Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.084 to FY60.114

Here’s the next installment of the detailed Frontier timeline. I realized that I left off the last day of the previous post so it is included here. The events of the Sundown on Starmist module reach their conclusion and the Council of Worlds start to take the sathar threat seriously.

Date (FY)	Event
60.084	After several days of probing, the saurian Battle Rays begin their return to the Sauria system.
60.085	Initial repairs begun on the Pale (Truane’s Star) starship construction center. Capacity is increased to 60% of its original value.
60.086	After nearly a month of meetings on Volturnus (Zebulon), the Council of Worlds declares the planet to hold protectorate status but not full membership. It is deemed that the Eorna population is too small while the other races are not advanced enough for full membership.
60.087	The VSS Last Legs arrives at Starmist. Maximillian and the scouting party make contact with the planet’s natives. (SF3)
60.088	Patrol Group Wisdom arrives in the Gruna Garu system and begins investigating the sighting of the unidentified vessel with Spacefleet markings.
60.089	Maximillian Malligigg is captured and taken prisoner by the priests of the Heliope village. (SF3)
60.090	– Sathar robots, shaped like Heliopes, attack the Heliope village causing destruction of many of the buildings. The village temple is partially burned, revealing an alien war tank concealed inside. (SF3) – SF Nova arrives in the K’sta-Kar system and will remain in system for 12 days.
60.091	– While Maximillian and the scouting party are examining the war tank, sathar robots attack the village again. Driving the robots off, they follow them in the tank. (SF3) – The sathar starship construction center in the Liberty system completes another destroyer.
60.092	The retreating robots lead the scouting party to a sathar base. Infiltrating the base, they discover it is mostly abandoned and defeat the remaining sathar and agents in place. However, the base is destroyed by an automated self-destruct system. (SF3)
60.093	Saurian Battle Rays arrive back in the Sauria system from scouting the Tischen and Dayzer systems.
60.094	The alien war tank on Sundown (Starmist) begins behaving erratically and alarms and lights begin to flash. 30 minutes later it self-destructs in a small nuclear explosion. (SF3)
60.095	Maximillian and survivors of the scouting party leave Sundown (Starmist) to return to K’sta-Kar on the VSS Last Legs. (SF3)
60.096	The TTSS Destiny arrives back in Prenglar after touring the western half of the Frontier, visiting Truane’s Star, Dixon’s Star, and all the yazirian systems (Gruna Garu, Araks, Scree Fron, & Athor). Replenishing supplies, it prepares to continue its Grand Tour.
60.097	CDCSS Nightwind turns up in the White Light system under the name TSS Star’s Gift. CDC immediately dispatches a team to recover the ship. (AR)
60.098	Having completed its shakedown cruise, the UPFS Nexus begins a high speed run to join up with Strike Force Nova.
60.099	Fortress Kdikitt (Madderly’s Star) reaches the 80% completion mark. Behind schedule and due to the increased sathar activity in the Frontier, the UPF places a priority on operational security and getting the fortress completed.
60.100	After months of work, a petition with over 100,000 names is submitted to the Council of Worlds demanding investigation of signals detected from Hargurt in a system just beyond the Frontier in the direction of the Vast Expanse. In the intervening months, signals have been detected multiple times from the system.
60.101	Second Volturnus Expedition members testify before the Council of Worlds about events on Volturnus (Zebulon) leading to the Battle of Volkos.
60.102	– The first of a new class of sathar vessels, the cutter, functionally modeled on the assault scout, is completed at the sathar starship construction center near Zebulon. – SF Nova departs K’sta-Kar for the White Light System
60.103	After months of deliberation, the Council of Worlds votes to increase Spacefleet spending by 10% allowing for the commissioning of several new vessels.
60.104	After many days of debate, the decision is made to abandon the Tischen and Dayzer systems in face of the sathar forces there and focus all efforts on defending Sauria and completing the Ark program (FE004).
60.105	The TTSS Destiny departs Gran Quivera (Prenglar) for the Timeon system to continue its Grand Tour of the Frontier. Over 100 passengers have been on the ship for the entire tour and intend to visit every system.
60.106	CDC team arrives in the White Light System from the Theseus system to attempt to reclaim the CDCSS Nightwind (AR).
60.107	Assault scout completed at the Gran Quivera (Prenglar) starship construction center to replace the UPF vessel lost at the Battle of Zebulon
60.108	After over a month of struggle through the jungles, the Spire Dragons reach the foothills of Mount Spire and establish a base camp. Several members of the expedition have perished along the way and people question the wisdom of their approach.
60.109	A new assault scout is completed at the Pale starship construction center to replace the militia vessel lost at the Battle of Zebulon
60.110	UPFS Nexus arrives at Clarion (White Light) to await the arrival of SF Nova and spends the day training with the White Light Militia.
60.111	SF Nova arrives at Clarion in the White Light system and is joined by UPFS Nexus. It will remain in system for 19 days.
60.112	After sneaking onboard just before the ship departs, the CDCSS Nightwind is recaptured by the CDC operatives and the former employees responsible for assisting in its disappearance are captured. The ship begins its way back to corporate headquarters.
60.113	After a long and detailed search of the Gruna Garu system by Patrol Group Wisdom, no evidence is found of the mysterious vessel. The patrol group departs the system to return to Prenglar.
60.114	Attempt is made (but fails) to sabotage Gollwin Academy.

Here’s the full timeline document:

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

Battle of Zebulon

I finally got the Pursale ship deck sketches up last week but then got completely distracted by a number of other things. One of those was the decision to write up my concept for a complete “zero-to-hero” style Star Frontiers campaign that takes the characters from starting PCs to major players in the Frontier with high level spaceship skills that uses all the published modules. The first of those posts will be next week.

While working on that, I talk about the space battle around Volturnus at the end of the first 3 modules. The modules hand wave it away as, at the time, the spaceship rules weren’t published so there was no way to run it. In this post, we’ll look at my concept for that battle. What sathar ships are there, and what the UPF sends to the fight. If you read my Detailed Frontier Timeline posts, you know the answers as this has already been covered in the posts there, but I thought I’d lay out some of the rationale behind the decisions and set the game up for an epic Knight Hawks board game battle. And I’ll tell you how it played out when I ran through the scenario to generate the timeline posts.

Sathar Ship Design

In my universe, all the sathar ships of destroyer size or larger are also troop transports. While the UPF tend to have small crews and lots of allocated space, the sathar pack in lots of ground troops on to each ship.

You can see an example (and more detailed explanation) of this in my Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual (link goes to product page on DriveThruRPG – it’s a free product) that details the interior of a sathar destroyer. That ship carries over 500 ground troops packed into its bowels.

Based on the ship sizes, I’ve extrapolated that the light cruisers carry about 4,500 troops, the heavy cruisers carry over 15,000 and the assault carriers transport around 10,000 troops in addition to up to 12 fighters. While I haven’t completely fleshed out those larger vessels, this is a close enough estimate for this article.

How Many Sathar Ships Are Involved

Now that we know how many troops each ship transports, we can come up with a reasonable composition for the invasion fleet that is attacking Volturnus.

The boxed text from the adventure gives us the following clues:

All that can be done has been done to prepare the planet for defense against the hideous worms. The initial reports arriving at the Eorna complex beneath the ruins of Volkos are good; the Eorna planetary defense batteries have kept the Sathar fleet at bay, and many of the Sathar shuttles have been destroyed attempting to land ground troops on the planet

The successful landing of a large Sathar army has been detected. After scanning the planet, the Sathar advanced in the direction of Volkos. They should arrive in full battle array sometime tomorrow morning. They number at least 30,000 plus robots and other weapons!”

This tells us that there are at least 30,000 troops on the ground and that there were more to begin with as many were destroyed in the landing attempt.

So, we want a mix of ships that can transport something over 30,000 troops. Based on the mix of ships given in the Knight Hawks campaign book, I settled on the following mix of ships for the fleet:

2 frigates
6 Destroyers
2 Light Cruisers
2 Heavy Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier with 8 fighters

This gives me a total troop compliment of about 52,000 troops plus robots, attack creatures, and heavy weapons. We can assume that about 40% of the troops were killed by the planetary defense system leaving about 30,000 for the assault on Volkos.

The UPF Contingent

We have to remember that this is not a planned engagement in an on-going war. Rather it is a sudden call to arms that has to be filled in at short notice with no idea of what the opposing force will be. In fact, given the overwhelming number of ships that were seen at Pale 50-60 years earlier (in my history), the UPF might be loathe to commit any ships fearing that they are sending them into a deathtrap. Regardless, the ships are sent, but they are assembled on short notice.

The most obviously available ships are the Pale militia ships, consisting of a frigate and three assault scouts. They would almost certainly be pressed into service by Spacefleet as they are only one jump away. If Laco (in Dixon’s Star) had a militia, they too would probably have been involved but Laco is only an outpost.

Streel is headquartered on Pale, and it is almost certain that they have a number of military or paramilitary vessels at their disposal. They might be conscripted by Spacefleet or possibly even volunteered as Streel has a definite interest in opening (and exploiting) Volturnus. Keeping the sathar out of the system and off the planet is just good business practice. So Streel will probably send some ships along.

That leaves Spacefleet. Strike Force Nova might be around. It patrols around the Frontier constantly so there is a chance it is nearby. The nearest large group of ships with a known location is Task Force Prenglar, stationed in its namesake system. The problem is that it’s three systems away from Zebulon. Which means it’s going to take some time to get there and may not arrive in time.

If you just use the distances between the stars as travel time, it’s only 15 days. That’s they way the Alpha Dawn rules described interstellar travel. However, the Knight Hawks rules say you have to accelerate up to 1% the speed of light to make the jump and then slow down at your destination. That acceleration, at 1g takes a little over 83 hours or just over 4 days. And then 4 days to slow down. Assuming some maneuvering at the beginning and ending of the trip and checking vectors and such just before Void entry, a single interstellar hop really takes about 9 days, regardless of distance. Maybe a bit longer on long jumps due to extra astrogation calculation time.

Now we can speed this up a bit by accelerating faster but for a long transit, that has detrimental effects on crew. If you expect to be coming out of the Void into a firefight, you don’t want to have spent the last two weeks strapped into an acceleration chair at 2-3 gees.

