oldgamergeek
SOC-9
I am getting ready to run a Milieu 0 campaign featuring young Nobles looking to expand their families influence while trouble follows them all around the universe.
Anybody still playing M0
- Thread starter AndreaV
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The only real problem I found with them was the inconsistancy between the obviously randomly generated world data in First Survey`s Core sector with the near term history write-up in Milieu 0.The maps are one of the things you need to throw away
I mean, dumping the world of Santry in Dunea subsector right next to the Chanestin Kingdom was a bit stupid as was the fact that the key Chanestin world of Keshi seems to have cloned itself in Sanches subsector!
(That one is probably where Santry is SUPPOSED to be!)
Two pocket empires that the Syleans were fighting major wars with just prior to the formation of the Third Imperium just happen to be within five Parsec`s of each other? Come On!
Trouble is this error seems to have perpetuated itself into later versions of the game in mapping Core sector.
P.S did anybody ever publish the deck plans for the Scout Cruiser which has stats and a deck plan key printed on page 86 of Milieu 0 but no deck plan.
The Maps themselves and the world locations are ok, deriving from the much older 1984 published Atlas of the Imperium from GDW.
Have not looked too closely at M:0 lately, but I would suggest from what I remember that at that time with at most TL 12 in play, a five parsec distance is two jumps since TL 12 provides at best Jump 3. Makes for a buffer zone of sorts...
u
Given that both pocket empires are supposed to have each had that sort of range its unlikely that they would be unaware of each others exisistance and most likely the Chanestins would have absorbed the Santry/Cordova cluster into their kingdom long before the Syleans ran into either of them.
Instead, according to the write up the Syleans became aware of the Santry/Cordovans towards the end of the Chanestin War.
Argueing that the location of the cluster is in a different and less travelled direction from the Chanestins.
Now according to the Core Sector map there is another world called Keshi located in the trailing edge of Sanches Subsector at the spinward end of a small cluster of worlds extending back into Mekee Subsector.
There are also noticable rifts of a couple parsecs between this cluster and Sylean space so I`m guessing the name Keshi is a misprint and this world is the real Santry.
Just to confuse things further there are some subsector maps of Dunea out there that rename the "official" Santry as Mished, clearly other people out there found a need to "fix" the maps.
Hmm... perhaps it might be worthwhile to scan my old hand-drawn sector map of core in year Zero and post it on-line since I cant find a copy elsewhere.
The specific problem with Santry`s location though is that its only 5 parsecs from Keshi with worlds in all the hexes in between.
Given that both pocket empires are supposed to have each had that sort of range its unlikely that they would be unaware of each others exisistance and most likely the Chanestins would have absorbed the Santry/Cordova cluster into their kingdom long before the Syleans ran into either of them.
Instead, according to the write up the Syleans became aware of the Santry/Cordovans towards the end of the Chanestin War.
Argueing that the location of the cluster is in a different and less travelled direction from the Chanestins.
Now according to the Core Sector map there is another world called Keshi located in the trailing edge of Sanches Subsector at the spinward end of a small cluster of worlds extending back into Mekee Subsector.
There are also noticable rifts of a couple parsecs between this cluster and Sylean space so I`m guessing the name Keshi is a misprint and this world is the real Santry.
Just to confuse things further there are some subsector maps of Dunea out there that rename the "official" Santry as Mished, clearly other people out there found a need to "fix" the maps.
Hmm... perhaps it might be worthwhile to scan my old hand-drawn sector map of core in year Zero and post it on-line since I cant find a copy elsewhere.
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Ackehece
SOC-13
Oh Pocket Empires, how do I love thee? Let me count the RU.
In case t wasn't appearent from the title of this post, while I don't use the rules T4 has always had my love. It holds a dear place in my heart and Library along with DGP's SOM.
Also, while it isn't T4 and the OTU, but T5 and an ATU, I am sort of getting a pocket empires game back up and running. And I even left blank spots on the map due to Don McKinney's "Leave room for the Death Star." design axiom for referees and players to expore or just have their own stuff. That said I know what is those Dark Stars. :devil:
In case t wasn't appearent from the title of this post, while I don't use the rules T4 has always had my love. It holds a dear place in my heart and Library along with DGP's SOM.
