New Major Race: The Veloth

[ShiQiaozhi]

Hallo all,

I present to your kind considerations an idea I've been kicking around for a long time, around a lot of IPs. I discovered Traveller only recently, and this spurred me to adapt and develop this idea. I hope you will appreciate it and give me your thoughts.

The Veloth are a sentient, major race found significantly rimward of the Imperium. They are presently united under a single, relatively strong interplanetary empire called the Ven Aashuuna Sixth Hegemony, which is run by a one-party religious dictatorship. They have only recently expanded far from their home planet, which gives them a strong sense of cultural and political cohesion.

STR 2d6-1
DEX 2d6
END 2d6-1
INT 2d6+1
EDU 2d6+1
SOC 3d6. Veloth use their own, special Status rules amongst themselves. Their SOC is halved when dealing with people outside their Empire.

Physically, the Veloth are unimpressive. They stand at 1.3 to 1.6 meters in height, male or female, and exhibit relatively little sexual dimorphism. They walk on digitigrade legs and have two thumbs on either hand, on opposite sides of their palm. Their blood is haemocyanic and inefficient, making them uncomfortable in low air-pressures. Despite this, they have excellent lower-body strength - a running long-jump over a mid-sized car is entirely within the realm of possibility. However, they are not much more 'agile,' in terms of fine-motor coordination, than humans.

The Veloth home planet, Anem, was the home of several diverse sentient species. It also was once home to an Ancient monument of unknown function, and the sentients of Anem worshipped this monument as a God. The Veloth were the least of these sentients, and were frequently colonized, enslaved, or even eaten by them. During the planet's Iron Age, the Veloth managed to fight back and become the dominant species of the planet, establishing their Third Hegemony and uniting all the Veloth under a single temporal-religious authority. (The first two were more mythological than anything). They destroyed this monument, and declared that 'The Gods' were their enemies, and all their creations had to be destroyed or subverted. Though some Veloth are more religious than others, all of them in some way acknowledge the central war of the universe. On one side are the Veloth, their God - the Liberator - and all their conquests. On the other side is everyone and everthing in the universe.

Thus, their quest began. Though there were frequent interruptions for civil wars and power struggles, the Veloth have expanded like a a patch of weeds from their home planet. The key to their success is their relations with other species. Veloth, you see, occupy no more than 3% of the population of their own Empire. Everyone else is a slave, either of an individual or of the state. When the Veloth encounter a new species, their goal is always the same - to subvert their society and convert their planet into an economic colony, feeding into the vast and highly-planned Veloth machine. The cultures, societies, and languages that they encounter are just obstacles to be steamrolled over.

This system is very, very good to them - the true elites of society live in an opulence far beyond anything humans have, in our time, attained. Unlike many ruling classes, though, the Veloth have a fetishization of business - the measurement of a person's worth is how much money and status they can accumulate. Even lowly Veloth are surrounded by an array of servitors and attendants - bodyguards, valets, mechanics, and laborers, all from a diverse web of peoples who have been bred like racehorses for their specific tasks.

Their system of tyranny has been so effective that many of their subjects wouldn't think of fighting back - everything non-Veloth has been completely erased. Children of conquered races are separated from their parents at birth and raised in camps, growing under the watchful eyes of the Missionary-Priests and learning the culture the Veloth have made for them. Aside from the secretive cabal of Strategic Sophontologists in the capital, almost no Veloth know anything about foreign species and societies. Indeed, the paranoia about foreigners runs so deep that the Veloth have created a special, artificial language - a kind of Esperanto - to use when communicating with them, to keep from having to learn any foreign words or language. This belief is called the 'Pure Mind,' and causes them to viscerally reject everything foreign.

If the Veloth were better at what they did, then they'd be a real threat to the civilizations around them. Their culture encourages them to stick and work together, they believe firmly in the rule of law, they have no large-group loyalties to place above the whole Hegemony, and they prize science and education - they are some of the finest biologists, genetic engineers, and especially terraformers in the galaxy. Their crowning achievement, the vacuum-capable ferrosilicophage lichen, allows them to slowly turn planets with no atmosphere into agricultural worlds. They also have extremely long lifespans, thanks to their medical science, and much of their top leadership is over 500 years old.

Unfortunately, they're reaching their limits. They have just reached TL 13, and their jump technology is stuck at J3. They've expanded as far as they can while still keeping their tight central control. The system that served them well when they lived on 20 planets is beginning to fail now that they're on 200, even if those 200 are close together and only 60 or so are well-populated. They're also at the cusp of social change, as TL13 has not only increased their lifespans but has also increased their birth rates, meaning that the core worlds are having a population explosion and no new jobs are opening up. A huge social clash is on the horizon as the entrenched, conservative elite is under attack from all sides.

