Oh dear - maybe they can exist after all

[Erik Boielle]

Except the way TNE did it is that everyone dies, a trillion trillions die!

Pretty much exactly the same thing happens in Eclipse Phase. A group of military AIs called TITANS gain sentience, start upgrading themselves, turn on humanity and kill most of it off. And the real baddy, the Exsurgent Virus is a super advanced alien 'virus' with multiple vectors. It can be biological, informational, nanotechnological, whatever it needs to get the job done.

I think there is stuff we could do with the Star Viking Campaign. Split it off from Traveller, if you want, but the idea of people taking civilisation back to the stars at the point of a gun in the wake of a singularity gone bad is actually pretty fresh still.

 

[Dragoner]

Bytepro, there was some cool stuff, it wasn't all bad, but it was a "now for something completely different" moment. It pretty much totally abandoned the old fanbase.

 

[Dragoner]

Pretty much exactly the same thing happens in Eclipse Phase. A group of military AIs called TITANS gain sentience, start upgrading themselves, turn on humanity and kill most of it off. And the real baddy, the Exsurgent Virus is a super advanced alien 'virus' with multiple vectors. It can be biological, informational, nanotechnological, whatever it needs to get the job done.

I think there is stuff we could do with the Star Viking Campaign. Split it off from Traveller, if you want, but the idea of people taking civilisation back to the stars at the point of a gun in the wake of a singularity gone bad is actually pretty fresh still.

I went and looked at Eclipse Phase, not bad, but it didn't do what TNE did which was to alienate it's fanbase by representing itself as something it really wasn't. It was a poor business strategy, customers want to be not only satisfied, but delighted, which TNE did neither; but that is what you get when you have creative types trying to do business.

The trillions dying seemed just for shock value, there really wasn't a plausible reason for why it all happened. It doesn't have a historical precedent, if in danger, people migrate away from the danger, like in warzones; and for every measure, there is a countermeasure. It beggars belief that trillions of people could not find a solution, esp a society of over 1100 worlds and very high tech.

There were some cool things, and plenty of blah, it did totally change Traveller, all the big ships were gone and now one just fought a ubiquitous enemy of a computer virus, just too one dimensional; original Travelller was much more open. As a matter of fact you could run Eclipse Phase straight into Traveller, as it is just one world.

Nobody is stopping anybody from developing more TNE stuff, but as far as all the user generated content I find for Traveller on the internet, easily over 2/3rds is CT based. Just to show where the fanbase is, from a business sense, that would be where the money is, but from a personal sense, people should just do what makes them happy.

 

[Erik Boielle]

As to physical theft - uh, that has been around for a lot longer than nabster ...

Yeah, but the issue is what happens if we somehow (nanotechnology maybe) end up in a situation where if you see someone has a nice car and you fancy it you can have a copy of it without affecting the original car.

So you go online, download the plans for the car from The Pirate Bay of the Future, feed them in to your home nanofabricator and bing! New Car.

So physical items have the same issues of 'ownership' that music and software does today.

How does society react?

Already a lot of miniatures for wargaming are being 3d printed from digital scupts. This technology is only going to get better. What happens when you can print a 3d printing machine?

--

I heartily recomend Eclipse Phase. I don't think it is the hardest of hard science fiction, but it does have a lot of fun concepts and makes for an entertaining game.

And it is kinda free! The books have been released under some new fangled hippy licence that means you can download electronic versions of the books for free.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5369013/

No, I don't understand it either, given that they also sell the PDFs at:-

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=5054

but it does kinda illustrate the themes of the game nicely.

But perhaps the best way to get in to in would be to listen to some of the recorded games at:-

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/category/systems/eclipse-phase/

which show the game in action, as it were.

 

[Erik Boielle]

The trillions dying seemed just for shock value, there really wasn't a plausible reason for why it all happened. It doesn't have a historical precedent, if in danger, people migrate away from the danger, like in warzones; and for every measure, there is a countermeasure. It beggars belief that trillions of people could not find a solution, esp a society of over 1100 worlds and very high tech.