We can also speed up the transit by not slowing down in the intermediate systems. Then we only have the astrogation time to worry about. That might work for the Dixon’s Star system, but they will have to slow down in Truane’s Star to rendezvous with the ships from that system and coordinate their jump. So assuming ships from Prenglar blow through Dixon’s Star without stopping it will take them 4.5 days to get to Void speed in Prenglar, 2.5 days in Dixon’s Star to do the astrogation calculations, 4.5 days to slow down at Pale in the Truane’s Star system. Then they need to accelerate and jump to Zebulon which will take another 9 days. All told, that’s 20.5 days of travel. Add to that any time it takes to assemble the Task Force and get the ships ready to leave.

What other options are there? In the description of Spacefleet, it describes the two Task Forces and Strike Force Nova and then says that there are other smaller units as well. I decided to take advantage of this.

At the same time as the events are unfolding on Volturnus, Streel and Pan Galactic are locked into what will be known as Laco’s War, the first corporate war. In my games, this war is just starting to heat up. Because of that, Spacefleet had recently dispatched a medium sized Patrol Group to the system to attempt put a damper on the rising hostilities. Patrol Group Virgo, consisting of 2 light cruisers, 2 destroyers, 2 assault scouts, and an assault carrier with 8 fighters, has just recently arrived in Dixon’s Star. That puts them marginally closer only requiring 18 days to get to Volturnus with the advantage that since they are already out on patrol, they can depart immediately.

So once the call comes in from the PCs, Spacefleet takes a day or two to make the decision and then dispatches Patrol Group Virgo from Dixon’s Star. In Truane’s Star they pick up the Pale militia as well as a frigate, 4 corvettes, and 3 assault scouts that Streel sends along on the expedition. With that, the ships arriving at Volturnus from the UPF are:

8 Assault Scouts
4 Corvettes
2 Frigates
2 Destroyers
2 Light cruisers
1 Assault Carrier with 8 fighters

From a campaign perspective, I have the UPF fleet arrive just as the battle on the ground is ending, driving off the sathar ships.

The Knight Hawks Scenario

We now have the order of battle. The sides are fairly evenly matched. The UPF fleet has more ships, but the sathar have slightly more hull points. The UPF’s forces are concentrated into its smaller vessels, lots of little assault scouts and corvettes that can potentially be picked off fairly easily.

This scenario can be played by any number of people. Simply divide into teams and each team takes a side. The UPF forces divide fairly easily into three groups, one playing the UPF ships, one the Pale militia, and one the Streel ships. Although the number of ships and their strength isn’t evenly distributed between those groups. The sathar ships can be divided up any way that team sees fit.

Setup

A planet counter representing Volturnus is placed in the center of the map.

The sathar are the defenders in this scenario. Sathar ships, with the exception of the frigates, are all placed in orbit around Volturnus with a speed of zero. They have just recently finished dropping off all their troops. Since the frigates are not troop carriers, they can start in any hex within 5 hexes of the planet with a speed of up to 5 hexes/turn.

The UPF are the attackers. They all start along one of the short sides of the map. The individual ships can be anywhere on that side, but all the ships have to be on the same side. They must start within 3 hexes of the map edge and be moving at any speed up to 15 hexes/turn. All the UPF ships have to start at the same speed.

Special Rules

Escaping the Battle

A ship is considered to have escaped from battle if it moves off any edge of the map with a) no ships in pursuit, or b) is out of weapon range and has a higher ADF of any pursuing ships.

Preserve the Fleet

Heavy cruisers and assault carriers are important vessels in the sathar navy. If the tide of battle seems to be going against the sathar, they will try to pull back to preserve these larger vessels, sacrificing the smaller ones if necessary (even if it means ramming) to delay the UPF ships and allow the larger vessels to escape.

Victory Conditions

Sathar Victory

The sathar claim victory if they can destroy all the UPF vessels.

UPF Victory

The UPF claim a complete victory if all the sathar vessels are destroyed. If any of the sathar vessels escape, it is only a partial victory.

When I Played

I played this out once using the full Advanced Combat rules of the Knight Hawks boardgame. I wanted to test the plausibility of this mix of ships in the scenario. Basically I was playing to make sure it was possible for the UPF to win. I definitely thought the sathar would have the advantage. It turned into quite the slugfest. However, the UPF got in some lucky early blows with the assault scouts living up to their hype and taking out nearly half of the sathar fleet by round 3 of the game after losing only a single assault scout.

In the end, the sathar fleet was routed, escaping with only 1 frigate, 2 destroyers, and a heavy cruiser. The other heavy cruiser and assault carrier were lost on that fateful round 3. The UPF only lost a Pale militia assault scout, and a light cruiser and assault scout from the Spacefleet contingent, but almost no ship escaped unscathed. The die rolls favored the UPF and it ended up being a very lopsided game. I suspect if played through several more times, it could go either way.

Last Thoughts

Do you like these Knight Hawks game scenarios? Would you like to see more of them? Should I include the statistics for the ships? If you play this scenario out, let me know which rule set you used (Basic or Advanced) and how it turned out.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.054 to FY60.084

Here is the next set of entries in the detailed Frontier timeline. This month includes the beginning of the events in the Sundown on Starmist module, the beginning of the final campaign of the sathar against the saurians in the their corner of space, as well as the commencement of hostilities by sathar agents against military targets throughout the Frontier.

Date (FY)	Event
60.054	Waiting for decisions from the Council of Worlds and Spacefleet, PGC dispatches several vessels from Gran Quivera (Prenglar) to Dixon’s Star to serve as a corporate militia in the system.
60.055	Sathar SCC#3, near Kizk-Kar, completes production of a frigate.
60.056	The small raid (1 LC, 2DD) launched by Clan Z arrives in Kizk-Kar system. With SF Nova in system, the UPF ships soundly defeat the sathar ships in the first official battle of what will come to be called the Second Sathar War. SF Nova extends its stay in the system for an extra 7 days.
60.057	Council of Worlds envoys arrive at Volturnus (Zebulon) to meet with leaders of the various native races.
60.058	* In wake of the recent sathar attack and activity, the Zik-Kit (Kizk’-Kar) government joins the trade and defense alliance with Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar) and Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) * News of the failed raid on Kisk-Kar reaches sathar space. The premature action and its failure curries disfavor and Clan Z falls out of favor, losing any chance to leading the attack on the Frontier.
60.059	Careful examination of the Eorna eggs has determined that they are, in fact, viable. Eorna on Volturnus (Zebulon) celebrate and declare the day of discovery to be known as the Day of Life to be remembered just as the Day of Doom.
60.060	Members of the Second Volturnus Expedition depart Volturnus to return to Pale.
60.061	Sathar SCC in the Liberty system completes construction of half a dozen fighters.
60.062	Rim Coalition delegation arrives at Gran Quivera (Prenglar).
60.063	Sathar vessels from the Liberty system arrive at the staging area to await assignments.
60.064	Rim delegation begins meeting with the Council of Worlds to discuss the sathar situation and the mutual defense of the Frontier and Rim.
60.065	* Supplies intended for Fortress Kdikit in Madderly’s Star are stolen/destroyed by pirates while in route to the construction site. * SF Nova departs Kisk-Kar for the K’aken-Kar system.
60.066	After several space battles, sathar forces overcome the saurian defenses in the Dayzer system and bombard New Kischen (FE004) obliterating the saurian settlements on the planet.
60.067	The first of Spacefleet’s Talnor-D (FE004) communication ships, the UPFS Nexus, emerges from the shipyard at Gran Quivera (Prenglar). It begins a 30-day shakedown cruise with Task Force Prenglar.
60.068	Sathar forces in the Tischen system finally overcome the saurian defense forces and launch a planetary bombardment of Kzz-ten (FE004) destroying the settlements on that planet. The defense of both the Tischen and Dayzer systems have put a serious dent in the sathar resources for the campaign, buying the saurians some time to bolster Sauria’s (FE004) defenses and work to complete the Great Ark project.
60.069	Second Volturnus Expedition members arrive back at Pale to a hero’s welcome and receive recognition for their work in repelling the sathar attacks in that system.
60.070	* Sathar agents in the Frontier begin stepping up activities, especially focused on military and technological sabotage. * An anti-Streel group, funded by sathar agents, strike at the Streel SCC around Pale, reducing capacity by 63% while repairs are made. Several ships under construction are damaged but the militia Assault Scout miraculously escapes unscathed.
60.071	Two small flights of three Saurian Battle Rays (FE004) each are dispatched to investigate the state of the Tischen and Dayzer systems and determine the strength of sathar forces.
60.072	CEO of Streel, Hilo Headrow (ZG) signs deal with his friend from the Great Sathar War, Esper Henshaw (ZG), CEO of MerCo, for MerCo to supply several teams to increase the security at the Streel starship construction center orbiting Pale (Truane’s Star) while Streel investigates the source of the recent attack.
60.073	SF Nova arrives in the K’aken-Kar system and will remain in system for 8 days.
60.074	Initial damage assessment of the Pale (Truane’s Star) starship construction center reveals that the damage was not as extensive as originally thought. Materials and equipment shuttled up from the surface quickly bring production capacity back to 58%. Work begins to restore full capacity.
60.075	A mountaineering survival team, calling themselves the Spire Dragons, begin their attempt to traverse coast to summit and climb Mt. Spire (Lossend, Timeon) (ZG) completely on foot. The team consists of members of all seven Frontier and Rim species with the goal that a member of each species will reach the top of the Frontier’s highest peak.
60.076	Medical Services Organization issues another alert about the drug Ixiol, stating that the use of the drug on Triad (Cassidine) has reached dangerous levels and is impacting work and economic activity on the planet. They call for the Council of Worlds and Star Law to investigate the production and trade of the drug.
60.077	* An independent freighter in the Gruna Garu system claims sighting of an unknown vessel, roughly the size of a light cruiser bearing UPF markings but not matching any known UPF vessel type. * Spacefleet dismisses the sighting as inaccurate claiming no vessel of that type in its inventory and dispatch a small patrol group (a frigate and 2 assault scouts) from Prenglar to investigate.
60.078	* Maximillian Malligigg takes possession of the VSS Last Legs, a small freighter, and with a small crew and scouting party leaves for Starmist. (SF3) * Sathar reinforcements arrive in the Tischen system.
60.079	Members of the Second Volturnus Expedition summoned to the Council of Worlds to testify of events on Volturnus (Zebulon) leading to the Battle of Volkos
60.080	* Sathar reinforcements arrive in the Dayzer system. * Saurian scout ships arrive in the Tischen and Dayzer systems and begin to probe the systems while avoiding sathar forces.
60.081	SF Nova departs K’aken-Kar for the K’tsa-Kar system.
60.082	After months of fundraising, a new organization, The Yazira Heritage Foundation, purchases and begins refitting a small vessel to use as an exploration ship. Their goal is to reach the star that rumors claim is Yazira.
60.083	Sathar launch a probing raid into the Sauria system to test saurian defenses. The two-destroyer task force is quickly destroyed by a wing of saurian Battle Rays.

