Refocusing on Ishee, which is more Black Rock-like than ever! (Traveller Tuesday #15)

We're gonna focus back on Ishee as we get into some of the more technical aspects of planetology, starting with determining the density of the planet. Well, before we do that, we have to determine what kind of planet it is. The planet's size and atmosphere pull in opposite directions in this determination, resulting in a roll of 2d6-1. That results in a 7, which means that it's a molten-core planet. We go on to roll 3d6 to determine it's actual density, which comes out to 98% of Earth's density. Ishee's really coming out as a rather nice place to live!

This allows us to then calculate the mass of the planet, using the formula M=K*(R/8)³. That's the quotient of Ishee's Size digit (2) divided by eight, cubed, multiplied by its density. That comes out to a mass of . . . 1.53125% of Earth's. Well, it is much smaller, even if its composition is similar. Ishee's gravity is then determined by another formula: G=M*(64/R²) (the quotient of 64 divided by the square of the Size digit multiplied by the mass). We figure out that Ishee's gravity is 0.245 g, about ¼ of Earth's.

α Bishop Sheumack being a K7 V star, it has a stellar mass 40.8% of Sol's, so rather a bit smaller. This is likely balanced out, however, by Ishee's extreme closeness to its sun; it's only 0.2 AU away. Putting this together like so, P = √(D³/M) (the square root of the quotient of the distance cubed divided by the star's mass, we determine its orbital period (a.k.a., its year) to be 51 Earth-days, 3 hours, 29 minutes, and about 7.888 seconds. We return to the dice to determine if and how many satellites orbit Ishee ~ 1d6-3 comes out with 3 moons! Their size is a 2-1d6 roll, which comes out less than 0 in all cases, leaving them all Size 0 (if the roll had come out 0 exactly, the satellite would have been a ring). We roll 2d6 twice for each to determine their orbits. Two 9s place one satellite 50 radii from the planet (76,000 km), while another moon is placed at 65 radii (98,800 km) by a 9 and a 12 and the last rolls a 5 and a 10, putting it 11 radii (16,720 km) from Ishee.

Now we can roll the dWikipedia to help us name them. In order, we'll call them Amon Assemon (Ishee-A), Fantome (Ishee-B), and New Malta (Ishee-C).

We also determine Ishee itself's rotational period (a.k.a., day) by using the formula P = (A*4) + 5 + M/D, the sum of 2d6-2 quadrupled, 5, and the quotient of the sun's mass divided by the planet's distance from it. A roll of 3 means that Ishee's day is 19 Earth-days, 57 minutes, and 36 seconds, which is approximately three-eighths of the year. An Isheean year is, very roughly, 2½ Isheean days. We roll a 6 to see what kind of axial tilt (and therefore, seasons) Ishee experiences. A follow-up 2d6-2 roll gives us a final tilt of 21º (2½ degrees more vertical then Earth's. Not shabby. And it brings up an image of α Bishop Sheumack not only loop-de-looping across the sky, but actually running a literal circle around its companion star every so often (after all, they'd move differently across the Isheean sky).

We roll 7 on 2d6 to find out that there is no eccentricity to Ishee's orbit, which will also have an effect on things like seasons and whatnot. This brings us to determining the planet's seismic stress factor, measuring how much tension and force is involved in the movements of its tectonic plates and such. The formula is F=X+P+M+S (which looks simple, but is a bit difficult to turn into a verbal description, as the latter two factors involve some math as well). We roll 1d6-3 twice, resulting in 2 and 3. We also need to determine the exact diameters of Ishee's three moons, using the method described for the planets in an earlier post. Amon Assemon comes out as 1280 km in diameter, Fantome as 480 km, and New Malta 1440 km. The final result is a seismic stress factor of about 9.354.

Ishee's Atmosphere of 6 means that its atmosphere is a standard nitrogen-oxygen mix, with only very minor differences from Earth's, and a 4 on 2d6 tells us that its pressure at the surface is 85% of Earth's ~ thin enough to be felt, I'd imagine! We also determine that α Bishop Sheumack is just less than half as bright as Sol (49.8%). This is then modified by β Bishop Sheumack on the other side of Ishee's orbit, which adds about 0.008 to α Bishop Sheumack's for an effective luminosity of 0.506. Ishee's orbit factor (a variable used in temperature calculations based on the planet's distance from its sun) is 836.345. A roll of 2d6-5 lets us approximate Ishee's surface water: a 1 means that between 6% and 15% of the world's surface is covered in water. This is the first crack in Ishee's seemingly perfect environment ~ it's a very, very dry world. It does strengthen Ishee's resonances with Black Rock City, though! This gives Ishee an energy absorption of 0.9, and its atmosphere alone gives it a greenhouse effect of 1.1. We can now determine the base temperature on Ishee, a starting point for (and thus, a vague idea of) the temperature on the planet. Many more factors effect it, such as latitude and time of day and season, obviously. To work it out, we just multiply the effective luminosity, orbit factor, energy absorption, and greenhouse effect all together. The result comes out to 418.959º K. That works out to 145.959º C, or 294.7262º F. I'm not gonna try to work out the details of Ishee's temperature right now, but I doubt there will be many long strolls in a T-shirt and skirt here on Ishee, sadly. It's just too hot.

Ishee's bUWP is now α-3D-0704-α0 (α Greve-Eau Pleine-α Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/E261774-?/X/LG-Ri/Em

Enough with all this nambly-pambly soft sciences crap, let's get down to the real thing! *eyeroll* (Traveller Tuesday #14)

The time has come to back up and work on Ishee's physical reality ~ once we do that, we can work out its technology level.

The Bishop Scheumack system is a binary star system (9 on 2d6), consisting of one uncommon K7 V orange dwarf star (8 and then 5 on two 2d6, then 1d10 for the decimal classification) and one much more common DM white dwarf star (18 on 2d6+8 and 15 on 2d6+5). The latter star orbits the former at orbit 10 (9 on 2d6 and then 4 on 1d6), which puts it quite some ways beyond the last planet in the system; rolling a 7 on 2d6-2 means thee are only 7 possible orbits around α Bishop Sheumack. Or wait, no, I'm wrong: orbits 0-5 around α Bishop Sheumack itself are available, leaving room for β Bishop Sheumack in orbit 10, which has one planet orbiting it in orbit 0. Orbit 0 around α Bishop Sheumack is in the habitable zone, but everything else is in the outer.

Are there gas giants in the Bishop Sheumack system? Probably, but let's roll the 2d6 to find out. 8 is more than 2, so there, in fact, gas giants. Well, gas giant: a 3 on 2d6 tells us there's only one. Hilariously, planetoid belts receive the inverse of that roll: 5 on 2d6 is less than 8 so there aren't any planetoid belts. Finally, a 2 on 1d6 (being less than 5) means that all of the orbits are filled, which is rad. However, a 6 is higher than a 5 so there are captured objects in the system, their extrasystemic origin resulting in odd orbital distances. We roll a 3 on 1d6, so there are 2 such captured objects. We've 7 orbits, but I'm instructed to roll 2d6 for the baseline orbit, which is an important distinction because I rolled a 12. Since 12 is the closest orbit possible for a planet orbiting both suns in the system, I think I'll use it as an excuse to add an object to the system. So, in addition to the 6 planets orbiting α Bishop Sheumack and one around β Bishop Sheumack, there's also a far planet at orbit 11.7 (percentage deviation rolled on (2d6-2)*10) orbiting both. Only the planet closest to α Bishop Sheumack is in the habitable zone ~ that's Ishee.

I roll a 3 on 1d8 to place the gas giant, which ends up in orbit α2. Everything else is a terrestrial planet. A 1 tells us that it's a Small Gas Giant; the exact size will come later. The rolls for the sizes of the terrestrial worlds in the system are 2d6-7 for orbit α0, 2d6-6 for orbit α1, 2d6-9 for orbit β0, and 2d6-2 for all other orbits. We roll a 2 for Ishee and 0, 6, 0, and 2 for the other planets orbiting α Bishop Sheumack, in order. As for β0, we roll a 1, and then we roll 4 for orbit 11.7. Each Size digit gives an average diameter, and various from that is determined by a (2d6-7)*160 roll for kilometers added or subtracted. I'll roll on that and add them to the list below. There's a separate chart to determine the diameter and Size digit of gas giants, by the way.

