Talk:Forine (world)

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Notes (2007)[edit]

There's a big problem with the portrayal of Forine as covered with buildings. I'll leave aside the fact that I've put a lot of the population in orbital habitats and in the asteroids, precisely because Forine is such a miserable world, since that is non-canonical. But even if everyone did live on Forine, you still wouldn't get that effect. A 3,000 miles diameter world has a lot of surface, especially when it doesn't waste any of it on oceans, agricultural areas, and wildernesses. Try working out how much acreage each Forininan would have if the entire surface was single-storied buildings. Add the extreme unlikelihood that buildings would be single-storied, and the picture simply doesn't make sense.

okay 1500 mile radius, area of a sphere is 4 pi r^2 so 28,274,333 sq mi. 640 acre per square mile divided by 6 billion people gives 3.016 acres each. New subdivisions around here usually have 3000 - 4000 sq ft lots (7000 or more for older neighbourhoods) or about 6-12 per acre (supporting families). Of course we also have schools, shops, roads, parks, and all the factories on an industrial world will take a lot of space, so yes 6 billion people would come close to completely cover the planet with single family residences. I tried to find out how much support area a person needs, but could not find an internet reference. Dcorrin 15:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to convert this to metric because most of the statistics are in metric. 28.26 m sq miles is 73,230,186 km2, for 6 billion people gives 81 people per km2. On the list of countries by population, this doesn't even make the top 100. Depending upon how dependable the artificial agriculture is, you can probably push this to 100 times this density, so the domes cover 1/100 of the surface. which is still a lot, and everyone lives in an urban density environment without breaking physical laws. I doubt you could push it another order of magnitude. Tjoneslo 23:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I started with Imperial as the original description was imperial. I live in Canada/Brazil with numbers 3.2/22 (U.S. is 31) so 81 seems busy. As I stated if everyone lived in single family homes, then we are still talking 50-100% coverage, with urban coverage then yes we are below 50%, the object was not to fit the population in as small an area as possible, but to validate the statement that from orbit it looked like the entire world was covered. If you regularly spaced out settlements so that only 10% of the surface was covered, it would look close to a global city. Compressing the population to Japanese values (an Industrial country - 339 people per km2) we would still need to cover 24% of the planet. Japan still has "waste" area such as mountains, even with Hong Kong values (6407) 1.3% of the planet would be needed, and Hong Kong is not a manufacturing area (but does have a lack of food production). 1% or below would be like living in a space habitat. Dcorrin 13:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the description of Forine as completely roofed over comes from the same source that says its population is 'only' 1.6 billion. As for the suggestion that Forine isn't completely roofed over, it just looks that way, that's exactly the fix I've proposed. Rancke 14:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm very tempted to rewrite the description wholesale, but I don't want to do that without giving others the chance to show me that I'm wrong. Are my calculations incorrect? (I can't give you my exact figures, because I made them a long time ago and I don't have them here, but I think it worked out at several thousand square meters per inhabitant).

Rancke 12:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that with a population of 6 billion, there would be loads of space per inhabitant; so a world wide arcology would most likely not be in use.

Given the inhospitable climate (Minus140+; doesn’t really matter what scale you use Celsius or Fahrenheit) the need for protection from just the temperature would be enormous; not even taking the atmospherics into account; a regional arcology might make more sense. Sstefan 13:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh sure. Arcologies or environmental domes are a must. Come to think about it, you might be able to do something with environmental domes (assuming for purposes of argument that TL 10 is sufficient to make Really Big environmental domes). If the domes cover not only residential areas, but also agricultural fields and artificial lakes and wildernesses, you may be able to cover a lot of Forine with them. Of course, this would give Forine the ability to grow its own crops, but I've never believed in the notion that a high-population world would import most of its foodstuff instead of using hydroponics and carniculture to grow it. The logistics are simply prohibitive - the number of ships you need to import food for 6 billion people is huge. (Note that I'm not saying that Forine can't import a lot of naturally grown food as luxuries, just that most of what its hoi polloi eats must be home-grown).

