IYTU: Describe your Terra?

[savage]

In Your Traveller Universe - What is Terra (Earth) like?

1. A Planetopolis city (submerged and grav cities)?
2. A Park. Sophonts moved off world.
3. A lifeless, scorched world.
4. Post-apocalyptic (Mad Max, T2k...)
5. Vaporized.
6. A dump.
7. Tech 10 or less.
8. Sol/Terra system is Nuetral. And one of the above...
9. OTU from a specific era, or product
10. Other

 

[rancke]

In Your Traveller Universe - What is Terra like?

1. A Planetopolis city (submerged and grav cities)?
2. A Park. Sophonts moved off world.
3. A lifeless, scorched world.
4. Post-apocalyptic (Mad Max, T2k...)
5. Vaporized.
6. A dump.
7. Tech 10 or less.
8. Sol is Neutral. And one of the above...

9. Terra is pretty much as described in canonical OTU material.

(Actually, as far as I know Terra IMTU is exactly as described in canonical OTU material insofar as I can't think of anything I don't like about it, but it's been a long time since I read the relevant material and I reserve the right to amend anything I come across that doesn't fit my own notions.)


Hans

 

[aramis]

none of the above.

It's pretty much using the map from invasion Earth, which shows extensive coastal urbans, and much still thinly inhabited.

 

[savage]

Eras

Some of this depends on the era your in. OTU covers and assumes many eras but I admit not remembering anything in T4.
For me in TNE, It had been returned to a park-like state during the 3rd Imperium (not OTU). The rest of the system was populated, terraformed and now Terra has a very small population...but is mostly park-like.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Sol? What Sol? It's a legend. If that. Almost 500 years after leaving OTU space, and with their own "long night" intervening, "Earth" or "Terra" is mostly a place some people's families came from a very long time ago.

 

[savage]

Sol? Earth? Terra

Sol? What Sol? It's a legend. If that. Almost 500 years after leaving OTU space, and with their own "long night" intervening, "Earth" or "Terra" is mostly a place some people's families came from a very long time ago.

Actually it depends on the Era. Also even if your running a Spinward Marches campaign people might be thinking what the Sol/Terra system is like? It is a good point. Terra system vs Earth naming convention...

 

[Cryton]

I have used Terra IMTU in a bunch of different ways, though mostly in one of the three following ways:

1) In my 3I games, it's as described in Traveller Cannon, using the map from Invasion Earth. UWP is A867A69-F NS Ga Hi Ht Mr 814 Im G2V

2) In my 4I game, its is as above, and the capital of the New Terran Confederation. its UWP is A867942-F NS Ga Hi Ht 814 TC G2V

3) and in my Wyrd Space setting its a lot like 2300s, and Terra is still called Earth. it has the following UWP A867975-C Ga Hi 814 ER G3V.

Wyrd space uses Space compression Warp Drives, M Drives, Grav tech and Fusion Power. It also features Psionics, Mutants, Replicants and Uplifts (Largely Anthropomorphic Replicants ) as well as AIs and Cyberwear. Like 2300, Nations have colonies, but aliens have not been found, though the ruins of alien civilizations have been.

Of the many games I have run, my 4I and Wyrd Space games are currently being run, and a the favorites of the lot.

 

[warwizard]

I have my Terra being the normal everyday Terra we're familiar with today, no major wars only very slow tech progression with reduced budgets for space programs due to no major political will.
USA no longer the economic powerhouse it once was, China is now the super power, and has continued it's millienium old programs of gradual annexation of it's neighbors, but nothing mojor has happened.
Free enterprise has provided what little progress has been made in resourse extraction in the asteroids as well as the extrasolar colonization missions that had lukewarm support from governments that saw the programs as a safety valve for getting rid of troublesome segments of their populations.
Then the deep space propulsion lab invents the jump drive and the first mission to Bernard's Star returns. The chinese say that we are now living in interesting times. Societies are galvanized into action, vast new projects are funded and the planet turns it's gaze from an abyss of a slow and inexorable annexation by China, to the challenge and gain to be had out there among the stars.

 

[BytePro]

I've had many different TUs over the decades, but universally there is essentially no Terra - i.e. it isn't part of my backgrounds. Thinking about it, none of my players has ever even asked about Terra - it could exist, but doesn't need to.

I guess its sort of like 'In a galaxy far, far away...'

 

[Cryton]

I've had many different TUs over the decades, but universally there is essentially no Terra - i.e. it isn't part of my backgrounds. Thinking about it, none of my players has ever even asked about Terra - it could exist, but doesn't need to.

I guess its sort of like 'In a galaxy far, far away...'

Hmmmm. Thank you for the inspiration.

 

[savage]

7

I have my Terra being the normal everyday Terra we're familiar with today, no major wars only very slow tech progression with reduced budgets for space programs due to no major political will.
USA no longer the economic powerhouse it once was, China is now the super power, and has continued it's millienium old programs of gradual annexation of it's neighbors, but nothing mojor has happened.
Free enterprise has provided what little progress has been made in resourse extraction in the asteroids as well as the extrasolar colonization missions that had lukewarm support from governments that saw the programs as a safety valve for getting rid of troublesome segments of their populations.
Then the deep space propulsion lab invents the jump drive and the first mission to Bernard's Star returns. The chinese say that we are now living in interesting times. Societies are galvanized into action, vast new projects are funded and the planet turns it's gaze from an abyss of a slow and inexorable annexation by China, to the challenge and gain to be had out there among the stars.

Sounds like 7

 

[Nathan Brazil]

A Planetopolis City (submerged and grav cities too)
Post-apocalyptic (Mad Max, T2k, Terminator...)
Tech 10 or less. A little beyond present or below.
Other

Because I look at Terra at different time periods, I see Terra as different in different times.
Terra is TL10 or less before First Contact and not a pretty place. The situation in my opinion must have been so dire that the stl colonization was considered a solution. I am not optimistic that it was a paradise that 100,000 were just willing to put themselves in deep freeze.

