Yeah, I was going to do that, but, for some reason, I am unable to Edit my earlier posts...
mactavish out.
A New Setting
- Thread starter mactavish
- Start date
Yeah, I was going to do that, but, for some reason, I am unable to Edit my earlier posts...
mactavish out.
I've considered that as well. While apes and dolphins usually get that treatment, I imagine that there is certainly room for non-terrestrial uplifts as well.
Another idea I've been tossing around is, before the Seeders undertook their final mission to spread humans throughout the galaxy, that they actually had either artificially-intelligent robots and/or uplifted animals that outlived them.
The robots came from an idea I used in a different setting for a different game about 20 years ago. They were the near-sapient servants of an extinct race that simply continued their programmed duties for millennia, even after the master race was gone and forgotten by the rest of the galaxy. They were mainly housekeepers and manservants and pest control specialists, but some were technical robots that worked on/repaired the masters' machines, too.
Then one of the robots spontaneously gained true self-awareness and began "infecting" its fellows with the same consciousness algorithms. Soon there was a small groups of intelligent robots bereft of purpose, so they started exploring the galaxy.
Long story short, they began searching for worlds with organic life and wiping it out (along the lines of Ultimate Marvel's Gah Lak Tus, or the 1990's Superman cartoon's version of Brainiac).
I hadn't really considered recycling that adversary, but it might not be a terrible idea to have this threat out there, traveling at sub-light speeds from system to system, scouring worlds clean through orbital bombardment that even suggest the presence of multicellular life.
I imagine that could fit into the narrative as to why there are no other intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy as well, if they've been "cleaning house" for the past 100,000+ years or so. Perhaps they initially left human-occupied worlds alone, but within the past few millennia have updated their programming to include Homo sapiens as well. Or perhaps their mission still forbids them harming humans, but it's just an unintended side effect of their "pest control" of every other living thing on those worlds...
I suppose a more sinister idea is that the Seeders specifically programmed some of their drones to terminate non-human sophonts due to their self-proclaimed racial superiority. This could prove a big mistake, particularly if local conditions led to even minor mutations that went uncorrected, making the local humans not quite exactly like the Seeders, and thus targets for the robots.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
mactavish out.
The former Earth Colonization Authority (now the Terran Colonization Authority) is the agency most responsible for setting the groundwork for interstellar exploration and colonization. To that end, it operates the Terran Colonization Authority Survey Agency, or simply “the Survey,” an organization that, as the same suggests, explores uncharted or recently-idenfied systems. It consists of largely-independent operatives who travel the galaxy in small [100 dTon], fast ships, exploring their assigned regions, surveying potentially habitable [or otherwise exploitable] worlds, and filing their mission reports with Survey administration.
Surveyors on assignment always operate alone and are never assigned partners. However, some do take along a pet or a close friend – or sometimes even passengers looking for a little adventure and circuitous transport to another world – despite the prohibitions.
In reality, most do, in fact, operate solo, but those who choose some companionship (other than Digital Companion software) are rarely disciplined (unless something goes terribly wrong as a result).
The TCA provides data archives, compiled from reports submitted by their operatives – as well as all relevant ICC licensure – to interested parties, from private colonist groups to aspiring miners, from massive corporations to interstellar polities. The cost of the information, star charts, survey results, and so on, vary with the value of the claim.
The Survey maintains bases on about ⅔ of the frontier mainworlds with class-D and E starports, and more rarely those with class-C facilities. It also licenses and legitimizes claims for settlements on other worlds and offers training courses to potential colonists.
Finally, the Survey works with the Interstellar Commerce Commission to insure that established colonies are included as a stop on at least one trade route (if possible).
mactavish out.
Surveyors on assignment always operate alone and are never assigned partners. However, some do take along a pet or a close friend – or sometimes even passengers looking for a little adventure and circuitous transport to another world – despite the prohibitions.
In reality, most do, in fact, operate solo, but those who choose some companionship (other than Digital Companion software) are rarely disciplined (unless something goes terribly wrong as a result).
The TCA provides data archives, compiled from reports submitted by their operatives – as well as all relevant ICC licensure – to interested parties, from private colonist groups to aspiring miners, from massive corporations to interstellar polities. The cost of the information, star charts, survey results, and so on, vary with the value of the claim.
The Survey maintains bases on about ⅔ of the frontier mainworlds with class-D and E starports, and more rarely those with class-C facilities. It also licenses and legitimizes claims for settlements on other worlds and offers training courses to potential colonists.
Finally, the Survey works with the Interstellar Commerce Commission to insure that established colonies are included as a stop on at least one trade route (if possible).
mactavish out.
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The Resource Development Group, another NGO, serves most environmentally-exploitative industries (i.e. asteroid mineral extraction, cometary ice harvesting, etc.), just as the Interstellar Commerce Commission serves the commercial sector. The RDG validates resource claims (and arbitrates contested claims), issues licensing, and coordinates the activities of the manifold state-run, commercial and independent resource-harvesting interests.
Additionally, the RDG maintains offices on key planets (mainworlds in systems with resource-rich asteroid belts, moon and planets), allowing interested crews to find contract employment. Its bases typically include hostels of remarkably low quality, secure storage facilities, canteens [where the coffee is usually decent], and repair shops.
Those RDG bases at larger starports offer marginally better lodgings and food service, as well as on-site chemists, geologists and petrologists with the necessary lab space and equipment to determine mineral quality, purity, and so forth.
Though it is nominally a neutral organization, the RDG tends to side more often with the working man than the interests of corporations or governments. Consequently, the Resource Development Group is considered friendlier to workers than the ICC is to independent traders and small-scale transport operations.
mactavish out.
Additionally, the RDG maintains offices on key planets (mainworlds in systems with resource-rich asteroid belts, moon and planets), allowing interested crews to find contract employment. Its bases typically include hostels of remarkably low quality, secure storage facilities, canteens [where the coffee is usually decent], and repair shops.
Those RDG bases at larger starports offer marginally better lodgings and food service, as well as on-site chemists, geologists and petrologists with the necessary lab space and equipment to determine mineral quality, purity, and so forth.
Though it is nominally a neutral organization, the RDG tends to side more often with the working man than the interests of corporations or governments. Consequently, the Resource Development Group is considered friendlier to workers than the ICC is to independent traders and small-scale transport operations.
mactavish out.
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"Postpone." Say as little as possible about them - and perhaps nothing at first. Introduce them later.
"Postpone." Note I dragged in the "Forerunners" from Andre Norton's books. Read about them to get ideas... and then say as little as possible about them.
I like Carlobrand's classic pulpy take on things better; namely, that your setting is in a post far future where humanity has already been scattered abroad, and Earth has been Dumarested -- lost, perhaps destroyed, and presumed to be a myth.
As for jump, say it has been consistently failing for whatever reason; the only ships able to jump are the ones as you outlined, for unknown reasons. This gives you the full Traveller ship toolset with no design tweaks; but most ships won't jump anymore.
Again I suggest: postpone. Looks like the current max TL is 11, unless you've got other neat stuff you need. It seems to me that GURPS and Traveller track reasonably closely at low TLs. So postpone your decision to leave Traveller TLs until you need to.
Witch World's Andre Norton? Hmm...
As for the Seeders' history, that's certainly a long way down the line.
The game - initially focused on a handful of neighboring star systems - begins, like so many games, in a bar. Specifically the PCs meet at a class-C starport bar on the mainworld of Wolf 359, colloquially referred to as Jacob.
I presently have four players, each of whom comes from a distinctive background:
PC1 is Amahl Shaheen, an ex-neurosurgeon, once of great renown, who has since fallen from grace (i.e. jailed for fraud). His last job was as an infirmary medic on a prison colony in the neighboring Sirius system. He's actually a decent guy and a remarkable doctor; one of his partners (Dr. Emilia Da Costa, an Enemy, to be sure) cooked the books and he took the fall. Shaheen is also an accomplished kickboxer, which is surprising given his small stature and slight build.
PC2 is Sia Fairfield, a pretty young woman born into wealth but ejected from university when her family's financial empire collapsed as a result of regime change in the Chinese Confederated Republic in the Luhman 16 system. She has since been a Drifter, making her way from port to port, picking up skills here and there (as well as a little bit of money and a pistol). Her twin sister, Mia, is a highly-placed official in the new CCR government (and a Rival). Her brother, Thomas (an Ally), on the other hand, is a fiery anti-government revolutionary who hates Mia and her new government, and seeks its downfall (along with Mia's imprisonment) and the return of the government-in-exile.
PC3 is Lt. Commander David Baldwin, formerly of the North Atlantic Compact Aerospace Forces serving in the Barnard's Star system, specifically as third officer aboard the N.A.C.S. John Quincy Adams, a 2,000 dTon Perry-class combat cruiser. Though he was forced out of the service early, he still received an honorable discharge (and an Enemy, in the form of former fourth officer Lt. Cmdr. Harris Kilgoar, the man responsible for his "retirement"). While he served much of his career as quartermaster, he is an accomplished pilot and knows how to handle ship-based weapons extremely well.