Here is the complete, cumulative timeline as a PDF:

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

The Hum Calendar

With work on the next issue of the Frontier Explorer happening, it’s taking me a bit longer to get to these posts than I had hopped but progress is being made. And I haven’t yet fallen behind.

Today we build the calendar system for Hum, the humma homeworld in the Fochrik system, which we have been detailing in the previous posts (part 1, part 2) in this series.

The Data

In the first part of this series, we established the following facts about Hum:

From Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space
- Rotational period: 30 hours (we’re going to refine this a bit later on)
- Surface gravity: 0.9g (which we increased the precision on to 0.91g)
- 3 moons: Kran, Gluk, & Clud
From our calculations:
- Orbital Distance: 1.23 AU
- Orbital Period: 11323.3 hours
- Density: 5.43 gm/cm³
- Mass: 0.8139 Earth masses
- Radius: 5,991.93 km

Of those parameters, we won’t be using the surface gravity, radius, or orbital distance in this analysis but we will be using the rest.

The Moons

I ignored the moons in the early parts of this series but now they become important so we need to detail them out a little bit more. Just as the orbital period of the Earth’s moon defines the concept of a month for us, given that this is the humma homeworld, the orbital periods of Hum’s moons would probably play a roll in defining their calendar system as well. So lets figure out the data on Hum’s moons.

All we really have to start with is the fact that there are three moons and their order (assuming the first one listed is the closest). Beyond that, we can really do whatever we want. That said, we have a few considerations to keep in mind.

First, Hum is smaller than Earth (about the size of Venus) and so has a smaller gravitational pull. This just means that the larger the moon, the more it will cause the planet to “wobble” about their common center of gravity. So we may not want any moon to be too big. It also means that if the moons have to be too far away, they might have escaped the planet’s gravity well. This latter point shouldn’t be an issue but is something to keep in mind.

Second, the moons will all mutually interact gravitationally. Which means if we have strong orbital resonances (orbital periods in small integer ratios), or if they have very close passes (with “close” depending on their relative sizes) as they orbit, the moon system may be unstable and not have survived to the present day.

So while we can pick anything we want, we should keep those ideas in mind. Now ideally, after picking the parameters for the moons and their orbits, I would generate orbital data for them all and run them through several hundred thousand or several million years of orbits to confirm stability but I didn’t do that. So we’ll just hope what we come up with something that makes sense and works.

The other thing to consider is what role we want to attribute to the moons in regards to the calendar system. This will have an impact on the orbital periods we pick.

Kran

Kran is the innermost moon of the system. It will have the shortest orbital period of the three. As such, I decided that this moon would also be the smallest and associated with the “week” concept on Hum.

Since I want the “week” to be something on the order of 5 to 10 local days, and as I have no real reason to prefer one value of another, I’ll just roll 1d6+4 to get the value. I rolled a 5 so a Hum week is 9 local days long. Since the local day is 30 hours (from Zeb’s Guide), the week is 270 hours long. I want the orbital period of Kran to be something near this value so I just rolled four d10s to refine the number. The first one, I subtracted 5 from to get a number to add or subtract from 270, and the next 3 were just read as digits to represent the first 3 digits after the decimal place.

I rolled a 5 for the first die which meant no offset and then I got a 6, a 10(0), and a 4 so the orbital period of Kran is 270.604 hours. I realized later in the process that I should have probably given a bit more range the the +/- die but it’s fine as it is.

We’re also going to want to have a mass for the moon as that will have a small impact on its orbital distance. Since I wanted this moon to be small but still basically spherical, I just arbitrarily picked a size that was near to the size of the asteroid Ceres. I rolled some dice to pick exact values (although now I don’t remember exactly the rationale behind what I rolled) and came up with a value of 0.0125 times the mass of the Moon.

To get the size of the moon given its mass, we need its density. Referring back to the possible densities of the planets from the original article, I wanted to pick something in the 2-6 gm/cm³ range. So I rolled a d4+1 for the integer part and some d10s to get two decimal places and came up with
a density of 2.71 gm/cm³ for the moon.

Okay, now we’re all set to calculate the final values. Determining the radius is straightforward, we’re just back to this equation:

Only we’re solving for that r in there instead of M. That gives us a radius of 432.51 km. Next we want the orbital distance which takes us back to this equation:

where we are solving for a. M₁ is the mass of the planet, and M₂ is the mass of the moon. Again I used this handy website but since you can’t actually solve for a, I had to try various distances until I got the period to match. So it might have actually been faster to do the math on my calculator but oh well. We end up with a result of 198,336.5 km as the orbital distance for Kran.

For reference the diameter of Earth’s moon is 3474.2 km, almost exactly 8 times bigger, and it’s orbital distance is on average 384,400 km, so Kran is nearly twice as close.

Gluk & Clud

I’m not going to go over every detail of the other two moons but suffice it to say I followed the same procedure for each of those. The only constraints I had was that I wanted Gluk to be the largest of the three moons and have it’s orbital period correspond to between 1/8 to 1/14 of a year to represent the month concept. Clud was going to be way out there and orbit only about 4 times a year to correspond to the seasons.

After working through all the math we get the following results for each of the moons:

Name	Orbital Period (hrs)	Orbital Distance (km)	Mass (moon)	Density (gm/cm³)	Radius (km)
Kran	270.604	198,336.5	0.0125	2.71	432.5
Gluk	1,026.836	483,757.2	0.5237	3.14	1,430.2
Clud	2,826.842	948,883.7	0.2413	3.46	1,069.5

This image shows the sizes of the moons relative to each other and to Earth’s Moon. The image on the left shows their actual physical sizes if they were all side by side. The image on the right shows their apparent sizes as seen from the surface of Hum (assuming the Moon was dropped in at the proper distance).

The moons are all physically smaller than the Earth’s moon by quite a bit and appear smaller in the sky. Also, notice that because Kran is so much closer than the other moons, although it is physically the smallest, it appears almost as big as Gluk and larger than Clud.

Hum’s Rotation Period

One more thing we need to establish is the actual rotation period of Hum. The information in Zeb’s Guide said it was 30 hours. However, I want to add a few more decimal places but still have it round to 30. So employing my usual method, I rolled d10-6 (to get a value between -5 and +4) and then two d10s for decimal places. I then added that to 30 to get the actual rotation period in hours. I ended up with 30.09 hours.

The Calendar

Now that we have all the physical data we need, we can get on to the actual purpose of this post, determining the calendar of the planet Hum.

Length of Year

The first thing to determine is the length of the year in local days. We have the orbital period of the planet (11,323.3 hours – about 30% longer than an earth year and 41.5% longer than the Frontiers’ Galactic Standard Year) and the rotation period of the planet (30.09 hours) so we just divide and find that the Hum year is 376.3144 local days long.

In local day terms, the year is only a bit longer than an Earth year, just 11 days more. It also tells us we’re going to need leap years, about every third year. We’ll come back to that.

In the previous sections, with the exception of the moon Kran, I sort of glossed over the relationship between the orbital periods of the moons as they relate to the length of the Hum year. Now let’s look at that in detail.

A Week on Hum

The inner moon Kran has an orbital period of 270.604 hours. Dividing this by the length of a day (30.09) hours, we get that Kran orbits every 8.993 days. That’s almost exactly 9 days. In fact, amazingly close to to exactly 9 days. Which is why I said above, I should have allowed for a bit more variation.

You might be suspicious of how well these orbital periods line up. The exact values selected were not completely arbitrary. I picked approximate values based on what I wanted to see and then let the dice tweak them slightly. And then I also manually tuned them a bit more. For example, I actually rolled 30.06 hours as the rotational period of the planet but when working out the leap years, liked the values I got for 30.09 hours better and went with that. So it’s no coincidence that the numbers come out so close. Maybe too close.

But that’s fine, sometimes you get lucky. So we’ll define a week on Hum to be 9 days long. At some point the start of first day of the week corresponds to the full Kran on the meridian but since the cycles slowly drift, that only occurs every once in a while and the phases slowly move through the week.

Comparing Kran’s orbital period to the year, we see that it makes 41.84 orbits each year so a typical year is almost 42 weeks long.

A Hum Month

If we compare the orbital period of the moon Gluk to the length of day we see that it’s orbital period corresponds to 34.125 days. And comparing it to the planet’s orbital period, it makes 11.02737 orbits in a single year.

Since I’m going to tie the concept of a month to the orbit of Gluck, a nominal month is 34 days long and there are 11 months in the year. There might be some variation like on Earth but this works as a base line.

With eleven 34-day months, that accounts for 374 of the 376.31 days of the year, leaving 2 extra days in the calendar. I’m going to assign one of those days to one of the months making it 35 days long (in the spring) and the other will be a holiday celebrating the passing/new year and will occur at the end of summer which will be when the Hum calendar year ends.

A Seasonal Moon

That leaves us with Clud. It’s orbit is 93.95 days long and it orbits 4.006 times each year, completing one orbit every season. Since the timing of its orbit doesn’t quite line up with the planet’s orbital period, the timing of the full phase of this moon slowly shifts (by just over half a day a year) over the centuries but the humma have tracked this for millennia and know the pattern.

Leap Years

All that’s left is to deal with that pesky 0.3144 days left over after each year. Multiplying by 3 gives us 0.943 days, which is just enough to be considered another day. Thus every third year, the end of year holiday is a two day event instead of a single day adding an extra day on that particular year but not part of any month.

It’s not quite a full day though and so every 51 years, the deviations add up enough that the extra day is not added to the calendar, just like on Earth when we don’t add in the leap day on years divisible by 100.

Finally, there is one more minor correction and that occurs every 1530 years. On that year, which would normally be a year the extra day is skipped, the extra day is included (just like including the leap day here on Earth in years that are divisible by 400 as occurred in the year 2000). This has only occurred once since this calendar was established and the next one won’t occur for another 172 years.

