Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;973855Just read Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" books.  FTL travel is through wormholes and communication is speed of light.  Local systems can be pretty darn independent.

You're saying this is a setting where people can get to a destination physically before any communication will?

Quote from: The Exploited.;973920Space is vast... We tend to think of it as smaller because we just can't comprehend its size. So even with ships that can travel at interstellar speeds, it's still vast and the resources needed to control everything would be impossible.

I live in Los Angeles. I never see many stars. I was on a weekend trip up a mountain a few weeks ago and looked up at the night sky. I was transported to the days of my youth when I would look up at a sea of stars above me and dream about adventures among them.

That kind of imagining is what drew me to Traveller in my youth.

I think Exploited's point is spot on. And I think stepping back from that sense that "space can be mastered by looking down at a map" into "holy cow, there's so much!" would be a big help in understanding how there are frontiers.

Given the effectively-infinite number of stars, if there is good enough technology for FTL and developing new sustainable places to live in previously-uninhabited star systems, then if there is also opportunity for people to get that technology, then they can leave and go live outside the empire. Hence frontier.

If the distance between places the empire is mainly interested in is great enough that there are many other habitable places between those, then the empire will probably contain interior space that it can't fully monitor and control.

If the empire is large enough, it probably can't be controlled by one authority anyway. As distances and numbers get greater, even if everything is all called the same nation, it will be split by distance, number of locations, and the need to have different people run different parts of it. e.g. see political fragmentation of Rome into people, families, provinces, and eventually the Byzantine Empire. And that was just on a relatively small fraction of one planet.

Quote from: Biscuitician;973923You're saying this is a setting where people can get to a destination physically before any communication will?

No. This is the same setup as StarCluster 2 and 3, so I am very familiar with it. Travel is by wormhole, so it is FTL. Communication is by modulated lasers, microwaves, and/or radio waves, all of which travel at light speed and cannot go through the wormhole. A ship exits the wormhole and can then talk via these means in system.

If you have a ship outbound, it takes on mail (various electronic messages) at the last second before exiting through the wormhole. On the other side, it dumps the mail immediately once it get a connection. Stuff routed for this system stays, but everything else is put aboard the next X number of outgoing ships, along with any outgoing local mail. Each mail message is tagged with a unique ID, and copies are killed on arrival, so that only the fastest gets through and is propagated until it reaches its destination. So electronic messages travel much faster than ships - at the speed of light in-system, and superluminal between systems.

-clash

For Traveller, I actually have a complete standalone binder for the Frontier Sector.

With this sector set on the Periphery of the First Imperium, there are three main Territories. The Imperium, comprised of roughly four subsectors, ruled by the Emperor, and who fly in the Starships with the Royal Sun logo. There is a buffer zone a two subsector wide area known as The Neutral Zone. All of the worlds in these two subsectors of the neutral zone are independent self-governing colonies that trade freely with both the Imperium and the with Independent States which are located spinward of the Neutral Zone. There are four subsectors truly located on the frontier here, located right on the edge of human explored space. Frontier Subsector, Fringe Subsector, Arcada Subsector, and Lyrra Subsector.

The history of this area goes something like this; In the days of the First Imperium, explorers reached out towards the frontier and colonized and settled worlds on the fringes and frontiers in the name of the Imperium. Then one of the first Succession civil wars happened in the heart of the Empire, where two (or more) royals fought for dominance at the core. Pulling resources from the frontier to strengthen their claims regents and powerful families stripped the frontier of protection, Using the Imperial starships from the frontier instead to fight their battles in key areas of the Core Sectors leaving the Frontier systems unprotected and at the mercy of pirates and hostile aliens.

