BMonnery wrote:
"I wondered if the base the SS 49-er encountered might be to do with them...."
Mr. Monnery,
Well, the adventure certainly hints at that being a possible solution, but I for one would be hesistent about ascribing even an occasional unknown artifact and/or base in 2300AD to the Medusae or their Enemy. It, IMHO, smacks too much of Star Blecch's wretched "Mysterious Aliens or Borg of the Week" plot crutch.
Besides, if memory serves, the Medusae scout's corpse was well over 200K years old. Would a hidden planetoid base that old be able to perform neurosurgery on a species it had never encountered? Give the SS-49er adventure a reality check and it becomes less silly; The base isn't some long abandoned alien construct, it's a Provolution hideout and the survivors only think it is alien because that is what the Provos programmed them to think.
Traveller developed Grandfather and the Ancients as a nifty deep background mystery. Sadly, they also immediately became THE easy plot device. Everything weird, wonderous, or just plain bizarre in the OTU got pinned on Gramps and his kiddies until they became little more than a joke. Abandoned alien base? Ancients! Strange moon with an atmosphere it can't hold? Ancients! Socks missing from the dryer? Ancients! Ancients? Ho-hum (yawn).
I can just hear a similar refrain beginning in 2300AD; Socks missing from the dryer? Medusae and the Enemy! (yawn) Do you think the setting would be any better for it?
Mysteries are supposed to be... well, mysterious! Scatter too many clues and too many examples around and they become commonplace. Let's leave the Medusae to mankind's single encounter with them and keep them delightfully mysterious. 2300AD will thank us for it.
Sincerely,
Larsen
P.S. BTW, that SS-49er adventure has a distinct Star Blecch odor to it. Stealing brains and turning people into cyborgs, sheesh. Must be Borg... (ahme) I mean Medusae!