Trade Route

A Trade Route is a single route through jumpspace or many connected routes through jumpspace used by interstellar Travellers and merchants among others.

• Until the development of the J-2 Jump Engine, they are synonymous with mains, clusters, traces, and related astronomical formations.
• They are also called jump routes, space-lanes, star lanes, star ways, trade mains, Xboat routes, postal route, or communication routes.

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Please refer to the following AAB Library Data articles for more information:

• Jump Bridge
  • Calibration Point
  • Caravanserie
  • Deep Space Fuel Caches
  • Deep Space Station
  • Droptanks
  • Jump Tanker
  • Trade Route

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Description (Specifications)

A Trade Route is, generally speaking, a series of stars used as transit points for interstellar travel.

• Jump Bridges and related installations sometimes bridge the gaps where stars are not located.

Within the subsector, local governments will have established communications or trade routes connecting some (but not all) worlds. These routes serve as a conduit for messages between businesses and between governments as well as between people. The also serve as the basic routes that liners and large freighters travel. Key worlds are connected by communications routes. Star Maps show the distribution of star systems in space, and show their relationships to each other in terms of relative distance (parsecs) and commercial space-lane connections.

Trade Route Traffic

Trade Routes are travel routes which jump-capable starships travel between major worlds and which connect vital suppliers with essential markets, important government worlds with high population worlds, and strategic resources with exploiting industry.

• Trade routes are a natural outgrowth of economic and market pressures.
• When a market is no longer profitable, the trade routes bypass it.

Trade Route Traffic

Characterization	Common Route/s	FTL	Remarks
Slow FTL Traffic	These routes are affordable to travel: Blue Line Major Route Cyan Line Main Route	J:1-2	J:1-2 routes and traders are very efficient and affordable. Tramp Liners and Free Traders can afford to travel these routes and the middle class can afford these tickets. They harbor much traffic and are often patrolled by the navy or paramilitary police forces.
Moderate FTL Traffic	These routes are moderately expensive to travel: Green Line Intermediate Route Yellow Line Feeder Route	J:3-4	The higher cost of interstellar portage for J:3-4 ships limits them to more profitable markets with higher value goods. Naval patrols tend to be limited and systems must rely on local space navies for defense. Corsairs are known to take advantage of such systems.
Fast FTL Traffic	These routes are expensive to travel: Red Line Minor Route Insignificant Route	J:5-6	Only Military Ships tend to possess these capabilities. The cost inefficiencies of these expensive ships limit them to the yachts of the rich or very specialized economic markets. Civilian ships with J:5-6 capabilities stick out in the vast majority of systems. Worlds and systems located five or six parsecs from a major mainworld are effectively isolated.
Breakneck FTL Traffic (Future Technology)	Unrealized	J-7+	Hop Drive technology is maturing and may eventually become operational. No current ships using TL-15 technologies possess these capabilities.

History & Background (Dossier)

The trade routes are typically the territory of the Imperium's largest trading companies.

• They maintain fleets of commercial transports and merchants who serve these tradeworlds, and they reap large profits in doing so.

A venerated astronomer such as Tomasii Dzones-Arkuledii would argue that there is no such thing as a sociographic trade route. The stars and the distance between them were created billions of years before the current interstellar order. Perhaps much longer ago if current scientific theory holds mistaken theory.

A scientifically educated interstellar merchant, perhaps a former scout, might counter that the naturally occurring trade routes have been enhanced through the use of jump bridges, waystations, and what are certainly sophontic creations. Therefore a trade route is most certainly sociographic in nature.

Similar arguments with similarly minded sophonts have been occurring across Charted Space for millennia. The Travellers don't care. They simply know that the Jump Drive works...

Limited Accessibility

Trade routes directly serve fewer than a tenth of the worlds of the Imperium.

• The other 90 percent of the Third Imperium's worlds are served by feeder lines, tramp freighters, and free traders.
• These smaller companies and unscheduled ships carry passengers and cargo between worlds off the main trade routes.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This article was copied or excerpted from the following copyrighted sources and used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author.

• Classic Traveller Book 3 Worlds and Adventures, pgs. 5-6
• MegaTraveller Imperial Encyclopedia
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science