The frontier worlds suffered terribly, and then they self-organized, formed their own governments. and organized their trade so that they could build their own trading and defense fleets. All this going on while the civil war raged on in the core. Finally, the throne was claimed, a new Emperor was declared and the bitter war of succession came to an end. Now the Imperial Battle Fleets returned to the frontier to find they no longer ruled the frontier, and they did attempt to force the issue though, but were repeatedly defeated and driven back in a series of famous battle and engagements. When it became apparent to the  Imperium that the Independent frontier battle fleets were at least as strong as the Imperial fleet and would be able to (if they were willing) start carving up the Imperium, the emperor ordered the local sector and provincial governors to sue for peace.

The result, at least here in the Frontier Sector was a two subsector wide neutral zone, an area of independently ruled star systems, and four subsectors, each featuring a smaller Interstellar governments which rule over some areas of the subsector.

Of the Independent Interstellar States of the Fringe Confederacy there is:

The Lyrran Confederacy, Eleven Worlds united, known for their most excellent independently built warships. Warships that rival the quality of Imperium military ships;

For example;

The Leopard Heavy Cruiser is a medium range strike cruiser designed for Military Action with Jump 3, 3 G's of accelleration, and 50 marines on Ice aboard. You'll usually find a Leopard Cruiser with, at the minimum, a Destroyer Escort Group attending it in patrols and battle. The Leopard Class cruisers are famous because of the surprise raid conducted by the two sister ships Feliya & Ferra in the Imperium/Fringe war of 2754. The Feliya and the Ferra jumped across the neutral zone to Vanguard in the Frontier subsector, and destroyed the orbiting Imperial Starbase there, cutting the supply link to the Imperial Strike Group which had penetrated to Emerald in the Fringe subsector. The Imperial Strike Group surrendered in late 2755. The Treaty of 2765 established the current peace and boundaries of the Neutral Zone between the Imperium and the Fringe Worlds.

The capitol of the Lyrran Confederacy is Jaguar , a vacuum world 5,827 miles in diameter with a population in the billions and a tech level of D (The highest on the frontier), Other prominent Lyrran worlds include Vanguard, with only a type C starport, but one of the highest tech levels outside of the Imperium (C), and an advanced research and development center. Norsestar, breadbasket of the Lyrran Confederacy, Beltway, a miner's haven in a planetary sized asteroid belt that circles a star, Fork, a waterworld that alone provides hundreds of millions of troops for the Lyrran Confederacy, Sparta, a rich and opulent world for leaders, and often where negotiations are hosted. There is even a world for Estar named of course, Estar

Estar C6866763, and Agricultural, Non-Industrial Rich World with a tech level roughly equivalent to the rennaissance period here on earth. Estar, just so you know, I rolled this up and named it in 1985!

In the Aracada subsector The Arcada Republic, Seven Worlds with it's capital at Starbase 101, and the trade center at Anarchy.

Now there are the Gem Worlds in the fringe Subsector, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald, and Iceworld. The subsector Capitol, Bullet, is a balkanized world with a population of less than ten million. The rest of the subsector is comprised of low TL colony worlds with names like Bordertown, and Blade, Blade's Sister, and Outpost, and such. You get the picture.

Frontier Subsector is in the heart of the Neutral Zone, and the Capitol is Black Opal.

This is the Frontier Sector. Beyond is completely unexplored space with no permanent human settlements, only resources, indigneous lifeforms, and aliens. ...Now who wants to play Traveller?

This Frontier Sector was originally created in 1985-1986 as part of a Traveller campaign that I hosted at the Eighth Army HQ, in Seoul, Korea. There were plenty of all day Traveller games that were hosted on the weekends in the HHC barracks commons lounge where we played in this campaign from dawn until well after dusk. We also played lots of Champions, and D&D back then as well.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;973938I live in Los Angeles. I never see many stars. I was on a weekend trip up a mountain a few weeks ago and looked up at the night sky. I was transported to the days of my youth when I would look up at a sea of stars above me and dream about adventures among them.

That kind of imagining is what drew me to Traveller in my youth.

I think Exploited's point is spot on. And I think stepping back from that sense that "space can be mastered by looking down at a map" into "holy cow, there's so much!" would be a big help in understanding how there are frontiers.

