Traveller Hellhole Monday: Corrosive atmosphere, 10 Billion population = resort planet ?

So, one of the more persistent criticisms of PlanGen in Traveller is the old "overpopulated hellhole" canard. Specifically, that one can generate Huge populations on profoundly uninhabitable planets. Specifically, Venus (ATM B or C, depending) with 10,000,000,000 inhabitants. Orbital habitats don't seem to be a good enough explanation for serious rules lawyers: they technically "aren't on the planet", and are rather fragile compared to surface based habitats. However, some serious science thought has been put into exactly this issue -and suggest that Venus may actually be the best bet for extraterran settlement - and could support massive populations. How ?

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668_2003025525.pdf

TL:DR version, at 50Km altitude on Venus, conditions are 1psi, temp 0-30c , good abundance of basic earth life elements : (C, H2, O2, Ni ), and lots of solar power opportunities. The basic atmos is unbreathable, but in that mix of atmosphere, normal breathing air  (O/N)is a lifting gas ! Build a huge zeppelin protected against the sulfuric acid atmospheric component (easy, really), and live inside.  Serious golden age Sci Fi. And since OTU Traveller has Gravitics good enough for floating palaces at Imperial tech levels (12+, IIRC), one doesn't even need the lift provided by the breathable atmosphere except, perhaps, as a backup !

Cool, huh ?

And given that the living space is very thick (probably a kilometer or two before any bad effects of pressure or lack thereof show, there's room for LOTS of people in floating archeologies.  So we have these elegant bubbles floating serenely across the sky, occasionally spawning smaller bubbles, using resources drawn from various atmospheric depths as well as the hellish surface of the planet - which is a mine head, only.  No one lives there, they just commute in, oh, I don;t know.  Armored flying submarines and ground hugging mecha ?

Tell me there isn't a campaign in that.
The linked paper is actually 7 years old at this point: I'm mildly embarrassed that we didn't find this in the play test discussions about habitable worlds. Quite a bit of opinionizing could have been avoided...perhaps. (There was at least one content area "expert source" there that would have argued with his own shadow, as is required in any gaming forum.)
Now, if I can just get some real numbers on the other issue - how long (in actual years) a small world can hold a standard atmosphere ?

Some good fiction led me to this : "Clever Mongoose", and no relation to the present publisher of Traveller: a ripping SF yarn with floating cities, high tech zombies, conspiracies, and alien invasion all with a steam punk scavenger tech sensibility and a high tech background.

Hellholes and Dead Ends of the Traveller Universe Episode 3

And now, a break from rants and raves, with some gaming content.  As noted before, a common criticism of Traveller is that its world generation creates "impossible planets", generally hellholes or improbable mixes of technology and environment.  So, in addition to providing the usual arguments* , I decided to simply generate a bunch of words, and pick the weirdest and most likely to be superficially dismissed by the "Anti-Worldgen Society of Perfect Scientific Truth for Exquisitely Detailed Gaming" and make them good places to have players interact with...

*that it never was meant to be used as is without GM input, that it intentionally stresses anomaly as a way to generate adventures, and that it isn't a truescience planet generator but rather a plot setting generator for an RPG with spaceships, and it does take a bit of imagination to use -so it shouldn't be used if you want everything all real horrorshow and NGC compatable, that a system isn't broken because it  doesn't work the way you want it to in a way it was never intended for, etc etc.

And so, I present:

UWP E101789-4  
Mongoose Traveller, basic worldgen -90% compatable with Classic Traveller worldgen

Starport : E . No facilities, unimproved flat spot.

