An old galaxy

[Thot]

Given the small size of most of the empires, you mentioned four worlds / 1 trillion, I may go up to 100 worlds with a similar population limitation, there will be a number of extra-governmental organizations. You mentioned two: the Galactic Assembly and the Courier service. There will undoubtedly be others.

I am sure there could be empires with a 100 or 1000 comparatively sparsely settled worlds, but eventually, they would break apart when their population grows. Also, spreading one's population is, at first, less efficient than concentrated pockets of settlement. Only growth justifies such a spread, and with eventual splitting of widespread empires being a given, the will to colonize will have limits.

One immediate idea is mega-corprations. These large corporate entities serve markets across several empires, and broad swaths of space. I would think that if governments can't manage to keep a group larger that 1 trillion together, most of the corporations would limited to a similar size.

Likely much smaller, because they lack the tools that a government has at their disposal. No laws, no patriotism, no greater good, no (signifcant) armed forces. Most don't even have a genuine mission besides "want to earn a living, and then some", and even those few that do cannot possibly expect most of their employees to burn for that. I'd expect the largest private organizations to have no more than a billion members or so, and even that seems optimistic to me.

Also, many governments will simply protect their own companies at the expense of foreign-based ones, I believe. With no "great powers" that could dominate the entire galaxy or even a significant fraction of the local theatre, "globalization" is a lot harder to do.

 

[Timerover51]

Traveller's Third Imperium is old by human standards, but not as old as the galaxy itself - compared to what might have to be expected out there, it is a rather young institution.

For an upcoming campaign I plan to have the players be pushed from 22nd century Earth (which at the time is isolated and has had no first contact yet) into a really old galaxy, with interstellar empires whose history goes back a billion years or more. I make a few changes to the standard assumptions in Traveller on the technology side:

• instantaneous FTL, which can be triggered once local gravity is below roughly 8 m/s² (a number that increases as technology progresses), jump rating expresses jump distances on a logarithmic scale ranging from a few AU (jump 0) to a few hundred light years (jump 6) and requires no fuel, only energy and time to spin up the drive,
• no reactionless thrusters, no inertial compensators, and artifical non-spinning gravity is high technology), The prevalent form of maneuver drive is an electric propulsion that scales up with the available energy (so if the players find a better reactor for their ship, their drive becomes more efficient).
• because of the real phenomenon of quantum entanglement, FTL communication is available under certain circumstances).

Consequently, some known civilizations stretch not for thousands, but tens of thousands of light years. The whole galaxy is basically settled, with a few patches that have not been exploited yet for one or the other reason. The Sol system is in such a patch.

But hell, a billion years is... quite a long time. I don't want to fall into the trap of "and then nothing happened for twenty million years" that some fantasy settings seem to embrace, but of course it will be impossible to truly flesh out a billion years of history. I also don't want to introduce some kind of memory-deleting catastrophe before a certain point. It should truly be a billion years of known history. I'll probably draw very broad lines that become more detailed as the present approaches in the annals, with detailed episodes added when a given adventure warrants it.

A few core concepts:

• The First: A billion or so years ago, the very first interstellar civilization appeared. They and many of those that followed them are still around, as I don't buy into the "everything must die" meme for civilizations in this setting.
• Individual immortality and eternal youth are solved problems, even on pre-contact Earth. Basically any civilization that can jump to the stars can comparatively trivially solve the riddle of aging, and some species never had it to begin with. Of course, an individual's memory of an incident will become less and less accurate the more time passes. Someone who is a million years old will not know more things than someone who is a thousand years old, unless using technological aid. (I'll probably manage this rules-wise with some kind of upper cap on skill points, species-wide or even universal - learn more than that, and you forget other stuff).
• A multitude of civilizations and species. No single empire swallowed them all, never, after the initial appearance of the First. There were always (at least as long as anyone can remember or read in the galactic annals, see above) thousands of empires with tens of thousands of species. Part of the reason is the incredible complexity of massive star-spanning civilizations, which may lead to collapse and secession now and then, an inherent morality that effectively prevents highly developed species from committing genocide (most of the time), and of course the "lesser" (or better "later") species' will to survive and forge their own destiny.

So I am looking for inspiration, brainstorming, anything you might be thinking right now. Thanks for answering.

What you have is no longer Traveller.

 

[Thot]

What you have is no longer Traveller.

I suppose you could see it that way, but Mongoose Traveller's (1st edition) ruleset is just perfect for supporting this kind of campaign, so I am going to use it until the roleplaying police stops by and tells me not to. :rofl:.

 

[mike wightman]

What you have is no longer Traveller.

