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, or communication routes.

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Please refer to the following AAB library 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.

History & Background (Dossier)

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...

References & Contributors (Sources)

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.

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