Agriculture Ship Model and Miniature

I had originally planned to start in on the models from the Privateers boxed set after I finished the freighter from the Federation ships box, but a discussion on the starfrontiers.us site put agriculture ships in my brain and, since we had some silhouettes and a counter for these ships, I thought I might make a model of one of those first. Let’s look at these ships.

First of all, here are the images we have to work with:

The black and white drawing is from page 7 of the Knight Hawks Campaign book and the inset is the counter.

Both of these images show a long, spindly fuselage, a bit of a structure at the bow, behind the domes, and at the tail, and of course, the big agricultural domes themselves.

Now, you can debate as to whether or not these ships actually make sense or not. Especially as depicted here. And that’s part of what the discussion on the starfrontiers.us site was all about, but they are included in the game so I figured I’d take a crack at making a model. While I’ll stick with this basic idea, I’m going to make a few changes.

The Model

Here’s an image of the final Ag ship model. As you can see, it differs a bit from those silhouettes. Let’s talk about what I did.

First, I decided to make this model a hull size 10 ship, which for these types of ships, is a little on the small size. The rules say that Ag starships are typically hull size 8-16 while system ships have hull sizes in the range of 10 to 20.

As pictured in the silhouette images, the ships seem to have a single large chemical engine mounted at the tail. That sort of makes sense for a system system ship but just barely. If they are just floating out there collecting sunlight, then everything is growing in zero-gravity. On the other hand, if you want some sort of gravity in the ship, you need to be constantly accelerating (no artificial gravity in Star Frontiers). In the latter case, chemical drives don’t really make sense. So I decided to give the ship ion engines instead. For the model, I used the same engine design I created for the minelayer miniature. It the same size (a Class B engine), but I used two struts to attach them to the hull in this case.

The other difference with the engines is that I used three of them instead of just one. The ship construction rules call for three engines on a hull size 10 ship so that is what I went with. I guess a single Class C engine would do the trick but let’s stick to more standard designs for now.

Like the images, this model has a long, skinny fuselage. But it’s kind of hard to see as I added a bunch more to the ship. The bit at the end is modeled on the tail of the ship in the black and white image. You can’t see it in the model image above but the section right under the domes is also thicker like in the silhouettes. And I also used the same style bow.

I modeled the domes on the image from the black and white image rather than the counter and just put four of them on the ship. On a larger ship, I would probably keep them the same size and just add more of them as is represented on the counter.

The main difference between my ship and the images is that I added some large storage tanks below the domes, and piping to connect them. I figure this is where the extra nutrient solutions, air, and water are stored as they are cycled through the domes. I also figure this area contains the processing machinery.

Another thing I added was lights on the underside of the bow. If you click on the model image above, you can just see them. There is one pointing at each dome. These are powerful, full-spectrum lamps that can be turned on to provide illumination to the domes when the ship is not pointed directly at the sun. Or maybe they are used all the time. If you’re flying around the system, constantly keeping the ship at 1 g, there are going to be many times that you don’t have the domes pointed at the star. In any case, they are a small feature on the model.

This model was created at 1/3000th scale, or 3 meters on the ship equaling 1 mm on the model. This is the same scale I used for the sathar Destroyer and CDCSS Nightwind and roughly the scale of the UPF Frigate, Destroyer, & Minelayer. When I start making a new set of ships after finishing the privateers, the models will all be made at that scale. The fuselage of the ship is 240 meters (80 mm) as is standard for a HS 10 ship. It’s a lot skinnier than a typical HS 10 ship, 15-20m diameter compared to 40, but I figure the extra hull goes into the domes and the storage tanks. With the engines added, the model is 92.67mm long, giving the ship a total length of 278 meters. Across the widest point of the domes it is 56.66 mm or 170 meters.

Printing

With the model complete, it was time to print it. The image at the right shows the hull size 10 Agriculture ship (black) next to the Nightwind freighter (green) and sathar destroyer (red, painted). Unfortunately, the black resin prints don’t photograph very well.

For the most part, the print came out very well. But it needed a lot of supports under the domes. For this print, I printed it upright, just as pictured (and how I’ve printed all the other ships) and used the default supports that the printing software supplied. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite enough support under the domes. Mainly, the supports could have been placed better and on the edges of the domes, not just the underside. The result was that the physical shape of the underside of the domes is a little warped, rounded were it should be flat and angled. I think in the future, I will print the model at an angle, tilted 30-45 degrees. It will require much less support material and the surfaces will come out better as the printer has issues with large horizontal surfaces that are not touching the build plate.

Up Next

Next up is working on the Privateer models. I haven’t done any modeling recently due to all the life changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic but will be getting back to it in the next week or so as life has finally settled down to somewhat of a routine.

I also plan to revisit this ship in the future and create a HS 20 version with more domes. That will probably have to be printed in parts as I don’t think a full scale HS 20 ship will fit on my printer, It’s a bit larger than my print volume, at least printed vertically.

Like all the other models, I’ll be adding this to my Miniatures Price Table if you want me to print you one, and putting the model up on DriveThruRPG on my 3D Models page if you just want to grab the model file and print it yourself.

What do you think of the Ag Ship. Have you ever used one of these in your game? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY61.20 to FY61.50

This was a busy month on the Frontier (and beyond). The HSS History’s Hope finally overcomes their misjump issues only to be ambushed by an unknown assailant. A strange computer virus nearly destroys the Moneyspider, and the ships of the Discovery Squadron, on their way home, engage and destroy a sathar raid in the Zebulon system.

As always, you can follow along daily on the Star Frontiers Twitter feed if you don’t want to wait for the monthly summary.

Date (FY)Events
61.020 Castuss Wallorr (yazirian), the sape handler on the Moneyspider, is launched out of the ship on a lifeboat. His distress call causes the ship’s roboticist, Daqor Klarr (vrusk) to snap and have to be restrained. (SFAD5)
61.021 – Baralou Ap-Reaverchan (yazirian), Moneyspider’s astrogator, is killed in a sudden explosion in the life support system on Snobol, the asteroid the ship is tethered to. (SFAD5)

– On their return to the Moneyspider from Snobol, the elevator fails and the crew that responded to Baralou’s distress call are severely injured.  (SFAD5)

– In the confusion of the elevator crash, Daqor, sedated in the Moneyspider’s medical bay, is killed by an overdose of anesthesia.  (SFAD5)
61.022 Calculations mostly done, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for its jump back to the YS01 system.
61.023 – The Moneyspider’s security robot malfunctions and starts shooting holes in the gas tanks holding the filtered toxins from the planet’s atmosphere. The life support system is also malfunctioning and not filtering the air.  Fiator Geauis (dralasite), ship technician is killed due to a sabotaged gas mask. (SFAD5)

– Ellen Coopermann, as the only survivor of the original crew is the prime suspect, but she convinces the rescue party she is innocent. She begins to believe the rescue teams account of the Matrix and works to help them eradicate it. (SFAD5)
61.024 After many weeks of behind the scenes deals and increasing discontent over the practices of the Groth Energy Corporation, the creation of a new entity is announced, the Consolidated Nebula Energy Group (CNE) (ZG), formed by the merger of the three largest independent energy producers on Groth.  All smaller energy producers are invited to join.
61.025 – Despite their best efforts, the techniques that worked on Jetsom aren’t working to destroy the Matrix on Moneyspider. (SFAD5)

– Looking through the Captain’s Computer/Robot System’s Manual Ellen learns that Baralou, the astrogator is listed as one of the ship’s robots, which means it was not her body recovered in the explosion on Snobol. Baralou becomes the prime suspect of all the deaths. (SFAD5)
61.026 – The Sathar starship construction center in OFS111 completes a light cruiser.

– Her secret discovered, Baralou attempts to eliminate Ellen and the rescue team. After a running fight through the ship between the surviving crew members and Baralou, who is aided by the ship’s robots and automated defense systems, Baralou is neutralized. (SFAD5)
61.027 – The Discovery Squadron arrives at Faire in the Capella system.  They spend three days on the planet before heading on to Zebulon.

– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps into the YS01 and begins decelerating. Jump calculations are begun anew for another attempt at the jump to the YS02 system.

– With Baralou gone, the remaining crew on the Moneyspider slowly begin to make progress on destroying the Matrix from the Moneyspider’s systems. (SFAD5)
61.028 An attempt is made to sabotage the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards. It is foiled due to increased security after PGC shipyard attack a few months ago.
61.029 – Deceleration nearly complete, the HSS History’s Hope is set upon by an unidentified, armed vessel that does not respond to any attempts to communicate. While obviously of Frontier origin, the vessel is not one that the crew has seen before.  An SOS is broadcast via subspace radio to the Frontier.

– In the ensuing fight, the HSS History’s Hope’s engines are severely damaged but a lucky shot by their gunner sends the assailant spinning out of control, ending the fight.  The crew rushes to fix the engines and get underway before the assaulting ship can repair itself and return.
61.030 – Having remained undetected as they drifted through the outer system, the sathar ships in the outer Kazak system begin slowly changing their vector for a jump to Zebulon. 