As for the names of these planets, let's do that now; it'll make things easier. As always, we grab the dWikipedia and roll 7 names: Corporate Stabilization in the New Age (such a propagandistic name! And lets abbreviate it to CorpStable), Nuovo Portoscuso, Leopard, Pegues, Natasha's World, Paparazkarasi, and Gandhi. You can see them attached to their orbits below.

What kinds of atmospheres do these planets have? Ishee rolls 2d6-5 and gets a wonderfully unexpected 6! That's an Earthlike atmosphere, which is hella cute. CorpStable's roll is 2d6-7; it ends up with no atmosphere whatsoever (0). Our biggun, Leopard, rolls a 4 on 2d6-1 for a thin, tainted atmosphere. Pegues gets a 0 on 2d6-7 which establishes it as an airless world, while Natasha's World gets another thin, tainted atmosphere with a 4 on 2d6-5. A 1 on 2d6-1 gives Paparazkasi a trace atmosphere, and Gandhi receives the same thing on 2d6-3. Side note: Atmosphere 6 + Population 7 = Ishee is classified as a Rich world, which also tells us that the region it's in is a county, not a viscounty.

Bishop Sheumack system:
Orbit H-α0: Ishee, Size 2 (3040 km diameter), Atmosphere 6
Orbit O-α1: Corporate Stabilization in the New Age, Size 0 (160 km diameter), Atmosphere 0
Orbit O-α2: Nuovo Portoscuso, Size 64 gas giant (101,936 km diameter)
Orbit O-α3: Leopard, Size 6 (9920 km diameter), Atmosphere 4
Orbit O-α4: Pegues, Size 0 (960 km diameter), Atmosphere 0
Orbit O-α5: Natasha's World, Size 2 (3040 km diameter), Atmosphere 4
Orbit O-β0: Paparazkarasi, Size 1 (1280 km diameter), Atmosphere 1
Orbit O-11.7: Gandhi, Size 4 (6560 km diameter), Atmosphere 1

Ishee's bUWP is now α-3D-0704-α0 (α Greve-Eau Pleine-α Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/E26?774-?/X/Ri/Em

But how will my Isheean character react to things? (Traveller Tuesday #13)

Now that we've established the details of political, religious, and legal life on Ishee. We can start constructing an image of the slightly subtler elements of Isheean culture. We already know that it hosts a Tourist Attraction, is Progressive, and believes strongly in access to high technology as a basic right. That last is true, by the way, even outside of its champion government in the Guild-State of the Rose Brothers.

First up is the Progressiveness of the world. We already know that it's neither Conservative or Reactionary in attitude, but it could be either Radical or Progressive. Taking into account the Dice Modifier from Ishee's population, I find that gives us a range of 15, with only a 1-in-15 chance of a Radical attitude (I'm just slicing off the half of the table that is inappropriate, after applying the modifier, and re-figuring the chances from there. Using random.org to roll a d15, I am unsurprised that my 3 doesn't result in a Radical attitude. This attitude is then paired with an action, describing not what the Isheeans think and feel but how they actually behave. We roll an 8 on a flat 2d6 and determine that Isheean culture has an Advancing action. Isheeans believe change to be good and healthy, and are generally accepting of promising new ideas. They've a fair measure of drive and definite measurable progress can be seen, especially in their technology.

Isheean aggressiveness is also subject to a flat 2d6 roll. In this case, our 7 means the world culture is Unaggressive in attitude, and another 2d6 gives us an extreme of a 12 and a Conciliatory action. Putting the two together, we find that Isheeans prefer compromise to the use of force and even go so far as to refrain from building any significant military might. They will do anything to avoid military confrontation. This probably explains both the intense reaction of TCI towards the enemy agents on Ishee and their preference for restricting their own rights and movement over building a large army.

We've reached the point where we can't further develop Isheean culture without understanding how connected it is to the rest of the galaxy. Yep, its Starport, which is a rather disappointing Class E thanks to a roll of 3 on 2d6. I'd say Ishee represented something more of a cross between a monastic retreat, an isolated workshop free from distraction or limitation, a societal sandbox in which it is easy to cause and measure paradigm shift, and Burning Man to the Rose Brothers who founded it. They resisted building a bigger Starport because they never wanted to be bothered much by outsiders. Their FutureShockFest became a subsectorwide phenomenon without their wanting it to, and so they never improved the Starport to accommodate its crowds. To the offworders, this gives it the advantage of being free to berth here at the cost of a lack of sales of ship repair of any sort or of the drugs required for the biological elements of the noetic drive to function properly (a.k.a., “fuel”). There might be a pirate base, but a 4 is a far cry from the 12 needed for that (bUWP α-3D-0704-? (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/E???774-?/X/??/Em).

2d6+5 will tell about Ishee's global extensiveness. The resultant 16 tells us that Isheean culture is highly fragmented among itself. The divisions between and within its cultures, states, political parties, and faiths are deep, loud, and frequent. Dissension is the rule. Well, considering the general pacifism on the planet, perhaps “long” might be a better word than “loud”. Resonant with the previous determinations, a 9 on 2d6+2 means that Ishee tuns an aloof face to the events of galactic society and otherworldly events. Isheeans react coolly, even to the point of occasional unfriendliness, to offworlders, seeing them as technologically prurient gawkers interested more in the spectacle of technology and science than in understanding its effects on society. In the Marches and TCI, a concurrent narrative is that outsiders might be there to act against the interests of the state, the populace, and the rulers, a suspicion that anyone could be an Imperial spy, Company operative, or alien instigator. Either way, the offworlders are likely to interfere out of incompetence fear, or malice, and no Isheean likes that idea. Isheean merchants tend to think of them as rubes too dazzled by the flash and sparkle of fancy technology to be very protective of their feccu (Fractally Encoded Company-backed Cryptocurrency Units).

In fact, how uniformly is law enforced on Ishee, anyway? That's a 2d6 roll on a table, which results in an 8. In all four states, the law is evenly and equally applied to every member of the populace. Just barely, though ~ repressive TCI in particular is risking a fall into a less even-handed (and incorrupt) style of governance.

Cheese it, it's the cops! (Traveller Tuesday #12)

Time to determine the law level in each of the four Isheean nations.

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers rolls 2d6-4 for its law level. We roll for each of five different types of law, and then average them out to get an idea of its overall law level. First up is weapons law, which gets a 2. This a low level of law; only nukes, body pistols, explosives, poison gas, and portable energy weapons are prohibited. Of course, weapons are one of sophontry's favorite things to tinker with and invent, which is an act revered by the Rose Brothers and impossible to do if you don't have them around. Trade law is also a 2, quite reasonably (for a nation like this one, anyway) leaving trade quite free. How can innovations shift paradigms if they can't get around? The law gets stricter when it comes to criminal acts, rising to a moderate 4. And it rises even higher in civil suits: 7. I imagine this represents a strong patent and trademark law, which has metastasized into a complicated and severe litigational landscape. If someone does you wrong in the Guild-State, hiring a lawyer will be scarier to them then calling the cops. Personal freedoms are about as restricted as criminal acts (4, moderate law). Overall, the Guild-State scores a 3.8, just at the very higher edge of what can be called low law; it's known as a fairly libertine area, but not unusually so.

Both Marches determine their law levels by rolling 2d6-2. Oleinik March gets our attention first, with a weapons law level of 7, high law. I can imagine Oleinikan criminals sneaking over to the Guild-State to arm themselves; after all, essentially all guns are banned here. Trade law receives that moderate 4 which seems so common. As for criminal law, it gets that self-same common 4, and civil law is even looser, at 2. The marquis of Oleinik doesn't seem to have dismantled the legal precedent that placed pre-eminence on marquesal decrees (as subject to the tangled labyrinth of what is allowed or required in the marquesal contract) over the resolution of disputes. Oleinikan and Rose Brother legal theory are almost unrecognizable to each other, both for its vastly different focus and foundation and because of Oleinik's imposed standards of legality (not laws) versus the Guild-State's consolidation of power. Finally, we figure out how repressive the March is: with a 5, it's a bit more restrictive than the Guild-State but not very much so. This all averages out to an overall law level of 4.4. It's nowhere near a draconian regime, but it is significantly more limited in what it allows than the Rose Brothers.

