Ficant (world)

From Traveller Wiki - Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far future
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Alien Moon 87a-0 Small.jpg
Ficant/Vilis (Spinward Marches 1417)
Classic Era (1116)
E567353-5
StarportE Frontier - no facilities
Size5 Medium (8,000 km, 0.40g - 0.57g)
Atmosphere6 Standard
Hydrographics7 Wet World 70%
Population3 Low (9 thousand)
Government5 Feudal Technocracy
Law3 Low Law (no automatic weapons)
Tech Level5 Industrial (mass production)
See also UWP
System Details
Primary M0 V M1 V
Planetoid Belts 1
Gas Giants 0
style="width: 220px; height: 250px;"
Jump map from Travellermap.com [1]
Ficant System
Vilis/Spinward Marches 1417
Position Distance Name UWP
Primary Netali M0 V
1 0.17 AU Netali I
2 0.57 AU Ficant C567353-5
4 1.15 AU Netali IV
5 1.95 AU Netali V
6 3.35 AU Planetoid Belt
Ficant System
Vilis/Spinward Marches 1417
Position Distance Name UWP
Primary Netali Bis M1 V
1 0.15 AU Bis I
2 0.31 AU Bis II
3 0.64 AU Bis III
4 0.97 AU Bis IV
5 1.35 AU Bis V
6 1.85 AU Bis VI
7 3.34 AU Bis VII

Ficant is a low-population world with a population of less than 10,000 sophonts in size.

Description (Astrography & Planetology)

Ficant is a binary star system.

  • Both are red main sequence stars.

Binary M Type Big M Type Small.jpg

Binary Solar System

Ficant Binary Star System
Netali
Solitary M Type.jpg Type Category Mass (Sol) Temperature (K) Luminosity
M0 V Main Sequence 0.57 3770 - 3850 0.13982
Unit Diameter Safe Distance Habitable Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit
AU 0.0055 0.031 0.39 - 0.74 0.55 5.5
Orbit #  *  * 2 1 6
Remarks None
Netali Bis
Solitary M Type.jpg Type Category Mass (Sol) Temperature (K) Luminosity
M1 V Main Sequence 0.5 3620 - 3660 0.08839
Unit Diameter Safe Distance Habitable Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit
AU 0.0047 0.0247 0.31 - 0.59 0.47 4.7
Orbit #  *  * 1 1 6
Remarks Approximately 18.0 AU from the primary.

System Data

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

Netali is only 2 billion years old. It has a slightly smaller red main sequence companion (Netali bis) orbiting at 18 AU.

Mainworld Data

Ficant is an unremarkable Imperial world near the Sword Worlds border. It orbits Netali, an ordinary red main sequence star at a distance of approximately 0.57 AU[2].

Ficant is a young system, and its relative youth has prevented the mainworld from becoming fully tidally locked to its star. However, it is expected that it will become tidally locked within the next 500 million years, at which point its atmosphere's volatiles will freeze out on the night side and the planet will die. Despite this, the world has evolved a thriving ecosystem with a wide range of primitive flora and fauna (very roughly equivalent to Terra's Carboniferous period) and is of considerable interest to biologists.

Mainworld Size (S)

Ficant 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)

Ficant has a pressure of 0.71 to 1.49 atmospheres. A Standard Atmosphere does not require survival gear and will likely be easy for most sophonts to breathe.

Mainworld Hydrosphere (H)

Ficant has 65-75% of its surface covered by liquid water. It has significant large liquid bodies. Wilderness refueling is possible.

Garden World Type 19.jpg

Mainworld Geography and Topography

No centrally held map of the world exists within AAB Library Data records.

Blank World Map Watery.png
(Blank map, predominantly watery world.)

History & Background (Dossier)

Comp-Prog-Dav-R-Deitrick-Starter-Trav-Page-16 16-July-2018a.jpg

World Starport (St)

Ficant has a Class E Starport, a frontier quality installation with few expected amenities. There is unrefined fuel for starships and a limited variety of ship provisions. There is no shipyard of any kind, but there may be parts and technical support for doing minor services and repair. Ports of this classification generally consist of a downport.

World Population (P)

Ficant has a population of 9,000 sophonts (thousands).

  • This is a Low Population World and the population would be too low to sustain itself without a little outside assistance. This may represent the home base of a sizable but mostly transient population such as the base of a major starship expedition, the last generation of a dying colony, the first generation of a new colony, or a large outpost that will probably evolve into a colony if not stopped.

Linguistic Topography

The following languages are most commonly heard:

World Technology Level (T)

Ficant possesses a Technology Level of TL–5.

World Government (G)

Ficant is governed by a Feudal Technocracy. Society divides itself based on the technical requirements of the society. Each of these functions are granted as a fief to an individual or group. Leadership of these fiefs determines the head of the government.

