Milieu Overview?

[robject]

I'd like to write a milieu overview, that tells people what the setting is like, contrasts it with the OTU, and offers some context for it. I'm thinking about something like:

The Grand Imperium

An alternate time period starting in 1116. It is, for all intents and purposes, a continuation of the Golden Era setting, with no assassination, no rebellion, and no grinding destructive black war. The timeline officially progresses into the 1140s.

In this overview, TNS entry numbers are referenced in the format [DDD-YYYY], corresponding to the day and year of the referenced entry.

The milieu is informally referred to as TGI (The Grand Imperium), Lorenverse (after Loren Wiseman), LTU (Loren Traveller Universe) and GTU (GURPS Traveller Universe).

• The Golden Era Largely Applies. Unless otherwise noted, states, megacorporations, sophonts, modes of play, ship sizes and rules, and careers are unchanged from the Golden Era. The significant change is Dulinor's assassination and the failure of his assassination attempt.
  
• Assassination of Dulinor. His gig explodes at far orbit over Capital [131-1116], thwarting his own plans to assassinate Strephon.
  
  • Rob's Point of Departure Hypothesis. This un-approved hypothesis is a single point of departure from the OTU. It is that a traitor in Dulinor's inner circle contacted someone in the Imperial household (I suggest Varian) sometime around 200-1115. With a minimum of organization and very few people, Dulinor's shuttle was then sabotaged. This point of departure does not effectively change the OTU until the death of Dulinor.
    
• Potential Meltdown Within the Solomani Confederation. One of the most interesting developments in the Lorenverse timeline is the potential dissolution of the Solomani Confederation, as the inherent tension between strong federalist and independent system factions comes to a head. [080-1117, 119-1117, 189-1117, 008-1119, 029-1119, 049-1119, 140-1119, 050-1121, 156-1121]
  
  
• Lucan and Varian are (effectively) removed from the setting.
  • Varian survives and decides to travel the Imperium incognito [137-1116].
  • Lucan doesn't become emperor (of course). At first he decides to travel like Varian [270-1116], but then is accepted into the Naval Academy [365-1116] and enters under a pseudonym [138-1117].
• Dulinor's daughter takes over his Domain, appointed by Strephon six days after Dulinor's death [137-1116].
  
  
• Avery never exists at all.
  
  
• Virus, while not released due to a War, is still being developed, and is still contained as of 1140 or so.
  
  
• Lords of Thunder can still happen, but no Virus means they never go completely bonkers.
  
  
• TL 16. The Third Imperium officially reaches TL 15 in 1107. Going by T5 and MegaTraveller, the Imperium is in a "Fast" tech progression lane, meaning its transition to TL 16 will take 18 x 1D years. Call it 54 years. That would put official TL16 at 1161. [Knightfall p75. T5 Book 2 p240]
  
  
• The Wave. The Wave is still on schedule to unravel Charted Space. Canonically, the Zhodani knew of the Wave by year 750, but chose to suppress the information. The Vargr Extents will have no such suppression, but will not have a coherent message.
  • Rob's Wave Hypothesis: This un-approved hypothesis is that news of Something Disturbing happening in the Extents begins to filter across the border in the 1120s. By the 1160s the Imperium is as informed as it's going to be -- and perhaps sooner than that.

Largest PC relevant structures -- the same as the Golden Era?
Modes of Play -- unchanged from the Golden Era?
Travel Guidelines -- are there different issues with ships and travel in the Grand Imperium?
Adapting Careers -- the same as the Golden Era?
Equipment Guidelines -- the same as the Golden Era?

 

[robject]

In leaving The Grand Imperium date open-ended, I'm trying to give it maximum flexibility to fit into other timelines in multiple possible ways. While it theoretically could merge with TNE or 1248, TGI in fact is unlikely to "inflect" with the OTU timeline before year 1450.

 

[mike wightman]

Is the wave still a thing in the GT ATU?

And the point of departure has to be pre-1116, although we will never find out what it was.

 

[robject]

Is the wave still a thing in the GT ATU?

That's a good question.

In short: how GTU LTU ATU treats the Zhodani Consulate and the extreme Vargr Extents in the 1130s and 1140s will guide how the Wave is written into my overview. But regardless I think there has to be a note saying "actual events are always up to the referee".

And the point of departure has to be pre-1116, although we will never find out what it was.

Yes, and events had to form to build to the ATU, for sure. The useful and effective point of departure is, however, the one player characters can very easily detect without being directly involved, so Assassination is an ideal handwave.