Also, while it isn't T4 and the OTU, but T5 and an ATU, I am sort of getting a pocket empires game back up and running. And I even left blank spots on the map due to Don McKinney's "Leave room for the Death Star." design axiom for referees and players to expore or just have their own stuff. That said I know what is those Dark Stars. :devil:
I don't run M0. I didn't do T4. But I have M0 and I want to read it since the whole idea appealed to me greatly. I probably could just ignore the problems you're all describing.
I like the idea, and the alternative would be to use the TNE setting, even if I might find the rationale for a it a bit wonky, it has the same Asimovian appeal.
At TravCon there is always a wargame, sometimes Striker, sometimes a hacked Memoir44, and it's always about the Star Vikings!
I like the idea, and the alternative would be to use the TNE setting, even if I might find the rationale for a it a bit wonky, it has the same Asimovian appeal.
At TravCon there is always a wargame, sometimes Striker, sometimes a hacked Memoir44, and it's always about the Star Vikings!
Procopius
SOC-9
Can you explain further? I just picked up T4 and Milieu 0 for cheap on ebay, and am unfamiliar with this edition beyond the idea that it's set in Imperial Year 0.
The M0 maps are essentially unchanged from the CT ones. The populations weren't regressed/rerolled. The Gov't & LL are blanked in the world lists.
Theoretically, some of the tainted woulds shouldn't have been. (Note - CT presumes that taint on populated worlds is like linked to industry. Thus if a world was Tainted and Industrial, there should be a chance that, 1000 years prior, it wasn't either.
Plus, by Year 60, (IIRC, the default starting point for M0), most of the 3I is, in fact, canonically, already in the 3I. But none of the data in First Survey lists, mentions, nor even maps out the various originating pocket empires that were absorbed.
It's the same issue as I have with M1200 - less than a century to integrate should leave strong cultural ties regions.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
As with much of the T4 line, Milieu Zero was a rush job. The text section is far more useful than the UWP dump.
GDW and its successors never did do UWPs properly1. Rolling up random worlds and then vetting the results to fit a coherent picture is a wonderful tool for universe-building. Rolling up a bunch of UWPs without vetting them is a really, really bad idea.
Admittedly, it is an even worse idea than usual in the case of historical data like those of M0.
1 Except for Sword Worlds.
Hans
My own games are set around 98 (the Consolidation Campaigns era) in the Fornast/Ley sector. The basic premise of this era is actually probably one of the most promising for Traveller's love of old fashioned Space Opera adventure. The Imperium has expanded willy nilly and has a certain Swiss cheese nature to it. You've got hot and cold running wars along with "The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away" intrigue's with Imperial nobles. Sprinkle a few respectable pocket empires on the frontier (plus you have a definable frontier lol) and you're good to go
ManOfGrey
SOC-12
The Sylean Federation...
We now stand upon the beginning of a new dawn. For eight centuries, since the collapse of the Rule of Man, our galaxy has suffered through a dark age as we lost contact with all of the tribes of Humaniti. But now our nineteen worlds have joined together in order to emerge from this Long Night. And as trade, commerce, and peace, once again unite us, let us go forth to re-establish contact with our lost brethren. And...perhaps...even re-discover the home-worlds of those two great empires that came before us, now all but shrouded in myth...the planets Vland...and Earth.
Granted, I wasn't there, and this was twenty years ago, but I think I can make a pretty good guess about what happened. It seems to me Milieu 0, (Book 5,) and First Survey (Book 6,) were probably being written at the same time by two different teams. The deadline crunch was on, and these two teams did not communicate well with one another. So, you ended up with two books, being published one right after the other, with, (what I feel,) have quite a few contradictions between them.
I'm sure this has been mentioned in more than one thread, but Milieu 0 talks about how the Sylean Federation has spread through several sectors by the Imperium's Year 0.
"As Cleon sat in the Presidential chamber in Year -30, the boundaries of rediscovered space where already extensive. During the early centuries of the Federation, scouts and traders had pushed out a long way, buoyed by a new optimism with the dawn of a new era. Over two or three centuries, these brave souls had traveled up to sixty parsecs to spin and core, to contact the Vilani and visit the Vland homeward, which was reached in Year -495." -- page 26
Yet, in the back of that book, (pages 99-101,) and in First Survey, (pages 91-93,) only nineteen worlds are listed as part of the Sylean Federation.