It's no longer the 3I setting, but it is still Traveller if you are using the Traveller rules to run it.

 

[Ulsyus]

But hell, a billion years is... quite a long time. I don't want to fall into the trap of "and then nothing happened for twenty million years" that some fantasy settings seem to embrace, but of course it will be impossible to truly flesh out a billion years of history. I also don't want to introduce some kind of memory-deleting catastrophe before a certain point. It should truly be a billion years of known history. I'll probably draw very broad lines that become more detailed as the present approaches in the annals, with detailed episodes added when a given adventure warrants it.
So I am looking for inspiration, brainstorming, anything you might be thinking right now. Thanks for answering.

Yeah, I reckon you shouldn't get into the trap of trying to write about the Shglooukhltikch Prepensity and it's cyber-struggle with the AIs that tried to take over it's national medical services so they could offer better health care but at a cost to the starship industry at a time when vessels were needed for the impending conflict with the Nnluctooreses 375000 years ago one spiral arm coreward of Terra...

Just write what you need for the local area, make that detailed, and don't do more than very broad brushstrokes outside what Terrans can readily learn about. Save yourself the grief, but give the players a rich local environment they can travel about.

 

[Timerover51]

It's no longer the 3I setting, but it is still Traveller if you are using the Traveller rules to run it.

instantaneous FTL, which can be triggered once local gravity is below roughly 8 m/s² (a number that increases as technology progresses), jump rating expresses jump distances on a logarithmic scale ranging from a few AU (jump 0) to a few hundred light years (jump 6) and requires no fuel, only energy and time to spin up the drive,

no reactionless thrusters, no inertial compensators, and artifical non-spinning gravity is high technology), The prevalent form of maneuver drive is an electric propulsion that scales up with the available energy (so if the players find a better reactor for their ship, their drive becomes more efficient).

because of the real phenomenon of quantum entanglement, FTL communication is available under certain circumstances).

How is instantaneous Faster-then-Light travel, no artificial gravity, and Faster-than-Light communications Traveller?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I would assume any setting that uses most of what is found in one of the Traveller rulesets but does not use the OTU.

As an example, I have made an Eclipse Phase/Traveller mashup. It is uses the Mongoose Traveller character generation sequence, MgT task resolution, MgT Combat, with additions from T5 (wafer technology and TL's up to 33) and Mindjammer Traveller (post-humanisma and really old humans).
BUT
The TL Tracks conform to the Eclipse Phase universe, as do spaceships and equipment. Morphs are for the most part just "aliens" with MgT Alien Traits.

 

[aramis]

I would assume any setting that uses most of what is found in one of the Traveller rulesets but does not use the OTU.

As an example, I have made an Eclipse Phase/Traveller mashup. It is uses the Mongoose Traveller character generation sequence, MgT task resolution, MgT Combat, with additions from T5 (wafer technology and TL's up to 33) and Mindjammer Traveller (post-humanisma and really old humans).
BUT
The TL Tracks conform to the Eclipse Phase universe, as do spaceships and equipment. Morphs are for the most part just "aliens" with MgT Alien Traits.

Traveller is, at it's heart, the Jump Drive and its implications on both economics and social order, especially its effects upon communication, impacting military, and mercantile travel. And tthe set of tech tropes needed to support the JDrive.

The moment you have instant FTL travel, you have a society that can track PC's faster than they can move - which makes the space opera feel absent, as it makes PC's almost always able to be met with overwhelming force.

Now, this is reliant upon maintaining couriers at jump distance - but any major world can (barring changes to the cost structure) afford the couriers and the fuel shuttles for all worlds within a single jump-(max for TL) with just a few credits per person; it's a small line item on a naval budget to ensure a news-feed from everywhere.

Let's borrow a familiar location...
Regina.
It's definitely got links to Wypoc, Dinomn, Dinom, Extolay, Jenghe, Hefry, and Forboldn. Do something wrong anywhere in there, and blast off, and within the hour, EVERY system in that list knows your registry and supposed crime. Within 2 hours, all the worlds in the inner systems of those systems has your data.

Your bank can be electronic - because you can verify funds up to a couple jumps away within a couple days.

It also means you can negotiate trade to several dozen parsecs as demand trade easily - leaving little room for the tramp freighters which are the staple image of Traveller's setting. Even the small lines are liners, not tramps - and booked well in advance.

The economy looks far more like the 1970's than the age of sail.

There is a reason the age of sail is a strong metaphor for the Traveller setting - it allows PC's to freedom to act, whether Criminal, civilian, military, or government agent. You can outrun the news of your bad acts... At least until far enough away that no one is willing to foot the extradition costs.