One problem is that I've no idea how big environmental domes that are reasonable for what tech levels, nor do I really have any feel for how much space domes for X people would take up.

Rancke 13:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the unlikelihood of a world-spanning arcology even with a population of 6 Billion, but I assue that it's the prerogative of the first person to post text on a system to define it however he or she wants. To my way of thinking, later posters are obliged to work within the confines of the 'founder's' conception of the world/system.

I don't think that posting first gives anyone 'dibs' on any system. To my mind, the important point when working in a shared universe is to cooperate with the other contributors in creating a fun, believable, self-consistent game universe. To that end, I generally consider it counter-productive to disregard other peoples' work, as long as it makes sense. There are plenty of blank spaces to work on. But if it does not make sense, I don't feel obliged to accept it (Unless Marc Miller or one of his minions tell me to do so ;-).
However, it's obviously a waste of effort for me to overwrite your stuff if you're just going to restore it. Likewise, it's a waste of effort for you to restore it if I'm just going to change it again. Which is precisely why I started this discussion. Hopefully, we can arrive at some mutually acceptable worldview. [R]

As for the matter of food imports, my inspiration there was the former USSR. In theory it was more than capable of producing all the food it needed and then some, but in practice it had to import huge quantities of the stuff. The reasons flowed from its ruling philosophy (which led to collectivized agriculture, an overemphasis on industrial production -- especially for military purposes -- and a total disregard for environmental factors) and the foibles of leaders such as Stalin and Khrushchev.

Given that we're positing an unbroken succession of dictatorial regimes on Forine extending back many centuries, it seemed reasonable to me to suppose that similar policies had led to similar results.

The former USSR didn't get its food shipped in on multi-million credit starships. Rancke 13:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are mistaken in supposing that it was I who posited a world-spanning arcology on Forine. Rather, I wrote my contributions on Forine to correspond with those of an earlier contributor. So please do not refrain from making any changes on my account.

The world-spanning arcology is originally from Behind the Claw. Incidentally, BtC simultaneously reduced the population of Forine to 1.6 billion... [Hans]

I'm not certain why the means of importation (multi-million credit starships or otherwise) should render the assumption of heavy reliance on offword foodstuffs invalid. I posit that a series of dictatorial regimes focused on industrial development and large scale infrastructure projects (largely for the glorification of the regime) would not accord high priority to meeting the common folk's needs for subistence. In any event, I replaced the word "most" with "much" in reference to Forine's food supply problems in response to your earlier critique. This seems to be in accord with canonical sources that refer to the importance of the Agworld Combine in meeting District 268's food needs.--Vendarth 22:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have to back down on the claim that the logistics would be insurmountalbe. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations the other night, and the problem lies elsewhere.

  • Assumption: Forine wants to import food for 1 billion people.
  • Assumption: One man-day of food masses one liter.
  • Assumption: Dedicated freighters can achieve an average of 9 days per jump.

Forine can only build jump-1 ships. This means that food from Tarkine requires a four-jump round trip to import. It also means that the ships have to refuel at Noctocol, creating a hideously vulnerable Achilles heel for Forine.

With a round trip time of 36 days, Forine needs enough cargo space for 36 billion man-days. This equals 36 billion liters or 2,666,667 dT (36 billion divided by 13,500).

Really big jump-1 ships have about 80% of their tonnage as cargo space. To provide 2,666,667 dT of cargo space, you need approx. 3,333,333 dT of freighter, say, 333 10,000 T freighters.

Using jump-2 ships like the Liverpool Class (Starships, p. 97) will improve the logistics quite a bit, but it does require Forine to buy them from some friendly world with jump-2 technology (or we could decide that Forine's space TL was higher than its High Common TL).

In any case, I have to admit that the ship figures aren't that bad. Forine would be able to finance a fleet to import that amount of food (or even more). The figures that are bad are the ones that concerns Tarkine's productivity.

