Freelance Traveller

Travelling in James Schmitz’s Federation of the Hub

by Jeff Zeitlin

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2024 issue, under the title “Travelling in The Hub Federation”. This caused some confusion and unwarranted accusations regarding the relationship between the universe described here and the Clement Sector setting from Independence Games. There is no known relationship between the two, and Freelance Traveller apologizes for any responsibility it has in causing this confusion.

By and large, adventures in Traveller take place on worlds, only rarely aboard ships in transit between worlds. Universes that are science-fictional, but which de-emphasize interstellar travel in favor of focusing on planet-based adventure in an interstellar setting are therefore just as viable as candidates for Traveller campaigns as a universe where adventure could include following leads from world to world.

The Federation of the Hub series (Freelance Traveller review), by James H. Schmitz, is such a universe. Despite the stories individually focusing on the adventures of one principal character – who is often an ‘ordinary’ person thrust into an extraordinary situation – Schmitz provides enough background and worldbuilding to suggest the viability of multiple types of Traveller campaign.

Interstellar Travel

Travel between worlds takes time, and the time is a function of distance (though as Schmitz doesn’t give any actual distances or notional speeds, one can’t come up with a specific function to relate travel time and distance. Say that ships move “at the speed of plot” and leave it at that). The FTL mechanism is travel in “subspace”, and some people are sensitive to being in subspace and experience ‘dive hallucinations’, so a feature of passenger liners is “rest cubicles” where the passenger is (optionally) essentially put into an artificially-induced coma for the duration of the subspace journey. Rest cubicles are in the custody of ‘rest wardens’ who ostensibly have a rigid code of ethics regarding rest cubicles and their handling. ‘Rest’ is by no means obligatory, so passengers that are not subject to dive hallucinations, or who choose for their own reasons to ‘tough them out’, can remain in their ordinary staterooms and/or move about the ship and its passenger facilities normally. It should be noted that while going about armed is not considered unusual or objectionable within Hub society, passengers are required to surrender weapons aboard commercial liners due to the possibility of misinterpreting dive hallucinations.

Technology

Technology is generally portrayed as higher than we’re familiar with, but mostly ‘just out of reach’ from current technology. The common vehicles answer to the Traveller Air/Raft or enclosed Air/Raft or GCarrier, except that the Hub Federation version doesn’t go orbital. Personal weaponry is unclear as to its basic nature (e.g., chemical slug throwers or ‘gauss guns’), but is generally concealable and answers ‘socially’ to the idea of carrying a ‘handgun’ around routinely. Because of when Schmitz originally wrote these stories, the ‘ComWeb’ seems a little archaic in some respects, but answers well to the modern internet (but watch for some anachronisms when reading the stories).

Politics

Schmitz wrote his Federation as a very libertarian setting – there are rules and laws, but by and large, there are in practice very few restrictions on what a person may do, and few limitations on what a person’s response to infringement on his/her personal liberty may be. Even in urbanized areas, it’s unremarkable for a person to be armed, and if it becomes necessary, you can be sure the wielder knows how to use whatever weapon s/he carries (and also whether doing so is truly the appropriate response). People are expected to deal with their problems themselves, and not come crying to mommy government for help. When a problem becomes serious, the government will offer assistance, but ‘serious’ on a personal level and ‘serious’ to the government – at any level – are two different things.

Psionics

While psionics aren’t common, they’re not non-existent, and there is an agency of Schmitz’s “Overgovernment” that addresses the problems that may come up as the result of a rogue psion getting out of hand. The general position of the Overgovernment is to let psions ‘do their thing’ just like anyone else, but they prefer that they not be too blatant about it, so that the general (non-psion) public doesn’t realize the full extent of what psionics (and the associated branches of psychology) can really do. Pretty much the entire gamut of Traveller psionics has been illustrated in Schmitz’s stories, though by far the most commonly shown is telepathy (and its offshoot for dealing with non-humans, xenotelepathy). There are a few examples seen of non-sophonts that have limited psionic abilities.

Aliens

While nonhuman intelligences are known, they are not common. By and large, there is a tendency for nonhumans in the Federation to keep a relatively low profile; there are also some aliens that are outside the Federation (and may be hostile to it, but generally cautious enough not to be active threats). For the purposes of Traveller adventuring, consider this setting to be a human-only setting, or, if you choose to bring in non-humans, limit them to NPCs. Aliens may have psionic abilities, including some abilities not shown to exist among humans.

Adventuring in the Federation of the Hub

The general libertarian bent of the setting does affect what sorts of campaigns would be possible. There are no examples of mercenary activity, and the Overgovernment does not appear to maintain a standing Army or Navy, so such campaigns are unlikely to be workable unless you want to postulate an all-out war between the Federation and external aliens. There are external ‘fleets’ of human societies (“Independent Fleets” or “I-fleets”), but they tend to represent societies that were unwilling to conform generally to Federation norms, without necessarily being actively hostile. By and large, as long as they’re not perceived as a threat to the Federation, they’re left alone, even if they engage in ‘shady’ activities.

Culturally, the Federation seems to be fairly homogeneous, but ‘protected’ societies and planets exist, where the Overgovernment does not exercise its powers, and ‘local’ cultures are permitted to develop and operate. Federation citizens signalling intent to visit such worlds are advised that they are even more ‘on their own’ than normally within Hub space.

By far, the most common Overgovernment ‘agencies’ that play a role in the Federation are good matches for the Scouts in the Third Imperium setting, or for an agency that manages colonization and transition from colony to full member of the Federation. These agencies are overt, have their own internal politics, and can serve in almost any role (contact, patron, ‘rival’, etc.) needed for adventures on the Hub’s frontier.

More covert, but perhaps more ubiquitous, is the agency that deals with psychology and psionics, but even they aren’t ‘sinister mind-controlling thought police’; rather, they function primarily as a trouble-response agency and research-guidance/funding agency, and generally keep a low profile, even when dealing with the rest of the Overgovernment. There’s more to them than meets the eye, however, and the Psychology Service can serve as a useful patron or contact for psion player-characters under certain circumstances – or as just the opposite if the psion is abusing his/her powers and making a general nuisance of him/herself.

Mercantile activity is suggested in some of the background, and smuggling is ‘a Thing’, but it’s pretty clear that even the largest Federation mercantile enterprises don’t map to Third Imperium setting megacorporations; the general feel is probably closer to sector-wide corporations, with more than a little bit of the free-trader mentality remaining. None of the stories actually show trade-ship activity, however, so it’s not clear how to fit Traveller Merchant Prince-style mercantile operations into the setting.