Instant FTL breaks a lot, and if you have thought it out, the result is very different.

There's a reason we don't hear about great adventurers of the late 20th C - they're never out of reach if they own a sat-phone. All decisions can be shunted back to HQ. Instant FTL is pretty close to that.

 

[Thot]

How is instantaneous Faster-then-Light travel, no artificial gravity, and Faster-than-Light communications Traveller?

So Mongoose's version of the 2300 AD setting is not Traveller to you, despite it being for the Traveller rule set?

 

[Thot]

[...]
The moment you have instant FTL travel, you have a society that can track PC's faster than they can move - which makes the space opera feel absent, as it makes PC's almost always able to be met with overwhelming force.

Now, this is reliant upon maintaining couriers at jump distance - but any major world can (barring changes to the cost structure) afford the couriers and the fuel shuttles for all worlds within a single jump-(max for TL) with just a few credits per person; it's a small line item on a naval budget to ensure a news-feed from everywhere.

Let's borrow a familiar location...
Regina.
It's definitely got links to Wypoc, Dinomn, Dinom, Extolay, Jenghe, Hefry, and Forboldn. Do something wrong anywhere in there, and blast off, and within the hour, EVERY system in that list knows your registry and supposed crime. Within 2 hours, all the worlds in the inner systems of those systems has your data.

Your bank can be electronic - because you can verify funds up to a couple jumps away within a couple days.

It also means you can negotiate trade to several dozen parsecs as demand trade easily - leaving little room for the tramp freighters which are the staple image of Traveller's setting. Even the small lines are liners, not tramps - and booked well in advance.

The economy looks far more like the 1970's than the age of sail.

There is a reason the age of sail is a strong metaphor for the Traveller setting - it allows PC's to freedom to act, whether Criminal, civilian, military, or government agent. You can outrun the news of your bad acts... At least until far enough away that no one is willing to foot the extradition costs.

Instant FTL breaks a lot, and if you have thought it out, the result is very different.

There's a reason we don't hear about great adventurers of the late 20th C - they're never out of reach if they own a sat-phone. All decisions can be shunted back to HQ. Instant FTL is pretty close to that.

Even in the OTU, News can spread at the speed of 1 week for a jump, just as fast as the players can, usually faster, because players tend to not own jump-4 or jump-6 ships. Information can flow back and forth within two weeks, which is still enough for bank accounts. Historically, bank accounts on paper did exist long before instantaneous communication. Many millennia before that, actually.

"No great adventures in the 20th century"? Indiana Jones, Amelia Earhart, virtually all of the WW2 adventures stories (and there are thousands, most of them not entirely fiction), James Bond... there is a myriad of adventure stories set in the 20th century! Only slightly fewer in the 21st.

I should have mentioned, though, that the tachyon induction drive I use has a charge/cooldown phase before/after each jump, the length of which depends on the techlevel of the drive. The PC's drive will require almost a month to be reuseable after a jump, really advanced civilizations can cut that down to four days. Charge times are from one to fourteen hours, depending on technology. The courier network is intended to mitigate that, but how well it does that job depends on local conditions.

 

[mike wightman]

How is instantaneous Faster-then-Light travel, no artificial gravity, and Faster-than-Light communications Traveller?

Because I can change the technological assumptions in any way I see fit - it says so in the rules. I can design my Traveller Universe any way I want.

If I use CT character generation, CT combat, CT system design, but decide that people get from world to world walking through wormholes I am still playing Traveller.

In CT LBB1-3 there was no mention of artificial gravity on ships...

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller is, at it's heart, the Jump Drive and its implications on both economics and social order, especially its effects upon communication, impacting military, and mercantile travel. And tthe set of tech tropes needed to support the JDrive.

I disagree.
Traveller at its heart is, to quote MWM himself, "a generic science-fiction system which could be used to re-create any science-fiction story or situation".

I have used Traveller to run Star Wars, Star Trek, Blake's Seven - our first ever Traveller campaign consisted of teleporting from world to world because the referee didn't like starships (he gave me his copy of LBB:2) - he concentrated on the lab, military base, alien ruins or whatever dungeon was on the world of the week. It was D&D in space dungeon crawling but we loved it at the time.
The Traveller setting Orbital doesn't even have FTL travel and yet is still Traveller.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Traveller is, at it's heart, the Jump Drive and its implications on both economics and social order, especially its effects upon communication, impacting military, and mercantile travel. And tthe set of tech tropes needed to support the JDrive.

I disagree.
Traveller at its heart is, to quote MWM himself, "a generic science-fiction system which could be used to re-create any science-fiction story or situation".

