Harlequin (world)

Harlequin/Sapphyre (Dagudashaag 2135) Milieu 1116 C433433-A Starport C Routine: No Construction, Major Repair, Unrefined fuel Size 4 Small (6,400 km, 0.32g - 0.46g) Atmosphere 3 Vacuum (very thin) Hydrographics 3 Wet World 30% Population 4 Moderate (60 thousand) Government 3 Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy Law 3 Low Law (no automatic weapons) Tech Level A Early Stellar (jump drive)
See also	UWP
style="width: 220px; height: 250px;" Jump map from Travellermap.com
System Details
Primary	K4 V M4 V
Worlds	13
Gas Giants	3
Planetoid Belts	2
Cultural Details
Government	Self-perpetuating oligarchy
Law Level	Low
Cultural Extension	1427
Army Size (BEs)	0
Economic Details
Technology Level	10
Economic Extension	B33-3 Resources B Abundant Labor 3 Low (6 thousand) Infrastructure 3 Very limited Efficiency -3 Poor
Importance Extension	0
Resource Units	69
GWP (BCr)	0
World Trade Number	3
Trade Volume (MCr/year)	0
Starport Details
Classification	Class-C
Port Size	0
Building Capacity (Tons)	0
Port employees	0
Port passengers (annual)	0

Harlequin has both an unbreathably thin atmosphere and a lack of surface water making habitation by sophonts difficult. The system has a population between 10,000 and 10 million, lacking the industrial base to be completely self-supporting. It is a member of Third Imperium in the Sapphyre Subsector of Dagudashaag Sector and in the Domain of Vland. Harlequin, as a member world of the Third Imperium, holds the estate of an Imperial knight, a member of the Imperial Nobility charged with overseeing the world. During the Long Night this world was named Leka Id.

Astrography and planetology

Harlequin is a member of the Dagudashaag Main.

A remarkable double planet system, Harlequin and its twin Pierrot (H2A6103-9) orbit a bloated red giant star in the final stages of evolution. The star, Gastoyne, has reached the stage where it has started to blow off its outer layer and a steady wind of carbon soot is being blown out of the system. Over the millennia this carbon dust has settled on the outward facing hemispheres of Harlequin and Pierrot. The pair are tidally-locked, giving both worlds a characteristic black-and-white appearance.

Binary Solar System

Harlequin Binary Star System

Star Name	Hierarchy	Category		Mass (Sol)	Temp (K)	Luminosity (Sol)
Gastoyne K4 V	Primary	Main Sequence		0.73	4440 - 4600	0.33238
	Unit	Diameter	Min Distance	Hab Zone	Jump Shadow	M-Drive Limit
	AU	0.0033	0.0478	0.58 - 1.07	0.33	3.3
	Orbit #	*	*	2	1	5
Star Name	Hierarchy	Category		Mass (Sol)	Temp (K)	Luminosity (Sol)
Pierrot M4 V	Secondary	Main Sequence		0.23	3110 - 3210	0.00584
	Unit	Diameter	Min Distance	Hab Zone	Jump Shadow	M-Drive Limit
	AU	0.0013	0.0063	0.08 - 0.16	0.13	1.3
	Orbit #	*	*	0	0	3

History and background

In 827, the Bolvaran petrochem corporation Stahimeyer-Ramires SA conducted a detailed survey of the system and found the complex organic oceans on Pierrot included a significant percentage of buckminserfullerenes and lanthanum-doped nanotubes (a naturally occurring superconductor). Randolph Stahimeyer immediately authorized the purchase of much of Harlequin/Pierrot, and the construction of a plant to exploit Pierrot's petrochemical resources.

Construction began on a beanstalk system connecting the two worlds, designed to pump raw nanotubes to refining centers on Harlequin. In these plants they would be turned into lanthum carbosilicate wires used in starship jump grids.

Construction of the 'Worldbridge' began in 836 at the midpoint of the Harlequin/Pierrot system, the shaft of the Skyhook extending slowly toward the surfaces of both planets. Despite technical problems and labor disputes which greatly increased the cost of the project, work proceed until 841 when the end of the Worldbridge were barely a thousand kilometers about the surfaces of the worlds.

Stahimeyer-Ramires, its financial resources so depleted by the Worldbridge project, was the victim of a hostile takeover by Interstellar Petrochemical Processing (IPP). IPP replaced Sashimeyer's senior management, took over the most profitable refining plants in Pact and Bolivar, and sold the rest. The subcontractors on the Worldbridge went bankrupt and the project was abandoned barely a step from completion.

Three centuries later the Worldbridge had become Randolph's Folly, an interplanetary derelict. Forty thousand kilometers of spun monocrystalline plasteel tubing has attracted a great many salvagers and wildcat scrap merchants. Incompetent attempts to dismantle the structure have left parts of it critically unstable. In 1102, two hundred kilometers of skyhook cabling broke free and fell onto the surface of Harlequin damaging several habitats. The people of Harlequin have appealed to the Imperial Navy to make the structure safe but no official moves have been made.

References and contributors

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Jae Campbell. "Library Data: Sapphyre." Signal-GK 07 (1993): 11.
• Marc Miller. First Survey (Imperium Games, 1996), 83.
• Jae Campbell. Encyclopaedia Dagudashaag (Signal-GK, 2017), 145.