Project Final Fox is a Terran long-shot plan to create a new jump point. The ambitious project is to locate a dark gate and establish a secondary route through the rift west of the Ring to the Inukari Union.
The project relies on the (questionable) theory that every hex has a potential gate. For the most part, this involves sending out suicide missions: small ships that use distant false stars to navigate to where a gate should be. The ships then drop out of jumpspace in hopes that they will be able to return. So far, one pilot has returned, supposedly from 0823. The realspace drop was in deep space, according to the instruments.
If the gate exists, the phykons seeded by the ship's arrival - deliberately more than a ship's normal incidental load - should eventually produce a visible false star, but the pilot disappeared on the second expedition. There is controversy about whether the pilot faked both trips as either hoax or sabotage, and whether another expedition should be sent to that hex. The argument against points out that the false star should eventually be visible from current space lanes, and there is no need to throw more ships and crew into the void.
The argument against the project overall points out that jump-2 and higher ships should frequently pass by invisible gates, and that there is no known instance of a gate being seeded by normal traffic.
Adventure seed: Dinner and a Show
Access to Shingie can be tightly controlled because of the tight security around some of its facilities. One well-known gap is the winery region, where wealthy patrons are flown directly to the door of high-end restaurants. It's a long overland trip from the East Shore, but a defecting Terran psionics student is expected to get there, and the players have to extract them.
For the trip, the players will need a ship with the appropriate level of luxury. If the GM has been looking to give the players an upgrade, this is one way to do it: the patron will pay for their ship to be refitted as a charter yacht.
The dinner will involve a live musical performance. The plan is that the charterer will be introduced to the musicians and, impressed, hire them to perform at their Capital estate. Among them will be the student, ostensibly one of the backup singers.
Potential complications
Terran minders reported the student as "kidnapped" shortly after they left a South Shore hiking group. The student expected to get to the Lirkam valley on foot, but the resulting search has made that impossible. Can the players arrange a "spontaneous" boating trip for the patron, to make an emergency pickup?
The student is a double agent, hoping to assassinate a previously-defecting Terran. Inukari counter-agents suspect this, and are trying to track down the "student" before the well-intentioned patron exposes their safe house.
The Terran embassy is turning it into a diplomatic incident, and the players' patron needs deniability. They blame the charter service, who blames the player party. The charter service agent disappears under suspicious circumstances - did they flee, or were they silenced by the Terrans... or Union intelligence? And are the players also targets? What became of the student?
Kudi Sea
Update: There is now a wiki entry for the Kudi Sea, which supercedes this.
Shingie's Kudi Sea region is a draw from all over charted space. The nearly constant pleasant weather, well-established (and regulated) entertainment industry, and proximity to Capital wealth makes it a sought-after vacation destination.
The Sea is roughly rectangular, with its long dimension running along the equator. The naming conventions for the shores are confusing, however: the North Coast is on the north side of the water, but the East Shore is actually at the western end of the sea - it is the east side of the Apu Kudi region, however, the first-settled area of the planet.
The North Coast is what most offworlders picture when they think of Shingie: a modern, well-developed area of resort hotels and white-sand beaches. Gambling is mostly forbidden along the North Coast itself, though there are casino districts further inland. Kaila Island, nearly in the center of the coastline, is the most popular family destination, full of amusement parks, children's museums, and sports arenas. Mirga Spa, a village to the west, is the most popular destination for the ultrarich.
The East Shore is an older, more down-at-heels resort area, its beaches nearly covered with boardwalk shops, bars, and gambling dens. Poorer students from Apu Kudi University often work East Shore jobs, though most are temporary workers from Grandry. The Gur Igirrim, ostensibly a casino workers' union but effectively an organized crime syndicate, controls much of the commerce of the East Shore. Apu Kudi students are warned (with little effect) against gambling on the East Shore. The western end of the North Coast runs into the East Shore, and this area is popular with less-wealthy visitors as a balance between North Coast cachet and East Shore affordability.
The South Coast is more rugged and less developed, and is popular for "wilderness" excursion, though it is well mapped and has excellent network coverage, so it is fairly tamed. The mountains to the south are young and make for rocky, challenging climbs.
The Masuag Ma Lirkam (Lirkam River Valley), on the eastern end, is the massive river delta that feeds the sea - and most of the planet. The flood plain and delta are the most fertile areas around the sea, and are occupied by massive farm communes/corporations, with mostly-automated farm equipment. The upper banks of the Lirkam are wine country, though they make more income from tours than from exports. Some of the most exclusive restaurants in the sector are in this region, and small downports dot the countryside where yachts and charters land to bring diners directly from Capital - sometimes a two-week journey for a single meal.
Apu Kudi University
Update: There is now a wiki entry for Apu Kudi, which supercedes this.
One of the most prestigious engineering universities in charted space, Apu Kudi is best known for the Kudi Institute of Technology, a research school dedicated to bright energy and jump drives.
