Playing the the Long Night
- Thread starter ddamant
- Start date
Specifically, No.
I played a lot of TNE, which has a lot of the same flavor.
With that less than habitable planets have much smaller populations if they don't have the TL support the population. Lots of abandoned settlements/outposts instead of graveyards.
BRJN
SOC-12
if you have access to _Interstellar Wars_, the description of how Vilani pick worlds to colonise / place outposts will help you build the social backdrop for a campaign. Colony worlds are already human-friendly environments. The population may reduce but not be exterminated. Or it may grow and acquire a local culture. The outposts will degrade because they MUST have outside contact to survive.
As an explanatory factor for the collapse I have been toying with the idea that late Ziru Sirka was not really a unified state, it was a coalition of smaller (2 subsectors?) components. After Alexander the Great - excuse me, the Terran Navy - swept through, things continued as they had been, with a new boss in town.
As an explanatory factor for the collapse I have been toying with the idea that late Ziru Sirka was not really a unified state, it was a coalition of smaller (2 subsectors?) components. After Alexander the Great - excuse me, the Terran Navy - swept through, things continued as they had been, with a new boss in town.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
My take is that there was a broad retreat from the tiny and often one-purpose worlds toward what are now the High Population worlds, while the medium population worlds (Pop 5-7) would have individual stories, and the High Pops all just carried on being big and multi-faceted. Much of this would have been settled in the first 300 years or so, but each region will have a different tale to tell.
"The Long Night" is a political term more than a cultural one; Imperial code for "when there wasn't an Empire of Man." I feel that some regions went pretty lonely and "dark" while others were regionally networked to the point that they barely noticed. The coreward part of the First and Second Imperia that we now know as Julian space is the most extreme of these. The regional banks in that area remained united, keeping the lights on, but the advent of the Vargr kept the area occupied enough that they were never able or inclined to reach very far to rimward into the rest of the old Imperium.
At the other end of the spectrum, I see much of the core become fractured and insular. While it rose centuries before becoming the Third Imperium, Sylea had to fight a surprising number of neighbors for primacy.
I think you'll see polities arise around the homes of the more successful Minor Races, both Human and Non-Human. Some were more driven than others, whether by racial pride (Geonee and Suerrat), necessity, or simple opportunism. These states will have risen and fallen, possibly more than once, during the Long Night, giving the enterprising Referee plenty of options to develop his particular subsectors and decades.
Then, of course, there is the Magyar and Daibei area, which was conquered in a rolling tide of clan ambitions by the Aslan. You want a persistent warzone either to play in or have nearby, the Aslan Conquest is often the best answer. Due to the clannishness of the Aslan, a Human campaign can make real gains against one Clan over the span of a campaign only to be lost to history when another Clan sees the opportunity and crushes the upstart Humans a generation later.
The areas beyond Imperial space also have a lot of potential. The rise and fall of the Darrians is during the Long Night. The farthest reach of the Zhodani, and the scourge of Vargr pirates across systems that must be taken "back" is during the Long Night. The stabilization of K'kree space, and the creation of the Hiver Federation are early in the Long Night, and much of the formative period in the entire Gateway region is around the same time.
With the understanding that you are unlikely to get the entire collection of Major Races in one place during this era, my advice is to pick a spot about the usual size for a healthy campaign (usually 2 to 4 subsectors) and decide what story you see there.
"The Long Night" is a political term more than a cultural one; Imperial code for "when there wasn't an Empire of Man." I feel that some regions went pretty lonely and "dark" while others were regionally networked to the point that they barely noticed. The coreward part of the First and Second Imperia that we now know as Julian space is the most extreme of these. The regional banks in that area remained united, keeping the lights on, but the advent of the Vargr kept the area occupied enough that they were never able or inclined to reach very far to rimward into the rest of the old Imperium.
At the other end of the spectrum, I see much of the core become fractured and insular. While it rose centuries before becoming the Third Imperium, Sylea had to fight a surprising number of neighbors for primacy.
I think you'll see polities arise around the homes of the more successful Minor Races, both Human and Non-Human. Some were more driven than others, whether by racial pride (Geonee and Suerrat), necessity, or simple opportunism. These states will have risen and fallen, possibly more than once, during the Long Night, giving the enterprising Referee plenty of options to develop his particular subsectors and decades.
Then, of course, there is the Magyar and Daibei area, which was conquered in a rolling tide of clan ambitions by the Aslan. You want a persistent warzone either to play in or have nearby, the Aslan Conquest is often the best answer. Due to the clannishness of the Aslan, a Human campaign can make real gains against one Clan over the span of a campaign only to be lost to history when another Clan sees the opportunity and crushes the upstart Humans a generation later.
The areas beyond Imperial space also have a lot of potential. The rise and fall of the Darrians is during the Long Night. The farthest reach of the Zhodani, and the scourge of Vargr pirates across systems that must be taken "back" is during the Long Night. The stabilization of K'kree space, and the creation of the Hiver Federation are early in the Long Night, and much of the formative period in the entire Gateway region is around the same time.