The Final Calendar

So the final Hum calendar looks like this:

One week is 9 days long – in modern times it is a 6 day work week with a 3 day weekend
Each year has 11 months plus one holiday at the end of the year to celebrate the harvest and ring in the new year. This feast day/beginning of the new year corresponds to the end of the Hum summer (what we would call fall)
One month consists of 34 days, or nearly 4 weeks. The exception to this is the 5th month which is 35 days long. This occurs during the planting season giving one more day in that month.
Every three years there is a leap day, extending the harvest holiday into a 2 day event instead of a single day.
Except that every 51 years, the leap day is skipped and every 1530 years the day that would be skipped is included.

One more thing we need is to anchor this calendar with the Frontier standard calendar. To do that I’m going to say that the start of Hum year 2898 will coincide with FY60.124 and that year is a leap year so the end of year celebration (that starts on FY61.290) will last two days.

Last Thoughts

I realized as I was typing this up, that I didn’t account for the difference between sidereal and synodic periods for the moons. The orbital periods listed are really the synodic periods (as seen from the surface of Hum) but I treated them like the sidereal periods for computing orbital distances. Which means the distances are a bit off. The differences would be relatively small but that’s something I should revisit in the future. The rotation period for Hum is definitely the solar period (noon to noon) and not the sidereal period.

Otherwise, this is a pretty good description of Hum and its moons and a reasonable calendar for the system. I didn’t touch on Forge or Larg, the two other inhabited worlds in the Fochrik system. I’m assuming this calendar predates the humma’s space age and so is the foundation of any other calendar system on the other worlds. How it was adapted might be another article in the future but for now is left as an exercise for the reader.

What do you think of the calendar system presented? What would you have done differently? What do you like? Let me know in the comments below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.026 to FY60.053

Here is the next installment in the detailed Frontier timeline. This month’s entries include the posts that prompted the “How to build a star system” posts earlier in the month. The sathar are beginning to ramp up their forces while the Frontier is still debating what to do about the “Sathar Situation” on Volturnus.

Date (FY)	Event
60.026	Envoy delegation from the Council of Worlds is dispatched from Gran Quivera (Prenglar) to go to Volturnus (Zebulon) to meet with the races of that world.
60.027	The KSS Trader’s Gambit arrives at Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar).
60.028	Maximillian Malligigg has a piece of fused metal he found on Starmist analyzed and learns it is the result of nuclear fusion. He begins securing funds to purchase a ship and return to Starmist in advance of an official expedition. (SF3)
60.029	Members of the Second Volturnus Expedition raid a small outpost discovered in the logs of Slave City One that was a hideout for the Star Devil. While the Star Devil was not there, valuable information about the Star Devil’s dealings in the Frontier are uncovered.
60.030	Worried about the events in the Zebulon system, the Rim Coalition increases spending for the Flight by 50%. Delegation dispatched to the Council of Worlds from Faire (Capella) to encourage that the Frontier take the Sathar threat seriously.
60.031	– The remnants of the sathar’s Zebulon fleet reaches sathar space arriving at the system containing sathar starship construction center #5 – Another destroyer is completed at the sathar starship construction center in the Liberty system.
60.032	Contestants, spectators, and reporters gather on Hum (Fochrik) for the annual Humma Jump Competition. Speculation is high that the current record in the standing long jump event of 38.272 meters will be surpassed this year.
60.033	Universal Households unveils its new fashion line at its annual show on Hakosoar (Scree Fron) which is transmitted via subspace radio to all systems in the Frontier. Products immediately go on sale across the Frontier as competitors race to match the new style.
60.034	After two days of competition, Zonuul Usu of Larg (Fochrik) wins the Humma Jump Competition with a jump of 38.275m, beating the previous species record by 3 millimeters. Two others beat the previous record in the final round of competition but lost to Zonuul.
60.035	SF Nova arrives in Fromeltar system; it will be in system for 4 days
60.036	Initial examinations reveal that the Eorna egg cache does in fact contain viable eggs. While overjoyed that they no longer face extinction as a species, concerns about the societal impact of introducing the new Eorna are raised. (SF2)
60.037	Synthetics Corporation announces a new brand of sports drink that provides the necessary electrolytes for all Frontier and Rim races. Included in the line is a “Hyper Humma” variation with 10x the flavor enhancers to appeal to their deadened sense of taste. It quickly becomes a point of bravado for members of the other race to attempt to consume the “Hyper Humma” variations.
60.038	Interplanetary Industries CEO Harlon Thow spotted wearing a never before seen style of toxy-rad gauge that is slimmer and more compact than previous styles. Rumors circulate that it is a new device soon to be released by the company.
60.039	In its first 60 days of operation, the Yazira Dome has had over 1 million visitors, mostly inhabitants of Hentz (Araks). Many across the Frontier denounce the Family of One for not allowing non-yazirian visitors to the planet and the Dome.
60.040	Sathar vessels are dispatched from the Liberty system toward a staging area somewhere near the Frontier.
60.041	Sathar Clan Z vessels, previously in route to sathar starship construction center #3 are diverted by clan leaders toward Kizk-Kar.
60.042	Sathar forces, operating in Saurian(DM103) space, launch simultaneous assaults against saurian forces in the Tischen (FE004) and Dayzer (FE004) systems.
60.043	Several Streel compounds on Laco (Dixon’s Star) are captured by Galactic Task Force teams and Streel employees are forced to evacuate and return to the Streel headquarter compound in Tyrell’s Landing.
60.044	SF Nova departs Fromeltar for Kizk-Kar
60.045	The Rim delegation arrives on Pale (Truane’s Star) for a short stopover to meet with the Pale government about the sathar situation.
60.046	Another destroyer is completed in the SCC in the Liberty system.
60.047	Pale militia delegation testifies before the Council of Worlds on Gran Quivera (Prenglar) as to the events of the Battles of Zebulon and Volturnus. Debate and deliberation on the need for increased military buildup continues.
60.048	Rim Coalition delegation departs Pale (Truane’s Star) to continue on to Gran Quivera (Prenglar) to meet with The Council of Worlds
60.049	Based on information obtained from the Star Devil lair on Volturnus (Zebulon), the Pale government raids and seizes assets from several business connected with the Star Devil pirate organization.
60.050	SF Nova arrives in Kizk-Kar. Will be in-system for 8 days
60.051	Several PGC vessels, just arriving in the Dixon’s Star system en route to Laco are destroyed by unknown vessels.
60.052	PGC representatives appear before the Council of Worlds requesting Spacefleet aid to protect their vessels in the Dixon’s Star system from suspected Streel aggression.
60.053	Proving the rumors correct, Interplanetary Industries announces a new line of wearable monitoring devices including a new toxy-rad gauge matching the one spotted on CEO Harlon Thow several days earlier. The new line boasts extended battery life and greater accuracy in a smaller package.

Here’s the full timeline download file:

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

Building a Star System – Fochrik

In a couple of my timeline posts at the end of last week, I mentioned an annual competition on Hum in the Fochrik system, the homeworld of the Humma race in Star Frontiers. The tweets were as follows:

FY60.032 – Contestants, spectators, and reporters gather on Hum (Fochrik) for the annual Humma Jump Competition. Speculation is high that the current record in the standing long jump event of 38.272 meters will be surpassed this year. #SFTimeline
— Star Frontiers RPG (@StarFrontiers) February 7, 2019

FY60.034 – After two days of competition, Zonuul Usu of Larg (Fochrik) wins the Humma Jump Competition jumping 38.275m, beating the previous species record by 3 millimeters. Two others beat the previous record in the final round of competition but lost to Zonuul. #SFTimeline
— Star Frontiers RPG (@StarFrontiers) February 9, 2019

This immediately got me thinking about how the Hum calendar interacts with the Galactic Standard calendar of the Frontier and if the Rim had a different standard calendar.

Since in my Clarion calendar system post, I mentioned that I would probably do more calendar systems for other planets and in my last State of the Frontier post I said I would write about creating a system map, I thought I’d roll all of these thoughts and ideas into a series of “how to” posts as I flesh out the Fochrik system.

I’m planning on dividing this into three parts. In this first article, I’ll be talking about generating the astrophysical description of the system. We’ll go over what we know from published material, adding a bit to that, refining the details, and trying to generate a stable star system.

In the next post, I’ll actually walk you through the process of creating a system map for Fochrik like I did for the Duergan’s Star system.

In the third post, I’ll generate a calendar for the Fochrick system. I don’t know yet if all three planets will have a unique calendar or if Larg and Forge will base their calendar off of Hum’s. We’ll see when we get there. I’m not planning to address a standard Rim calendar at this time as I need to look over the other Rim systems first. That may be a future post.

Anyway, let’s get started.

What We Know

Let’s start with what we know from published materials, both original with TSR and material from the fan magazines. There isn’t much, but let’s assemble what we have.

The Rim was introduced in TSR’s Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space, vol 1 as the area of space that the three new races introduced came from. It was specifically left vague in the supplement. Whether they intended to flesh it out more in later volumes that never were published we’ll never know. On page 50, in the “Planets of the Frontier” table we have the following entry for Fochrik:

For this series of posts, we’re interested in the stellar spectral type (F9), the number of known planets (three in this case) and their rotational period (the Day column which is given in hours). Also, the number of moons might be used in making the system map and we should probably consider them in making the calendars as well. The other information is not needed for this endeavor.

Beyond that, there is little said about the system in Zeb’s Guide. The worlds of the Frontier have little blurbs with interesting facts about each of them but there is nothing on any of the Rim worlds. We’re basically left with a blank slate.

In a Star Frontiersman article (issue 15), entitled Humma Hop Back, TheWebtroll talked about the race but gave no information on the star system. Tom Verrault did a little bit of work on the Humma in issue 13 of the Frontier Explorer were he fleshed out their racial description some more but again nothing was really mentioned about their star system. However in another article in that same issue, where he adds detail to the boon’sheh, a fan created race from the early Star Frontiersman issues, he places them with the humma in the Fochrik system with the humma forcibly relocating the boon’sheh to Larg from their mutual homeworld of Hum. But that’s all we have.

In the end, we just have the table entry for the system to work with. Which tells us we have three habitable planets, some moons, and their approximate rotation periods. We get to create everything else so let’s dive in.

