Lucan's fate?

[Blue Ghost]

Condotierre ... you did that on purpose.

Nathan; well, to me it sounds like Rebellion was a key turning point in OTU canon, because we went from a very vanilla flavored geopolitical intrigue with a disgruntled nephew making a power grab and a civil war raging out of control because of that, to a Lucan who takes on Magneto like dimensions and then some.

Either way it doesn't sound like Cyberdemon DOOM-ish Lucan can be taken on by an intrepid gang of eight spacers in a scout ship armed with ACRs, a couple of laser rifles, a shot gun, and an electronic's kit.

If you lasso a K'Kree with a synthetic nylon rope from Imperial or Vargr space, will it shout "It burns!"? One wonders.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

YEAR 1212: THE VINDICATION OF MIKE WHITMAN ! :rofl:
So by 1212 Lucan brings a few fleets with his persona loaded in all the dreadnoghts. The Vilani gets some help from nearby areas (Vargr, The Regency after their 1st civil war, the newly formed Usdiki Trade Coalition), but it is not enough. While one of the Lucans is ranting about how its their fault for not send the Vland Sector Fleet back during the Rebellion ( ! jeez he really is crazy) The Scouring begins. He's checking boxes. Shadow Emperor dead. The bureau head escape darn. Cities nuked. Military bases nuked to bedrock. Thousands of robot warbots sent down to eliminate suvivors. Its good to be Emperor!
Suddenly there is an earthquake that shakes the whole planet...THEN HELL BREAKS LOOSE (I cant do it justice, I will quote the author)...

In fact, the tremors came from a different source. Long ago, Vland had been a battleground for war machines built by the Ancients. They lay buried, apparently devoid of power. But at least one retained a tiny reserve and now, interpreting the nearby nuclear explosions as an attack, freed itself from its earthy prison and fought back. The war machine was badly damaged, and had deteriorated during its 30,000 years under the ground. It had only a fraction of its firepower remaining, and little power in its cells. But it was the size of a small city, and armed with weapons undreamt of by the most inspired of human scientists.
Rising into the air, the war machine laid into the bombarding fleet with disintegrator weapons, super-energized particle beams and what are variously claimed as ‘Jumpspace Projectors’ and ‘Focused Gravity Weapons’. These were the more comprehensible of its systems. In many cases warships simply exploded or split apart without the machine apparently doing anything.

Hilarity ensues... MJD did not make these up These war machines have been referenced before in Traveller.... and since in Agent of the ImperiumAnywho, Lucan's fleets are destroyed. The machine runs out of power and falls to the ground. But before that...

47 minutes after the first tremor, the machine ceased firing and began slowly descending. It then accelerated rapidly upwards, and according to some witnesses collided with three warships at once. These warships were widely separated; there was no way for the machine to contact all of them, yet it somehow managed to be in three places at once.

Now that is over the top!

 

[Nathan Brazil]

So Lucan sent a LOT of ships, all but a few destroyed. The last ships flee with the Vilani in vengeance mode. Vland technically is not fully scoured (the atmo and hydro codes have not changed much, the the population code I estimate to be a 0, 1 or 2.

So why is mike whitman vindicated? Look at these three maps:
Golden Age Map with Empress Wave position in the year 1212, TNE 1201 Map (current) with Empress Wave position in the year 1212 and TNE 1248 Map (current) with Empress Wave position in the year 1212
This is where canon, as it currrently is written and analyzed by myself, really starts the head scratching. While the Wave has not touched Lucan's Black Curtain he can have revenge and Usdiki might be intact to send ships to Vland also, can the Vargr or the Regency? The Wave just pinched off Corridor. so ships have to at least hit with Wave in crossing, but with the new deadly Empress Wave, no.
Going back a step could Vland have sent a fleet to Sylea? Not if the Wave is that bad. They will be in panic mode trying to save their empire. So no revenge activated. Going further back could the Vilani been at war with the Regency? Probably not. So no Scouring of Vland WAAAA! I feel sad. 1248 is my favorite setting. But the Empress Wave hits Vland 3 years later. Yea! Bye Bye Vland!:devil:
BUT
Could the Vilani have formed their new Empire in the 1180s as the book describe? YES. The Regency was in full Quarantine mode. Given the other factors, only a horde of Vargr fleeing the Wave might prevent this.
Could Lucan be uploaded and go Viral? YES.

 

[aramis]

So Lucan sent a LOT of ships, all but a few destroyed. The last ships flee with the Vilani in vengeance mode. Vland technically is not fully scoured (the atmo and hydro codes have not changed much, the the population code I estimate to be a 0, 1 or 2.