– Just hours before the relief ship arrives at the Moneyspider, the crew eradicates the last vestiges of the Matrix from the ship.  The remaining crew board the relief ship to head back to the Prenglar system. (SFAD5)
61.031 With the “fall” season approaching CDC decides that winters are too harsh to keep the crew on Alcazzar (Rhianna) and stop operations for the year after mining over 6.3 million credits of resources, mostly gold. (SF4)
61.032 Repairs of the HSS History Hope’s engines take much longer than expected. Luckily, their assailant failed to return. The crew debates whether they should return to the Frontier for complete repairs or push onward. 
61.033 After much deliberation, it is decided that the HSS History’s Hope will push on but not transmit their completed routes back to the UPF for registration, but only to Histran to track their progress.  Calculations are begun again for a jump to YS02.
61.034 Repairs at the PGC shipyard (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) restore capacity to 80%.
61.035 – Repair work on the Triad SSC continues.  The construction center is now at 85% of its original capacity.

– The Discovery Squadron makes the jump to the Zebulon system and starts decelerating toward Volturnus.
61.036 – The sathar ships from OSF019 make the jump and arrive in the Zebulon system.  They start decelerating toward Volturnus.

– Initial calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating once again for a jump to the YS02 system.
61.037 – Sathar ships are detected by Discovery Squadron and messages are sent to Spacefleet, Pale (Truane’s Star), and Strike Force Nova announcing the sathar presence in the system.

– As the only armed vessels in the system, Discovery Squadron is ordered to intercept the sathar vessels despite being severely out classed.
61.038 The decision by Obar Enterprises to not report the Truane’s Star-Cassidine jump route has paid off nicely.  In just 100 days, they have made over 1.6 million credits in gross profits, more than double what would have been possible before the jump route was plotted.
61.039 – Discovery Squadron intercepts the sathar ships. Whether due to a sizable skill differential or simply good luck, the smaller UPF ships manage to destroy all 4 sathar vessels. Unfortunately, the militia frigate and one of the Streel corvettes are lost while the other 2 corvettes are severely damaged.

– Realizing that they have too much force projected into the Rim, and that the sathar seem to have a way into the Frontier around the ships station in Kazak, Strike Force Nova begins a high-speed transit back to Frontier Space.  Patrol Group Virgo is split off again and remains in Kazak to bolster the Rim defenses in that system.
61.040 – After making critical repairs, the remains of the Discovery Squadron begin making their way to Volturnus.

– The HSS History’s Hope successfully arrives in YS02, much to the relief of her crew.  They begin decelerating and plotting the return jump to YS01.
61.041 The sixth saurian Ark Ship is completed and begins its shakedown cruise.
61.042 Information is uncovered that the buyout of Groth Energy may have been orchestrated by the group known as the Investors. The reporter that uncovered the leak is found dead after falling off of his 16th story balcony in downtown Port Loren (Gran Quivera, Prenglar).
61.043 The Discovery Squadron pulls into orbit around Volturnus where they start working on more repairs and resupplying the assault scouts which had depleted all their assault rockets in the fight with the sathar.
61.044 Strike Force Nova jumps into the Osak system but remains near jump speed as they compute the next leg of their jump to Capella
61.045 Deceleration complete, the HSS History’s Hope begin accelerating for the jump back to YS01.  They are aiming to arrive high in the system to attempt to avoid the assailant that was there last time if that ship is still in the system.
61.046 – Repairs complete, the Streel corvettes begin accelerating for a jump home to Truane’s Star.  The assault scouts are ordered to stay in the Volturnus system for the time being to provide early warning and defense of that system as Spacefleet finalizes it’s plans.  Discovery Squadron is officially dissolved.

– Strike Force Nova jump into the Capella system, again remaining near jump speed as they compute a jump to the Zebulon system.
61.047 Fortress Kdikit (Madderly’s Star) completed.
61.048 After much debate, and heavily swayed by discovery of the sathar presence in OFS019 and the recent events in the Zebulon system, the Council of Worlds authorizes additional spending by Spacefleet to commission several new vessels.
61.049 With the go-ahead and funding from the Council of Worlds, Spacefleet decides to exercise their development plan Sierra Foxtrot Meteor, which builds out another Strike Force similar to SF Nova.  Orders are placed for vessels from various shipyards around the Frontier.
61.050 The HSS History’s Hope successfully makes the jump back to YS01 arriving high in the system as desired. They immediately begin decelerating and scanning the system for any other ships as they start in on engine overhauls and plotting the jump back to YS02.

Full timeline file:

DetailedFrontierTimeline-1Download

State of the Frontier – March 2020

This has been a crazy month. With the world mostly locked down, it’s been interesting to see how things have changed and evolved. For me, work hasn’t changed much as I already worked from home full time. The main difference is that now I have even less free time since in addition to full time work, I have to manage the schooling for my four youngest children. But because of that, I haven’t gotten as much done as I had hoped.

Looking Back

As usual I started off the month with the Detailed Frontier Timeline post followed by a post on a new miniature and model, this time the freighter from the Federation Ships boxed set. Next came a post on the Blue Plague, inspired by the events unfolding around us right now. Finally, last week I finally put together the map of the Yazira Sector, the region of space beyond the Frontier where the HSS History’s Hope is exploring in an attempt to rediscover the Yazirian homeworld. I had originally thought to do a different, but related post in that slot. More on that later. And this post is the final Tuesday post this month.

You might have noticed that there wasn’t an RPG Blog Carnival post this month. The topic was Alchemy and I just wasn’t having any inspiration on that topic for a sci-fi setting.

A lot of my free time this month was spent on the Frontier Explorer. For the first time since we rebooted the zine, I’m actually ahead of the game. As of right now I’m waiting on one final article and a few pieces of art to finish of the issue. I was able to get all the submitted articles edited and into a preliminary layout. I expect that this issue will be out much earlier in the month than the last few issues, which squeaked in just before the end of the month.

Beyond that, not much has been going on. I didn’t get anything done on the website migrations and upgrades and don’t think I got any writing done on my book. The COVID-19 adjustments have just eaten up all my spare time.

Looking Forward

The timeline post is queued up and ready to go out next week. After that will be a post on the agriculture ship model I created. My plan is to do a post on the True Yazira secret society. I had planned to do that instead of the Yazira sector map post this month but two things resulted in putting that off. One was simply that I didn’t have time to do it justice. The other was that I wanted the HSS History’s Hope expedition detailed out since they are related. More on that later this month. The final post will hopefully be related to the Blog Carnival. April’s topic is “Corners of the Multiverse” so I should be able to come up with something.

The other big thing happening this month will be the Frontier Explorer. As I already mentioned, issue 28 is almost completely done. So watch for an announcement on that. Here’s a teaser of the cover.

With my house settling into a routine, I’m starting to have a bit more free time. Hopefully that means more of my behind the scenes projects will get some love including getting more web site work and book writing done. I also suspect that this month I’ll be starting in on my writing for the Space Kids RPG that successfully funded and which I mentioned last month. I also hope to start painting some of these miniatures that I’ve been creating.

I’ll also be working on new models as the ag ship is the last one I’ve finished. This month I’ll start working on the ships from the Privateers boxed set. Hopefully I’ll find my missing three miniatures but I have three to start with.

What have you been working on this last month? Are there things you’d like to see me post about? Let me know in the comments below.

HSS History’s Hope and the Yazira Sector Map

HSS History’s Hope

As part of my Detailed Frontier Timeline, one of the threads I’ve introduced is the voyage of the Histran Starship (HSS) History’s Hope, registered out of Histran in the Scree Fron system. The goal of this voyage is to attempt to reach a star system that recent astronomical observations believe to be Yazira, the original homeworld of the yazirian species.

In my Yazirian History and Legends and Lore – Yazirians posts last month, I pointed out that most modern yazirians don’t know the location of their native world having fled some 150 years earlier to escape an astronomical disaster. Early in the Detailed Frontier Timeline I introduced the astronomical discovery of a system that matches the description of the yazirian homeworld, complete with a nearby brown dwarf. It is this system the HSS History’s Hope is trying to reach.

Of course there are some complications. First, the system is over 100 light years, in a straight line, from Scree Fron. Jumping from star to star, it’s even further. And all of those jumps are uncharted so each one carries the risk of a misjump and the crew getting lost along the way. They’ve had several misjumps in the timeline already and they aren’t even halfway there. In fact, they’ve just barely left the area covered by my Extended Frontier Map. This is additionally complicated by the fact that the ship is heading into the Vast Expanse, a region of space where the stars are further apart and thus the jumps are longer and more difficult to chart.

The second complication for their voyage is that the Family of One doesn’t really want them going out there and finding Yazira. And are willing to take measure to ensure that they won’t return. They have already been set upon by unknown assailants but managed to escape and continue their journey. They can expect more of the same in the days to come.

At some point I’ll probably do a write-up and timeline of the whole endeavor as a single post instead of having it spread out through the full timeline project for those that want to see how the mission played out and more of the background related to it’s organization and funding. If that is something you’d be interested in, let me know.