But then there's the introduction to First Survey:
"The Short Data for each sector has been edited to show what information can be reasonably expected to appear in library data in the Year 0. That is, world size, atmosphere, and hydrographics do not very over mere thousands of years, and the information that was current during the Rule of Man era before the Long Night can be assumed to still be valid. On the other hand, starport type, world population, government, law level, and tech level would after 1700 years of Long Night, have changed enough that they are not in any common data source." -- page 4
Well, as described above, most of that information on the following pages is blank. My interpretation would be that the data not labeled "Full Data. Sylean Fed.," would be unknown to the Sylean Federation. (I feel the complete data given in the back of the book is a reference for Referees only, based on the fact each list is clearly labeled "Referee Data," including the list in Milieu 0.)
So, like most irreconcilable contradictions, (which came first...the chicken or the egg?)...you usually just have to pick one.
Now, I suppose, this might have come to bother some fans of the game. And I suppose it did me, for a few minutes. But then I decided to take it as a challenge, instead. And that got me thinking...
What if I just turned back the clock? It's not the Year 0 for the Imperium. What if it's the Year 0 for the Sylean Federation, 650 years before the founding of the Third Imperium? (AKA 3871 CE.) Then our players would have a lot of places to explore and discover just as the Sylean Federation begins to once again reach out to make contact with the rest of Humaniti!
Admittedly, I was a late convert to T4. But am I someone who is playing in "Milieu 0?"
Well...yes. It's just not a "Milieu 0" I think many people have considered.
And the more I have been thinking about it, the more jazzed about it I'm becoming! I can't wait to get this show on the road, and start getting my friends together!
We now stand upon the beginning of a new dawn. For eight centuries, since the collapse of the Rule of Man, our galaxy has suffered through a dark age as we lost contact with all of the tribes of Humaniti. But now our nineteen worlds have joined together in order to emerge from this Long Night. And as trade, commerce, and peace, once again unite us, let us go forth to re-establish contact with our lost brethren. And...perhaps...even re-discover the home-worlds of those two great empires that came before us, now all but shrouded in myth...the planets Vland...and Earth.
Granted, I wasn't there, and this was twenty years ago, but I think I can make a pretty good guess about what happened. It seems to me Milieu 0, (Book 5,) and First Survey (Book 6,) were probably being written at the same time by two different teams. The deadline crunch was on, and these two teams did not communicate well with one another. So, you ended up with two books, being published one right after the other, with, (what I feel,) have quite a few contradictions between them.
I'm sure this has been mentioned in more than one thread, but Milieu 0 talks about how the Sylean Federation has spread through several sectors by the Imperium's Year 0.
"As Cleon sat in the Presidential chamber in Year -30, the boundaries of rediscovered space where already extensive. During the early centuries of the Federation, scouts and traders had pushed out a long way, buoyed by a new optimism with the dawn of a new era. Over two or three centuries, these brave souls had traveled up to sixty parsecs to spin and core, to contact the Vilani and visit the Vland homeward, which was reached in Year -495." -- page 26
Yet, in the back of that book, (pages 99-101,) and in First Survey, (pages 91-93,) only nineteen worlds are listed as part of the Sylean Federation.
But then there's the introduction to First Survey:
"The Short Data for each sector has been edited to show what information can be reasonably expected to appear in library data in the Year 0. That is, world size, atmosphere, and hydrographics do not very over mere thousands of years, and the information that was current during the Rule of Man era before the Long Night can be assumed to still be valid. On the other hand, starport type, world population, government, law level, and tech level would after 1700 years of Long Night, have changed enough that they are not in any common data source." -- page 4
Well, as described above, most of that information on the following pages is blank. My interpretation would be that the data not labeled "Full Data. Sylean Fed.," would be unknown to the Sylean Federation. (I feel the complete data given in the back of the book is a reference for Referees only, based on the fact each list is clearly labeled "Referee Data," including the list in Milieu 0.)