Before 5FW, Tarkine had a population of 6 million. That means that in order to feed 1 billion, they had to produce food for 167 times their own number.

Tarkine has a TL of 7. Let's assume, for purposes of argument, that it has an agricultural TL two higher than that. According to World Tamer's Handbook, an agricultural laborer can produce 33 man-months of food per month in the growing season. And, of course, a society cannot consist solely of farmers. I'm not sure how big a percentage of Tarkine's population can be farmers or how long the growing season is, but we're already far below the production Forine requires to feed a billion, let alone six.

But what about Tarsus amd Motmos? Can't they provide the shortfall? Some of it, perhaps, but there are problems. First of all, Tarsus has a population of 2 million and Motmos of 7, and while Tarsus has a TL of 10, that of Motmos is only 5. That still won't produce all the food Forine needs. Secondly, the Ag World Combine also sells food to Collace. Whatever Collace buys comes out of what Forine can have. Thirdly, Tarkine is 7 and Motmos 8 parsecs from Forine. That means that any load of food imported from them takes four times longer to fetch and thus requirtes four times as many ships (or requires jump-4 ships; this is probably the best solution, provide that Forine can buy them somewhere (and put a permanent naval presence in the Flexos system).

(Pagaton is actually a much better bet for providing food. Although its low TL means that productivity per farmer is lower, it has a population of almost a billion. Make half of them farmers and give them a six month growing season and they can provide food for 4.5 billion people. Or rather, for 3.5 billion, since they need to feed themselves and their countrymen too, of course. But if we do that, we reduce the relative importance of the Ag Worlds to insignificance.)

(I'm not sure Pagaton has the required amount of arable land, though. And it certainly doesn't jibe with the description in BtC).

Finally, if you assume that Tarsus supplied, say, 75% of the food for 1 billion Forinians before the war, Forine's food imports would have been reduced drastically during the war. I don't think that a conflict that halves a population can possibly avoid affecting agricultural productivity negatively. As in, practically disrupting it completely. If the amount of food Forine imported had been enough to feed a billion, a lot of Forinians would have starved during the war (And after, since even with peace restored, Tarkine's reduced population would lower its production capacity proportionally). Rancke 13:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I like your edits to the Forine entry in all but one respect. The problem is that canonical sources seem to list the PLANETARY population as about 6 Billion -- not the SYSTEM-wide popuation. I must admit that I do not own all of the sources in question, but references elsewhere, plus the system-generation rules in the original Scouts book seem to bear this out.

Canonical sources either imply or sometimes flat out state (I don't know if the latter is the case with some Forine references; it's not in Safari Ship) that populations are planetary. Early Traveller did not accomodate the concept of multiple settlements in one system. And when it was introduced, population levels of secondary settlements were capped at one lower than the mainworld. But I don't think it stretches plausibility much (anything at all, really) to handwave that people sometimes say 'Forine' when they mean 'the Forine system'. As for secondary settlements not being able to have the PL as the mainworld, that seems to me to be a typical game artifact. I see no reason why a few systems can't have several settlements with the same PL. [Hans]

Moreover, the assumed population of 3 Billion residing in the Trojan points and asteroid belt would appear to greatly intensify the problem of food shipment costs that you detailed with such precision. Presumably such a large Belter population would, of necessity, have to be widely scattered, and moving between one body and another in the same asteroid belt could often require travelling to the opposite side of the system. Shipping a ton of food in-system may not be as expensive as importing it from out-system, but if nearly two thirds of the population must be supplied by such means, I suspect that the costs couild be equally unmanageable.