Those, in a few paragraphs, are the Veloth. There's more - much much more - but I'd be interested in comments at this point.

 

[Andrew M]

There are some nice ideas here. The co-evolution of several sentients on the same planet is pretty rare. I can't think of another example in Traveller. You definitely want to think through how it happed on Anem. "The Ancients did it." is pretty hackneyed, but perfectly acceptable. It is definitely the kind of thing they would do.

Another big interesting questions are about how they turned the tide and became top species. Was it through war, subversion, the ability to cooperate on a much larger scale than their competitors? Why, when they started to look like a threat, did the dominant species not take steps to eliminate them? How did their psychology lead them to keeping slaves as opposed to genocide?

The ratio of slave owners to slaves among humans has practical limits. 3% slave owners to 97% slaves is extreme. What is it about the Veloth that enables them to subjugate so many sentient beings? Alternatively, what is it about the subject races that they can be controlled so easily? Finally, what are these slaves used for? At TL13 much of the menial labour would be redundant, yes?

A little technical note on Social Status. 3D6 is a broader spread than usual. The UPP stats are generally expected to go from 1 to 15, with a few rare exceptions going above this. If you want to put them on a continuum with the servant races perhaps 2D+3 or 1D+6 would suit your needs better.

Anyway, this looks pretty good so far. I look forward to reading more.

 

[ShiQiaozhi]

Ahh, I'm glad you appreciate it! Let me answer your questions right away.

There are some nice ideas here. The co-evolution of several sentients on the same planet is pretty rare. I can't think of another example in Traveller. You definitely want to think through how it happed on Anem. "The Ancients did it." is pretty hackneyed, but perfectly acceptable. It is definitely the kind of thing they would do.

Ancients did it. I know it's hackneyed, but it suits the rest of their mythology perfectly. I haven't thought of exactly why, but I don't think an exact reason is really necessary. Maybe it was a laboratory planet, or something? But the Ancients were involved in their history; there was a definite Ancient artifact on their planet that they destroyed.

On closer inspection, I realize that destroying an Ancient building with catapults is pretty silly, but it never appears again in their narrative except as a symbol.

Another big interesting questions are about how they turned the tide and became top species. Was it through war, subversion, the ability to cooperate on a much larger scale than their competitors? Why, when they started to look like a threat, did the dominant species not take steps to eliminate them? How did their psychology lead them to keeping slaves as opposed to genocide?

I'll answer the last question first. As slaves, they had been working in mines and plantations for centuries, and the first thing they did when they became masters of their own destiny was declare that they were never going to touch a pick or a plow again. But society needs picks and plows; they needed to find someone else to do it for them. There was also a revenge element there, as well as the way it suited their existing cultural biases - they were a herding society, and were dependant on domestic animals to survive. So it was something they were used to, after a fact.

As for how they became the dominant species, it was a combination of luck, great leadership, and long-term effort. The short answer - the civilization that controlled them (The Urja) became very successful and began to fetishize uselessness, and their elites began to rely more and more on their Veloth to run things for them. When the time was right, they simply rose up and took over. It wasn't just a sudden, violent movement, though; this whole process took a generation and involved a lot of people. They also had the help of other species, but turned around and betrayed them shortly after. It didn't hurt that they had their own Alexander the Great-style philosopher-king helping set up their nascent independant society.

The ratio of slave owners to slaves among humans has practical limits. 3% slave owners to 97% slaves is extreme. What is it about the Veloth that enables them to subjugate so many sentient beings? Alternatively, what is it about the subject races that they can be controlled so easily? Finally, what are these slaves used for? At TL13 much of the menial labour would be redundant, yes?

The answer is different depending on which of their subjects we're talking about. Most of their subjects were simply never very developed - they found a pre-space society, descended from the clouds, and declared that the planet was under new management. There's not much that a TL4 or 5 society can do to fight back against a TL12 or 13 opponent. They also establish local strongmen, of the native race, to do the heavy lifting for them. I suppose it would be better to describe a lot of them as 'client states' rather than 'slaves.'

As for the ones the Veloth take with them to new planets, those who are part of the Hegemony rather than just subjects of it, it's because the Veloth are so invested in them that they've remade their culture to be compliant. Their big 3 - the Najasat, Vuri, and Kayenlang - all have had new, self-sustaining social systems put in place to make them a productive part of society, as well as to give them a stake in it. Among other things, only Veloth have mastered the mystical power of writing, and all others are kept permanently illiterate.