Jermaine March distinguishes itself as possibly the wildest place to live on Ishee with a weapons law level of 1, the lowest a nation can have and, well, still have laws. This is paired with current high in trade law; it's a 5. But criminal law is almost as freewheeling as restrictions on weapons with a 2. This is starting to feel quite like the Wild West of Ishee. I suppose that's what you get with an indifferent absentee liege lord. Civil law continues the trend at 3, but there are as many personal freedoms here as there are across Ishee (4). This laxness of the law is reflected in Jermaine's overall law level of 3, the lowest yet on the planet.

And finally, TCI's roll is 2d6-1. This means that, due to its control by an offworld polity (as opposed to the Marches working within limits imposed by someone offworld), it has the potential to be the most totalitarian of the four states. Weapons law, that cornerstone of any authoritarian regime, shows what I mean. At an extreme level of 11, not only are all weapons banned, but even the free movement of civilians around the country is restricted. Trade is mostly unrestricted, though, at a level of the 3. I've suspected that TCI was founded by the as-yet-undetermined sophont species that controls it in order to facilitate trade with the Guild-State. I guess that's quite proven now, as is the fear the nation feels about their enemies exporting their war here to Ishee (genuine or engineered by those in power? I actually think the latter is more interesting, so let's give the rulership some credit and assume they're just as fearful as their populace). Criminal and civil law aren't too different at 7 and 5, respectively. Like Oleinik, TCI is more concerned with its citizens breaking the law then in resolving disputes. It is, however, much more repressive than the other Isheean countries: personal freedoms law is a 9 (high law). Working it out, it seems that TCI has a high overall law level of 7.

We'll average all this out to an overall overall law level ;-) to use in the bUWP. That comes out to a moderate 4(.55) ~ bUWP α-3D-0704-? (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/????774-?/?/??/Em

The face is not always the same as the heart, sadly (Traveller Tuesday #11)

We've got religions on Ishee of every size from tiny to immense. Let's see what's up with this one . . . 1d20 gives us 13 ~ ah! Deism, with its watchmaker God who created the universe, set its rules and systems like gears in a watch and then walked the eff away. This is the most remote divinity of the theistic religions of Ishee Rolling a 9 on 2d6+1, we see that believers perform charitable acts to create a better society for posterity. I've been thinking about this option in terms of the Rose Brothers ~ that family of traditions seems to suffer from an over-focus on Great Scientists and a lack of focus on using technological breakthroughs to actually like, I dunno, help people?

The faith requires devotional services only once a year (12 on 2d6+2). I wonder if this religion doesn't have a bit of a chip on its shoulder about it being the Rose Brother tradition to actually engage with the problems of the people. Perhaps this annual devotion is largely composed of dedicating everything one has, including all technological possessions, scientific knowledge, and innovative inventions, towards helping those less fortunate than them. It's one day where everyone does this.

Only those within easy communication can effectively make decisions about how to help those who need it, so there's no hierarchy above the planetary level (11 on 2d6+5). We also get some more information about that day of helping: evidently, it emphasises communal teaching with only limited ritual, which fits my image of it pretty well, I think. Some theological and ethical teaching and a whole lot of passing on science and technology to those you're helping, and a little ritual mixed in as well.

Adherents are active in their proselytization efforts ~ again, there's a recruitment drive but no intense push ~ and it only reaches out to a limited number of sophont species (4 on 2d6+2). Probably, they've determined that Hermachis of the Horizon built other rules into the clockwork of the universe to help those beings and so any efforts by the church would be wasted. One does wonder how they came to that determination, however . . . .

These conversion efforts seem to have paid off! A 10 on the 3d6-4 roll gives us tens of billions of adherents! I daresay that this religion is what most of the galaxy thinks of when it comes to the Rose Brothers, and would be quite surprised to visit the Azeyrenawt-dominated Guild-State. Random.org gives us 81,874,634,730 followers in total. Considering the respective numbers and my positioning of this religion as a fourth splinter sect of the Rose Brothers, I'm just gonna say that it accounts for all of the remaining Isheeans. Although, double-checking, the Clarencians have like 10 times as many faithful as this religion, so they're probably the actual galactic face of Rose Brotherhood.

Now we roll dWikipedia for a name: the Open and Assistive Galactic Rite of Rose Brotherhood.

The religious landcape of Ishee:
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
1,506,003 humans (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
582,307 sophonts (app. 3.6%) Open and Assistive Galactic Rite of Rose Brotherhood (generally called Assistants, (the) Rite, or Rose Brothers)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
189,667 alien!species#1 (app. 1.2%) Mellis (generally called Mellits)
67 bioroids (essentially 0%) Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft (generally known as Bio-Witches or Barnwells)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)

Scapegoat or not, this alien religion is the one everyone worries about (Traveller Tuesday #10)

Let's roll yet another 1d20 for the God View of the next religion. Another 12 gives us another remote monotheim. That's actually kind of interesting: Azeyrenawt is the numerically dominant religion in the Guild-State (I think) and this gives it two foils: one with a very different take on shared origin and the other with a similar theology. That contrast continues into the religion's Spiritual Aim, as an 8 on 2d6+1 tells us that the faith's focus is more on the individual than on society as a whole like in Azeyrenawt. In fact, it shares an Aim with the Bio-Witches described in the last post, framing ethical decision as providing benefits in and of themselves. We'll see if this religion is more prescriptive about right and wrong than the Barnwells, however.

Oh, wow! It seems likely that this religion is much more willing to tell its followers what's right and what's wrong. What makes me say that? The 5 I rolled on 2d6+1 for Devotion Required. Unlike every other Isheean religion with their monthly, bimonthly, or once to a few times during your life requirements, here we have a religion that demands devotions several days per week! I can imagine that difference alone can build a distance between them and the overculture, complete with distrusting prejudices of them as a brainwashing cult.

Its Organizational Structure ~ roll of a 4 on 2d6-2 , which is a rigid hierarchy with most decisions made at the local level ~ adds yet more strength to both the religion's ethical proscriptivity and its image amongst the rest of Ishee as a brainwashy cult. Despite Azeyrenawt's human supremacist theology, this faith is probably the one considered dangerous by most Isheeans (and some of its resonances with the bioroid identity religion of Scientological Witchcraft probably doesn't help either faith).

Although . . . a 6 on 2d6-3 reveals that the faith's several required services a week consist of formal church ritual with only limited teaching. No, on the other hand, that makes perfect sense. The limited teaching amounts to a dripdripdrip of theological bits paired with a reminder that right and wrong are their own reward, followed by a list of good and bad things. It's honestly not far from the Roman Catholicism in which I was raised.  Maybe this faith is descended from one of the Catholic faiths, one stripped of Heavenly rewards?

And yet another reason for the Isheean population to be wary of this faith: a 2 on d6-2 means that it's zealous in its proselytization efforts. Here, we have witnesses going door-to-door and people sitting and/or preaching at intersections, and friends who will inevitably mention that you should join their religion if you spend enough time with them. In fact, I'm now starting to see this faith as some sort of Calvinist Catholic faith tinged with elements from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Calvinist, because predestination of afterlife can create the view of ethics this faith possesses. That 2 also tells us that it's a one-species-only religion, the third on Ishee. It seems that there are deep, deep genetic rifts on this planet. The political conflicts ~ contractual hijinx, offworld wars finding a battleground here, etc. ~ seems to have at least two more societal conflicts joining them: the echoes of the schism in the Rose Brothers and conflicts between the species.

OK, let's work out the size and name of the religion before I begin speculating on what the one-species nature of this religion means. 5 on 2d6-2means there's hundreds of thousands of worshippers. I'm thinking that this will account for most of the remaining Ishee population, but random.org refuses to allow it, giving the faith 243,163 adherents, 78% of whom live on Ishee. And dWikipedia will name it . . . the Johnny Mellis Christian Church of the Blues-Metal Gospel? Naw, I don't like that. How about just Mellis?

OK, so that naming has pushed me to think of Mellis as an alien religion, rather than a human Christian-derived one. I don't yet rightly know the details of the alien species that follows Mellis, but I'll work that out! It does make me think that Mellis might be centered primarily in TCI, which tells me that TCI (which is a captive state) might be an alien outpost. Only, TCI has like ten times the number of sophots as Mellis does, so I think the dynamic needs to flip. Mellis is the dominant faith of the stateless captive state faction, the one that's pursuing an offworld conflict with TCI's masters here on Ishee. Might be time to name that group . . . Our Lord's Militant Mellis Church.