There were some cool things, and plenty of blah, it did totally change Traveller, all the big ships were gone and now one just fought a ubiquitous enemy of a computer virus, just too one dimensional.

I dunno. If we were ever foolish enough to have an all out thermonuclear war I'm not sure there would be much left. So far we have avoided it but I don't know if I would say it will never happen.

And you never got to drive the big ships! Not to mention that the big war provides a nice backdrop to have the BatRons shooting at each other if you want.

And there is stuff to do. You can explore the ruined cities of the 3rd Imperium. See collapsed orbital elevators or blown stations filled with millions of frozen corpses. You can trade items with the remenants of humanity, who may only see a ship once every few years and so are really happy to see you. You can launch raids on Technology Elevated Dictators to kill them and take their stuff, safe in the knowledge that doing so is improving the lot of humanity. And you can interact with insane homicidal AIs that infest an amusement park, or a shopping mall or anything.

Look, I'm not saying that TNE was necesscerily a good idea for GDW, but I liked it, and I think it had some interesting material for play. Traveller, in what ever form you like it, seems to have largely survived the Virus, so like, yeah.

 

[Dragoner]

I dunno. If we were ever foolish enough to have an all out thermonuclear war I'm not sure there would be much left. So far we have avoided it but I don't know if I would say it will never happen.

And you never got to drive the big ships! Not to mention that the big war provides a nice backdrop to have the BatRons shooting at each other if you want.

And there is stuff to do. You can explore the ruined cities of the 3rd Imperium. See collapsed orbital elevators or blown stations filled with millions of frozen corpses. You can trade items with the remenants of humanity, who may only see a ship once every few years and so are really happy to see you. You can launch raids on Technology Elevated Dictators to kill them and take their stuff, safe in the knowledge that doing so is improving the lot of humanity. And you can interact with insane homicidal AIs that infest an amusement park, or a shopping mall or anything.

Look, I'm not saying that TNE was necesscerily a good idea for GDW, but I liked it, and I think it had some interesting material for play. Traveller, in what ever form you like it, seems to have largely survived the Virus, so like, yeah.

If you like TNE, that is cool, you should do what makes you happy.

For me, I remember flipping through one of the books and seeing davy crockett in a coonskin cap, such an odd mix of genres. I thought the virus was interesting though and it could be a persistant enemy, or even ally. I do have some disagreement whether a sentinent being, like an AI, would automatically be totally psychopathic and genocidal.

We did fight the big ships, we played a strategic game of fighting in the Spinward Marches against the Zhodani and I LOST! The Marches were occupied, but then that lead into the commerce raiding/resistance game we played for years afterwards, even after I quit GMing I gave most of my materials to someone else who went on with the campaign. It didn't involve millions dying though, I never had the Zhodani as brutal monsters, they were as human as the next guys and some people even played Zhodani as deserters and such. Lot's of intrigue, it could be combat heavy, we even played a merchant game for a while. This was all from 81 up through the early 90's when I moved away permanently, but the campaign still went on without me.

 

[MCEvans]

Apocrypha alert

Pandora Press - Merchants and Merchandise had Organic based computers starting at TL7, the higher ends 6fib+ at TL G could have personalities overlaid. :devil:
By the time of Virus the the military and core systems were G.
Also Kinunir was an AI/personality overlay that went very bad, that and a Cymbiline chip you have a background for Virus. :devil:

 

[Erik Boielle]

I do have some disagreement whether a sentinent being, like an AI, would automatically be totally psychopathic and genocidal.

Well, the Virus was deliberately created to be a weapon, and we need only say that those responsible did their jobs well. They probably went through tens of millions of generations before they got the particularly nasty strain that did so much damage to the 3I.

And the Virus does later mutate in to less immediately lethal forms, but by then the Imperium lies in ruins.

 

[aramis]

Bytepro, there was some cool stuff, it wasn't all bad, but it was a "now for something completely different" moment. It pretty much totally abandoned the old fanbase.

