parallel universes in Traveller

[mike wightman]

The writer of TNE is on record as saying that one of the aims of TNE was to re-write the background and the physics of the OTU.
That makes the earlier versions redundant, I agree, but it also means that the TNE rules should be applicable to the golden age setting.
Doing so, however, alters the way the game works and plays, effectively making it a different universe.

Using CT/MT the repulsor is a TL10+ system, in TNE/T4 it is TL16+; in CT/MT plasma and fusion guns can be used at space combat ranges, in TNE/T4 they can't; in CT/MT the reactionless thruster maneuver drive allows rapid insystem transfer, in TNE/T4 the HEPlaR drive restricts insystem movement... there are others, lots of them.

Deliberately different background physics, therefore deliberately different universe - even the author says so

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Border Reiver:
IIRC The OTU (CT, MT, TNE etc) had various disclaimers published stating that where one publication contradicts another, the later book/article/supplement trumps the earlier.

This is how pretty much everything else works - new editions trump older ones. Quite why people insist that the reverse is true in Traveller is beyond me. </font>[/QUOTE]I don't insist that the reverse is true. I say that whichever interpretation that makes for the most consistent universe ought to be considered the truth. If that is the newest edition, then hurray for that. But, let's face it, new material is not always thought over carefully and all (or even the most obvious) ramifications considered.

As long as TPTB talks about The Official Traveller Universe[singular], I'm going to treat new editions as new evidence and weigh that new evidence against previous evidence to get at the 'truth' about the one and only OTU.

Legally Marc Miller is perfectly entitled to turn Traveller into a fantasy game with Zhodani Mind Wizards, Vargr Werewolves, K'Kree centaurs, Darrian elves, and Geonee dwarves, but if he did I wouldn't accept the fact that this was the newest edition as proof that the Traveller Universe had been like that all along, and I doubt any of you would either.

New editions are new evidence. And where that new evidence show us parts of the OTU that we haven't seen before, I accept it (as long as it's internally consistent). But when that evidence contradicts previously published material, I consider it reasonable to weigh all the available evidence.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Universes, Hans... Different physics, different universe.
(To paraphrase several physicists.)

To paraphrase myself: Different physics = different history. Same history = same physics.

(And if you can get any physicists to disagree with that, please provide a quote).

The Imperium chapter of TTB says subsector dukes are appoiinted from above. MT says they are hereditary. You say one is right and one wrong. I say different universes. Which is simpler?

Yours is. It's also by far the least useful. Taking the principle of interpreting every discrepancy as proof of different universes to its ultimate conclusion gives us scores of universes. What's the use of that?

And it's not like you can claim that we 'only' have one universe per Traveller edition, because Hunter amd Martin made a big point out of T20 being set in the Official Traveller Universe.

The proof is there for anyone who doesn't turn a blind eye to it: Nowhere does Marc Miller and the other PTBs talk of multiple OTUs. Multiple TUs, sure, but only one OTU.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Aramis:
The Imperium chapter of TTB says subsector dukes are appoiinted from above. MT says they are hereditary. You say one is right and one wrong. I say different universes. Which is simpler?

It's simpler - and more sensible - to say that one is right and the other is wrong and remove the incorrect 'fact'. Either that, or maybe something undocumented changed in the time between MT and CT that made the nobility hereditary instead. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, in this particular case it's even simpler to say that they're both right. Both are simplified descriptions of a more complex reality. In theory, the Emperor has the power to appoint anyone he wants to a vacant post as subsector duke. In practice, he tends to take the oldest child of the previous duke who is willing to assume the post and isn't obviously incompetent.

Incidentally, I don't know what text made it into TTB, but IIRC the description about Imperial organization in Library Data says that the Emperor can chop and change as he wants, so it's not just MT that says subsector dukes are appointed from above.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
The writer of TNE is on record as saying that one of the aims of TNE was to re-write the background and the physics of the OTU.
That makes the earlier versions redundant, I agree, but it also means that the TNE rules should be applicable to the golden age setting.

That's just the problem. The TNE rules are not applicable to the golden age setting. As Aramis mentioned recently, a surface to surface trip from one world to another in a different system takes three weeks. There's no way you can make that fit with the CT rules about tramp ships doing two trips per month.

If you change the physics (in any non-trivial way), you inevitably change the history.


Hans

 

[Laryssa]

Perhaps Reactionless Maneuver Drive technology was lost with the fall of the Third Imperium.

 

[Malenfant]

Why does all this even matter to anyone?! It's got no relevance in practice - you're not suddenly changing to MT rules if you're playing a CT game and Strephon gets assassinated in it. You're don't need to suddenly change from MT to TNE rules if you get locked in a low berth for 80 years - the universe doesn't suddenly work using different rules just because the game mechanics are different. Do you expect people to change from d20 to CT if they go from 993 to 1115? It's not going to happen.

So this all seems to be so much navel-gazing to me.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by rancke:
That's just the problem. The TNE rules are not applicable to the golden age setting. As Aramis mentioned recently, a surface to surface trip from one world to another in a different system takes three weeks. There's no way you can make that fit with the CT rules about tramp ships doing two trips per month.

So the TNE OTU can't be a future history of the golden age OTU because there is a significant disconnect in the physics (although a small handwave can rationalise things to my satisfaction at least).

If you change the physics (in any non-trivial way), you inevitably change the history.

I agree. The problem as I see it is that the TNE OTU is meant to have the golden age history, but the TNE physics would change that history...

and round and round in circles.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Laryssa:
Perhaps Reactionless Maneuver Drive technology was lost with the fall of the Third Imperium.