I'm not tryna decide right meow, but that does remind me that there's a stateless faction led by a messiah controlled by some sort of council. Obvi, that'll be tied to one of these religions . . .

The religious landcape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 humans (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
67 bioroids (essentially 0%) Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft (generally known as Bio-Witches or Barnwells)
189,667 alien!species#1 (app. 1.2%) Mellis (generally called Mellits)
582,307 sophonts (app. 3.6%) not yet accounted for

First we had Science-Monks, and now we have Bio-Witches?? (Traveller Tuesday #9)

We're so close! The 1d20 gives us a 14. One of the more unusual options (and one that I've added, as explained before), that means this is a religion of self-worship. It's a path concerned with becoming, realizing, or just being a god your own damn self. You might say it's a form of monolatry ~ the existence of other gods (other people) in actuality or possibility is recognized, but only one (the self) receives devotion. The Spiritual Aim can give us a lot more information about what that means, so let's roll that 2d6+2. An 8 tells us that the religion sees ethical action as their own reward, separate from any other spiritual awards.

Hmmmm . . . so if people are or can become gods, then this religion might preach that they're unable to be controlled or bound. We are all bound to be free, but that freedom is total as apotheosis and near-omnipotence approach. Far from draining ethical questions of meaning (as some might expect), this intensifies their importance, while stacking all of their weight on the decisions and introspections of the individual. The only ethic the faith can teach is that only the individual can decide their ethics and that they have a supreme obligation to do so.

Of the various apotheotic systems I can think of (some Satanisms, Mormonism, Thelema, the Feri/Faery tradition of witchcraft, etc.), I keep thinking that this religion we're creating right now most closely resembles Thelema and Feri/Faery. It could even make some sociohistorical sense, tying into the Freemason/Rosicrucian element of the Rose Brothers.

Another 8 on 2d6+1 reveals a monthly Devotion Required of followers of this faith. Though the form of this is decided a few steps down the line, I imagine this is a ritual designed to trigger memory of or progress towards one's own divinity, probably in some way related to moon-phase rituals of old. With a third 8, we get a loose hierarchy with most decisions made on a local level; the coven is the primary unit of the faith, though initiates of higher degrees do form connections and cultivate some power beyond that level. Those churchly positions carry some weight but lack much power over the covens within their remit. Covens are probably rather larger than many Wiccans would expect: say, maybe, a couple hundred people at the highest end.

We roll 2d6+1 for Liturgical Formality and get a 9. Rather than being transformational rituals, the monthly devotions emphasize communal teaching with limited ritual. Now I'm thinking of mixing in some self-help, inspirational/motivational speaker elements. Like, the theologies and many of the ethics of the faith are drawn from things like Thelema and Feri/Faery, but their monthly services resemble Tony Robbins, Landmark Forum, and things like that ~ imprecations to claim your pre-existing divinity and applying a number of techniques to liberate people from their own blocks that prevent them from stepping into that godhood.

You know, thinking about it, if we vague up that formula a bit, it could also describe the Church of Scientology. There are probably bits of that mixed in here.

Missionary Fervor gets a 5 on 2d6-2: active but intolerant of other sophonts. Once again, “active” here means there are efforts to get the word out but they don't necessarily affect the day-to-day lives of most adherents. I am tempted to make it another human-supremacist religion, what with fairly strong ideas of a heavy mix of human faiths feeding into it. But I think, instead, I'll mix in yet another element: Black Identity religions like the Nation of Islam, Rastafarianism, and the various incarnations of the Nuwaubians.

In my Traveller universe, there's a good century of rampant genetic engineering à la Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase before the Greys manage to answer their lost ship's distress call (à la GURPS Black Ops) and we end up fighting a war against them. The War Against the Greys only ends when a small Spiritualist cult reveals that they have developed John Murray Spears's New Motive Power technology into noosphere-based FTL travel with the aid of the Casey Jones Effect. One legacy of that transhuman era is the widespread presence and use of bioroids (such as the Aslan model developed by the Turkish militry, the Vargr models developed by a Scandinavian company from licensed Aztechnology Xolotl specs, and others) in the early interstellar period. The first conflict of the Galactic Age was a bioroid revolt against their enslavers, seceding to form their own polity.

I'm now seeing the religion we are creating as a Bioroid Identity movement, a religious response to their once and continuing oppression at the hands of the evolved species, and primarily of humans. In that sense, saying that they are “intolerant of other sophonts” is somewhat of a misnomer. They aren't intolerant of humans and evolved species, but it would be as inappropriate as a white Rasta or member of the Nation of Islam.

We roll a 1 on 3d6-5 for the religion's size. Huh, another surprisingly small religious tradition. Whereas the Lost Secrets are small because it's old, this one is small because it's new, putting it in a very similar social position to the Black Identity religions at their origin points. In both cases, they are responses to oppression both fed by and in contrast to an overarching societal optimism. Random.org tells us that there are precisely 67 members of the faith. All of them will be on Ishee, of course.

And finally we roll the dWikipedia for a name: the Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft.

The religious landscape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
67 members (essentially 0%) Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft (generally known as Bio-Witches or Barnwells)
771,974 sophonts (app. 4.8%) not yet accounted for

Space opera, race, and fringe religious movements: an appearance of an idea that should get written about all on its own (Traveller Tuesday #8)

OK, less than one-tenth of Ishee's population has yet to have a religion. Maybe we'll finish it off with this one!

That 1d20 I should have been rolling all along gives us a 17: rational atheism. This is a religion that has scienced, logiced or in some other way reasoned the divine out of existence. Wouldn't it be fun if the techgnostic Rose Brothers had spawned a retrograde, materialistic child of a faith? Sadly, despite that being hella rad, I'm getting tired of thinking of things as being ultimately tied to the Rose Brothers ~ I want some more diversity, dagnabbit!

2d6+3 determines our latest religion's Spiritual Aim with an 11, perhaps taunting my idea of separating from the Rose Brothers theological line. This is another religion dedicated to expanding the boundaries of knowledge through inquiry and speculation, much like the Lost Secrets. Let's go with what seems to be the way everything is going. Maybe the Rose Brothers schismed in half, with one half retaining Hermachis of the Horizon but losing its forward orientation, and the other half trading Hermachis in for a continued gaze toward the future.

The Devotion Required's roll of 13 on 2d6+4 tells that adherents are called to devotion only several times during their life. This sounds like its about completing projects (like the Azeyrenawti). Here's a thought: logicing away the divine has caused the religion to set the sights of its ambitions rather lower. No longer do its adherents seek to create a new technology, unlike any seen before, that changes everything that society is and does forevermore. Paradigm shifts no longer bring Hermachis of the Horizon into the world, after all, so now these faithful strive to be a bit more like Elon Musk. The idea is to focus intensely on one field, one Big Project, learning as much as possible and innovating incrementally for years or decades, until one's intellectual curiosity is absolutely and fully expended, and then to move on to a completely different field. It is the obsession and depth of their study that is their focus, not on the grandiose effects of their work.

An 11 on 2d6+6 tells us that there is no organization or hierarchy to the religion above the planetary level, and rolling 2d6+4 results in a 12 and services being informal study groups with extensive limits on allowable subject matter. When someone reaches the end of a period of delving into a particular field, they work with municipal, national, and planetary colleges of the faith to call a World's Fair and present their innovations and the results of their research to the church as a whole. Almost inevitably, these Fairs involve presentations and installations from several people. Though they may not be as dramatic as the annual Old Rose Brothers Future-Shock Festival, these conventions (which happen a couple or a few times a year on Ishee, I imagine) can still gather quite the crowd and garner press attention in multiple star systems.

Missionary Fervor gets a 4 on 2d6-2. Once again, there are active conversion efforts: missions, proselytes, etc. ~ but these efforts are largely divorced from everyday interactions. No member of this faith will badger others to join or push the issue when there is no consent to hear it. The speciesism that took root in Azeyrenawt seems to have, to a lesser degree, infected this religion as well, as they limit those missionary efforts to a limited number of sophont species. I would bet, however, that their claims about the differing neurobiology of the species goes the other way than in Azeyrenawt. Some species, they claim, lack the neurological ability to intensely focus and build upon previous knowledge like the religion would require. Thankfully, they do avoid the human supremacy in Azeyrenawt, but (with deeper consideration) is that actually helpful or better?