World Law (L)

Ficant has a low law level. There are few laws, covering only important areas. There may be few or no law enforcement officers, the expectation is citizens will bring law breakers to the attention of the Judicial system. Legal proceedings will be fast, with few people involved. For interactions outside of the framework of the laws, cultural norms dominate. Machine guns, other automatic weapons, portable energy weapons, and other military weapons, body pistols, explosives, and poison gas are typically regulated or prohibited.

Imperial High (Landed) Nobility

Ficant, as a member world of the Third Imperium has a member of the Imperial Nobility overseeing the world.

Trade Data

  • Importance: -3 (very unimportant)

World Economy

  • Resources: 5 (scarce)
  • Labor: 2 (hundreds)
  • Infrastructure: 0 (non-existent)
  • Efficiency: -5 (extremely poor)

World Culture

  • Heterogenity: 1 (monolithic)
  • Acceptance: 1 (extremely xenophobic)
  • Strangeness: 2 (typical)
  • Symbols: 2 (very concrete)

World Timeline

Major events that have affected this world and the wider region that it lies within:


Despite being almost a garden world, Ficant has never been targeted for significant colonization.

Ficant is a small world with oceans covering 69% of its surface. Despite its cool climate it does not posses extensive polar ice caps as none of its five continents are located in the polar regions, thus preventing their formation. This lack of ice caps has contributed to keeping its overall albedo low and results in a climate far warmer than would normally be expected. One curious fact is its surprisingly high atmospheric pressure given its small size, but like much on the world, this has not yet been investigated and no plausible explanation has been advanced.

IISS GURPS Astrographics Survey

1417 Ficant (Imperial)

Starport: Class I.

Diameter: 5,222 miles (8,400 km).
Atmosphere: Standard oxygen-nitrogen.
Hydrographics: 69%.
Climate: Cool.
Population: 9,250.
Government: Technocracy.
Control Level: 1.
Tech Level: 6.
World Trade Number: 2.

History & Background (Dossier)

Most of Ficant's inhabitants make their living by harvesting the rich organics found in the equatorial swamps.

Human settlement on Ficant is limited to the lush equatorial coastal swamps. Here warm ocean currents combine with the equatorial climate to produce a pleasant Earth like environment. The biological basis of Ficant's life is extremely similar to that of Terra and all human dietary needs can be met from the local ecosystem.

World Culture

The largest settlement on Ficant is Atterdag, location of the world's E class starport. Atterdag is quiet agricultural town of some 2,400 inhabitants. Located here is the entirety of the world's limited manufacturing capacity, which consists of a few light-engineering workshops. Atterdag's economy is based around servicing the needs of the planet's widely spread population. It is also the seat of the Ficant Governing Council, providing Ficant with administrative services and handling offworld contacts.

The majority of the population lives in back country homesteads and makes their living extracting valuable organic material from Ficant's coastal swamps. The usual homestead consists of a single family of two to three adults with a similar number of children. Usually four or five homesteads will be clustered in the same general area and they will share harvesting grounds and pool resources to increase their efficiency.

The people of Ficant are generally conservative and honest. Having little contact with offworld culture they appear to most uninformed travellers as either quaint or hopelessly insular, caring little for technological advancement or personal aggrandizement. This opinion is mistaken. Most natives see the advantages of high tech tools, but the world's restricted industrial base severely limits their usefulness. Many Ficant natives travel offworld to attend higher education and the world has a strong tradition of military service (approximately 35% of the world's population has served a term or two in the Imperial armed forces). However, most of the population are content with their lives and find the faster pace of Imperial culture unsettling and consequently prefer to remain at home.

Historical Data

Human colonisation has been limited to one of the smaller continents straddling the equator. The first human settlers are thought to have arrived around 450. It is not known for certain where these settlers came from, as this was not an organized colonisation effort, but it is believed that they originated from the Sword Worlds. This disorganised settlement continued for the next 150 years and by 600 the population had grown to around 1,000.

It was during the First Frontier War that the world first came to official notice. At this time a substantial proportion of the population was of Sword Worlds decent and Imperial forces came to regard it as a potential security threat. In 596. Grand Admiral Plankwell ordered Ficant's annexation. With its incorporation into the Imperium an official colonisation program was envisaged and in 602 1,500 Imperial colonists arrived. It was intended that these were to be just the first wave of an intensive colonisation program, but with the outbreak of the Civil War this program was abandoned and no further official colonisation was to ever take place. From this point onwards, Ficant lapsed back into obscurity. Despite this official apathy, Ficant's population has continued to grow slowly and according to the census of 1120, it has a population of 9,250.

Historical Data: Era: Milieu 1248

Ficant has, like many other worlds in the quadrant, been overrun by Zhodani refugees, but its government has withstood the influx. Unlike Iazhipl where a Zhodani social model is used, Ficant instead uses a Regency social model. While there are still some communities that continue to use the traditional Zhodani model, most of the former refugees have successfully integrated into Ficant society.

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.
Retrieved from "http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/index.php?title=Ficant_(world)&oldid=825783"