Tarsus (SM 1138) (world)

Tarsus/District 268 (Spinward Marches 1138)
Classic Era (1116)	B584620-A Starport B Good: Spacecraft Construction, Overhaul, Refined fuel Size 5 Medium (8,000 km, 0.40g - 0.57g) Atmosphere 8 Dense Hydrographics 4 Wet World 40% Population 6 Moderate (2 million) Government 2 Participating Democracy Law 0 No Law Tech Level A Early Stellar (jump drive)
See also	UWP
System Details
Primary	K9 V
Planetoid Belts	0
Gas Giants	2

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Jump map from Travellermap.com

Tarsus is a nonindustrial, rich, agricultural world with improving living conditions due to a bustling agro-economy.

• As an agricultural world, this world is a near-ideal environment for producing quality foodstuffs of plant, animal, and other forms. Quality foodstuffs are a major export commodity for this world.
• It requires extensive imports of outside technology to maintain a modern, star-faring society. Having to import most manufactured and high tech goods drives the price up for these items at this world.
• This is a rich world with a prosperous and thriving world economy.
• Its economy is bustling and an increase in living conditions is expected in the near future.
• It is a client state of the Third Imperium in the District 268 Subsector of Spinward Marches Sector.
• Tarsus is a member of the Spinward Main.
• It lies on the Collace Arm.

Astrography & Planetology

Stars

Tarsus has a solitary primary star.

• It is an orange main sequence.

Tarsus has a solitary primary star.

Tarsus Primary
	Type	Category		Mass (Sol)	Temperature (K)	Luminosity
	K9 V	Main Sequence (Dwarf)		0.59	3850 - 3930	0.15775
	Unit	Diameter	Safe Distance	Habitable Zone	Jump Shadow	M-Drive Limit
	AU	0.0057	0.0329	0.41 - 0.78	0.57	5.7
	Orbit #	*	*	2	2	6
	Remarks		None

System Data

The worlds of the system have been surveyed. They consist of:

• The mainworld.
• x4 secondary rocky worlds.
• x2 gas giants.

Mainworld Data

Mainworld Size (S)

Tarsus is a Meso World between 7,200km and 8,800km in diameter. The world has a standard gravity between 0.4G and 0.57G. The horizon will appear about 4km away.

Mainworld Atmosphere (A)

Tarsus has a pressure of 1.50 to 2.49 atmospheres. A Dense Atmosphere requires no survival gear although it may be hard on sophonts not accustomed to it.

• It experiences moderate temperatures.

Mainworld Hydrosphere (H)

Tarsus has 35-45% of its surface covered by liquid water. There will be a number of small seas or one larger body of water. Wilderness refueling is possible.

Mainworld Geography and Topography

Satellites

Tarsus has two natural moons, Rond and Gloeh.

• They orbit once every few weeks.

600 px

Rond is the site of a base maintained by SuSAG, an Imperial megacorporation. Agreements with the government of Tarsus in 860 established a lease for the north polar cap of Rond (to a distance of 200 kilometres from the pole), for a period of 1,000 standard years.

Native Lifeforms

The first colonists on Tarsus discovered that although they could eat most of the local flora and fauna without ill-effects, they needed dietary supplements because several amino acids vital to Human life are not present in any native life form. Subsequent colonists brought a number of animals with them to Tarsus (mostly of Terran stock).

Life on Tarsus is lush and varied. Authorities differ on the exact number, but between twelve and sixteen local phyla of plants and animals have been identified (not counting the many off-world phyla imported with the colonists). Approximately 1.2 million species of indigenous life have been described and classified, and experts believe that this represents only about 20% of the total number.

The Nobble

Harvesting nobbles (large migratory grazers) is the primary occupation of 10% of the planet's 2.332 million inhabitants, and an important sector of the Tarsan economy. There are over 4,000 nobble ranches circling a vast expanse of steppe named Nob Plain, the average distance between them being 50 km. Nobble ranching is regulated by the Ag Market, which awards a finite number of contracts per year, each for 100 animals. The nobbles are culled while the vast herds are on the move, and as they average 20 km/hour, this is done as quickly as possible so that the carcasses may be efficiently processed. Once killed, the animals are skinned, their carcasses dressed, and the meat and hides taken to a pre-designated rendezvous point to be picked up by shuttle.

History & Background (Dossier)

Tarsus was settled between 450 and 462 by 19,125 exiles from Fornice. The venture was well organized and the colony avoided any significant technological regression. Tarsus achieved independence from Fornice in 502.

The population grew slowly but steadily over the centuries, supplemented from time to time by immigrants from other worlds. Among them were the members of the Tizonian 3rd Lift Regiment and their families, who came to Tarsus in 625 fleeing war-crime accusations, and settled in an empty region called Regiment. Their descendants have since been integrated into the mainstream of Tarsan society.

Ag Worlds

In 780, Tarsus joined Motmos (Spinward Marches 1340) and Tarkine (Spinward Marches 1434) in establishing the Ag Worlds Combine, a loose cartel that was designed to halt a spiral of mutually-destructive price competition in the lucrative agricultural export markets of Forine and Collace. It supplies food to much of District 268, which includes many worlds whose inhospitable and/or degraded environments cannot support conventional agriculture. The Ag Worlds Combine's headquarters is located on Motmos.

In the same year that the Ag Worlds Combine was established, large numbers of refugees fleeing the newly-established religious dictatorship on neighboring Pavabid (Spinward Marches 1238) settled on Tarsus. Another wave of immigrants arrived in the early 800s as people fleeing the Psionics Suppressions sought refuge beyond the Imperial border. Due in large part to the presence of their descendants, Tarsus exhibits little of the psionophobia found on most other worlds in the Spinward Marches. Indeed, the megacorporation SuSAG operates a large psi drug manufacturing plant on Tarsus.

Tangle Discoveries

In 1110, a group of primitive humans were discovered living deep in the Tangle Wald, an inaccessible forest far from the main Tarsan settlements. These turned out to be the descendants of a Sword Worlds petroleum mining colony that had been established in -104 only to be abandoned to its own devices just two years later when the outbreak of the War of the First Rebellion led to the collapse of the Sacnoth Dominate. Evidence found over a century later at the original colony site led to the erroneous conclusion that its last survivors had died off around -60. The Forest People, as they are called, were declared wards of the Tarsan government in 1113.

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 Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Marc Miller. The Spinward Marches (Game Designers Workshop, 1979), 18-19.
• Marc Miller. The Spinward Marches Campaign (Game Designers Workshop, 1985), 18-19.
• Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 94-100. (UWP only)
• Rob Caswell. "Domain of Deneb: Sector Data." MegaTraveller Journal 3 (1992): 47-58. (UWP only)
• Dave Nilsen. The Regency Sourcebook (Game Designers Workshop, 1995), 48-49.
• Martin Dougherty, Neil Frier. Behind the Claw (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), 75.
• Paul Drye, Hans Rancke-Madsen, Robert Prior. Sword Worlds (Steve Jackson Games, 2004), 103.
• Mike West. The Spinward States (Avenger Enterprises, 2008), 110. (UWP only)
• Martin Dougherty. The Spinward Marches (Mongoose Publishing, 2008), .
• Martin Dougherty. Behind the Claw (Mongoose Publishing, 2019), 123-127. (UWP only)