Couple kafer questions.

[Whipsnade]

This is for Mike Wightman and Whipsnide, go to the thread "In my 2300 Unverse" and read the entries under the category "2300 vs. the Vilani." Read all of posts, noting especially numbers 13,14,20 and 29.

The In My 2320 Universe forum? The forum that is subtitled "Discussion of non-canon ideas for use in your 2320 Universe"? That forum?

You do understand what the phrase "non-canon ideas" means, don't you?

Anyway, Posts 13 and 14 discuss how the two games were initially confused but never officially linked. Posts 20 and 29 discuss how people have used portions of 2300 in the personal, non-canonical Traveller settings.

My ideas about a link between Traveller:2300, 2300 AD and MT is not so crazy after all.

No one said the idea is crazy. After all, it's been toyed with since T:2300 first came out. What we said was that GDW never made any official link between the two.

Anyone can link the two games in their own Traveller Universe. The two games are not linked and never have been linked canonically however. That's why when you asked "What happened to the Kafers by the time of the Third Imperium?" you received the answer you did.

Once again, that answer is:

The Kafers do not exist and have never existed in the canonical OTU/Third Imperium time line.

That is all.

Yes, that is all. It's just not all in the way you think it is.

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU I have used all the aliens from T2300 - they are too good not to.

But the fact remains that in GDW's OTU the events of T2300 never took place and there are none of the alien races from T2300 in CT.

 

[McPerth]

IMTU I have used all the aliens from T2300 - they are too good not to.

And do kafers posses the jump drive?

Trying to use that in an altered OTU (so is an ATU loosely based on OTU) would make them a major race, and I see them not so collaborative with other races to have obtained it from them.

Asuming they captured it before they had a star-spanning governement would mean some more advanced race arrived at its planet and somewhat lost it to be captured, and also that the kafers capturing it left it intact enough for it to be studied and replicated. Not fit in kafer behavior, IMHO.

Of course, if YTU is not based (no matter how loosely) in OTU, then the concept of major races may be totally alien to it...

EDIT: and if they do not posses jump drive, they wil lbe not more than a xenophobic race more in the chartered space.

 

[mike wightman]

Yes, IMTU the Kafers had the jump drive, but they aren't considered a major race because they never had an empire larger than a couple of sub-sectors when the Terrans encountered them to rimward duting the Rule of Man.

By the time of the third Imperium they are reduced to a handful of systems.

Similarly the pentapod develop a jump drive, but only after encountering humand, and again their area of influence is too limited to consider tham a major race.

 

[McPerth]

Yes, IMTU the Kafers had the jump drive, but they aren't considered a major race because they never had an empire larger than a couple of sub-sectors when the Terrans encountered them to rimward duting the Rule of Man.

By the time of the third Imperium they are reduced to a handful of systems.

Similarly the pentapod develop a jump drive, but only after encountering humand, and again their area of influence is too limited to consider tham a major race.

In theory (and here we'll begin again the discusion with Whipsnade about what is told and what is shown ), being a major race is not because the etent of your domains, but the fact of having arrived to jump drive without outside help.

Did the Kafer discover it or they captured one (as Aslans were shown latter, and discredited the definition of major race)? I don't expect they traded it, nor were given it, given the kafer behavior...

 

[mike wightman]

The Aslan are a major race because they control an empire that can rival the Imperium, not because of some human label derived from jump drive discovery - that's an Imperial invention to discriminate against 'lesser' races.

Are the Vilani and Zhodani major races? Did they independently discover jump theory or did they have some remanent of Ancient culture to call upon?

Anyway, this is an IMTU thing, and as far as I am concerned the kafer invented jump drive but never made it to major status due to the limited size of their area of influence.

 

[Omnivore]

It strikes me that the Kafer's unrestrained would be nearly the equal of Niven's Moties - so keeping them leashed is a good idea. Unless, of course, you want every world within a dozen parsecs of them to turn into a battle zone. :devil:

 

[McPerth]

The Aslan are a major race because they control an empire that can rival the Imperium, not because of some human label derived from jump drive discovery - that's an Imperial invention to discriminate against 'lesser' races.

True, here's where the question about what is told and what is shown is. The discusion about theory and practice, and the term Major Race was a Vilani one where they were the only one, so all the rest were 'minor races', so inferior, as you say.

