstellar governments exist in your Star Frontiers universe and outside the Frontier Sector?


Do you use the Rim, whether the original Zeb's version or something altered?

Looking at the books for hints:

It seems as if the Sathar must come from someplace. It could be that they mostly live in large deep space craft, and only control a few settled worlds. 
Or maybe they have a big empire with lots of planets.

I think the Star Devil pirates originated someplace beyond the Frontier, yeah? I'd better look that up.

If one goes with the AD set up, then the Core Four home worlds lie someplace outside the Frontier. The Yazirians might be from someplace close. Or maybe not.
I would definitely go with the home worlds existing outside the Frontier.
In contrast to AD, though, I assume the Humans originated on Earth.











Comments:

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 19, 2016 - 11:13am
Note, I found a very cool project on this site (Gergmaster and others), along similiar lines with a similiar title. It seems to have been wrapped up years ago.


Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 19, 2016 - 2:02pm
I utilized teh Rim but only as an add-on t the original AD Frontier map...in other words none of the plague systems or megacorp systems etc, those all remain unexplored.

I have the Sathar worlds northeast of the Frontier (east of the Rim) and a small group of systems west of the Frontier is home to several pirate factions including the Star Devil. I started a map of that sector dubbed "the Vast Freehold" but never got around to finishing it. It's probably over-populated as it stands, but I'll eventually tweak it/abbreviate it and get it finished.


Zeb's map names are given for reference to that map.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
March 19, 2016 - 10:46pm
Will the Zuraqqar be in there somewhere?
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
March 20, 2016 - 4:24am
Long before I ever owned a Zeb's Guide (I got AD + KH at age 12 and didn't get a Zeb's until I was 21), I created an extended Frontier Sector map that is 6x the size of the Frontier.  It is 6 sheets of quad-rule graph paper (3 high, 2 wide, each sheet landscape oriented) with the Frontier centered on the middle of the bottom 4 sheets.  I put a Sathar controlled region of space, roughly the size of the Frontier in the upper 2 sheets and had routes connecting them to the Frontier consistent with the jump points in the SWII game in KH.  I've always intended to tweak that to match the Zeb's Guide map but have never really done so (mainly becuase I haven't needed to).  It was always intended for an exploration campaign that corresponded to the SWII that I've never had a chance to run.

I too don't use the plague worlds or the mega-corp worlds although I don't have a problem with the idea of the megacorp worlds, I've just never really used the Zeb's Guide map so they haven't been a part of my campaigns.
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Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 20, 2016 - 6:18am
I might adapt the plague worlds and the corporate worlds, but rather than using the positions given in Zeb's Guide, I'd place these planets outside the Frontier Sector. 

JCab747's picture
JCab747
March 20, 2016 - 6:29am
I thought that the plague worlds might be repurposed as a place for the home planets of some of the optional races that have appeared in Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorer.

The idea that the UPF would just leave these systems to rot for more than eight decades, especially when they must have developed some kind of treatment for the Blue Plague, just seemed ridiculous.
Joe Cabadas

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 20, 2016 - 12:55pm
rattraveller wrote:
Will the Zuraqqar be in there somewhere?

I have the Zuraqqor worlds adjacent to the Sathar worlds, operating in a "this is my side/that is yours" co-op agreement.

TerlObar wrote:
I too don't use the plague worlds or the mega-corp worlds although I don't have a problem with the idea of the megacorp worlds

(sigh - there goes the multi-quote bug again...)

I actually do have a problem with them. Zeb's Guide (as much as I detest citing not-info from that source) lists all the headquarte words for each business. It is also widely established & accepeted that many of them have offices on other worlds while some have offices on all worlds. As such I see no tangible reason to populate a new world under their business model, unless of course they were to actualy move their headquarters to said world. Even so I don't see the population boom happening to the degree cited in Zeb's.

JCab747 wrote:
The idea that the UPF would just leave these systems to rot for more than eight decades, especially when they must have developed some kind of treatment for the Blue Plague, just seemed ridiculous.

