Ilelik Kuligaan, Prophet, Pariah, Propagandist of the PC-RC?

[Liam Devlin]

Okay, GAB just gave me some ammo for this (thank you george!)as well as a few others from this forum, while I'm in the"down-below" here on CoTI of TNE (scroll down, and ya'll find us here...!)

Subject: Ilelik Kuligaan, former "Astrin Ilethain Chair Historian" (and secret head of Dulinor's Intelligence arm of Ilelish during rebellion til he defected 213-1123.)

From his past to TNE, he went from being a "voice of reason", to advocating "carpe Illigitimi", and holding people to holding their rulers responsible to the people. Was he a prophet? A pariah? or just a Political correct caricature of DN's?

ImTU, I opposed him with a Federation Daibei remnant Martin Francis Rourke, as a counter-voice to the PC, Star Viking ethos rampant in the RC.
I was turned off by his complete anti-Imperium diatribes, and so sought some balance. Being mundanely (RL) a histroy major, and old player of traveller, I was repulsed by His one sidedness. (almost as 2D as the two Guild thugs in Star Vikings NPC sourcebook).
On the TNe lists I am considered a heretic (and here too by some, gladly-accept the job, take the flak, thats me) for taking this stand.
Also, not the transformation of his illustration from Arrival vengeance (I think someone pinched his picture and used it in the TNE handbook in one of adventures in it-the data priest of Navar's God Virus on the station, IIRC), to this Herman Melville heroic Homer-type fellow.
Your thoughts, please...

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
From his past to TNE, he went from being a "voice of reason", to advocating "carpe Illigitimi", and holding people to holding their rulers responsible to the people. Was he a prophet? A pariah? or just a Political correct caricature of DN's?

Perhaps he was more an illustration of what happens when all reason fails. That, or it had been proven to him that the previous style of government had failed, so he chose to support another.

ImTU, I opposed him with a Federation Daibei remnant Martin Francis Rourke, as a counter-voice to the PC, Star Viking ethos rampant in the RC.

Maybe he'd support them some more if he had a better parking space?

I was turned off by his complete anti-Imperium diatribes, and so sought some balance. Being mundanely (RL) a histroy major, and old player of traveller, I was repulsed by His one sidedness. (almost as 2D as the two Guild thugs in Star Vikings NPC sourcebook).

Perhaps the events had driven him over the edge of sanity slightly? His 2D anti-Imperial stance could have been a subconcious defence mechanism for his mind against the things he had seen?
Or maybe DN just didn't think about it too much, or needed a solid anti-Imperial patriarch figure for his players to be inspired by. A sort of link to the past to validate the methods they were using (that the Imperium would not) - semi-metagame thinking, almost.

[/QB] On the TNe lists I am considered a heretic (and here too by some, gladly-accept the job, take the flak, thats me) for taking this stand.[/QB]

Ah, but you are *our* heretic!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Shane posted-
"Perhaps the events had driven him over the edge of sanity slightly? His 2D anti-Imperial stance could have been a subconcious defence mechanism for his mind against the things he had seen?
Or maybe DN just didn't think about it too much, or needed a solid anti-Imperial patriarch figure for his players to be inspired by. A sort of link to the past to validate the methods they were using (that the Imperium would not) - semi-metagame thinking, almost."
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Hmm the first would require the good "Dr" to be pyschoanalyzed...My degree is in history, alas, not pyschology.
In the second, this becomes somewhat problematical Shane; one the one hand,we have the RCES going out to bravely rebuild the stars in a "kinder-gentler" way than the Rebellion/Final War-era Imperium, using the same style Blitzkrieg Raids, Covert operations, spying, and assassinations of TEDs in the wilds as was seen in the war. <Granted they're not using Tactical nukes to reduce planet's populations or infrastructure either like the 1121-23 Black war Phase of the War...but all these things the 3I did as well.>, coupled with Pan Sophontism, which the former Imperium was better at than the Solomani Confederation's record. But all the pre-Antebellum good things about the Imperium seem to have been written off, and Kuligaan is made the "Role model" for the effort.
Its the hypocrisy that galled me, when we boil it down to the bone (as a Ship's steward of mine once said).
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Shane also posted-
"Maybe he'd support them some more if he had a better parking space?