Fochrik

We start with the star. It is given a spectral type of F9. That makes it a little more massive and brighter than the sun but not by much. I like to use the table on this page for my starting point of stellar masses and radii as it has broken the data down in to details for each spectral classification. Plus the author has gone through, and based on the spectral energy distribution, given you the RGB colors for the star. I’m a little leery of the radius data on that page but we won’t be using that in this analysis.

From that page we get a mass of the F9 star for 1.1 solar masses. Looking at the adjacent spectral types, F9 and G0, they have listed masses of 1.2 and 1.1 respectively so that gives us a range to work with and tells us that the F9 star is probably a bit heavier than 1.1 solar masses but within rounding errors. Plus there is scatter based on other factors as well so we have some room to wiggle about. Let’s do some quick calculations.

The mass of the sun is 1.989 × 10³⁰ kg. so we have a range of 1.1 to 1.2 times that to work with or from 2.1879 × 10³⁰ to 2.3868 × 10³⁰ kg. Like I did for White Light, I want a few more decimal places so I’m going to roll some dice for the digits. I’ll keep the 2 before the decimal place, roll a d4 for the first digit, and then d10s for everything else. That will possibly let me go slightly outside the range but that’s fine. Here’s what we get:

I ended up rolling a d8 and dividing by 2 just so it was easier to see in the picture. I just rolled the dice and then went left to right as they fell on my desk to pick the order.

So we end up with a stellar mass of 2.21766549 × 10³⁰ kg which probably has more decimal places than we need but that’s fine.

Size of the Habitable Zone

The next thing we need to know is the range of the habitable zone for an F9 star. We’ve got to squeeze three planets into that area. We don’t need to be exact, but we want some reference. For this Wikipedia has a good article on the habitable zone that you can read to determine the various factors that go into determining it. There is also a really great picture (reproduced here) that almost gives us what we need.

The only real problem with this image is that the x-axis is in relative flux on the planet rather than distance. But I can work with that to get values for Fochrik.

We start by getting the percentages for the edges of the habitable zones. This is done by drawing a line across at the temperature of Fochrik (6140 K) and then drawing lines down from those to the x axis like this (the blue lines)

This gives us a range of 178% to 34% for the optimistic habitable zone and a range of 115% to 36% for the conservative one. Now we just need to turn those into distances.

The amount of starlight on the planet is dependent on three things. The first is the temperature of the star (which we’re taking to be 6140K. We could figure it out exactly based on the mass but that is a close enough approximation). The second is the radius of the star. These two give us the total luminosity of the star, L, which is proportional to R²T⁴. The final bit, which we are trying to solve for, is the distance from the star. The amount of starlight received at a planet, F (flux), is proportional to the luminosity of the star divided by the distance squared, i.e. F~L/D².

Combining those gives us that the amount of starlight at a planet, F, is proportional to R²T⁴ / D². or D ~ sqrt(R²T⁴ / F). If we work in ratios to the solar temperature, solar radius, measure distances in AU (the distance from the earth to the sun), and enter fluxes as multiples of the flux at the earth (i.e. flux at earth =1, 200% = 2, 50% = 0.5, etc), everything works out.

For this exercise, we’re going to assume the radius of the star is the same as the sun. In reality, it’s probably a little bit larger but we’re not going to worry about that. So we can drop the R² term. The ratio of the temperatures is just 6140/5780 = 1.062283737. That raised to the 4th power is 1.273392. Plugging in those number gives the following distances for the four flux percentages:

178% = 0.8458 AU (inner edge of optimistic habitable zone)
115% = 1.0523 AU (inner edge of conservative habitable zone)
36% = 1.8807 AU (outer edge of conservative habitable zone)
34% = 1.9353 AU (outer edge of optimistic habitable zone)

Those numbers seem about right. The star is brighter and hotter than the Sun so it makes sense that the habitable zone is a little further out than in the solar system.

Placing the Planets

Now that we know where the habitable zone is, we need to place the planets and add other details to the system. We start with the three known planets, Forge, Hum, and Larg.

The Habitable Worlds

Each of these planets is habitable, with fairly large populations. As such, they need to be at least somewhere within the habitable zone. Also, since they are relatively low gravity worlds, around 1g, they should probably be close to or in the conservative habitable zone as the optimistic one is more for “super earths” which these are not.

Forge is the innermost world of the three and the name itself implies that it’s a hot world. I’m going to place it just inside the conservative zone. It’s livable, but its a bit on the warm side. We’ll place it at 1.08 AU from Fochrik.

Hum is the humma homeworld. As such we’d expect it to have a relatively nice, comfortable climate. If we go back to the flux calculation from above and find the distance for 100% we get a distance of 1.13 AU. That’s a little too close to the 1.08 AU I picked for Forge so I’m going to move it out just a bit further than that and place it at 1.23 AU. It will be a bit cooler than Earth receiving only 84% the amount of starlight.

Finally, we have Larg. This has the smallest population, medium instead of heavy, so I’m taking that to mean that it probably has a less hospitable climate (in addition to the higher gravity). Plus, if we’re using the fan material from the Frontier Explorer, it’s where the humma deported the boon’sheh to. We’ll place this one out towards the outer edge of the conservative habitable zone at 1.61 AU.

Now that our habitable planets have been placed we need to fill the rest of the system. There are a number of ways you could do this. I have a really old program called StarGen that makes solar systems around F, G, & K type stars based on habitability ideas presented in a paper by the Rand corporation. It works pretty well but doesn’t take into account modern information as that paper is from the 60’s or 70’s if I remember correctly.

You could also use the star system creation system presented in the FrontierSpace Referee’s handbook. It’s a good system as well. However, for this system I’m just going to be arbitrary. I’ll roll some dice for distances but beyond that, I’m just going to pick what I want in the system.

The Inner Worlds

Let’s start close. What is inside the habitable planets? I’m going to place two small worlds in there. They are small, hot, and airless. They probably have mineable mineral resources but they are not very hospitable. We’ll place these worlds at .19 AU and 0.52 AU from Fochrick. To get those distances I simply rolled 4d10 and 9d10 respectively and divided the number by 100 to get the AU.

The Outer Worlds

Next let’s move out from the inner system and see what’s out in the outer reaches. We’re going to add in 6 more worlds outside the habitable zone. For now, I’m not planning on having an asteroid belt but that may change when we do some sanity checks below. We’re going to add the following planets to the system:

Jovian – 4.66 AU
Jovian – 10.59 AU
Ice dwarf – 16.58 AU
Ice giant – 18.13 AU
Ice dwarf – 20.53 AU
Ice giant – 26.01 AU

In each of these cases, to get the distance I created a number between 1 and 6.99 by rolling a d6 and two d10s. The d6 was the integer bit and the two d10s were the decimal bit. I then added that number on to the orbital distance of the previous planet. Like I said, this was going to be pretty arbitrary. Let’s keep going.

Orbital Periods

Now that the planets are all placed, we want to compute their orbital periods to know how long the length of their orbit is. While we don’t need this to create the map of the system. We want to do some sanity checks since the planetary placements were fairly arbitrary.

Orbital periods are given by Newton’s form of Kepler’s Third Law of Planetary motion, namely:

which I described in the Clarion Calendar post but P is the orbital period, a is the distance from the star, G is the gravitational constant, and M₁ and M₂ are the mass of the star and planet respectively. Since M₁ >> M₂, we’ll ignore M₂ in our calculations.

You could do this by hand, or use a spreadsheet, or use an on-line calculator. I’m going to use this handy website that allows you to enter the values in a number of different units and does the math for you. I’m just going to leave the mass of the planet at 1 earth mass in the calculation. If I was going for full detail, I’d figure out the mass of each of the planets but this is really just an approximate sanity check. For example, if I set the mass of the first Jovian planet to 100 earth masses, it would lengthen the orbital period by only 10 hours, so it’s not something I’m going to worry about here.

Plugging in the values for the planetary orbital distance and the mass of the star we get the following data:

Planet	Orbital Distance (AU)	Orbital Period (hours)
T1	0.19	687.46
T2	0.52	3112.57
Forge	1.13	9316.45
Hum	1.23	11323.3
Larg	1.61	16957.2
J1	4.66	83501.4
J2	10.59	286061
ID1	16.58	560391
IG1	18.53	662106
ID2	20.53	772144
IG1	26.01	1101096

Mainly here I’m just looking to see that we don’t have any resonant periods with the two Jovian planets. With orbital periods in ratios such as 2:1, 3:2, & 3:1 we would have potential stability issues. My only concern is with the second jovian and the first ice dwarf. They are in a nearly 2:1 orbital resonance but that might actually be okay and why that planet is where it is. So I’m going to leave it alone. If I really wanted to check system stability, I’d generate the masses, starting positions and velocities, and then enter all of that into a simple n-body computer simulation and run it for a million years or so of simulated time to make sure nothing went crazy but I think this will be fine.

Planetary Sizes

Okay, while this isn’t strictly necessary to draw the system map, we might as well figure out how big each of the planets are (and their surface gravity. When I do the system map, I like to have both the distances to scale and the sizes of the planets to scale so if I want to do that, I need the sizes.

The equation we’ll be using for this is

where g is the acceleration due to gravity (m/s²), M is the mass of the planet (kg), r is the radius of the planet (m), and G is just the gravitational constant (6.67408 × 10^-11 m³ kg^-1 s^-2). Additionally we’ll want an equation relating the mass of the planet to its density which is just the volume of the sphere times the density or

where ρ is the density (kg/m³). While we could do this just with the mass, I like to make sure the physics work out for the type of planet so I like the densities to make sense and prefer to include it in the calculations. Combining those two equations gives us an equation that relates the gravity, the radius, and the density:

This is what we’ll be using to get the data we need.

Densities

As part of this we’ll need densities for the planets. We’ll just be picking those from reasonable ranges which are the following (in g/cm³):

Terrestrial (rocky) Planets – 3.5 – 5.7
Ice Dwarfs – 1.8 – 2.5
Ice Giants – 1.2 – 1.8
Jovians – 0.6 – 1.4+

To get it into the units we need (kg/m³ ) we just multiply by 1000. The Jovian planets may not have an upper density limit because once you get to be the size of Jupiter, adding more mass doesn’t change the radius much, it just increases the densities. Brown Dwarfs, which are 10-80 times Jupiter’s mass are still all about the same size.

We’ll use these density ranges to pick densities for the individual planets in the sections below.