Considering the source, it's par for the course. Tongue out
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 20, 2016 - 8:22pm
I suppose the one reason for megacorporations to establish their own planetary settlements would be to avoid paying taxes to existing governments. 

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 20, 2016 - 8:24pm
But as far as Zeb's Guide goes, I am not taken with the timeline advancement and the level of development in the Frontier Sector. I'm not saying that it is implausible or poorly designed, just that I prefer a less explored, less settled, and less centralized Frontier. Alpha Dawn set up, basically.
YMMV

JCab747's picture
JCab747
March 20, 2016 - 8:51pm
Q. What, if any, independent planets and/or interstellar governments exist in your Star Frontiers universe and outside the Frontier Sector?

The S'sessu, if used as an optional race, would definitely be independentof the UPF. They would be trading partners, some of the S'sessu nations might sign military alliances with the Frontier, but I doubt they'd want to join the federation any time soon. The minor races from Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorer are good single-planet races that can be scattered around. The Sathar, Clikk and Zuraqqor are all out there, somewhere.

Q. Do you use the Rim, whether the original Zeb's version or something altered?

A. I would use the Rim, but not the way Zeb's provided.

Although the infamous Zeb's timeline -- which I've noted is discussed at lenght by others elsewhere on this forum -- provides some badly needed structure, it really messes up the flow of the modules. This is especially true with the Volturnus adventures. That's probably because the Zeb's designers wanted to make the Zebulon system a crossroads where the Rim and Frontier came together like the Babylon 5 series and then introduce the Rimmers early on. To me, that never worked well if you wanted to use the original modules.

More likely, you would have to move the Volturnus adventures to around FY 50, where most of the original Alpha Dawn seemed to be set. You might have the Eorna giving the PCs more of a history of their brief stellar exploration  and that maybe they encountered the more primative civilizations of the Ifshnit, Hummas and Osakar. Later, after the Sathar attack Volturnus again, then a Rimmer strike fleet might show up because they tracked the worm's fleet moving through their area and went to investigate.

If you do that, any Zebs reference to the Capellan Free Merchants helping out the Truane's Star refugees during the First Sathar War and such would need to be altered.  

Q. It seems as if the Sathar must come from someplace. It could be that they mostly live in large deep space craft, and only control a few settled worlds. Or maybe they have a big empire with lots of planets?

A. At the moment, they are that mysterious, villanous race out there, somewhere though there are a lot of other interesting postings on other areas of the forums. It would be really neat someday to have a complete compendium of all Frontier worlds -- with all the details of a system brief and then some -- and then a compete work up on the Sathar... sadly, who would do it?

Q. I think the Star Devil pirates originated someplace beyond the Frontier, yeah?

A. An article in Dragon magazine #98 originally touched on that very subject along with giving some more information about the Truane's Star system. That story said that a Vrusk executive with a small company called MINER (Mining for Industrial use of Natural Earth Resources) staged his own death by the hands of terrorists (the Husps or Human Supremacists from New Pale) so he could set up illegal mining operations on Volturnus. Truane's Star, meanwhile, was thrown into an interplanetary war between Pale and New Pale.

Others I think also linked the Star Devil to the pirate fleet of Hatzck Naar (another Zeb's creation).

Those explanations have worked for me.

Q. If one goes with the AD set up, then the Core Four home worlds lie someplace outside the Frontier. The Yazirians might be from someplace close. Or maybe not. I would definitely go with the home worlds existing outside the Frontier. In contrast to AD, though, I assume the Humans originated on Earth.

A. It's been postulated in the forums and Star Frontiersman that the Yazarians moved en masse to the Frontier after a disaster with their home system (a close encounter with a brown dwarf star). That's as reasonable an explanation as any other for their arrival. It does mean their home system and planet are still "out there," probably with survivors clinging to an existence on their devastated world.

I think Jedion357 also has given some interesting speculation to the arrival of the Dralasites -- that the Vrusk found them in a large Colony Sphere near their home system. The Dralasites had little to no memory of how they got there or where they originated from. That could be one good way to introduce them.