Not abandoned... Willfully ran away from.

Told us that most of what we loved about the setting was unimportant.
Told us that almost all of the Rules were unimportant.
Gave us a pretty hard to swallow rationale for the changeover AND an unrealistically short "dark times"... And told us the Imperium was forgotten.

Dark times Short enough for PC's to be children of pre-virus PC's, short enough for Vilani or lucky Solomani characters to have lived through the rebellion. Short enough that most everyone has a grandparent who fought in the rebellion. A few have grandparents who fought in the 5FW.

Not long enough for people to have forgotten.

 

[mike wightman]

Only if every designer throughout imperial space uses the same architechture and that architechture is one of these more expensive, more vulnerable, self-modifying designs, AND they all use the same instruction set, AND is programmed by an idiot who permits unverified update uploads, AND is connected to such a path.

The psionic artifact mode more adequately explains the universality of virus.

Again - tosh and nonsense.

Of course the Imperium maintains standard architecture throughout space - just like we do today.

And they are designed to be secure - it's just there's always someone working to beat your security.

It's why the USA could develop an AI trojan virus to cripple Iranian nuclear facilities - go look it up. Especially interesting is how they get the virus to hide on flash drives and the like so that it can gain access to facilities not connected to the internet.

 

[mike wightman]

Well, the Virus was deliberately created to be a weapon, and we need only say that those responsible did their jobs well. They probably went through tens of millions of generations before they got the particularly nasty strain that did so much damage to the 3I.

And the Virus does later mutate in to less immediately lethal forms, but by then the Imperium lies in ruins.

Also worth remembering that it was released earlier than intended and wasn't actually ready.

So a lot of it's affects came as a surprise even to the (dead) designers.

 

[mike wightman]

Not abandoned... Willfully ran away from.

Told us that most of what we loved about the setting was unimportant.
Told us that almost all of the Rules were unimportant.
Gave us a pretty hard to swallow rationale for the changeover AND an unrealistically short "dark times"... And told us the Imperium was forgotten.

Dark times Short enough for PC's to be children of pre-virus PC's, short enough for Vilani or lucky Solomani characters to have lived through the rebellion. Short enough that most everyone has a grandparent who fought in the rebellion. A few have grandparents who fought in the 5FW.

Not long enough for people to have forgotten.

Since when did GDW consult the fan base about any of their OTU decisions (or think them through for themselves for that matter ).

High Guard at a stroke wiped the old OTU and replaced it with the big ship paradigm.

Any consultation?

MT mutilated the setting and was there any consultation?

I agree with your setting points, but I can understand GDW's decision to flatten the OTU and start again.

I wonder if they ever thought about just ditching the OTU altogether and starting afresh.

 

[rancke]

Again - tosh and nonsense.

Of course the Imperium maintains standard architecture throughout space - just like we do today.

And they are designed to be secure - it's just there's always someone working to beat your security.

The real nonsense was the bit about the Imperium forcing their neighbors to adopt and incorporate black boxes manufactured in the Imperium in all their ships. What sovereign state would accept that sort of spy devices roaming about everywhere in its territory?

First of all, such a demand would have been countered by a ban on ships with Imperial transponders installed operating in the neighbors' territory. Pretty soon pressure from the Imperial megacorporations would ensure that the demand would be dropped again.

Secondly, even if the neighbors were soft enough to accept, such transponders would only be installed in ships that did enter the Imperium. Most civilian ships wouldn't need one and wouldn't have one.

Thirdly, no other navy in Charted Space would install one. If they ever wanted to visit the Imperium, they'd either be invited or not care tuppence for Imperial regulations.

My own fix is that the neighbors stole the technology and developed their own versions. Which would be designed with all those safeguards Wil mentioned. Hence I adopted a vector (psionics) that bypassed any and all such obstacles.


Hans

 

[Starviking]

For me, I remember flipping through one of the books and seeing davy crockett in a coonskin cap, such an odd mix of genres. I thought the virus was interesting though and it could be a persistant enemy, or even ally. I do have some disagreement whether a sentinent being, like an AI, would automatically be totally psychopathic and genocidal.

