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General MegaCorps in Traveller

I do appreciate the inherent lack of veracity in using the internet as a primary source.

What is the general guidance on edits to the Wiki?

Is it considered OK to add material that is self generated? If I decided to flesh out a particular star system as part of IMTU, would it be well received as an edit to the Wiki? At what level of craziness is it too much?

Is everything good or is content expected to stay inside some particular set of Traveller rules?

If you are adding material to an existing article, try to make sure that it is "canon-compatible" and harmonizes with the overall flavor of the Charted Space Setting. Use the in-line tags <ref>TEXT HERE</ref> to footnote your material, something like: "non-Canon material contributed by YOUR NAME/USERNAME" or something similar. Make sure you add your username and a nod to you reference edit-material in the Reference Section at the bottom, e.g. "Contributor: USERNAME (Material)".

In general, how well it is received will depend on the quality of the material written, and how well thought out it is, and that it doesn't conflict with clear, widely accepted setting-canon.

Here are some example Wiki Pages with User contributions with footnote attributions as examples (See also the Reference Sources Section at the Bottom of the respective Pages):

Basically, the attitudes toward the wiki and canon that I find annoying fall into two extremes:
  1. The utter minimalist proponent who thinks the wiki should be nothing more than a list of very strict canon statements from a strictly limited list of canon sources, and NOTHING ELSE.
  2. The utter maximalist proponent who thinks that the wiki is a free place for anyone to throw up absolutely anything or any ideas at all without any consideration of effect upon setting or authorial attribution whatsoever - they effectively SPAM the Wiki their own ideas.
In the first case, you might as well just sell or give away a free Alphabetized Searchable PDF and be done with it (and there may in fact be genuine value in and a market for such a document). But both proponents ultimately have the exact same problem, approaching from opposite ends: They think they should control the Setting, and by extension (whether they admit to it or not), that they should decide what should be allowed in other people's campaigns and how other people's campaigns should look.

The 1st group does so by absolutely limiting what other people can see and benefit from, deciding themselves what is and is not allowed to be seen by others. The 2nd group does so by creating such an unattributed mish-mash of stuff that it is not possible to determine what is published and/or approved Setting-Canon, what is 3rd Party Published material for the setting, what is more "general and unspecified non-Canon" and what is pure Fanon (both good and bad). So for the GM who wants to decide how he wants to run his setting canon-wise (strict, semi-strict, loose, etc) and what he wants to allow in his campaign (and what conflicts are going to be created down the line if he does or does not allow something because of future potential canon publications) he is hampered in doing so, and literally anybody can come in with any bad, ill-thought-out ideas and ruin a setting for everybody (or at least a wiki as source for setting-material), because after a while no one can tell what the setting is anymore .

The easiest way to avoid all of those problems is to simply make an in-line reference attribution as I noted above, then everyone is clear what the source is, and they can make their own decisions.

Carefully considering your ideas before you enter something into the wiki in terms of its fit into the overall flavor and feel, as well as the small and large scale ramifications, is the best way to proceed before you make an entry. Ask yourself "Is what I am about to enter adding worth to the Setting in general or as a whole?" "Will it or can it be useful to a general Traveller Setting audience, and improve the setting and wiki for everyone, or just me and my particular campaign?" When writing, try and use an in-Universe "voice" - the Wiki is supposed to be a subscription to the Argushiigi Admegulaasha Bilanidin - the "Vliani Repository of All Knowlege" - the Imperial equivalent of the "Imperial Encyclopedia Galactica". Make your entry sound like an encyclopedia article.
 
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And remember canon is now what Mongoose says it is:
ships must have a conscious being on board or suffer the risk of misjump
personal energy screens (Dune) are available at TL15
all ships now have lifters as well as their m-drive
and lot more fanon made canon ;)
 
That's... okay, do TL-15 starships have screens? Because that tech would surely be useful for them too. Where is this thing to be found?

Personal shields are mentioned in relation to Capital/Sylea in MgT2: Thitd Imperium. And there is no accounting for how the tech might be scaled up to Starships (or G/Carriers or Battledress Augmentation).

Well, in TNE and T4 they probably had contragrav as well as manoeuvre drives, so that's not entirely unprecedented.

Contragrav (Lifters/Z-Drives) and G-Drives and M-Drives (all distinct from Reaction HEPlaR Drives, etc) are in T5 as well. I actuLly don't have a problem with those at all. In fact if you want some flavor, give Early models at TL-9 only partial effectiveness (i.e. only screens 60%, or make the fittings large enough that you can only manage partial screening in many hull configurations).
 
But both proponents ultimately have the exact same problem, approaching from opposite ends: They think they should control the Setting, and by extension (whether they admit to it or not), that they should decide what should be allowed in other people's campaigns and how other people's campaigns should look.
For me, the problem is more one of wanting a wiki to consult to find out what the game designers wrote and instead getting an IMTU entry.

I don't, and never will, run a strict OTU campaign - I'm too much of a Frankengamer for that - but I do appreciate having a common starting point from which to diverge. The Traveller Wiki badly muddies those waters for me.
 
You can get everything (almost) ever produced for classic Traveller by purchasing a few cds/thumb drives from Marc at far Future Enterprises.

Now that Mongoose owns the IP it is up to them if they ever release the CT corpus as freeware (not Mongoose doesn't sell the cd/USB drive compilations, only Marc still does that).

