CT Only: PCs and TL

[LeperColony]

I really do wonder sometimes what people think "Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future" is supposed to mean. Because when I think of that phrase, I never think, "Just like today... but a little bit more." But that sure as heck seems to be how some people read it.

I think a very strong argument can be made that "Just like today (well, late 70's/early 80's)... but a little more" is, if not the way Traveller was intended to feel, the way it was presented.

Traveller is set 3700 years in the future. As much time as separates us from the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (or 500 years before Ramses the Great, 800 before the founding of Rome, 1450 before the unification of Imperial China...). It is an almost unimaginably vast stretch of time. And yet...

The interstellar Third Imperium culture is roughly similar to a center-right (for the 70's) American ideology. Individual civil liberties, the avoidance of government restraint on private (and especially economic) action, racial and gender equality (mostly through asserting their irrelevance), faith in the Invisible Hand, etc. Please note I am in no way attempting to debate the relative merit of these positions. Merely that they pretty clearly inspire depictions of 3I society. Please don't Pit me!

The Third Imperium operates on a Capitalist economic model. I can guarantee you we're not operating on the same economic assumptions as Ancient Egypt.

Although there's very advanced tech, it is a dated view of technological progress that assumes certain things are easy that currently we believe are difficult or impossible (jump engines and psionics, for instance), but has a dim view of things our current society is, in some fields, perhaps already surpassing (computers, consumer elections, bionetic, cybernetic and genetic manipulation, life extension and life spans).

Part of this is a side-effect of the fact that Traveller is a product of human imagination, which is always, to greater or lesser extents, informed by the environment of the authors.

But also, I feel that the setting is influenced by a particular ideology of free market enterprise and a general hostility to government that is distinctly American. And those sentiments give the game a sense of being "now (except the 70's "now"), but much much later."

To put it another way, I feel that if a First-World Terran from the late 20th or early 21st were transported to the Third Imperium, they would find interstellar 3I society recognizable, comprehensible, and easily navigable. But that same modern person, transplanted to Ancient Egypt or pre-historic Japan would not find things so familiar.

 

[creativehum]

There was no setting in the original boxed set (or the second set, for that matter). The Third Imperoum was not mentioned at all. No time frame was offered -- that was a matter purely for the Referee to decide, as was the setting as a whole.

There are definitely implied setting details to be gleaned from the rules. But the fact is if one tried to build the Third Imperium from them alone one would fail.

There are details that do in fact line up with The Third Imperium, of course. But many details can also line up with the settings of the Dumarest books, the Demon Princes books, the Flandry books, the Solar Qeen Books, the Co-Dominion books, The Space Vikings, and others. This is a testament to the strength of the game Miller wrote. It was built to handle many settings built by many referees --and it does. But each of these settings is obviously distinct and would be an application of the basic rules as well the addition of setting specific material. A setting grown from Books 1-3 doesn't limit the setting of play at all. (In fact, strip away enough rules, whip up some new service tables. and you can be playing on Barsoom with minimal effort. But that goes beyond the subject at hand.)

What I was writing about in that post was the rules as written, alone on the market without any setting specific material for two years, in which Referees created countless settings out of their own imaginations with the toolkit at hand.

I tried to suggest which edition I was talking about when I posted the cover. But that wasn't clear -- and I apologize.

 

[flykiller]

informed by the environment of the authors.

and by imagination, some of it over-active ....

There was no setting in the original boxed set

as I've said before, the implied setting is quite vast ...

But the fact is if one tried to build the Third Imperium from them alone one would fail.

... and the 3i seems to be the minimal build to accomodate them.

Please don't Pit me!

(laugh) PIT 'IM! PIT 'IM!

 

[Carlobrand]

...The interstellar Third Imperium culture is roughly similar to a center-right (for the 70's) American ideology. Individual civil liberties, the avoidance of government restraint on private (and especially economic) action, racial and gender equality (mostly through asserting their irrelevance), faith in the Invisible Hand, etc. Please note I am in no way attempting to debate the relative merit of these positions. Merely that they pretty clearly inspire depictions of 3I society. Please don't Pit me!...

What is "Pit"?

When I look at the interstellar Third Imperium culture, I do not see a center-right American ideology. More Victorian Britain. Yes, you have quite a few rights, but the sector is governed by nobles appointed by a distant emperor, and you have absolutely no say in who they are or what decisions they make. More to the point, neither do the various planetary governments. They have influence, perhaps, but it's an influence based on personal persuasion, political forces, and quite likely bribery (or, more politely, "quid-pro-quo arrangements"), not on any legal protections. The setting looks like it borrowed heavily from Pournelle's far future universe.