So why is mike whitman vindicated? Look at these three maps:
Golden Age Map with Empress Wave position in the year 1212, TNE 1201 Map (current) with Empress Wave position in the year 1212 and TNE 1248 Map (current) with Empress Wave position in the year 1212
This is where canon, as it currrently is written and analyzed by myself, really starts the head scratching. While the Wave has not touched Lucan's Black Curtain he can have revenge and Usdiki might be intact to send ships to Vland also, can the Vargr or the Regency? The Wave just pinched off Corridor. so ships have to at least hit with Wave in crossing, but with the new deadly Empress Wave, no.
Going back a step could Vland have sent a fleet to Sylea? Not if the Wave is that bad. They will be in panic mode trying to save their empire. So no revenge activated. Going further back could the Vilani been at war with the Regency? Probably not. So no Scouring of Vland WAAAA! I feel sad. 1248 is my favorite setting. But the Empress Wave hits Vland 3 years later. Yea! Bye Bye Vland!:devil:
BUT
Could the Vilani have formed their new Empire in the 1180s as the book describe? YES. The Regency was in full Quarantine mode. Given the other factors, only a horde of Vargr fleeing the Wave might prevent this.
Could Lucan be uploaded and go Viral? YES.

The Ziru Sirkaa was formed by 1120... See MT RM and MT RSB, as well as MT V&V. The Domain of Vland redefined itself as the Ziru Sirkaa about the time the order to withdraw the imperial fleets.

 

[Blue Ghost]

....


I feel like the little kid who goes to his uncle or grandpa and asks "Daddy, who is Lucan, and did he ever die?" And then my familial unit launches into his post doctorate thesis on cyber threat history.

You know, this is a lot different from Nomads of the Ocean World, Mission on Mithril, or Death Station. I'm just trying to figure out that with all of the mega-threat ultra-tech hardware, how PCs are expected to cope with a meglomaniacal paranoid uploaded to a fleet of DNs and BBs.

Ref; "Okay, you exit jump into the Black Imperium. There's a one in one-million chance that you won't be detected, but you'll need to roll a million ones on a die."
Player; "Heh, no sweat."

*first roll is a one*

Player; "See? Watch me roll another."

*second roll is a three*

Ref; "Unfortunately the super-sleek super-star-destroyer like ship locks onto your antiquated type-S, and you are now a cloud of disassociated particles forming a very transparent, barely visible, and extremely small by astronomy standards, a quaint little nebula. Lucan, in his mania, etches a smiley face in the cloud.: ---->

Seriously, I haven't read much of TNE, though it does sound very interesting. I guess my perspective is that I thought that "mega stories" about super beings, cybernetic stuff, and what have you, was missing from CT, but it sounds like TNE brings it into the OTU and suddenly players find themselves living in interesting times.

Wow. Truly that's just out there. Worthy of a classic Star Trek episode kind of stuff.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The Ziru Sirkaa was formed by 1120... See MT RM and MT RSB, as well as MT V&V. The Domain of Vland redefined itself as the Ziru Sirkaa about the time the order to withdraw the imperial fleets.

THAT Ziru Sirkaa fell apart because of Virus. Vland itself fell in 1144 to Virus. It took until 1160 to cleanse the planet. They started over and by reunited their systems reestablishing their borders by 1185 this time calling themselves the New Ziru Sirka (Out of Darkness pg, 41)

The Vilani are nothing if not stubborn if a bit unimaginitive...

 

[mike wightman]

TNE had a couple of design goals from the outset:
update the sci in the sci-fi to the 1990s - AIs, robots, cyborgs (I maintain they have been there ever since MWM wrote his Robots articles for JTAS but I digress)
make more of the psionics in the setting - hence the Empress Wave
move the rules to the latest version of the GDW house system.

My favourite Traveller (any edition) supplement has to be Hard Times; its bleak, desolate vision of the final years of the Imperium and the sheer scope for PC scale adventure is unrivaled. TNE, to me, took that and changed it into a setting of hope, rebuilding, exploration and discovery. This is why I like TNE - that and some of my second favourite supplements are TNE - FF&S, Path of Tears, Smash and Grab.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, it's interesting to read the responses. Just reading the stuff here, to me, it seems like Traveller is kind of amorphous in its setting.

When I first read the rules in the starter edition I did scratch my head about starship computers (which we've discussed many times in years past), a lack of cyborg stuff, and just lots of things that probably are framed from a 1950s 1960s scifi era, but presented for a 70s crowd.

It did seem like the game and setting were being held back by a lack of tech exploration and perhaps even innovation. I'm glad it's thriving still after all these years, and it sounds like the update on Lucan and everything else fits in with todays younger scifi fans, or at least a late 80s late 20th century scifi type.

Wow, interesting. Thanks for the responses. I'm seeing my favorite scifi RPG in a whole new light.

 

[mike wightman]

There are very simple explanations for lack of obvious robots and clever computers in the 1105 OTU:

first - the conservatism of the Vilani made its way to the 3I after all

The Vilani explored space lots, first STL and later using their jump drive. They encountered wonders above their TL but what gave them their advantage was their FTL technology. They advanced from TL9 to TL11 over a few thousand years, but then deliberately stopped their technological climb - despite them knowing that higher TL wonders are available.
Reason - they are terrified of intelligent machines, transhumanism (wafer tech?) and the potential such a technological advance would have of 'waking the demons'

second - the 3I OTU is told very much from the Imperial point of view.