PC4 is Tsien-Lin Ann, the former first officer of the recently decommissioned Deuteronomy, an independent trader out of the Tau Ceti system. Her former captain and mentor, (Contact) Jonas Nightingale, now owns a small saloon at the starport on Jacob, a place frequented by voyagers as well as locals who like the owner's stories of distant ports of call. Ann, a proven leader and a capable gunslinger, has planned on converting her ship shares into a small (200 dTon) free trader in hopes of finding wealth, fame, and adventure, but most of all, her parents, from whom - for some unknown reason - she was separated at six years old.
There may be another player, but he hasn't committed yet and we're not sure what his background will be. Well, he doesn't, at any rate (probably an engineer!).
mactavish out.
Well, I've survived my second surgery (a three-hour-long posterior cervical discectomy & fusion), and am recuperating in hospital for the next couple of days.
In honor of my time in this fine institution of healing and rejuvenation, I thought that I'd post some information about medicine in the 23rd century of My Traveller Universe.
23rd century medicine includes not only traditional Western treatment, but also includes organ cloning, germline genetic engineering, and various other advances.
Second perhaps only to the successful demonstration of faster-than-light travel, the development of [relatively] safe induced hibernation [late TL8] for interstellar transport has quite literally opened the cosmos to those that might not otherwise possess the needed resources for a standard or high passage aboard a starship. Induced hibernation has also been a boon to critically-injured patients, essentially halting their degeneration until they can receive appropriate medical attention in sickbay, at a clinic or in hospital.
Note: When someone is resuscitated from induced hibernation, whether from Low Passage or while in a clinic or hospital, he must make an Easy (DM+4) END check. Failure means that he dies during the procedure. If a medic is present, he may assist with an EDU-based Routine (DM+2) Medicine Skill Check, as per the Aiding Another rules (CEPHEUS ENGINE, p.18).
Panimmunity [TL9] is an infusion of synthetic lymphocytes and neutrophils, tailored to the individual patient’s immune system, as supplemental prophylaxis against pathogens, both known and unknown. Panimmunity provides DM+2 against infectious agents at TL9. This protection increases to DM+4 at TL10, and confers complete immunity to infectious agents at TL11+.
While whole human cloning [TL9] is illegal in most polities, physicians and medical experts have found that the cost-effective production of rejection-proof cloned organs from the patient’s own donor cells (“scrubbed” of any genetic flaws) to be a truly remarkable breakthrough.
This same process can also produce enhanced engineered organs [late TL9] by substituting specific genetic sequences during the process of “scrubbing” genetic defects. While somewhat more complicated and labor intensive, in some polities this sort of enhancement is not only legal, but often encouraged, particularly for competitive athletes, law enforcement personnel, soldiers, and so forth.
Germline genetic engineering of human embryos [TL9] is permissible on most worlds, but only for the purposes of eliminating genetic defects. Other modifications (i.e. enhancements) are possible, but are typically quite difficult and dangerous as well as unethical and usually illegal.
Post-embryonic genetic engineering is all but universally banned by most ICC signatories, but is sometimes performed by hard-to-find cliniques rouge sawbones, if the price is right [late TL9].
mactavish out.
In honor of my time in this fine institution of healing and rejuvenation, I thought that I'd post some information about medicine in the 23rd century of My Traveller Universe.
23rd century medicine includes not only traditional Western treatment, but also includes organ cloning, germline genetic engineering, and various other advances.
Second perhaps only to the successful demonstration of faster-than-light travel, the development of [relatively] safe induced hibernation [late TL8] for interstellar transport has quite literally opened the cosmos to those that might not otherwise possess the needed resources for a standard or high passage aboard a starship. Induced hibernation has also been a boon to critically-injured patients, essentially halting their degeneration until they can receive appropriate medical attention in sickbay, at a clinic or in hospital.
Note: When someone is resuscitated from induced hibernation, whether from Low Passage or while in a clinic or hospital, he must make an Easy (DM+4) END check. Failure means that he dies during the procedure. If a medic is present, he may assist with an EDU-based Routine (DM+2) Medicine Skill Check, as per the Aiding Another rules (CEPHEUS ENGINE, p.18).
Panimmunity [TL9] is an infusion of synthetic lymphocytes and neutrophils, tailored to the individual patient’s immune system, as supplemental prophylaxis against pathogens, both known and unknown. Panimmunity provides DM+2 against infectious agents at TL9. This protection increases to DM+4 at TL10, and confers complete immunity to infectious agents at TL11+.