The Yazira Sector

As part of this project, I needed to place the yazirian homeworld. I chose to put it way off to the left of the Frontier, well beyond the area covered by the Extended Frontier Map (EFM). Since I didn’t have any maps of this area I had to create one.

For this map, instead of doing a large area, I chose to do a small, long strip. Enough to allow for multiple possible paths through the area, but not too big. I the end, I made it 90 light years wide (the same width as the EFM), and 20 light years tall (1/5 the EFM). However, I added in a new wrinkle. Unlike the EFM, which has all the stars in a single plane, I added a third dimension to this map making it 24 light years thick. So instead of all the stars being in the same plane, they have a z-coordinate as well.

This is a feature that was already part of my star map generation program that I had turned off for the EFM. I talked a bit about this in my post on the Rael Core Sector map. The image to the right shows how this is represented on the map with the z-coordinate represented by the small number to the lower right of the stellar symbols. Those three systems look close to one another but are widely separate in actual space. RS069 and RS073 are actually 5.1 light years apart, RS069 and RS064 are 9.1 light years apart, and RS064 and RS073 are the closest to each other, separated by only 4.6 light years even though they appear to be the furthest apart on the map.

Additionally, the Yazira sector is part of the Vast Expanse, an area of low stellar density, i.e. not a lot of stars. So in addition to turning on the z-component of the position, I also dialed down the density parameter in the program by a factor of almost 3. So we now have 1/3 the number of stars spread over about 4 times the volume of space. This means that in this region, there are going to be fewer stars than in a comparable area on the EFM. It doesn’t look that sparse to the eye because of the projection on the the 2D plane of the map, but crunching the numbers (and assuming a thickness of 5 ly for the EFM even though they are all on a single plane) you get a density on the EFM of 1 system per 159 cubic light years and in the Yaziria Sector of 1 system per 645 cubic light years. A factor of almost exactly 4. If I strictly held the EFM to a thickness of one, it would be a factor of 20.

So what does this region look like? Well, here’s the map. You’re going to have to click on it to see the details. In fact, I recommend right clicking, downloading it, and opening it up in another window where you can zoom and pan around.

94x20 ly map of the Yazira Sector containing 67 star systems

The EFM is to the right of this map. OFS222 is shown on the far right (the blue star about 1/3 of the way from the top) so you can connect it up with the EFM if you want. (This map is actually 94 light years wide. I added on the extra 4 light years so that OFS222 would be on the map, showing the overlap). OFS215 should be on this map as well, but I forgot to add it in when making this draft version of the map. I’ll be sure it gets on there for the next iteration when the HSS History’s Hope gets a bit farther along on its voyage.

The first thing we notice, even without looking at the map at full resolution, is that there aren’t a lot of bright stars here. We see a few, but mostly we see small red dwarfs (M stars). There are a few blue stars and a few giants. This is why the yazirians had to go all the way to the Frontier sector to find a suitable planet. There just weren’t any around.

Also there aren’t any nebula. That’s intentional, this area of space is actually devoid of them. That is a part of it being more empty that the Frontier sector. I won’t be adding any in on the final version of the map once it is done (other than the one between OFS222 and OFS215).

Zooming in you can see that most of the star systems are unlabeled. The only ones I have labeled so far are those that the HSS History’s Hope have visited and the one they believe to be Yazira. Others will get named as they travel through the sector and the final map will be presented in a future update.

The system that the crew of the HSS History’s Hope believes to be Yazira (spoiler, it is) is located at the far left of the map above the legend. This system is represented as a K4 star with a brown dwarf companion. The brown dwarf that disrupted the planetary system is still very close the star, less than a light year away, so it is represented as a single system on the map.

Looking at the right side of the map, you can see the jump routes plotted by the HSS History’s Hope as of today (March 24, 2020) as posted in the timeline posts on Twitter. A new feature on this map that wasn’t on the EFM is the one-way jump, represented as a dashed line with an arrowhead on it. The arrow points in the direction that the jump can be considered “charted.” The jump from YS01 to YS02 is the most recent jump made; they are still slowing down to make the return jump. They had a misjump that took them to YS03 (so no charted jump there) and while trying to jump back to YS01, misjumped again and ended up in YS04 (again no charted jump between those two systems). They did successfully chart the jump from YS04 back to YS01 but did not try to go the other direction, hence that connection is only one way.

Right now the HSS History’s Hope is in the YS02 system slowing down and preparing to chart the jump back to YS01. They are somewhat hesitant about that as the ship that attacked them is probably still in that system and they may have another fight on their hands. We’ll see how it goes as the timeline unfolds.

Going Forward

The HSS History’s Hope still has a long way to go. From YS02 to Yazira is still another 80 light years in a straight line. It’s taken them over half a year to cover the 29 light years they’ve traveled so far. And their path forward is far from straight with lots of long difficult jumps ahead. Who knows what waits for them along the way.

If you want a fun exercise, you might try finding a path forward to Yazira and see how difficult the journey will be. Remember that the chance to plot a new route is 50% + 10% x astrogator’s skill level – 5% x jump distance in light years. They have a level 6 astrogator, plus deluxe astrogation equipment (which in my house rules gives a +10% bonus to astrogation checks). This means their base chance of success is 120% – 5% x distance. With a roll of 96-00 always being failure.

If the jump fails, they end up somewhere other than where they planned and then have to try to figure out where they are (30%+10% x level chance and takes 2d10 x 10 hours per attempt). Each jump takes 9 days (180 hours) unless it’s over 9 light years long. Then it takes a number of days equal to the number of light years. How long did it take you to get to Yazira?

What do you think about this sector map? Are there things you like to see added? Clarified? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

The Blue Plague, Revisited

This was not the post I had planned for this week but with all the precautions and closures due to the COVID-19 coronavirus the last few weeks, it got me thinking about medical technology and then about the differences between Frontier technology and our modern tech.

A Look at the Frontier

One thing that always stood out to me, even as a preteen/teenager in the early 80’s was that the relative levels of technology in the Frontier was very different from our own, and that was ignoring things like spaceflight, laser guns, and FTL travel.

Take computers for instance, even in the early- to mid- 80’s, the computer technology here on Earth was beyond that of the Frontier, or at least on par with it.  And looking at the game with modern eyes, we are way beyond the Frontier tech.

Zeb’s Guide did a little to advance the computer technology and shrink it down, with the introduction of the bodycomp.  This helped to bring the tech somewhat in line with what was available in the mid-80s.  But a visitor from the Frontier to Earth today would be amazed with our modern computer technology.

However, if you look at Frontier medical technology, it is light years ahead of even our modern medicine.  With just a handful of relatively inexpensive drugs, you can cure most diseases, neutralize toxins, heal injuries, and even postpone death.  Not to mention the freeze field and storage class transport fields that can put you into indefinite suspended animation (as long as the power doesn’t go out).  These wonder drugs would be a dream come true for medical professionals on Earth today.

I don’t know if it was a question really, more like an unsatisfied curiosity, but I have always wondered and thought about why the Frontier went down that technology path rather than the one we did.  Why is the medical technology vastly beyond the physical technology?

Game Play

At a practical level, it is what it is so that the game can be exciting and playable.  You need advanced medical technology (just like you need healing spells in a fantasy game) so that the PCs can get right back into the adventure after getting hurt.  And you don’t want the tech to be so amazing that it overshadows the abilities of the characters.

In fact, it was either Larry Schick or Dave Cook, the original creators of Star Frontiers, who, in an interview said that they set the tech level where it was so that it was the PCs that had to do the tasks and not be able to just call on the technology to solve all their problems.  That was why they made the computers big and clunky, with no real networking, and many of the other design choices that they made.

That said, it is still a fun exercise to think about what events we could work into the history of the Frontier to account for such a balance of tech levels.

A Sweeping Pandemic

Which brings me back to COVID-19 and the events happening in the world today.

In Zeb’s Guide, it talks about the Blue Plague and five worlds that were lost to this plague.  While I either like or don’t mind many of the setting elements introduced in Zeb’s Guide, this is one that has never really sat well with me.  So much so that I left those worlds off of my Extended Frontier Map completely.  What where the original names of those systems?  They wouldn’t have been called Alpha through Epsilon originally. Why weren’t they on the Frontier map from the original rules?  They would have been in setting at the time in the history that the original game occupies.  I understand the desire to expand the setting, but the way the Zeb’s Guide timeline was built made many of the things it presented inconsistent with the original game setting and modules.

I don’t like the placement that Zeb’s Guide gives to the Blue Plague, occurring from 17-27 FY – after the original sathar invasion that prompted the formation of the UPF.  It feels too late and tacked on.  And I don’t like that it wipes out five star systems that should have been part of the Frontier history but were never mentioned in the original game.

But what if something like the Blue Plague happened, just much, much earlier in the history of the region?  Back when all the technology was young and prompted a focus on the biological and medical sciences over the physical ones?  That could have prompted the technology development we see in the game.

Now you might argue that you need the physical and computer tech advances to produce the medical ones, we definitely see technology aiding medicine today. But we don’t know that it’s absolutely necessary.  We only have one sample timeline.  It didn’t work out that way for us, but that’s not to say they path we took is the only one.  It’s time for a little willing suspension of disbelief.