As for the use, Veloth never work with their hands. Even in an interstellar society, there are still plenty of menial or semi-menial jobs that need doing. The Veloth are capitalists, managers, scientists, academics, and military officers. Everything else in society is done by slave labor. That's not to say that the Veloth don't know how it's done; it's just beneath them to actually do it. They also love having people to wait on them. It's not just convenience (or that they consider their subjects to be people), it's just the power-trip dynamics of having another person whose only job is to do what you don't want to.

A little technical note on Social Status. 3D6 is a broader spread than usual. The UPP stats are generally expected to go from 1 to 15, with a few rare exceptions going above this. If you want to put them on a continuum with the servant races perhaps 2D+3 or 1D+6 would suit your needs better.

I do not have tremendous experience with the Traveller ruleset, so I'm amenable to this. I wanted to give the impression that there's a huge range of social classes among them, and a larger dicepool was needed to reflect the fact that some people are a lot higher up than others. (And this continuum doesn't include servants, who take a huge flat penalty to all interactions with them)

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. I love any kind of feedback.

 

[FreeTrav]

Interesting race. I'm not sure I like them as a Major Race, but that's a minor nit. I'd like to see you develop them a bit more, and then write up the results and send them to me for publication in Freelance Traveller.

For the broader range of social classes among themselves, I'd second what Andrew M said about maintaining the standard range. To express the difference in stratification, perhaps you might let this race distinguish between e.g., "High SOC 3" and "Low SOC 3" - they're different within the race, but are effectively equivalent when dealing outside the race.

Also, you might want to ask the moderators to move this thread to the Contact! section, which is really a more appropriate place for it. The Bestiary is for the sub-sophont animals.

 

[Major B]

I have a couple of suggestions I hope you're open to.

As slaves, they had been working in mines and plantations for centuries, and the first thing they did when they became masters of their own destiny was declare that they were never going to touch a pick or a plow again.

This strikes me a plausible as an individual reaction, but not as a group reaction. Examining psychology at the granular (individual) level there will always be a wide variance, but when you start examining groups there is less variance and the variance grows smaller as the group grows larger. At the large group level, it would be more plausible (my opinion) to see them stick with what they already know best unless there is a strong influence that would prompt the majority of the group to radically modify their attitudes and resultant behaviors.

As for how they became the dominant species, it was a combination of luck, great leadership, and long-term effort. ... It didn't hurt that they had their own Alexander the Great-style philosopher-king helping set up their nascent independant society.

And I think you have the answer here, so I suggest expanding this section more if your write it up for Freelance Traveller. The combination of their sudden elevation (after such a long, and arduous preparation) and the social influence of King X and his counsellors/advisors/circle of nobility produced over the first years of their reign a remarkable transformation across the Veloth society; a transformation that took root and became more entrenched in the years that followed.

Among other things, only Veloth have mastered the mystical power of writing, and all others are kept permanently illiterate.

Another point that makes it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. All but the most menial of tasks will require at least some form of literacy I think. You mention somewhere in your posts the development of a special servitor language so I suggest you allow the servants to be literate in that language albeit only with enough training to suit their pre-determined task. Then the Veloth could simply limit what gets translated in the servant's langauge ... and you've created the hook of an adventure too...

What is the effect when the Veloth security apparatus comes across schematics for TL 10 + devices prepared in the servitor language? Have the servants learned the secret or were they provided by some outside influence? :devil:

 

[ShiQiaozhi]

Thank you all for your kind replies. I apologize for taking so long to reply, but I'm in . . . well, let's call it an overseas hardship post. My access to the Internet is limited. I'll take your questions in order.

Interesting race. I'm not sure I like them as a Major Race, but that's a minor nit. I'd like to see you develop them a bit more, and then write up the results and send them to me for publication in Freelance Traveller.

For the broader range of social classes among themselves, I'd second what Andrew M said about maintaining the standard range. To express the difference in stratification, perhaps you might let this race distinguish between e.g., "High SOC 3" and "Low SOC 3" - they're different within the race, but are effectively equivalent when dealing outside the race.

Also, you might want to ask the moderators to move this thread to the Contact! section, which is really a more appropriate place for it. The Bestiary is for the sub-sophont animals.

I would be delighted to have my work published in Freelance Traveller. I'll send you a PM with the details. As for the SOC rules, I'm certainly open to suggestions there.