Post-apocalyptic. During Virus, Earth had the s$%t bombed out of it and barely survived. "Children of Earth" history or not, it it was not pretty then.

The rest of the time I think that Earth was more or less a planetopolis.

 

[jac]

I'm currently building a new ATU. Earth is a distant memory. Most of the humans were wiped out by a nasty fast mutating virus. About 100K people were lifted off planet by ships from some unknown race, who never revealed themselves, and deposited on three "rescue worlds". Now its 1,000 years later, humans are expanding and colonizing. So are about a dozen other sentient species, all apparently placed on "rescue worlds" by the same aliens, in the same sector sized region.

 

[Dragoner]

I voted OTU myself (other), drawn from invasion earth.

 

[rancke]

I voted OTU myself (other), drawn from invasion earth.

I don't see that as an option in the poll.

EDIT: Oh, I see. It has been added. I'll go vote 'other' too, then.

(Though I really think 'As in the OTU' deserve an option of its own).


Hans

 

[savage]

enormous population

Actually, I considered multi-billion (10+) sophont population to reach for Planetopolis approaches. My first post has a few better descriptions. Look at us today with 7 Billion people, we're reaching enormous city spreads and what if that doubled or tripled. In 3I we have also elevated Dolphins, Bears, etc and a string of guest sophonts (possibly trapped here during the Long Night or 3I collapse.

I cannot say I have looked at Invasion Earth in a long time. But think of the consequences of population explosions in Asia, Hispanic countries...Africa.
Not to mention the US and EU.

IMTU, enormous numbers left during the Rule of Man. After another population boom the Sol system became more the home of man than Earth. After Invasion Earth, the Imperium de-powered the population by moving most off world. Returning Earth to paradise, parks, hotels...and museums.
A vacation spot at best.

In TNE it stays that way and Mars wants to remain the powerhouse of the Terran system. I like the new Orbital product concept but did not get it because I don't see the Moon as a city state in the beginning. More likely Mars would quick want independence.

To those that never considered the fate of Earth perhaps the OTU is the best approach.

 

[BlackBat242]

I voted both A Planetopolis City and A lifeless, war scorched world.

That's because in most of my games, it is between 2300AD and 2700AD... but some are placed in the approximate time-period of CT.

My TU has, instead of the OTU "collapse of the Vilani Imperium and establishment of the 2nd Imperium (Rule of Man)", the "Terran-Vilani Interstellar Wars" coming to a draw, with a negotiated Armistice establishing a neutral zone across the "waist" between the two rift regions... leaving the Vilani & Terrans in control of similar-sized territories.

Here, Terra is a Planetopolis... titular capitol of the Terran Confederation (but not the actual administrative OR military headquarters).



In the later games, Terra is a lifeless, war scorched world... because, in 2700AD (1660VI) the Armistice collapsed, and a renewed war raged across most of the space between Sol system and Vland. At the end of the Last Terran-Vilani War (2700AD to 2745AD), both polities were on the verge of military/economic/political/social collapse.

A Vilani task force had penetrated to Sol system and its commander, perhaps in accordance to his orders and perhaps out of hatred or desperation, ordered a total bombardment of Terra with all nuclear weapons in the fleet, as well as the directing of several comets onto impact courses. This, of course, rendered the surface blasted and radioactive. It also removed much of Terra's atmosphere, forever rendering it uninhabitable outside of sealed domes... which would be beyond the capability of the remnants of the TC for centuries.

This is because, as word spread of this act, Terran task forces all over Vilani space began retaliating in the same manner, which led to Vilani forces conducting more such attacks on TC worlds. This caused the total collapse of both interstellar governmental/economic structures... setting into motion the "Long Night". Many worlds had been "sown" with very long half-life radio-actives, to ensure they were never repopulated. Vland was one, with a return visit to Terra by the last operative Vilani task force in 2775 similarly poisoning Terra.

This is why it took so long to re-form interstellar "governments"... the majority of the important industrial & high-tech worlds had been utterly destroyed, and the survivors feared to let anyone else know they had survived, lest further destruction fall on them.

By the time of the CT setting, most of the universe has been re-ordered as per the OTU... save that a number of important worlds (including Vland, in addition to Terra) are shattered wrecks, with only symbolic artificial-habitat cities on their surfaces.

 

[Timerover51]

I voted other, as it depends on what Universe I am in. I am working on one where the Bald Space Rovers follow the Ancients, but a bit more to rimward of Sol, so one universe sort of based on Andre Norton books, with some "slight" additions, like New Texas, and one world where it was colonized by the Baldies with Ancient Egyptians, and you know how conservative the Egyptians were. So that Universe is a bit different from the OTU. Alright, maybe a "lot" different from the OTU.

In the other, Terra was not invaded by the Imperium, and still is the head of what is loosely called the Solomani Confederation, which is more anti-Imperium than a true confederation.

And then there is the OTU one.

 

[BytePro]

Hmmmm. Thank you for the inspiration.

Sure thing!

Especially starting with the original 3 books, it seemed natural, and simpler, to just ignore this old dirt ball...

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Actually it depends on the Era. Also even if your running a Spinward Marches campaign people might be thinking what the Sol/Terra system is like? It is a good point. Terra system vs Earth naming convention...

Well, no, the era doesn't matter to my ATU. My sectors are in a different arm of the galaxy. They are nowhere near the Spinward Marches, or anywhere else in the OTU. That's why Earth/Terra/Sol is nothing more than a legend. Heck, the Imperium is a legend to these folks.