The Blue Plague Revisited

So let’s dial the clock way back, to the early settlement of the Frontier.  In the Knight Hawks rules, it states that the discovery of the FTL travel was an accident.  It was completely unexpected.  In my game it was the humans who stumbled upon Void Jumping and shared it around.  In the process of exploring it, they discovered a signal from the Vrusk and went to investigate.  But because of its accidental discovery, I have the human tech level originally set somewhere around that of the late 60’s, early 70’s somewhat consistent with the computer tech of the game.  They just happened to have developed better propulsion systems to get the necessary speeds.

Instead of hunkering down, they exploded throughout the region.  There is a reason there are many more human worlds than those of the other races, and even then, you find humans almost everywhere.  They had the ability to travel to the stars and they did, aggressively. The other races expanded outward as well, but not nearly as much.  As I detailed my Yazirian Lore posts last month (part 1, part 2), the yazirians were expanding outward out of a sense of preservation.  The vrusk and dralasites didn’t expand out nearly as much.

And then, shortly after all of these worlds were being settled, the Blue Plague struck.  In Zeb’s Guide, it describes the plague as receiving its name due to its early symptoms: large blue welts that appear about the face and extremities that leave horrible black scars even if you survive the plague.

No one knows exactly where it came from.  The first cases were on Prenglar, the hub of the Frontier where travelers from all over mingle and visit.  As more and more cases were discovered on Gran Quivera, it began to be studied more, restrictions and quarantines were put in place, and efforts were made to get it under control.

But by then it was too late.  The disease, having a very long incubation period, had already spread throughout the Frontier and cases began popping up on every world.  Due to the horrific nature of the plague as well as the relatively high mortality rate, quarantines and restrictions became very strict.  Of course, this impacts production, research, and distribution, especially of food.  Because of the long incubation period, coupled with the long duration of the illness itself, these quarantines ended up lasting for a very long time.  As many people probably died of knock-on effects of these restrictions as died from the Blue Plague itself.

One impact of the long duration of the plague was the development of robot technology.  Since the citizens were afraid to come in contact with one another, something had to be done to produce the goods and food needed to sustain the populations of the various worlds.  Thus, robot technology got a huge boost.  The early models were crude, probably remotely operated, and not very sophisticated, but the plague launched the nascent robotics industry that would continue to develop over the intervening years.

More importantly, the Blue Plague resulted in a huge boost in funding into medical research.  This funding came from everywhere.  Governments heavily supported it at the behest of their citizens.  Companies supported both to try to keep their workers and as a public relations measure.  And private citizens supported it for a wide variety of reasons ranging from altruism to a desperate desire for self-preservation.

Regardless of the reason, funding into the biological and medical science boomed and universities and research institutions flourished.  It took several years, but a cure was finally found.  Along the way, other interesting avenues of research were uncovered but left unexplored in the rush to find the cure.  Eventually, all this research payed off and the Blue Plague was eradicated.

Aftermath

After the Blue Plague was under control, the citizens of the Frontier took stock of the situation and the results were horrifying.  Millions dead across every world of the Frontier.  Millions more permanently disfigured for life.  No one issued a proclamation, no one passed any laws, but collectively as a Frontier-wide community, the people resolved to never let this happen again.  The funding in the medical sciences, while never again as high a proportion of the total wealth of the Frontier as during the Blue Plague itself, remained very high.

Because of this high state of funding, all those interesting side avenues that had been discovered during the Blue Plague research were able to be pursued and developed.  Over time, this led to the development of the wonder drugs known in the modern Frontier as Biocort, Simdose, Staydose, Omnimycin, Antibody Plus, and AntiTox.  Six drugs that together can treat almost anything the universe might throw at you.

Having seen the benefits of using robots for many of the menial jobs required during the Blue Plague era, robotics continued to develop a heightened state, although nowhere near the level of the medical sciences.  Effort was put into developing robotic systems that could be autonomous and operate independently of direct supervision but rather controlled by programming or robot management software.  This heightened development has led to the relatively inexpensive and highly capable robots found in the Frontier today.

Of course, the cost of this increased medical and robotics development was a slowing of the development of the other technologies.  Computers, vehicles, starships, and even weapons systems fell behind the curve.  Advances were made, but not nearly at the pace of the robotics and medical technologies.  Thus we get the technology levels presented in the game rules.

Using This in Your Game

If you chose to use this history in your version of the Frontier, what impacts might it have in your game?

One aspect is survivors of the Blue Plague.  Depending on how long you made the extended history of the Frontier, and where you place the Blue Plague in that history, there might still be survivors bearing all the scars of their ordeal.  Personally, I don’t like the 400+ years of the Zeb’s Guide Timeline and prefer to compress it much more than that. Making it 200 years at most.  That allows me to have the technology not as developed.  But that means, given the 175 – 250 year average lifespans for the various Frontier species, there will be survivors of the Blue Plague still around.  They will be older, but could still be active members of society.  How do they see the world?  Do they have agendas they push for?  What stories do they have to tell and how has their experiences shaped the way they look at the world?

The modern wonder drugs can solve almost any issue.  What does that mean for all the companies that have invested in the research side of things?  Is research slowing down?  Is the funding shifting?  How does that impact the economy and the people working in those industries?  Maybe there is funding slowly shifting to other areas?  Are computers becoming smaller and more powerful, starting to move along the path of our Earth technology?  Is the money going other places?  Or maybe there are occurrences of other diseases like the Blue Plague that break out but never to the same extent that require constant retooling of the medicines keeping the biotech industry alive and well.

Is the Blue Plague really eradicated or do new cases pop up occasionally around the Frontier?  How do people react when it happens?  Are the causes natural or contrived?

How did the enforced isolation required during the Blue Plague era affect communities?  Would the isolation become standard?  Would it cause an increased awareness of the need for community?  Would it spark an increased care and understanding of the needs and interests of one’s neighbors?  Maybe it did all of those on different worlds or in different communities.  When you create a community for the PCs to interact with, you might sprinkle in an unusual custom that dates from the time of the Blue Plague.

What other ideas does this alternate timeline bring to mind?  How else might you apply it in your game?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Freighter Model and Miniature

The model and miniature this month is a recreation of the small freighter model that was part of the Federation Ships boxed set. This is the last model I needed to recreate to complete that original set. With this one done, they are now all available.

The image to the right is the original miniature from the boxed set. I hadn’t tackled this particular miniature in the past mainly because I was initially focused on the military vessels. But I was also a little worried about recreating the shape of those struts and all the detail at the tail of the ship. But with lots of experience behind me, it was time to reproduce this miniature.

The Model

Let’s start with the final model and then I’ll talk a bit about what it took to create.

I started with the main body/oval shape at the bow of the ship. My version is a little more rounded than the original as I just used a stretched sphere for this part. To get the exact shape would have taken creating a custom curve and then doing a rotate_extrude() to make the 3D shape (and then squashing it to make it flattened). I’m happy with how this turned out although I originally expressed some desire to revisit that bit of the model.

The tail of the ship is just a long column that the cargo pods and bits at the end are attached to. That was added next.

Then came the cargo pods. These are a recreation of the original miniature (although the rings around the top and bottom are probably a bit thinner than the original). Interestingly this was the part of the ship that generated the most commentary on the Facebook group when I posted this picture. Everyone wanted me to get rid of the double container and make one big one. Which is something I’ll probably do in the future but for now I’m keeping to the original model.

Next up was the engines. Since these are different than the engines on most of the other ships, but similar to those on the minelayer, I’m assuming that these are ion engines as well. The engines themselves were easy enough, just some cylinders will a sphere at the top. The hard part was getting the curve of the struts right.

That shape is not one that OpenSCAD can do natively. At first I looked at doing some linear_extrude()’s of a few stretched circles. But that wouldn’t give me the curvature that the strut has. So I went looking for an OpenSCAD module that would allow me to extrude along a curve and vary the scale along the extrusion.

The first one I found was the “Extrude Along Path” module by gringer. However, it didn’t allow me to do the scaling the way I wanted or at least easily. So I went looking for another option. What I found was the “path_extrude with scaling” library by tpchuckles. This module built on gringer’s Extrude Along Path module and added in the scaling in a way that was easy to use.

Now that I hd the tool, I just need the path to extrude along and how much to scale at each point. To figure this out, I took another picture of the mini, this time with a ruler for scale (seen at right). This is actually a different mini that had a primer coat on it. Next, I imported the picture into Inkscape. I then scaled it so that there were 10 pixels to a millimeter. This would allow me 1/10th of a millimeter resolution when I was making measurements. Next I drew a curve onto the image down the middle of each strut and then averaged the two curves. This would be the path that the extrusion was to follow.

The next step was to get the scaling at a number of points along that curve. The question was, how many points would I need. As you can see, the entire strut is only a little more than half an inch (about 17mm) in length. I could go really finely detailed but that would be overkill. But if I didn’t have enough, it wouldn’t look smooth enough. I ended up just looking at it and finding points where either the path made a significant change or the width of the strut had a change in curvature (the derivatives changed for those who remember their calculus). In the end, I picked 12 points along the path.