See I say the Aslan affair discredited the definition of Major Race, not the Aslan.

Are the Vilani and Zhodani major races? Did they independently discover jump theory or did they have some remanent of Ancient culture to call upon?

As shown in OTU they invented it. AFAIK there's no reference to Ancient artifacts that were duplicated (or at least any one known reference, as so applied too to the Aslan).

Anyway, this is an IMTU thing, and as far as I am concerned the kafer invented jump drive but never made it to major status due to the limited size of their area of influence.

Of course, and so you're supreme on it. I only commented about OTU, never trying to direct how you should referee YTU, as I see appealing the idea of adapting the Kafers as 'bad guys' in Traveller adventures. Imagine some loose kafers left in a planet as 'biological weapon'...

Please, excuse me if it seemed I criticised the way you referee YTU.

 

[mike wightman]

Lol, no worries, my reply sounds a little more terse than it was meant to.

I used the T2300 races to rimward of the solies as I said to fill in what I considered a gap IMTU - the players wanted to explore that way and the alien races of T2300 were amongst my favourites so it was an easy shoe in.

 

[Whipsnade]

In theory (and here we'll begin again the discusion with Whipsnade about what is told and what is shown ), being a major race is not because the etent of your domains, but the fact of having arrived to jump drive without outside help.

You got that precisely backwards.

The Only Major Races Invent Jump Drive excuse is an in-game piece of hogwash meant to meant to soften the nasty sharp edges of realpolitik in Chartered Space. Several races control empires containing other sentient species, species which are then controlled by their masters to one extent or another. Just empire on Earth always had a ready "excuse" for repressing the cultures they conquered, the imperial races of Chartered Space use the invention of jump drive to "explain" their dominion over other species.

The whole Major Race/Jump Drive "explanation" is nothing more than a polite fiction used to excuse away the fact that certain sentient races are numerous enough and nasty enough to be acknowledged as top dog.

From the first, CT's Library Data all but acknowledged that the Major Race/Jump Drive label was hogwash by pointing to in-game criticisms of it. Later on, GDW used the story of the Aslan reverse engineering jump drive to drive this point home to all but the most simple readers.

The Aslan are a Major Race because they're nasty enough and numerous enough to be a Major Race. No other yardstick is required.

 

[77topaz]

Is there a connection between the Traveller and 2300 universes at all - except for the first 2300 book carrying the "Traveller name"?

 

[mike wightman]

None at all.

 

[aramis]

Is there a connection between the Traveller and 2300 universes at all - except for the first 2300 book carrying the "Traveller name"?

Only that and the design teams.

Even the rules aren't the same. Well, the Task system did get ported into MegaTraveller, but that's not a universe connection, and it switched from 1d10 to 2d6, while cutting expected mods considerably, as 2300 stats were non-raisable 4d6-4 min 1, whilst Traveller's are raisable 2d6 to max 15.

 

[77topaz]

None at all.

Then why is the 2300 forum here (and not on a different website or something)?

 

[aramis]

Then why is the 2300 forum here (and not on a different website or something)?

1) Marc Miller got Traveller (except for the GDW house engine used in TNE) and 2300 when GDW closed. After T4's failure, he then went on a "reprint" binge. He then moved on to a CD-Rom binge (which I prefer).

2) 2300 and Traveller have often had overlapping fan bases. In no small part due to the misstep of GDW in 1985-1986 with naming 2300 "Traveller: 2300." It really didn't help that a new edition of Traveller was heavily rumored (and in fact, was just about a year away when 2300 was released). So many fans, expecting it to be Traveller 3.0, bought it, and found it a good game.

3) Hunter sought, and was granted, permission to host support/fan areas for MWM's other product lines at the time, including MT, TNE, T4, T2K and 2300, in addition to the T20 and CT areas. (MWM is licensed for T2K by Frank Chadwick; Dark Conspiracy wasn't visibly licensed until later, and it's licensed from Loren Wiseman.) Marc granted that.

4) Hunter sought, and obtained, a license to produce a 2300 adaptation for T20. Colin wrote it. There are some contractual issues, but 2320 was a goal of Hunter's from early on in the T20 life cycle. Colin made it happen. (It was good; it might never see the light of day again... but it might make it onto the T20 disks. That's between Marc, Hunter, and Colin, and I've no current insider info on it.)