Apu Kudi is privately held, and it is a regular source of tension between its board and Union intelligence that it accepts Zhdezi, Terran, and even Gvazdan students - and professors. It is generally accepted that when the jump-4 breakthrough happens, it will be at the Institute.
One of the lesser programs at Apu Kudi is psionics research, and it is an open secret that this is an intelligence exchange. Zhdez professors and visiting psionics experts at the Kagu Mi School provide the Union with information about psionics in exchange for new advances in drive technology. It's not entirely true that Kagu Mi graduates all enter the Union (or Zhdez!) intelligence service, but it's a common career path.
The proximity of the main Apu Kudi campus to the Kudi Sea coast, and thus its resorts, is sometimes problematic for both sides. Resort security frequently has to deal with student shenanigans, and students have the temptation of casinos and other money sinks.
Close-up on 0920
Update: There is now a wiki entry for Shingie, which supercedes this.
0920 Shingie (SHIN-gyeh) is the closest world to the Ring in Inukari space, and also one of the most important. Only two steps from Capital, it is the oldest Inukari colony world, and the home of the Dalu Laumkha shipyard.
It is also a luxury world, with an equatorial sea that is home to some of the most prestigious resorts in the Union.
Shingie is J-3 from Capital, J-2 from Capital-adjacent Grandry, and J-3 from Lorbaugh/Ringgate. Therein lies the strategic complication: Shingie-to-Lorbaugh is the only access between the Union and the rest of Charted Space. There is no way to halt traffic through the system, even during the Season -- when most government officials visit Shingie in a parliamentary break.
It is thus a running joke that every resident or visitor to Shingie not a known government official is either Union intelligence or a Terran spy/saboteur. Both Terran and Inukari entertainment media reinforce this; there have been endless movies and series, everything from comedy to thriller, from both sides of the border. The Daka Ai has blown up on screen seventeen times, not counting expy versions, and has fallen into the Kudi Sea in one improbable Terran thriller that was so popular -- including in the Union -- that there is now an underwater resort hotel and casino replicating part of the ship.
While the media exaggerates it, it is true that the Kudi resorts are a nightmare to Union intelligence and security services. The necessity of permanent operations there is a budget black hole given the cost of living, but they are perceived as a boondoggle by politicians who don't like the optics of stationing personnel there ("a paid vacation!") when the next Season is nearly two years away.
The shipyard is its own security risk, being the location of the largest producer of jump drives in the Union. Attempts to move the j-drive research facilities deeper in the Union have mostly been unsuccessful - no other world has the confluence of shipyard facilities, high standard of living, engineering universities, and proximity to power.
Daka Ai
Update: There is now a wiki entry for the [Daka Ai](/gavilan/Daka Ai), which supercedes this.
The largest passenger liner in charted space
182 crew
96 crew bunks on upper crew deck
Crew lounge/kitchen
Four officer staterooms, 54 crew bunks on main crew deck
Large medical bay, 4 hospital rooms + 18 suspension coffins
Large crew mess
31 staterooms, 6 suites on theater deck
Two movie theaters, one live theater, snack bars
Dining area, shops, offices, main airlock, fast food restaurant, conservatory on promenade deck
Casino, formal dining, 80 staterooms, shuttle bays, and laundry on main deck
Pool, gymnasium, 40 staterooms on pool deck
31 staterooms, 18 lifeboats in 4 bays, 220 dTon baggage area on dull deck
Total passengers: ~300
Basic maneuverability in realspace; minimal atmo/gravity capability
It can make jump-2, and about twelve hexes between refueling
The Daka Ai is a class-of-its-own passenger liner, operating through the Inukari Core and Sterhon sectors. It offers luxury cruises rather than simple transportation, and its schedule influences the social calendar on nearly every world on its route.
It circulates between Shingie and Sterhon, the longest J-2 route in charted space, a leisurely path that takes it two Capital years, one way. It is so influential that the Inukari parliament's biennial recess coincides with its arrival, marking the beginning of "Shingie Season." The Daka Ai and a flotilla of lesser ships and private yachts ferry the elite to Shingie where the ship stays for several weeks before returning to Capital for the new legislative term.
This is, of course, the translation of the King Richard of FASA fame, and uses its deck plans.
Ship scales
Been poking around various Traveller wikis and realized something: current Traveller military ships are enormous. I'm sticking with a smaller scale; yesterday's Eleonora is the equivalent of a 5,000-dton ship with a Type Z (Book 2) jump drive, and that's as big as I want to get. This keeps player-character ships in the same weight class as some fighting starships, and makes a merchant marine a possibility (if, for instance, I decide to start a Wolf War).
If I keep it to Book 2 scale ships, that still means a range from 100 to 5,000 tons, plenty of room for players to be outgunned by a naval picket hanging out at the bright horizon watching for pirates.
I feel like maybe I've limited myself too much by disallowing gun battles in jumpspace though; I may have to rethink that.
