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General Anyone ever given the "Diplomat" career field the High Guard/Mercenary treatment?

Anyone ever given the "Diplomat" career field the High Guard/Mercenary treatment?

Hi,

I prefer using the CT/MT advanced Char. Gen. with my players to generate characters.
Today, I spoke with one of those who is considering joining my campaign and is interested in being a "People Person" type character.

The "first swing" is always GDW Book 7 Merchant Prince.
You get space skills, you get some combat skills and you get interpersonal communications skills.

But, if she doesn't want that, the next swing would be "Diplomat"
I'm checking my book collection and neither Mongoose not GDW/DGP did an expansion on the career field.

So, has anyone else done this in their own Traveller Universe?

Thanks!
 
Mongoose wise the Functionary and Pillar of the Community careers from Cosmopolite and Aristocrat from Dilettante are closest I guess. (All of Dilettante’s careers are ‘people person’ but not necessarily diplomats). Dunno how easy they are to CTify
 
I did a couple upgrades from Supplement 4, but I don't recall Diplo being one of them.

The closest in print might be Scout Bureaucracy, which is the expanded Bureaucrat in disguise.

Sailor and Flyer were expanded in Judges Guild's magazine, if you are looking for others.
 
I was mostly thinking of using SORAG as a basis...
It starts with clerks who then have to not only gain rank and skills, but also gain clearance...
....Just like in an actual diplomatic department.

The issue I have there is what kind of assignments to give?
I can see low end things like "Staffer", as in 'You are the extra hands, spare guides, gofers and runners for state events while manning the communications boards and such for a day to day job.

Then, the obvious, "Handling diplomatic hot spots" and such...

But I need more to fill out the chart that would normally be something like this:
....Note: the letter after the assignment is the required clearance..if you don't have that..
.......You're stuck with "Clerical"
SORAG.................Me
Administration : Diplomat ...........Department
1 Spec Op Trng/D : Foreign Service Training
2 Recruiting/A : ???
3 Speclst Schl/B : ???
4 Infiltration/C : ?Some sort of info gathering?
5 Clerical/A : Staffer
6 Clerical/A : Staffer
7 Clerical/A : Staffer
8 Surveillance/B : ???
9 Surveillance/B : ???
10 Surveillance/B : ???
11 Cryptography/B : Linguistics
12 Cross-Trng/A : Cross-Trng/A
13 Medical Div/C : Special

Special:
1 Language School
2 Intelligence School (Right out of GDW High Guard)
3 Technical School (Like Specialist School from GDW High Guard)
4 Guardian School (Like Commando School from GDW Mercenary only altered to escape or rescue)
5 ....Yep....I need an idea to insert here :D
6 Executive Asst (Like "Naval Attache/Aide" in GDW High Guard)


And that is only one branch, like with SORAG...
SORAG: Diplomatic Corps
---------------------------------
Research Intelligence
Administration Diplomat
Scientific Support (for lack of a better idea)
Operations Services (for lack of a better idea)
 
I thought I had collected an expansion on the Diplomat, but looking through my materials all that I can find in the "people person" field are:

The Stellar Diocese: the clergy in the Traveller universe
by Michael Brown; Dragon Magazine #101 September 1985 (Book 1 style career)

Journalist Character Generation
by Gary L. Thomas; The Traveller's Digest No1 Vol2 1985 (Book 1 style career)
 
You could use MgT-era gens for people careers, or get Diverse Roles from Independence Games.

Thank you, but that's not what I'm looking for.
If you check, SORAG has four divisions and the "Administration" division looks like this:
Administration
1 Spec Op Trng/D
2 Recruiting/A
3 Speclst Schl/B
4 Infiltration/C
5 Clerical/A
6 Clerical/A
7 Clerical/A
8 Surveillance/B
9 Surveillance/B
10 Surveillance/B
11 Cryptography/B
12 Cross-Trng/A
13 Medical Div/C

I want to populate a "Diplomat" division but need help populating the chart I want:
1 Foreign Service Training/D
2 ???
3 ???
4 ? Some sort of info gathering ?
5 Staffer/A
6 Staffer/A
7 Staffer/A
8 ???
9 ???
10 ???
11 Linguistics/B
12 Cross-Trng/A
13 Special/C

With Ranks:
Ranks:
E-1 Worker
E-2 Clerk
E-3 Assistant
E-4 Technician
E-5 Manager
E-6 Head of Staff
E-7 3rd Secretary
E-8 2nd Secretary
E-9 1st Secretary

O-1 Intern
O-2 Envoy
O-3 Assistant Attaché
O-4 Attaché
O-5 Councilor
O-6 Minister
O-7 Jr Ambassadors
O-8 Sr Ambassadors
O-9 Minister of State
 
When I was doing my MT to Silhouette conversion, I started one but I looked everywhere for an MT fanwork or 3rdparty/Challenger version to get me started and never found one.

Clement Sector has a decent one but it's for Cepheus and not broken out like MT.
 
and never found one.

With how well known Laumer's Retief stories were during the CT era, that's surprising, and I have a vague memory of such a thing existing. I wonder it it's hiding in White Dwarf or Different Worlds, both of which visited Traveller often.
 
A search of RPGGeek didn't turn up any Diplomat career chargen systems. Freelance Traveller 56 and 83 had NPC profiles for diplomat characters.

It's pretty easy to do a diplomat in T5.
 
With how well known Laumer's Retief stories were during the CT era, that's surprising, and I have a vague memory of such a thing existing. I wonder it it's hiding in White Dwarf or Different Worlds, both of which visited Traveller often.

It surprises me too. I grew up on the Retief stories, and have most of them.

Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT)
 
Did anyone above in this conversation note that MgT2 has a Diplomat under their Nobel generators?

I have used it (Naval Academy Grad with 3 naval terms, switched to Diplomat for his 4th). But note that this is akin to the basic careers (navy, marine, army) in MGT2, not the "expanded" career generation of High Guard, Mercenary, etc.
 
Spica Publishing did three career books. No "Diplomat" but perhaps some of them might be close enough, or short-cut doing one up for yourself.
 
So a few questions to perhaps help think through this:

1) For clerical duties, would I really recruit, train, transfer (i.e. send them and their family a loooong way away), someone in order to perform E1 Clerical Worker Tasks requiring a A level clearance...

or...

Would I recruit local nationals from the host nation/planet/etc. to perform this relatively low level work?

2) Given the expense of recruiting/training/security clearance vetting/shipping them + family + household effects to another world, would I staff my Embassy or Consulate with 100% of my own people, or would there be a mix of trusted (i.e. direct hire, cleared and transferred staff) and local staff (drivers, clerks, translators, etc.) and...

if so...

What does that ratio look like? 70%/30%, 50%/50%? 30%/70%?

3) Would there be value in having a large portion of my Embassy staff be locals who, are native language speakers, understand laws, local customs and mores, understands local governance structures, hold contacts in local community and professional settings... Or are we making all of our homeworld/home realm colleagues learn all of these things from scratch...

4) If my cleared/vetted/transferred from the homeworld staff are 50% or 30% of the total staff in the Embassy/Consulate, does it make sense for them to start their careers at E1, or should they start as Managers and Leaders of some type, perhaps being in charge of local staff on their 1st and most subsequent tours of duty?
 
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For security purposes, you probably want to use your own nationals for most jobs, unless the hosts are close and reliable allies.
 
4ex49k.jpg


Likewise if one were to ascend the steps of the Gurkha staircase in the FCDO office and speak to a member of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, you'd find a similar ratio of about 2/3rds local nationals comprise the total workforce.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organ...onwealth-development-office/about/recruitment

Perhaps in the Far Future, 100% of the workforce might be your own people. But I suspect, that will be just as inefficient then, as it is now.
 
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Quite right. And that 65 p.c. includes those based in the U.S. facilities in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, such as at the passport centers around the country which belong to State's Bureau of Consular Affairs.