 

[HRLMT]

Traveller Canon

Greetings !

This is for Whipsnide in entry #21. Is your traveller universe and / or 2300 universe 100% canon? My Traveller Universe was never canon, I started when the little black books was the entire product line. There was very little mentioned of the third imperium back then and
you were free to to design your own universe. I had a very different history and timeline.
At one time Judge's Guild products were "approved", now there non -canon. I even heard that the products published by paranoia press were also "declared" non-canon as well.
So, IMTU, the third imperium never existed. I never used the Kafers or any of the 2300 AD aliens in MTU either. I had my own adversary races for my Intersteller government to deal with.
That is all.
H. Leidner

 

[77topaz]

Greetings !

This is for Whipsnide in entry #21. Is your traveller universe and / or 2300 universe 100% canon? My Traveller Universe was never canon, I started when the little black books was the entire product line. There was very little mentioned of the third imperium back then and
you were free to to design your own universe. I had a very different history and timeline.
At one time Judge's Guild products were "approved", now there non -canon.
Tah is all.
H. Leidner

2300AD is in a completely different universe than Traveller.

 

[aramis]

2300AD is in a completely different universe than Traveller.

Wrong, in that you're overgeneralizing. Canonical 2300AD is a completely different universe from Canonical OTU Traveller, but not everyone's TU maintains separation.

Especially Cryton's.

 

[Whipsnade]

This is for Whipsnide in entry #21.

Why is it always me? I mean, how do they find me? Do I give off some secret signal? Am I listed in some newsletter? I could be sitting at the Superbowl with 100,000 other people, they'd let a guy walk out on to the field who is wearing a chicken costume while carrying a chainsaw and his wife's head in a bowling ball bag, and out of all those people the only he'd want to talk to me.

How do they find me?

Is your traveller universe and / or 2300 universe 100% canon?

That is not what is under discussion here, Howard.

My Traveller Universe was never canon, I started when the little black books was the entire product line. There was very little mentioned of the third imperium back then and
you were free to to design your own universe. I had a very different history and timeline.
At one time Judge's Guild products were "approved", now there non -canon. I even heard that the products published by paranoia press were also "declared" non-canon as well.
So, IMTU, the third imperium never existed. I never used the Kafers or any of the 2300 AD aliens in MTU either. I had my own adversary races for my Intersteller government to deal with.

And that is not what us under discussion here either, Howard.

What is under discussion is this:

Since in past published Traveller timelines, the the historical entry covering Twilight: 2000 and 2300 is mentioned in those timelines, the clerk at the hobby shop asked me a question I could not answer.

What is being discussed here, Howard, is your repeated assertions that the Kafers and all the rest of Traveller:2300/2300AD are somehow part of the OTU timeline despite repeated refutations and repeated explanations to the contrary.

The Kafers and all the rest of Traveller:2300/2300AD are not part of the official OTU timeline. The Kafers and all the rest of Traveller:2300/2300AD have never been an official part of the OTU timeline. Read what has been told to you and comprehend it.

A poor choice in game titles confused people decades ago and, after all those yeas and all the explanations from GDW and others, only certain people remain confused today. There is no reason for you to still be confused on this topic.

That is all.

Yes, Howard, that is all.

 

[HRLMT]

Question never answered.

Greetings !

My original question was NEVER answered. My answer to the clerk at the local hobby shop was that GDW had not yet dealt with that possible link between Traveller / Traveller: 2300 / 2300 AD. I told the clerk that when I read or hear about it, I'll let him know. By the time I did find out, the clerk no longer worked at the hobby shop. So the issue became moot.
Other posters to this thread have written even GDW did'nt make it perfectly clear that Traveller and Traveller: 2300 were related or two separate games. GDW started the confusion among gamers and the marketplace, and it took them a while to correct the confusion they created.

And while we are on the topic of "canon", was that newsletter the 2300 resource, a publisher of "official" and "canon" material? Probably not.

I have my own areas of expertise in Traveller and Megatraveller myself. I was freelance wrter / designer for DGP and GDW. So I already have and expertise many gamers don't have.
That is, (finally & hopefully), all.

Howard R. Leidner

P.S. There was never confusion on my part, I only wanted a simple answer to a question I was asked about the Kafers and Traveller. The only confusion here is that Whipsnide did'nt fully understand my original question.