First Impressions from TNE

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Aramis:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I really like the TNE setting, and you're right about the Spinward Marches stuff allowing for a 'traditional' Traveller setting for those so inclined.

Except that Mr. Nilsen decided to strip the nobility out of even there; according to the Regency sourcebook, the nobles have been pulled out of the powerbase, making titles about pointless. So, in Canon, no, you can't keep the "old school setting feel" anywhere. </font>[/QUOTE]Personally I don't think having nobility around in any way defined the "old school setting feel". If PCs could go through their whole lives never meeting anyone in the nobility, why would it be an issue?

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
I believe that this is incorrect - sure, Earthlike environments are easy to describe and easy for (unmodified) Humans to work on, but alien environments could be very interesting and fun to explore - how many of you would, for example, want to "slog" around Mars for six months in vacc suits and pressurised rovers because the "air" is low-pressure CO2 and the only water you'll see around is frozen? I for once would be willing to give ALOT to do so! From Luna to Mars to (pre-terraformation) LV-426, alien worlds are a staple of sci-fi; they should be visited as often as earthlike ones are.

This is something that's annoyed me about Traveller for ages - I do not remotely believe for a second that billions of ordinary people would want to live and work and play on a tiny vacuum-baked rockball or on a seething acidic hellhole world. You'd be hard-pressed to find people who'd want to live in an environment where one hole in a wall means instant death - be it underwater or in space or anywhere else. I think the only worlds you will find millions or billions of people on are going to be the ones that are most similar to Earth. On the others you'll have much less - maybe a few tens of thousands at most I'd say, who actually have a damn good reason to be there.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />... the closer it is to terrestrial standards, the more valuable it will be for a greater number of purposes

(pp.196-197)
I believe this, too, is incorrect - even today Humans work in the most inhospitable environments on Earth - from hellish deserts and frozen wastes to the depth of the oceans and the upper limits of the atmosphere - in search for rare resources and for military purposes, let alone the basic Human instinct to explore and learn.</font>[/QUOTE]Again, I disagree. Humans can WORK in those environments, but you'll find that in most cases their presence in those environments is temporary. It takes a special breed of person to live full-time in a tin can at the bottom of the ocean or on a frozen waste or in space. So far I don't think anyone's even managed that for more than few years at a time at most. Humans have a pathological need for open spaces, sunlight, real air and all that other good stuff.

Also, following the architypical TNE "feel" of things, Humans should go to alien worlds for the express purpose of terraforming them

Well, I certainly never got the impression from TNE that humans would want to go terraforming alien worlds for its own sake... they're much more pre-occupied with staying alive and rebuilding things.

 

[Border Reiver]

Malenfant said;

Again, I disagree. Humans can WORK in those environments, but you'll find that in most cases their presence in those environments is temporary. It takes a special breed of person to live full-time in a tin can at the bottom of the ocean or on a frozen waste or in space.

In this respect I have to disagree. It is western cultural prejudice that is blinding people to the capabilities of human physiology. Humans DO live in extreme environments, permanently, all over the globe. High altitude, extreme heat, extreme cold, low natural light levels and other extremes. And such adaption to the environment is not just restricted to indigenous peoples.

There is no evidence that the need for open spaces or real air is anything more than psychological and again the experiments are only taken from a Western cultural standpoint (and I include Russia in this). There is a pathological requirement for sunlight which can be overcome by lighting adaptions and enforced circadian rhythms.

To me the Traveller Universe represents 3000 years of technological development and human cultural/psychological/physiological adaption to their environment.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
In this respect I have to disagree. It is western cultural prejudice that is blinding people to the capabilities of human physiology. Humans DO live in extreme environments, permanently, all over the globe. High altitude, extreme heat, extreme cold, low natural light levels and other extremes. And such adaption to the environment is not just restricted to indigenous peoples. [/QB]

All of those situations are habitable though. You can live on the Tibetan Plateau and not die when you set foot outside or if a hole appears in a wall. Living in a desert isn't going to instantly kill you either. These environments are not what I'd call "extreme" - living at the bottom of an ocean or in an instantly lethal environment like space or Venus is, however.

 

[archhealer]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
Malenfant said;
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Again, I disagree. Humans can WORK in those environments, but you'll find that in most cases their presence in those environments is temporary. It takes a special breed of person to live full-time in a tin can at the bottom of the ocean or on a frozen waste or in space.

In this respect I have to disagree. It is western cultural prejudice that is blinding people to the capabilities of human physiology. Humans DO live in extreme environments, permanently, all over the globe. High altitude, extreme heat, extreme cold, low natural light levels and other extremes. And such adaption to the environment is not just restricted to indigenous peoples.