Cheers mate...

Yeah, I know that feeling as well. When I moved out to the country about 13 years ago now. The lack of ambient light from the city meant stargazing was unreal! You start to feel really small.

Our brains just can't grasp the concepts of scale at a cosmic level. It's like trying to visualize infinity... It hurtz!

In the Classic StarCluster setting - from StarCluster 1 and 2, and available for StarCluster 4 - the Cluster had two large supra-world organizations which were economic and military alliances. When a world joined one, it used the alliance's system of trade tariffs, and was protected by - and paid taxes for - the alliance military. These organizations interpenetrated - there might be a settled world in one system belonging to one, and another in that system belonging to the other, and maybe a third which was alien. A world could be independent of either alliance. A world could change from one alliance to the other, though that was expensive and difficult - look at the Brexit for example. The thing is, there were no BORDERS. Borders didn't make sense.

So also because of trade and chance, one world could be backward - unable to manufacture higher technology devices and vehicles - or even primitive - unable to manufacture any portable powered devices or vehicles, dependent on wind, water, and muscle power. It requires a critical mass of previous technology - machines to build the machines that build the machines - after all. So those worlds could be considered frontiers. Say a world is newly colonized. it may have brought tech from it's homeworld, but that tech will inevitably break down in the colony. It's a bootstrap process, hoping to get from primitive to backward to advanced as soon as possible, and many times that process goes awry and things get stuck. The population grows too quickly, and all resources go to keeping that population alive rather than improving the base. Or maybe the population grows too slowly, and there aren't enough workers, and the market isn't big enough to support anything more complex. There are lots of reasons things can stall. Those worlds are frontiers too.

Maybe a world has turned its back on the technology ladder, for religious or for other reasons. Maybe a world got to the point that it bio-engineered itself into a paradise and the people opted out to just live there in that paradise. Maybe they all uploaded themselves into the digital world and there is no one left to walk the real world - or not enough to sustain a culture. These worlds are also frontiers in a way.

I think the thing is stop thinking of the frontier as an area.

Quote from: Baron Opal;973846The same reason Somali pirates still exist and are a credible shipping danger, even with the presence of the Egyptian, Saudi and Indian fleets.

'Human Rights' and 'Sovereignty' - so the civilised navies can't just obliterate the pirate bases with offshore gunfire/missiles.

'Human Rights' and 'Sovereignty' rarely work that way in most SF though.

Quote from: Biscuitician;973923You're saying this is a setting where people can get to a destination physically before any communication will?

Courier ships enter the realspace around a wormhole and send radio signals ahead to the ship at the wormhole across the "nexus", saving the time to cross the solar system.  For private communications, yes, the cheapest method is to record it and toss it on a ship.

Quote from: flyingmice;973948I think the thing is stop thinking of the frontier as an area.

How ought we think of it?

Quote from: Biscuitician;973971How ought we think of it?

As worlds that meet conditions - low population, low native technology, and small governance profile. They can be anywhere - they are not necessarily in the same areas of space. They tend to be fairly earthlike - one needs technology to live on inhospitable worlds! - or settlements based on resource extraction, where it is worth the cost to import necessary tech. If it is based on resource extraction, the resource must be rare and difficult to extract elsewhere. You don't mine iron on an airless ice planet for export. Iron is too common and easy to find elsewhere.

Quote from: Biscuitician;973727This may sound weird, but I have long struggled with this when coming up with background ideas for an SF game. The genre is relevant because the degree of tech involved.

Say you have an authoritarian state/government/empire of some description, and you want to have a frontier/outlaw type of region. How do you reconcile the two if we also posit that the former is large and powerful?

It's different with, say, a fantasy setting because a) it's earthbound and so the environment makes a difference - there is a wildnerness and then there are cities. Space doesn't really represent that wilderness as well because it's...space, empty and inhospitable (as opposed to a forest).