The Habitable Planets

First up are the three habitable planets that we know the gravity on. In this case we need to rearrange the last equation to solve for r giving us:

All that’s left is to pick a density or each of the planets and start computing. Well, almost. I also want one more decimal place for the actual gravity of the planet. To get that I’ll roll d8-4 x 0.01 and add that to listed gravity to give me some variation that would round to the listed value.

The table below is what we ended up with. Interestingly, all the gravity adjustments I rolled were positive. I also selected the planets with the higher gravity to be a little more dense but modulated that somewhat due to the fact that planets that form closer to the star would have higher density as well. Thus the densities of these three planets are pretty close together.

Name	Gravity (g)	Density (gm/cm³)	Mass (Earth)	Radius (km)
Forge	0.81	5.32	0.6012	5,443.75
Hum	0.91	5.43	0.8139	5,991.93
Larg	1.12	5.55	1.4622	7,215.22

Hum turns out to be almost exactly the same size and mass as Venus, just a little further out in the system so it’s not as hot. Forge is smaller still by about 10% in radius and 75% in mass while Larg is about 13% larger in radius than the earth and almost 50% more massive.

Other Planets

Now lets due the rest of the planets in the system. In this case we have to pick two of the three values: radius, density (or mass), and surface gravity. I’m going to select the radius and density for each of these planets and then compute the mass and surface gravity. Surface gravity doesn’t exactly make sense for the giant planets (jovians and ice giants) but it is the gravity present if you were stopped at that radius at it’s upper atmosphere. Here’s the table:

Name	Gravity (g)	Density (gm/cm³)	Mass (Earth)	Radius (km)
T1	0.33	5.65	0.0349	2,064.55
T2	0.67	5.39	0.3373	4,468.50
J1	3.30	1.48	525.82	79,714.14
J2	1.55	0.92	140.14	60,108.51
ID1	0.14	2.22	0.0189	2,297.74
IG1	0.97	1.21	19.902	28,623.16
ID2	0.06	2.19	0.0018	1054.47
IG2	1.02	1.35	18.472	26,919.75

J1 is almost two times the mass of Jupiter while IG2 is a little smaller than Pluto. If you want to compare them exactly this Planetary Fact Sheet page gives the data for all the planets in the solar system.

Wrapping up for now

And that’s it for this entry. We have the number of planets in the system, mass data on the star, and orbital and size data on the planets. I’m fairly confident that we don’t have to worry about system stability issues (of course since I didn’t do a rigorous check, this will be the one time it doesn’t work 🙂 ).

In the next post, we’ll create a system map for Fochrik and walk through the process of doing so. If you have any questions or comments, let me know below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY59.395 to FY60.025

Here’s the next installment of the timeline. This section include the events that will be considered the first battles of the Second Sathar War, namely the Battles of Volkos and Zebulon between ground and spaces forces of the UPF and the sathar at Volturnus in the Zebulon system.

After posting the last installment, I was asked if it would be possible to provide references to the sources I’m using to create the entries. I realized that would be a good idea so I’ve started adding reference notes to all the entries that come from other sources other than me just making them up for the timeline. I also wrote a short introduction to the timeline that explains the references that I’ve reproduced below.

I’ve gone back an annotated all the previous entries in the downloadable timeline document and where a reference occurs in the blog post, I’ve included the key for those references at the end of the post.

Introduction

The following timeline represents the events of the Second Sathar War as I designed them to act as a backdrop to various campaigns I am running. I have a different timeline that runs the PCs though all the game modules in an appropriate order to progress their skill level but that is not this one. This is somewhat of a more fiction-oriented timeline rather than on specifically designed to run PCs through.

One major aspect of this time line is that I’m using the Knight Hawks rules for interstellar travel, namely that it effectively takes 9 day to make an interstellar jump between systems (ignoring astrogation calculation times). I also make the assumption that if you’re not stopping in a system, you only have to spend as much time in that system as the astrogation calculations take as you stay near jump speed during your transit. If you assume 1 day per light year per the original Alpha Dawn rules, it would change the timing of many of these events, possibly significantly.

If you’re familiar with the timeline in the Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space, you’ll quickly notice that I don’t follow that much at all. I pull some of the names and ideas but the timing and actual events follow my own muse. Additionally, regardless of the source of the events, the exact dates are all of my creation.

In the events that follow, I’ve tried to annotate the source for names, dates, and events if they come from any of the material originally published by TSR. Although I’m not going to annotate the system, planet, and common megacorp names as I assume those are common knowledge. I will also try to annotate any material coming from the Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorer Fanzines. If you notice that I missed anything, let me know so I can fix it.

Annotations that appear at the end of an entry refer to the entire entry. If it appears in the middle, it applies just to the name that the annotation follows. Each time an annotation first appears, there will be a footnote describing it. I’ve also added an Appendix listing all the annotation codes. If no particular annotation is associated with an entry you may assume I made the entry up out of whole cloth or extrapolated it from other events specifically for this timeline.

Timeline

As always, the data presented in this blog post cover only the new dates but the downloadable document at the end is cumulative over all the timeline posts up to this point.

Date (FY)	Event
59.395	Subspace signal received at Laco from unknown location in Sathar space. Images appear in the great pyramid showing a similar complex on a warm, swampy world with a large number of sathar and a bipedal insect race (Zuraqqor) working around the complex.
59.396	Despite efforts to keep the images contained, news and clips of the images race across the Frontier on the subspace network. Scientists, politicians, and the general populous speculate as to the cause and meaning.
59.397	A new group, calling themselves the Anti-Satharian League (ZG), stage demonstrations on the major population centers of the Frontier and at the Council of Worlds, broadcasting excerpts from the Laco pyramid images and demanding increased military buildup for Spacefleet.
59.398	Completing its time in the Cassidine system, SF Nova departs Triad for the Dramune system to spend some time cooling rising tensions between Inner and Outer Reach.
59.399	A CDC scout ship, the Twilight Moon, returns from charting a jump route to the Rhianna system. Due to preliminary geological findings, CDC decides to keep the route a secret and establish a mining outpost on the planet Alcazzar. (SF4)
59.400	Most businesses across the Frontier close a day early in anticipation of the big Founding Day celebrations tomorrow, allowing citizens and organizations some extra time to prepare.
60.001	– UPF Founding Day celebrations occur on most planets across the Frontier to celebrate 6 decades of peace. However, there is a subtle undercurrent of concern due to the recent events on Laco. – The first new sathar ship that will be committed to the coming conflict, a destroyer, emerges from Sathar Starship Construction Center (SSCC) #2, located in the as of yet unexplored (and unnamed) Liberty system.
60.002	– In wake of the Founding Day celebrations, the Frontier Peace Organization hold a rally outside the Council of Worlds headquarters demanding a reduction in Spacefleet and Landfleet operations. Some small altercations occur with members of the Anti-Satharian League. – Observance Day on Clarion (White Light) commemorates all who have fallen defending the system through history. This year it also continues the UPF Founding Day celebration on the planet for an extra day.
60.003	UPF PG Virgo, together with the Pale militia (a frigate and 3 assault scouts), depart for the Zebulon system. Streel additionally sends a frigate, 4 corvettes, and 3 assault scouts to assist.
60.004	Council of Worlds reconvenes for its 60th session. Initial topics of debate include events on Laco and Zebulon and their implications for the future of the Frontier.
60.005	Fighting breaks out between Frontier Peace Organization and Anti-Satharian League supporters outside the Council of Worlds headquarters. Local police have to resort to doze and tangler grenades and stun weapons to break up the fighting. Over 4 dozen beings detained.
60.006	Sathar SSCC#4, near Fromeltar and Klaeok, completes construction of a light cruiser and 4 fighters.
60.007	SF Nova arrives in the Dramune System. It will remain in system for 15 days as a show of force to help quell rising tensions between Inner and Outer Reach
60.008	Laco artifacts taken from the PGC chartered freighter, KSS Dawn’s Glow, anonymously arrive at the Triad Institute of Technology (TriTech) and are delivered to their originally intended recipients. (NCW)
60.009	The Sathar cleansing fleet arrives in the Zebulon system and begins decelerating towards Volturnus. (SF2)
60.010	The UPF fleet arrives in the Zebulon system and begins decelerating toward Volturnus and the sathar fleet. (SF2)
60.011	A small freighter, the KKSS Trader’s Gambit, misjumps travelling from K’aken-Kar to K’tsa-Kar and ends up in the Sundown system. Damaged engines force the crew to look for a planet to land on to effect repairs. (SF3)
60.012	– Battle of Volkos – Sathar ground troops advance on the ruins of the Eorna city of Volkos. A rag-tag army, composed of members of Volturnus’s native races and lead by members of the TSES Second Volturnus Expedition, manage to hold off the invaders. (SF2) – Battle of Zebulon – UPF forces engage the Sathar fleet around Volturnus. Although the UPF forces are mostly smaller vessels, the sathar are driven off with only a frigate, 2 destroyers, and a heavy cruiser surviving. UPF losses were 1 UPF LC and AS, 1 Streel Corvette, and 1 militia AS (SF2)
60.013	News of defeat at Zebulon reaches sathar space. Clan infighting begins around debate of invasion and who should lead assault. This will continue for several months. At the same time all the clans begin building up their military.
60.014	– News of victory over sathar forces in the Zebulon system announced across the Frontier to mixed reaction. Performance of the Assault Scout in its first major engagement with sathar forces is deemed a success. – Pale militia and Spacefleet given priority at the Pale and Gran Quivera starship construction centers to replace vessels lost in the battle at Zebulon.
60.015	– The KKSS Trader’s Gambit sets down on the planet Starmist in the Sundown system. (SF3) – Having effected repairs from the battle with the sathar, the Pale militia and Streel ships depart Volturnus (Zebulon) to return to Pale (Truane’s Star) while the UPF forces remain on patrol.
60.016	– The Anti-Satharian League stages demonstrations on Pale, Gran Quivera, Triad, and Clarion demanding increased militarization and growth of Spacefleet – The navigator and second master of the KKSS Trader’s Gambit, Maximillian Malligigg, makes contact with an intelligent race, the Heliopes, on the planet Starmist (Sundown). (SF3)
60.017	Leotia (SFKH0) Valentine Leotus, crown princess of Clarion (White Light), celebrates her 32nd birthday (18.5 earth years)
60.018	A listening station in the Kazak system in the Rim detect faint signals of sathar ships in the outer system. Flight vessels are dispatched to investigate.
60.019	Repairs completed, the KKSS Trader’s Gambit leaves Starmist to attempt to return to charted Frontier space. (SF3)
60.020	The Flight vessels in Kazak arrive at the location of the sathar signals but find nothing more than a faint indication that ships had passed through the area days before. Two ships are left on station while the rest return to base.
60.021	Winter begins in earnest on Alcazzar, delaying the start of CDC operations on the planet. The corporation hopes that this delay will throw off any competitor’s interest in the mineral rich system. (SF4)
60.022	SF Nova departs the Dramune system for the Fromeltar system
60.023	– The KKSS Trader’s Gambit successfully jumps back to the K’tsa-Kar system. – The Pale militia arrives back home from the Zebulon system.
60.024	Scouting through the Zebulon system, a UPF frigate and assault scout find an ancient vessel in a distant solar orbit. Investigation reveals it to contain a cache of cryogenically stored Eorna eggs. If still viable, the eggs will secure the survival of that species. (SF3)
60.025	Delegates from the Pale militia are dispatched to testify at the Council of Worlds regarding events on Volturnus.