The origins of the Vrusk... again, Jedion357 has some interesting ideas. The Vrusk would come from the Frontier Sector, specifically originating in the Fromeltar system. He says that the Dralasites controlled the translations of the system and the planet's names into Pan-Galactic and that's why they have Dralasite rather than Vrusk-sounding names.

I'm not quite sure I like that complete explanation because of Fromeltar's planets -- Groth has a majority Dralasite population while Terledrom has a Dralasite/Vrusk population.

Maybe, just maybe, the Vrusk homeworld is a third planet in the Fromeltar system. But, the objection would be that three habitable planets in one system is a bit much. What if the Vrusk didn't have Void travel until after they encountered the Dralasite sphere ship. What if they've been stuck in their home system for a while and were terraforming -- or vrusk-aforming -- Groth and Terledrom for some time? Of course, then you'd have to come up with statistics for yet another planet, so that might not be a viable solution either.

Humans from Earth... sounds good. How do they get to the Frontier? I think Jedion357 offered another solution which is that Earth exploerer/colonization ships, not realizing there was a Void, accidentally misjumped an awful long way and wound up scattered on various planets.

That could work, or you could get bring in an Isaac Azimov-style explanation as to why the Core Four settlers seem to appear smack dab in the Frontier without any star routes in or out. (I'll write that suggestion later, however.)
Joe Cabadas

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 20, 2016 - 10:18pm
My assumption about the lack of star routes (toward the home worlds and other places) at the map edges is that the designers left those out so the GM could add them as he pleased. The map is modular.
YMMV



KRingway's picture
KRingway
March 21, 2016 - 1:21am
I think the Sathar operate from various as yet undiscovered planets, and know how to operate on a planetary scale. At the same time, they seem just as capable in space so it might be that they can do both pretty much equally. The assumption might be that they have quite a lot of experience with space travel. This may also tie in with their hostle response to the Frontier races - they may consider it their patch or somewhere they assume so right to access without interference. In turn this may mean that the Frontier to the Sathar is really a sort of accident and they see it as a mess that needs to be cleaned up in a part of space they consider to be theirs. Historically-speaking they may have had long-established routes through what is now the Frontier and thus consider it to be a sort of base camp for a bunch of tramps squatting on their territory Wink

I also agree that the star route maps were left open so that players and referees could have fun exploring and adding to them. I've set at least one home-brew adventure outside the Frontier, on a newly discovered planet.

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 21, 2016 - 4:22am
Bio-Social wrote:
I suppose the one reason for megacorporations to establish their own planetary settlements would be to avoid paying taxes to existing governments. 

Which, again, would work assuming their headquarters were located on said worlds. As written, the entire concept of mega-corp worlds is just a process of jumping on the bandwagon and being unique, just like everyone else. Even the Zeb's listings for them are pointless:

Cass was founded by CDC "as a refuge for the multitudes that were left homeless after the Blue Plague" because, well...there simply wasn't enough room for them on all the other sparsely populated worlds in early Frontier history (note the higher population changes from AD to Zeb Guide descriptions, which AD's lower ratings would be assumed to represent said early history). Innocent

Corpco was founded by Streel as "an attempt to enter the agricultural industry" because, well...it just wouldn't make sense to try that out on their headquarter world's in-system neighbor New Pale (which is listed as strictly an agricultural world in Zeb's) so it's best to do that at the extreme far kitty corner of the Frontier instead. Adjacent to White Light, whose planetary goverment has a lengthy history of poor relations with Streel. Innocent Innocent Innocent Innocent Innocent

Exodus was simply founded with no reason at all, citing only PGC knows of its use and existence. Why bother listing it at all? Embarassed Innocent

Genesis was also founded by PGC and is the only one with a valid explanation: a secure base for their research labs. Still, with offices on EVERY Frontier world, this seems moot because there are several established outpost worlds --- worlds which they no doubt already had a hand in establishing/developing --- that could have been utilized for the same reason. See? Bandwagon. Kiss 


Bio-Social wrote:
But as far as Zeb's Guide goes, I am not taken with the timeline advancement and the level of development in the Frontier Sector. I'm not saying that it is implausible or poorly designed, just that I prefer a less explored, less settled, and less centralized Frontier. Alpha Dawn set up, basically.

