Mongoose Needs Your Help!

[MongooseMatt]

Hey guys,

I come cap in hand to the veteran Travellers. . .

At the moment, we are developing some Traveller software. The first is a funky interface for Library Data - nothing spectacular from a technological point of view, but you can have a small laptop/netbook sitting on the table, and players can access it as if they were using as library program in the game. A cute prop, and useful to players who are unaware of every aspect of the OTU.

Now, the data will be fully customisable, allowing you to add your own entries (or even create your own library - we may well do one for Mega-City One, for example, representing what players can access on Barney and MAC), but we want to supply the program with a full set of official Library Data for the OTU.

Now, we have access to all the books containing librata data, of course, but our electronic library is not up to scratch - in other words, not all our files are OCR'd. And I don't feel like typing everything out again

Fortunately, the Traveller community has come to our aid, as much (all?) of this library data has already been put on various web sites.

My question is this;

Which web sites can I trust for verbatim entries of library data? I don't want to pinch anyone else's hard work, but I am quite happy to utilise someone who has Traveller copyrighted material on their site

By the same token, if anyone has compiled any of their own library data that is nonetheless official information and wishes to donate it to the project, drop me a line at msprange@mongoosepublishing.com. As always, full credit will be given!

 

[Gallowglacht]

http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Traveller_Wiki

Like this one? It lists sources and I think is full of official stuff.

 

[MongooseMatt]

http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Traveller_Wiki

Like this one? It lists sources and I think is full of official stuff.

Can anyone confirm the authenticity of this data? Should it be trusted?

 

[Gallowglacht]

I'm not sure how you would confirm it's authenticity, it's a wiki, but it is used by fans, would be corrected by fans and claims to copy direct from official sources with the publishers permission.
The only way to be sure would be to check everything against the primary sources and by that stage you may aswell just take those sources and put them online personaly.

For example the bottom of the K'kree page lists;

This article was copied or excerpted from the following copyrighted sources and used under license from Far Future Enterprises and by permission of the author.
– Supplement 8 Library Data (A-M)
– K'kree (Alien Module)
– GURPS Traveller: Alien Races 2

Any source you take online will be subject to the same doubt, concerns of how much is added personal stuff etc. I think this is as good as you are likely to get.

The only way to be sure of official accuracy is to go through Marc Millar for stuff from CT, MT, TNE, T4, SJ Games for Gurps and so on.
Does your licence let you use stuff from older editions verbatim. If so copy paste stuff from FFE PDF's

I honestly have no idea if that is helpfull, but I'm trying to be...

 

[Sturn]

Can anyone confirm the authenticity of this data? Should it be trusted?

I think in the Traveller community it is the premier source of Traveller information. At least it is for me. "rancke" of this forum is one of the editors of the site if not an administrator?? He is a published Traveller author, Hans Rancke-Madsen. The entries typically have their sources listed. As for "verbatim" wording of library entries, it probably varies from entry to entry.

Rancke is probably who you need to contact.

 

[Sylvre Phire]

Matt--

I second the advice of getting a hold of the canon materials (JTAS, CT, MT, etc.) on CDROM and in hardcopy. Use that as your foundation and build upon it with GURPS Traveller, the Traveller wiki and Traveller Downport as the license from Marc Miller allows. That is what we're doing here at Hell Creek. You may also want to get a hold of back issues of Challenge and consult the canon lists provided by Marc in the reprints as to what articles in Challenge are held as canon.

Pax et bonum,

Dale Meier
Creative Director
Hell Creek Sanitarium
Omaha, NE

 

[rancke]

Can anyone confirm the authenticity of this data? Should it be trusted?

Not in the way you want. It's a collective effort to integrate all the available canonical knowledge (as well as to add material to fill in the cracks[*]). As such, we try to iron out discrepancies and self-contradictions, which means that on occasions the result is different from any of the bits of "parent" information. We also try to include a metainfo link that explains what is canon, what is interpretation, and what is non-canon, but we don't always remember.

[*] If you can use that term for the vast amount of information that hasn't been dealt with in canon.​

Also, sometimes two contributors come up with extrapolations that go in different directions. When that happens, we usually include both versions.

It would take active review by an editor to use the Traveller wiki as a source of canonical material.


Hans

 

[rust]

It would take active review by an editor to use the Traveller wiki as a source of canonical material.

When thinking about someone able to deal with the inherited problems of
Traveller's various versions of canon and to define a "core" of Traveller ca-
non for Mongoose Traveller, I somehow end up looking at you.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

This may be an odd view of things, but would you want all of the Library Data to be canonically correct? Including some entries which are questionable (and noted as questionable) will generate discussion and maybe even adventure ideas.

