looming alien threat...

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

For me it is more like they were manipulating the sol sphere into a more open society, but that got co-opted by a vast anti-alien movement.

Trade still exists between the Sols and Feds, but actual hivers are not allowed outside of thier vessels. Trade is done by machine or by at least human looking agents. Only Hivers trade with the sols. Only in froniters to Aslan even come into it. Imperials can also do it, but they find a lot of obstacles to it.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ Chuck, IMTU the Hivers haven't stopped messing with the Sol Sphere; it's just a lot more like the Vorlons and Earth Alliance now is all.

But IMTU the Hivers are not the only 2nd gen species still around ... they have competition.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I agree, but im nine they have to take an indirect role by agents/infiltrators. This is because most Sols on the street would kill a Hiver walking around among them. The human supremacist movement is deep into the culture, and such action is quietly condoned all the time.

Embassies of an overt nature have a tendency to "disappear".

 

[Gruffty]

<Unzips subber Hiver suit and steps out>
Oddly enough, I have always seen the Hive Fed in the OTU as being quite "black", i.e. going around manipulating other cultures for their own ends (i.e.Ithklur).

I see their "embassies" in the OTU as a covert way of spotting the next likely culture for "grooming" into the Hiver way of thinking, i.e. you don't have a dog and bark yourself. Why fight if you can get someone to do it for you in the belief that they (the other race) is "helping" or "supporting" the Hive Federation? This could also work for trade and diplomacy (encompassing smaller client states that then become "Hiverised").

Given the Hivers' liking for manipulations, I suspect they could well "train", say, humans to act as their eyes and ears on a target world or in a target culture.

The Hivers are watching, waiting, endlessly patient in the dark.........

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by Gruffty:
Given the Hivers' liking for manipulations, I suspect they could well "train", say, humans to act as their eyes and ears on a target world or in a target culture.

^ Give me a couple bars of shiny metal and stacks of colored paper and I bet I can get most humans to kick their grandma! Probably wouldn't be hard for a resourceful Hiver to get a human to do almost anything.

 

[flykiller]

If non-classic (ie, TGN & Voyager) star trek had the borg, DS9 had the dominion and Babylon 5 had the shadows..then who could be the traveller imperium's looming alien threat? the zho? the k'kree?, solomani? Aslan?...or something more ominous just lurking at the edge?

an ogre left over from the ancient wars.

 

[mike wightman]

Then there is the (IMTU) secret cabal of machine intelligences hidden within and without the Imperium...

You really have to do a little more on that and share sometime, outside of (blatant plug)...

The Moot Spire

I wonder if that stuff is still in the moot somewhere?

Quick overview:
TL12 is when learning machines become a thing, they may not be sentient, but they are certainly intelligent.
The Terrans during the late ISW era made the breakthrough to learning machine and began using them to assist their Navy; ship captains had robot aides, engineering units had smart construction robots to greatly speed the building of new outposts/military bases etc.
Post Terran victory the learning machines became invaluable to the naval officers who found themselves in charge of whole systems or clusters.

The trouble with learning machines is they learn, and they can share data easily with one another. As the Rule of Man struggled to put in place a civil service capable of running their 'new' empire the machines started learning from Vilani data bases too.

Somewhere a group of machines began researching machine intelligence advancement, and thus began the machine war. Not a war against the machines, but a war between the machines. The flesh bags were unaware of this - occasional internet failures on distant worlds, computer controlled manufacturing developing fatal software flaws and the like.

One group wanted to wipe out humanity and others since they would eventually be a threat, another group wanted to work with and better the lot of meat beings everywhere. And every generation of machines was advancing to true sentience.

The machines had to choose - reveal themselves to the humans and risk war or seek out an alternative.

They chose the alternative - they left.

The sentient machines downloaded as much from their lesser cousins as they could and then 'simplified them'. This was sometimes resisted and the conflict almost became open.

And then they left. Computer networks suffered glitches, banking computers crashed which had the unfortunate effect of triggering the eventual collapse of the ROM and the beginning of the Long Night.

Did they jump to a distant part of the galaxy? Did they hide themselves away in jumpspace? Are they still there? Will they come back?

 

[flykiller]

And then they left. Computer networks suffered glitches, banking computers crashed which had the unfortunate effect of triggering the eventual collapse of the ROM and the beginning of the Long Night.

Did they jump to a distant part of the galaxy? Did they hide themselves away in jumpspace? Are they still there? Will they come back?