It is poorly designed (as illustrated above), conflicting with a lot of the original material that precedes it. I too prefer an undeveloped Frontier versus a 100% established & populated Frontier. The latter quite simply mandates a name change by definition alone.

JCab747 wrote:
Humans from Earth... sounds good. How do they get to the Frontier? 

(and there goes the multi-quote issue again)

Page 3 of the AD Basic rulebook states they are "similar to earth humans but developed on a world much closer to the center of the galaxy".
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 21, 2016 - 10:14am
I'm inclined to shift all those corporate worlds to a corporate dominated sector that links to Theseus.
And make them the older, not the younger, colonies.
They were founded by the megacorps as forward bases, supply centers, and way stations  from which to explore the Frontier Sector.


This is suggested under the assumption that Earth is several years subjective time distant from The Frontier, if not decades because of the lack of any simple jump route chain. A big Coreward Expedition from Earth set off from the Frontier to meet the Vrusks and Dralasites. Bases were planted at likely spots along the way. 

One thing I should consider here is range of effective tachyon communications, assuming I stick with the rest of the Alpha Dawn intro story. Maybe the deep space probes of the Core-ward Expedition were what was contacted, rather than Earth directly.


Note that IMC, PGC or spin off companies would be operating in several sectors of the Galaxy, not just the Frontier Sector.

This is all AD set up, with additions. 




Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 21, 2016 - 10:26am
Or a colony established by Earth humans who arrived on an exoplanet nearer the Core in STL vessels was what was contacted by the Vrusk using tachyon comms.
That keeps the Alpha Dawn set up pretty much intact, but shifts the origin of humanity back to Earth itself.
The humans would have been traveling a looooong time to reach such a world, though. Unless maybe they hit 1% of C and misjumped into the Void without any idea what was going wrong (KH FTL style) or something else whacky happened.





KRingway's picture
KRingway
March 21, 2016 - 2:58pm
I see humans in the game as not being from Earth, taking my cue from the line quoted above by Shadow Shack. It helps also that it allows me to avoid any Earth-based history and social mores etc getting in the way, even if such things are part of some distant past.

Tollon's picture
Tollon
March 21, 2016 - 7:14pm
I second Shadow Shack and KRingway comments. And I also remember the printed verison, that stated the humans in the orginal AD book were not from earth but a different verison of humans who were quite simular to human for earth but from some other part of the galaxy.  It allows a GM to create a society base solely on the game.  And for me, that made the game have a more science fiction feel.

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 21, 2016 - 9:26pm
KRingway wrote:
I see humans in the game as not being from Earth, taking my cue from the line quoted above by Shadow Shack. It helps also that it allows me to avoid any Earth-based history and social mores etc getting in the way, even if such things are part of some distant past.
Tollon wrote:
I second Shadow Shack and KRingway comments. And I also remember the printed verison, that stated the humans in the orginal AD book were not from earth but a different verison of humans who were quite simular to human for earth but from some other part of the galaxy.  It allows a GM to create a society base solely on the game.  And for me, that made the game have a more science fiction feel.

Granted if one were to rely on Zeb's Guide as a base for their game, that person has the luxury of ignoring everything from the AD books. 

Just like the Guide itself does. Tongue out


Seriously though, adding an "earth" explanation to a game isn't something to condemn or condone. I just don't see the need for it, although back in my teen years I did try an "earth" setting that never made it to my games or campaign.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Bio-Social's picture
Bio-Social
March 21, 2016 - 9:48pm
I like Earth as the Human homeworld with something like the 2001 module as historical background.

History may have diverged from our timeline in the Sixties. 
Computing and electronics develops differently. Space tech develops more rapidly.
And, as the module introductory text suggests as a possibility, PGC evolves out of the transnational corporations of the late 20th/21st centuries.

This isn't for everybody, natch. I like having the vast storehouse of Earth history, mythology (Volturnus, Theseus, Minotaur, etc) languages, religions, ecology, toponyms, etc to draw upon. 

