Jupiter Trojans prior to the War of the Trojan Vespers

[Rubikia]

Hi all,

For the past year, I have been working on a sci-fi project called Lost Heavens, which among other things features an isolationist Manichaean theocracy occupying the moons of Jupiter. I have only ever finished and released maps relating to this, as it is a notable part, but I wanted to expand the setting a lot further.

The general idea of this setting is to give off the same sense of scale as you would in a galaxy-spanning space opera, but confine it to just our solar system. I think that the vastness of our solar system is greatly underapreciated in sci-fi, save for the Expanse, so I wanted to focus on that. While the Expanse is a big inspiration, I think that, for what I am going for, there are too few factions, too few inhabited places, and too few factions, so I wanted to have our solar system bustling with inhabited asteroids, space stations, and nations.

That brings me to this map I have been working on on and off since the start of March, depicting the Greek Camp of the Jupiter Trojans. I took data from the Small-Body Database and drew it on Inkscape, and I plan on also adding allegiances/investments from companies and countries, since this is currently at the first stage. This map is of the Greek Camp before the 'War of the Trojan Vespers', which was a war waged by the Trojans against the Luxembourg Commonwealth who had been exploiting the asteroids at the edge of Inner Space for many years. I took inspiration from the real world War of the Sicilian Vespers for this.

WIP
Jupiter Trojans.png

[Rubikia]

Had some time to do some more work on this, so here is the current WIP.

Jupiter Trojans.png

I added in 'Sleepways', which are the main routes used with interplanetary travel. In this setting, there is no faster-than-light travel, or even the quick (but slow compared to other sci-fi) Epstein drives from The Expanse. Instead travel between Earth, asteroids and other planets can take a long time, comparable to the speeds nowadays. Because of this, being put in stasis is a necessity for space-travel and those who use the stasis tanks incur a time debt.

From the Greek Camp, there are two major sleepways that Ive named here, one going coreward towards Earth, and another going towards the planets beyond Jupiter. The other two just follow the orbit of Jupiter. I'm not sure if the use of straight lines works here, or if the routes or directions look right, so they might be changed to look better depending on that.

I've also named this region of space 'The Greater Aegean' which I think is a fitting geographic-esque name for the region of the solar systems with the Trojan asteroids. Oh and I added in some space station ports, Port Dudelange and Port Serres, both of which are controlled by the Luxembourg Commonwealth

Here is another map I have made in the past which shows a lot of the geographic names that I have used for the Solar System. I like the ideas of comparing the asteroid belt with mountain ranges.

Trojan Vespers.png

[Rubikia]

I think this is nearing completion, though there are more things that I want to add to this map.

Jupiter Trojans.png

I changed the main sleepways' directions a little bit, and I decided to add in more minor sleepways that connect to almost all of the Jupiter Trojans here, bar the asteroids used as military bases.

Also more importantly I added in faction icons! The only one I had beforehand was the icon for the Luxembourg Commonwealth, but I am pretty happy with the others. I might add a few more, but it depends on how many factions I want to occupy territory or exert influence in the Trojans. I will add these underneath each asteroid name depending on their affiliation.

Trojan Factions.png

One of the main things that I am trying to figure out how to depict is void ecology. Yes, in this setting there are unintelligent space dwelling organisms, like Space Whales perhaps, that drift between asteroids and such. I would like to somehow show the migration routes, or the drifting patterns, of these void-creatures or their hatching grounds. I think it could be quite interesting to also depict a non-human, non-sentient even, part of the Jupiter Trojans. I don't really know how to do this, as I don't want to have an overwhelming amount of line types in this map.

[Clyph]

Stunning! And representing the Maori, nice!

[Turambar]

These maps are really great! I love how you developed such a complex and diverse world within our own solar system.

[Rubikia]

Stunning! And representing the Maori, nice!

Thank you so much! Yes! I was quite excited to include the Maori, and to try and depict the Koru for their symbol too!

These maps are really great! I love how you developed such a complex and diverse world within our own solar system.

Thank you! I plan on including more and more factions, locations etc. as I go along, and it has been proving very fun.

I wanted to continue adding more typically unrepresented/stateless nations in this map of the Jupiter Trojans. So with some research and a bit of advice from the Atlas Altera discord, I have added several more groups to this map including the Kuki, Itelmen, Nias, Buka, and more. I also added the additional faction symbols below the names of the asteroids, to indicate their presence there.

Jupiter Trojans.png

In total I have 18 factions which currently have territory/influence in the Greek Camp of the Jupiter Trojans, but in truth I want to add more, with more single-location factions too. If anyone has any ideas themselves that would be great to hear

Trojan Factions4.png

I haven't added the void ecology aspects yet, as I am still racking my brains to figure out a good way to depict or symbolise feeding or hatching grounds. Maps on this subject for real-world animals don't seem to have that intricate symbols, so I've got that left to do.

[jshoer]

This is awesome!

It particularly reminds me of the Tabletop Whale solar system map, in a really good way. I'm having a great time hunting for asteroid names that I recognize.

I do recommend that you rejigger your legend a little. I think going from solid circle to circle with a ring and back to solid circle again, then back to ring adds some visual confusion and doesn't really convey an overall increase in population size.

The void ecology idea is cool to think about. Are you going to build it all the way out, with plant analogs, herbivores, carnivores, and so on?