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.

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) . . .