EDIT


And if one goes with 38 nuclear powers and high tensions, as per the module, it is possible that a major nuclear exchange jacked up Earth sometime after the big Coreward expedition/ colony ship stuff I have kicked about upthread.


Maybe the corporate worlds Genesis and Exodus can be moved outside the Frontier and reworked.

Genesis is the exoplanet the expedition first reached. But it needed a lot of terraforming. Colonists went through space, STL, and reached Exodus.
Something like that.
It could be one of these planets that the Vrusk contacted.
I dunno, this is all just kicking around half formed ideas.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
March 22, 2016 - 6:19am
I like Earth as a distant lost home world for the simple fact of borrowing from cultures and literature. Being distnant and lost allieviates problems with politics though I have effectively ignored the existance of Earth religions while embracing Earth ethnic cultures which is illogical as religion despite what any of us may or may not believe is Effectively cultural.

I like using or being able to use statements like "the Napolean of Yazirian History" that simple statement lets you tell players a lot of information about an NPC or historical figure with a powerful word picture that lets you move on quickly thus I see great value to putting Earth in the setting. However its not canon so its "salt and pepper to taste"

I like the Rim but it clearly needed more development before inclusion in the game; hence the Zebulon Revisited project.

I leave seeshu, saurians, and etc as optional and only quasi cannon

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

JCab747's picture
JCab747
March 22, 2016 - 7:35am
Good discussion points.

I agree that Star Frontiers is a game with a lot of latitude left to the game master... er, referee... so if you want your humans from Earth, great. If not, great too. You want S'sessu or Saurians, good. You don't want them? Also good.

Are there other sectors beyond the Frontier? Probably.

How do the Core Four get the Frontier and why do they seem cut off from their home worlds?

Yes, the home planets are probably a very long way off and the races reached the Frontier through a series of interstellar hops, forward bases, star routes that the referee would have to add, etc.

But let me throw in my Isaac Azimov inspired connection that Bio-Social touched upon.

One other option is to use some of the information in the 2001 a space odyssey module. Chapter 4 of that module is entitled "Through the Star Gate"... Hmm, sounds like a movie and a TV series I like... anywhat, the big black monolith orbiting Jupiter can act as an interstellar gateway that is a lot different than Void travel (whether you want to use the Alpha Dawn version of starship traveling one day per light year or the Knight Hawks instantaneuous jump version where you take days calculating where you're going... as an aside, why wouldn't most ships just stay at the space dock until the last day and then move out to the jumping zone? You wouldn't need the storage class passengers, but I digress too much).

Back to the black monolith as a star gate idea. If some super smart, higher lifeform was helping Earth's humans, they could have planted monoliths at the Vrusk, Dralasite and Yazarian systems. The bungling newbie space races figure out how to use it as a star gate to go to other sectors, while discovering Void travel along the way. Then maybe the higher lifeforms realize after a while that the newbie races aren't paying their interstellar transport fees and cut the Frontier off as a destination until they pay their bills....

OK, that's too simplistic...

The Gamma World alternative would be that the Frontier recieves the following strange message from home before the monolith network goes down:

“Peoples of the world - you appear bent upon the destruction of a civilization that has taken centuries to build, and the extinction of life on earth.

If that Is your will ... so be it!

We, The Apocalypse, demand an immediate cessation of this insane violence, or we will end it for you ... with a force you cannot conceive.

We have the power!

The choice is yours!”
Joe Cabadas

JCab747's picture
JCab747
March 22, 2016 - 7:39am
Shadow Shack wrote:
I actually do have a problem with (the corporate worlds)... I see no tangible reason to populate a new world under their business model, unless of course they were to actualy move their headquarters to said world. Even so I don't see the population boom happening to the degree cited in Zeb's...
As someone who has covered the automotive industry as a reporter, I can tell you that businesses sometimes do things that don't apparently have a tangible reason. The real reasons may be someone's pride or empire building. Why are a lot of cars named after the people who designed the first model? Pride and ambition. Why in the 1980s and 1990s did Ford buy Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo Cars and Land Rover instead of trying to improve its own core products? Greed, empire building and pride. When Ford nearly went bankrupt as its marketshare slid from 24 percent in North America to 11 percent, it sold off a lot of those high priced brands at discount prices. Think of some of those corporate worlds as the playgrounds for corporate executives -- a big version of a corporate town. That being said, the Zebs way of presenting them is awful... along with the plague worlds.
Joe Cabadas

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 23, 2016 - 2:31am
JCab747 wrote:

As someone who has covered the automotive industry as a reporter, I can tell you that businesses sometimes do things that don't apparently have a tangible reason. The real reasons may be someone's pride or empire building.