Once I had the points I then drew a line perpendicular to the path that touched the two edges of the strut. With all that done, I read off the coordinates of each point and length of each perpendicular line segment. That gave me the points for the curve and the scaling in one dimension. The scaling in the other dimension came from just making a few measurements with the calipers at a few points along it’s length since the strut is mostly the same thickness with a big of flaring as it approached the main body of the ship.

With all that done, I plugged all the numbers into a few arrays, called the path_extrude() function from the module and out came the strut. I had to do a few small tweaks but it worked quite well and generated the shape you see in the image above.

The final bit was all that stuff at the back of the fuselage. As you can see from the two images of the original miniatures, it was kind of hard to see. But working carefully between the two miniatures, and looking at both sides of each, I was able to tease out a structure. I have the advantage that I don’t have to get molten metal to flow through a mold in making these models so I can go with slightly finer and more defined features in my models than appear on the original miniatures. I had already noticed this on the bigger UPF ships, especially the cannons on the battleship and light cruiser. I took advantage of it here as well.

Printing

With the model complete, it was time to print. Nothing really exciting here, it was a fairly straightforward print. I printed it nose up like I did all the other ships and, standing 41 mm (1.6″) tall, it took about 4.5 hours to print. Given that there isn’t a lot of detail on this one, it might be possible to get a good print with it lying flat which would reduce the print time to about 1.5 hours but require a bit more support on the “down” side of the ship.

Here’s the final printed miniature next to the original (unprimed) mini.

A few things stood out to me comparing the two, some of which I’ve already mentioned. One is the shape of the bow. The other is the rings around the cargo pods. They probably need to be a bit bigger on the model as they didn’t stand out as much as I was expecting.

The other major difference is the details at the back of the fuselage. I think in the end I made them a little bit smaller than on the original. That said, there is more detail in the printed one than in the original.

I also noticed that the engines have a bit of a wobble to them but that can be cured in future prints with a little more support structure to hold things steady.

Up Next

At some point I’ll revisit this model and tweak the cargo pods. Both to make the ring around the top and bottom more defined, and also to make one or two more different shaped pods and produce miniatures with the different cargo containers. The great thing about working in OpenSCAD is that the cargo containers are just a function. Write a new function for the new shape, call that one instead, and viola, you’re done with a new miniature. But for now, I’m happy with the way this one turned out.

Next month’s model will be an agriculture ship. This will be a new creation as there is no existing mini for this type of ship. There was some discussion about it recently on the various Star Frontiers social media hubs and that inspired me to make that model before tackling the privateer minis.

You’ll be able to order this mini from the Order Miniatures page here on the site if you want a printed miniature, or grab the model from my 3D Models page on DriveThruRPG if you have your own printer.

Let me know your thoughts, comments, or suggestions in the comment section below.

Detailed Frontier Timeline – FY60.391 to FY61.019

This month see a new year in the Frontier, an escalation of the tension with a small battle between UPF and sathar forces, and the start of construction on a new UPF exploration ship. The HSS History’s Hope also runs in to some trouble with a few bad misjumps, ending up in systems they never intended.

Date (FY)Event
60.391 Construction of the CMS Swallow begins
60.392 The CRL-E1 maintenance robot on Jetsom stops functioning and refuse to move or obey any commands.  Resetting its mission and functions restores functionality but only for a few hours. The rescue team realize that it has become infected by the Matrix. (SFAD5)
60.393 – After reviewing the data from Patrol Group Flint, and in light of the information returned by the Discovery Squadron, the commander of Strike Force Nova decides to send another scouting mission to OFS019 before making more definite plans.

– Patrol Group Flint is again detached from the Strike Force and begins accelerating for a jump back to the OFS019 system.  If possible, they are to remain undetected in the system and transmit data back via subspace radio.
60.394 Second K’aken-Kar militia assault scout arrives in its home system.
60.395 Repair work and astrogation calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating toward their next system, designated YS002.
60.396 Shakedown cruise complete, the fifth Saurian Ark Ship begins loading of cargo and passengers.
60.397 After over two weeks of dealing with issues caused by the Matrix, the rescue team finally discover its fatal weakness and start taking measures to destroy the virus and eradicate it from the Jetsom platform. (SFAD5)
60.398 Patrol Group Flint arrives in OFS019 once again. They stay near jump speed with engines off to reduce the chance of detection and coast across the system at high velocity. They begin cataloging signals from ships in the system.
60.399 The HSS History’s Hope initiates the Void Jump to YS02. Unfortunately, due to an error in their calculations, they end up in an unknown binary star system.  Designating this as YS03, they start deceleration and trying to figure out where they ended up.
60.400 – Preparations, which have been going on for weeks, are finalized on worlds around the Frontier for a major Founding Day celebration celebrating six full decades of the United Planetary Federation. While some events over the past year have been troubling, everyone is determined to make this a celebration to be long remembered.

– After two days of data collection, Patrol Group Flint catalogs an ever growing sathar presence in the system. They have identified over 25 military vessels including four of the new, unknown ship type, as well as a station and various ancillary ships. The data is relayed back to Strike Force Nova.
61.001 – Major Founding Day celebrations held throughout the Frontier. Although there were some small incidents, the general mood on every world was very upbeat.

– Having crossed the system so that their engine emissions should be less noticeable, Patrol Group Flint begins decelerating.  They have solidified the ship count to 8 fighters, 4 of the unknown ships, and 15 capital ships, plus a single space station.
61.002 WarTech factories on Hargut (Gruna Garu) attacked by unknown forces. Expecting a lower alert level due to the Founding Day celebrations, the attackers underestimate the automated defenses and alertness of the security staff and are repulsed with heavy losses.
61.003 Sathar forces in OFS019 detect the decelerating ships of PG Flint.  A light cruiser, two destroyers and a frigate are dispatched under radio blackout to intercept.  They boost hard for several hours and then kill their engines, minimizing emissions as they approach.
61.004 Streel files a protest with the Council of Worlds requesting that its ships that were part of Discovery Squadron be released by Strike Force Nova to return to the Frontier as they are private vessels and not part of Spacefleet or a planetary militia.
61.005 After six days of work, the History’s Hope astrogation team finally determines their location.  They shot way beyond their mark arriving in a system that is 6 light years beyond YS02. The good news is that they know where they were, the bad news is that it is well off the path they had planned to take, and they now have two uncharted jumps back to YS01.
61.006 – Deceleration complete, Patrol Group Flint continue to monitor the OFS019 system and begins plotting a return jump to Kazak from their current location.

– The Sathar starship construction center in the Liberty system completes a destroyer.

– With only eight days until the orbital window opens for them to return to the Moneyspider, the recovery team on Jetsom has nearly eradicated the Matrix from the mining platform.  The only holdouts are areas where damage prevents them from pressurizing the area and increasing the temperature.
61.007 After three days of deliberations within Spacefleet, the Council of Worlds, and slow communication with Strike Force Nova’s commander, all of the ships of Discovery Squadron are dedeputized and allowed to depart Kazak and return home.The six ships of Discovery Squadron from Truane’s Star depart immediately upon their release.  The two Humma ships stay with the Flight forces in the system.
61.008 Patrol Group Flint detect the approaching sathar ships as they begin decelerating and angling for intercept.  With evasion unlikely, the UPF ships send off a subspace radio and begin a hard acceleration to try to escape, while expecting to fight a very uneven battle.
61.009 The sathar ships catch Patrol Group Flint.  After a short running battle, the two UPF destroyers are destroyed by the sathar forces which suffer severe damage to the frigate and one destroyer, but all ships survive the battle.
61.010 – Loading complete, the fifth saurian Ark ships departs the Sauria system for destinations unknown.

– With the destruction of PG Flint, the sathar launch a raid into the Frontier sector to try to draw off the Frontier forces from wherever they are basing from. Two light cruisers, three destroyers, and a frigate leave for Zebulon via a high-speed transit of the Kazak system.
61.011 The HSS History’s Hope’s attempt to jump to the YS02 system from YS03 fails and they land once again in an unknown binary system of two M dwarf stars. As they decelerate, they begin trying to work out their position.  It seems travel here in the Vast Expanse is more difficult than expected.
61.012 Construction is completed on the CDCSS Mystic at the Triad (Cassidine) shipyards. While it has the same profile as the CDCSS Nightwind, this ship is focused on passenger transport rather than cargo.  It begins a shakedown cruise carrying CDC personnel from Triad to Rupert’s Hole and back.
61.013 The Council of Worlds convenes for the FY61 session. 
61.014 – The CMS Osprey docks with a strange looking freighter for what its commanding officer, Lt. Tabbe, says is a “high security” mission.  When the airlock opens sathar swarm into the assault scout. After an intense battle, the Osprey’s boarding party neutralize the sathar and their agent Lt. Tabbe.  The freighter gets away, but the Osprey is saved.