With the understanding that you are unlikely to get the entire collection of Major Races in one place during this era, my advice is to pick a spot about the usual size for a healthy campaign (usually 2 to 4 subsectors) and decide what story you see there.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Geonee and Suerrat. I am not familiar with these. Where are they mentioned?
Aside from reducing the Tech Level average of the game to say 11 or 12, which gets rid of some of the personal energy weapons and combat armor, if you played in the Solomani area, I am not sure if it would be noticed.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Both go back to Classic edition Library Data, as Minor Human Races present in or near the Imperial core. The Suerrat are natives of Ilelish Sector (which is named after their homeworld), while the Geonee are from Massilia Sector. They are significant for having begun space exploration at about the same time as the Vilani, founding significant interstellar states before the Vilani found them, and being violently subjugated by the Vilani in subsequent wars. Both have significant racial pride in their ten-thousand years of space-faring history.
Source lists can be found in the notes in these two wiki entries:
http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Geonee
http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Suerrat
It is worth noting that the Suerrat are one of the exceptions to the general rule regarding Minor races. The Suerrat make up roughly 60% of the population of ilelish Sector, the vast majority of whom are outside the ten parsec rule of thumb* for Minor Race populations.
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* - In general, Minor Races will have 90% of their total population within ten parsecs of their homeworld
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
They do appear in Library Data: A to M. I just did not pay that much attention to them, based on the context of the discussion.
Thank you for enlightening me.
Thank you for enlightening me.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The Suerrat played a significant role in the later Interstellar Wars period by flipping allegiance to the Terran side, so they would have been ascendant by the beginning of the Rule of Man before being frustrated by the Terran approach to running things. As such, they were primed to engage in nation building as things went dark.
The Geonee, by comparison, were suppressed more than the Suerrat. The Consolidation Wars period is not broken down by individual war, but the impression is that the Geonee were a tough fight with a lot of bad blood by the end. The Geonee hold multi-generational grudges, particularly against the Vilani, so they would have pressed for better status under the Solomani and, very likely, gotten turned down just like the Suerrat. Though their reasons are very different, they would have also sprung into nation building as the Rule of Man faded.
The two states would have been very different, because the two races are very different psychologically. Both would be "interesting" neighbors during a Long Night campaign, though, which is my point.
I don't think there is one template for a Long Night campaign. Every neighborhood is different.
A previous topic on the Long Night:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=37118
The Geonee, by comparison, were suppressed more than the Suerrat. The Consolidation Wars period is not broken down by individual war, but the impression is that the Geonee were a tough fight with a lot of bad blood by the end. The Geonee hold multi-generational grudges, particularly against the Vilani, so they would have pressed for better status under the Solomani and, very likely, gotten turned down just like the Suerrat. Though their reasons are very different, they would have also sprung into nation building as the Rule of Man faded.
The two states would have been very different, because the two races are very different psychologically. Both would be "interesting" neighbors during a Long Night campaign, though, which is my point.
I don't think there is one template for a Long Night campaign. Every neighborhood is different.
A previous topic on the Long Night:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=37118
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
My longest running Traveller campaign is set during the long night - I have just never specified which one.
Is it the long night that follows the collapse of interstellar government at the end of the Rule of Man? Is it the long night that follows the Rebellion and collapse? Or how about the long night that follows the opening of the black curtain and the war of annihilation fought by the final Imperium? Or is it even further out.
'Facts' my players have discovered:
humans may have evolved somewhere else in the galaxy and then spread out
there was an interstellar empire of humans many centuries ago
there are alien races
there are ruins of pervious civilisations - some alien some human
there was a time when intelligent machines existed
This all began many years ago with a subsector I made up. Player characters were mustered out of their service on the fringes of what today we would call a pocket empire.
The player characters usually move from planet to planet having adventures and I make stuff up as they go.
As to my views on the OTU long night - it is a fiction invented by the Syleans to give more credence to their re-establishment of an Imperium. Yes the Vilani Imperium eventually collapsed at the interstellar level, but this would not cause the die back and economic collapse of entire systems.
Interstellar government and cultural stagnation went away, leaving worlds do develop their own economies, political systems and cultural norms. It is those worlds you explore during a long night campaign.
Is it the long night that follows the collapse of interstellar government at the end of the Rule of Man? Is it the long night that follows the Rebellion and collapse? Or how about the long night that follows the opening of the black curtain and the war of annihilation fought by the final Imperium? Or is it even further out.
'Facts' my players have discovered:
humans may have evolved somewhere else in the galaxy and then spread out
there was an interstellar empire of humans many centuries ago
there are alien races
there are ruins of pervious civilisations - some alien some human
there was a time when intelligent machines existed
This all began many years ago with a subsector I made up. Player characters were mustered out of their service on the fringes of what today we would call a pocket empire.
The player characters usually move from planet to planet having adventures and I make stuff up as they go.