Physical: 1= 1000 miles diameter, 0=no atmosphere, 1= 10% hydrosphere, 

Social: 7=tens of millions population, 8=civil service bureaucracy, 9=extremely high  law level (complete weapons ban, intrusive, controlling)

Technology: TL 4:=(Industrial) The transition to industrial revolution is complete, plastics, radio, mass production, industrial economy and basic internal combustion or electrical transportation. Early twentieth century: 1900-1920.
Travel: Amber Zone (law 9+)

Trade codes: Ice capped non-agricultural, non-industrial , low tech , vacuum

Scout  base

Likely Anti-Worldgen Society complaint: 

• Unreasonable number of people in an unlivable hellhole; 
• TL insanely low for survival; 
• Stupid and unlikely place to be the main colony in any solar system.  
• AWS Conclusion: Broken, stupid and unrealistic.

My interpretation: 

Castaway E101789-4 

Perhaps one of the most isolated colonies ever founded by mankind, Castaway is aptly named, and was founded entirely by accident.

Castaway seems to be the result of a disastrously failed generation-style colonization effort. The colony, only recently located by the scout service, is on, or rather within, the sole iceball moon of a rogue gas giant/brown dwarf at least x parsecs from the nearest actual star system.

The moon is essentially a mico-Europa, with a large internal liquid water layer sustained by internal heat generated by the massive tidal forces generated by its companion. The main habitations are anchored to the bottom of the external ice layer, which are several kilometers thick. The actual surface is hard vacuum at near absolute zero. The water/ice zone covers a roughly circular area approximately 10% of the surface of the planet, and is likely the result of an early impact/meld with an ice body, possibly during planetary formation.

The colony as a whole is a loosely federated Polis, with full citizen participation in important decisions; otherwise, most of the habitations are governed by a changing board of expert technologists and biologists, who are quite ruthlessly and unforgiving tested for competence and fired for failure.

Little is known of the circumstances surrounding the no doubt desperate situation that necessitated the colonization of Castaway. It is clear that access to the liquid zone was obtained by impacting the asteroid based colony ship into the ice surface, hopefully after it was stripped and evacuated. Several beacons and at least one decommissioned shuttle have been found in orbits around both the primary, and Castaway, apparently in an attempt to mark their presence, as once the ice layer reformed no contact with the moon's surface was possible.

The original colonists, who seem to have been a fraction of the original colonists and crew, did have access to a large store of prefabricated and varied high tech colonizing equipment.  Most technological equipment is adapted and recycled colony equipment; almost no new production is possible due to both the environment and the resource-poor nature of the moon. 

The locally manufactured technology is approximately TL 4, barely sufficient to support and maintain life in a sub aquatic, low temperature microgravity environment; but sufficient to maintain and operate the remaining  equipment (at approximately TL 7) , which has become absolutely required for simple survival and maintaining the living habitats.

Almost all other resources available are scavenged from the wreckage of the original colony ship, and it's asteroid hull. A few fusion plants are still active, along with a makeshift geothermal technology to provide heat and power to the habitations. Food is entirely based on either thermal based plant forms apparently introduced by the colonists, or vat grown protein and plants.

The habitations tend to be as self sufficient and dispersed as much as possible, but an extensive communication system and submersible transport has maintained a mostly cohesive society, likely a testament to the constant struggle to survive.

This is not a permanent situation. It is crucial to note that the resource and maintenance cycles are completely closed, and are slowly running down without any input or production; the situation is guaranteed to fail catastrophically in perhaps a century or three.   However, with minimal input from the outside universe, the scavenging and recycling technologies developed would allow Castaway to survive indefinitely.  There are, unfortunately severe cultural problems complicating any such contact.

The colonists have not lost memory of their origins, nor of the outside universe; however, it appears that the impetus for the initial colonization effort was to create a hidden haven for the human race, an ethos that is still strongly in existence. Accordingly, the society is extremely exophobic and xenophobic, and so opposed to any external contact, or off planet travel by the inhabitants. They essentially believe that they are the last true humans in the universe, and that an unspecified "evil empire" (physically resembling humans) has eliminated earth and all other colonies.

