If you happen to remember which article that was, I would love to read it. 

I started to suspect that the maps were created in an overly automated way when I first started looking at this. As a teenager I had thought that the traveller maps were generated by taking real star maps (as they were known at the time) and then fitting worlds onto that. Later I realized that aside from a few stars nearby Earth and a few very bright, well known stars (which are largely misplaced) that the entire imperium was randomly generated. 

Then I thought that a model had been developed to simulate expansion, trade and travel and the UWPs were based on that, and that the random subsector rules that we were given were for those of us without access to that kind of thing.

It's a little unfortunate that the real universe is starting to outrun Traveller so much. Some time ago, I remember the argument being made that a 2d map was appropriate on a galaxy scale as the stars are generally in the plane of the disc, but that explanation doesn't really work anymore. In the past stars beyond the Local Bubble were a random mass of stars, and now projects such as Gaia have the goal of mapping every last star in the galaxy. The galaxy isn't this unknown, empty place that we can plausibly fit anything onto anymore. 

Ah well. Nostalgia. 

-------- Original Message --------

On January 19, 2018 3:30 PM, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU> wrote: