 October 4, 2012 - 6:09am | This thread is closely related to: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/5977 Especially since the government of Terledrom is going to be the default system government with control of Kisk'Kar as a colony and the militias of both Terledrom and Kisk'Kar effectively being under that government making the Terledrom the largest militia organization in the frontier when all the hulls from two systems are totalled up. Groth is a dralasite colony with light population and agricultural economy, Gravity 1.2, 0 moons, and a 45 hour day armed space station None of the Zebs mega corps are listed as being headquartered there. planetary footnote in AD on Terledrom says that the vrusk companies (trade houses) in charge of Terledrom control trade with other planets and take smuggling very serious planetary footnote in Zebs on Terledrom tells us that Trans Travel is headquartered on Terledrom. Further the section on trans travel says that its made up of many different companies (trade houses) and was formed by the government of Terledrom at the outbreak of SW2. I would ignore the statement of a yazirian being the CEO as that makes absolutely no sense in a government of vrusk forming a company and saying lest put a yazirian in charge- sure the elected dralasites on Terledrom would enjoy the "joke" of doing that but its just one of those things we need to change in Zeds. Zebs goes on to say that Trans Travel takes smuggling very serious and would punish it with death if given the chance -sounds like earlier comments about the government so I'd chalk that up to a peculiarity of vrusk law and that there was some friction early in the history of the UPF when the government of Terledrom executed a smuggler from one of the other races. it lead to a diplomatic incident and now smugglers caught in space fall may or may not fall under star law jurisdiction but either way wont be executed. Smugglers caught on the planet are not alway executed but find themselves in serious trouble with the government. The Zenk (vrusk for family) see Dragon magazine 109 almost without a doubt evolved on or is still headquartered on Terledrom. think vrusk mafia I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 4, 2012 - 6:20am | I think the smuggling issue in Fromeltar predates contact with humanity and yazirians. With one of the cadres detailed in Dragon 109 being mafia from the vrusk race and some tenative vrusk pirate connections elsewhere in canon I'm thinking that the vrusk lack a solid moral code other than devotion to ones company and thus feel free to act ammorally in business outside the confines of their company. This would be a natural impulse and fairly common- creating a rampant problem that forced the govenment to take action and come down hard core on smuggling among other things. We can imagine that corporate espionage is viewed as "smuggling by other means" and that it recieves harsh treatment as well. an individual vrusk that had a carreer in a the militia and made it his mission in life to stamp out smuggling would, once he went over to the private sector, would engage in smuggling without a second thought to benefit his company and not even have any self doubts. The cardinal sin is betraying your company or not doing your best for your company. all else is permissible within certain bounds- one must not bring shame on one's company. As a society there would be some natural restriction on murder its just that its quite justifiable though considered bad form and even shameful to a degree. Most vrusk would have a natural antipathy toward murder as its messy and ugly but would be willing to fight for their company and even kill for it if neccessary. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 4, 2012 - 6:28am | Groth is a light population dralasite ag colony. the nagana race from the SFman was cast as a primitive from this world and I dont have too much trouble with that so I'll be working on this brief with a view to including the nagana but also leaving them optional. That said the nagana are obviously a snake race- snakes suggest either desert or lush environment Due to the agricultural economy I'm leaning toward a very earth like world with lush veggitation as a dominant environment. I like the idea of there being plenty of water and the nagana evolving as an amphibian and that explaining its lack of industry at contact with the vrusk. Not that they were stupid just disadvantaged such that they never developed industry. thus the dralasites inhabitants would find them very engaging for conversation and debate. I think the planet can have some arid areas as well as mountains and a very active hydro cycle. So- lush almost jungle, open water, mountians and even a few deserts and by defualt some swamp/marsh areas. provides us with a planet with some varied environments. agricultural products cater to vrusk and dralasite tastes. colony is a light population and this means only a few small cities: 1: would be the seat of administration on Groth and have the star port for landing and servicing shuttles and the local base of the Terledrom militia for cargo inspections unless we simply want them to be based in the orbiting space station all cargo inspection teams operate out of there. I could go either way on that. this town as a transhipment point for goods going into orbit would have warehousing and possibly food processing areas, not much for the classic port town with bars and entertainment to entice spacers to visit as most of the entertainment here is parks and the debating forum- most spacers consider Groth dull. 2. about one to two more named towns/settlements with a strict farming focus 3. the Nagana Institute- a cultural exchange center and school run by one of the educational vrusk trade houses- the nagana are not stupid just ignorant of modern technical stuff and the government of Terledrom partially or wholy underwrites the expense of the school which is run by a for profit trade house. (would not a non profit vrusk trade house be a contradiction in terms?) Nagana from all over the planet come to be educated and bring the knowledge back to their communities. Any nagana leaving Groth almost certainly was educated here at some point even if he got a scholarship to attend university on Terledrom. Around the institute would be a largish nagana community as well or at least not far from it. Names should sound dralasite-ish: Grollontar, Farmune, Dolgontar etc. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 4, 2012 - 8:31am | The one question that immediately comes to mind is why is Groth so much less desirable as real estate than Terldrom was? Looking at the infromation on hand we have the following: 1) Fromeltar is a system with two habitable planets, Terldrom and Groth. 2) Terldrom has a Heavy Industrial population and Groth has a Light Agriculture one. 3) Terldrom is inhabited by Vrusks & Dralasites while Groth is inhabited by Dralasites as the primary populations. 4) Terldrom's gravity is 1.0 and the day is 60 hours 5) Groth's gravity is 1.2 and the day is 45 hours. 6) The worlds in the other Vrusk systems are medium population On the surface there isn't much to suggest that Terldrom should be favored over Groth. If nothing else, they should have similar populations. They would have been discovered at the same time, why pick Terldrom? Plus, if you go with jedi's timeline and have Terldrom actually be the Vrusk homeworld, that raises a whole other issue. In this case, the Vrusk have been in this system for thousands of years. I'm sure they had interplanetary flight long before they had interstellar travel. (Remember that the other Vrusk worlds are listed as medium population while Groth is only light, and dralisites to boot.) The Vrusk would have detected that Groth was a nice habitable planet and colonized it long before they went to other systems looking for worlds. If Mars was an Earth-like planet, we be there already. Why did they stay away? So in developing this world, we have to answer that question, why is Groth so underpopulated? Maybe it's something subtle. The idea bouncing around in my head is an expansion of the issue the survey team finds on Magh Mar in Mutiny on the Elanor Moraes, namely the planet is toxic. I mean, why aren't half the planets in the Frontier toxic to one or more of the races? What are the odds of finding 17 different worlds that all are non-toxic to all four of the core races? I know, "It's a game." and I understand that for ease of play you ignore that, but in real life it would be a real issue. Unless you created the biosphere to your liking, there is a good chance there is going to be something that doesn't agree with you. So maybe the Vrusk did initially colonize Groth and had high hopes for a second world. But maybe the danger wasn't realized, or was slow acting and those initial colonies all died off. Possibly horribly. As they were struggling to survive, the cause was found and it turned out that there was something in land and air that was toxic to Vrusk that their bodies couldn't deal with. It could be overcome but wasn't worth the effort at the time. And so they shut down the colonization effort. But later along come the Dralasites, a compeltely different creature with a different physiology and metabolism. They see this empty world and ask the Vrusk why they aren't using it. After going through the data, it's determined that whatever is the problem for the Vrusk, the Dralisite physiology has no issue with it and it poses no issues for them. Maybe it's even beneficial (or maybe it just gives their skin a reddish hue and you can always tell a Dral that's been living on Groth for a long time). In any case, the dral's set up shop but it's only recently and so the population is low. Of course this raises the question of what is the problem and what impact does it have on the agriculture exports of the planet? Can Vrusk eat it, what impact does it have on the other races? Maybe it's a dral only cuisine that gets exported but consists of a variety of health foods and delicacies that really appeal to the dralasite palate. What happens to the other races that land and visit Groth? It also would give you some more locations, namely the sites of the first few failed colonies. Are they ghost towns, were they picked over and scavanged as they last colonists left, or were they mothballed with the expectation that they would come back eventually? What was left behind, what could be learned from these sites? All possible adventure hooks. 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 |
October 4, 2012 - 3:56pm | Excellent question, Tom and I like the explantion- even the part about dralasite skin turning red. I like the idea of ghost towns 200 years abandoned or about that long. If you include the nagana then they have crawled all over them and most of the buildings would have mostly collapsed and been overgrown. ghost towns are ripe for an archaeological adventure. Perhaps the environmental factor is a spore, when enough of it builds up in a vrusk's system it causes a dibilitating illness- combine that with the fact that vrusk breathing apparatus is underneath their belly and it would have been insidious for the early colonist. if you take my time line the vrusk would have been happy to write off the planet as a concession to the dralasites. They may not have completely abandoned the planet despite the danger as they could have taken the precautions required to filter air and seal off buildings and wear environmental suits but the early trajedy would have left a bad smell in the air and the sites of the first outposts were left to rot. Most trade houses looked at the cost to benefit analysis and passed on risking a move to this toxic environment especially since whole trade houses were decimated/destroyed in the fiasco. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 30, 2021 - 10:44am | Wondering about the Terkedrom's militia being death on smuggling? Would the vrusk mafia, the Zenk, choose to stage smuggled goods through Groth? Perhaps the Malthar has his pseudo-pods extended even to Groth? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
