 January 7, 2012 - 10:59am | Gran Quivera is the hub of the Frontier Sector. The Star Law Rangers, Pan-Galactic Corporation and the United Planetary Federation all have headquarters at Port Loren, the major city.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 8, 2012 - 6:16am | Its surprising to me that Port Loren has been so well used as a location when all the setting detail concerning it is the above, but I guess we can attribute that to the power of having a map. And not much of a map at that, just a few square blocks of downtown. I've got some ideas brewing in my head about Port Loren: Heavy Population. The planet has many large citites that are very crowded, and hundreds of smaller citites. Individual cities may be considered "maxi-cities" that cover hundreds of square kilometers. I think "mega city" sounds better than maxi. At any rate the fact that Port Loren is the headquarters for Star Law two mega corps, and the seat of the Council of Worlds as well as having its own government as well as probably being the capitol of Gran Quivera; this city has to be one huge honking city. I think we aught to declare it a Mega City and be done with that. The planet's economy is Business and Industry so we should expect a financial district and Industrial Parks. In a society where robotics factories are the norm I guess we have to presume that larger segments of a population work in offices. Further, since there are no manufacturing jobs, which would normally employ large numbers of people, many mom and pop service industries pop up, offering services to said office workers. Galactic Task Force in turn probably buys out these service industry businesses and expands them and then these individuals end up employed by the corporation. One has to wonder what the effect of a 15 hour day will be on the culture of Port Loren. Since GST time is 20 hours and most people are not going to pull a 10 hour shift and then go to bed for five. Plus PGC founded GST so it would seem that company policy would be to follow GST. Many of the smaller cities out side of Port Loren will be Bed room communities for Politicians, executives and other highly paid proffessions so that they can get out of the sprawl and crouding of Port Loren. Some of these communities are "company towns" set up by the mega corps headquartered here. Discovered another small bit of canon detail on Port Loren- in the Basic Game book the cartoon panels at the beginning about the 2 PGC security agents chasing a sathar agent, the panel when the sathar agent is being shot off the mono rail platform there is a section of wall where someone has pasted up poster ads. One for Sutherland's Used Shuttles has been pasted over with one for Soller's Chile Parlor located at 723 Milky Way, Armadillo 555. Its not much but both could be used as locations for encounters in a Port Loren adventure. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 8, 2012 - 6:47am | Brainstorming some history on Port Loren: How did Port Loren go from being the landing site for the first explorers to being a mega city? Discovered about the time of first contact with the yazirians and in light of the sucess of the Triad colony being founded to promote exchange and understanding between humans, vrusk and dralasites, Gran Quivera was organized as a similar colony. Some one on the yazirian side said, "Yeah, yeah, peaceful exchange and understanding, thats the ticket," but in their head they were thinking, "one must understand their enemy to defeat him." So year one of the colony was setting up a multi racial colony and all the services that would be needed to serve its needs. A business district was arranged so that companies from colonies of all four races could meet and explore the possibilities of exchanging goods and services. This business exchange district/emporium has grown into the Wall Street of the Frontier. All four races established cultural centers in the early days, in later years the centers have become part of the University of Port Loren and represent departments for cultural studies. a clanless yazirian wishing to get in touch with his roots could take yazirian culture or literature classes at the university. Year on of the Gran Quivera colony-I'm trying to decide if the government that was set up in year one was the city government or the colony government. they would not need both at that point. Colony government I guess and eventually as Port Loren grew and the government focused on governing the whole planet it became obvious that they needed to better organize the city admin. Perhaps Washington D.C. might be a good model for Port Loren. PGC is founded and grows rapidly. You could have PGC districts to the city. whole industrial parks owned by PGC, Company housing, etc. at the time of SW1 Council of Worlds and UPF are headquartered here and in the after math of SW1 Star Law adds its Headquarters to the city. More expansion goes on. By the time of SW2 Port Loren is being called a Mega City. Districts within the city (note names on the list are subject to change) Main Industrial Park district Financial district Government district University district Slums (I used the name Rook Hill for one in the Black Hand Gang game) Star Port should be the size of a small city Housing districts I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 8, 2012 - 8:35am | Environment at Port Loren: Likely Gran Quivera is a warm world and Morgaine's World is cooler. Gran Quivera could have an environment that is more like the tropics, its equator is possibly unbearable or seriously uncomfortable. Morgaine's World could be temperate like a North American forest with some large ice caps. I dont think we need native animals on every single world, it could be that there are some worlds that get colonized that lacked any higher animals. I'll need to see if any have been created for Gran Quivera in the SFman (IIRC there was at least one), so the question is should Gran Quivera have native wildlife? a very hostile and uncomfortable equator on Gran Quivera will lend itself to andventures being set there. Rules for heat and water consumption apply. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 2, 2017 - 4:22am | Source Data File: "The Zethra" Ed Greenwood Dragon #84 page 76 The Zethra known as Hhon resides in the Prnegular system and goes by the name Hhon of Prengular With two habitable world one must ask on which does it reside? Gran Quivera seems the obvious choice due to the heavy population, presence of the UPF headquarters, two mega corp headquarters and it being the defacto hub of the Frontier. However Morgaine's World certainly has plenty to interest the zethra and the regular shuttle flights between planets would certainly facilitate its travel back and forth. No doubt Star Law and Space Fleet security keep tabs on the Zethra's information gathering when on Morgaine's World in particular due tot he presence of the major Star Law and Space Fleet training operations here. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 2, 2017 - 5:56am | Data File Source: "Silver Twin!" Michael Therrian Dragon #102 According to this source file Port Loren is a city on the Planet Morgaine's World in the Prengular System. Clearly a mistake by the author. It makes more sense that the Silver Twin project would be tried out at the de facto capitol city of the UPF: Port Loren, Gran Quivera, Prengular. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 2, 2017 - 7:51am | Data File Source: "Silver Twin!" Michael Therrian Dragon #102
According to this source file Port Loren is a city on the Planet Morgaine's World in the Prengular System. Clearly a mistake by the author. It makes more sense that the Silver Twin project would be tried out at the de facto capitol city of the UPF: Port Loren, Gran Quivera, Prengular. Unless, you could argue, that there is another Port Loren on Morgaine's World. Think of Bangor, Maine, and Bangor, Washington. Or Georgia, the former part of the Soviet Union, and Georgia the state of the U.S.A. But, it is probably a typo by the writer/editor of Dragon Magazine, so your logic works. Joe Cabadas |