While whole human cloning [TL9] is illegal in most polities, physicians and medical experts have found that the cost-effective production of rejection-proof cloned organs from the patient’s own donor cells (“scrubbed” of any genetic flaws) to be a truly remarkable breakthrough.
This same process can also produce enhanced engineered organs [late TL9] by substituting specific genetic sequences during the process of “scrubbing” genetic defects. While somewhat more complicated and labor intensive, in some polities this sort of enhancement is not only legal, but often encouraged, particularly for competitive athletes, law enforcement personnel, soldiers, and so forth.
Germline genetic engineering of human embryos [TL9] is permissible on most worlds, but only for the purposes of eliminating genetic defects. Other modifications (i.e. enhancements) are possible, but are typically quite difficult and dangerous as well as unethical and usually illegal.
Post-embryonic genetic engineering is all but universally banned by most ICC signatories, but is sometimes performed by hard-to-find cliniques rouge sawbones, if the price is right [late TL9].
mactavish out.
Silverhawk
SOC-12
Sorry for being late to the party. A lot of really great ideas here. The idea of a variety of humans sparked my memory of a story I read in volume two of Galactic Empires Anthology by Brian Aldiss.
The story was titled Big Ancestor by F.L. Wallace. Can't really say to much about it because that would spoil it but it is something to check out. Found it on Project Gutenberg today
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50969/50969-h/50969-h.htm
Might be something to check out.
The story was titled Big Ancestor by F.L. Wallace. Can't really say to much about it because that would spoil it but it is something to check out. Found it on Project Gutenberg today
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50969/50969-h/50969-h.htm
Might be something to check out.
Not really. She had several story lines that didn't connect to each other. The Forerunner series is more about the modern, I think it was 21st century, U.S. finding a time travel device They recruit an Apache man, it has been some years but I think he had US military experience, and they transport him and several others back in time to check into the base that was located by another such group.
Its been years since I read them, but I think there was also a guy with a group that went back to Cro-Magnon Europe.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I may have been too young when I read Norton.
Her stuff was surrealistically sparse.
But I understood LeGuin.
Her stuff was surrealistically sparse.
But I understood LeGuin.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Not necessarily. Making the cloned tissue might still be way more expensive than breeding herds and flocks. Non-rejecting body part replacement is a step to functional immortality
Silverhawk posted about a 1950s short story from one of the sci-fi magazines of the day called Big Ancestor by F.L. Wallace.
I read the story and was smitten with a number of its elements.
Essentially, the story posits that an ancient "big ancestor" of mankind spread them throughout a section of the Milky Way, engineering their progeny biologically (i.e. genetically, I imagine) to survive on the various worlds that they seeded.
With the assistance of an alien pilot - a Ribboneer (which was also really cool!) - they manage to find the planet of origin of said "big ancestors," and decode a message left by them on their dead world.
SPOILER ALERT: DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO RUIN THE STORY.
Long story short, mankind was vermin aboard their ship, and their long voyage of exploration (eons) led to the contamination of hundreds of the worlds they visited as the mutated Homo sapiens - which they were unable to exterminate aboard their ship - left their vessel and reproduced.
Various strains of humanity, from Neanderthal to highly-advanced Homo sapiens (i.e. big heads, tiny facial features, near-vestigial limbs, etc.), are found on hundreds of planets, and each planet infested with humans is genetically capable of reproducing with those worlds infested at about the same time.
There are some goofy elements, too, but I really enjoyed the story and I think that some version of it might work in my own setting as well.
mactavish out.
I read the story and was smitten with a number of its elements.
Essentially, the story posits that an ancient "big ancestor" of mankind spread them throughout a section of the Milky Way, engineering their progeny biologically (i.e. genetically, I imagine) to survive on the various worlds that they seeded.
With the assistance of an alien pilot - a Ribboneer (which was also really cool!) - they manage to find the planet of origin of said "big ancestors," and decode a message left by them on their dead world.
SPOILER ALERT: DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO RUIN THE STORY.
Long story short, mankind was vermin aboard their ship, and their long voyage of exploration (eons) led to the contamination of hundreds of the worlds they visited as the mutated Homo sapiens - which they were unable to exterminate aboard their ship - left their vessel and reproduced.
Various strains of humanity, from Neanderthal to highly-advanced Homo sapiens (i.e. big heads, tiny facial features, near-vestigial limbs, etc.), are found on hundreds of planets, and each planet infested with humans is genetically capable of reproducing with those worlds infested at about the same time.
There are some goofy elements, too, but I really enjoyed the story and I think that some version of it might work in my own setting as well.
mactavish out.