"
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LOL! Thats an old canard going back to 213-1123 when he defected! "No one arrests the Chairman of the History Dept. for Political thesis, Perhaps its his parking tickets.." --fellow Professor at Dlan University, when the Ilelish Secret Police came for him. LOL!

I know Profs who get testy when their parking space is taken by a student!!! Hell hath no fury then, friend!
On the TNe lists I am considered a heretic (and here too by some, gladly-accept the job, take the flak, thats me) for taking this stand.
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Ah, but you are *our* heretic!"
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Well, the audience here IS much more open to discussion. Fewer flamewars <THANX to Great Moderation by our Ancients--and the heretic ducks beneath table to avoid the thunderbolts from on high!>, and people who can discuss rationally, civilly without just talking over you, or ignoring your question entirely.
And the compliment is well taken, sir! At least, I feel more at home here, than there.<Mayhap my heresies have peaked the canon Holymen there once too many times. Plato's Cave and all that...But I digress>

Thank you for responding, Shane. There's a good Head spinner for the rest of you...Was Dr Kuligaan a wee bit Obsessive/in his Anti-Imperial rhetoric? Was he a puppet of DN's to soapbox his disdain for the previous Era?version of events/ other people's Traveller of the Mt days? Hmmmmm?

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Shane posted-
Its the hypocrisy that galled me, when we boil it down to the bone (as a Ship's steward of mine once said).

Maybe that's part of the point of Kuligaan. The Rebellion / Hard Times was all about conquests of liberation, raids, etc, and the RC is using the same methods but citing a different ethos. Perhaps Kuligaan's preaching and the RC methods were meant to show how hipocritical the RC is, and prompt the PCs to make changes in the methods they use and try and change the approach of the Coalition? After all, the PCs can have far more effect on macro-scale events and ethos' in TNE than in other versions of Traveller.

Even if that wasn't the intent, it's a possible use for him - a kinda of guide out of the old ways and into the new for the RC, to make them confort to what they need to be to be a truly *new* era. IIRC, there is a reference in one of the future-history sections of the TNE books to the Star Vikings going away on a big voyage of some sort. Maybe the RCES and friends *couldn't* change along Kuligaan's lines and left, leaving the society that *had* changed and couldn't accept (and thus possibily villified) thier methods/actions.

On a related note, how do yuo think the RCES and co would feel, being ostracised from (and end up having to leave) a society they and their friends had bled, died, and done unspeakable things for?

Was he a puppet of DN's to soapbox his disdain for the previous Era?version of events/ other people's Traveller of the Mt days?

I don't know if DN would put something like that in specifically for that reason, but if his disdain for the previous versions of Traveller was that strong maybe it was a suconcious attempt to sabotage his own consitency and setting by placing a huge, obvious hypocracy at the centre of his main backgound?

Ooh, this is getting psycho-babble heavy....

Shane

 

[Liam Devlin]

Shane posted"On a related note, how do yuo think the RCES and co would feel, being ostracised from (and end up having to leave) a society they and their friends had bled, died, and done unspeakable things for?"
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I think MJD has em riding off into the future, on a mission of some import, as they realize they are no longer PC anymore...DN had something like it planned, but left the loose end.
MJD, I trust, has soemthing more detailed in mind.
Me personally...in their shoes, I would feel that all i had lived for, watched and and done had been for naught. Lemme see, there's suicide, alcoholism, and a need to prove your still useful to a society that has turned its back on you and the ways and means you used to get them where they are today...
MJD deals with some of that in his stories of the last skipper of the Class II clipper...she rams a vampire ship threatening Nicosia from orbit, and leaves a legacy for her son to go onto better things (like helping found the 4I, after the Black Curtain Wars).

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
leaves a legacy for her son to go onto better things (like helping found the 4I,

What a marvellous legacy - to help turn a Republic into an Empire.

Somehow it just seems to make it all worthwhile.

Alan

 

[Liam Devlin]

You have a marvelous brevity of wit, Alanb, has anyone told ye that? Succintly put, sir.

 

[jalberti]

I have always considered him a traitor to the Federeation of Ilelish and to Emperor Dulinor. I had hoped one of Lucan's agents would have caught up with him. Seeing him in the TNE was a disappointment.

