Artifact

An Artifact is any manufactured object.

• May be a technological device or tool.
• May just as easily be a cultural object, a luxury or gimmick, with no direct link to a sophontic technology.
• Imperial law requires all artifacts found in Imperial Space to be turned over to the Third Imperium.

Description (Specifications)

An artifact is anything created by sophonts which gives information about the culture of its creator and users. It is typically something made or given shape by a sophont, such as a tool or a work of art, especially an object of archaeological interest.

Precursor Artifacts

The term artifact is commonly used to refer to any object, item, or group of related items produced by precursor civilizations such as the Ancients.

History & Background (Dossier)

An artifact can be any tangible object created by a sophont species. Many but not all artifacts are devices, which is to say technological tools. Some artifacts are not tools and possess cultural meaning that may be incomprehensible to sophonts from a different culture.

Ancients Artifacts

For example, many of the artifacts recovered from the precursor culture of the Ancients still remain mysteries to the TL-15 societies of Charted Space. Some of these artifacts were clearly created with technology far more advanced than that currently in use throughout the starways. Some of these artifacts have been determined to be technological devices or tools while others may have been luxuries, gimmicks, or items of undetermined cultural value.

No one currently knows... or is telling.

Known Artifacts In Charted Space

This is a listing of the known artifacts in Charted Space by location:

• Shalam - The AAB Branch on Shalam is a repository and research laboratory dedicated to the study of the ancient Memory Alpha artifact. There is no University of Kasiiga branch on Shalam.

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.

• Classic Traveller Twilight's Peak (book)
• Classic Traveller Supplement 8 Library Data (A-M)
• T5 Traveller Trading Card Reference
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science