While the Terrans of old Earth were quite happy to quickly steal info to climb to TL12 and defeat the TL11 first Imperium, they were also quite happy to open the Pandora's box of learning machines. The ROM may well have advanced on some worlds to TL13 or 14 before its fall, and the learning machines built during the later part of the ISW went along with the Terrans into the old First Imperium. After the long night those learning machines are nowhere to be found...
When Sylea finally declares the Third imperium they have fusion+, jump 3, learning machines...
When the Third Imperium absorbs the old Vilani worlds the pace of robotic/machine intelligence slows. Robots and computers are deliberately kept dumb.
Move over to Zhodani or Hive Federation space and you find robotic and computer systems that are banned within the Imperium.

third - there are computer controlled machines all over the 3I setting, we just don't recognise them as robots, much like today. Self driving cars, planes on autopilot etc are both technically robots, and how many people are starting to anthropomorphise Siri, Cortana, Alexa etc? This despite them being learning algorithms programmed with a cute voice and modicum of emotion simulation.

Going back to Star Wars for a moment - why do we care for R2D2, C3PO, K2SO and BB8, and yet the robotic soldiers of the trade federation and Empire are just as 'intelligent' but we couldn't care less about them?

 

[Blue Ghost]

From all of my gaming sessions it was a given that "replicants" and HAL9000 computers were around, and for our early groups, since we were being taught how to code on the first Apples around 78 or 79 at the local middle school, it was our grade school and pre-teen thinking that those things were around, and that the rules regarding the bulk of starship computers and lack of robots had some logic to it somewhere....some meta reason, or something that would be revealed in a later supp.

Truth be told, having read lots of DC Legion of Superheros and the like, and seeing the first Star Wars umpteen times, I personally was tired of "save the universe" plots, and tired of super-high tech "you can't beat me unless you're really powerful" plots Star Trek leaned towards. So when I picked up Traveller proper, instead of just breezing through the LBBs on the rack at the back of the game store, and delved into the loosely defined background, it was a real relief and refreshing.

Of course the contrapositive is that Lucan, as the game's official background stands today, is essentially a supervillain...beyond Marvel's Ultron and into Galactus territory. Which I think is interesting. I have to admit that for me it does take some of the shine and gleam off the old game that I knew because the OTU has these comicbook like hyper-threats.

On the upside it does allow for some more fantastical scifi staples to get thrown in there, which is a good thing.

DC and Marvel both in the late 80s put out their "who's who" and "guide to" comics regarding characters and setting. If Marc Miller ever does the like for Traveller, then I can see Lucan's entry as having relatively humble beginings, and then morphed into a digitized demon causing all kinds of havoc.

Interesting. Thanks for that. I have a better picture of the current "state of the Imperium", so to speak.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Apologies here, I hope I didn't sound condescending, but reading my response I can see how I may have come across that way. Sorry about that. It's just that here in the Bay Area, by virtue of being in the Bay Area, we had a sampling of computer technology.

It really didn't effect how we played with Traveller, because it was still a great game, and still is. But, in hindsight, I'm thinking that computer tech was seen written and seen through a 1960s kind of lens, where huge tape reel to reel IBM mainframes that took up an office floor were what people thought of as computers.

So, to see personae like Lucan get a super-villain facelift, and seeing all the other tweaks that the OTU background has gone through, things make more sense.

In fact MT and Rebellion now make more sense in hindsight, and a lot of other things. Thanks again. Very insightful replies.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Yea ok maybe just a little.:coffeesip:

Naw, its ok. After having a long reputation of being THE stodgy realistc sci-fi RPG, now all these elements disrupting is jarring. Depends on how much you are into the game. In my case, I have most of the published Traveller books and have seen a lot of minor and major weirdness. What is your collection like. I know you do mot have 1248. BTW the 1248 CDROM is on the Farfuture website.

 

[Blue Ghost]

My collection...erm, at one point the only CT supps I was missing were Robots, Darriens, I think Hivers, Striker (the infamous Striker, I'll add, as I keep hearing about it on this forum ), Flaming Eye (which I bought off ebay), and about ... eh, just under half of the T4 books.

So yeah, this new D.C. Comic-ified version of Lucan is a kind of culture shock. But younger players come in and expect that kind of thing, I guess. They want Guardians of the Galaxy when I'm putting around in Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon land.

Look, as entertaining as your posts are, and I've had a blast reading them, and others, ... it's like, yeah, wafer DOOM like Cyber-Demon Lucan is a bit out of my experience.

Heh, 2005, I'm sitting at the SFSU Student Union jotting down some adventure concepts after talking with Hunter, and I still have SMGs, Laser Rifles and scout ships in my head. But it's like to put it in D&D speak, CT PCs are level 1 types, and wafer-BB Lucan is like a 20th level "god" or something. Well, I think I'll stick with fan fic for the time being o: