Firth (world)
| Firth/Caledon (Reaver's Deep 1813) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classic Era (1116) | C52559B-9
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| See also | UWP | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| System Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary | K7 V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Planetoid Belts | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gas Giants | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Firth is a nonindustrial world, that requires extensive imports of outside technology to maintain a modern, star-faring society.
- In a technological universe, societies without industrial capability generally suffer as nearly all manufactured and high tech goods must be brought in at significant cost.
- As a nonindustrial world, it requires extensive imports of outside technology to maintain a modern, star-faring society. The need to import most manufactured and high technology goods drives the price of these goods up in the open market.
- It is a member of the Principality of Caledon in the Caledon Subsector of Reaver's Deep Sector.
Description / Astrography & Planetology
No information yet available.
Monostellar System
Firth Monostellar System Star Name Hierarchy Category Mass (Sol) Temp (K) Luminosity (Sol) Firth K7 V
Primary Main Sequence 0.64 3990 - 4100 0.20972 Unit Diameter Min Distance Hab Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit AU 0.0029 0.038 0.47 - 0.88 0.29 2.9 Orbit # * * 2 0 5
System Data
Primary: Aurora, spectral class F7V. ICN S4G0203F7V. Mass 1.196 standard. Stellar diameter 1.252 standard. Luminosity 2.584 standard.
Planetary System: Five major bodies. One inhabited world (Firth, III). No gas giants in system. No planetoid belts in system.
III Firth: Mean orbital radius, 182.51 million kilometers (1.22 AU). Period 450.1 days. Two satellites. Diameter, 8267 kilometers. Density, 0.99 standard. Mass, 0.242 standard. Mean surface gravity, 0.62G. Rotation period: 29 hours 24 minutes, 21 seconds. Axial inclination 14°58'35.9". Albedo, 0.30. Surface atmospheric pressure, 0.15 atm. Composition, oxygen-nitrogen mix with taint caused by oxygen imbalance. Filter respirator combination required to breathe atmosphere. Hydrographic percentage, 56%; composition, water and frozen water-ice. Mean surface temperature 27°C.
History & Background (Dossier)
Remarks: Firth is remarkable among the Caledonian worlds for its unusual governmental structure, a government derived from difficulties experienced by early settlers attempting too establish a viable colony on the world. The world was originally colonized from Caledon (Reaver's Deep 1815) during the first flush of success of settlement of the new area, only 15 years after the Caledonian colony was itself established. Firth was discovered to have extensive mineral deposits deemed useful to the fledgling settlement on Caledon.
However, Firth was never particularly self-sufficient; resources were simply too scant to permit it. The decline of interstellar flight on Caledon following a series of internal crises and natural disasters left the Firth colony high and dry, the people unable to support themselves without drastic sacrifices. But those sacrifices were made, and Firth survived.
Credit for the survival must go to DIRECTOR, an extensive computer system originally used to coordinate mining operations on Firth. When it became clear that the colony was cut off, the colonists agreed that power should be entrusted to the complete impartiality of the DIRECTOR complex. Programs were devised by which the computer could plan various aspects of food rationing, developmental planning, and the like. DIRECTOR even became a judge, with the power of life and death over the populace. With ruthless application of logic and concerted planning, Firth survived, but at the cost of creating one of the most effective tyrannies in human history. Moreover, across the generations of isolation in Firth’s underground city complex, the populace came to accept their condition as natural, and do not to this day understand the horror outsiders experience at the vast, impersonal control DIRECTOR continues to exercise even now, when the need for such direction of resources no longer exists.
Some sociologists believe that the elite caste of computer programmers on Firth have used their position and power to manipulate the government and progress of the world to their own ends, but no proof of these allegations has been advanced.
Non-canon: While Firth is perhaps the ultimate in totalitarian technocracy - a human society run by a computer system - the system is a member of the Principality of Caledon, a constitutional monarchy with strong democratic traditions.
Firth's three Grand Senators are appointed by DIRECTOR from among the most qualified citizens (according to its algorithm). Its solitary member of the House of Delegates is elected by popular vote, but the popular vote is influenced by DIRECTOR's "Electoral Recommendations" - distributed to the people at election time - to the point that at no time in recent memory has DIRECTOR's selected candidate won by less than a 99.9% margin. The sole member of the House of Lords is always a member of the House of Harrison of Firthshire, the sole noble family on the planet.
- It is a member of the Principality of Caledon in the Caledon Subsector of Reaver's Deep Sector.
References & Contributors (Sources)
- Periodical: Traveller Chronicle 5 in Article: 'Pilot's Guide to the Caledon Subsector'
- Author & Contributor: Mitchberg
- ↑ "Jump Map API" and map location from Travellermap.com