Low Passage and Ageing

[BackworldTraveller]

It isn't explicit, but do sophonts in Low Passage berths age? I realise time passes, but if you go in at 26 years and 6 months and 1 week do you emerge at 26 years and 6 months and 1 week (subjective) but 26 years and 6 months and 2 weeks (objective)?

If so, what is the cumulative effect during character generation? Presumably not too great of the ageing rolls would start to shift.

I could see that some careers might have different impacts. Wanderer might move by 4-16 weeks over a 4 year term. Marines might shift by nearly a year in a 4 year term if they spend a lot of time as ships troops. Nobles are probably immune to differences from that source.

Any ideas?

 

[mike wightman]

Weeks spent in low berth do not count towards your age.

A 24 year old could spend forty years in cold berth and now be 24 just forty years into the future.

In some situations, the use of drugs (to speed up or slow down the body chemistry) or low passage (suspended animation for low cost travel) will make the character age faster or slower than a strict game calendar would indicate.
It is therefore quite important that each player maintain careful records on his or her character's physical age.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

So a Marine doing ship's troops duty for 4 terms could plausibly be just 30 (subjective) not 34...and thus not have to make aging rolls until term 5!...and she get to watch her children grow up even faster than normal!

 

[Proneutron]

It isn't explicit, but do sophonts in Low Passage berths age?
Any ideas?

Book 2 Starships: page 5 , "The passenger is placed in a low passage berth before the ship takes off, and travels the entire journey in a state of suspended animation. He does not age,"

 

[Condottiere]

And become a queen mother.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

All of which brings me back to the underlying question...how much "Not Aging" should you accumulate during the character generation terms? Some sort of guide-stick would be useful. (And Yes, I can and will just make it up as I go along in the absence of any)

 

[GypsyComet]

The careers (and events in Mongoose) which use it should indicate the degree of age displacement. If they don't, any displacement is under a year.

IIRC, Navy and Marines on Frozen Watch are rotated yearly, so you'd have to roll the assignment repeatedly under CT/MT Advanced to displace by an entire term over a career.

 

[aramis]

The careers (and events in Mongoose) which use it should indicate the degree of age displacement. If they don't, any displacement is under a year.

IIRC, Navy and Marines on Frozen Watch are rotated yearly, so you'd have to roll the assignment repeatedly under CT/MT Advanced to displace by an entire term over a career.

It's worth noting that 1 FW assignment allows 5 term retirement but rolling only term 4 aging saves... I've seen players specifically & intentionally draw FW assignment via brownie points...

 

[willtron3030]

Identification might need separate fields for sidereal and subjective ages? Granted, the first is easily calculated from date of birth.

It might be a more common thing when NAFAL travel was a dominant mode of travel.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

It might be a more common thing when NAFAL travel was a dominant mode of travel.

I'd doubt it - Many more people travel Low Passage each day in the 3rd Imperium than ever travelled near the speed of light in earlier times.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Identification might need separate fields for sidereal and subjective ages? Granted, the first is easily calculated from date of birth.

Exactly. A person who has been a low-passage traveller might reach 38 years (objective) between 4 months and 4 years before they do so subjectively. It makes little difference in character generation unless it's at the upper end of the range or the character is very old. It makes a difference in campaign play.

 

[Condottiere]

I doubt it.

What happens if you go to a spa and have your cells regenerated?

What you might have is similar to today, known aliases and appearances, including stuff like moles and tattoos.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

I doubt it.

What happens if you go to a spa and have your cells regenerated?

What you might have is similar to today, known aliases and appearances, including stuff like moles and tattoos.

If you regenerate enough cells the moles and tattoos vanish?

And DNA reprofiling may make even DNA a useless marker for identity

 

[Condottiere]

Cosmetic and plastic surgery is likely to ensure that you can look however you want.

So identification will likely include residual traces like isotopes attach themselves to your skeletal structure, that might also be effected by environmental and genetic factors, probably to the point of the sub atomic level.

Perhaps each individual has a quantum tone that's unique.

 

[Garnfellow]

Identification might need separate fields for sidereal and subjective ages? Granted, the first is easily calculated from date of birth.

It might be a more common thing when NAFAL travel was a dominant mode of travel.

There are several other canon ways to get divergence between sideral and subjective ages. Traveller⁵ gives rules for Relicts, clones of individuals with taped memories, activated upon the death of the original. Agent of the Imperium describes one: "Force Commander Hirono was a clone; he looked twenty but had the experience of twice as many years."

 

[Grav_Moped]

If you regenerate enough cells the moles and tattoos vanish?

And DNA reprofiling may make even DNA a useless marker for identity

Or, based on anagathics rules, you get a new, different set of moles...

 

[BRover]

Or, based on anagathics rules, you get a new, different set of moles...

No doubt "other" career . . .

 

[whartung]

The question is in what situations do people spend large chunks of time in low passage.

Consider, say, a "traveling salesman" who traveled twice a month. 6 months in cold sleep.

Do that for 5 years and it's a notable difference.

Is that realistic though? Certainly not in early Traveller, they wouldn't survive that many trips through low passage. More modern systems have much better survivability.

It's hard to imagine keeping troops in watch for long periods of time. I would think they would just develop a disassociative disorder being "away" for all that time.

I would think the closest we have to it today would be boomer crews sitting in the ocean for 2 months at a time.

 

[GypsyComet]

It's worth noting that 1 FW assignment allows 5 term retirement but rolling only term 4 aging saves... I've seen players specifically & intentionally draw FW assignment via brownie points...

CT HG doesn't mention it in character generation that a quick search turns up, but it is a Special Assignment in MT Advanced (that you have to go to errata to find, IIRC). One year assignment, and it confirms that aging is offset by a year.

One such assignment will delay the aging roll by a year, in theory, of play calendar time. It could be less if there was down time between service and play.

 

[Straybow]

Traveller introduces a rather steep aging curve, which seems a poor fit for nutrition, medical science, and biotech three millennia beyond our own. I would argue for significantly expanded youthful vigor and overall life expectancy even without anagathics.

If you could extend each decadal characteristics by five years, you'd have teen-like resilience until 25, twenties-like peak until 40, thirtysomething okay-ness until 55, forties-ish can-almost-keep-up-but-beat-the-youngsters-with-experience until 70, fifties I-can-teach-you-whippersnappers-a-thing-or-two until 85. Retirement age might be 100 (equivalent to 70), just to make it a round number, but lots of folks would still be able in mind and body to work until 115 or so.

I can't see how three millennia would fail to get us there.