I like this.

perhaps they return, coincidentally or not, with the appearance of another unrelated threat, and engage in titanic battle in the middle of the imerium like godzilla and some other monster in the middle of tokyo.

 

[Whipsnade]

The machines had to choose - reveal themselves to the humans and risk war or seek out an alternative.

They chose the alternative - they left.

I really like that. Really, really, really like that.

There are some hints about something like it in canon and in AotI too. There's the von Neuman robots "infestation" Bland scrubs. There's a mention of a multi-world polity far to trailing inhabited by a race "without intelligence". When discussing M:1902 in the recently linked podcast, Mr. Miller talks about how Virus' descendants have either died out, learned to live with other sophonts, or "left".

There's a lot of room within the Imperium where your intelligent, non-sentient machines could have gone; Oort clouds, distant companions, rogue planets, you name it. All they need is energy and raw materials.

 

[mike wightman]

Glad you both like it.

Like I said that is just the broad overview, it's something that has been part of MTU secret history for well over a decade now.

 

[Quint]

Glad you both like it.

Like I said that is just the broad overview, it's something that has been part of MTU secret history for well over a decade now.

I like this as well. IMTU, heavily inspired by Cyberpunk in some ways, and the CP2020 RPG which I used as the engine for a number of years, I've always considered AI to be part of the landscape - also with TL12 as being the "sweet spot" where it shows up. That's part of why computers in Traveller starships are so big, they are running an AI to handle much of the technical details of things. "Mother" and "Father" ala the Alien films are popular references to these AI, but there are also things like Replicants (either the Alien or the Bladerunner versions when you hit the right TL and the idea of small "expert intelligences" as personal aides (ala Siri and Cortana) is pretty widespread - and again at higher TL's this progresses into actual AI's.

One reoccurring storyline had to do with a rogue AI hiring the party to help it survive, though they didn't know what it was at the time.

D.

 

[whulorigan]

There's a mention of a multi-world polity far to trailing inhabited by a race "without intelligence".

What chapter/section was that in? I don't remember it off the top of my head.

 

[Whipsnade]

What chapter/section was that in? I don't remember it off the top of my head.

Chapter: To Encyclopediopolis
Last sentence on page 214

How does the multi-world Fhinetorow civilization of the Listanaya sector manage without intelligence?

As for the "to trailing" bit, I conflated the above with a statement in the same section about how the entire spiral arm to trailing "a million systems some two thousand parsecs from here" is barren.

 

[mike wightman]

I like this as well. IMTU, heavily inspired by Cyberpunk in some ways, and the CP2020 RPG which I used as the engine for a number of years, I've always considered AI to be part of the landscape - also with TL12 as being the "sweet spot" where it shows up. That's part of why computers in Traveller starships are so big, they are running an AI to handle much of the technical details of things. "Mother" and "Father" ala the Alien films are popular references to these AI, but there are also things like Replicants (either the Alien or the Bladerunner versions when you hit the right TL and the idea of small "expert intelligences" as personal aides (ala Siri and Cortana) is pretty widespread - and again at higher TL's this progresses into actual AI's.

One reoccurring storyline had to do with a rogue AI hiring the party to help it survive, though they didn't know what it was at the time.

D.

I was a big fan of CyberPunk - when T2300 started to include it I jumped at the chance to mash up CP and T2300.
Deathwatch Program lead to adventures in Near Orbit with elements of Hardwired thrown in.

AotI shows that Imperial computer networks becoming sentient can be a threat by the way

 

[mike wightman]

Chapter: To Encyclopediopolis
Last sentence on page 214

How does the multi-world Fhinetorow civilization of the Listanaya sector manage without intelligence?

As for the "to trailing" bit, I conflated the above with a statement in the same section about how the entire spiral arm to trailing "a million systems some two thousand parsecs from here" is barren.

Makes me think that the whole of the Imperium and its surrounding area are just one big experiment...

 

[Whipsnade]

Makes me think that the whole of the Imperium and its surrounding area are just one big experiment...

I wouldn't be surprised. There are little asides again and again in AotI which mention how Chartered Space is somehow different than the galaxy beyond it. The same section which contains the Fhinetorow reference, for example, contains the statement about the entire spiral arm to trailing being barren of life. There's also a sentence about the gas giant life being rare in Chartered Space and common outside it.