The central goal in the society is survival and efficiency, and as a result individuals are very strictly tracked and monitored by the central committees, and each other, and observation is almost ubiquitous. This has become so ingrained in the population that the concept of privacy is almost non-existent; rather, the concept of "oversight" is taken as a basic human need. This observation is seldom if ever used for political or social manipulation goals; indeed such use of "oversight" is strictly taboo. Rather it is used to safeguard individuals in a very dangerous and unforgiving environment, and to allow constant refinement of working techniques. Indeed, given the strong social restrictions on oversight as a method of supervision or control, most inhabitants are acutely uncomfortable in its absence, and are highly agoraphobic when alone.

Population levels are strictly limited and limited to replacement. Life expectancy is low, and the population is as a whole fairly young. Education and training are universal, and begun at a very early age. Most individuals will be working for most of their waking hours, for most of their life.

Resources and property, as well as all production is entirely held in common, and strictly rationed and distributed on a strictly per capita basis; material goods or access to same is not used as a reward or benefit. Private ownership is limited to clothes, and, oddly, musical instruments and religious items.

Waste of resources or failure to recycle is considered a major criminal and moral offense. Interestingly, human life is also considered a scarce and perhaps the most vital resource (after power) needed to preserve the colony (and thus the human race). Even the worst of crimes have no death sentence; however, the societies concept and implementation of "forensic resource recovery" would give even hardened criminals pause before offending.

Finally, it must be noted that the population has diverged significantly from the original human population, primarily due to adaptation to a constant microgravity environment. It is unclear if the colonists are aware of this divergence, and if so, what part it plays in their hermit/survivalist ethos.

The initial effect is that it is impossible for a baseline human to infiltrate their society.

Interestingly, all information suggests that the colonists are unaware of the orbital beacons that attracted the initial survey expedition; it is possible that this is the remnant of early, perhaps initial, schism in the colonist society.

The classification as an E starport is due to the scout presence on the surface. A semi permanent post has been created, as they anticipate a long, long period of study before contact, if it is ever deemed to be necessary.

Hellholes of the Traveller Universe

So, being busy, sick, and unable to concentrate on ranting about thieves and Why They Are Good and Jim and James are Wrong,  I present from the pages of Traveller forums (Mongoose and COTI) another installment in the Hellholes and dead ends of the traveller universe, showcasing what to do with those really really odd worlds that the random sysgen can spit out...plus, it's a rip off of a S&S story of some fame, which should be a gimmie to my sopisticated readers.

Re Dnailz D000161- 6
Type D starport (minimal), asteroid  , no atmos, no hydrospehere, up to 100 inhabitants, captive government, almost no law enforcement.

Re Dnailz is an involuntary colony created by the neighboring world of . was originally a repressive religious dictatorship facing not-unusual dissent of a religious nature. The dominant sect was religiously bound to allow allowed confessed heretics a choice of exile or death, but was unwilling to allow them to get loose in charted space as a whole, or to settle them on nice, worthwhile colony worlds and spread their beliefs. Accordingly, Re Dnailz (“a home for dissent”) was established on an asteroid in an otherwise barren neighboring system. Set up as a no G tunnel habitat derived from an automated mining and fabrication ship/installation, the colony has the minimum tech needed to maintain itself and provide a reasonable living standard (in theory) for the exiles. Bereft of the resources for space travel, let alone star travel, and permanently locked into trying to keep the systems running on a shoestring, the home world rightly judged that they would be too busy to export heretical ideas or indeed to do anything other than mine, fabricate, fix , crack ice, grow food, repeat.


At its height, Re Dnailz has a population of several thousands, however, it is currently fallen to (15-100), due to two issues: the first is that even in the most hardscrabble life, people will find ways to argue and fight, and this was, after all, populated exclusively by extreme and extremist sects; unexpectedly, the murder and “gang” related deaths were quite high. There was limited involvent in keeping order by of the official jailers from homeworld (themselves exiled, but trustees), but this has ended, as noted below.