 

[shield]

Yeah

Ik was / is a bit of a pain but he is obviously a mouthpeice for one of the authors - just like Marc Oberlindes was for Marc Miller

Lets look at IKs career, first he plots against his ultimate leige lord the emperor, and consorts with Dulinor. Their plan to take over Capital seems rather niave, no backup plans, only one man sent to kill Lucan and Varian etc. Dulinor was an arch duke he should have known no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Then IK falls out with Dulinor, betrays him, and spends the next 5 years wandering arround blaming everybody for a civil war he helped start and certainly did nothing to prevent.

Now he turns up in the RC and starts to sway their beliefs - probably not a good thing. And good help the RC, when IK decides that the RC has betrayed his belief (as the real world starts to impinge on RC foreign policy and the RC has to make deals with people they would rather depose)

Cheers
Richard

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by jalberti:
I have always considered him a traitor to the Federeation of Ilelish and to Emperor Dulinor. I had hoped one of Lucan's agents would have caught up with him. Seeing him in the TNE was a disappointment.

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kafka47 is another Dulinor fan, I'm sure he feels the same.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by RichardP:
Yeah

Ik was / is a bit of a pain but he is obviously a mouthpeice for one of the authors - just like Marc Oberlindes was for Marc Miller
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Quite. Whose, is the 100cr question at the moment.

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Lets look at IKs career, first he plots against his ultimate leige lord the emperor, and consorts with Dulinor. Their plan to take over Capital seems rather niave, no backup plans, only one man sent to kill Lucan and Varian etc. Dulinor was an arch duke he should have known no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Then IK falls out with Dulinor, betrays him, and spends the next 5 years wandering arround blaming everybody for a civil war he helped start and certainly did nothing to prevent.
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Ahh but he found ethics and morality late in life, a late bloomer as it were. Playing th devil's advocate, his 180 degree turn/ epiphany moment seems to have been the Black war. Irony of ironies. Shooting a trusted friend, his wife and child was morallyacceptable at the time 1116, but use of nukes versus many innocents at once wasn't.
In for a penny, in for a pound.

Now he turns up in the RC and starts to sway their beliefs - probably not a good thing. And god help the RC, when IK decides that the RC has betrayed his belief (as the real world starts to impinge on RC foreign policy and the RC has to make deals with people they would rather depose)
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which is why I inserted my Craigist PC, Prof. Martin Francis Rourke into MTU in TNE...a counter voice, anda man who knew well blind belief in such a demeagogue had its own perils for a State's Soul in the war of ideas. when I created he PC, I had no idea about Kuligaan, I made hima histrory major and Master's degree holder (IK, has his Post-hole digger degree-in more than one sense)! Originally rolled up as IBIS, changed it to IRIS. (yes GAB, but I AM A HERETIC after all )
Perhaps when he and the Rc have to part ways (over all those airraft parking tickets no doubt

), mayhap the Hivers will retire their former puppet. Mayhap he'll fade away quietly. MJD has as much to handle that as any. And that'll be a close kept card till publishing eve time again, methinks.
IMTU, Rourke did advise his chain of comand not to have him liquidated in Daibei, as it was he felt, better off having him demagogue vs Dulinor & Lucan while Craig held the barbarians at the gates. IK wasn't happy to see the man who had him spared IMTU. MFR wasn't happy to be painted as a Pro-Lucanic-Imperial in he anti 3I brush IK ws tarring remnants who disagreed with him and his new found poppets in RCES, and he dropped screens and broadsided IK on the CINET on just how IK helped Dulinor, and get the Final war started...and let the public decide. IK kinda faded back a bit/ MFR got blacklisted for being honest, but he got by...he did lend a hand in getting a decent counter intel operation going vs Solee (albeit on a shoestring budget, and actors, cons, pickpockets and thieves as personnel!)--but thats my story..

 

[Liam Devlin]

Hi SHane, back again?

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Hi SHane, back again?

Uh-huh, here I am. Just can't stay away from anything TNE!

One thought occured to me about the Cannon IK. Maybe the reason he was inconsitant and contradictory was that he was just an ill though out NPC, and one of the authors thought he'd be cool?

Now *that's* a Heretical thought!