So, like most irreconcilable contradictions, (which came first...the chicken or the egg?)...you usually just have to pick one.
Now, I suppose, this might have come to bother some fans of the game. And I suppose it did me, for a few minutes. But then I decided to take it as a challenge, instead. And that got me thinking...
What if I just turned back the clock? It's not the Year 0 for the Imperium. What if it's the Year 0 for the Sylean Federation, 650 years before the founding of the Third Imperium? (AKA 3871 CE.) Then our players would have a lot of places to explore and discover just as the Sylean Federation begins to once again reach out to make contact with the rest of Humaniti!
Admittedly, I was a late convert to T4. But am I someone who is playing in "Milieu 0?"
Well...yes. It's just not a "Milieu 0" I think many people have considered.
And the more I have been thinking about it, the more jazzed about it I'm becoming! I can't wait to get this show on the road, and start getting my friends together!
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GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I have not run a game in M:0 but I would very much like to. Come to think of it, M:0 might be the right way to grab my current group of misfits. My first try was classic era Marches, where the info density is a bit deep...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I like the idea of the Sylean Federation being the off board big empire the player characters are native of.
This allows core worlds - frontier worlds - wilds.
The trouble is we never get told what core sector worlds are like - high TL high population likely with the same form of government and LL on each world with a fairly homogenized culture (this should apply to the core sector worlds of the 3I where they are ruled directly by the Imperial apparatus).
Frontier worlds include new colonies, recontacted long night survivors, alien worlds and ruins. This is similar a set up to the proroSpinward marches but on a smaller scale - worlds so far away from the Sylean Federation that they can be left with autonomous governements provided they sign trade treaties and the like with the Syleans - not an empire yet
Beyond these frontier worlds are the true wilds - perhaps Vland and Terra are still out there, perhaps they were destroyed by migrating space kraken, ruins of previous civilizations, pocket empires, planet of the week humans (Star Trek OS), eldritch horrors.
Frank Chadwick has stated that if he could start over the Traveller OTU he would write the setting as being during the Long Night - much like you are suggesting here.
I like it very much
This allows core worlds - frontier worlds - wilds.
The trouble is we never get told what core sector worlds are like - high TL high population likely with the same form of government and LL on each world with a fairly homogenized culture (this should apply to the core sector worlds of the 3I where they are ruled directly by the Imperial apparatus).
Frontier worlds include new colonies, recontacted long night survivors, alien worlds and ruins. This is similar a set up to the proroSpinward marches but on a smaller scale - worlds so far away from the Sylean Federation that they can be left with autonomous governements provided they sign trade treaties and the like with the Syleans - not an empire yet
Beyond these frontier worlds are the true wilds - perhaps Vland and Terra are still out there, perhaps they were destroyed by migrating space kraken, ruins of previous civilizations, pocket empires, planet of the week humans (Star Trek OS), eldritch horrors.
Frank Chadwick has stated that if he could start over the Traveller OTU he would write the setting as being during the Long Night - much like you are suggesting here.
I like it very much
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
One of the things about the Long Night that makes it more interesting to me is that it only felt like one to *some* regions of the Imperium, and often only in retrospect after Cleon's recruiting circus came through. To the other Major races it was a very different era, and only to the K'kree was it particularly tragic, as their war with the Hivers coincided with the fall of the Rule of Man, meaning they stopped expanding. Boo Hoo. The rise of the Hiver Federation, the stabilization of the Consulate, an era of war between the Solomani and the Aslan, and the explosive growth of the Vargr were all in this era of Imperial Interregnum. The lights never went out in Julian space, the Darrians rose and fell, and a number of Imperial client races had their first real post-Vilani opportunity to shine on their own.
The map was constantly changing.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Yup. the 'long night' was Sylean propaganda to justify its hegemony.
That said there were an awful lot of worlds post RoM collapse that could no longer support jump infrastructure due to Vilani black box technology - this bit of the jump drive is manufactured on one world this bit on another and then final assembly somewhere else.
As interstellar trade reduced it still left TL9-11 worlds with gravitic and fusion technology more than capable of harvesting system resources and maintaining space based industries.