That was the World Builder's Handbook, IIRC. In addition to providing system and planetary detailing rules, it extended the FF&S design sequences to lower levels - hence the Davy Crockett analogue with Tech-3 firearm.

 

[Starviking]

Psionic vs. other vectors

Let's remember that if we were sticking solidly to the possible then there'd be no psionics, likely no circuit-burning entities, ships with kilometre-long radiator panels, no jump-drives, no contra-grav, etc, etc. I can see the merits of both Mike's and Hans' approach - but to be honest, as long as the explanation doesn't impact the suspension of disbelief then it's good.

 

[Starviking]

The real nonsense was the bit about the Imperium forcing their neighbors to adopt and incorporate black boxes manufactured in the Imperium in all their ships. What sovereign state would accept that sort of spy devices roaming about everywhere in its territory?

Wasn't it the case that it was only ships that had to deal with the Imperium having the Deyo Transponders? Just working from memory here - could be wrong. I do remember an entry in Survival Margin about Lucan-faction ships engaging and destroying K'kree ships as they didn't have transponders.

My own fix is that the neighbors stole the technology and developed their own versions. Which would be designed with all those safeguards Wil mentioned. Hence I adopted a vector (psionics) that bypassed any and all such obstacles.

Nice idea.

 

[Tobias]

Since when did GDW consult the fan base about any of their OTU decisions (or think them through for themselves for that matter ).

High Guard at a stroke wiped the old OTU and replaced it with the big ship paradigm.

In 1979 there was no "OTU" to "wipe". There were LBBs 1-4 and one or two issues of JTAS. A slightly different situation from the post-MT OTU which was very detailed and well defined.

 

[mike wightman]

There was a lot of OTU material pre-HG - certainly enough to define the OTU in its small ship glory.

A1-3, even LBB4 defined an OTU that was wiped out in a shower scene.

What's most annoying is that the post HG revision of CT didn't incorporate the tropes from HG, would have been easy enough to do.

 

[Tobias]

There was a lot of OTU material pre-HG - certainly enough to define the OTU in its small ship glory.

There was exactly as much as I wrote in my original post. Or maybe less, because I am not certain at what point in 1979 JTAS began publication. The idea that there was some coherent "Small ship universe" before HG is retroactively applied nostalgia without any basis in fact. There was a bare-bones background-less RPG that was continually being expanded upon - rather quickly, by the way. Your "OTU" lasted about one and a half years I guess. Of course, the preceding "OTU" which was "wiped" by Mercenary lasted less than a year.

The OTU only grew into a consistent gaming background in the early 80s. I'd set the publication of "Library Data, N-Z" as the point where the basics of the OTU had been established.

 

[Tobias]

And there is stuff to do. You can explore the ruined cities of the 3rd Imperium. See collapsed orbital elevators or blown stations filled with millions of frozen corpses. You can trade items with the remenants of humanity, who may only see a ship once every few years and so are really happy to see you. You can launch raids on Technology Elevated Dictators to kill them and take their stuff, safe in the knowledge that doing so is improving the lot of humanity. And you can interact with insane homicidal AIs that infest an amusement park, or a shopping mall or anything.

This very nicely sums up all the things that I didn't want in Traveller. And, more to the point, that Traveller didn't have before TNE.

The point is that TNE had a radically different tone than previous versions of the game did. And no matter if you liked the new tone or you didn't: Expecting that fans of the previous versions would still like your new version even although you changed pretty much everything is not rational.
In any kind of media, radically changing the basic feel of a franchise or series is a risk and is guaranteed not to go over well with many, if not most of the established fans.

P.S.: Yes, they attempted (half-heartedly, from what I hear) to pacify the old fans by providing a reservation for them in the form of the Regency. But that was somewhat pointless, wasn't it? People who liked the old game could just use that and didn't need to make the switch towards the new, grimdark vision of the OTU.