And b) it's lower tech so thus the state doesn't have the kind of tech in sci fi to exceed those sorts of physical boundaries. A sci fi empire may simply have the manpower/naval power to push into outlier regions, as well as the tech to perhaps infiltrate it by other means.

How do you reconcile a frontier with an empire?

Easily, I can think of at least three options:).

First, there is the "Middle Planetdom" option, where this region just isn't considered important enough, culturally and politically. Why go and build infrastructure elsewhere if you can build it next to home? And the people near you want you to invest in infrastructure near home. If you do that, they would be happier. And those people are the ones that matter.
Those people that went to the outside? Well, you'd have them paying tribute, and might periodically invite some of them to join the empire if they ever become prosperous enough. But mostly, if they pay the tribute, let them wallow in their barbarian ways!
As a variant, those places might be part of the empire, just considered colonies. Who cares how the colonies live? Let them stick to their way of living, as long as they do our dirty processing we don't want on Capital Planet, and if anyone goes to visit them - well, feel free to blow off some steam. As is widely known, whatever happens past the Last Civilised Place, stays there!

Second, space is huge. You might be having a schedule for colonizing worlds that goes thousands of years ahead. From start to having a planet developed enough to voluntarily join the Empire, there might be a couple generations.
As a variant, the people that get to be first settlers might know they're going to live their entire lives in less ordered, less lawful and less developed societies than they would were they not shipped to colonize those planets...but that's what criminals are for, right? And failing that, there's always societal-level "black lotteries".
In either of these sub-options, the frontier would be moving every couple of generations. Pick either "the settling of the Wild West", or the settling of Australia, and do that.

Third, the frontier might be a literal frontier between two empires. One or both of them might even see it as being to their advantage to keep some planets in a less-than-stable situation, so they could act as buffer between the two, thus preventing or at least greatly reducing the odds for open warfare.
Or it might be that a weaker empire might be stirring up local conflicts, in order to prevent some planets from being accepted as parts of the stronger empire. Thus, you get your pockets of instability, corruption and vice.

I just gave you two variants for each possibility, each of them with distinct historical precedent. Have fun;)!

Quote from: S'mon;973825If speed of travel is very fast, as in Star Wars, there won't be a well-defined frontier. There will be civilised, backwater, and savage worlds all interspersed. "Empires" - coalitions of star systems - may actually heavily interpenetrate, since the actual location of the solar systems won't matter much.

But there is a well defined frontier in SW.

Perhaps not the best example to use given that the SW universe is based on the rule of cool more than anything - which is perfectly fine.

But the outer rim is that frontier.

Quote from: Biscuitician;973984But there is a well defined frontier in SW.

Perhaps not the best example to use given that the SW universe is based on the rule of cool more than anything - which is perfectly fine.

But the outer rim is that frontier.

I think the point is that yes, there might be a "frontier" identified in Star Wars canon, one will have a hard time justifying it (which is what I think you are looking for) given the specs of the Star Wars universe.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;973986I think the point is that yes, there might be a "frontier" identified in Star Wars canon, one will have a hard time justifying it (which is what I think you are looking for) given the specs of the Star Wars universe.

Which Star Wars universe? In the OT, the Empire has quite a time finding rebel bases. In the PT, the Jedi think they have records of everyplace, but they don't quite, yet it's still possible to assign one Jedi to look for clues and have him go to the right place somehow, etc. In TFA, between episodes the bad guys can turn a whole planet into a secret base and then in a day or so of action where no one has any trouble finding anyone else ever, worlds get blown up from across the galaxy and everyone just has to look up from whatever planet they are on (in a different star system) to see it, and basically not much makes any sense. Oh and then there's that comedy scene at the end of Empire Strikes Back where they fly someplace where they can see the whole galaxy and watch it spin in real time because oh that looks so cool and that's more important than having any speck of understanding of how spectacularly wrong that is.