Traveller 5: System Generation Iomaria Part 5

The End Result

Iomaria A99889A-8 {1} (B7K-1) [7F08] BDe Im NS G NIL

Trade codes: PH, PA, PI. Naval and Scout bases, Imperial Knight, Marquis and Viscount representatives are present. Travel code Green, and there is a native intelligent lifeform present.

Iomaria orbits Tusog, a big planet in orbit 2 with a 248-day year, orbiting every 4 hours. Being tidally locked, one side rarely gets much in the way of sunlight. The dark side is the side facing Tusog, and most of the population lives on the other half of Isomaria. The class A port is located in the Imperial Viscount's land holdings. The port is small by normal standards. Adjacent to the port are both the Naval and Scout bases, each with their own fuel and maintenance facilities. Imperial-owned warehousing facilities are available in the port, though many regulations generally require cargo going to Iomaria to be stored in Wareburg, the startown outside the port lines. Cargo from Iomaria to the rest of the universe also are required to be stored in these warehouses.

There are 2 gas giants in the system, a smaller gas giant in orbit 0 and a large gas giant out in orbit 9. There are 3 ice worlds and 2 radiation worlds in the system, each with 0 or more satellites. 

Transit times for jump are generally higher due to Tusog's presence. Iomaria is well within its jump shadow.

The inhabitants of Iomaria seem to be fairly dour: their architecture assumes a brutalist functional style, clothing is generally pretty bland, and sadly even their hats tend to be similar to everyone else's. Lines are a constant in the daily life of the citizens, and even for those visiting. Perhaps it is the slightly heavier gravity that causes people to drag their feet both literally and figuratively. The dense atmosphere is taxing for most outdoor activities as well. There is significant red-tape for any endeavor, and doubly so for outsiders. Merchants can expect up to 3 times longer for unloading and loading cargoes, hiring or anything else that has to deal with the very impersonal bureaucracy that is Iomaria's government. Guilds and unions layer on additional rules and regulations. The government has tests to enter the bureaucracy, as well as more tests to move up. Dealing with anything outside the starport means dealing with a bureaucrat. 

The Process

 Found the hexes that the nobility are supposed to get, and it is in terrain hexes, NOT world hexes! Our viscount gets 16 terrain hexes, each being 100km in diameter, and each trade classification gives Cr10K. 16x3x10 = Cr480,000 per year. As a Viscount is based on the pre-high population trade code, I'm going with she runs lavish parties and tries to showcase Imperial social sensibilities. Keept the population in-synch with the Imperium's ideals. This is not a particularly hard task on Iomaria other than fighting some social inertia. Our Knight has Cr30,000 per year with the one hex, and the Marquis with 8 gets Cr240,000 per year. A lot of this revenue may go back into the system, trying to improve technology and keep Iomaria in the Imperial fold. The knight is probably not doing a whole lot honestly for the Imperium - they get a terrain hex and a bit of income. The Marquis, a result of being pre-industrial, seems to imply that they will be wanting to increase production, and bump this world up to industrial. As such, the Marquis may be trying to subvert the castes, guilds and unions, as well as remove some of the red tape that makes this world have such a horrible efficiency.

How all this could impact the players is as always, up to how you play. There are a few built-in hooks here from what I can see:

1. emergency cargo - fighting the bureaucracy (sort of the Escape from Efate (Arden?) module that was published in a couple places. It had a flowchart that relied heavily on administrative skills to get past the bureaucracy. Think bribery was also a given and noting that higher law levels generally correspond to higher graft and corruption, bribery could well be a very useful skill.
2. Welcome to the Imperial Gala. As there are few ships that come through here, you can help represent the Imperium at the Marquis' party! Are there people in the population that really don't want to be in the Imperium? Is there a guerrilla movement behind the dour faces of some of the crowd? Or are you secretly in the Ine Givar yourself?
3. the SOLO rule sets give better prices if you get cargo outside the confines of the starport (a way to get you outside the port basically). You need to exit the port to look for cargo, maybe a bit of sight-seeing. Just how hard is it to get out of the port, and how hard to get back into the port?
4. You've been hired to find someone who was going to Iomaria. Does this person want to be found or are they captive? Are they on the dark side of the planet?
5. There is something unique and valuable over on the dark side of the planet. In perpetual darkness, the weather, flora and fauna are all strange. Also, I would think that the transition area, the twilight bands, would have turbulent weather due to the temperature differences.
6. Heavy storms as you arrive cause your ship to land in the dark side and enough damage so that take off is going to be a bit as the engineer does their engineering thing. Creatures in the permanent night!

My math is probably off, and the jump shadow obviously not to scale but just trying to get the general gist of things, and unless you have a mathematician of Traveller grognard, close enough for game use. Which is generally what we need at the table. While it is certainly a lot of fun to read those discussions over on COTI a lot are mostly "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" - interesting, but ultimately not really useful if you just want to have fun with a bunch of players are not going to double-check all the math and just play. But that is a discussion I've had here a few too many times perhaps! 

Finally, trying to figure out the day/night cycle is beyond me at the moment! A tidally locked planet that orbits in a few hours will do something like the image below, so while on the far side of the big planet, everything is really dark, transitioning in the orbit means that the side facing Tudor will get some light, so it is not in perpetual darkness as I was thinking. And when Iomaria is between the big planet and the sun, daylight of course. And the sunny side is not in perpetual light - it has a true day night sequence but will be a lot fast than Earth. I imagine light bulbs are in high demand!

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3

Part 4