My handwave is to assume that the low TL reactionless maneuver drives of golden age CT were only possible with the higher TL components made available because of the third Imperium's TL15 industrial base..

Otherwise the HEPlaR drive is in use until TL12, rectionless thrusters are a TL13+ invention.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Why does all this even matter to anyone?!

Because it's fun to discuss it

You're don't need to suddenly change from MT to TNE rules if you get locked in a low berth for 80 years - the universe doesn't suddenly work using different rules just because the game mechanics are different.

That's the bit that's untrue - the physics of the TNE universe are different to the physics of the CT/MT OTU. The designers did it deliberately.

Do you expect people to change from d20 to CT if they go from 993 to 1115? It's not going to happen.

Nor is it necessary - the T20 rules use the same physics as the CT/MT OTU

So this all seems to be so much navel-gazing to me.

Yup

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Malenfant:
[qb] Why does all this even matter to anyone?!

Because it's fun to discuss it </font>[/QUOTE]Is it though? Seems more like people are digging their heels in depending on their own beliefs here and arguing about it as if it's actually important when it comes to enjoying the game.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />You're don't need to suddenly change from MT to TNE rules if you get locked in a low berth for 80 years - the universe doesn't suddenly work using different rules just because the game mechanics are different.

That's the bit that's untrue - the physics of the TNE universe is different to the phsics of the CT/MT OTU. The designers did it deliberately.</font>[/QUOTE]So you really think that a character moving from the MT timeline to the TNE timeline suddenly undergoes a shift in reality as physics changes around them? What day do you think that reality shift occurs? Wouldn't people in the TNE universe notice suddenly that things that worked a certain way before don't do that anymore?

I really don't think so. In practice, you're going to stick to one ruleset throughout. Unless you want your players to kill you that is...!

The easiest and IMO most sensible thing to do is to pick one ruleset and use that for all of Traveller. Because the alternate GT universe notwithstanding, it's the same setting (ie same events, same history, same aliens) throughout.

 

[mike wightman]

Well, for one thing they'd want to know where all the reactionless maneuver drives have gone, why grav vehicles no longer provide thrust only lift, and why ship mounted fusion guns and repulsors have suddenly vanished

All of these exist in the CT tech paradigm, none of them are in the TNE paradigm, by deliberate designer intent

I actually agree with your conclusion, pick one system and stick with it, problem is that the game's authors chose not to.

It's not the change of game system that causes the disconnect - GURPS Traveller and T20 prove that you can use a different game system but the same (or at least very similar) tech assumptions. TNE could have kept the same tech as CT/MT and changed the game system, but the decision was made to change both.

It is possible to apply the TNE tech paradigm to golden era, but the results are that many of the tropes of CT disappear and thus change the way the game plays, and, as Hans has said, the history would therefore have to change.

 

[jfetters]

I don't really get the teeth gnashing, either. If the HEPlaR drives are a problem, get out FF&S and redesign the ships with the reactionless thrusters. Big deal... :shrug:

 

[Malenfant]

Jim's right - reactionless drives etc are all options provided in FF&S. So it is quite easy to bring things back in line with the old tech assumptions and avoid any weirdness that way.

These things are only problems if people insist on keeping them that way. But nothing forces anyone to use the official rules as stated (and in practice I bet hardly anyone does anyway), so instead of complaining about how universes are different why not just do the work to make them the same and then that's the end of the matter?

 

[mike wightman]

I have but it's still fun to talk about it.

If we didn't talk about stuff like this a lot of good ideas would go unshared.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Why does all this even matter to anyone?!

In my case I care because I like world-building and I want as much material to extrapolate from as possible. So if High Guard says that the Imperium's naval forces is organized in one way and Rebellion Sourcebook says they are organized in another way, I don't want to say that they're organized one way in the CTU and another way in the MTU. I want to figure out a compromise that I can use in the OTU.

There is such a relative paucity of material about the Traveller universe in existence. I don't want to limit my exploration of this fascinating universe by ignoring 80% of the available information.


Hans

 

[Malenfant]

I want to figure out a compromise that I can use in the OTU.

Are you writing material to be published in the OTU? If not, why should this matter? The OTU is highly inconsistent - sometimes irreconcileably so. Besides, any personal interpretation of it means that you're going to be playing in your own TU, not the official one...

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I want to figure out a compromise that I can use in the OTU.

Are you writing material to be published in the OTU?</font>[/QUOTE]Yes. Well, sort of. At the moment I'm mostly writing material set in the GTU, but I consider the two universes historically indistinguishable up until 1116 and completely indistinguishable with regards to physics.

If not, why should this matter? The OTU is highly inconsistent - sometimes irreconcileably so. Besides, any personal interpretation of it means that you're going to be playing in your own TU, not the official one...

The closer I adhere to a commonly accepted standard, the greater chance that other people can use what I write (provided, of course, that they likewise adhere to the commonly accepted standard, but isn't that the whole point of having a shared universe?), and the closer other writers adhere to my personal standard, the greater the chance that I can use whatever they write. Hence I have an interest in persuading other people that my view of the OTU is sensible and fun. (And I also have an interest in persuading others that splitting the OTU up into many different, mutually incompatible universes is a Bad Idea).

Note that I in no way want to imply that my view is the only one that is sensible and fun. But I can't use material that is incompatible with my view, no matter how good it is. It's like hitchhiking to one place and being offered a ride to another place. It may be a very nice place. The driver isn't necessarily a bad man for wanting to go to that other place. But it's not the place I want to go to. Again, the point of a shared universe isn't that it's the only possible universe, because thare are many other possible universes. The point is that we share it. If we didn't, what would be the point?


Hans