– The sathar ships from OFS019 arrive in Kazak well outside the inner system.  They remain near jump speed search the system for signals of Flight or Spacefleet presence in the system.
61.015 Detecting Strike Force Nova and the Flight forces in the system, the sathar ships begin cataloging the ships detected. They remain near jump speed and coast through the outer system.
61.016 After five days of around-the-clock work, the astrogators on the HSS History’s Hope have determined their location and also uncovered an error in their astrographic catalog that may have been the source of their error. The system is designated YS04.
61.017 – After a day of rest, the HSS History’s Hope’s astrogators begin charting a route to YS01, the closest system with known jump routes.  It is a 10 light year jump, the farthest new jump they have charted.  OFS219 is closer, at 8 ly, but would require several new jumps to get back to charted space lanes.

– Discovery Squadron arrives in the Osak system where they spend a day resting before heading on to Capella
61.018 The rescue crew from Jetsom returns to the Moneyspider to the relief of Captain Akizk.  As the rescue crew is en route to the Captain’s office, the Captain dies, seemingly by suicide. The second in command (Ellen Coopermann, human) doesn’t believe their report about the Matrix. (SFAD5)
61.019 The Frontier Expeditionary Force begins organizing a project to explore beyond the Theseus system.  A new ship, the UPFS Elanor Moraes is commissioned for construction at the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards.

Here’s the full file:

DetailedFrontierTimelineDownload

State of the Frontier – Feb 2020

Happy Leap Day! I hope this blog is still around in four years to say that again. Who knows where we’ll be by then. I managed to get a post in every Tuesday this month, mainly because my Yazirian Legends and Lore post ended up needing two slots. Let’s get started.

Looking Back

I think I’ve settled into a routine that may become fairly standard for the next little while. We’ll see how it goes. The month started with the usual Detailed Frontier Timeline post followed on the second week by a post about a new miniature, this time the Pirate Frigate. The last two posts of the month were my posts for the RPG Blog Carnival on Yazirian History, and Yazirian Legends and Lore, which turned out to be more lore than legends but that’s okay. Doing the information for the yazirians has gotten me thinking about the other Frontier species so you may see articles like those for other species in the future.

Behind the scenes, there were a number of things going on this month. Why does it always seem February is the busiest month?

First off, I completed another orbit around the Sun celebrating my birthday mid-month. It is left as a (not so difficult) exercise for the reader to determine how many orbits I’ve made.

Another project that I finished was to move all of my websites to the new server. Last month I migrated all my externally hosted sites to the new server; this month I moved all the sites hosted on my old server over (except this one, which was already running on the new machine). This includes my old Programming Space blog, the Star Frontiersman webzine site, the Star Frontiers Network site, and the Star Frontiers Revival site. Yes I host a bunch of different Star Frontiers sites. The Star Frontiers Network was originally mine and I’ve collected the others over the years. With the migration, all of these sites are now set up with SSL certificates and default to the secure HTTPS protocol so you should see the little lock icon in your browser.

Another thing that happened is that I was recruited to help out with the Space Kids RPG Kickstarter. I’ll be providing astronomy and science nuggets that will be littered through the rules to teach about those topics. You may notice some familiar influences. The project’s creator, Nick Landry (@ActiveNick on Twitter), is a big Star Frontiers fan. The project has funded and, if you’re reading this on the day this post drops, is still open (It closes the evening of March 1, 2020). If you haven’t already, go back it.

I also helped Trevor Holman get another module ready for FrontierSpace. His module, Gremlins, is the second in his series and is available now on DriveThruRPG. I provided the editing on the module. This is number 2 of a planned 12 modules so be sure to keep and eye out for them. I’ll be posting about them as they are available.

Finally, I was hired out to work on the index of another upcoming RPG. That’s still a work in progress and I’ll talk about it when it comes out, although it’s not sci-fi related.

What didn’t happen was any advance work on issue 28 of the Frontier Explorer. These other projects ate up my time for that. I’ll have to get cracking next month. I also didn’t do so well on working on my book, adding only ~2000 words.

Looking Forward

So what is coming up in March?

On the blog, you can look forward to the regular Detailed Frontier Timeline post in a couple of days. The second week will be a new miniature, this time the freighter from the Federations Ships boxed set. I’ve teased that one on other social media platforms and my Patreon subscribers have already received the model. I’m currently working on an agriculture ship which will be April’s model.

The RPG Blog Carnival topic for next month is Alchemy. I’m not sure how I’m going to work that into a sci-fi topic but we should get a post on that at some point this month.

Right now I suspect that the fourth post of the month will be a new star sector map. In the Detailed Frontier Timeline, one of the threads has been the voyage of the HSS History’s Hope that I talked about in the Yazirian Legends and Lore post earlier this week. I have a map of the star sector they are traveling through, I just need to clean it up. I will probably do a post about that later in the month. It introduces some new features into the maps I’m making.

March has five Tuesdays which would normally be a fifth content post. But I’m saved by the fact that the last Tuesday is also the last day of the month so this time around it will just be the next State of the Frontier post.

Behind the scenes, this is editing month. I’ll be working furiously on the articles for the next issue of the Frontier Explorer which will come out in April. I hope to get the editing and preliminary layout done early so my volunteer artists have time to create any images I might need.

I’ll also be finishing up the indexing of that upcoming RPG which will eat up some of my time here at the beginning of the month. That’s a freelance project with a deadline (and a paycheck) so it actually takes top priority.

Another thing I plan to do this month is revamp my Patreon rewards and goals. If there is a reward tier you’d like to see, or something that would encourage you to support the site, please let me know.

On the computer side, the only thing still running on my old server is my mail server. That will get moved over to the new server this month allowing me to finally shut down the old computer. Once that is done, I’ll be embarking on the website upgrades for all the sites I manage, probably starting with the Frontier Explorer site to make it more mobile friendly.

Wrapping up

That’s quite a busy schedule. We’ll see how much of it actually happens. Is there anything you’d like to see me working or or types of posts you’d like to read? Please let me know in the comments below.

Legends and Lore – Yazirians

RPG Blog Carnival Logo

This is the second part of my post on the history, legends, and lore of the yazirians in my Star Frontier universe. Part one, Yazirian History, was posted last week. Both of these posts are part of February’s RPG Blog Carnival, Legends and Lore, being hosted by the Enderra blog.

In last week’s post, we looked at the history of the yazirian species in relation to their arrival in the Frontier region and colonization of the worlds they now occupy. Most of the material presented there is both fact and general knowledge in the Frontier that most characters would either know or be able to discover with just a little bit of research. In this post, we look at things that may be true but unknown, true but hidden, rumor, speculation, or conjecture, the latter three may be true or false. I’ll try to flag each of these items as I discuss them.

Some of this information is part of the ideas I have for an major campaign where the PCs go in search of the yazirian homeworld, the fate of those that remained behind, and the Warhon’s ship. They are definitely spoilers for anyone that may play in that game if I ever run it.

I think the best way to do this will be to organize the ideas by general topic, possibly with a miscellaneous section at the end. In each section, I’m just going to provide a bulleted list with the relevant information. Let’s get started.

The Fate of Yazira

  • The last exodus ship that arrived in the Frontier departed Yazira some ten years before closest approach of the interloping brown dwarf. (fact, known)
  • Millions of yazirians remained on Yaziria unwilling to leave their world. (fact, known)
  • No ship has ever returned to the Yazira system. (fact, known)
  • In the early days after yazirians arrived in the Frontier, several ships attempted to go back to Yazira to see what happened. None of these ships have ever returned. (fact, obscure)
  • Most of these ships that failed to return were destroyed by agents of the Family of One. (fact, deeply hidden) Some simply disappeared and their fate is unknown, but none made it to Yazira.
  • There is no known jump route data back to Yazira. (false rumor). Deep within the archives of Clan Anglann and the Family of One, there is a stored set of routes back to Yazira. They are known only to a few yazirians and heavily guarded and obscured. They are also nearly a century out of date at this point and may not be valid.
  • Modern yazirians don’t even know which star is their homeworld, just the general direction in the sky. (fact, known) There are some members of the Family of One who know, but this knowledge is a closely guarded secret as well.
  • Predictions of Yazira’s fate, based on the path of the brown dwarf, indicated that the planet would be hurled out of the system into deep interstellar space. (fact, obscure)
  • Instead of being spun out into interstellar space, Yaziria was actually captured by the brown dwarf as it passed through the system and now circles that object in a wide orbit as it continues on its journey. (fact, unknown)

Fate of the Warhon and his Guard

  • Of all the exodus ships, only the Warhon’s ship failed to make the trip to the Frontier (fact, known)
  • The Warhon’s ship was sabotaged by agents of Clan Anglann so that it wouldn’t arrive and they could seize power. (discredited rumor, but true). There is no evidence to support this anywhere in the Frontier but Clan Anglann did sabotage the Warhon’s ship. All records possibly relating to this were lost in a computer “crash” early after the exodus. Only two living yazirians, seniors elders in the Family of One, know the truth and they aren’t saying anything.
  • Most of the Warhon’s personal guard that were part of the early exodus died soon after arriving in the Frontier. (fact, obscure) Most of these deaths were “accidents” caused by Clan Anglann (obscure rumor, fact). Most modern yazirians have moved on and just don’t care.
  • Some of the Warhon’s Guard survived the purge and quickly emigrated to the Prenglar, Triad, and Truane’s Star systems where they went into hiding from the Family of One. (fact, obscure)
  • The survivors of the Warhon’s Guard formed a secret society named “True Yaziria” that word to oppose or diminish the influence of the Family of One (fact, obscure)
  • Despite the sabotage of the Warhon’s ship, it was not destroyed and managed to survive long enough to make planetfall on an unknown world. (fact, unknown) Rumors exist that it is still out there, spread by True Yazira, but it is all speculation. No facts exist to support it.
  • The genetic Ark on the Warhon’s ship survived and is completely intact in the remains of the ship. (fact, unknown)
  • All of the conspiracy against the Warhon was a very small slice of Clan Anglann. (fact, unknown/hidden) Most clan members were not involved and would be horrified to know the truth.