Secondly, contact with the home world has ended. At home, the Religious government has collapsed in corruption and a very bloody rebellion, at one point installing a very anti-religious revolutionary government; given the damage to the planets infrastructure and the lack of interest in taking care of a bunch of what are seen as religious fanatics, the new government simply and quietly expunged all knowledge of the colony outside of its ruling council; most of whom died in the next round of rebellion and civil war. As a result, the loss of contact caused a massive upswing in sectarian violence, including significant damage to the environmental systems. What remains are the families of three brothers locked in a final feud to the death due to a fatal disagreement over a spouse. Currently only the two distant ends of the station are inhabited, with all habitable areas between being a battleground. Perhaps 90 survivors in two factions remain in Re Dnailz. (Or 15 if you want it really close and personal).

At least one of the anti-religious directorate members and her family fled to the colony for lack of any better idea, and lack of knowledge of how bad the situation had gotten.


An excellent adventure hook would be for the players to have to locate the now criminalized politician , possibly for the new(est) government, possibly for some information only she may have –such as, where is the iridium hoard that the priesthood is known to have had that disappeared in the first civil war and purge……

Anything but Adventurer Sunday presents: Traveller, The Hive of the Last Sun

Hellholes and Dead Ends of the Traveller Universe:

As part of writing up a traveller planet generation program for the playtest of the Mongoose rules, I ran up about 100K worlds. One of the reasons was to just look for odd results in the planet generation system -and yes, probability math will work too, I just wanted to see what the results looked like....as well.

That said, at some point, it turned into an exercise in "how might this really, really really really unlikely world work". Since most problematic worlds are identified by virtue of being unliveable and yet populated, it turned into a list of horrible places to live - more or less. So I started posting them, and it turned out to be fairly popular; so, being the attention whore that I am, I decided to move them here.

I'll post a couple every so often.

Please note, that there are some things in these which many might consider broken; but generally I try not to have more than one stretcher - and go for the "if it isn't absolutely impossible.." rule ; after all, the UWP's themselves are pretty unlikely, too.

Here's the first.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Hive of the Last Sun:

X564ADB-0 R
No starport
diameter = 5000
Atm =standard
Hydrographic = 40%
Population tens of billions
Religous dictatorship
VERY high level of intrusivemenss/law
Tech.....neolithic.

A world-spanning neolithic religious dictatorship, the hive of the last Sun is a teeming lost colony, isolated from known space early in the long night shortly after its foundations as a MegaCorporation's highly specialized Agriplanet.

Blessed by a remarkably stable and constant main star, with little or no seasonal variation, large expanses of shallow wetlands and very low background radiation, Last Sun's life had developed no further than an analogue of the late Precambrian period of old Terra (more properly identified as mid Neoproterozoic), differing in that life (such as it was)had spread to the land (such as it was). Once the biooxygenation of the planet was complete, life puttered along, in simple undifferentiated and unchallenged equilibrium for perhaps .5 to 1.5 gigayears

The world was perfect for agriculture, with a gentle temperate earthlike climate, vast shallow beds of organic silt, landbased organic soil, and an extremely static and and fragile native life that was completely unable to compete with Terran imports.

Within the first century, the local ecosystem was entirely supplanted by Terran geneered food plankton, so quickly that a feared deoxygenation event failed to occur. The shallow seas had become vast aquaculture farms, primarily specializing in plankton based food products; land based food production similarly scoured the land of native life (mainly amphibious Ediacaran analogues), although land based production was never as profitable or extensive as New Suns aquaculture. This much is known from records salvaged from other worlds, and the Imperial trade archives referencing the now vanished Agricorp responsible for the planet.