And I second your suggestion about moving the post. Mods, please move this post to the Contact! forum. I'll repeat it again at the bottom.

This strikes me a plausible as an individual reaction, but not as a group reaction. Examining psychology at the granular (individual) level there will always be a wide variance, but when you start examining groups there is less variance and the variance grows smaller as the group grows larger. At the large group level, it would be more plausible (my opinion) to see them stick with what they already know best unless there is a strong influence that would prompt the majority of the group to radically modify their attitudes and resultant behaviors.

A valid question. Let me consult my notes and see if I can answer it . . .

Ahh, yes, now I remember. The initial reaction, during the first few generations of their Empire, was very revenge-oriented. It was also a question of the city-Veloth, the ones who actually created this new country, being overzealous in reforms. Once the Empire began to stabilize itself, and there were no other 'equivalent powers' in range, these rules - Taboos - became more codified, and eventually became an appendix to their holy scriptures. Over a few centuries, this movement began to build up steam, until it finally hit a clash and became an official article of the law and faith. But it was not an immediate thing.

And I think you have the answer here, so I suggest expanding this section more if your write it up for Freelance Traveller. The combination of their sudden elevation (after such a long, and arduous preparation) and the social influence of King X and his counsellors/advisors/circle of nobility produced over the first years of their reign a remarkable transformation across the Veloth society; a transformation that took root and became more entrenched in the years that followed.

A remarkable transformation, indeed. Among his military and political successes, he also wrote their holy scriptures - the Books of History, Law, and Rites - and codified their language. After his death, he was given an apotheosis, and is one of the principle members of their pantheon.

Another point that makes it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. All but the most menial of tasks will require at least some form of literacy I think. You mention somewhere in your posts the development of a special servitor language so I suggest you allow the servants to be literate in that language albeit only with enough training to suit their pre-determined task. Then the Veloth could simply limit what gets translated in the servant's langauge ... and you've created the hook of an adventure too...

I was toying with the idea that they use dictaphones, and have a special code for speaking in them. Another idea is a very simple ideographic script, with symbols only for the concepts they use. Of course, that'd bump the number of writing systems they use all the way up to three, because I otherwise require that the Veloth have a 'high' and 'low' language amongst themselves . . . But the Veloth subscribe strongly to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, and work very hard to limit their servitor's exposure to ideas.

What is the effect when the Veloth security apparatus comes across schematics for TL 10 + devices prepared in the servitor language? Have the servants learned the secret or were they provided by some outside influence?

They freak. There'd be big-time cops, called Procurators, jetted in from the Core to come and deal with it, and the air would be filled with the sounds of grav-cars, shouting, and harsh, marching steps.

 

[aramis]

Thread moved to Contact forum from Bestiary Forum.

You can use the report post function to get things moved when needed. While I do skim every thread, I don't catch everything, and I know that not all mods are as thorough as about reading the whole of the new posts.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>so I suggest you allow the servants to be literate in that language albeit only with enough training to suit their pre-determined task. Then the Veloth could simply limit what gets translated in the servant's langauge

having a simple written slave language and heavy reliance on cartoon-style instructions makes a lot more sense to me than

>I was toying with the idea that they use dictaphones, and have a special code for speaking in them.

which probably wouldnt work logistically

> Another idea is a very simple ideographic script, with symbols only for the concepts they use. Of course, that'd bump the number of writing systems they use all the way up to three

Why 3 ? The master spoken/technical and slave esperanto/cartoon

>I'm not sure I like them as a Major Race

Isnt the invention of the jump drive the definition of Major vs Minor race in all versions of Traveller ? Im guessing that they got jump drive from other artifacts or visitors. Might even be a nice twist that their interstellar empire took off when they captured a small ship from a now enslaved neighbouring race that had a bit of contact with long night era humans or some such

Besides whats been described here sounds more like a fairly successful pocket empire that would be great to drop into a frontier area

 

[ShiQiaozhi]

Mods: xiexie for moving the post for me.

W/ regard to the three languages . . .

Why 3 ? The master spoken/technical and slave esperanto/cartoon

The master language isn't technical. It's ideographical, and it writes like Chinese. If you have one language to speak to the servants and one to speak to equals, but all your equals already speak the servant-language and it's hard to talk about anything technical or modern or complicated in it - much like modern Chinese, it has great difficulty adding in new names for things - then eventually you're going to start thinking in servant-language and making it your own.