Confession time: this is not the first time in my life that random planet generation in Traveller has brought me into an exploration of race politics and their intersection with fringe religious movements through the medium of space opera. It seems to be quite the obsession for me.

Finally, how many people follow this religion? 3D6-4 gives us 8 ~ hundreds of millions of followers ~ and random.org gives us the exact number as a quite respectable 827,561,177 (more than dectuple the size of Azeyrenawt). Rolling on random.org for the percentage of Ishee's population that are among that number, we realize that, well, I'm not a fan of the result we got. 1% feels both frustrating, as I'm trying to get to the next step of the process and a little too small for one of two major denominations of what was once the dominant faith of the planet. Let's try again. 4.1% is still small, less than half of the remaining population, but more satisfying. We'll go with that number, which is 656,874 (somewhat more than a third of the Isheean Azeyrenawti population, so we definitely learn something about the underbelly of Isheean culture with this result).

And as for a name . . . how about the Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers? Yeah, let's go with that. I like it.

The religious landscape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
772,041 sophonts (app. 4.8%) not yet accounted for

What bedeviling alchemy performs its transmogrifications when the future becomes the past? (Traveller Tuesday #7)

Oh, look, I missed a thing ~ I've adapted the list of God Views from The World Builder's Guidebook to account for more theologies than listed, and to flatten out the curve to remove that system's monotheism-is-better-than-primitive-polytheism-but-not-better-than-agnosticism-and-atheism-is-best bullshit. But it's been a year since I last looked at it, and I forgot to do that >.< Anyway, rather than going back and redoing everything, I'll just start rolling 1d20 to determine the God View of all subsequent religions.

I roll a 12 on the 1d20 roll, so this next religion is a remote monotheism. Somewhere between the reluctant God of the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers and the watchmaker God of complete deism, the number of times God has involved Themself with the world is, according to this religion, very small. Another 12, on 2d6+1 this time, tells us that the Spiritual Aim of this religion is to preserve the knowledge and wisdom of the past, possibly specifically the stories of the few times God (or mebbe Hermachis of the Horizon) has deigned to interact with the world.

What if this was a descendant of the Rose Brothers? Going from a dedication to developing new tech and shifting paradigms and transforming a futureshocked society into something once more unrecognizable to a disillusionment with the idea that people can actually come up with new ideas that quickly (think the original hullabaloo around the iPhone turning into the humdrum banality of yet another minutely-different iProduct)? And then that disillusionment grasping for a straw of hope and becoming ever-more-desperate to remember those times ~ the Gutenberg Bible, the assembly line, et cetera ~ when the new idea really did change something? A desperation that metastasizes into hope and history?

2d6+5 gives us 14, which in turn gives us a Devotion Required that only occurs once in a worshipper's life, just once sometime before dying. That kind of makes me think of the hajj, and I could justify that within the bounds of the Rose Brothers turned historians idea. It would be a pilgrimmage to the site of some major paradigm shift ~ to see the first printing press or the city where agriculture was invented or Charles Babbage's workshop or whatever. But I think, instead, it would make more sense as the religion calling on its members to, once in their life, erect or enact some grand monument to a technological revolution or to some invention that changed everything. These are the people who fund musea and install statues and host grand virtual historical recreations and write epic poetry. The more religious people in this faith spend much of their lives and money on these testaments.

Organizational Structure is determined by a 2d6+7 roll of 9 (yep, rolled a 2). We continue the tradition of Isheean religions involving great variation amongst its subgroups, as this one has a loose hierarchy that leaves most decisions up to individual worshippers. There are higher clergy, but they exist to enable learning and the creation of monuments, not to lead or dictate. They are librarians and teachers and financiers and the people who introduce you to the people you need to know. Another 9 (this time much more predictable, as it's a 2d6+2 roll) tells us, sensibly, that services consist of communal teaching with only limited ritual. When a worshipper completes their monument, they host an unveiling ceremony with a little ritual and a lot more teaching and spreading of knowledge about the innovation at hand.

OK, now this result takes me aback a bit. These faithful are zealous proselytes. That part makes some sense: driven to ensure that the galaxy remembers the past, they have a habit to (at the least) go off on rants about various moments in history when an invention transformed the way people interacted and behaved. That part isn't surprising, but the fact that the religion is intolerant of other sophont races is (2 on 2d6-2). Let's call them a human religion, cuz that's fun. Turns out that these qweens are rather speciesist, insisting that human are the only species with plastic enough neural structures to experience such dramatic shifts in their thinking. Against the evidence of history, they like to claim that other sophont species had a much more gradual and hidebound path of development and that, since entering the galactic community, humans have been responsible for all technological advancement. What jerks!  But it does let me show that racism/speciesism can be subtle, it can be nonviolent (which doesn't make it any less dangerous), and it can present itself as something that people could admire, like a commitment to learning and teaching.

This intolerance of other species has worked to limit the size of the religion, which rolled a 7 on 3d6-2 for its size. That's tens of millions, and random.org tells us that it's specifically 69,207,559 sophonts. Significantly more than all of Ishee, still. Rolling for a random percentage of the remaining Isheean population, I get 9.4%, which comes out to 1,506,003 Isheeans. Most of those will be in the Guild-State, obviously (at least with the current religious makeup of the planet). As an interesting demographic thought (it's way too early in the process to do this kind of demographic work), the Guild-State has about 38.5% of the Isheean population. 0.094 divided by that percentage comes out to about 25% (roughly) of the Guild-State following this religion, which is a significant number. If the other percentages carry over appropriately, then the Guild-State would also be (all percentages approximate at the moment) 23% atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other, 36% Liberty Fellowship, and 2% Beaumonters. When I do get down to that kind of work, though, I think the Associationists would cluster in the Consular Marches, being more representative of galactic culture than Isheean, resulting in fewer of them in the Guild-State.

So, this significant religion, what's it called? Let's roll that dWikipedia! We're just gonna steal that village's name directly and call it Azeyrenawt.

The religious landcape of Ishee so far:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
1,428,915 sophonts (app. 8.9%) not yet accounted for

Techgnostic Mormonism: The Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (Traveller Tuesday #6)

OK, this is interesting: I just rolled a 9 on 3d6 for the next religion's God View, which means that it's an interactive monotheism. Like Mormonism and some evangelical Christianities (and, I imagine, some Judaisms and Islams, too), this religion says that there is only one God and that that one God is constantly and ongoingly actively involved in the lives of sophonts. This is “God is My Co-Pilot” and “I Have a Testimony” territory. How is this going to interact with the Spirit-Listeners' watchful eagerness to take the path the spirits of the dead have made easy? Will they be great allies on this tech-worshiping world, or will they be at each others' too-similar throats? Let's find out!

Also, the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers are monotheistic, meaning that this might be the successor to the previous religion, perhaps a Mormon-like and/or fundamentalist shift in the guild's teachings?

Well, rolling a flat 2d6 gives us a Spiritual Aim of 6. It appears that this is a religion focused on getting into a heavenly paradise after death. That certainly doesn't sound like anything the Rose Brothers would put forth, nixing that idea. So, is that highly-interactive God trying to get you into Heaven, trying to create situations in which you have to make that choice, or trying to prevent you from going to Heaven after you die? Those last two are more interesting to me than the first. On the one had, you have a God actively campaigning against indecisiveness, apathy, and going with the flow and on the other, you have either a malevolent God who wants to hurt everyone (a maltheism) or a benevolent God trying to save sophonts from the numbing euphoria that awaits them.

The 9 we roll on 2d6-1 gives us a point of similarity between this religion and the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers: both have meetings only every other month, Isheean religions don't ask for much in the way of formal worship from their members! (So far, anyway.) I get the sense that Isheean culture, whether Fraternal, Oleinikan, Jermainish, or TCI focuses primarily on the ethical and embedded elements of religion, rather than orthodoxy or ritual. Rolling an 8 on 2d6+2 merely provides more evidence, as we learn that this religion has a loose hierarchy that leaves most decisions to the local level. I'm starting to get a sense that this religion might be similar to some Mormonisms, with a strong focus toward receiving testimony from Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother(s), and/or the angels. In the case of this science-fictive religion, the hierarchy would mostly be chosen on two bases: (1) a higher-than-average rate, comprehensibility, accuracy, and detail in the messages they receive from the divine, and (2) more importantly, their skill and creativity at incorporating the testimonies of their congregants into a guiding plan for the community as a whole. Above the local level, clergy would be receiving more testimonies and, as they rise in rank, more summaries of collections of testimonies and trying to synthesize them into a whole ~ high clergy's role is reactive, rather than proactive.

