Moving past the 3rd Imperium

[jackleg]

I was going thru some of my Traveller items recently and later saw the latest incarnation.

Is not time for the CTU to move beyond the 3rd Imperium? It ahs been 20+ years since it was first shown to us by Mr. Miller. Now granted the Shattered Imperium(MegaTraveller) may have gone too far for some, but T:TNE was way too far for most of us.

Alot of games have had the settings move on since the original introduction of the setting:

-BattleTech
-Cyberpunk
-ShadowRun
-Forgotten Realms
-Greyhawk

And for some, they explore other times, such as Vampire, Deadlands, and Call of Cthuhlu.

I would really like to see a more up to date setting with someone else on the throne.

Any suggestions, comments, I will be here in my flame retardent home. ;-)

Thanks

 

[Whipsnade]

Is not time for the CTU to move beyond the 3rd Imperium?

Jackleg,

Well, the OTU has "moved beyond" the Third Imperium as you put it and, as you also point out, the results produced by GDW were viewed by many as less than satisfactory. Other attempts by other publishers haven't done much better sadly.

If we're sticking to OTU, the road ahead isn't too bright. We've the Rebellion, Hard Times, release of Virus, and all that awaiting us. Attempts to push the time line ahead through all that face quite a challenge, perhaps an insurmountable one.

M:1248 tried and, despite being well written, sadly failed largely due to the fact that it had to tidy up after TNE and the Viral Era. GDW painted the game into quite a corner with TNE it seems and working within those constraints that version imposed on the setting is extremely difficult.

ATU time lines for the game haven't been much better either.

SJGame's alternate timeline for GT has reached 1126 and, quite frankly, it is boring as sh*t. While SJGames TNS tosses out the odd escaped noble convict, odd archeology site, missing reporter, and other reports, the majority of the stories are little more than a gossip column featuring the Imperial family and various other nobles.

While it's nice to read about Strephon attending an opera or eating the first meal in a new restaurant, those aren't exactly thrilling events. I don't know what constraints LKW and/or SJGames are under while writing those TNS snippets. They very well may be boring because they're not actually allowed to be much of anything else.

Like you, I'd love to see the OTU time line progress even though that time line contains Virus and all the trouble it creates. I think we could lessen the many problems created by Virus, and the Empress Wave for that matter, if we yank the time line to a point sufficiently far into the future.

Five hundred years is a nice round number, so how does M:1700 sound?


Regards,
Bill

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

M:1700, bah!

If you're gonna go, go all out.

Milieu 2100!

It has been one thousand eventful years since the Golden Age of the Imperium...

 

[Tellon]

LOL --

How about a "Return" of the Ancients ..

And they sure don't like seeing what all has happened -- mwahahahaha

 

[Gray Lensman]

Pre Empire

You could always do like I am currently working on and make up a spin-off from an event in the "official timeline".

No, no clues yet, got a bit more to go.:smirk:

Dan

 

[Blue Ghost]

I guess I'm still "old-hat" when it comes to Traveller, even though I haven't played in about two years now. To me CT is rich with possibilities. I still see Traveller as that generic sci-fi D&D-ish game I picked up at the local game store.

The foundations, to me at least, are strictly generic sci fi. It's like buying Betty Crocker's cake mix; you add the frosting

Take your group back in time to pre-historic Earth, or pre-historic Vland for that matter. The official Traveller canon, in terms of established realms, to me, is a malleable backdrop. I think that's why a lot of attempts to push the game's established fiction beyond what it is have failed miserably.

If you want to take your group to a "super city" of somekind, or someplace where plague has ravaged some civilization, you can already do it.

To me, this is the magic of the game. In my Traveller hay day I was never at a loss for imagination. This was in spite of the fact that the only visual sci-fi around was Star Wars, reruns of classic Trek, Godzilla films, and all the old black and white sci-fi from the 1950s.

I still see Traveller as being exceedingly rich in material for possibilities of all sorts. Lost civilizations on far flung world, strange inexplicable anomalies in deep space, aliens with technology far exceeding that of known Imperial tech, strange and mysterious gateways to existences beyond our ken.

I think it's all there. We don't need to push the game itself, so much as push authors for some extraordinary material for what we have.

 

[kafka47]

For me, the Imperium was always a big enough sandbox save in the TNE/T4 milieu and in each of those eras I preferred to delve into Pocket Empires in the Wilds. I agree with Bill's assessment that GT was boring because it brought back what we already know but it did serve the useful purpose of putting it together under one roof. I liked some of the innovations that T20 made - Deadspace, Emperor Gavin, etc. but as the line never developed any of those concepts well, I reverted back to my tried and true sandbox 3I. 1248 for me was interesting but again vastly detailed (if you ever look at the supplements past the intial print offerings) that it required a PhD in Imperial History to trace through it all. MgT seems to be also doing interesting things with the Imperium and it is still too early to say whether I like it or not. But, it has created a new sandbox even if it is adjacent to my old one.

 

[Malinor]

I guess I'm still "old-hat" when it comes to Traveller, even though I haven't played in about two years now. To me CT is rich with possibilities. I still see Traveller as that generic sci-fi D&D-ish game I picked up at the local game store.

