 November 30, 2011 - 11:33am | Mono Track employees inspecting mass transit tunnels beneath the city Grountz after last week's 8.6 earthquake discovered passages leading deeper beneath the city. Several workers were overcome by gases and two were discovered dismembered. Officials have no explanation for the dismemberments. One survivor reported seeing ancient artifacts before being overcome by gas. No artifacts were viewed or recovered by rescue crews. A specialized team is being dispatched from the Triad Institute of Technology to investigate. Worksheet thread to develop materail for a Terledrom write up the name of the city Grountz comes from a fiction by Layne Saltern who ran a fan site for SF during the 90s I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 2, 2011 - 6:47am | Canon material: Fromeltar is a G5 star Terledrom: Dralasite Vrusk heavily populated planet, Industrial economy, Gravity 1.0, 60 hour day, Armed space station, 2 moons: Wikk (colonization use), Leen (industrial use), Masg (no use) Sister planet is Groth with a purely dralasite population (light) and ag econonmy basically your classic farming province. Gravity 1.2, 45 hour day and an armed space station. AD Footnote: Terledrom is ruled by a council of Vrusk companies and elected dralasites. The companies control all trade with other planets, and consider smuggling a serious crime. The planet has rings that are visible from the ground during the day. Zebs Footnote: Terledrom is ruled by a council of Vrusk companies and elected dralasites. Transtravel is is a planetary corporation and the chief employer of Terledrom. Its headquarters are based in Sengsen, the major city. Trans-Travel is a planetary corporation composed of many different companies all financed by and headquartered on the same planet, Terledrom. The government of Terledrom formed this corporation at the outbreak of SW2. It was the first of the new mega-corps. All of these companies specialize in some form of transportation or manufacturing of transport vehicles or machines. Trans-Travel itself controls 80% of nonmilitary space travel. This includes tranportation of raw materials, processed goods, passengers, etc. Trans-Travel's slogan, "Your safest route is with Trans-Travel," is as much a warning to the mega corps as an advertisement. T-T consideres smuggling a serious crime and will punish it by death, if given a chance. Headquarters, Sengsen, Terledrom, Fromeltar Chief Executives: Ruled by a council of Yazirians whose identities are not common knowledge Subsidaries: Frontier Spaceship Manufacturing Corp., Interstellar Vehicles Co., Stewint Land Transport Co., Curtis Cycle Corporation, Dobson Security Vehicles, Ltd., Moore Labs side not Zik-kit is a colony controlled by Terledrom and ships its mined ore to terledrom for manufacturing. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 2, 2011 - 7:02am | One glaring problem with the canon that I see is Trans-Travel. 1. its started by the government of Terledrom which is controlled by vrusk companies and elected dralasites and yet this mega corp is run by a board of yazirians? Not very likely that the vrusk would allow that. Since the vrusk trade houses are all up and into controlling the government they would extend that control into a newly formed mega corp. 2. Doesn't make sense that on a planet with a mature economy and well established population that the long existing trade houses and conglomerates of the vrusk would fall behind Trans Travel. Zebs states Trans Travel is the chief employer on Terledrom. I just dont find that credible unless the vrusk really suck as business beings. 3. One wonders about the 30 year old requirement that mega corps be monopolies in one area. It seems to me that they would have a major area of interest but some diversification must go on but perhaps that debate should be held in another location. 4 it seems obvious to me that this is yet another case of the compilers of ZG not paying attention when they rushed that to print. I can Imperial Lord typing, "I told you so," now. I think the simplest solution is to: A: make it a board of vrusk that control the company B. Make it an evolving group of trade houses that became a conglomerate that attained mega corp status and that its history technically started long before SW2 but officially TT began at the outbreak of SW2. under that circumstance then perhaps TT is the chief employer on Terledrom. And since its controlled by vrusk companies it is perhaps deeply involved in the government of Terledrom. Note to self: go look at the vrusk trade house names in Dark Side of the Moon module and port similar ones over to here to be the founding trade houses that organized TT I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 2, 2011 - 7:10am | Question for Terl Obar: Is it possible to have a planet that is within the habitable zone of a G5 star that has 1.0 gravity, 3 moons and rings? Of course those are not just any rings but rings that are viewable from the ground during daylight which strikes me as funny since you would need sunlight reflecting off them for them to be seen anyway. But then the atmosphere migh just scatter the reflected light from the rings so that they should not be visible during the day. I expect that the militia has a speed limit within a certain proximity of the planet due to the presence of the rings though much of their content ought to be ice if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps a comet broke up on a close pass to Terledrom and its material was grabbed by the magnetic field of Terledrom and the rings are only a recent occurance and are quite unstable and will likely disappear completely in a short time as time is measured in the life of a star system. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 2, 2011 - 1:54pm | Cities on Terledrom Sengsen- canon statement is its "the major city" implication is its the capitol Psychsorium- developed elsewhere this site; spiritual soul of the dralasite race- the city for the development of philosophy. Grountz- created in a fiction story by Layne Saltern need to read the full story, "Forced Hand" to look for details. Hive Plantation- Star Play and TT run amusement park recreating the hive experience with corporate convention center for leadership retreats and conventions, think the vrusk version of Pilgrim Plantation. Ground based ship yard and launch facility - needs a vrusk name. Stations in orbit need names (one each planet) Perhaps a industrial research center (target for industrial espionage) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 6, 2011 - 5:43pm | Planet with 1g in habitable zone of a G5 star: Completely possible. The Sun is a G2, so this star is only a little smaller and dimmer than the sun. The planet would need to be a little closer to the star since it is cooler than the sun but otherwise this is not an issue. Three moons: Possibly, if they are all small. Think captured asteroids like Mar's moons. You are definitely not going to have big moons like Earth's although you might get away with one moderate sized moon and then some small ones or even a couple medium sized moons and a little one. I remember I designed a planet that had two moons, one about 1/3 the size of Earth's moon and one 1/2 the size of that in 36 and 25 days orbits. The only way to get it to be stable was to have one of the moon's going retrograde around the planet (i.e. orbiting backwards). It could never have formed like that but that was okay since it was supposed to be a captured moon anyway. Rings: again possible. They would have been created just as you described by some object breaking up in orbit around the planet, usually within it's Roche limit (where the gravity from the planet is large enough to break up large objects). All rings are transitory things on astronomical time scales, Saturn's will be gone in a few hundred million years or so. Rings visible from the planet's surface, even in day time: not very likely, possibly impossible. IIRC I had a problem (I think it was in a trig math class) where we were supposed to compute where on Saturn (assuming it was a solid object) you could best see the rings. And the answer was you couldn't see them at all from the surface. When they were above the horizon they were edge on enough that you didn't get enough light and when you were far enough from the equator that you could see them they were below the horizon. And that was ignoring the day/night issue. And Saturn's rings are HUGE and impressive. I'd have to do some math but my gut feeling is that while the planet could have rings, you aren't going to see them from the surface. Although if they were visible from the surface, it would definitely be easier to see them at night. And they would be visible at night as they are not completely blocked by the body of the planet and still receive light from the star even when that light is not hitting the surface. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 7, 2011 - 5:16am | So I guess the canon statement in the planetary footnote will need to be changed in the hitchhikers guide. I'm betting that it was put there because someone thought it would be a cool setting element, and if it were possible I would agree with that. At this point if it were possible to see them at night that would be enough. And yet this detail has little to no effect on the PC's and the game. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 7, 2011 - 12:45pm | And yet this detail has little to no effect on the PC's and the game. Uhm... I beg to differ. It has everything to do with making a living frontier. :-PHere's some real science for ya, "The Cassini spacecraft recently discovered that Enceladus, one of Saturn's medium-sized moons, is providing new material to Saturn's E-ring. The E-ring is the largest planetary ring in the solar system, and seems to be continually replenished by geologic activity on Enceladus." |
December 7, 2011 - 5:24pm | Sigh, yes someone in the setting will make money with a scoop ship mining the rings, perhaps its a cheap source of Ion engine fuel. But still whether the PCs can see the rings from the ground during the day is a non issue for the setting and the game. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 31, 2014 - 2:15pm | This story was set in the system, it contains fan created details. http://web.archive.org/web/20050217163313/http://www.xmission.com/~layne/adv/22Forced.html And what if the whole 'see the rings from the surface' thing is marketing tourist hype, perhaps technically true some way but not what people expected though they are very impressive seen from orbit. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