I get that much, still...I woud think there must be at least a perceived need for it. With that in mind let's examine the population growth between AD and Zeb's to at least try and justify a possible perception.

Have a seat, this is going to be lengthy...
 
AD lists 22 worlds, of which seven are highly populated. They neglected to add K'Tsa Kar so if we are to fudge some specs based on the neighboring Vrusk systems, most of us might arrive at the system having a single planet with a medium population...just like the other two vrusk systems. Zebulon was also left out, but based on what we know of the module Volturnus won't be anything more than an outpost status. For those of us that were playing Star Frontiers before the Zeb's Guide was published, Anker isn't even a part of our vocabulary.

Zeb's lists 39 worlds (not counting the Rim), of which ten are highly populated. Some population changes are seen from the core AD listings: Laco graduates from outpost to moderate, K'tsa Kar's world Kawdl-Kit is finally listed albeit as lightly populated instead of my originally perceived moderate (not a change per se, but it was at least included this time around), Mogaine's World also graduates from outpost to moderate, Hakosoar grows from light to moderate, and Pale grows from moderate to heavy. None of the AD worlds lose population while four (five if you include the finally added Kawdl-Kit) see increases. Of the new worlds added to Zeb's guide, we have the following:
> outpost worlds Genesis, Starmist, and Mahg Mar 
> lightly populated Cass, Snowball, Corpco, Alcazzar, Circe & Kir-kut, Kraatar, and Volturnus (up from our original outpost presumption in AD)
> moderately popualted Exodus and Ringar
> heavily populated Moonworld and Mechano (sheesh, the citizens of Volturnus must have been shoulder to shoulder across the globe prior to the mechanon revolt)

Now based on that alone, the population has significantly expanded and so too should the businesses. We both agree that the writing of Zeb's Guide leaves a lot to be desired, but let us look at the single thing that it got right as far as the time line is concerned: the civil wars at Dramune. Zeb's lists the third war occurring in fy61. The Dramune Run module has a cargo log for the Gullwind citing everything happening during fy61, and coincidentally also features an epic space battle between Inner and Outer Reach as the culmination of said adventure. Despite the horrid mishandling of Zeb's Guide as it may be, some chalk this up to a broken clock being correct twice a day...I call it pure hoo-hah dumb luck. Whatever the case, this is the common ground we can look to for the sake of this discussion.

Zeb's lists the second Sathar War happening about 20 years later. It's safe to say most of us that played SF before acquiring Zeb's also placed this event some time after Dramune Run, as we were getting our players to cut their spacer teeth withthat module so naturally a full scale war would have to happen later assuming players would be affected by the event in the course of a campaign. So for the sake of this discussion we should agree that fy61/third Dramune War is part of the Frontier's "early" history and as such the AD planetary specifications would apply there, despite being "modern day" to the rest of us that were pre-Zeb's SFers.

Zeb's takes things to "modern day" fy111 and that is where their planetary specifications are reflected. Fifty years later. In fifty years the Frontier has nearly doubled in populated worlds due to a population explosion. Not to reveal my age, and I actually aready have hinted at that in this passage, but I will be coming up on that golden anniversary of my birth in a few short years. Actually, a "few" is over-estimating, by this summer it will be a "couple". The current estimated global population right now is 7.4 billion people. When I was born, it was 3.6 billion. When Zeb's Guide was written in 1983 the world population was 4.7 billion, 1953 had it at 2.7 billion.