Which is why I assume basic food is produced locally in hydroponics gardens and carniculture vats. Only natural food will have to be shipped, and anything that's shipped in from out-system can just be shipped directly to the recipient. [Hans]

Presumably thousands upon thousands of nomadic Belter groups do not bring along their own hydroponic gardens and carniculture vats and must rely upon food grown elsewhere. If we merely assume that Forine's asteroid belt has the same dimensions as that found in the Sol system, we're talking about a population scattered along the circumferance of an elipse that's considerably larger than Earth's orbit. The whole concept of "locally produced" foodstuffs is meaningless on that scale. Using belter and other craft with 1G or 2G drives, travel from one part of the belt to another could take substantially longer than 1 week spent in jumpspace. One can shorten the trip by using point-to-point jumps in-system, but then all of the costs associated with jump travel that are detailed above come into play.--76.202.82.255 12:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Presumably people who make their home in a belt (as opposed to those who merely go there to mine its riches) will not live a nomadic existence where they must rely on food grown elsewhere, but will sensibly enough include hydroponics gardens and carniculture vats in their habitats. Rancke 14:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


Finally, imposing and sustaining a non-charismatic dictatorship when nearly two-thirds of the population is scattered in this fashion would be extremely difficult -- if not impossible.--Vendarth 15:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't impose a non-charismatic dictatorship. You impose a charismatic one which then degenerates into a non-charismatic one. I agree that a non-charismatic dictatorship is unlikely to last long, but then, canon only says that it lasts at least 15 years (from 1105 to 1120). I'm very uncomfortable with that 'long list of dictatorships' in the past, but I was already raining all over the parade and was putting that bit aside for consideration, in the hope that I could come up with something to make them work. But I must admit that I'd be much happier with a dictatorship that has only lasted about a generation and won't last another. Rancke 09:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
... as would any population under the dictator's thumb... Sstefan 11:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, dictatorship in one form or another (solitary or collective, open or disguised) is so common as to be virtually the "default setting" in human societies that exhibit marked imbalances in the distribution of wealth.--Vendarth 12:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I like many of Rancke's additions a great deal!! This is particulary true of the account of the origins of the "Sword Lords" and the observation that the crisis of 990 occurred soon after the conclusion of the Third Frontier War suggests that the Imperium had refrained from acting sooner because of its weakness in the aftermath of the conflict (during which military forces would have been deployed elsewhere).

However, the concept that Forine possessed the military, economic and interstellar transport resources to simultaneously invade three systems, colonize three more, and intimidate two others -- all the while guarding against a possible Imperial intervention -- seems incredible to me. Moreover, nothing in any of the canonical sources in my possession indicates that Forine went on an imperialistic binge of conquest and colonization in 990. Rather, the sources indicate that in addition to Forine itself, only Elixabeth and Talchek belonged to the Forine Assembly. If I'm reading things correctly, it also seems that the Forine Assembly was created under pressure from the Imperium -- not broken up by it.

There are also a number of logical inconsistencies in certain statements about the Forine Assembly's various 'members.' For example, Elixabeth is shown as being "invaded", which means that it had already been colonized - presumably for some time. Given that its population circa 1110 was only 20,000, it's mathematically improbable that Elixabeth could have been settled much before 990.

Finally, and most significantly, the wholesale changes that Rancke has made to the Forine entry strike me as crossing the boundaries of polite behavior on this Wiki. It is one thing to edit or add to someone else's contributions, it's another thing altogether to alter them fundamentally on the grounds of personal preference. Furthermore, the changes Rancke has made impact not only my contributions to the Forine entry itself, but also to my extensive contributions concerning Elixabeth, Talchek and Milagro -- in effect, invalidating practically everything that I have contributed to date. At no time has Rancke presented any convincing evidence that my contributions were not in accordance with canonical data (or were less valid than his own ideas). Rather, he appears to be making these changes simply because he prefers to depict these systems in an entirely different way -- and has effectively stated as much in the Elixabeth discussion. As a matter of common courtesy, I would not presume to run roughsod over contributions that Rancke has made. I ask that he please reciprocate in kind.