The General Population

  • Very few living yazirians actually remember their homeworld as most were born in the Frontier. There is a small and dwindling population (maybe 10%) of older yazirians that actually lived on Yazira. (fact, known)
  • There is a fairly large generation gap between this older population and the next wave of yazirians. In the final years leading up to the exodus, the birthrate dropped off significantly. (fact, known)
  • The yazirians of the Frontier, while aware of Yazira, don’t give it much thought except as it is used in holovids and expressions about how things used to be. (fact, known)
  • The problems with terraforming operations on the worlds in the Scree Fron, Athor, and Gruna Garu systems are intentional problems caused by the Family of One and the General Overall Development Corporation (GODCo) to keep those systems in line. (false, rumor). The problems truly are technical and result from GODCo being overextended trying to work on five different worlds instead of just the one they original planned for. Despite having nearly a century to grow, they still don’t have the resources and manpower they need. These issues provide openings for rumors to be spread by the True Yazira society in their effort to undermine the Family of One.
  • Interaction with the other species of the Frontier dealt a serious blow to the yazirian cultural identity as a warrior species. (fact, obscure) They discovered that despite their history, they were neither the strongest nor the nimblest species in the area. Although it is slowly fading away, ripples of this are still seen throughout yazirian culture, especially among older yazirians.

Lost Scoutships

  • There were many scout ships sent out from Yazira shortly after FTL travel was discovered, most of these never returned. (fact, obscure)
  • Several of these lost starships made it to systems in or near the Frontier, including Volturnus in the Zebulon system. There may be survivors, possibly descendants of the crews, in primitive societies to be discovered. The crew that made it to Zebulon did not survive. (fact, unknown)
  • Some of the scoutships penetrated into sathar space and were captured or destroyed. (fact, unknown)

Family of One and GODCo

  • All of the upper management of GODCo are members of the Family of One (fact, discoverable).
  • All of the upper management of GODCo are members of Clan Anglann (false, rumor). While a significant portion are, not all of them are from the same clan.
  • The Family of One is using the work done by GODCo to attempt to control all of the yazirian populated worlds. (false, rumor). While the upper leadership of GODCo are members of the Family of One, they are not ideological power-mongers. At least not any more than leaders of other mega-corps. While some fervently believe in the idea of a unified yazirian species according to the Family of One precepts, many are only interested in helping their fellow yazirians and are members of the Family of One out of necessity – they couldn’t hold their position if they weren’t.
  • Many members of the Family of One are members in name only and only minimally hold to many of the tenants of the religion. (fact) They are members because you need to be to hold any significant position on Hentz (Araks).
  • Family of One members on worlds other than Hentz tend to me more fervent as membership is optional on those worlds. (fact)
  • The Family of One is watching all aspects of yazirian culture, everywhere. (partially true, rumor). While the Family of One tries to keep abreast of everything going on, they don’t have nearly as many spies, inquisitors, and informants as the rumors (spread by the True Yazira society) would have you believe.
  • The Family of One is preventing GODCo from deploying all of its technology and releasing all the flora and fauna from Yazira on the worlds other than Hentz. (fact). Debates about this practice arise regularly in yazirian society. GODCo claims that it is because the environment are not ready or suitable, but most of the restrictions come from the Family of One and their effort to ensure that Hentz is the only “New Yazira”.

HSS History’s Hope

In my Detailed Frontier Timeline, one of the story threads is covering the travels of the HSS History’s Hope, a small exploration ship registered on Hakosaur (Scree Fron) that is currently trying to chart a route to a star system believed to be Yazira. If you want to use this little storyline in your campaign, there are some rumors about it, even though the project has just started.

  • The Family of One tried to cover up and suppress the discovery of the star system with the nearby brown dwarf because they knew it was Yazira. (fact, rumor) This rumor popped up almost immediately and is based in fact. The star system is Yazira and the Family of One doesn’t want people poking around because no one knows what they will find.
  • The HSS History’s Hope is being financed by True Yazira. (partially true) While many of the original supporters of the expedition, and and many that provided initial funding, are members of True Yazira, not all of them are and it isn’t a project being directed by the secret society. It just aligned with the society’s goals and many members independently jumped on the opportunity.
  • Most of the entire crew of the HSS History’s Hope are members of True Yaziria (fact, obscure rumor). Since the society’s membership is very obscured, it is hard to tell for sure who is and who isn’t a member. The rumor circulates among upper members of the Family of One. Most others don’t know about the secret society or don’t care. The fact is that about 80% of the crew are members of the society simply because they have an interest in finding Yazira. It wasn’t intentionally planned.
  • The Family of One has sent ships to eliminate the HSS History’s Hope. (fact, hidden). This one is a spoiler for the timeline. As I’m writing this, the History’s Hope has had a bad string of calculations and made some misjumps. When they finally get back to the known space lanes, they are going to have to deal with this.

Outstanding Questions

The points above provide some ideas and background but they also raise a number of questions. These are either things I’m going to flesh out in the future as I develop the storylines more or things that someone using this information could expand upon as well. Some of these are:

  • What exactly happened to the Warhon’s ship?
    • How did it fail? What was the damage?
    • Did the crew survive? All enter freeze fields?
    • What happened to the Warhon’s family?
  • If they made it to a planet surface, what is their current state?
    • Another yazirian colony?
    • What tech level are they at?
    • What happened to the genetic ark?
  • What is the “True Yaziria” society doing?
    • How to you become a member?
    • How well known is it?
    • What resources does it have access to?
    • I invented this organization just recently as I was working out the detail of these two posts so this is an area I plan on expanding on. This may very well show up as an entry in June when I’m hosting the Blog Carnival.
  • What events and consequences will the HSS History’s Hope expedition trigger? What will they find?

Final Thoughts

That’s what I have for now. There is still a lot of legend and lore for the yazirians that could be explored. I intentionally didn’t cover much in regards to the daily life of a typical member of the species and current events in the Frontier, just items that are part of their cultural heritage. Some of these other ideas will undoubtedly show up in future posts. Other bits may show up in the pages of the Frontier Explorer.

What legends and lore do you have for the yazirian species? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

Yazirian History

RPG Blog Carnival Logo

The RPG Blog Carnival this month is being hosted by the Enderra Worldbuild & Role-playing Games blog and the topic is Legends and Lore. You can follow that link to find all the other posts people have made on the topic.

When I read this topic, my mind immediately went to the Yazirians in the Star Frontiers setting. They were a natural choice to pursue in greater depth, especially based on much of the fan material that has been developed for that species. And while I’ve been thinking about these ideas for all of the Star Frontiers species, the yazirians are particularly relevant to me right now since part of my Detailed Frontier Timeline (most recent post as of this writing) is currently dealing with a plot line exploring this history directly, namely a ship, the HSS History’s Hope, that is headed toward a system that they think might be Yazira, the yazirian homeworld.

A lot of the foundation for this background is set in two articles that we published in the Star Frontiersman nearly a decade ago in issue 16, back in December 2010. The first is an article written by my friend Tom Verreault entitled “Origin of the Species & the UPF” on page 34 of that issue. In this he gives his version of how the various species in the Frontier got there. The second article, which I wrote to support the ideas he presented for the yazirians in that article, is entitled “Interstellar Interloper (Brown Dwarf)” (p. 46), and discusses what could happen to a planetary system if a brown dwarf sized object passed close through the center of a star system. I recommend you grab issue 16 and read both articles.

This is going to be a two part series. In this first post will look at the background and history of the Yazirian race as I conceive them when running games. The next one will look at the Legends and Lore as it exists at the current point in the campaign. Some of the material is fact, some is common knowledge, some is belief, and some is propaganda. I’ll be looking at it from all those angles.

The Loss of Yazira

The yazirian homeworld, Yazira, orbited a K4 star that is located some 100 light years “west” of the Frontier in an area known as the Vast Expanse, so named because of its low stellar density and large distances between neighboring star systems. Interestingly, very, very few yazirians living today actually know the location of this star system. More on that in the next post. To start let’s go back to about 200 years ago.

It was a time of relative peace and growing industrialization and prosperity for the world. The world had been united under a single government for several centuries and was beginning to develop spaceflight and really start looking into the universe beyond the Yazira system.