The foundations, to me at least, are strictly generic sci fi. It's like buying Betty Crocker's cake mix; you add the frosting

Take your group back in time to pre-historic Earth, or pre-historic Vland for that matter. The official Traveller canon, in terms of established realms, to me, is a malleable backdrop. I think that's why a lot of attempts to push the game's established fiction beyond what it is have failed miserably.

If you want to take your group to a "super city" of some kind, or someplace where plague has ravaged some civilization, you can already do it.

To me, this is the magic of the game. In my Traveller hay day I was never at a loss for imagination. This was in spite of the fact that the only visual sci-fi around was Star Wars, reruns of classic Trek, Godzilla films, and all the old black and white sci-fi from the 1950s.

I still see Traveller as being exceedingly rich in material for possibilities of all sorts. Lost civilizations on far flung world, strange inexplicable anomalies in deep space, aliens with technology far exceeding that of known Imperial tech, strange and mysterious gateways to existences beyond our ken.

I think it's all there. We don't need to push the game itself, so much as push authors for some extraordinary material for what we have.

There's a lot of truth in what you say. I got on the must-buy-new-version treadmill for a while and regretted it. I still think CT as one of the best games I've ever played.

A J

The Hetzenberg Chronicles

 

[Sturn]

There's a huge amount of space (no pun intended) without moving forward. Go back in time or outward. There are lots of unique settings within the timeline before the rise of the 3rd Imperium. Also, many edges of the 3rd Imperium are highly undeveloped by canon or even non-canon.

 

[robject]

So there are lifetimes of development that can go on in the OTU. It just comes down to having the energy and drive to work at it.

Alternate settings haven't had that sort of momentum so far. Doesn't mean it won't happen. Just that it takes a lot to get to square one. Someone with a vision to create it, helpers to develop it well, and people who love it.

 

[Sturn]

So there are lifetimes of development that can go on in the OTU. It just comes down to having the energy and drive to work at it.

I thought I could whip togather my guide to the Solomani Rim during the Long Night in no time. o: A year (?) later I've only completed a history PDF, sector guide (UWPs, maps), and just now have finished a rough draft of only one pocket empire in detail (the Old Earth Union) that slowly grew to 200 pages. Yikes!

PS: Might release the rough draft of Terran Dawn's pocket guide to the Old Earth Union early for heckling in the near future. It's very rough, needs loads of editting, artwork, but the material is there.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

The OTU has a remarkable breadth and depth. What it lacks, however, is a future.

As other have noted, you can set you games across thousands of years and thousands of parsecs and still remain within the OTU's flow of history. No matter how far afield you go and no matter how far back in time you begin, you'll still eventually come to 1130, Research Station Omnicron, and Virus.

Virus touches all, Virus trumps all, Virus effects all settings that any pretense of being OTU compatible. Sooner or later, it all comes back to Virus.

When my group couldn't keep up with the TNS reports of the Fifth Frontier War, I shanghaied them to the Islands and still kept our campaign within the OTU. Like me, others have escaped an unwanted OTU plot line by moving elsewhere in space and time. Moving elsewhere in space and time won't work with Virus because 1130 is still going to happen.

MT's story ended with Virus. TNE's story included Virus. Even M;1248 still had Virus.

I can set my campaign everywhere and everywhen within the OTU, but after 1130 my campaign is still forced to deal with Virus.

Make an ATU, you say. Ignore the OTU, you say. That's good advice...

... if I have the time to do so.

What's the OTU's charm? Why it's depth and details of course. Any personal TU is that much richer the more it can use details from the OTU and the closer a personal TU adheres to the OTU the more those details will fit.

The OTU isn't some shibboleth which demands adherence. The OTU is primarily a time saving device for GMs.

And that time saving device doesn't have future.

Think about that for a moment. Traveller's official setting, the official setting for a game about adventure in the Far Future, doesn't have an official future beyond Virus.

When the Hivers complained about humanity wrecking the sandbox, they weren't kidding.


Regards,
Bill

 

[robject]

The OTU has a remarkable breadth and depth. What it lacks, however, is a future.

So we check our loaves of bread to see which ones have gone stale. To some degree, after a certain amount of time has passed, things wash out and we only lose what we choose to lose.

What's the OTU's charm? Why it's depth and details of course.

TNE brought changes, but depth and details not relegated to history is: the world writeups. And if you just use canon for those, then most of that is in the Spinward Marches.

(Counterexample: T4 put itself in the Imperium's Core, to no avail (there's neither "depth" nor "detail" sufficient in Core to attract enough referees)).

So, for example, the next milieu will have to hand me the Regina subsector, mostly intact; most of the other subsectors in the Marches, again mostly intact; and corporations, nominally intact. And, perhaps just as important, the Marches has to remain on the periphery of power.

 

[Whipsnade]

And so I rush into the sort of territory I've not really spent any time with before... Chuck Gannon's draft concepts for late MegaTraveller; Wounded Colossus ideas (that one's Bill's); etc etc.