I, as one of the Traveller Wiki Administrators, have watched this debate to make sure it doesn't go beyond the realm of polite discussion. I know Hans from several other forums, and am aware of his strongly held positions. So I will say thank you for being polite about what could turn into an edit war but has not done so. I would also suggest using the Forum to make sure that the discussion about the three worlds (and connected topics) all get updated consistently. Tjoneslo 15:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It's not Rancke's words that I object to, but his actions. While presenting his opinions strongly in writing he has never been impolite or otherwise objectionable. However, he has now seen fit to impose his vision of 'history' without any regard for the effort I invested in generating several lengthy contributions that he has effectively edited out of existence. I do not want to wind up in a tit-for-tat "editing war" because I believe it's wrong to discard other people's work wholesale, but Mr. Rancke evidently does not share my reservations in this respect. If he had been first to produce writeups on these systems, I would cheerfully respected his vision, but he has NOT. Are there no rules of precedence in the Wiki that at least discourage contributors from hacking the heart out of earlier contributions unless they can cite some good reason for it (whether poor grammar, internal or external inconsistency, etc.)??!! [Vendarth]
Let me deal with the biggest issue first. I do not believe that it is OK to gratuiously discard contributions from others. That's the reason why I started this discussion. I felt I did have good reason for the changes I made. I may be wrong, but that's what I felt, and still feel. I may not have convinced you that your version of Forine, Elixabeth, and Talchek contains serious inconsistencies, but I firmly believe that it does. I thought long and hard before I made the changes. I also did my best to incorporate as much of your material as possible. I also hoped that if I showed you my ideas, you might like them enough to adopt them. If not, I knew that your material wouldn't be lost. It is preserved on the history page. You can call for a vote to decide which version shall be the primary one (though I hope you'll give me time to show you what I'm working out for the surrounding worlds before you do that). The other version can be presented as an alternate version. You see, even if two mutually exclusive versions are equally plausible and equally valid in the light of previously published material, only one can be true for any given universe, and there's only one OTU/GTU. [Rancke]
Why not make YOUR VERSION the alternate ?! After all, it was produced later than mine. Moreover, just as I've failed to convince you that my version is consistent with canonical data, you have utterly failed to convince me that yours is. My contributions are undisputably more in line with canoncial data concerning the number of systems in the Forine Assembly, and a number of other topics. They also are not founded upon the assumption that said canonical data has been deliberately falsified. I'm sorry, but that is the worst possible explanation (excuse?) that could be made.
My version winding up as the alternate was one of the possibilities I mentioned. As for canonicity, if it really comes to that, your version is directly contrary to the canonical evidence in Regency Sourcebook, and while my version makes it possible to reconcile RegS with BtC (by postulating changes between 1117 and 1120 that turns the situation in RegS into the situation in BtC), your version invalidates the information from RegS completely and makes any reconciliation impossible. Rancke 15:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Why should I, or anyone else, be obliged to let you alter other their contributions beyond recognition simply because you don't agree with them? With a whole universe out there that needs detailing, I had imagined that contributors to this wiki would focus their energies on creating new entries rather than altering existing ones, but evidently some folks are better at destroying other peoples' contributions than they are at creating their own.
You're not obliged to let me do anything. If we can't reach an agreement, the matter will presumably be settled by a vote by the other contributors. But before it gets to that, don't you think we should try to work it out between us? Rancke 15:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Forine wouldn't have the might to do all that stuff: I have Forine pegged at a little under 4 billion inhabitants in 990. The worlds I have it colonize I have as empty, the ones it invades as low-population, and the ones they lean on as low-medium population. Absent the intervention of the Imperium, Forine should have no trouble at all. And, as it turned out, it didn't have the strength to do all that. What I picture happening is that Norep made plans based on the assumption that the Imperium would be tied up fighting the Zhodani and when conditions changed, she believed what she wanted to believe. However, I'm not wedded to any of them, except for the invasion of Elixabeth and the colonizing of Talchek, because I want to give Forine a territorial claim, however specious, to those two worlds.
Forine didn't go a-conquering in 990: Forine formed (tried to form) the Forine Assembly in 990. Canon only mentions Elixabeth and Talchek, but why shouldn't they have tried for other worlds too?
Inconsistencies about the various worlds mentioned: I wouldn't be surprised. When one tries to create a coherent history for a dozen worlds, mistakes are almost inevitable. If I was doing this for a campaign module, I wouldn't be posting the first draft piecemeal, I would write a whole first draft, then go over it several times, revising boo-boos as I found them. And even then there would be some mistakes that I had missed. However, the example isn't a mistake. Small populations are a lot more vulnerable to random accidents than big ones, and it's entirely possible that Elixabeth was colonized much earlier and that its population waxed and waned for centuries, or stagnated at times. For that matter, Elixabeth could have had a population in 990 that subsequently died out, and been colonized anew before 1100. Rancke 14:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
So alleged inconsistencies in MY contributions make them completely invalid and subject to deletion, while proven inconsistencies in YOUR contributions should simply be ignored!!!
No. Major inconsistencies in anybody's contributions makes them largely invalid and subject to extensive revisions. Minor inconsistencies in anybody's contributions should be identified and corrected. Rancke 15:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The real point at issue in this entire debate, from start to finish, concerns the nature of the "Imperial protection" that was extended to District 268 (and District 267) in 610. As we both agreed at a much earlier point in the debate, canonical sources say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what the nature of that "protection" is -- effectively leaving it up to the individual member's interpretation. I presented a reasonably strong strong argument that the "protection" was intended to prevent District 268 from encroachment by the Sword Worlds, and that its pronouncement was tied to the re-establishment of the Outworld Coalition and the escalating tensions that led to the 3rd Frontier War five years later. You choose to intepret it as meaning that the Imperium has effectively claimed overlordship over every system in the District, and will not permit even peaceful colonization of one system by another without its say so. It is certainly your prerogative to disagree with me, and in the absence of any canonical data supporting my position I would never suggest otherwise.
However, you are effectively asserting that your interpretation is canonical while mine is not. Moreover, acting on the unprovable assertion that your intepretation is more canonical than mine, you have fundamentally altered the sense and substance of my Forine contribution in a way that also completely invalidates my extensive contributions on Elixabeth, Talchek and Milagro. Despite great temptation, I have refrained from starting an 'editing war' by restoring my original language.
If you are willing to seek a compromise, would you consider making minimal revisions to the latest Forine entry that would enable my existing Elixabeth, Talchek and Milagro contributions to survive without fundamental alteration? After all, your novel statements concerning the size of the Forine Assembly stakes out claims to the history of 8 other systems in addition to Forine. Could you leave my existing contributions to 3 of them pretty much as is?
This will be my final contribtion to the debate. It's already gone on far too long, keeps covering the same ground again and again, and is fast eroding away my enjoyment in the Wiki. Worst of all, it has caused me to loose my cool and 'speak' more heatedly than is characteristic for me. For this I must ask your forgiveness. However, while I will write nothing further on this topic, I do look forward to reading your response.
I spent the weekend trying to come up with a compromise that would work for us both. Will it do? The last thing I want is to ruin your enjoyment of this wiki for you (Well, honesty compels me to admit that it's only the second last thing I want. The last thing I want is to ruin the enjoyment of this wiki for myself, but driving you away would certainly mar that enjoyment considerably).
I could address your other points, but if you really don't want to discuss it any further there's little to gain from that. Rancke 12:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
A Solomonic solution.--Vendarth 12:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I have read (and I must say, to some extend, enjoyed) the lively discussion on this (as well as the other talk pages).
My thoughts run to the point that with all the other inconsistencies within the entire library; as well as my personal thoughts about libraries (collections of facts) I tend to believe that no particular entry will truly reflect the actual facts. Most entries will be biased (or maybe skewed is a better word) by the author of that entry.
In game terms, I would say that library data entries are close to the actual circumstance, but will not necessarily reflect the reality that is encountered.
I understand the validity of maintaining canonicity for the future authors that wish to expand the database, but from my understanding of this Wiki, it is a player’s aid (not an authorative source for authors).Sstefan 19:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
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