There is no reason to believe there was a massive die back on former Imperial worlds just because there is no interstellar trade. Pocket empires would have sprung up, worlds could still maintain some contact via STL methods - the way the Vilani spread into space in the first place.
What the long night actually represents is a few thousand years of cultural drift and diversity such that by the time the Syleans are making contact with former first empire and second empires the native cultures of the worlds have changed such that the Syleans can not predict how the natives will be - culturally, politically, religiously, technologically or legally.
And that's where the fun is to be found for the crew of a tramp trader on the outer fringes of the Sylean area of influence, or the exploration mission of Sylean scouts or Navy vessels etc
That said there were an awful lot of worlds post RoM collapse that could no longer support jump infrastructure due to Vilani black box technology - this bit of the jump drive is manufactured on one world this bit on another and then final assembly somewhere else.
As interstellar trade reduced it still left TL9-11 worlds with gravitic and fusion technology more than capable of harvesting system resources and maintaining space based industries.
There is no reason to believe there was a massive die back on former Imperial worlds just because there is no interstellar trade. Pocket empires would have sprung up, worlds could still maintain some contact via STL methods - the way the Vilani spread into space in the first place.
What the long night actually represents is a few thousand years of cultural drift and diversity such that by the time the Syleans are making contact with former first empire and second empires the native cultures of the worlds have changed such that the Syleans can not predict how the natives will be - culturally, politically, religiously, technologically or legally.
And that's where the fun is to be found for the crew of a tramp trader on the outer fringes of the Sylean area of influence, or the exploration mission of Sylean scouts or Navy vessels etc
ManOfGrey
SOC-12
It's funny you should mention that. I took a pretty close look at the UWP data at the nineteen worlds that are listed as the "Sylean Federation" in Milieu 0/First Survey, and did find something interesting. All the ships that are presented in the T4 rulebook, and Starships, are all tech level-12 starships, except two. (They're tech level-11.) Of the nineteeen worlds of the "Sylean Federation," only one world is tech level -11, (Zimiin,) and only one world is tech level-12, (Sylea.)
They also have the largest populations.
So this has suggested a couple of things to my mind.
Every starship that is flying around the Sylean Federation in these early days, are built on only two worlds, with the vast majority being built on a single one. That includes every scout ship, most merchant ships, and every liner, that must be be built on Sylea. How big can the Sylean Navy be at this point? Whose around to built it? The shipyards at Sylea must be overflowing. So given that limitation, Sylea cannot expand too quickly, at least by force of arms.
But they could offer protection. It's probably the reason the other seventeen worlds joined this Federation. But, it would seem to me, that would stretch their armed forces pretty thin at the onset.
Or perhaps I should say the other fourteen worlds. Three of the worlds in Milieu 0/First Survey listed as the "Sylean Federation," are also listed as having a population of zero, (with a population multiplier of zero.)
Also, interestingly enough, eighteen of these worlds are clustered together, all accessible with a Jump-1 or jump-2 starship. All except Gaar. It's actually located in another sub-sector, 18 parsecs away, (as the crow flies,) with plenty of systems between it and the Federation. And you need a jump-3 starship to clear a gap between it and the rest of the Federation, as well. Isn't that interesting? What's it doing out there so far from "civilization?" Especially since there are only about a hundred people living there. (Population level-2, with a population multiplier of 1.)
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khadaji2002
SOC-12
Two caveats to my remarks up front. 1) I have not read the UWP myself so I'm taking your statement exactly as presented. 2) I am not as familiar with M0 as most of the people reading this.
That out of the way, I can see a way around the bottleneck, assuming that there are worlds of TL9 or TL10 that have orbital manufacturing. With some planning, the Federation could help these worlds put in a dockyard where the homeworld is manufacturing the hulls and fittings, while trade ships bring in the higher TL components to be fitted into the new hull.
There would still be a bottleneck, but I believe this would help ease that. The way I would run this in a game is that the lower TL worlds would be turning out smaller merchant ships and other non-warship hulls, while the two higher TL worlds would be focused almost entirely on warships. Military training bases would be on the two worlds of highest TL, allowing the Federation to (at least at first) oversee all the new cadets.
I really like this idea, and if I ever get back to running Traveller I might just break out the M0 sourcebook and set my game somewhere during the Long Night.
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