There is no evidence that the need for open spaces or real air is anything more than psychological and again the experiments are only taken from a Western cultural standpoint (and I include Russia in this). There is a pathological requirement for sunlight which can be overcome by lighting adaptions and enforced circadian rhythms.

To me the Traveller Universe represents 3000 years of technological development and human cultural/psychological/physiological adaption to their environment. </font>[/QUOTE]While the need for open spaces, moving air, etc. are, more or less, psychologica/pathological, the need for full-spectrum lighting is NOT. However, that can be relatively easily provided for in an artificial environment. As far as space is concerned, humans do need enough speace to move around freely or will suffer muscle and joint problems, however, how much space that is varies from one viewpoint to another.

A note on artificial full-spectrum or 'natural' sunlight: We now, can only sort of simulate this. We have some stuff that works well in the short term, but long term, doesn't quite do it. But progress is being made, so I'd put "True" artificial sunlight at maybe TL 8.

 

[Eduardo]

Originally posted by Aramis:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I really like the TNE setting, and you're right about the Spinward Marches stuff allowing for a 'traditional' Traveller setting for those so inclined.

Except that Mr. Nilsen decided to strip the nobility out of even there; according to the Regency sourcebook, the nobles have been pulled out of the powerbase, making titles about pointless. So, in Canon, no, you can't keep the "old school setting feel" anywhere. </font>[/QUOTE]Nobles rarely played a part in my game. Hardly anybody ever rolled one up. I'm not much of a 'canonista',and most of my games have that implied 'early canon' feel of Joe Sixpack Putzes Around In Space, and that the Nobles, the Navy, and the big corps had a very dirty, corrupt underside to them, and were all best avoided, and it was wise not to attract their attention. They were not important as a class in and of themselves, other than in their official capacities as politicians, bureaucrats, military officers, etc., anyway.

Now, we have the added scemes of many of them forming secret cadres and what not, plotting their return to real power; like the Chinese nobility of yore under the various Imperial Bureaucracies. Lots of fodder there for smuggling, intelligence, underworld dealings, trips into the Ruins, etc.

 

[jfetters]

Originally posted by Aramis:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I really like the TNE setting, and you're right about the Spinward Marches stuff allowing for a 'traditional' Traveller setting for those so inclined.

Except that Mr. Nilsen decided to strip the nobility out of even there; according to the Regency sourcebook, the nobles have been pulled out of the powerbase, making titles about pointless. So, in Canon, no, you can't keep the "old school setting feel" anywhere. </font>[/QUOTE]Nobility was stripped out in the sense that nobles had no official power (in many cases), but they were certainly around in the Regency.

Personally, I thought the idea of a noble that would either channel his interest into the new political structure or try to destroy it (or himself) an interesting hook.

It also was to set the stage for the common ground between the Regency and the RC. So it isn't like it was done on a whim.

 

[aramis]

Considering that Nobles often played significant parts in my various traveller campaigns, it's a matter of play style. My current game has no non-nobles; one navy, one scout, and one marine, all noble by birth.

And yes, the Nobility in my games does have a darker side; this darker side generates a lot of patron missions of questionable ethics.

But without the power to be powerful patrons by being the de-facto and de-jure imperial government, the style of play my players came to seek was not in keeping with the setting changes. The promise of the ability to play "old style" traveller in the Regency was shattered... at least, the ability to play all the old style games was.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
This is something that's annoyed me about Traveller for ages - I do not remotely believe for a second that billions of ordinary people would want to live and work and play on a tiny vacuum-baked rockball or on a seething acidic hellhole world. You'd be hard-pressed to find people who'd want to live in an environment where one hole in a wall means instant death - be it underwater or in space or anywhere else. I think the only worlds you will find millions or billions of people on are going to be the ones that are most similar to Earth. On the others you'll have much less - maybe a few tens of thousands at most I'd say, who actually have a damn good reason to be there.

Remember that there ARE Human cultures on Earth who live in very dangerous environments - from the Inuit, Aleut and Yakut people of the polar areas (where a small crack in the ice resulting in you falling into the water below is deadly, and where exposure to the environment is easily fatal) to the Beduwin and Bushmans of the more extreme deserts (where the sun could burn your skin off in short order if you're not careful and where water is scarcer than air is on most dome-colonies). Humans adapt.

Also, most western humans already live in ultra-claustrophobic conditions of the metropolis, with (relatively) narrow streets and concerete over concrete from horizon to horizon, not to mention the horribly high population density.

And remember that most colonies on airless worlds will either use large domes (large enough to cover a city, especially when built over a crater) or huge artificial caves (with fake sky on top and enough plant-lights to make the place habitatible).