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

References

NCW – A New Can of Worms on-line game events
SF2 – Starspawn of Volturnus module
SF3 – Sundown on Starmist module
SF4 – Mission to Alcazzar module
SFKH0 – Warriors of White Light module
ZG – Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space, Vol 1

The Clarion Calendar

One of the things about sci-fi games that span multiple worlds is that each world has its own length of year and length of day that impact the way the planet operates. And while I’ve been pretty good about initially describing it for the worlds my on-line game has been set in, I’ve not been very good about keeping track of it during actual play.

I got to thinking about this some more as I was working on the Frontier Timeline. I needed an entry for a blank day and decided to make it the birthday of a notable person in the Frontier (Crown Princess Leotia Valentine Leotius of Clarion). And that got me to thinking about the time keeping on that planet.

Another thing that came out of this is the realization that so far, I’ve only really looked at this on planets that have really slow rotation periods. My online game has so far taken place on Pale in the Truane’s Star system which has a rotation period of about 55 hours and on Laco in the Dixon’s Star System which has a rotation period of about 60 hours. Clarion’s is 50 hours, 5 minutes. Which is funny to me since the length of a “Galactic Standard” day is only 20 hours. Maybe some day I’ll work on a system with a period close to that.

So this post is going to talk both about Clarion’s calendar and also about how I went about calculating it. We’ll start with what we know from published materials and work our way to a final calendar.

Stellar Data

From both the Expanded Game rules and the Warriors of White Light module, the star is described as a yellow-orange star. Zebulon’s Guide gives it a spectral type of F7 but that is a yellow-white star not a yellow-orange one. Yellow-orange would give it a spectral type of late G or early K so from notes I have in other places, I’ve assigned White Light the spectral type of K1.

This means that the star is about 72% the mass of our sun. The exact value I assigned is .72155 solar masses (actually I took it to a few more decimal places) or 1.43516×10³⁰ kg.

Orbital Data

Orbital Distance

In the Warriors of White module there is this image of the White Light system:

Based on the scale on the image I estimated that the orbital distance of Clarion was about 93 million kilometers (for reference the Earth is about 150 million km from the sun). This makes sense for a K1 star that is less luminous than the Sun as a habitable planet would have to be closer. The exact value I gave for the semi-major axis of the orbit was 93,027,587 km. That was generated by simply rolling six d10s for the digits after 93. Had the first digit not been low, I might have rolled a d4-1 but I actually rolled a zero so I was happy.

Orbital Period

Now that we have the mass of the star and the orbital distance we can calculate the orbital period of the planet. This can be done simply by applying Newton’s form of Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion:

Where we have the following:

P = the planet’s orbital period
a = the semi-major axis
G = the gravitational constant
M1 = the mass of the star
M2 = the mass of the planet (which we’ll ignore here as it is about half a million times smaller than M1)

Plugging everything in in the correct units (left as an exercise for the reader) we get that the orbital period of Clarion around White Light is 5059.77 hours. This means that the “year” on Clarion is just under 253 Galactic Standard days; significantly shorter than the 400 Galactic Standard days in a Galactic Standard year (which is only ~91.3% of an Earth year). Compared to Earth, the year on Clarion is only 211 days long, about 58% of our year.

But we’re not quite done yet as we need to calculate that in terms of the local day.

Rotational Period

This one is easy. The Warriors of White Light module says that the rotation period of the planet is 50 hours and 5 minutes, with is just a little more precise than the 50 hours given in the Expanded Rules and Zebulon’s Guide so we’ll go with that number. I’m just going to leave it as is and not add any extra seconds on to it.

So if we take that value, it turns out that Clarion rotates 101.027 times every year. Or said another way, the year is 101.027 local days long. The fact that it was almost an integer number of days was a happy coincidence. I did not try to make that happen. I was pleasantly surprised when it did.

The Calendar

Okay, now we have everything we need to get the calendar set up. Well, almost everything. There is one more bit we need to do.

Clarion was settled by humans. Who we assume are somewhat like us Earthlings in that they work better on a 20-25 hour day than a 50 hour one. When the humans landed on Clarion, the decided to simply divide the long 50 hour diurnal period into two 25 hour days. They deal with the extra 5 minutes by adding in an hour the “night” period every 12 days and most people get a little extra rest that night.

Each of these 25 hour day periods are divided into a “day” period and a “night” period even though it may or may not be light or dark as one would expect by the name. Like the locals on Laco, they refer to the periods throughout a single diurnal cycle as “day-day” and “day-night” when the star is up and “night-day” and “night-night” when the star is down.

With this set up, there are 202.054 days in the year. They break it down as follows. (From here on out, unless specified, the term day refers to one of these 25 hour periods).

1 week = 8 days (4 diurnal periods)
1 month = 20 local days (10 diurnal periods)
1 year contains 10 months with two special holidays occurring mid-year (between months 5 & 6) and on the last day of the year.
- The mid-year day is Observance Day, set aside to remember and commemorate all those who have sacrificed for the survival and safety of the planet.
- The end year holiday is Landing Day, commemorating the day the original settlers landed on the planet. In many ways it is also a celebration of the ruling Leotus family and is often the day for coronations of new monarchs or other events related to the ruling family.
Every 37 years, that 0.027 of a local day catches up with the calendar and they have a leap year. On that year, they add an extra day to both Observance Day and Landing day making each a 2 day holiday. The next such occurrence of the Clarion leap year occurs during FY 69.

Reckoning Age

One impact of the calendar is that people have a lot of birthdays. Because of the very short local year, and the fact that the rate that the settlers grow and mature is similar to us here on Earth, people on Clarion mature much slower than their “age” would indicate. A 16 year old Clarionite is only 9.25 Earth years old. You probably shouldn’t give them the keys to the hovercar.

Because of this, the early settlers established the age of 35 (in local years) as the age of majority on the planet. This roughly corresponds to someone that is 22.13 Galactic Standard years old (or 20.2 Earth years old). There has been a bit of a push in recent years to lower this to 30 local years but the movement has not gained much traction.

Crown Princess Leotia

Which brings me back to what started all of this in the first place – Crown Princess Leotia’s birthday. The Warriors of White Light module contains this little tidbit:

The current king, Leotus XIX, has ruled for 37 years and soon will no doubt abdicate in favor of his daughter, Leotia XX.

If you’re following along with my #SFTimeline posts on Twitter, and reading this on the day the post publishes (Jan 15, 2019), I’m going to spoil a timeline entry for next week:

FY60.017 – Leotia Valentine Leotus, crown princess of Clarion (White Light), celebrates her 32nd birthday (18.5 earth years) #SFTimeline

I’m taking the “soon” in the quote from the module to be within the next decade or so (GST) and have decided that it will probably occur during the 2-day Landing Day celebration in FY 69. I also want Leotia to be young but she will have had to reach her majority by then. So I decided that she is about to celebrate her 32nd birthday.

The abdication might have occurred sooner but by the time Leotia reaches her majority (which will occur on FY61.375, the Second Sathar War will be in full swing and Leotus XIX doesn’t feel that she’s quite up to that task at her young age and so decides to wait until the big celebration in FY69.

Final thoughts

I had a lot of fun working this out. I’ll probably be doing it for more of the Frontier worlds in the future, again probably tied to trying to tie a series of local events into my timeline project. Although I may go do Pale and Laco first as part of my game background.

Have you ever done this for any of your worlds? Do you think it adds to the verisimilitude of the game or is it just too much of a hassle? Is there anything I didn’t explain to your liking? Share your thoughts and ideas below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY59.368 – FY59.394

Here is the next set of events from the detailed Frontier timeline. This covers the events that will eventually be considered the start of the Second Sathar War, namely the activation of the Glass Pyramid on Laco broadcasting a signal into sathar space as well as the activation of the sathar artifact on Volturnus calling the eventual sathar fleet to the Zebulon system.

The data presented in this blog post cover only the new dates but the downloadable document at the end is cumulative over all the timeline posts up to this point.