Just as a TNE point of departure was some time before 1128, but that's not germane.

 

[Garnfellow]

To me, one of the most interesting developments in the Lorenverse timeline is the potential crack-up of the Solomani Confederation, as the inherent tension between strong federalist and independent system factions comes to a head. I'm not sure if the SJG designers were going to show a full on civil war or a slow-rolling dissolution like the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

 

[tjoneslo]

One thing you may want to ask Marc about is what is the precise point of divergence between the OTU and the GTU. According to the SJGames rules of alternate universes there is a single point of divergence. Loren hinted on several occasions there was only one point of divergence, and it wasn't the assassination of Strephon / Dulinor. Depending on why the split took place, it may influence what else has changed.

 

[mike wightman]

I doubt very much if Loren told Marc, no one at SJG appears to know the answer either.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I'd like to write a milieu overview of the LorenVerse. The way I do that is something like:

Maybe it's easiest simply to punt and explain that it is for all intents and purposes simply an extension of the Golden Era. I could offer suggestions on where it *can* end, and potentially dovetail with the OTU, without recommending any particular course of action.

Sooo.... if this is not simply a writing exercise, who is the audience and what is the purpose of the communication?

If this is simply an information overview to relative newcomers of what GT was/is, you might not want to get into all the grognardy minutiae of the differences of the future(s) and reconciliation of timelines. Throw in a sentence or two of the original real world desire for players to continue to The Grand Imperium vs. The Assassination ("it didn't sit well with many players" or some such) and leave it at that.

If this is more, say an opinion piece on where and how you want the future(s) to reconcile, then write away. But that seems much more more than your original outline.

 

[daryen]

No one knows what the point of divergence is, but it doesn't really matter. The noticeable divergence point was when Dulinor's shuttle exploded. The most logical "real" point of divergence is what *caused* the shuttle to explode. So, for example, if he had a loyalist in his cadre, then the divergence was that loyalist's decision to blow up the shuttle, rather than sticking with the plan. But that's the smallest point. It could be much, much larger where you find out that pretty much *everyone* in his conspiracy betray him to save the Imperium. But, regardless, what it is becomes rapidly moot as the Dulinorites are cleaned out and the loyalists take over. (And, whichever side she was on, his daughter sucks it up and players her part. It's a pretty sweet gig, and even if she was in on it, she's the one given a pass.) So unless the actual divergence point is something way more substantial, the specifics don't really matter and everything smooths out pretty quickly and ends up basically the same.

And, as a result of that, everything that we now "know" about in the OTU is still present in TGI. So, the Empress Wave, Strephon's mission, and whatever other little oddities have been retroactively added into the OTU's past, are still there in TGI. So, yes, the Empress Wave is in TGI, even if nothing in TGI says anything about it one way or the other. So, if nothing else, you can merge TGI back into the OTU when the Empress Wave flattens everything. (Not with the recovery, but with the actual flattening or just after.)

As for the properties of TGI itself, is is pretty much just an extension of the Golden Age. The biggest changes I can think of are:
- The potential meltdown of the Solomani Confederation.
- Dulinor's daughter takes over his Domain.
- Avery never exists at all.
- Lord of Thunder can still happen, but no Virus means they never go completely bonkers.

But again, assuming you are going to merge things with the Empress Wave, then you only need to string things along until 1250 before the Empress Wave starts crushing everything.

 

[daryen]

I accidentally tripped across this again, and something else occurred to me.

Since we know everything known (even retroactively) about the Golden Age is the same in the GTU, that means one more thing is the same: the lab that made Virus is still there and still doing its dirty work. While it was Dulinor's assault that caused Virus to be released, there is no reason it couldn't be released for another reason. In that case you don't even need to wait for the Empress Wave to merge the GTU back into the OTU. Just have an incident that causes the Virus to escape and you still get TNE without much difference. Bonus points if the trigger is a state visit by Dulinor's daughter, and she gets shredded by a harvester as a result.

Once the Virus is released, the Imperium is likely to collapse in parts, so it isn't impossible to still end up with various factions of the former Imperium that mimic the structure of the remaining enclaves after the Rebellion. Those enclaves would be formed for a different reason, but they would still be able to exist briefly before finally being crushed by Virus. The Domain of Deneb can still be spared using very similar mechanisms, too, with an advanced warning of the coming wave. Getting the Black Imperium would take a bit more work, but isn't insurmountable. Ooo. Maybe instead of Lucan, make the mad leader of of the Black Imperium an insane Ciencia, driven made by the slaughter of her family and loved ones and the experimentation suffered at the hands of a god-complex Virus. Or keep it Lucan as he was the experimental subject that "survived" the Virus.

