Hinting at the Rebellion

[jrients]

My normal venue for Traveller gaming is the classic era in the Spinward Marches. What MegaTraveller products would you recommend that would help me in foreshadowing the Rebellion? I would like some way to hint that the Empire is not a simple monolith, but is full of fractures.

Extra bonus points to anyone who can reply to this thread with a nice adventure seed that can be set in the Spinward Marches but that can demonstrate that things are not all lilacs-and-butterflies in a distant region of the Imperium.

 

[kafka47]

Traveller's Digest#10 will give the feeling and background of Capital. But, the news of the assassination came as a shock to CT fans.

 

[theSea]

the Rebellion Sourcebook is a good place to start.. I think there are a couple listed on e-bay right now and amazon z-shops sometimes turns one up.

If you can't find that there are copies of the TNE book Survival Margin all over Amazon z-shops for $12 to $16. It's pretty much all sourcebook and covers the period from the Rebellion in 1116 through the release of Virus in 1130 to the beginning of the New Era in 1200.

As far as foreshadowing goes... keep in mind that Duke Norris knew about the assasination through the J6 courier network several months before the general populace found out via the J4 X-boat network.

He used that head start and his stack of Imperial stationary to have himself promoted to Arch-Duke of Deneb (Strephon would have done so eventually anyways) and began to take steps to ensure the safety of the domain.

hth

--Michael

 

[kafka47]

The fractured Imperium as it relates to the Classic Traveller era will be discussed in the next Security Leak fanzine. Give the writer, a nudge and we might yet see it before the dawn breaks...

 

[Ranger]

I would second Survival Margin. I am not a TNE fan, and I picked it up very cheap at a hobby shop that gives huge discounts for old stuff. For some reason, I just really enjoyed reading it, and it put a lot of things in the CT OTU in a new perspective.

As for adventure seeds, how about the programs that Strephon set up to deal with the upcomming problems the Phyco-Historians were predicting. The two programs, Jumpstart and Longbow were very secret, but you could have the group stumble upon some aspect of them, and then let them draw their own conclutions.

 

[Mythmere]

I am doing a very similar campaign just rimward of you, in the Trojan Reaches, centered in Tobia Subsector. Although the campaign website is not complete, there are a lot of foreshadowings set out in the timeline. The campaign's main webpage is The Widening Gyre Campaign.

Mainly, I am stressing economic problems stemming from the end of the Fifth Frontier War, home rule movements, democratic secessionists, and piracy problems arising from falling imperial naval budgets.

The piracy problems (unexplained) are canon, and terrorism seems to be on the rise as well in canon sources. I have interpolated the economic problems (in some detail) and the nature of the frontier protests. Some of the sources of my Trojan Reach issues stem from problems in the Marches (I created a tax increase for a reconstruction fund that is then the subject of scandal). Anyway, I hope you can use some of the material; it is probably near enough to be useful.

In terms of a canon answer to your question, consider using the Ine Givar terrorists as the voice of fracture.

 

[jrients]

Thanks for all the great info folks! I just snagged a Rebellion Sourcebook off of eBay amd emailed Security Leak too! Survival Margin will have to wait, I already have spent too much on old Trav products this month, thanks mostly to the Traveller Trader.

Mythmere, I bookmarked your website for a thorough read-through later. Looks good so far! Since I read Adventure 4, Leviathan I've had a certain hankering to visit the Outrim Void.

 

[kafka47]

I would echo this is a very nice milieu. Lots of good foreshadowing. A lession that I learnt in CofC that ought to apply to Traveller of this time.

It is not the shadows that you have to be afraid of, nor even what casts the shadow but instead the unspeakable that lurks within the shadow.

Here I am not thinking about the Great Old Ones or some other Cthulhuoid creature but the eternal flaws of human nature.