I have used Traveller to run Star Wars, Star Trek, Blake's Seven - our first ever Traveller campaign consisted of teleporting from world to world because the referee didn't like starships (he gave me his copy of LBB:2) - he concentrated on the lab, military base, alien ruins or whatever dungeon was on the world of the week. It was D&D in space dungeon crawling but we loved it at the time.
The Traveller setting Orbital doesn't even have FTL travel and yet is still Traveller.

I am in agreement with Mike in this. Traveller did start as a campaign-less system, but to your point RAW with specific Tech tropes. A campaign universe has evolved as a logical extension of that ruleset. But like Mike, I did homebrews with other tech assumptions and tropes (my nickname ^^^ comes from my WellWorld homebrew) and even a TL7 spy game with the "gadgets" being TL8 and 9 devices. In the last in the last 10 years "Traveller" has evolved beyond that origin. We even have magic now (thanks Samardan Press!).

In this forum especially, it is perfectly reasonable to call it Traveller. Traveller rules (mostly) in a non-OTU setting. Unless this concept is now considered to go in the non-Traveller gaming forum?

 

[Timerover51]

So Mongoose's version of the 2300 AD setting is not Traveller to you, despite it being for the Traveller rule set?

I do not own it, have never looked at it, and probably will not. I use Classic Traveller with a few modifications. I have also not looked at nor owned the 2300 AD setting. The only reason I bought Mongoose Traveller at all was to understand Zozer Games Attack Squadron: Roswell.

I do have MegaTraveller, The New Era, Traveller 4, and Traveller 5.09, some both in hard copy and digital format, along with Mongoose Traveller. The only set of rules that I look at besides Classic is Traveller 5.09, and that I use as a tool box and idea generator.

Not everyone owns every conceivable rule set of Traveller. :CoW:

 

[aramis]

I am in agreement with Mike in this. Traveller did start as a campaign-less system, but to your point RAW with specific Tech tropes. A campaign universe has evolved as a logical extension of that ruleset. But like Mike, I did homebrews with other tech assumptions and tropes (my nickname ^^^ comes from my WellWorld homebrew) and even a TL7 spy game with the "gadgets" being TL8 and 9 devices. In the last in the last 10 years "Traveller" has evolved beyond that origin. We even have magic now (thanks Samardan Press!).

In this forum especially, it is perfectly reasonable to call it Traveller. Traveller rules (mostly) in a non-OTU setting. Unless this concept is now considered to go in the non-Traveller gaming forum?

The tech tropes and jump drive are the same in every edition. the details vary a bit, but the tropes generally remain.
The Jump Drive is near-unique - the few authors whose universes have a similarly constrained FTL mode are connected with Traveller - most notably MJD, Jeff Swycaffer, and Chuck Gannon.

And, to be blunt, if you use the jump drive as written, it provides a large part of the feel.

 

[DanDare]

In a billion years there is still research to be done. Its draw on resources will conflict on other resource draws such as entertainment, food conversion, building material comforts, travel.

Long lived creatures may develop many mixed philosophies about resource sharing and ownership. You can imagine this is not settled in your universe and there is much conflict. One "faction" believe that resources concentrate on particularly adept individuals and others get less. Another group believes that resources pass to children, and the parents are compensated by new resources from "outside" of our empire. Arguments about birthrates and the right to saty alive are likely to abound.

You can have very different cultures entwined in the same region of space and have ongoing disturbances in the force for your players to mitigate and untangle.

 

[kilemall]

In a billion years there is still research to be done. Its draw on resources will conflict on other resource draws such as entertainment, food conversion, building material comforts, travel.

Long lived creatures may develop many mixed philosophies about resource sharing and ownership. You can imagine this is not settled in your universe and there is much conflict. One "faction" believe that resources concentrate on particularly adept individuals and others get less. Another group believes that resources pass to children, and the parents are compensated by new resources from "outside" of our empire. Arguments about birthrates and the right to saty alive are likely to abound.

You can have very different cultures entwined in the same region of space and have ongoing disturbances in the force for your players to mitigate and untangle.

A lot of issues when you get into millenia-old species/polities.

Who gets to terraform what and which way?

Space pollution regulations (not so much space garbage, more lightyear wide energy/radiation or biological contaminants sent accidentally or deliberately, or maybe something like Virus or Empress Wave)?

Dangerous technologies that put spacetime and space travel itself into jeopardy?

Spacefaring assistance/rescue, broadcasting standards, right of passage vs. territory general galactic policy?

How are mimic/shapeshifters regarded and handled? Does a species 'own' it's genetic/social template?