For every U.S. diplomat abroad, roughly 2-3 Locally Engaged (LE) staff support them at their embassy or consulate (or consulate general). Everything from drivers to clerks to protocol and political specialists.

The diplomats are of two types: Foreign Service Officers (FSOs or Generalists) and Foreign Service Specialists.

The FSO Generalists themselves break-out into five career tracks (formerly known as "Cones"): Political, Economic, Management (previously called "Administrative"), Consular, and Public Diplomacy.

Consular officers, prior to (IIRC) 1924, were a separate service, the Consular Service, from the Foreign Service.

Public Diplomacy officers were, until the Clinton Administration, FSOs of the United States Information Service (USIS).

Specialists are all the sorts of professionals whom it is worth having your own people abroad to do their work, ranging from Office Management Specialists (OMS, formerly-known-as "FS Secretaries"), diplomatic couriers, medical officers, FS nurses, diplomatic security special agents, human resource specialists, financial officers, general services officers, the list goes on.

For the nitty-gritty details, see here.

One of the confusing things is how terminology such as individual ranks vs. diplomatic titles vs. consular titles will use the same words to mean different things depending upon context. For instance, a Consul General might be the principal officer (PO) of a Consulate General or the CG might be the head of a consular section in an embassy or consulate.

Rank-wise, from top-to-bottom, there are the Senior Foreign Service (SFS) who are the equivalent of general or flag officers in the military and naval services:

Career Ambassador (CA), equiv. to General or Admiral
Career Minister (CM), equiv. to Lieutenant General or Vice Admiral
Minister-Counselor (MC), equiv. to Major General or Rear Admiral
Officer-Counselor (OC), equiv. to Brigadier General or Commodore

Typically

Mid-Grade FSOs:
Class 1 (FS-01) First Secretary and/or Consul General, equiv. to Colonel or Captain
Class 2 (FS-02) First Secretary and/or Consul, equiv. to Lieutenant Colonel or Commander
Class 3 (FS-03) Second Secretary and/or Consul, equiv. to Major or Lieutenant Commander

FSO Generalists typically reach Class 3 by or during their third assignment, which, if abroad, will be for three years.

Junior Officers (JO) (now known as First-and-Second-Tour or FAST officers):
Class 4 (FS-04) Third Secretary and/or Vice Consul, equiv. to captain or lieutenant senior grade
Class 5 (FS-05) Third Secretary and/or Vice Consul, equiv. to first lieutenant or lieutenant junior grade
Class 6 (FS-06) Third Secretary and/or Vice Consul, equiv. to second lieutenant or ensign

The entering "Class" or rank of a new JO will depend upon factors such as previous higher education and/or experience. In Traveller terms, if an entering JO has a master's degree they would enter as a Class 5, and if a Ph.D. as a Class 4. Similarly, if they held a military or naval rank (or civilian government equivalent), they would enter at the equivalent FS rank. In no cases do they enter above the highest JO rank (Class 4).

Annually, absent any major disciplinary issues, JOs receive an administrative promotion to the next higher Class, topping out at Class 4 until they receive their permanent FS commissions. So even if a JO had entered with a Ph.D. and military or naval rank earning them entry as a Class 4, by the time they are permanently commissioned, their contemporaries who entered at lower Classes will have caught up with them.

JOs serve abroad for two 2-year probationary assignments. They will receive permanent FS commissions after either their third, fourth, or four-and-a-half years of probation. Roughly 30-40 percent are commissioned after three years, roughly another 70 percent (of those remaining) after four years, and another 40 percent (of those remaining) after four-and-a-half years. Those who are not selected for commissioning are subsequently separated from the FS at the completion of their present assignment.

FS Specialists have their own somewhat unique entry grades and I've droned on quite long enough.

4ex49k.jpg


Likewise if one were to ascend the steps of the Gurkha staircase in the FCDO office and speak to a member of Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, you'd find a similar ratio of about 2/3rds local nationals comprise the total workforce.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organ...onwealth-development-office/about/recruitment

Perhaps in the Far Future, 100% of the workforce might be your own people. But I suspect, that will be just as inefficient then, as it is now.
 
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