Happy Accidents of LBB3 Generation Create Cool Stuff
So, Looking at Grand Festeria (the 9 subsectors) I've identified two empires so far (having re-analyzed two subsectors.) There's the Berlings Reach, and there's Fester.
Fester's by far the bigger of the two; it's tech 15, and has benefit of the largest Jump-1 main in all 9 subsectors. Berlings is a handful of worlds, scattered among several small clusters.
Fester's a type 5 government, a "feudal technocracy," (reference TML, CotI threads somewhere to figure this one out) with a moderate law level, 6 or so.
Berlings is a Charismatic Dictatorship with law level B.
Both are sufficicently high pop and high tech that they're the naturally dominant space-powers in their regions; where A and B ports exist on worlds unable to support them via their own resources, it's a cinch that the major local starfaring power's behind it. If there's a captive government, it's likely that the major local starfaring power is doing the capturing.
So what's really cool is the way that the surrounding worlds "ended up."
Berlings's neighborhood has a disproportionate number of captive governments within its reach, and a few scattered naval bases.
Fester is surrounded, mainly, by smaller-pop worlds that can't maintain their own fleets, but who tend to be self-governed: only a few captive governments. There are a fairly even distribution of Naval bases near Fester, virtually none of which could have been made by the worlds they're on (low tech, low pop, or both.) There is nowhere in Fester's home subsector that is more than 3 parsecs from a Festrian Naval base.
So what I'm seeing is this:
the Festrian Empire is a Spacer empire. It extends its power across the space-lanes between its worlds but really doesn't give much of a damn what goes on dirtside unless it affects the flow of trade (and taxes/tribute) to Fester. Basically, you don't mess with the Black Ships, you don't maintain a rival fleet, everything's fine. Fester will expand its borders in space, continually projecting its Naval and Trade power outwards, but local government generally will keep its own, dirtside. Fester's fleets will be heavy on carriers, cruisers, and patrol craft, but there will be very little need for landing forces.
Berlings is different. Berlings takes worlds, clears out the old government and puts in its own. Half of what Berlings holds are captive governments. Half of the rest look like thinly disguised puppets to me. Berlings will have its patrol ships and carriers, certainly, in order to maintain its space against the vast Festrian empire (Fester has a naval presence pressuring Berlings' space) but a major element in the Berlings fleet will be troop carriers.
This is leading me to say that the Festrian Empire is not such a bad thing as empires go. They're hell on smugglers and pirates; they welcome the influence of the TAS in terms of merchant price control (large corporations seem to do nicely in Festrian space, and Festrian nobles seem to do well with large corporations.) The Scouts generally approve of the Festrian record, although they're concerned with the worlds that get skipped over by the big Jump-3 routes in Festrian space. There's also a number of worlds that Fester has Red-zoned, and the Scouts are pressing for some sort of observer status there.
The Scouts and the TAS will be much more worried about Berlings.
Fester's by far the bigger of the two; it's tech 15, and has benefit of the largest Jump-1 main in all 9 subsectors. Berlings is a handful of worlds, scattered among several small clusters.
Fester's a type 5 government, a "feudal technocracy," (reference TML, CotI threads somewhere to figure this one out) with a moderate law level, 6 or so.
Berlings is a Charismatic Dictatorship with law level B.
Both are sufficicently high pop and high tech that they're the naturally dominant space-powers in their regions; where A and B ports exist on worlds unable to support them via their own resources, it's a cinch that the major local starfaring power's behind it. If there's a captive government, it's likely that the major local starfaring power is doing the capturing.
So what's really cool is the way that the surrounding worlds "ended up."
Berlings's neighborhood has a disproportionate number of captive governments within its reach, and a few scattered naval bases.
Fester is surrounded, mainly, by smaller-pop worlds that can't maintain their own fleets, but who tend to be self-governed: only a few captive governments. There are a fairly even distribution of Naval bases near Fester, virtually none of which could have been made by the worlds they're on (low tech, low pop, or both.) There is nowhere in Fester's home subsector that is more than 3 parsecs from a Festrian Naval base.
So what I'm seeing is this:
the Festrian Empire is a Spacer empire. It extends its power across the space-lanes between its worlds but really doesn't give much of a damn what goes on dirtside unless it affects the flow of trade (and taxes/tribute) to Fester. Basically, you don't mess with the Black Ships, you don't maintain a rival fleet, everything's fine. Fester will expand its borders in space, continually projecting its Naval and Trade power outwards, but local government generally will keep its own, dirtside. Fester's fleets will be heavy on carriers, cruisers, and patrol craft, but there will be very little need for landing forces.
Berlings is different. Berlings takes worlds, clears out the old government and puts in its own. Half of what Berlings holds are captive governments. Half of the rest look like thinly disguised puppets to me. Berlings will have its patrol ships and carriers, certainly, in order to maintain its space against the vast Festrian empire (Fester has a naval presence pressuring Berlings' space) but a major element in the Berlings fleet will be troop carriers.
This is leading me to say that the Festrian Empire is not such a bad thing as empires go. They're hell on smugglers and pirates; they welcome the influence of the TAS in terms of merchant price control (large corporations seem to do nicely in Festrian space, and Festrian nobles seem to do well with large corporations.) The Scouts generally approve of the Festrian record, although they're concerned with the worlds that get skipped over by the big Jump-3 routes in Festrian space. There's also a number of worlds that Fester has Red-zoned, and the Scouts are pressing for some sort of observer status there.
The Scouts and the TAS will be much more worried about Berlings.
posted by Jwarrrlry at 6:55 AM
6 Comments:
This is sounding better and better the more you post about the milieu. Interpreting the government statistic can be fun; someone on CotI suggested that balkanized worlds might be claimed by more than one interstellar polity...which could lead to all sorts of interesting conflicts and adventure seeds.
Can't wait to see more subsector writeups!
Hmmm... as it happens, both the Berlings and Fester subsectors have a good number of Balkanized worlds...
Regarding the Balkanized worlds, you might also consider that part of the world's population has accepted admittance to the local PE, but the rest has not, creating a "member" and "non-member" population base. There may or may not be a lot of friction between the two groups.
Plankowner
Thanks, Plank! I agree, that's a good situation to throw in. There's a handful of those that have cropped up in my mapping.
so do you have a place to view or download your TU's sectors and stuff? do you use galactic? or HE?
just curious..
wally
You know, Wally, I don't yet. Do you know a good system for manually plugging in subsectors? Because I did all these with paper & pencil. (Okay, pen.)
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