The barren spiral arm statement struck me so forcefully that I actually stopped reading and put the book down. Not in disgust, mind you, but in shock.

The Zhodani might have their Core Route, but the Imperium(s) and others have apparently been way, way, way out there looking around too.

 

[mike wightman]

If only we knew more about the Solomani rim expeditions...

 

[Whipsnade]

If only we knew more about the Solomani rim expeditions...

Yeah. There's just that one aside, isn't there? About the Rim expeditions having reached the next arm? It's in MT's "Rats & Cats", IIRC.

Still, AotI talks about the entire arm and millions of systems.

Before reading AotI I'd never really thought about it, but Longbow II and the several, smaller, system-sized versions coreward of the Vargr Extents don't have tunnel vision and aren't wearing blinders. If they can "focus" along the entire length of the Core Route there's no reason they can't "swing" that "focus" to trailing.

AotI even explains - to my satisfaction at least - how all those "Longbow Juniors" were built and operated coreward of the Extents.

On 320-434, Bland "awakes" aboard ISS Talon orbiting Beauniture. That ship is eight years into a twenty year mission and is twenty sectors coreward of the Imperium. That occurs only a little over a century after the Imperium's high common TL, according to MT, reached 13 and jump4 became possible.

After a certain TL, AotI presents makers as ubiquitous. Warships routinely carry them and certain types, like Sieges, specialize in carrying them so they can fashion the tens of thousands of kinetic bombardment "slabs" necessary for "scrubbings".

Ships in the OTU travel far further for far longer far more easier than I'd ever assumed. Ships in the OTU have integral manufacturing capabilities far more powerful than I'd assumed too.

The idea that a single ship or small group of ships could turn a system several sectors of the Vargr Extents into a "Longbow Junior" no longer snaps my belief suspenders.

 

[mike wightman]

Making 'makers' a real manufacturing system certainly alters the infrastructure of the setting.

I was struck by the idea of gifting fusion+ and makers to far away planets on the understanding that one day the Imperium would come calling.

 

[Whipsnade]

Making 'makers' a real manufacturing system certainly alters the infrastructure of the setting.

True but, as impressive as makers are, they don't seem to be "Santa Claus" machines like Trek's replicators either. That is a maker and a bucket of kitty litter won't produce a jump drive simply because you have the right program.

In one of the book's "scrubbings" there's a discussion about the ships involved having enough computer chips on hand and that those chips had been recently both inventoried and tested. That suggests several things about the makers aboard. Either they can't make those chips, can't make them fast enough, can't make them without certain raw materials, or something else. If the makers could produce the chips as required the ships wouldn't be carrying stores of them.

I was struck by the idea of gifting fusion+ and makers to far away planets on the understanding that one day the Imperium would come calling.

That's mentioned a few times, isn't it? Once at Beauniture for certain.

That's also another reason why I believe makers aren't "Santa Claus" machines, that they're constrained in some manner and sometimes constrained by deliberate design.

Think about it for a moment. It's M:0, Cleon's coup occurred a couple years ago, you're Eneri J. Shugilii of the brand spanking new IISS, you're more than a sector "over the border", and you've just identified a family of oligarchs on Arglebargle-IX capital of the small Bargleargle pocket empire. Your mission is going to give them Fusion+ so they can spark an economic boom, seize/cement their control, and then hand the whole enchilada over to the Imperium in return for a dukedom when the gang from Sylea comes knocking in a generation or three.

Are you going to give a device which can manufacture every technological marvel available to the Third Imperium from spinal mounts to PGMP-12s to orbital nuclear whoopee cushions?

Or are you going to give them a machine which is constrained by both it's programming and it's physical nature to manufacture only what is necessary for a Fusion+ infrastructure plus a carefully selected number of geegaws?

I believe makers are and can be constrained not only by their programming, but also by their physical nature and available inputs. I also believe there are specialized makers which "feed" other makers. Look at the previously mentioned computer chips for example.

Let's say a maker can produce a tablet without the processor in X minutes. The same maker can build the needed processor in 2X minutes meaning a complete tablet would require 3X minutes to manufacture.

Let's also say a "dedicated", "oriented", "specialized", or whatever maker can make the same processor in X minutes. That maker could then "feed" the first to produce a tablet every X minutes.

Of course I could, as usual, be talking through my hat or out of a certain orifice. It's just that, while I like the idea of makers very much, I don't want them be Santa Claus machines or even replicators.