Maybe their theology is modeled on distributed computing? A syncresis of Mormonism and distributed computing? We are all the sons and daughters of God, which means that we are all components of a massive distributed algorithm designed by that God for some ineffable purpose. But how does Heaven fit into this? Ah! If we take it as a God who is creating situations in which we need to make a choice between Heaven and Hell, then each life could be a bit in the process, bit as in the technical, computer-science meaning of the term.

It seems Isheean culture as a whole sees religion as something more akin to philosophy, as we again roll a 10 for liturgical formality, resulting in those bimonthly meetings being formal study groups discussing and interpreting holy writings. As I develop this idea of a testimonial/oracular distributed theo-computing, I imagine them discussing and interpreting not only the writings of the past that laid out the foundations of their beliefs, but also the testimonies of other worshippers and communities, reflecting on how those visions intertwine with their own.

There are active efforts by this religion to acquire converts across the subsector, if not further (rolled a 4 on 2d6-2). After all, the more sophonts engaged in God's distributed computing efforts, the faster, more powerfully, and more effectively the program can run. However, certain sophont species possess nervous systems so divergent from those that devised this religion that its followers cannot see how their testimonies (if they have testimonies at all) could fit together with those of the church as a whole, and so such sophont species are left alone by the missionaries.

3d6-4 gives us hundreds of thousands of adherents to this religion. Random.org tells us that the precise number is a highly respectable 810,552. That's smaller than the remaining available population of Ishee, so I'll invert my process and roll to see what percentage of those adherents live on Ishee. 53% of them live on this planet we are creating, which comes out to 429,593 Isheeans.

Finally, we roll the dWikipedia for a seed of a name . . . how about the Beaumont Cosmological Computing System? Yeah, let's go with that, with a note that the name doesn't capture the heavy Mormon influence on the origins of the religion ~ I'm seeing it as a techgnostic take on Mormonism.

The religious landscape of Ishee so far:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
2,934,918 sophonts (app. 18.3%) not yet accounted for

A tiny li'l ol' religion in the Guild-State (Traveller Tuesday #5)

I'm hoping that we roll up a religion that could fit as the Rose Brothers' semi-mystical worship of innovation. Let's find out!

This time we roll 3d6 to determine the religion's God View, and an 11 tells us that this is a crisis monotheism. So, one God who only intervenes at crucial moments in human history. Is it a form of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or something else? Well, the Spiritual Aim might help us narrow that down, and that's a roll of 2d6-2+(11-3)/3, or 2d6+1. We may indeed have the Rose Brothers' religion! The Spiritual Aim of this group is for believers to expand the frontiers of knowledge through inquiry and speculation.

Rolling a 9 on 2d6+4, we learn that this religion requires only bimonthly devotions. Another 9 (this time on 2d6+2) tells us that the religious hierarchy is a loose one with most decisions left to individual worshippers. Rose Brothers or not, this combination sounds like the clergy and religious hierarchy aren't really what you might think of as such, but are really just recognitions for advancing knowledge or achieving a depth of study ~ more collegial than priestly. We go on to determine that the bimonthly devotions are completely informal, open exchanges of ideas and concepts in a casual setting (14 on 2d6+2).

Now we get to the last test as to whether this can be “the” Rose Brother religion or just merely some spin-off splinter sect. I've got my fingers crossed that these three rolls result in at least a high five-digit number. Our first roll is on 2d6-2; it turns out that the religion has an ordinary Missionary Fervor and will accept any sophont among its ranks (rolled a 6). Though a recruitment drive of sorts exists, mostly by means of talks and panels rather than missions or proselytization, the majority of this religion's adherents are perfectly happy to not try to convert their friends. Sadly, this is a tiny religion, as rolling a 0 on 3d6-6 means that there's only a maximum of 9 members.

Rolling the dWikipedia for a name . . . how about the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers? These (actually randomly generating the number) 6 elders, the oldest people in the Guild-State, still follow the religion of the Rose Brothers in its original form: that the omnibenevolent God of Mystery (Hamachis of the Horizon) can only intervene in human affairs when human ingenuity creates an opening for It to do so. Humans create such openings (is it a cosmological opening, the world torn asunder? Or is it psychological, opened by the wonder and panikon of future shock? These six remember fondly and with melancholy the days when that was still an active theological argument, if a bit of a tired one). They can only get together every other month to reminisce about the old days, discuss theology, and try to impress each other with their new ideas and inventions, but they never miss a meeting. And they're perfectly happy to tell others the Lost Secrets, but they recognize that history has passed them and their beliefs by. If they can't create the opening for Harmachis of the Horizon, then mebbe whatever has replaced their ways can.

So far, the religious landscape of Ishee involves:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers
3,364,470 sophonts (21%) not yet accounted for

Space faith! (Traveller Tuesday #4)

Now that we've got an idea of the political situation on Ishee, we get to start looking at one of my favorite things: its religious landscape! In college, I became fascinated by the interactions between science/technology and religion. I studied the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism) in light of the very specific moment in anthropological histriography in which it began (their idea that First Nations peoples were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel was a short-lived scientific theory) and Spiritualism as envisaging the medium as a human version of that new-fangled invention called the telegraph and Theosophy as continuing Spiritualism after the telegraph lost its shininess and Darwin was the new thing. And I studied UFO and ancient astronaut religions, like Scientology, Raelianism, the various formulations of Nuwaubianism, Heaven's Gate, and more. The Nuwaubians are extra-fun because they hit my other button: identity religions like the Radical Fairies, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, Rastafarianism, etc.

So, we start off by giving a number to the atheist/agnostic/non-religious population of Ishee, the folk we won't capture with our randomized religions. Let's just roll 1d100 and call it a percent. A reasonable 31% of Isheeans list themselves on surveys as atheist/agnostic/non-religious, or 4,966,607 sophonts.

Because FTL travel in my religion is built on technology derived from actual Spiritualist weirdness (the New Motive Power of Unitarian abolitionist turned Spiritualist free love preacher and abolitionist John Murray Spear), there needs to be at least a significant percentage of the population of any planet that practices a Spiritualist religion. I'm gonna choose the appropriate God View until I'm satisfied with that percentage.

So, our first religion will be one of ancestor worship (God View 5), which means we roll 2d6-2+(5-3)/3, or 2d6-1, to determine its Spiritual Aim. Oh, goody! We rolled a 3, which means that the religion believes in reincarnation with a karma doctrine (meaning that one's actions, morality, and/or devotion in this life determine or affect your next life). Next, we roll 2d6-7+3 for the amount of Devotion Required. 11-4 is 7, so there are fortnightly services, with anything more being in the realm of personal piety rather than religious requirement. That feels more like a focus on a morality-based karma doctrine than a devotion-based one. Or, maybe, a simple consequential karma (if your actions create a 'verse with more poor people in it, than your chances of being reborn as a poor person are greater. Duh.)

The Organizational Structure of the religion ends up as a flat 2d6 roll, which results in a 6, which means that it has a loose hierarchy, with most decisions made on a regional (as in interplanetary) level. I'm thinking that means that there are some higher reaches of clergy that oversee several worlds and discuss theology, ethics, liturgy, and the like, with most of the lower clergy (planetary and local) generally listening to them and going forward with what they think while mebbe putting their own bit of a spin on it. Mebbe something like Islam's hierarchical structure but with a Spiritualist personal-gnosis approach rather than a reverence for an unchangeable text. There is a central authority in this religion (unlike Islam, or modern Islam anyway), but it mostly functions collegially and academically to keep the various regional leaders talking to each other for unification and the development of the understanding of the religion.

A 2d6-7+6 roll of 10 tells us that ritual (which, recall, is only held fortnightly) is generally limited to formal study groups discussing and interpreting church writings. I think this is a twofold thing. One, the religion focuses less on seances and spirit possession, and more on the little everyday ways that the spirits of the dead (especially one's own dead and the various Spirit Associations contacted long ago by John Murray Spear) direct and guide our lives. There is a whole body of religious writings talking about how the ghosts might do that, or about developing the discerning, present awareness to notice when they do. Another body of religious literature would, in fact, come from seances and spirit possession, generally practiced only by clergy (and practiced more, the higher up in the hierarchy you are). This body records direct communications from the Spirit Associations and is studied by adherents of the religion in order as a guide to belief and action.