 

[Timerover51]

To get "pitted" means to be moved to the Pit, which is limited to paying subscribers.

A long time ago, I wrote a letter to GDW regarding the structure of the Third Imperium, comparing it to the structure and governance of the Roman Empire. Loren Wiseman wrote the reply, and said that is was less structured than the Roman Empire, but had more governance powers than the British Commonwealth. This would have been around 1980 or so. I do not think that I still have the letter.

I view the nobility for a planet as somewhat in line with a Victorian British political agent or advisor, maintaining the appearance of local government, but keeping the locals firmly inline with the civil servants of the Colonial Office back in London. The communications lag before widespread use of oceanic cables works about right as well.

 

[LeperColony]

To get "pitted" means to be moved to the Pit, which is limited to paying subscribers.

A long time ago, I wrote a letter to GDW regarding the structure of the Third Imperium, comparing it to the structure and governance of the Roman Empire. Loren Wiseman wrote the reply, and said that is was less structured than the Roman Empire, but had more governance powers than the British Commonwealth. This would have been around 1980 or so. I do not think that I still have the letter.

I view the nobility for a planet as somewhat in line with a Victorian British political agent or advisor, maintaining the appearance of local government, but keeping the locals firmly inline with the civil servants of the Colonial Office back in London. The communications lag before widespread use of oceanic cables works about right as well.

I'd agree that the government of the 3I is closer to the Victorian-era British Empire than either the Romans or the Americans in some ways (the supreme importance of the Metropolis vis-a-vis the colonies has no close analogy in the classical era).

However, government =/= society. When you read about interstellar 3I society, how the people act and the basic assumptions that underline interactions and motives, it seems clear to me that it's basically 70's center-right America.

 

[Carlobrand]

"Pitted" is when (I believe) a thread is moved to "The Pit" -- which is a subforum where member of the Moot talk about otherwise taboo subjects on this threat. These subjects include religion and politics (I believe I have this right.) ...

There's a pit? How long have we had that? Jehosephat, been here for years and I'm still learning new things.

...You are feeding the discussion back to the very topic a moderator (MOD RED LETTERS) has said not to engage in. For flykiller it seems the human brain is something special, and according to Aramis this specialness is based on theological grounds. And so discuss it along these lines is out of bounds and risks having the thread sent to "the pit."

...

If I'm wrong about any of it, apologies!

Nope, you have the right of it. I didn't see Aramis' post or I'd have realized I was steering us into a potential minefield. I have a special fascination with neurology since it impacts directly on my own profession, so I love talking about it, but I hadn't realized it might cause a problem.

I really should get back into the habit of reading the entire thread before pitching in. Sorry, folks. No excuses, I was being lazy.

...A long time ago, I wrote a letter to GDW regarding the structure of the Third Imperium, comparing it to the structure and governance of the Roman Empire. Loren Wiseman wrote the reply, and said that is was less structured than the Roman Empire, but had more governance powers than the British Commonwealth. This would have been around 1980 or so. I do not think that I still have the letter.

I view the nobility for a planet as somewhat in line with a Victorian British political agent or advisor, maintaining the appearance of local government, but keeping the locals firmly inline with the civil servants of the Colonial Office back in London. The communications lag before widespread use of oceanic cables works about right as well.

That's more or less how I see it.

 

[aramis]

Closed

[m;]Due to several posters ignoring the red text, topic closed. I'll sort out the infraction(s) later with the staff.

Topic may reopen in the pit.[/m;]

 

[McPerth]

[m;]After some staff discussion, the thread is reopened, but some posts have been sent to the pit as a splinter thread. Please, don't force us to close it again. To keep on the AI issue would deserve infractions and sending the post to the pit too[/m;]

 

[Timerover51]

The following volume appeared a couple of days ago on Project Gutenberg, and makes for interesting reading, even in a cursory fashion: The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances. It was published in 1889, which would put it in about the middle of Tech Level 4. It does include illustrations of large steam shovels for earth excavation, and some quite impressive bridges. It does give a much broader view of what could be done at Tech Level 4.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54383/54383-h/54383-h.htm

As I am having problems with all of the images showing up in the download, the volume can also be downloaded at archive.org in PDF format.

 

[Carlobrand]

I'd agree that the government of the 3I is closer to the Victorian-era British Empire than either the Romans or the Americans in some ways (the supreme importance of the Metropolis vis-a-vis the colonies has no close analogy in the classical era).