Shane

 

[Liam Devlin]

An ill thought out NPC...? Yes a truly heretical thought! IMHO though, his being a Mouthpiece conduit deus-personae speaker for one of the MT-GDW folks is closer to truth than I'd like to see. THOUGH...IK transmogrifies just as Mr T Foster postulated MT version1.0, 2.0, aND 3.0 DID.

And welcome my Heretic-In- Training (or would you prefer Apprentice?)!

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
And welcome my Heretic-In- Training (or would you prefer Apprentice?)!

Heretic-in-Training suits great. If I was called Apprentice I'd have to betray all other Heretics, kil my master (though now *you* are the student) and generally be tacky and overstated (or pretentious and moody, depending upon age).



Shane

 

[Liam Devlin]

[/QUOTE]Heretic-in-Training suits great. If I was called Apprentice I'd have to betray all other Heretics, kil my master (though now *you* are the student) and generally be tacky and overstated (or pretentious and moody, depending upon age).[/QUOTE]
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Well said.
"So let it be written, so let it be done,"--Ramses The Great, "Moses" (Yul Brynner vs Charles Heston).

deal. TNE-HiT it is then...

 

[kafka47]

Heard my name therefore felt the need the respond...

Well, I have no problem with Ilelik surviving into the New Era, it is that reporter that I wished never survived the Cold Berth...

I had really hoped that GDW was going to make this man the thorn in the RC side reminding that they're fundamental claim to the Stars is not something that is given but something that had to fought over. My reading of the character was that he was a type of Virgil who would welcome the new aquisition of territory into the RC but velmently oppose Imperialism. This way make him a target for the Orliflamme national chauvanists.

IMTU, he quietly slipped into Hiver space...never to be heard from again when the RC fell to the Solee.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Heard my name therefore felt the need the respond...

Well, I have no problem with Ilelik surviving into the New Era, it is that reporter that I wished never survived the Cold Berth...
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If ever an oops, we thawed him too fast was needed, it was that twerp! Agreed. IMTU, HE didnae make it.
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I had really hoped that GDW was going to make this man the thorn in the RC side reminding that they're fundamental claim to the Stars is not something that is given but something that had to fought over. My reading of the character was that he was a type of Virgil who would welcome the new aquisition of territory into the RC but velmently oppose Imperialism. This way make him a target for the Orliflamme national chauvanists.
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but not the bombers bucking the F-techs..alas
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IMTU, he quietly slipped into Hiver space...never to be heard from again when the RC fell to the Solee.

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And what year in YTU did they accomplish that. I ask because I time their war about Dec 1203-July 1204, IMTU.
inquiring heretics want to know!

heretically yours,

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[kafka47]

I time the RC demise around 1203, as well. It was not so much a war, but a betrayal at the highest levels. The point of contact between Star Vikings and RC is between the nomandic refugees that had settled with the Children of Earth. They have sought refuge with Gabrielists, in exchange for providing a fighting wing for the expansion of the Church Rimward against Solomani supremists who are holding a few worlds captive.

For IMTU, I postulate that there was the discovery of Ancient Wormhole technology that allowed FTJS technology. However, this network is inherently unstable and soon to be discovered by the Virus, as the Vampires of the Black Curtain begin their advance...

Out in the Wilds, there starts an organization that unites Solee with the Orliflamme and calls itself the Fourth Imperium who hold the ground against the retribution.

[The above naturally does not conform with the emerging vision of MJD but I look forward to ways to integrate them together.]

 

[Liam Devlin]

Pleased to meet a fellow heretic, such as yer self sir. I have played with the wormhole thigy from FF& S, but brought about in limited fashion in Massilia with the Geonee confederation PE there...connecting to Sufren. However, when they connect to the site at Hub worlds--the Vampires of the BC are soon to follow--accelerating their move towards rimwards...followed by a nasty war to shut them down, then cut them aprt piecemeal. ...I have place COE IMTU for Sol Rim, but i think their Gabreelism will definitely be anti-RC post 1203 and the AI-alliance. (if I read Mr Hale's version of such correctly).

Well, thank you sir for the ideas, and exchange therein. We all look forward to MJD's side of this of course...and ow best to fit it all in.
I admit, my post 1206 NE is Verrrrry sketchy...
Best of luck to you, btw!