People are allowed to play with Low Speech. High Speech has a magical, religious, super-formal nature to it, which means that it's not for swearing in or ordering drinks at a bar.

The more I think about it, actually, the less satisfied I am with it. I like the idea that they've got a liturgical language and an everyday language, but in practice, it doesn't work too well, does it?

Anyway, this isn't cut in stone.

 

[FreeTrav]

>I'm not sure I like them as a Major Race

Isnt the invention of the jump drive the definition of Major vs Minor race in all versions of Traveller ? Im guessing that they got jump drive from other artifacts or visitors. Might even be a nice twist that their interstellar empire took off when they captured a small ship from a now enslaved neighbouring race that had a bit of contact with long night era humans or some such

Besides whats been described here sounds more like a fairly successful pocket empire that would be great to drop into a frontier area

The major race definition is a political one; nominally, you're correct - except that the Aslan got the jump drive from a crashed Terran starship [Secret history; documented in canon], but are still considered a major race. I'd say in practice that a major race is one that has jump drive, OSTENSIBLY by its own development, and controls an independent stellar polity of at least three sectors or equivalent.

Yes, if the Veloth got their Jump drive through artifacts or aliens, they'd make a nice pocket empire to complicate things on a frontier.

 

[Sir Brad]

Their was an other Human Race that reverse engineered J-Drives from Ancient Tech and built a sizable Empire, but the Vilani Stomped them and took over their Worlds.

to be a Major Race what you need is J-Drive (preferably of your own invention), Space, Forse of Arms and a good PR department.

 

[ShiQiaozhi]

WRT to the Veloth as a major race . . .

Jump Drive: They've got it indigenously. They managed to get all the way to TL10 without ever contacting another planet, and TL 11 without ever contacting another jump-capable race. Since then, they've borrowed and stolen a little bit - the Theoretical Physics department at the national academy gets maybe a tenth of the budget that Biological Engineering enjoys - but they have no trouble sustaining themselves at TL13 without outside assistance. Jump-4 has become the standard of the Navy and the enormous, crown-paid-for X-Boat Postal Service.

Military Power: Their navy has a great deal of trouble projecting far away from its bases and they wouldn't win a serious, "I've dug a grave, and one of us is going in it" war with another Major Race, but they can certainly crush any internal dissent with military force, and could inflict a lot of damage on any invaders before they went down - I did the math, and in my own personal, highly elastic canon, they've got 380,000,000 tons of heavy iron lying around, probably with a lot of <20k ships that aren't attached to established fleet formations.

Space: The Veloth have avoided the limitations on practical Empire size by virtue of the fact that their many worlds are close together. The Veloth are tremendous terraformers, capable of (this is their crowning glory and great pride) creating atmosphere on any ferrous or silicate planetoid by use of bioengineered lichens. Were they set up in our solar system, for instance, they could set up a large-scale agricultural colony on the moon and Mars, which would then make it economically viable to import food to the heavily-industrialized Earth. Despite that, in my canon they control 400 systems (many of which have multiple useful planets) arranged in an enormous fractal structure, which amounts to about 3 sectors. Those numbers aren't necessary to their feel, though, except that they're doing more with a lot less.

PR: The Veloth have put a lot of energy, I mean a lot of it, in creating an image of the Hegemony as a monolithic, almost supernatural agency. It's very, very difficult to get permission to leave Veloth space, and those who do leave are almost always on special missions - their equivalent of free traders have to plot itineraries, get visas, and pay bribes, and somebody who just took a ship out west would probably be shot as a pirate. When the Veloth dare to creep out of their alloted space, they put on the theatrics - whole fleets of ships descending illustriously out of the sky, ship-board audience halls much too large to be practical, and the dignitaries themselves bedecked like gilded idols and speaking through interpreters. Those small, 10-planet alliances that lie on the very rim of Veloth space are honestly terrified of them, and those are the stories that reach back into more civilized space. The Veloth themselves build no embassies and have no formal interactions with any civilization that could be called their equal or superior; they simply want to be left alone, to annex their neighbors in a slow and orderly manner until they reach the limits of what the capital can control.

Are they a Major Race? I suppose by the technical definition, yes. Are they a Major Power? Not by a long shot. Do they have the potential to cause some serious grief for everyone they come into contact with? Mos-Def.

On a side note, my original idea for a Veloth campaign was to show up on a never-before-charted planet, with some TL 4, 5, or even 6 locals, and go all conquistador on it. Does that appeal to anyone besides me?

 

[Shadowfax]

I like them. Sure, why not? = )