The Missionary Fervor of the religion is always determined with a 2d6-2 roll, which in this case comes up 4. This means that adherents of this religion actively (but not zealously) proselytize among a limited number of sophonts. A friendship with a member of this religion won't involve a conversion attempt every time you hang out, or even once every five times, but there's a good chance there will be at least one conversation about how your ancestors and the Spirit Associations are trying to guide you and direct your life to your betterment and that of everyone that is, was, or will be. I'm getting the sense that, while there is some idea that there are bad actors among the spirits, this religion doesn't really focus on that very much, considering it uncommon or rare.

According to the theologians of this church, every sophont species has its own Spirit Associations leading its dead, and not all of them have come into communion with the Associations of Human Spirits that the church focuses on. This means that some sophont races are exempt from its proselytization efforts and encouraged instead, if it comes up (adherents won't bring it up) to talk to their dead to see what they should be doing.

Finally, we roll 3d6-4 to determine how many people follow these teachings and channelled documents. Wow, this is a popular one! We rolled a 12, which means that the religion has literally trillions of adherents ~ I'm imagining this covers at least a couple of subsectors, if not more. Let's use random.org to come up with an actual number: 2,045,958,269,515 people follow this religion. How many of those are on Ishee? We've accounted for 31% of its population, so let's roll a d69 to find out. 48% of Ishee's population belongs to this religion, or 7,690,230 sophonts.

We need to give it a name. Let's roll that dWikipedia and see what we can come up with . . . how about the Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners?

Details, details, details (Traveller Tuesday #3)

OK, so who actually runs these four states and three factions? How do they work? Well, we start by determining the representative authority, the person or group who is considered to be the center of the government (“The Decider” as one former President I'm annoyed I miss once called it).

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers (self-perpetuating oligarchy): Rolling a 1 on 1d6 tells us that an elite council serves as the Guild-State's representative authority. I'm assuming that's either the council of paradigm shifters or the judge who determine whether someone joins that group. Probably the former, but we'll find out after we figure out everyone's representative authority.

Oleinik March (feudal technocracy): Here, we roll a 6 on 2d6 and discover the quite expected: the representative authority of Oleinik March is a single ruler, in this case the Marquis of Oleinik who rules directly.

Jermaine March (feudal technocracy): Jermaine March, on the other hand, is much less typical, as an 8 reveals that it is ruled by several councils. Huh. Don't know what to do with that yet. Maybe the marquesal contract was awarded to an administrative company?

TCI: We roll a 7: this nation is ruled by a ruler. Military? Corporate? I don't know yet . . .

charismatic dictator: Oh, look! It's a junta of some sort! (We rolled 6 on 1d6)

(vis)comital agents (feudal technocracy): They're governed by an elite council (we rolled 4). It's probably some sort of cell structure, naw that would actually be more like . . .

foreign agitators (captive state): . . . several councils (thanks to a roll of 10)! So this group will be the one organized into cells.

But what do these representative authorities do? And how much power do they have, really? We're gonna answer those questions in reverse order as we first determine what the division of power is like in each, and then will determine what kind of power the representative authorities have:

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers: no division (rolled a 6), meaning that the elite council is certainly the Council of Innovating Masters. Said Council holds all the highest power in the Guild-State: executive, legislative, and judicial.

Oleinik March: 2-way division (rolled a 4), with the consular marquis holding executive and legislative power (rolled a 5)

Jermaine March: 2-way division (rolled a 3), with those councils holding executive and legislative power (rolled a 3)

TCI: 2-way division (rolled a 3), with the ruler holding executive and judicial authority (rolled a 1)

charismatic dictator: 2-way division (rolled a 4), with the junta holding legislative and judicial authority (sounds closer to a bunch of messiahs or a council of wise elders than a bunch of military generals . . .)

(vis)comital agents: 3-way division (rolled a 2), with the elite council holding legislative powers (rolled a 3)

foreign agitators: 3-way division (rolled a 2), with the various cells holding executive power (rolled a 1)

We've almost got the governments on this world sorted out! We just gotta figure out who holds the other kinds of power in each, if not the representative authority.

Oleinik March: Several councils hold judicial power (roll of 10). Let's call them teams of lawyers hired by the consular marquis of Oleinik to comb through the marquesal contract and determine what actions are or are not allowable under its terms and fine print.

Jermaine March: Ah! Here's the consular marquis of Jermaine, holding judicial authority (roll of a 6). I've two ideas about how to explain the situation in Jermaine March is constructed, and they aren't mutually exclusive. The consular marquis of Jermaine is a lawyer by training, not an administrator, so they outsourced the day-to-day running of their march to a corporation, reserving the right to place boundaries and limitations. They have also been seduced away by the adventurous possibilities open to one of marquesal rank and become more of an absentee ruler.

TCI: Several councils (roll of an 8) hold legislative authority. So far, I'm thinking this is a miltary outpost or militarized colony, but until I determine what other polities exist in the Bishop Sheumack system or its (vis)county, I don't think I can say too much about it.

charismatic dictator: A single ruler (roll of a 7) holds executive authority. Maybe this is the charismatic dictator, and they are merely a pawn of the council? The vulgate, the masses, follow him because of his charisma, but any real powerbroker knows that the council holds the actual power?

(vis)comital agents: Here's a surprising bit: the demos holds the executive power for this faction (roll of a 2) ~ the (vis)count doesn't want to take direct action, probably fearing over-committal of resources, disruption of the balance of powers, or contractual consequences, so while they have agents working towards unifying this fractured planet, those agents are limited to recruiting and encouraging natives of the world to act. Must be frustrating for those agents, by which I mean: PLOT. Several councils, on the other hand (roll of a 9), hold judicial authority. Let's say those are social and political scientists hired by the (vis)count to evaluate the success of these efforts.

foreign agitators: several councils hold judicial power (roll of a 10) ~ maybe there are two kinds of cells, the kind that actually works to achieve their ends, and another kind (the Inquisition) that investigates, infiltrates, and manipulates the cells to ensure ideological unity? And several councils hold legislative power, too (roll of an 8). This is one decentralized non-democratic group!

Politics are what happens whenever two or more people are interacting (Traveller Tuesday #2)

We might be about to get an answer as to how wed to capitalism Ishee is. It's time to roll for the planet's government! Let's see, that's a 2d6-7+Pop roll, and Pop is 7, so it's just a flat 2d6 roll. A 7 tells us that the world is balkanized, or split up into multiple nations (just like ours! Gov digit 7: bUWP α-3D-0704-? (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/????77?-?/?/??/Em). We'll figure out just how many nations in a moment, but first we'll have to look at non-governmental agents. We roll 1d3+1 for how many of those there are, which turns out to be 3.

We roll on the Government table for each of the non-governmental agents in order to see, generally, how they're structured. We get 10, 5, and 6, so we're looking at a charismatic dictator (like a religious messiah or revolutionary leader), a feudal technocracy, and a captive government. In my Traveller setting, “feudal technocracy” (which is kind of a weird term, especially cuz technocracy is a misunderstood and misapplied term in so many cases) refers to a recreation of feudal hierarchy, land ownership rules, and entitled rights by means of hypercapitalist subcontracting. That is, a duke will award a comital contract for the administration of a group of systems within their subsector to someone (granting them all the rights of a count while burdening them with the responsibilities of actual governance), who might then subcontract with someone to monitor the banking industry in their county and awarding them in exchange the title and rights of a viscount or marquis. When the system is working properly, the contract goes to whomever it can be shown will most skillfully be able to fulfill the role (which is the technocratic bit).

ANYWAY: The 7, 8, and 8 I roll on three 2d6 rolls reveal that the charismatic dictator is only a minor power with some supporters, but the other two are notable powers who are well known and enjoy significant support. I'm thinking that the feudal technocracy faction might merely represent the contract noble whose fief is/includes this planet. They want to unify the world for some reason, to forge it into a world-state. Is it for power? It might be, but I'm kind of more enamored by the idea that the noble actually thinks it will be best for the population somehow to bring the various nations of the world together. And with the stateless captive government faction (something of a conundrum), I'm kind of thinking either agents of another world trying to manipulate this one into its control or (maybe more interestingly) a grassroots movement trying to convince the world to let another take over.