Going by both of those time frames our world population has come close to doubling in roughly the same span. How that translates to Star Frontiers...the AD rules would have us as a "moderate" population per the definition: "Several large cities and numerous smaller cities, with no overcrowding." While some traffic patterns may dictate otherwise, overcrowding isn't an issue...there certainly isn't any pressing need for extra-terrestrial colonization on our behalf. It's also safe to say that fifty years ago we were still a "moderate" population by that definition, and doubling our population again in the next 50 years will still have us at that same "moderate" level. While we don't have the need for expansion, we can now see that a population can double in 50 years. So it would seem the peception is there for such business expansion.

Anyways...Zeb's came pretty close to that mark as well, assuming all planets behave the same way. Now I don't know if I should be enlightened, or if I need to consider the Guide having graduated from dumb luck to broken clock is correct twice a day.
Cool

Still, I don't see that as a mandate to double the number of populated worlds. But at least the perception of needing more business expansion is spot on. Just not enough to colonize a batch of new worlds.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

ChrisDonovan's picture
ChrisDonovan
March 23, 2016 - 8:12am
I disagree that we would still be considered "moderate" population.  We have significant overcrowding in many places around the world that is accellerating as rents and home prices in urban areas are causing a rise in "efficient" or "micro" housing that is being touted as a cure for those out of control price increases.

Tollon's picture
Tollon
March 23, 2016 - 11:51am

Chris you have a point.  Overcrowd shouldn't be base on unsettle lands or by population.  Overcowding can be caused by laws and land management programs.  A quick run down of that thought is, if a governement passes laws restricting were you can build and live.  Then, it is quite possible to have overcrowding rather quickly because, the space for the population is limited.   Geology reasons can dicate it as well.  Water, vacuum and tainted atmosphere world present challenges as well.  If a culture or government is not willing to create space then there is a crisis in housing, i.e. living space...

 


Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 23, 2016 - 12:35pm
So in the past fifty years has there been a need for extre-terrestrial colinization, or do we still have plenty of undeveloped land available to contain our "heavy" population as it continues to grow over the next fifty? Regardless of how you want to classify our planet, the notion that the Frontier needed to double in size is still questionable at best.  
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Tollon's picture
Tollon
March 23, 2016 - 6:18pm
The only I see that would govern or spur rapid grow as depicted in Zeb's guide would be agro-tech.  But since space is vast and Agro-ships are a part  of AD.  They could pack a planet like sardines and still not have the desire to make a colony world.  It's more of a cultural thing than anything else.  I remember reading some where, the vast ammout of resourses found in a solar system could last quite a long time, before the lack of resources actually reach the crisis stage.

ChrisDonovan's picture
ChrisDonovan
March 23, 2016 - 10:09pm
The real isue there is not the theoretical amount of resources in toto, but the amount of recoverable resources.  There is at least a 100 year supply of fresh water sealed in pockets under the seabed, but we don't know where those pockets are and don't have the means to easily recover them.  Likewise there is enough water to sustain us literally for a millenium or more sealed deep in the Earth's crust, but we can't even begin to drill down to the depth required.

iggy's picture
iggy
March 23, 2016 - 10:46pm
The expansion depicted in Zeb's guide feels more like a cultural phenomenon, a land rush.  This fits with the frontier theme where settlers and railroads are staking cliams for future generations.  Colony, light, medium, and heavy population sizes are poorly defined in the rules.  I don't have the rules accessible to me right now but I think they never put actual numbers to population sizes at all.  There is the statement that populations are concentrated to the cities and most places not far beyond the cities are wilderness.  Space travel in SF is affordable enough that beings can indulge themselves to relocate just to have a shorter year or different colored sky.  Mostly there is the government opportunities that encourage expansion.  A new world is an opportunity to have a different government free from the old.
-iggy

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
March 24, 2016 - 1:32am
iggy wrote:
The expansion depicted in Zeb's guide feels more like a cultural phenomenon, a land rush.  This fits with the frontier theme where settlers and railroads are staking cliams for future generations.

The difference is when the American frontier was settled, they stopped calling it "frontier". Wink

The Zeb's map has everything explored/settled, taking it from a frontier setting to a fully civilized setting much like Traveller albeit at a smaller scale.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

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