Rob,

Mr. Gannon's excellent late-MT suggestions, G:T's No Assassination time line, and my slapdash WoCo all share one characteristic; they all sidestep Virus.

They all "deal" with Virus the same way by not dealing with Virus.

To one extent or another, while they begin with the OTU, they eventually depart from the OTU in order to sidestep Virus.

It does introduce a break in milieux, and that certainly creates history, and it does move the timeline forward quite a bit compared with before (jumping ahead 70 years where GDW originally crawled along at 1 year per year or so).

I think jumping the OTU story far enough ahead is probably the best way to "handle" Virus.

Put another way: the next milieu defines itself as required. Past events merely add color.

Nicely put.

I suppose the Regency does change things, though it seems that most worlds are the same old worlds they've always been. Not getting into the Aslan invasions right now, if you please... other than that, the vast majority of 35-plus sectors of space were never really detailed in my mind to begin with. I can think of some world names and some factoids, but we've never been there, so... not so much depth or detail "lost".

Yes, there is a huge amount of time and space to explore right up to 1130 and perhaps a few years afterward. However, once Omnicron is raided and Virus is released, all that time and space is living on borrowed time.

Virus is a slate wiper. As it effects all of Chartered Space, and most likely all the regions beyond that, only the "past" seems safe hence the post-TNE return to the Far Future's past in M:0 for T4 and Interstellar Wars for GT. However, no matter when you turn the clock back to, once the clock begins to tick it will eventually reach 1130 and Research Station Omnicron again.

Even as vast as the OTU seems in time and space, we're still working within constraints because Virus is still on the calendar and just over the border.

Traveller's official setting has no official future because no one either can or wants to clean up after Virus.


Regards,
Bill

 

[robject]

Traveller's official setting has no official future because no one either can or wants to clean up after Virus.

I saw this in your previous post too. You're right, Virus hasn't been cleaned up after.

 

[Tellon]

Yeah -- I have gone the way of "pocket Empires" so that I side-step Virus -- I like TNE, but I never got to liking Virus ..

to me -- robots -- "I Robot" of Heinlein vrs HAL of 2001 or the I, Robot movie with Wil Smith ... brings people face to face with AI's..

and the question -- "Can we create ethical life, or is that lifeform going to sink to our levels?"

 

[Blue Ghost]

Wow, have I been out of the loop. I just boned up on Virus via the Traveller Wiki, and I had no idea of its far reaching effect.

Huh.

I thought Virus played havoc with everyone, but I mistook T4 for TNE, and thought that all the hub-bub about Virus was just... I don't know ... grousing about lack of adventure support or something.

So, Virus did what all of the fighting in MT couldn't. Or rather ended it catastrophically. I dunno, I guess I'm gonna sound like a complete air headed green-horn, but Virus seems like it was a bad move. Given the history of Virus I would think the Vargr, them having the least compatible techs, would come out relatively intact with pockets of destruction here and there.

But everyone's duchy/holding/sector got ravaged and leveled to submission?

Huh.

Well, as much as I hate to suggest rewriting history, but, should Virus have had such a catastrophic effect? I mean, it seems like Virus would have been better if it had both destroyed vast tracks of space, but also have left vast tracks of space untouched. I mean, isn't that how REAL viruses work?

 

[far-trader]

Every time I read how generally hated and feared Virus is for destroying Traveller I have an urge to write a little treatise of my own. It's never gotten much beyond the title (How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Virus) and the outline as a plot (A game company starts a process to viral holocaust that a room of grognards and fans frantically try to stop) both of course borrowed from a classic

But I'm not sure I have the skills to do it justice. I know I don't have the time or energy at the moment to attempt it. And it's been a long languishing back-burner project for much the same reasons.

Not to mislead, I too was one of those who DID hate Virus and what it did to Traveller. It took time but after some arguments (elsewhere) and consideration I came around to where Virus can work.

What I'm saying is Virus can be good, done right. Or, as I'm more inclined to do lately, ignore it, and just play in my own (close to) OTU where the time/place frame (generally 4FW to 5FW+) means even the most engaging campaign is unlikely to progress to a point where it matters. It's just easier But if I got a good campaign going that did approach the whole mess I don't think I'd have a problem running a good game of it.

 

[far-trader]

...But everyone's duchy/holding/sector got ravaged and leveled to submission?

Last I heard The Marches were still isolated and doing fine iirc*. And Virus itself had mutated to a point where things would be stable, but "interesting" in the way of the old blessing/curse of living in interesting times. As for how Virus works, many had problems with it being able to work at all given how it was described.

* it's been a long while since I followed any of the official, never mind semi-official meanderings of post Virus Traveller, so it's possible, and I think I even heard some rumbles of, that the quarantine was breached.

 

[Whipsnade]

What I'm saying is Virus can be good, done right.

Dan,

I happen to agree with you. Done right, Virus can be good.

Of course, done right is something that has yet to be done regarding Virus.

If handled with restraint and subtly, Virus can be an excellent part of any setting. However, when was the last time you saw anything handled with restraint and subtly in a RPG?

Whatever is done and however it is done, Virus must be tackled before the OTU can have a future again.


Regards,
Bill