Anyway, while it wouldn't be identical, you could basically merge the GTU into the OTU earlier than I was initially thinking by just releasing Virus even without a Rebellion. That means the merge can happen before 1200, if that's what you want.

 

[robject]

Wow, that's a useful observation Mike. More stuff to think about. I wonder what the "funnest" way would be. Probably, GTU is allergic to Virus, so keeping that out is probably a good goal.

I understand that the point of the LorenVerse was to keep the Grand Imperium around longer -- and at least secondarily to avoid Virus -- but The Wave does cap things nicely.

 

[mike wightman]

If Virus was kept in the lab longer then a 'more evolved' version may have been the result...

I also have to wonder if the agent wafers were still around during the rebellion and later Virus.

 

[infojunky]

Ok, dredging up ancient fandom here in the form of the early article on Real Time Traveller, in which one day now is one day in the 1105 timeline. I.e. it and we are only 40 years older.

What can change in the OTU in that timeframe with or without the Rebellion.

The 5th Frontier War is the last war, what are the other changes is the question.

 

[daryen]

Note that when I work "backwards" I am not worried about what is most likely or makes the most sensible. I am worried about finding a plausible path to where I need to be.

In other words, if I want to replicate the effects of Virus without the Rebellion, it doesn't matter what "should" have been. What matters is if the path chosen could happen, even if highly unlikely.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Ok, dredging up ancient fandom here in the form of the early article on Real Time Traveller, in which one day now is one day in the 1105 timeline. I.e. it and we are only 40 years older.

What can change in the OTU in that timeframe with or without the Rebellion.

The 5th Frontier War is the last war, what are the other changes is the question.

I like that vision. In-game date is now 1145 -- what's happened since everyone started going out in to the great big universe back when we were teenagers?

 

[aramis]

One thing you may want to ask Marc about is what is the precise point of divergence between the OTU and the GTU. According to the SJGames rules of alternate universes there is a single point of divergence. Loren hinted on several occasions there was only one point of divergence, and it wasn't the assassination of Strephon / Dulinor. Depending on why the split took place, it may influence what else has changed.

Simply put, for the assassination to not happen and not nearly happen, it has to have been divergent at least several years ahead of the canonical attempt. Why? Because the consipiracy being in place then not going off would require people to not slip up... and not take out Dulinor for leading them on, and the GTU doesn't have a case of a bunch of assassins being arrested. So, the divergence point has to be before Dulinor started recruiting the team and getting the Illellish Guards on Capital rotation.

I suspect, however, the GTU canon is now a closed canon; everything I've seen to date is working from the CT→MT→TNE→ branch or the CT→MGT branch.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, 1105 is 1979, so 2022 is 1148 (dates given in JTAS1 and A:1 Kinunir).
There are some variations on timelines:
Imperium->ISW->CT->GTATU->1148
Imperium->AotI->CT->MT->1148->TNE
(Imperium->AotI)->MgTATU(1105)->5FW->1148

 

[robject]

Until we have a dominant/consensus hypothesis on the seminal event, it's safe to say "1116" with a caveat ("Prior things were put in motion; exactly when and how they differ from the OTU remains to be seen.").

Assuming that Marc has oversight over the LorenVerse, I would say it is not necessarily a closed canon.

 

[robject]

Third edit.

* A footnote on divergence from the OTU. The consensus is that there is a single point of departure in 1115, leading up to the destruction of Dulinor's shuttle. Details are not known, however, and there is no dominant hypothesis, nor is there a consensus on what other effects this point of departure might have created. The setting as a whole does not seem different from the Golden Era, and thus the point of departure seems not to have convincingly changed anything else about the OTU.

 

[whartung]

Just have an incident that causes the Virus to escape and you still get TNE without much difference.

I dunno.

I mean, it can go either way.

One thing that greatly benefited the Virus was the Powers were blasting each other to smithereenies. This gave the Virus ample opportunity to spread and gain critical mass.

In an unshattered Imperium, instead, it could have rallied as a single force better able to confront the Virus.

There would still be some losses early on, no doubt, but you'd have the entirety of the Imperium available to not only fight it, but to repair, restore, and recover from the damage it caused in the first place.

Of course, you could always find some reason that the Virus breaks free and wreaks havoc. Just saying there's a better chance of that not having, and lasting effects being much less.