I have plans to purchase a few copies of each cd/USB and make back up personal copies. When I pass it will be up to my daughter what she does with them.
 
For me, the problem is more one of wanting a wiki to consult to find out what the game designers wrote and instead getting an IMTU entry.

I don't, and never will, run a strict OTU campaign - I'm too much of a Frankengamer for that - but I do appreciate having a common starting point from which to diverge. The Traveller Wiki badly muddies those waters for me.
I don't mind IMTU entries, as long as they're clearly described as such in the article.

That thing about having a common starting point is significant. Yes, the notion of having a good chunk of Trexalon's/D268 population having originated on Collace and arriving via Pavabid as resentful refugees explains a bit, and feels like a nice detail. But, it's only my story for it, not anything the original writers (or, these days, Mongoose) intended for it. I'd like to make it available for those who'd like to use it, but also make it clear that you can't expect everyone else to accept it as valid.
 
I don't mind IMTU entries, as long as they're clearly described as such in the article.
Bingo.

That thing about having a common starting point is significant. Yes, the notion of having a good chunk of Trexalon's/D268 population having originated on Collace and arriving via Pavabid as resentful refugees explains a bit, and feels like a nice detail. But, it's only my story for it, not anything the original writers (or, these days, Mongoose) intended for it. I'd like to make it available for those who'd like to use it, but also make it clear that you can't expect everyone else to accept it as valid.
This is a strange hobby in that so many gamers - myself included - want to impact how the game is played by other gamers.

The polite ones exercise that impulse by writing a blog or creating a Discord channel or something.
 
For me, the problem is more one of wanting a wiki to consult to find out what the game designers wrote and instead getting an IMTU entry.

I don't, and never will, run a strict OTU campaign - I'm too much of a Frankengamer for that - but I do appreciate having a common starting point from which to diverge. The Traveller Wiki badly muddies those waters for me.
I am like that, I like to know what the designer(s) intents were then I will carve parts up to match my own likes and dislikes. :)
 
This is a strange hobby in that so many gamers - myself included - want to impact how the game is played by other gamers.

The polite ones exercise that impulse by writing a blog or creating a Discord channel or something.
That is one thing I like about DriveThruRPG. It allows folks to offer their free or very cheap ($1) booklets with their ideas and I know I am picking up someone's house rules or fun ideas. But it is at my leisure when and how much it is introduced into my game.
 
I am like that, I like to know what the designer(s) intents were then I will carve parts up to match my own likes and dislikes. :)
GURPS Traveller introduced a metric buttload* of setting detail to the TU, and a lot of gamers admire it for that.

Most of it drives me up a wall.

For me, it's too orderly, particularly for an 11,000 world star empire with snail's pace comms. My experience of the development of real-world institutions is that they are often chaotic and contradictory, and I don't get enough of that from GURPS, so while I may draw some ideas or inspiration from Ground Forces or First In, they don't necessarily reflect my conception of the Third Imperium.

So yeah, that.

* I use 1.1874 as the Imperial buttload conversion factor, btw
 
GURPS Traveller introduced a metric buttload* of setting detail to the TU, and a lot of gamers admire it for that.

Most of it drives me up a wall.

For me, it's too orderly, particularly for an 11,000 world star empire with snail's pace comms. My experience of the development of real-world institutions is that they are often chaotic and contradictory, and I don't get enough of that from GURPS, so while I may draw some ideas or inspiration from Ground Forces or First In, they don't necessarily reflect my conception of the Third Imperium.
GT is very definitely a 'big government' version of the Imperium. Almost all starports work the same way, there's an actual Imperial Army, and so on.

I'm not a huge fan of it - to me the 'Imperial Army' is what the Imperium calls those forces it has 'Imerialised' in wartime, and thus consists of nobles' household troops and units 'borrowed' from individual worlds. As a result 'army' forces will vary enormously in tech level, training, equipment levels, and capability IMTU. If you want a known (competent) quantity as an Imperial official, you arrange for the Imperial Marines to do the job. Hell, if you ask nicely they might even leave the buildings standing (mostly).
 
GT is very definitely a 'big government' version of the Imperium. Almost all starports work the same way, there's an actual Imperial Army, and so on.

I'm not a huge fan of it - to me the 'Imperial Army' is what the Imperium calls those forces it has 'Imerialised' in wartime, and thus consists of nobles' household troops and units 'borrowed' from individual worlds. As a result 'army' forces will vary enormously in tech level, training, equipment levels, and capability IMTU. If you want a known (competent) quantity as an Imperial official, you arrange for the Imperial Marines to do the job. Hell, if you ask nicely they might even leave the buildings standing (mostly).
I guess the game Imperium influenced my view- jump troops are the marines kicking the door and doing most of the fighting. Regular units are army and more for occupying en masse.
 
There is an effort getting under way on the wiki to more clearly identify IMTU material. It is a mammoth task, due to one prior wiki director actively wanting an undifferentiated melting pot, and there being an immense number of pages in the wiki.

If you find a page that interests you but appears to have odd information incorporated, ask one of the current wiki "staff" to look into it. We're researchers at heart.

There are several ways to designate IMTU material on pages now, so we are unlikely to simply erase such things. One conceit of the wiki is that it is an in-universe body of knowledge, and thus subjective and occasionally wrong. If you find something that is odd, use that caveat in the short term and ask a current staffer if clarification is possible.
 
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