As Yet Unpublished Traveller Milieux?

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

I looked over Marc's "Foundational Document" for Traveller again (hosted at downport) and found the last para intriguing, to say the least:

THERE’S MORE!
There is so much more to the Traveller universe that can only be touched on here: The Zhodani expeditions to the core of the galaxy. The Psionic Suppressions. The Julian War. The Ilelish Revolt. The First Survey. The Solomani Rim Wars. The Hiver Interventions. The Virus Era. The Regency. The Far Far Future. The Expeditions to the Rim. The Heat Death of the Universe. Each of these milieux (or eras) is another opportunity to provide participants with adventure and insight into the human condition as they explore the comprehensive science-fiction universe that is Traveller.

Expeditions to the Rim?

Heat Death?

Yes, please. Publish immediately.

 

[Redcap]

Heat Death of the Universe: Think Boyles' Law on the Macro scale as the Universe compresses back from the Big Bang. And you thought travelling on the London Underground was a bit of a squish in the rush hour

 

[far-trader]

I thought the compressive end of it all is "The Big Crunch" theory, where the universe has enough mass to reverse its current expansion and collapse to a singularity; while "Heat Death" is simply the total loss of all free energy from all particles in the universe, i.e. maximum entropy, just a big null. And I really don't see any reason to game in such a universe. I mean what would there be to do?!

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

We-hell... how about some hard sci-fi version of Fading Suns?

As in, while scores of the populace go religious, general instability, sects and snake oil dealers galore, some brave heroes and Imperial science organizations seek rational solutions for stemming the tide of entropy against all odds.

Is the Reverse Entropificator, set in motion by the light of a thousand suns focused on a single target, but a pipe dream of the desperate?

Naturally, as always, the Hivers know the answer but they ain't telling.

 

[far-trader]

Well yeah but Marc said "The Heat Death of the Universe" which I took to mean at or near the end, and that is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far in the future as to be unimaginable.

Nothing even remotely resembling humanity will be around at that time or for many, many, many uncounted millenia before.

It'll all be cold, dark, particles seperated by billions and billions and billions of kilometers of colder, darker, empty space.

I mean, it's as close to a void as you can get and still count something for a long time before you actually reach the end.

All the planets have long since spun away from their suns and gone cold, and the stars themselves have long ago wandered away from the galaxies and gone cold, and even the black holes have all evaporated ages ago.

There... is... nothing... .

I can't believe Marc was serious about setting a game in such a time. At least not something we'd recognize as Traveller. It has to be a Red Herring or a joke. Or he meant something else. Or I'm just not getting the idea.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

One can only speculate, but when I read this I thought I had a hunch of what he was up to--

The other day I read an interview with Greg Stafford, in which he stated he's ultimately planning to have Glorantha--his RQ setting which he's been developing for like 4 decades, depending on how one counts--be utterly destroyed.

He justified this by saying he wants to leave a clean slate--if someone's going to continue the Glorantha work, it'd be better to start afresh.

Maybe something like that is on Marc's mind also. It's a chilling idea but also kinda awesome.

 

[far-trader]

Could be, could be. So maybe some kind of suddenly accelerated Heat Death scenario with a mystery as to the who, what, where, when and why. I've heard of Fading Suns of course but never looked at it in any detail though that was the impression I got of it.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by far-trader:
There... is... nothing... .

I can't believe Marc was serious about setting a game in such a time. At least not something we'd recognize as Traveller. It has to be a Red Herring or a joke. Or he meant something else. Or I'm just not getting the idea.

You've made it sound attractive to me.

It's "not something we'd recognize as Traveller" aspect is, I think, the appeal. It's a much more "out there", not so routine "merchants and Emperors and mercenaries, yawn..." kind of thing.

Think about it a bit.

If you wanted to, you could even ship characters from the Classic Era to the setting. Just have them fall into Yaskoydray's TARDIS and they're there. They could even come back again, if you were incredibly generous!