And I see Terraformation as suiting the TNE spirit of "we build OUR OWN universe rather than accepting what exists"; sure, the RC won't start such projects soon, but the more progressive elements of the Regency might. I also see terraformation as TL9 or TL10 rather than TL16 (I've been re-reading Kim Stanely Robinson's Mars Trilogy lately), with TL9 terraformation being very expensive (shifting comets and drilling massive boreholes, not to mention orbital mirrors) but duable; TL12 would probably have Aliens-style fast chemical terraformation (when the atmosphere composition is the main issue), and TL16 using nanotech for ultra-rapid luna-to-paradise-in-a-few-decades kind of techniques.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Except that Mr. Nilsen decided to strip the nobility out of even there; according to the Regency sourcebook, the nobles have been pulled out of the powerbase, making titles about pointless. So, in Canon, no, you can't keep the "old school setting feel" anywhere.

This seems to me as a contradiction between the basic TNE book and the Regency Sourcebook. The way I see it (according to the basic book), there are alot of new limits to the Nobles' official political powers - but no real limits to the real source of their power, i.e. Megacorp shares ownership (no one has even nationalized or subdivided their large fiefs IIRC); as long as the larger Noble houses are large shareholders (see Hard Times for an example of who owns MegaCorp shares in the OTU), they'll have power, even if unofficial. Only that your next adventure Patron might approach you as "a member of the Board" rather than "a member of the Peerage". Titles will also, most likely, be sellable as they were in Europe in certain periods IRL.

This entire situastion seems to me as having a very good adventure potential: you'd have radicals looking for a REAL system change (that is, cutting the nobles' economical power) on one hand, and nobles looking for "the good old days" on the other, with several factions in each side ANd several factions in the middle; political intrigue and possibly violence ensues.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Remember that there ARE Human cultures on Earth who live in very dangerous environments - from the Inuit, Aleut and Yakut people of the polar areas (where a small crack in the ice resulting in you falling into the water below is deadly, and where exposure to the environment is easily fatal) to the Beduwin and Bushmans of the more extreme deserts (where the sun could burn your skin off in short order if you're not careful and where water is scarcer than air is on most dome-colonies). Humans adapt.

And again, this is peanuts compared to living in space or underwater. It doesn't matter how hot or cold it is on Earth, the fact remains that the air is breathable and you don't explode when you set foot outside without protection. Plus the only reason that those people are in that environment is that they are "living off the land", which is utterly impossible on Mars or Venus or in space.

I do not consider the environments in which humans live on Earth to be anywhere near as extreme as those on other planets.

Also, most western humans already live in ultra-claustrophobic conditions of the metropolis, with (relatively) narrow streets and concerete over concrete from horizon to horizon, not to mention the horribly high population density.

I don't believe that population density is going to be a factor here.

And remember that most colonies on airless worlds will either use large domes (large enough to cover a city, especially when built over a crater) or huge artificial caves (with fake sky on top and enough plant-lights to make the place habitatible).

Not necessarily, colonies could be built in a variety of different ways too. And ultimately one has to ask - if you're going to all that expense and effort to simulate living in wide open spaces then why the heck don't you just save the effort and live on a habitable planet instead?

What is there that could possibly attract millions or billions of people to live on an airless rock with low gravity and little in the way of resources? Or on an acidic hellhole with furnace-like temperatures? Especially when there are much more habitable worlds nearby? Traveller has crazy situations like a hellhole with billions of people sitting next to a garden world with thousands of people, that makes no sense whatsoever. I simply do not believe that people will be drawn to the uninhabitable worlds in large numbers - they're going to go for the more earth-like ones instead.

 

[archhealer]

*snip*
What is there that could possibly attract millions or billions of people to live on an airless rock with low gravity and little in the way of resources? Or on an acidic hellhole with furnace-like temperatures? Especially when there are much more habitable worlds nearby? Traveller has crazy situations like a hellhole with billions of people sitting next to a garden world with thousands of people, that makes no sense whatsoever. I simply do not believe that people will be drawn to the uninhabitable worlds in large numbers - they're going to go for the more earth-like ones instead. [/QB]*Snip*

Scientists studying bizarre or unusual phenomenon will live just about anywhere. Miners, prospectors, treasure seekers, will live anywhere that there's something of value (Rare earths, metals, pharmeceudicals, etc.) will go where the money is, regardless of how hard it is to live there.

Once you have that, you have your starter population. And once you have that, you get kids. Many people will live where they're born and growp up, nomatter how unpleasant it is. Sure, many will move away, but the few who stay will have kids of their own... and a few of them will stay, and have kids of their own...

