Traveller Sandbox: Our First Look at the Sector...

Good Afternoon, My Friends:

Below is an image of the sector I've generated for the Traveller Sandbox Experiment. I'm currently trying to color-coded the various potential polities and such. Before we even look at the UWPs, let's just look at the overall astrography, and how that provides us with adventuring potential.



A Note On Names
Do you know how hard it is to name 492 worlds? I started by naming all of the worlds with allegiance codes. Each group is named for the pantheons of a different religion or mythology. I chose to do that simply to keep in sync with the example set by our own solar system, and because I wanted different name-flavors for the various groups. For the remainder, I combed through a number of randomly generated names, and took those that sounded easy to pronounce. Hopefully, these work, at least for the purposes of this experiment.

Polities
When I first start looking at star maps for setting creation, I prefer to start with the presumption that the largest polity on the map is human. That is, I prefer that presumption unless we want the large human polity is off to the side of the map, which gives us some worlds along its border that extend the polity into the sector in question (as I did with the Azri Drakara sector, following in the example of a frontier sector set forth by the Spinward Marches sector of Traveller fame.) Really, it depends on if we want a frontier sector of a larger entity, or a smaller human polity stepping out into the much bigger universe.

With that in mind, I look at the sector I've generated here, and I am immediately struck by the large polities in the various corners of the map. This makes me think of a frontier where two or more larger polities come together. Here's a list of the various polities that I identified, as well as the temporary names I've given them. (These are subject to change as this experiment moves forward.) Polities that perhaps extend off the map are denoted with an asterisk (*).

• Asuran Hegemony (Ah)*: 70 worlds
• Avalon Commonwealth (Ac): 4 worlds
• Chakanan Empire (Ce)*: 27 worlds
• Changsegan Dynasty (Cd)*: 21 worlds
• Chimalmat Group (Cg): 3 worlds
• Gyalpoan Trade Coalition (Gc): 5 worlds
• Heremod Unity (Hu)*: 105 worlds
• Ishtar Sovereignty (Is): 5 worlds
• Jengu Alliance (Ja): 19 worlds
• Koyane Shogunate (Ks)*: 29 worlds
• Litha League (Ll): 5 worlds
• Moloch Regency (Mr)*: 5 worlds
• Perunian Federation (Pf): 7 worlds
• Seshat Empire (Se): 29 worlds
• Stars of Namaka (Sn): 3 worlds
• Tabaldak Jurisdiction (Tj): 2 worlds

This leaves approximately 153 worlds Non-aligned (Na) or Independent (In). As you can see, this is a busy little piece of interstellar real estate. I put a maximum TL of 13 in place, simply to create multiple polities. Otherwise, we'd be looking at pretty much one polity (with perhaps different cultural centers) or two polities butting up against each other.

From the number of worlds under each allegiance code, the obvious selection for a human polity is going to be the Heremod Unity. The worlds of this region are pulled from Norse mythology, which immediately conjures images of Vikings in Space. The Unity is located in the lower half of the sector, which makes me want to look first at those two quadrants in the second step of the process. We'll dive into that with our next post, though.

Enjoy,
Flynn