Drift Crisis & The Sun

[FormerFiend]

Okay so again, going through Drift Crisis for the first time & one of the developments is that the Burning Archipelago has been cut off from the rest of the Pact Worlds.

Two questions; firstly, how? You didn't need a drift engine to reach the Archipelago; the entrance was a tunnel in the material plane. Was the tunnel damaged by some of the planar effects of the Crash? This isn't made clear or even really alluded to, it's just flatly stated that the bubbles are cut off with no further explanation.

Secondly, why? From a narrative standpoint, that is. Like, I get that the point of the event is to really shake things up in the setting and introduce a new status quo, make new challenges, create new points of conflict, but why just shut off one of your more interesting and unique features in the setting? Seriously, how many other sci fi settings have a city on the sun, and Paizo just decides, yeah, no, you can't go there anymore, any stories told about that are going to be about trapped isolation within it or whatever. Was the Archipelago unpopular with readers? Was it unpopular within Paizo?

Maybe I'm being overly dramatic here as I suppose it's not outright destroyed & you could use this as a set up for adventures to reestablish contact, but it just strikes me as a very odd decision to make (and one that I intend to promptly ignore, all due respect), among many odd decisions.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

That is interesting.

From Fire Starters, Vol. 1 of Dawn of Flame wrote:

The only major settlement on the sun's surface, the Burning Archipelago is on the opposite side of the sun from Far Portal Station. The journey takes only a few hours. The Burning Archipelago is a bizarre place, even by Pact Worlds standards. Floating in mysterious bubbles of force within the sun's plasma seas, the structure is an island of habitability amid astronomic fire, reachable only through special protective tunnels Sarenite explorers discovered a century ago.

So... The access to the Sun is via magical tunnel, but the magical tunnels should not have been disrupted by the Drift Crash, because you cannot use Magic to enter the Drift. BUT... that tunnel has never been fully understood. If it goes through the Plane of Fire, I could see it being affected by the general planar havoc of the Drift Crisis.

This does mean that my Phrenic Adept from the Burning Archipeligo, Dani Merta, is going to be very unhappy because she can't go home and see her family.

[Evan van de Steeg]

Yeah... Neither of you read the book carefully it says and I quote The Burning Archipelago’s trade has come to a halt, with even the normally prominent corporate satellites going eerily quiet. Stores find their shelves emptied, unable to receive stock in any straightforward fashion. The price of goods has gone up astronomically, with many goods available only via aftermarket routes. Though travel within the Archipelago itself is unimpeded, existence is precarious in these bubbled cities; being virtually cut off from the rest of the Pact Worlds proves just how true that sentiment is. Despite interruptions to commerce, the daily life of an average resident remains unchanged. The primary tension stems from lashuntas in Asanatown, who were unwelcoming to outsiders at the best of times and have completely locked down following the Crash. Wild conspiracies fill the streets, with some implying that the sun may begin to expand rapidly and consume the Burning Archipelago at any moment. Nothing about the tunnel closing or being cut off from the rest pact worlds just the trade being shutdown because of the crash

[Xenocrat]

Yes, the idea is that fast intersystem drift travel is gone, and the limited reserves of slower intersystem non-Drift fuel aren’t being prioritized for small tourist trade areas like the BA.

Think of it like being a small tourist island in the era of COVID restrictions and collapsed air travel.

[Radam]

Non-drift travel in the Pact System is not that much slower than drift travel. And wasn't there a mention of large non-drift AI cargo haulers? Although I might be misremembering and that was a house rule I read somewhere about.

The main reason for interrupted trade is more likely temporary that many ships vanished and there is currently a shortage. That could be solved by portals, but I guess the official lore ignores that capability.

[Xenocrat]

It's not much slower, but it is slower, and much more so if you're using a drift engine with a rating higher than 1.

There was no reason not to use drift travel for instrasystem trips (other than philosophical opposition to planar pollution or maybe drift risks), and all that travel that stopped using the drift and shifted to intrasystem engines would send thasteron fuel prices skyrocketing. Going to the Sun just got a little slower and a lot more expensive right after a lot of ships in transit just disappeared and everyone is freaking out. Tourism and commerce with the Sun aren't going to be high on anyone's agenda with the limited ships and fuel in panic mode.

[Radam]

Speaking of limited ships, is there information how the crisis affected piracy?

On one hand ships not being able to drift means more targets, but also that they can't get away easily and can be better tracked while the worlds have a more vested interest in keeping their ships safe than they did before which means more patrols.

[Xenocrat]

The Free Captains get half a page (most factions get one half or one page on how the Drift Crisis affects them).

It's good for the pirates, as they don't have to ambush intrasystem drift travel entering/exiting near planets - they can try to get them on predictable real space intrasystem routes.

The merchants respond with convoys and upgunning, the pirates respond by forming fleets.

New pirates show up, not all caring about or following the Free Captain's rules, harming the FC's rep and forcing them to sometimes hunt down the interlopers. Older, richer FCs start retiring, making the pirate scene overall more volatile and less stable.

[Milo v3]

I can only assume the writer mistakeningly thought that the way into the burning archipelago was via the drift.

Also, 2 extra days of travel vs. a common drift engine definitely doesn't fit with 'being virtually cut off from the rest of the Pact Worlds'. Two extra days is not anywhere near that severe and is true of all the planets in the pact worlds, not just the sun. It's not like the sun is harder to get to then the rest of the system's planets.

[Radam]

It will just take some time till trade rearranged itself to take the 2 extra days into account (and as flight times never were an exact science anyway that shouldn't be that much of a problem). What takes more time is replacing all those ships.

So for a few years trade will be disrupted a lot. Think back to when the Suez Canal was blocked.

[Xenocrat]

It’s 2 days extra time but the cost of ships and especially fuel to make the trip is going up big time. Given its population it’s going to be less prioritized and get less trade and traffic except absolute necessities at very high prices.

Think small poor countries trying to get liquified natural gas or grain the last year with richer and bigger countries bidding up the price during a bid disruption. You’re facing bigger shortages than they are.

[Milo v3]

Yes, but those things are true of All planets in the pact worlds. Nothing at all specific for the sun.

[Xenocrat]

I don’t think any other Pact World has a similar profile of tiny population and highly tourist focused and easily deprioritized in an emergency. Everywhere else is either much more populated, more independent, or more economically intertwined in a way you can’t cut them off so exclusively from your normal trade priorities.

Apostate is a small population, but they make and sell guns in a buyers market and have their own active militaries and trade fleets. They aren’t going to be ignored or impotent the same way.

[Milo v3]

But that isn't how it's being presented. That's not virtually cut off, that's being left to die while still as accessible as everything else and while requiring less resources to survive then places like Akiton.

[Melisa Norveg]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

This does mean that my Phrenic Adept from the Burning Archipeligo, Dani Merta, is going to be very unhappy because she can't go home and see her family.

"Well, My junior hockey team is now probably the best on the sun rather than the worst in the absolom syst...I mean the 12th place winners in the absolom system league! damn you arcturn and all your free rink time and enforced method acting calisthenics.... "