A Threat Discovered

It was at this point, as they began to survey the cosmos, that the yazirian astronomers noticed something in the sky that would completely change the course of their specie’s history. When it was first discovered, it was a curiosity. An object extremely bright in the infrared but extremely faint in the visible, even with the yazirian’s definition of visible light that extended somewhat into the infrared. It wasn’t long before a theoretical model was developed for the object, something we today call a brown dwarf.

The astronomers were excited. Based on the observed characteristics, they realized it had to be very close to Yazira. It would allow them to study this type of object up close. As the object was studied more, the distance, a mere 1500 AU, was established.

However, what was also established was that it was coming closer. Over the next few years, the orbit of the object was refined and it was realized that the brown dwarf was falling nearly directly toward their star and would pass very close to their world in the process. Simulations showed that depending on the mass of the object and its exact path, their world and species was in for a major catastrophe ranging from severe and drastic orbital and therefore climate change to complete ejection from their solar system. If something wasn’t done, they were probably doomed as a species.

The bad news was that they were in trouble. The good news was that they had nearly 140 years to prepare. To the Warhon’s credit (the leader of the yazirians), he took the news in stride and neither dismissed it since it wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, nor panicked. Rather he understood the issue for what it was and began charting a course for his people.

The general populace wasn’t so stoic. Many denounced the scientists as alarmists. Others claimed the discovery to be a hoax. Still others used it to as an excuse to hoard survival gear, food, and other essentials and drop out of society. Many just ignored it due to the long time scale. The most troubling, however, were those that took the news to mean that society was over and reverted to lawlessness and anarchy. It was these latter groups that would plague yazirian society for the next century.

A Plan Takes Shape

Over the next decade, as the Warhon’s troops dealt with the anarchists and the astronomers worked to refine the object’s trajectory even more, the government began investing heavily in space technology. While yazirians had already visited their two moons and had many low altitude orbital flights, the extra push from the government allowed them to set foot on other worlds in the system for the first time before the decade was over.

With the development in space technology well under way, the government also started a few other projects. One was increased medical research, especially related to long duration spaceflight and how the yazirian body would adapt and change under different conditions (gravity, stellar flux, etc).

The other was called the Ark Project. This had two areas of focus. The first was to catalog the genomes of every species on the planet, plant and animal, and collect this into a large database as well as collecting samples of as many species as possible. The second was a push into cloning technology that would allow the recreation of those species from the database.

The ultimate goal was to move the yazirian population off of their homeworld to somewhere else. Where was yet to be determined. The initial plan called for the creation of huge generations ships that would travel to likely star systems looking for a world to inhabit. Astronomers had already begun looking for worlds around other suitable stars.

A Change of Plans

Some thirty years after the original identification of the brown dwarf, a discovery occurred that would change the very foundation of what had come to be called the Exodus project.

Using a variety of propulsion technologies, a major break through had been achieved that would allow them to accelerate small probes fast enough to reach some of the nearer star systems before the generations ships would have to leave the Yazira system. The first probes were launched, and as they achieved speeds of about 1% the speed of light, only a fraction of their final velocity, they vanished.

At first it was believed that the probes had broke up or otherwise become inoperable. However, deep radar scans of the region of space they should have been in returned no data. And having five probes, all going different directions, vanish in exactly the same way was more than mere coincidence.

Another set of probes were launched as a test which ended with the exact same result. Yazirian scientists realized that this was some fundamental aspect of physics that they had not suspected or known about. Hundreds of researchers started working on the problem.

It was nearly a decade before a breakthrough was made and a theory of hyperdimensional travel was discovered. In the mean time, work had been going on to improve technology to the point that a crewed vessel could achieve the speeds necessary to invoke the effect.

It would be another decade before a ship was ready to make the first attempt at testing this theory. With a total delta-V of 5% of the speed of light, the ship should be able to achieve the hyperdimenional travel speed, slow down and do it again. Thus is should be able to make a trip and return. In theory.

A Historic Flight

With an all volunteer crew, the YSS Grand Voyager set out on its maiden voyage in an attempt to make history. It took a month of acceleration to get up to near the 1% speed of light threshold and then another agonizing month of small bursts of thrust to precisely measure and cross the threshold. Then just like the the probes, the Grand Voyager vanished.

It would be months of anxious waiting before the fate of the Grand Voyager would be learned. Most people had given up hope when a faint radio signal was received from the ship coming from high out of the orbital plane of the system. They had survived the trip and hyperdimensional travel, which would come to be called Void travel when they met the other species in the Frontier, was possible. There was still much to learn about this new form of travel, but the travel time for the exodus had been greatly reduced.

Looking for a Place to Call Home

Over the next two decades, propulsion technology was innovated and improved and more and more ships were launched to scout out the nearby star systems looking for a world that they could move the population of Yazira to. Most of these ships would eventually be lost as they explored further and further from Yazira. It was not known if there were troubles with the Void travel, mechanical failures with the ships, or they had suffered misfortune in the systems they visited.

As ships did return, they learned much about the nearby stellar systems but no suitable world was found. Finally, after nearly two more decades of searching, a ship returned from a two year journey reporting that a suitable world had been found, nearly 100 light years away. The star was significantly brighter and yellower than Yazira but the world itself was nearly Yazira’s twin in climate and gravity.

During this time, the designs of the exodus ships were rebuilt from the ground up to use this new mode of faster than light travel. With a destination finally established, exploration ceased and construction began on the first ship, the YSS Yazira’s Ark, that would take a select crew, along with a copy of the genetic archive, to this new world to start preparing it for the arrival of the rest of the population.

The Exodus Begins

It took five years for the YSS Yazira’s Ark to be completed. Crewed primarily by members of Clan Anglann, it departed for the new system which had been dubbed Araks to colonize and begin yaziriforming the planet Hentz.

By this time, the brown dwarf was visible to the unaided eye on Yazira and was year by year growing brighter. The world began to focus almost completely on the construction of the exodus ships. While there were some that decried the damage being done to the environment due to the industrialization of the planet, most understood that the world was doomed and so accepted the changes.

Five years after the YSS Yazira’s Ark left, five more ship were completed with nearly twenty-five more in some stated of completion. These later ships were gigantic, nearly ten times the size of the Yazira’s Ark. It would take nearly two hundred more to move the entire population. With the first five ships complete, the exodus of the yazirian population to Hentz began in earnest.

It had been decided early on that when the time came, ships would be populated by clans. While the crews were often from Clan Anglann, the passengers were drawn from a single clan or possibly two. Depending on the size of the clan, it could take two or three ships to hold the entire clan population.

Over the next two decades, a steady stream of ships departed the Yazira system. Finally, the last ships were completed, three of the giant colony ships and a final, smaller ship modeled on the original Yazira’s Ark. This last ship contained the Royal Court, the Warhon and his family, who was the son of the Warhon who had started the project, 120 years earlier. It also contained a final copy of the genetic database including all the additional data that had been collected since the Yazira’s Ark had left. It was the last ship to leave their doomed world. The interloping brown dwarf was clearly visible in the night sky and only 18 years away. It was the last ship to leave.

Trouble at the Destination

As the second wave of colony ships were arriving at Hentz, the yazirians detected signals from other spacefaring species not too far from their new world. Concerned that they might be hostile, Clan Anglann, which had been organizing the exodus, diverted ships from waves three and four to several new worlds in systems nearby. These ships went to the Athor, Gruna Garu and Scree Fron systems. The worlds there were not as desirable as Hentz, but the yazirians wouldn’t have all their eggs in a single basket if these new species proved to be hostile.

Loss of the Warhon

The trip from Yazira to Araks was a long one requiring nearly twenty Void jumps along the way. As the final fleet of ships made the journey, disaster struck. On the 5th jump, the Warhon’s ship didn’t arrive in the destination system. The other three ships waited for nearly two months but the Warhon never reappeared. Finally, they completed their journey and delivered the news to the yazirians on Hentz and it was related to the others in the Athor, Gruna Garu, and Scree Fron systems.

A week of mourning was held for the Warhon’s family. And then political chaos erupted. With the entire royal family gone, a power vacuum was created. In the end, Clan Anglann and the Family of One, who had been organizing the exodus on behalf of the Warhon, took control of the yazirian government.

Fallout

Many suspected foul play. Of the nearly 250 ships built, only the newest ship with the most up to date technology was unable to make the trip. Coincidentally, it also happened to contain the Warhon and his family. The most vocal opponents of the Family of One’s rule was the Warhon’s personal guard that had arrived in advance. Their voices were quickly surpressed. Many just vanished. Others emigrated to the Prenglar, Cassidine, and Truane’s Star systems, integrating with the other races in the Frontier who the yazirians had established contact with some years before.

It wasn’t too many years later that the sathar first appeared in the Frontier. This effectively put an end to the inter-clan conflict as the species in the Frontier united to fend off his new foe. With the formation of the UPF, the yazirian race started looking forward instead of back. Some still remember the old days but most have accepted the new order and are working toward the future.

Next Time

That represents the history of the Yazirian people as most people know it. There are a few things in that narrative that are not widely known (such as the suppression of dissension by the Family of One, but that information should be familiar to most yazirian characters and many non-yazirians as well.

Next week we’ll look at lots of details behind the scenes and outside the Frontier that impact the store and contribute to the lore of the yazirian species.