Agent (may contain spoilers)

[maksimsmelchak]

Nothing says that the 300s era chips weren't replaced with newer technology that still had the same imprints.
* I'm not trying to argue with you, merely to present a rationale.

Cheers,
Baron Ovka

As much as possible, I think wise designers build new equipment with retro-compatibility.

With a Third Imperium spanning several thousand years and no real technological standard (worlds spanning an average range of TL-6 through TL-15) throughout much of Imperial charted space, retro-compatibility would seem to be pretty darn important.

I can imagine 8-tracks, DVDs, and datacrystals... With higher-tech players containing adaptation interfaces... Or something like that.

Baron Ovka makes an excellent point.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[Lycanorukke]

I can imagine 8-tracks, DVDs, and datacrystals... With higher-tech players containing adaptation interfaces... Or something like that.

I would have assumed they upgrade for comaptiabilty or the like when they need to during a synch, but it is mentoned the wafer has about 150-200 activations before failure (estimated to cover 600 years), which suggests the wafers are the originals and not upgraded models.

Unless it's the software program which degrades with use and not the actual chip itself, as the program is read/write and not read only like a normal wafer.

 

[savage]

More chips we're needed as the Navy grew. Sure tech moved them but we should assume that the life cycle is planned not physical. I a millennium 3I should have something better. Or maybe not? The rebellion follows within 100 years.

 

[Garnfellow]

It's interesting that Marc's first Traveller novel is fundamentally transhumanist science fiction -- and a common rap on Traveller is that its main tropes are stuck in golden age science fiction.

The wafer tech as described raises intriguing questions about consciousness, identity, and humanity. Not exactly kiddie stuff.

 

[savage]

The wafer tech as described raises intriguing questions about consciousness, identity, and humanity. Not exactly kiddie stuff.

Yeah a tantilizing thought.
Or it's AI. The wafer could simply be an extreme, expert system reacting to every scenario based on the imprint of a sophont's mind. Then again royalty referred to the person by first name. That indicates the assumption of a living entity.


What does the book do to game play?
Your characters are on a ship where a wafer chip is used. One of your characters is selected to use the chip. It seems most refs would want the chip as an NPC.

 

[Jame]

I've realized that there's a difference between humaneness and humanness.

 

[jcrocker]

What does the book do to game play?
Your characters are on a ship where a wafer chip is used. One of your characters is selected to use the chip. It seems most refs would want the chip as an NPC.

From most of the examples given, the Agent gives orders that scrubs the planet for the next few millennia. Anyone arguing the orders gets shot.

Is there much game play value in that? More than once or maybe twice per campaign, the Imperium starts to get short of member worlds.

On the other hand, someone comes to a group of PCs and says "for pity's sake, you've got to help solve this problem before they call an Agent - you know what happens then, and you've got a vested interest in them not slagging it and slapping a Red Zone on what's left, just like me..."

 

[mike wightman]

He does a lot more than just scrub worlds...

 

[savage]

From most of the examples given, the Agent gives orders that scrubs the planet for the next few millennia. Anyone arguing the orders gets shot.

Is there much game play value in that? More than once or maybe twice per campaign, the Imperium starts to get short of member worlds.

On the other hand, someone comes to a group of PCs and says "for pity's sake, you've got to help solve this problem before they call an Agent - you know what happens then, and you've got a vested interest in them not slagging it and slapping a Red Zone on what's left, just like me..."

There are many workable solutions.
Call up the other wafers. In one scenario he was the 2nd wafer to be used, and made the scrub decision. Again, when Arabella understood she had the wrong agent she was momentarily choked up because the authority was different.

• 
  Scenarios
  1. The wafer agent was killed and the wafer damaged, ship damage and the players must finish the scenario.
  2. A wafer is used by one of the characters. The agent chooses to destroy a mining colony with a highly contagious disease. 30 days later the player wakes to find a gift in his account and a new mission. The players look at him normally but NPC crew don't feel the same. He executed the captain for disobeying orders.
  3.A K'Kree squadron is challenging Ley sector defenses. Destroy the squadron and no war, but if they think defenses are weak an entire war might occur. One player is given the Admiral Wafer, or an NPC.

I could go on and on....

 

[jcrocker]

He does a lot more than just scrub worlds...

Very true, but it's been a while since I read it, I thought a lot of the other situations were unofficial "off the books" situations.

 

[Whipsnade]

I read it, immediately read it again, put it away for a week then re-read it, put it away for a month then re-read it, and have just re-read twice over the last weekend.

After four months, I'm still AWESTRUCK by the book. After four months, the book still figures prominently in my various "swimming", "hiking", and "showering" Aha! moments, those times when monotonous activities allow the subconscious to percolate with observations and ideas. All the facts, inferences, and whatnot presented in the book are still swirling around in my mind.

It's as if Traveller is brand new for me again. I've been playing and playing with the game for nearly four decades now and it's almost as if I've opened the LBBs for the first time.

I'm shocked by how much my OTU resembled Mr. Miller's OTU and I'm equally shocked by how much my OTU differed from Mr. Miller's OTU. I'm also saddened by how much my groups missed out on. We never ran "high level" sessions and always felt my groups missed out on a lot because of that. Now I know just how much we missed.

The book has even led me to post here again like a drunk returning to the bottle or a junkie to the needle.

I'm going to be mulling over this book and it's sequels for a long time.

 

[Cryton]

I read it, immediately read it again, put it away for a week then re-read it, put it away for a month then re-read it, and have just re-read twice over the last weekend.

After four months, I'm still AWESTRUCK by the book. After four months, the book still figures prominently in my various "swimming", "hiking", and "showering" Aha! moments, those times when monotonous activities allow the subconscious to percolate with observations and ideas. All the facts, inferences, and whatnot presented in the book are still swirling around in my mind.

It's as if Traveller is brand new for me again. I've been playing and playing with the game for nearly four decades now and it's almost as if I've opened the LBBs for the first time.

I'm shocked by how much my OTU resembled Mr. Miller's OTU and I'm equally shocked by how much my OTU differed from Mr. Miller's OTU. I'm also saddened by how much my groups missed out on. We never ran "high level" sessions and always felt my groups missed out on a lot because of that. Now I know just how much we missed.

The book has even led me to post here again like a drunk returning to the bottle or a junkie to the needle.

I'm going to be mulling over this book and it's sequels for a long time.

Books a bloody eye-opener isn't it?

 

[aramis]

Books a bloody eye-opener isn't it?

Despite showing both your and my game-played versions of the OTU to be "reasonably close," it was still quite a shocker to read.

 

[Whipsnade]

Books a bloody eye-opener isn't it?

Eye-opener, eye-poker, and eye-gouger.

It's not just the idea of Agents, wafers, scrubbing, and all that and it's not just the depictions of daily life in the Imperium. It's all the seemingly casual asides too.

It's Enna casually explaining how her Anglic literature classes are really social indoctrination and control propaganda.

It's someone mentioning that the next arm trailing is barren of life, which leaving aside the "Why" means someone has been there and surveyed enough of that arm to be certain.

It's someone else mentioning that gas giant life is rare in Charted Space and commonplace beyond Charted Space, which again leaving aside the "Why" means someone has been out there and surveyed enough to be certain.

It's an IISS "generation" scout cruiser so far rimward of the Extents that it comes across a world which is a victim of the Empress Wave in 434.

It's von Neumann machines showing up out of "nowhere", beginning to "borg" a world, and Bland patting heads and essentially saying "Don't worry, I've seen this before..."

It's a three million year old relic "bobbling" a big chunk of a world and Bland shrugging his shoulders and essentially saying "These things happen..."

It's a whole bunch of things I don't remember at the moment but made me stop reading and say "Wha....".

As I wrote earlier, I've been having "shower moments" thank to the book for months now.

 

[mike wightman]

Can someone please find out if Marc is working on a sequel...

 

[aramis]

Can someone please find out if Marc is working on a sequel...

Question asked... Tho' I have a sneaking suspicion the answer will be ""

 

[SanDragon]

Bah!

While I have the electronic version on my dinosaurus desktop here, I await the paperback.

That way, it's laying out, in sight, obvious, screaming...

"Read me, mudballer!!"

 

[aramis]

As much as possible, I think wise designers build new equipment with retro-compatibility.

History says otherwise in almost all cases not involving infrastructural elements...

Sure, we have train tracks and cars the same width of wheelbase as the Roman chariots and wagons... but roads are infrastructural elements, and cars, trucks, trains, and such all run on them. Note that train track gauges are NOT actually standardized worldwide; cars which have to run on multiple gauges do exist, in the past with extra wheels on the axles, at present by using adjustable wheels.

On the other hand, video... the Laserdisk format is NOT the same format as the early DVD's... Laserdisk is essentially an analogue format based upon detected strength of returned laser... while CD and DVD are actually digital data encoded.

NTSC and ATSC are incompatible per se, tho' many ATSC chipsets will also handle NTSC signals... it's actually a separate chunk of chip handling it.

The Russians specifically made rifles a slightly larger caliber than the Germans, as did the English, specifically to be able to scavenge the German ammunition, but not allow Germans to scavenge theirs. A trick the Russians learned from the English a war earlier.

And automotives - lots of proprietary parts....

And OS's... Tandy tried to emulate MS-Dos... it didn't work all that well. The best OS's have been intentionally incompatible but doing something better than the others.

 

[savage]

With the wafer chip agent it explains how a fragile Imperium could survive the test of time and corruption. I never bought the Imperium as a realistic entity until I read Agent.

I have no problem with the concepts
- A dead stellar arms being seen from advanced analysis, as we are just learning to do today.
- A casual agent, who is a master of analysis and manipulation in the worst scenarios.

The imagery of the book is mind boggling from the majesty of Capital to Reference. The various events sticks in my mind. Arabella wondering if she's about to be killed by the wrong wafer, to the clone helping many find a new life purpose at Reference.

If we think through the book there are another hundred stories that could be spawned in that timeframe.

 

[aramis]

With the wafer chip agent it explains how a fragile Imperium could survive the test of time and corruption. I never bought the Imperium as a realistic entity until I read Agent.

I have no problem with the concepts
- A dead stellar arms being seen from advanced analysis, as we are just learning to do today.
- A casual agent, who is a master of analysis and manipulation in the worst scenarios.

The imagery of the book is mind boggling from the majesty of Capital to Reference. The various events sticks in my mind. Arabella wondering if she's about to be killed by the wrong wafer, to the clone helping many find a new life purpose at Reference.

If we think through the book there are another hundred stories that could be spawned in that timeframe.

If you had the correct issues of Traveller's Digest, you got some glimmers of the glamor of Capital - and the hedonistic excesses as well.

And Marc had to go and make it seem understated as presented by DGP...

I agree there are a hundred different spin-offs Marc could wing at us...

But does he have one burning to get put on paper?