However, government =/= society. When you read about interstellar 3I society, how the people act and the basic assumptions that underline interactions and motives, it seems clear to me that it's basically 70's center-right America.

We are of course talking about the spacefaring society, the culture of people that are engaged in space commerce, exploration or in the defense or management of Imperial space in some way. The planet-bound societies are about as variable as a gamemaster's imagination will allow.

So, for this space-faring society, we are looking at a rather large number of persons with military training of some sort, accustomed to the military lifestyle and to following orders from a superior - some fraction perhaps disaffected by said lifestyle and preferring to live as free of authority as they can manage, all quite physically capable of offering resistance if someone became overbearing toward them, and many armed in some manner since the starports seem to be a bit more liberal about such things than many of the local cultures (JTAS #7 introduced us to one such starport, but it is not definitive, so YMMV).

We are also looking at a fair number of government officials and administrative personnel charged with operating the spaceports and managing space commerce - who are accustomed to bureaucracy and who, while they might profit from a bit of corruption and enjoy the occasional pleasure of petty officiousness, must nonetheless see to the reasonably smooth operation of commerce through the starport or see their trade dry up and risk someone powerful coming to ask questions.

We are looking at the merchant class, who learn how to navigate the above bureaucracy and who accept a certain degree of authority - at least to the degree needed to collectively manage a starship, and whose response to an overly repressive starport is likely to be to take their business elsewhere, to the detriment of that starport, since profit is somewhat easier to be had when the bureaucracy is not actively hindering you.

And we are looking at scouts and other explorers, who clearly do not fit that mold but are as clearly in the minority compared to the other groups - and who likewise tend to be armed and capable of defending themselves.

And of course these groups draw from a wide variety of planetary cultures, so they must learn to some degree to tolerate those who look and act different from themselves.

Given that background, how does one not end up with a 70's center-right America-like culture? This one falls into the "armed society is a polite society" column. The character generation structure seems to point the culture in that direction.

 

[flykiller]

Given that background, how does one not end up with a 70's center-right America-like culture? This one falls into the "armed society is a polite society" column.

and given how 1) the imperium are nobility - not elected, not bureaucrats, but nobility - and 2) these nobility own the ports and starlanes - not just run, not just police, but own - and 3) these nobility are very heavily armed - with battalions of marines and fleets of meson guns and everything in between - then these independent free-wheeling spacers better be real polite.

 

[LeperColony]

Given that background, how does one not end up with a 70's center-right America-like culture? This one falls into the "armed society is a polite society" column. The character generation structure seems to point the culture in that direction.

Lots of ways, potentially. But I prefer to avoid getting into that because I don't want to approach The Pit.

I brought this up simply to add my view that Traveller is "Just like today (well, late 70's/early 80's)... but a little more."

 

[creativehum]

Lots of ways, potentially. But I prefer to avoid getting into that because I don't want to approach The Pit.

I brought this up simply to add my view that Traveller is "Just like today (well, late 70's/early 80's)... but a little more."

I would say that my point of view is that the PCs are very much "Just like today..." but the the environments they travel to should be exotic and strange and very much not like today.

But that would involve building a setting in which all the worlds are not under the thumb of one culture and essentially becoming essentially 20th century First World Europe.

In other words, not the Third Imperium.

We have a baseline of familiarity for the PCs. And they they go to places that are unfamiliar. It's certainly an utterly valid way of establishing a setting for RPG play.

Some people want that, some do not.

The weird thing that comes into play is when people insist that there is only one kind of setting that works for Classic Traveller. It's such a ridiculous position that I wonder how people who hold it can sustain themselves in actual life. But this is the internet -- so one has to be ready to accept all sort of ridiculousness.

 

[Condottiere]

The idea was to recreate the ambiance of the silver age of pulp novels.

But each edition tends to reflect, or what the authors thought were the expectations, of the next generation of players.

Tee Five and Mongoose seem to approach this from opposing viewpoints, from imposing a template as to outcomes, to being rather ambiguous.

 

[Timerover51]

For those interested in what is possible at Tech Levels 3 and 4, you might want to take a look at the following book on Project Gutenberg at this location.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54475

Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century by Robert Routledge, copyright 1900.

For the weapons people, both the Hotchkiss and Maxim machine guns, along with the Colt-Browning, date from prior to 1900.

For the tech guys, would anyone care to guess when the first ship with water-jet propulsion was built?