 

[rancke]

This may be an odd view of things, but would you want all of the Library Data to be canonically correct? Including some entries which are questionable (and noted as questionable) will generate discussion and maybe even adventure ideas.

It's not odd at all. Library Data are viewpoint writing, and as such may be faulty for a variety of reasons (including The Ulane Hoax ). On the other hand, most enclopedia publishers nowadays try to check their facts, and I don't suppose those of the Far Future would be any different, so most errors should be there for a reason. The connection between the Ancients and the Droyne, for instance, was originally no more than one of several rival theories; the tendency of post-CT authors to treat is as a generally held view is due to that pernicious phenomenon that I call Canon Creep. Likewise, the relationship between Droyne and Chirpers is generally held to be no closer than that of Humans and Chimpanzees (see the LD entry about Chirpers in Research Station Gamma), and Grandfather is merely an obscure Droyne myth.

A good library data collection (Library Data Done Right, so to speak) should definitely have some errors and misunderstandings of that kind, but it should also include a Referee's Section with The Truth expressed in the Authorial Voice for the benefit of referees.

LDDR would be an interesting book, one I wish Mongoose would publish. It wouldn't contain every single canonical LD entry regardless of interest simply because it existed, and it wouldn't leave out major entires simply because no one has yet written them up. No, it would have a judicious selection of entries based on their general interest and relevance. There'd be an entry about Charted Space, and about each major empire, one about each domain, one about half a dozen of the Imperial sectors(Core, Solomani Rim and Spinward Marches among them, of course), and so on. It wouldn't have an entry for Akerut, but it would have one about Tukera Subsidiaries that explains the typical relationship and mentions Tukera's habit of naming their subsidiaries with anagrams, such as Akerut, Ekatur, and Keratu[*]. There'd be a timeline that didn't include every single canonical date, but rather the 60 or 70 most important dates (from the point of view of someone living in the Classic Era Imperium).

No doubt a sizable percentage of all canonical LD would be usable for such a book, but the selection criteria would be "because it fits" and not "because it's there".

I'd buy such a book.



Hans

[*] Fun fact: There are 287 possible names for Tukera subsidiaries (more if you allow two consonants or two wovels side by side), which is pretty close to the number of Imperial subsectors. If Tukera has a few subsidiaries that cover more than one subsector (and/or don't cover every single subsector), they can just manage to cover the entire Imperium. If you allow names like Kratue and Autrek, they can easily cover places across the border too.​

 

[aramis]

As a GM, I don't want erroneous library data. Or, if there is, a GM section delineating what is and is not accurate.

 

[rancke]

As a GM, I don't want erroneous library data. Or, if there is, a GM section delineating what is and is not accurate.

I'm in complete agreement, as I also stated in my previous post. But some entries should be wrong. The entry for Imperiallines shouldn't be "Imperium-wide covert courier network owned by the Emperor", should it? It should be something like "Sector-wide transport company in Spinward Marches owned by various trust funds..." With two or three similar entries for its counterparts in other sectors (Core Carriers in Core, Khugishu Bilanidin in Vland, Corridor Caravels in Corridor, Bright Star Lines in Deneb, etc.[*]). And then a "Hidden Truth" entry for the referee explaining how it all works.

[*] NB! None of these are canonical, although John G. Wood did create Bright Star Lines in one of his JTAS Online articles. But TTA expressly states that Imperiallines is merely the Spinward Marches branch of the setup, with counterparts in the other sectors. Whoever wrote up Imperiallins for MT got it wrong (And in this case I don't think it was a deliberate change ).​

Hans

 

[aramis]

I'm in complete agreement, as I also stated in my previous post. But some entries should be wrong. The entry for Imperiallines shouldn't be "Imperium-wide covert courier network owned by the Emperor", should it? It should be something like "Sector-wide transport company in Spinward Marches owned by various trust funds..." With two or three similar entries for its counterparts in other sectors (Core Carriers in Core, Khugishu Bilanidin in Vland, Corridor Caravels in Corridor, Bright Star Lines in Deneb, etc.[*]). And then a "Hidden Truth" entry for the referee explaining how it all works.

[*] NB! None of these are canonical, although John G. Wood did create Bright Star Lines in one of his JTAS Online articles. But TTA expressly states that Imperiallines is merely the Spinward Marches branch of the setup, with counterparts in the other sectors. Whoever wrote up Imperiallins for MT got it wrong (And in this case I don't think it was a deliberate change ).​

Hans

If it isn't there'd better be such a notation in the Ref's LD section.

 

[Brian Blank]

Matt,

I agree with what all the other members here on the boards have said. Use the FFE CD-ROMS for your primary data source and work with Marc on the rest.

While you are about it, a program like that for the players that have iPhone/iTouch would be nice too.

Just my two cents in.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your help - we now have a working solution to all of this, and you should see the fruits soon!