A roll of a 5 on 1d6 tells us that there are 4 major nations on the planet. Before we divide up the population among them, I'm gonna roll for their governmental structures, just in case I get another 7. This roll is 2d6-7+(Pop-1), or 2d6-1 in this case. Let's see . . . 3, 5, 5, 6. Well! That's an awful lot of feudal technocracies there! This time with a state, as is another captive government. The 3 means that one nation is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

My current thoughts on the political situation (I'm gonna give the nations and cities random Wikipedia names at this point; I'll add the link, too):

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers (6,174,679). The Guild of the Rose Brothers is a group dedicated to innovation and invention. Think a cross between the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, Maker Fair, and Noisebridge. They're a semi-mystical lightly anarchistic fraternal order to which you gain admission by demonstrating that you've improved some already existing piece of technology or methodology. You join its highest levels only by creating something new, introducing some major, paradigm-shifting innovation or invention. Major cities: Haldon (primary: 799,023 people), Scopula Vicina (primary: 650,169 people), Pursuit of Life (primary: 599,580), Balvaneh-ye Motamedi (primary: 532,214), Barnette City (secondary: 445,786), The Bridges (secondary: 173,828)

Oleinik March (4,105,907). The (vis)county which contains the Bishop Sheumack system recently had its contract awarded to a new (vis)count; I think the previous one died of natural causes (age?). That dead former viscount was far more interested in the activities and opportunities in the Duke's court than in actually administering their territory. I think maybe they aren't dead at all, but managed to win a higher contract that had an exclusivity clause. Regardless, they had a great fear that their underlings would overthrow them and take their contracted position. So administration of the Bishop Sheumack system was contracted to two consular marquises, one of Oleinik and one of Jermlaine. While the large print of their contracts set out how they were to administer the system together, the nature of the two marquises and the small print ensured that they would spend all of their energy struggling for an edge over the other and never being secure enough to move against their contract liege. Major Cities: Nueva Veracruz (primary: 796,209), Machrihanish (primary: 555,167), Neo-Edinburgh (primary: 466,559), Thorell (secondary: 373,164)

Jermaine March (4,453,070). See above. Major Cities: Landell de Moura City (primary: 761,773), Daedalus City (primary: 544,487), Amiman (secondary: 239,206), Luisa Maffi City (secondary: 100,368)

TCI (the captive state; 1,287,657) . . . I have no inspiration for this yet, other than that it leads to an offworld polity. Major Cities: Moa (primary: 758,380), Sun City (secondary: 204,087)

Similarly, the nature of the charismatic dictator eludes me as of yet, but stateless feudal technocracy faction will be agents of the new (Vis)Count, who is much more conscientious than the last one and has their agents on the world working for peace and integration among the various nations. It'll just make their job easier. Finally, there's the captive state stateless faction: I'm thinking that they'll be a cold war kind of thing. The captive state that has territory is at war with another polity and that polity has sent agents to this world to strike against that outpost.

Well, let's start where everyone starts (Traveller Tuesday #1)

By creating a world, with an eye toward it being part of a whole subsector!

Well, first we start with a name. I know, I know ~ it seems like I'm putting the warp nacelles ahead of the cargo bay, but I think figuring out a name first off gives you something you might work off, to establish themes, original colonizing culture, et cetera. And if you don't? Logically speaking, most stars won't be named by colonists anyway.

I like to keep as much randomness as possible, so I went to Wikipedia, hit “Random Article”, and got sent to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Sheumack. At the moment, we know nothing about the structure of the system, so I'll apply the name to the star itself ~ we're writing about the Bishop Sheumack system. I kinda like including the title in the sun's name; it gives a different feel than other settings.

Thinking about it, I can totally name the mainworld of the Bishop Sheumack system. Rolling the dWikipedia, I get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ishee. Ishee will be the name of the mainworld, and we'll place it in a random hex in the subsector. Oooh, but first, let's name that subsector, sector, and quadrant: Eau Pleine subsector (Alpha-3D or Greve-D) in Greve sector (Alpha-3) in Alpha Quadrant. Lets roll for the hex: 0704.

Anyway, Ishee needs some definition. I'm more of a social scifi/anthropological scifi kind of qween, so I like to start with the second half of the bUWP (Basic Universal World Profile). So, rolling 2d6-2, I find that Ishee has more people than the average planet: tens of millions of people live there (Pop digit 7: bUWP α-3D-0704-? (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/????7??-?/?/??/Em).

But how many tens of millions? Using random.org to generate a random 8-digit number, I discover that 16,021,313 live on Ishee. That's about the size of Lagos, Nigeria (city proper) or the Moscow metropolitan area or the entire country of Cambodia!

Next, I roll 3d6 and get a 9, which is greater than the world's Pop digit of 7, so there are no cities of tens of millions on this planet. How about millions? Are there cities of that size? A 10 on 2d6 tells me that no, there are not (again, it's larger than 7). I don't have to roll for cities with hundreds of thousands of people ~ 1d6 will always roll less than 7! Another 1d6 roll gives me a 1, which will result in a very decentralized planet, as that means that there are only (16,021,313/107)*(1+9) cities of this size (the largest). That comes out to 16 of them. Assuming they have an average population of 500,000 for ease, that takes up 8,000,000 of our 16,021,313, leaving us with 8,021,313 people unaccounted for.

Rolling 1d6 again tells us that there are (8,021,313/107)*(4+9)*10 cities with tens of thousands of people. That works out to 104 of them. Of these 3d6-3% ( I rolled a 15, so 12%) will have populations of 90,000 or more. The math says that's 12.513 cities, so I will just barely round up ~ 13 cities of such size exist on Ishee. Overall, however, we again assume these cities average out to about 50,000 people each, accounting for another 5,200,000 of our people. We still need to account for the remaining 2,821,313.

Well, let's run through that formula again, rolling a 2, which gives us (2,821,313/107)*(2+9)*100. That's 310 cities averaging 5000 people each. Rolling 3d6 tlls us that (12-3)% of them have 9000 or more people ~ that's 28 such cities. That's another 1,550,000 people placed in cities, leaving 1,271,313. Let's do another quick run through for the small towns of hundreds of people, rolling a 3 on 1d6. (1,271,313/107)*(3+9)*1000 equals 1526 cities, of which (15-3)%, or 183, have populations of 900 or more. Averaging all those cities out to 500 people each, we realize that they hold a total of 763,000 people. Only 508,313 people remain homeless. Or, rather, they tend to live alone in isolated settlements of no more than maybe a few dozen people (2-4 families), or roam across the surface as traveling folk with no permanent residence.

For future consideration, we designate the ten largest of the cities as primary cities, the remaining 6 cities with hundreds of thousands of people as secondary cities, and all the rest as tertiary.

Now, let's define the planet's major cultural elements. Rolling 1d3, we discover that there are two big Cultural Differences. Rolling 2d66, we get 12 and 61. Let's see . . . looking at the chart . . . the planet is (or hosts) a Tourist Attraction of some sort which attracts Travellers from at least the subsector if not further afield and is Progressive, with an expanding and vibrant culture full of optimism and hope. I'm kind of taken with the idea, at first blush, that this tourist attraction isn't a thing or a place, but a seasonal or annual festival that people come to the planet to see ~ maybe like a futuristic Burning man or a Cherry Blossom Festival or election hoopla . . . .

In addition, there is but a single local custom of note (I rolled a 1 on 1d6). Another 1d6 roll gives me a 5, which tells me that is single local custom of note is something from the “Miscellaneous Customs 1” table . . . That's a 1d66 roll, which gives me a 56, so high tech is allowed for . . . some group of people. Let's head on over to that table, which is another 1d66. But first! I roll a 1d6 and get a 2, s I don't have to roll on the bigger table. A roll of 1-3 tells me that the entire culture practices this custom. Hmmmm, “High tech allowed for everyone”. That sounds to me like a culture that is fiercely protective of access to high technology and deeply distrustful of any attempt to limit it. Think of, say, the NRA's take on the 2nd Amendment, or even more extreme. Maybe mixed in with what are currently more leftist ideals (or non-political and seen as a charity) of removing societal and economic barriers to access.

Maybe that festival I mentioned above, the tourist attraction, is a high tech playground/conference/chance to show off? Depending on how capitalist (ugh!) this world or this subsector turn out, it can be something like a Maker Fair mixed with Burning Man kind of thing or a massive corporate marketing scheme (like, say, E3 or Comic-Con) . . .