As to my views on the OTU long night - it is a fiction invented by the Syleans to give more credence to their re-establishment of an Imperium. Yes the Vilani Imperium eventually collapsed at the interstellar level, but this would not cause the die back and economic collapse of entire systems.
Interstellar government and cultural stagnation went away, leaving worlds do develop their own economies, political systems and cultural norms. It is those worlds you explore during a long night campaign.
^This.
My "Long Night" is also home brew. I start with a single subsector map that's very outdated (aside from the closest systems within Jump 1 or 2 which serve as trading partners)....and sandbox from there. I do usually have a semi-Microscope session for universe building though.
OK,
So I did a campaign set as the Rule of Man was collapsing. The setting was the Daibei and the Deep (Daibei and Reaver's Deep sectors in 3I times). I made some effort to fit in with published timelines. Early incarnations of the setting go back to about the latter part of the 1990s; it got warmed it over around 2010 or so although I never managed to line up a group to play it.
The game is set in 2780 AD, some 35 years after the banking collapse, which is regarded as the first major event in the decline of the Rule of Man. The universe is quite different from the Third Imperium, although it still has a Traveller look and feel. It's an attempt to show the old empire falling apart and new polities growing to fill the power vacuum. The region's isolation means that it's somewhat insulated from the worst effects of the Second Imperium's economic collapse.
Some major aspects to the setting:
- Aslan have only had jump technology for about 200 years or so, and have only been in the region relatively recently. Two clans have significant colonial holdings.
- The Saie are a race that gets a mention in some of the Cargonaut materials and passing mention in Don M's timeline. They have some back story, are a part of the setting. Their 'mysterious' extinction would happen some time after this period, but I did some back story for that as well.
- Drexilthar has a minor human race (actually 3 races) with a rapidly expanding economy that is already the single largest planetary economy in the deep. It is becoming a significant regional power. Later on, it would go on to become a major reaver state and eventually get glassed by Cleon as a warning to the Geonee and Suerrat, but this doesn't happen for more than 1,500 years after this setting.
- The 'verse peaks at TL12, with an ambient tech of TL 10-12. To make it work, I allowed jumps into unoccupied hexes, so 2x J2 long haul merchants are a thing in the setting.
- From some historical Rule of Man economic development programmes, there is also a large tranche of worlds with TL6-ish fossil fuel economies (i.e. tech that doesn't require much in the way of clever metallurgy or other materials tech to build and maintain).
- The forerunner of the Principality of Caledon is a thing in the setting, but it is still in its early phases of development as a utopia set up by some Terran colonists.
- The Vilani in the Daibei region are starting to flex their muscles again. More conservative elements of the Vilani regard the terrans as little more than invading barbarians, much the same way in which the inhabitants of the Golden Horde regarded the Mongols. Vilani separatist movements are starting to de-stabilise some regions.
- There are various TL10-12 ships - some are distant precursors to some of the standard classes in the 3I and some have no connection to 3I designs.
I didn't do much outside this region (which sits on the border of two sectors and is quite large enough as it is) so the rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The Solomani had that trick figured out early. It was the Vilani who forgot or suppressed it.
I think the Long Night is underrated as a setting. Digest et al. could have avoided all the Virus malarkey and used the Long Night if they wanted a dark future setting.
Cleon-era and Post-Cleon propaganda present the Long Night as some sort of reversion to barbarism. Like the Dark Ages, all it needs to be is an era where most of known space is not controlled by a large, centralised imperial power. It's a 1,700 year period where all sorts of polities can come and go.
I did a setting just as the Rule of Man is falling apart. Fast forward a couple of hundred years and you can have a completely different set of established polities - these can be the early reaver states, taken from the perspective of the reavers. Alternatively, something like Piper's space vikings could fit neatly into the setting.
It would lend itself to pretty much any sort of pocket empires setting. These can be done with just a couple of subsectors, so J2-J3 capability is plenty for this type of game - it could be supported with TL 11-12 technology.
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Have you ever looked at Sturn's Terran Dawn campaign?
There are some documents about it in the files library, but the link to the homepage itself does not work (at least to me), and Sturn himself has not logged in for about 3 years now (but he updates his HP, i nthe link on his signature).
The various threads about it in the Files section of this same board are:
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
As other people have noted before, a couple subsectors was sort of the original intent. That is lots of room for all sorts of narrative. Consider that the entire Star Wars (movie) saga is set on about 20 worlds total, Jedi cameo death scenes in III aside.
Poke around an find a Main to play with, the Core of the Imperium is rife with them.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
And Traveller Maps' Mains Tool makes them easy to find.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Maybe. I've rarely had a problem reading UWPs and coming up with stuff. It's all old tropes either way, to be honest. SWN just uses dice.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Call me old fashioned but I like generating my own systems for my own subsectors for my own Long Night Campaign, it is a major part of the fun.
The SWN stuff is excellent for randomly generating additional details about a planet or system or even polity.
The SWN stuff is excellent for randomly generating additional details about a planet or system or even polity.