Date (FY)	Event
59.368	An enclave of sathar, ostensibly survivors from the Great Sathar War, found and eliminated on Pale. Based on intelligence gathered, it is believed that there may still be other enclaves on the planet. Citizens are warned to be alert.
59.369	Initial investigation of the “Kraatar Incident” completed. Those responsible for the severe Vist’Lat actions shown to be under some sort of cybernetic control by Legrange. Vist’Lat cleared and restored to Commercial Council.
59.370	The Streel interstellar shuttle, SCSS Laco Purveyor, shot down while landing on Pale. Origin of blast unknown. A skirmish over the downed shuttle results in over a dozen mercenaries dead but no loss of Streel forces or the injured shuttle crew.
59.371	News from investigations on Pale indicate that the new breed of Quickdeath was bred by local, long-time exotic creature supplier and bounty hunter, Trey Mulden, for unknown reasons. Mulden’s location is currently unknown. If seen, call Star Law immediately.
59.372	Several research institutions and zoos across the Frontier, expecting quickdeath shipments from Mulden, received multiple examples of the new variety. Forewarned of potential issues, most were contained but word had not yet reached Clarion and one handler was severely injured trying to contain the unexpected extra creatures.
59.373	Despite efforts of the Family of One (FoO), data on the newly discovered brown dwarf is now available. The FoO reaction to the news fuels speculation that the K4 star is Yazira, the “lost” yazirian home system.
59.374	The Cassidine Development Corporation’s new prototype paramilitary freighter, the CDCSS Nightwind, goes missing on its maiden voyage.
59.375	A small freighter, operating under a Streel charter, is attacked and destroyed in the Dixon’s Star System. Crew escapes in lifeboats and are rescued. Streel claims attack was by PGC vessels.
59.376	StarPlay releases the newest holovid movie in the Hawc, Star Law Ranger franchise.
59.377	UPFS Admiral Clinton completes its refit. As the remaining ships in SF Nova come out of refit over the next two days, the strike force prepares for another tour of the Frontier.
59.378	The governments of Kawdl-Kit (K’tsa-Kar) and Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) sign a mutual trade and defense agreement. It is expected that the Zik-Kit (Kizk’-Kar) government with join the trade alliance in the near future.
59.379	The General Overall Development Corporation unveils the Yazira Dome on Hentz. This massive, 100 square kilometer habitat is claimed to enclose a biome identical to that on the lost Yazirian homeworld.
59.380	Strike Force Nova, after completing a long refit in Prenglar, departs for a tour of the vrusk loop of the Frontier. First stop, Cassidine.
59.381	Spacefleet dispatches several ships (1 AC, 8 F, 2 LC, 2 DD, & 2 AS), designated Patrol Group Virgo, from Prenglar to Dixon’s Star to help put a dampener on rising Streel-PGC hostilities.
59.382	A Vrusk-owned shopping complex on Kidikit (Madderly’s Star) is destroyed by the explosion of several bombs. Many beings injured but no fatalities. The Kraatar Liberation Corps claims responsibility. There is concern over rekindling the Free World Rebellion tensions.
59.383	Despite budget delays and squabbling over the need for upgraded defenses, Fortress Kidikit (Madderly’s Star) reaches the 75% complete milestone.
59.384	Tensions in Dramune on the rise as Outer Reach industries continue to ignore and violate Inner Reach trademarks and patents.
59.385	Astronomers on Hargut (Gruna Goru) claim to have detected artificial signals from a system several light years beyond the Frontier. They begin organizing a petition to request that the UPF send and exploration mission.
59.386	Galactic Task Force mercenaries, working under PGC direction, attack three Streel archeology sites on Laco. Two are captured while the third is successfully defended by Streel personnel. Streel personnel at the captured sites are not harmed but evicted from the sites.
59.387	Glass Pyramid on Laco begins glowing with an unidentifiable energy source. After 20 minutes of increasing brightness, it releases a beam of energy nearly vertically. Beam consists of both electromagnetic energy across the full spectrum and subspace signals.
59.388	Unmarked Streel ships attack the KSS Dawn’s Glow hijacking cargo. Crew is left on immobilized ship to effect repairs and await rescue.
59.389	Subspace signal from Great Pyramid received in sathar space. SF Nova arrives in Cassidine. It will be in system for 9 days exercising with Task Force Cassidine. A raid on a PGC dig site by unknown forces results in one dead and one PGC scientist captured. The PGC scientist, a former Streel employee, is later released and identifies the assailants as Streel employees.
59.390	A message, transmitted by an artifact left on Volturnus (Zebulon) is received at a sathar listening post alerting then to the space-faring activity in the Zebulon system and the detection and penetration of the artifact by technologically advanced races. A subspace message is received on Pale from the presumed lost Second Volturnus Expedition explaining the sathar and pirate presence in the Zebulon system and warning of imminent attack from sathar forces. Immediate assistance is requested. PG Virgo arrives at Laco and takes up patrol duties around the system. A raid on a PGC records vault on Laco results in the loss of all backup data related to the Glass Pyramid activation. Suspected corporate espionage by Streel but no concrete proof exists.
59.391	Streel sub-orbital shuttle shot down on Laco. Assault scouts from PG Virgo are sent to investigate. Injured crew taken to Tyrell’s Landing.
59.392	Fighting breaks out between PGC, Streel, and CDC forces near the site of the downed shuttle over a newly discovered Tetrarch ruins site on Laco exposed by a recent landslide. After several days of discussion, the sathar decide to send a “cleansing” fleet to Volturnus.
59.393	After deliberations between the Pale Government and the Council of Worlds about the message from the Zebulon system, UPF Patrol Group Virgo cuts its time in Dixon’s Star short and departs Laco for the Truane’s Star System on its way to Zebulon.
59.394	Sathar attack fleet (1 AC, 8 F, 2 HC, 2 LC, 6 DD, & 2 FF) depart sathar SCC#5 for Volturnus

Here’s the compiled file:

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or comments on any of the events in the timeline.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY59.346 – FY59.367

I had hoped to get the records vault up this week but I’ll do that next week. In the mean time, here are the first three weeks of the Detailed Frontier Timeline as posted by the @StarFrontiers account on Twitter.

Dates are in the YY.DDD format with the digits before the decimal being the year since the founding of the UPF and the numbers after the decimal being the day of that year. There are 400 standard days in a year so the current events presented are coming at the close of of FY59.

FY	Event
59.042	First Volturnus expedition leaves Pale
59.346	Second Voltrunus expedition leaves Pale for Zebulon system.
59.347	Jack Legrange murdered on Kraatar. Rioting breaks out in Gozzorf City. (Fulborn-McKoy prize in bio-engineering)
59.348	Broadcast claiming responsibility for the Lagrange murder by the Vrusk Protection Force is released.
59.349	Vist’Lat, the employer of Legrange’s assassins, fires and forcibly evicts all Human workers from corporate offices and housing.
59.350	Medical Services Organization issues an alert that Ixiol, a new drug previously confined to Inner Reach, has begun appearing in other systems in the Frontier. Users develop a deep yellow tinge to their skin or carapace.
59.351	* Strike Force Nova arrives in the Prenglar system for its annual maintenance and refit. UPFS Admiral Clinton moves immediately into drydock for maintenance. It will be tied up for 26 days. * Vist’Lat expelled from the Commercial Council on Kraatar – “The council feels that much of the recent unrest can be attributed to VL’s policies. Its latest move to sack its human workers and evict them from their homes in untenable. The council cannot condone or accept this behavior.”
59.352	Funeral announced for Jack Legrange to occur in 6 days (59.358)
59.353	Vist’Lat shuts down all spaceport operations effectively cutting Kraatar off from the rest of the Frontier.
59.354	Contact lost with second Volturnus expedition. Suspected pirate activity in the Zebulon system. Pale government officials begin investigation into possible leak of jump data.
59.355	Rumors leak about a secret Spacefleet starship research and training center in an “unexplored” system within the Frontier.
59.356	* Attack by KLC troops on monorail headed to Quazzt’s Depression where Legrange’s funeral is to be held. Train crashes. Rescue teams dispatched * Legrange’s funeral moved forward and held today. Body is cremated, not a common practice on Kraatar
59.357	Survivors of train crash arrive in Quazzt.
59.358	WarTech unveils its new line of “Ke” laser weapons to be available in the new year.
59.359	Missile launched from Kraatar’s moon, Setarz. It self-destructs en route.
59.360	Information released by the Kraatar government reveals that the missile contained a bio-weapon designed to kill all vrusk on the planet. Also revealed is that Jack Legrange is still alive and orchestrated the unrest on Kraatar and faked his death. Unfortunately, the team that was able to stop the missile and gather the information were not able to capture Legrange and he is currently at large.
59.361	Based on information obtained from Artemis Base, Ral’Ik’Ka security forces stop a planned uprising by the KLC on the surface of Kraatar. The planet returns to an uneasy peace.
59.362	Astronomers on Histran (Scree Fron system), release news of the discovery of a previously unknown brown dwarf approximately 100ly from the Frontier. Its motion indicates that it had a close encounter with a K4 star some 175 years ago. Initial news of the discovery is quickly suppressed by the Family of One.
59.363	Sathar cybernuk creature (Frontier Explorer #6) discovered on Pale with cyber implant. It was thought that the nuks were confined to New Pale. The cyber implant seems to be of recent construction and not a relic from the war.
59.364	Pan Galactic unveils a new “Thunder” line of hoverbikes with nods to early PGC models. Old-time bike enthusiasts praise the antique styling coupled with modern safety features but others complain that the bikes live up to their name and are too loud.
59.365	TransTravel’s newest luxury starliner, the TTSS Destiny, emerges from the starship construction center at Gran Quivera. It will begin a “Grand Tour of the Frontier” starting with a run to Truane’s Star in a few days.
59.366	New breed of quickdeath discovered on Pale. Descended from creatures released during the Great Sathar War, this new variant is smaller but travels in packs unlike the solitary or pair hunters of the original strain.
59.367	With both Strike Force Nova and Task Force Prenglar in the Prenglar system, Spacefleet begins a series of training exercises to last until the UPFS Admiral Clinton completes its refit.

The events presented will either be specific events I have in the timeline, events from my various campaigns happening during this time, or fluff pieces to provide some background and color to the Frontier on days when no significant events are happening. This first bit of material only involves events happening in the Frontier. As the timeline progresses, there will also be events happening in sathar controlled space. I’m still debating where to put those into the published tweets and include them in these posts.

In addition to posting the timeline as a table here on the blog, I’ll also be providing it as a PDF that can be downloaded. In future posts, the body of the post will only present the new material since the last post. The file, however, will always be the cumulative timeline starting from the beginning. Here’s the first installment of that:

DetailedFrontierTimeline Download

Feel free to let me know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions below. Do you want to see the sathar related events as well?

Sathar Ship Design

How Many Sathar Ships Are Involved

The UPF Contingent

The Knight Hawks Scenario

Setup

Special Rules

Escaping the Battle

Preserve the Fleet

Victory Conditions

Sathar Victory

UPF Victory

When I Played

Last Thoughts

The Data

The Moons

Kran

Gluk & Clud

Hum’s Rotation Period

The Calendar

Length of Year

A Week on Hum

A Hum Month

A Seasonal Moon

Leap Years

The Final Calendar

Last Thoughts

What We Know

Fochrik

Size of the Habitable Zone

Placing the Planets

The Habitable Worlds

The Inner Worlds

The Outer Worlds

Orbital Periods

Planetary Names

Planetary Sizes

Densities

The Habitable Planets

A Note on Gravity

Other Planets

Wrapping up for now

Introduction

Timeline

References

Stellar Data

Orbital Data

Orbital Distance

Orbital Period

Rotational Period

The Calendar

Reckoning Age

Crown Princess Leotia

Final thoughts