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
Scientists studying bizarre or unusual phenomenon will live just about anywhere. Miners, prospectors, treasure seekers, will live anywhere that there's something of value (Rare earths, metals, pharmeceudicals, etc.) will go where the money is, regardless of how hard it is to live there.

Yes, but those are rare breed of people. And believe me you're not going to have bases full of millions of scientists or miners.

Once you have that, you have your starter population. And once you have that, you get kids.

Not necessarily. If those research bases or mining facilities or out-of-the-way military bases are established using population rotation (and I'm sure a lot will use that in practice) then people aren't going to settle there - they'll do their 6 or 12 month tour of duty and rotate out for another 6-12 months and then come back in. Or something. There is no reason whatsoever to keep people on those bases permanently (least of all economics), and there's likely to be all sorts of reasons why you can't.

Hell, even colonists on habitable worlds are going to be a hardier breed than most of the people around us on Earth - they're going to be the ones who want to leave all they know to start a new life from scratch in a new environment. And starting life on a habitable world is hard enough - if you want a good RPG treatment of that then check out the 2300AD Aurore supplement or FFG's Blue Planet game. Colonising an earthlike world is hard enough as it is, even if you have high technology - I do not believe that people are going to willingly go to the inhospitable planets where it's orders of magnitude harder to survive.


To be honest I think it's more likely that people will prefer to live in big O'Neill-type Orbital colonies where for all intents and purposes most people don't really *have* an outside to worry about. You'll have a nice self contained world with green fields and trees and real sunlight and earthlike gravity for free.

 

[mike wightman]

A large asteroid is discovered that contains a wealth of minerals.
Hundreds, and later a few thousand, miners etc. set up to exploit these resources - initially living in prefab modules or hastily constructed caverns.

Most of this could be TL9 to 10 initially, although mining colonies built during the RoM may have begun with TL12 infrastrucure in place.

The miners become increadibly wealthy thanks to the value of the raw materials to local industry.
Thanks to high shipping costs it is cheaper to set up the refineries on the surface of the asteroid - cheap fusion power makes this a possibility.

As the minerals are removed, and larger caverns produced as a result, more and more space is available for living areas and artificial farms - making the colony self sufficient in all foodstuffs.

Many of these caverns have very high ceilings with articicial lighting producing a "natural" vista, and grav plates for normal gravity.

As more and more support services for the miners, refinery workers, and farmers are built up you get more and more families - as a result you have a market for finished goods, so manufacturing industry is established.

Over the centuries the population keeps growing. There is wealth, there, are raw materials, there is agriculture, and there is manufacturing - all in a self contained little world a few hundred km across.

Many of the occupants would never visit the surface even - no need.
Most wouldn't see the point in selling up and paying for passage to a "real" world where the standard of living may not be as high, and getting a job could be difficult.

How many such asteroids in a rich belt?

Trouble is you can only realistically use this scenario a few times before it's as stupid as "the Ancients! did it

 

[Malenfant]

So what happens when the asteroid is mined out?
Besides, eventually that's basically the same as living on a space station.

You're also assuming that the miners (a) have the capability to get to the asteroid themselves and (b) aren't working for a megacorp that's going to claim all the riches they find and just pay them a normal (or worse) wage.

I think the problem is that I just can't see a reason why people would *settle* in huge numbers on an inhospitable world when more hospitable ones are nearby. (Heck, those worlds that have billions of people on insidious hellholes are ridiculous anyway because even a vacuum-baked moon orbiting the planet, or the next planet out from the star in that system are going to be more habitable than that).

I just think a more realistic universe would be full of bases like what you see in the movie "Outland"...

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
So what happens when the asteroid is mined out?

Hope that their manufacturing industry can keep earning wealth - there's always a service based industry that can support an economy of millions (UK )
More likely they can keep exploiting other planetoids within the system.

Besides, eventually that's basically the same as living on a space station.

Yep, but it's a big one...

You're also assuming that the miners (a) have the capability to get to the asteroid themselves and (b) aren't working for a megacorp that's going to claim all the riches they find and just pay them a normal (or worse) wage.

It could well be a megacorp outpost, it then becomes a megacorp colony, and then a megacorp world.

I think the problem is that I just can't see a reason why people would *settle* in huge numbers on an inhospitable world when more hospitable ones are nearby. (Heck, those worlds that have billions of people on insidious hellholes are ridiculous anyway because even a vacuum-baked moon orbiting the planet, or the next planet out from the star in that system are going to be more habitable than that).

They wouldn't initially settle in numbers, the numbers come later as living space is opened up and people have families - this isn't an overnight proposition, I'd imagine several centuries/millenia would be needed to reach the high population numbers.

I just think a more realistic universe would be full of bases like what you see in the movie "Outland"...

Which included men and women give such a base 3000 years to grow and...

chances are most would fail, but a few could become those high TL, high population worlds you find on small worldlets.

 

[Border Reiver]

Mal, with respect you're are continually applying a 20th/21st Century western model to an environment that is thousands of years in the future. You seem to imply that these worlds are going to be colonised by Mr & Mrs Smith with the kids, Janet & John from Surbiton.

Our 21st Century Western culture produces a breed far removed from that of Victorian Britain or that of Mughal India or Carthage, To claim that in a thousand years time that the mindset and physiology of our race will not be able or willing to find their way where the odds are stacked against them then you obviously have no sense of history.

Again 6-12 month tours of duty are very much a contemporary idea. The 19th century British Empire would see postings of 5 years or more. Many of those sent to the far flung posts of Empire opted to remain rather than return. Even as little as 50 years ago an Army or Naval posting could be as long as 3 years with little chance of a return home excepting extreme circumstance.

Somehow I think that the pioneers of 3000 years in the future (or even 500 years) will be as different from us as we are from the Kingdom of Israel under Solomon.

 

[Malenfant]

OK, prove to me that humans - ordinary people - would be willing to live longterm in artificial habitats with a lethal environment outside and no way to 'live off the land' and only then will I believe you. And no, comparisons with environments on Earth do not count - deserts and arctic wastes are no comparison whatsoever.

Janet and John from Suburbia will still make up the bulk of humanity in the future. They're the ones that just want to live on their garden world and not have to worry about their life support failing or their suits leaking. We're not suddenly going to turn into a race of frontier-rushing thrill-seekers.

And the British Empire comparison is also flawed. The people who stayed remained in a habitable country, with natives already there and everything they need to survive right there. If an empire pulled out of a distant space colony then that colony - unless it was entirely self-sufficient in every way - would die very rapidly. Sure, humanity can change, but there is no historical equivalent at any point in our entire species' history to colonising an environment as hostile as space. You simply cannot draw any meaningful comparison.

I just can't see any way around this. Space colonisation is an entirely different beast to colonising a planet, or to anything in our history. And I firmly believe that the bulk of humanity is always going to be made up of people like Joe Average who have no intention whatsoever of risking their necks for their entire lives on a godforsaken airless rock when there are garden worlds within spitting distance.

 

[jcrocker]

You could make it work if you wanted to. The handwaves don't even have to be that violent.

Ordinary people now live in cities that, should the artificial infrastructure break down, have no way of supporting all of the inhabitants in the local environment. If that power failure in New York a couple years ago had lasted a month, we'd have seen it; or witness the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans - no farming, no fishing, no outside support and people are forced to leave.

A thousand years from now, a lot of people might see little difference from living in the arcology tower #3821 on planet X vs. living inside the space colony in planetoid Y.

Or the pay is better.

Or the family doesn't have the political connections / bribe money to get a building permit for a detatched dwelling - if you're never going to see blue sky anyway, why not get the bonus pay out at Glisten? They intend to get rich and retire on Regina, but things happen...

Or the planetoids started as colonies of agoraphobes.

The first wave of colonists would definately be the developers of the new frontier, but give it a few centuries. The list of occupations of the good citizens of, say, Denver [or Dallas, or Winnipeg, or San Francisco, or Minneapolis, or...] was a lot different two hundred years ago than it is now.

I see your point about space rock vs. garden planet, and personally I'd agree with you. But maybe future industry demands X that can be better/more cheaply extracted from the planetoids. The Greens have a hammerlock on power. For whatever reason, the Powers that Be imposed the viewpoint that "Planetoid Living IS Good" over a few centuries.

But at some point, moving to a planetoid [just like moving to a city in contemporary western North America, or Australia] stopped being a move to The Frontier and became just another place you had your mail forwarded to. There are locals there, the environment systems never break down because the backups are good designs from LSP, and you don't have to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and all those other nuisances that come with living on the *outside* of a ball of rock, instead of safely inside like you belong.

 

[Malenfant]

But at some point, moving to a planetoid [just like moving to a city in contemporary western North America, or Australia] stopped being a move to The Frontier and became just another place you had your mail forwarded to. There are locals there, the environment systems never break down because the backups are good designs from LSP, and you don't have to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and all those other nuisances that come with living on the *outside* of a ball of rock, instead of safely inside like you belong.

Well except in TNE (getting vaguely back to the topic

) a lot of those nice safe systems have broken down...