That's just one, rather mundane possibility. You could get much weirder.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by far-trader:
There... is... nothing... .

I can't believe Marc was serious about setting a game in such a time. At least not something we'd recognize as Traveller. It has to be a Red Herring or a joke. Or he meant something else. Or I'm just not getting the idea.

You've made it sound attractive to me.

</font>[/QUOTE]That's cool then

But as much as I like movies and novels that twist my psyche into a pretzel I'm pretty sure I couldn't pull it off in an rpg, at least not as ref, maybe as player, on a very good day...

...though there was that time I really cut loose reffing a little 1-on-1 in between regular games and actually gave the player some quite vivid dreams bordering on nightmares after my treatment of what started out as a rather routine trip to a mirror shop

I have my moments when I can paint rather well with words.


I guess I see the possibilities, but they frighten me. In that good way

I'm not sure I'd be up for such a game but would quite enjoy it if able to pull it off.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I think it was probably just a throwaway line, rather than a serious suggestion.

Read "The Last Three Minutes", by Paul Davies, for a depressing reminder of the ultimate futility of all life...

 

[far-trader]

I think you're right Andrew. Thanks for another read to hunt down

I've been trying to recall the title or author of a short story of the end of it all ala heat death but I can't. I'd hate to give away the ending (which is the most recognizable bit) but basically it's not a type of scenario that lends itself to rpg

In it the universe does indeed end with a whimper. A hopeful whimper I suppose, but it left me rather non-plused with the author after a rather good lead-up. Very anti-climatic. At least the way I remember it.

 

[ravells]

Heat Death of the Universe - player's log

The pizza has arrived and the beer opened.
GM: Right are you ready.
Players: Yeah, go for it.

[four hours silence]

GM: What would you like to play next?

 

[Nick Nova]

Far-Trader wrote:
And I really don't see any reason to game in such a universe. I mean what would there be to do?!

I suppose just keeping warm would be adventure enough in such a setting...

Another milieu that was mentioned in the original T5 draft ruleset was "The Ancient War (Grandfather's conflict with his children)". I would love to see that developed!

At one time (many years ago) I had considered such a setting as the ultimate recourse for some Traveller characters that had become just too powerful. The chance discovery of an ancient site would have sent them on a one-way trip back in time - naked, a la Terminator - into the midst of one of the loosing factions in Grandfather's war. "Who's the tough guy now?" kind of thing, as they are surrounded by angry TL-35 armed warrior Droyne...

The nice thing is that they could do just about anything they wanted without significantly changing history, as long as Grandfather won in the end. Trying to envision a fully functioning TL-35 society was a daunting challenge however - more than my poor little brain could handle at the time. Then our group fell apart and I was spared the effort.

Still, I have been intrigued by that milieu ever since, as the ultimate in High-Tech adventuring.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by far-trader:
I've been trying to recall the title or author of a short story of the end of it all ala heat death but I can't. I'd hate to give away the ending (which is the most recognizable bit) but basically it's not a type of scenario that lends itself to rpg

In it the universe does indeed end with a whimper. A hopeful whimper I suppose, but it left me rather non-plused with the author after a rather good lead-up. Very anti-climatic. At least the way I remember it.

A public thank-you to Andrew who, thanks to a spooky coinicidence*, knew the story I'm talking about and provided a link which I'll share here. A pretty good read even if the ending did leave me a bit flat.

The Last Question

* For some reason I asked him and he'd heard a radio adaptation just a couple weeks ago. Again the universe is not so much snickering behind my back but laughing right in my face

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Haven't read the story yet but i will...

and relation to OlaF Stepledon's Star Maker?

 

[kafka47]

Nick, I once wrote a supplement dealing with that very topic. The manuscript lies on my fried hard drive** (computer had a wee fire that severed the connections points of the hard drive with the computer and possibly smoke damage) and also in the hands of Swordy. Essentially, the postulate and directive coming from Marc was imagine the world of Lensmen for humans and the gods themselves for the Ancients.