With the collapse of the second Imperium all contact was rapidly lost, and New sun's local population is believed to have been overwhelmed by several waves of refugees fleeing failing and hostile ecosystems in nearby systems. The highly specialized and externally dependent technology of the agricolony almost certainly failed within a few decades, and little exploitation of the planet's resources was possible, lacking minimally advanced technology. Fortunately, the nutrioPlankton(tm) had already aggressively spread throughout the water ecosytem, effectively turning the planet into a vast monoculture of edible plankton. Some land farming was possible, but no draft or domesticated animals survived the collapse. As a result, technology withered away, but the population boomed, reaching a current high of 41 billion (with several suspected diebacks) , technology remained essentially neolithic but culturally highly sophisticated. No records or oral histories survive from the earliest post collapse time, and most population information is based upon studies of comparative genomics of the population.

Update: extensive biological sampling suggests that the current biosphere is remarkably free of human specific pathogens. Those that do exist are clearly variants of various bacteria passively hosted by humans. It is conjectured that the planet may have originally been treated as a clean room by the initial agrocorp settling it.

With one main (if almost entirely marshy) supercontinent, a warm unvarying climate, abundant food, and no competition, human survival was perhaps too easy. For the next 800 years life on new sun was easy, primitive, and unfortunately, extremely violent.

While on the surface a primitive paradise, the limited and artificial ecosystem coupled with the loss of all other higher lifeforms has produced a situation where the only source of a variety of vital nutrients is other humans. Accordingly, cannibalism has become a fixed and unavoidable part of all local societies; and few, if any, are known to practice it on a voluntary basis. The entire post collapse history of the planet has been marked by constant violent aggression, on a tribal level initially, and later organized warfare, as nation states evolved around dryer rocky areas of the continent. The last 100 years, have seen the formation, spread and eventual triumph of a world spanning superreligion which dominates the hordes of petty, and entirely subordinate polities of the continent. The key to the New Suns success has been firstly in instituting largely ceremonial conflict between states for prisoner/food gathering (avoiding large scale cultural disruption typical of actual conflicts) and secondly, creating a highly charismatic and ritualized worship around the act of sacrifice and consumption of humans; this has evolved to the point where many of the victims in the strongest and largest polity are volunteers, spending a set period in hedonisitic (if neolithic) luxury, and then giving their lives as a sacrifice to the new sun, which must be constantly fed; and incidentally giving their bodies to ceremonial feasts.

New Sun has no knowledge of an outside world beyond the main religion which teaches that humans fled a great war of the gods from beyond the sky, a realm which is essentially hell. The sun is a disinterested deity who must be placated and kept sleeping with human sacrifices, lest he leave or consume the humans.

Culturally, new Sun presents an incredibly varied set of advanced neolithic cultures, which defy easy categorization, except that they are generally insular, xenophobic, violent and aggressive. The genetic bottleneck of the initial population, plus a millennium of increased selection by tribal violence, and unfortunately, sub-domestication of groups of humans as food animals has produced a genotype which is generally inter-fertile with solomani humans, but physically quite distinctive. This factor, coupled with the intensely clannish and xenophobic slant of most cultures and the dominant religion, complicates the already difficult task of discreet observation by the scout service. All observation is currently carried out by remotes.



A small scout base specializing in the study of long term tech zero cultures has been established on one of the few islands in the planet's major ocean. It is a subsector and quadrant mecca for cultural and physicial sophontologists studying the local cultures, and clinical sociologists attempting to develop integration plans.

Currently The Hive of the Last Sun is fully interdicted by the scout service, and is classed as a red zone by the TAS. It is noted that unlike most primitive cultures which are interdicted for safety, on this world, it is the visitors who are unlikely to survive contact.

Update:
The population level of the planet is currently extreme, and, despite the remarkable ease with which food can be obtained, it has likely overrun the ability to sustain itself. It is extremely likely that it is in imminent danger of a massive die off and general collapse. What historical evidence is available suggest that this is a reocurring process on Hive, with constant boom and bust cycles in which the population may vary by as much as two orders of magnitude, with a fairly short cycle time of as little as 5-10 generations. .