Heat Death, is the standard ending to all good Science Fiction, as it points to the ultimate point of it all. However, it does not stop adventuring, everything from Doctor Who to a certain restaurant that I would love to frequent makes ample room for adventuring at the end of time.

A truly pan galactic civilization with baddies coming baddies coming out of all Time & Space and more important the spaces between this reality and others seems to be excellent backdrop for Traveller. Yes, we might think we know the end of the story but perhaps it is the sign of the new beginning...

**So, if anyone knows of a data recovery firm with clear results and wants to shell out the money, I would be happy to get back to working on it. Right now it is estimated such an operation would cost about $500 with no guarantee of success. I would pay no more than $50 and wish 95% success.

 

[Nick Nova]

kafka47 wrote:
Nick, I once wrote a supplement dealing with that very topic. The manuscript lies on my fried hard drive** (computer had a wee fire that severed the connections points of the hard drive with the computer and possibly smoke damage) and also in the hands of Swordy. Essentially, the postulate and directive coming from Marc was imagine the world of Lensmen for humans and the gods themselves for the Ancients.

Kafka, you're breaking my heart! What a loss!

Wait, let me check my wallet... um... well... huh, nothing in there but lint. Sorry, dosen't look like I can help much with the hard drive.

If there is anything else I could do to help, encourage, or support you on that project, let me lnow. I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read the Lensman series, so it looks like I will have to correct that error in the near future. Thanks for the tip.

BTW, I hear that the steak is really good at that restaurant you mentioned.

 

[far-trader]

EDITED: Goofed on the timeline a bit, added a decimal, now fixed. No big change really.

You all aren't getting it. We are talking about a time so far removed as to be unimaginable. Not in the sense that we can't fantasize about (as in not sci-fi but high fantasy) but in the sense that we are too limited in our imagination to make reasonable predictions (as in sci-fi).

Look at it this way. Rescale the whole of human history to 1 minute. I'm not wanting to argue science v religion or anything but let's take our minute to be from the first fossil modern human ancestor as 1 million years ago. So 1 million years is 1 minute. OK?

On this scale the total of recorded modern history, general accepted as 10 thousand years, is less than 1 second. Keep that in mind and how far we have come in 6/10ths of a second because now we are going into the future.

Speeding ahead to the golden age of Traveller is only a little over 5 thousand years in the future. Just 3/10ths of a second on our scale. Not too hard to imagine a lot of progress but we'll still be human and not much changed from what we are today. Our total recorded history is now about 1 second. Hold on, we're going farther this time. All the way to the universe's twilight years.

This is the time when no more stars are born and the ones still around are very old and slowly dying. It's about 100 trillion years from now, or almost 2 hundred years on our compressed scale. Do you get that? TWO HUNDRED YEARS against 1 MINUTE for our total development from the first primitive human to today. Can you honestly say we'll be anything even remotely understandable to our current selves?

But that's not even the actual heat death of the universe yet, that is just setting the stage. The door to the end has just opened. The actual end, the actual heat death of the universe, is even more unimaginiably removed from that.

There is no way you'll convince me we mere humans can properly imagine our future a hundred thousand years from now (if we should survive so long) let alone a hundred trillion years in the future. It would be better labeled fantasy.

The idea of making a science fiction game setting out of the heat death of the universe is ludicrous. Space 1889 looks positively historically factual by comparison

 

[Andrew Boulton]

It's like trying to comprehend the vastness of the known universe - we're just not used to dealing with numbers that big, and many people simply can't without their ears bleeding.

 

[far-trader]

Had to edit my post above. The universe's old age is only a hundred trillion years not a quadrillion years away

Also, when I said all, as in you all don't get it, that was hyperbole, I'm sure some of you do get it, certainly Andrew does.

The analogy he makes is good. I can wrap my head around the size of the galaxy and the distances involved, I think, but contemplating the distances between galaxies caussss...

brain rebooting, please standby

...what was I saying? It happened again didn't it