Question for GypsyComet

[Gadrin]

I was reading my GURPS Space Atlas 3 this past weekend when I noticed a great deal of the planets in it are from the Protectorate Worlds in the Far Frontiers Sector...obviously the same author contributed these.

Do you have any info on that ?

I haven't compared the world stats.

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[GypsyComet]

Far Frontiers / Afachtiabr Sector

Dale Kemper wrote the rimward half of the sector (presumably) for his own Traveller game.

The rimward row of subsectors was used by FASA back in the day. Dale also sent the half-sector to Ares Magazine (the short-lived TSR SF games mag) as a magazine article.

Bits and pieces of this became elements of the GURPS (2nd ed?) Space Atlas series. I couldn't tell you the path of contacts that got his material there, though.

Dale then passed further development of the material to Sword of the Knight Publications, who contacted me to finish the sector. Why me? I was a HIWG sector analyst and had done the sector immediately coreward (Tienspevnekr) as well as helped with Zhdant and Ziafrplians.

Were I to re-visit my half, I think I'd scramble the world names in the Blight a bit more, but otherwise the premise that the Zhodani border is dished inward for good reason would probably stand.

 

[Gadrin]

Very interesting.

Did you/have you used the Protectorate a lot in games, or was it just writing ?

I'm slowly developing the Far Frontiers for games, but most of the adventure work I did was for a Zho team back in the day the sector was still coming under their influence.

Rescue on Galatea used the Protectorate and the Company GENEM as a plot device (ignoring the Zhodani altogether). From what I've read of GENEM they don't mention the Zho in their plans at all.

Presumably since they're a private company they'd deal with them on a case by case basis ??? Or was HIWG leaning towards something else ?

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[GypsyComet]

HIWG (History of the Imperium Working Group) was basically a writers association. The goal was more to develop things without stepping on each others toes than to pursue specific agendas in specific sectors. Bouncing ideas off of others was also a common motive. Some (okay, quite a bit) of the membership saw the document library as "free stuff" instead of being interested in writing for publication themselves. Some of the more dedicated membership saw this and stopped sharing, pulled their submitted documents, and/or left the Group entirely. HIWG peaked late in the MT run, declined but persisted through TNE, and pretty much gave up at the launch of T4, but the original purpose of HIWG had largely failed even before I had joined (I was member #200).

I've only ever run the briefest of games in Far Frontiers/Afachtiabr, and didn't really get into the corporate politics beyond what made it into the articles in Traveller Chronicle. Sorry, no unrevealed body of information here.

 

[GypsyComet]

Hmm. That could be run anywhere from high detail to super abstract, like renaming all the properties in Monopoly to subsectors or clusters and playing for a certain number of turns, keeping track of when a territory is acquired, "rented", or lost.

 

[Gadrin]

Well it's a pretty common theme in Traveller, however I prefer games down at the character level, such that the PCs are in the middle of things in their games not just saying "do this, do that" and so on, where their actions don't matter.

My GENEM / Zhodani clash was going to revolve around them (GENEM) being set already in the sector and Zhodani coming in a cramping their style. The initial scenario finds the Zhodani PCs on a planet helping conduct a planetary survey for Chiadle a Zhodani mega-corp. The planet is being purchased by a neutral world who asked for the Zho's help. The zho's are just checking for radiation, water purity, resource checking (double checking the last survey) to make sure that everything is correct. During the survey (the system is supposed to be interdicted) a 10-ton launch shows up and requests to talk to the Zhodani. He'd been left at the gas giant a few days ago by a ship jumping in then out, and thrusted in.

He's looking to sell the Zhodani some information. They clear him to land and find out he wants to sell them a Zhodani Messenger Stone, imprinted with telepathic information. Then find the stone was recovered off a wreck in a system J-2 away. Analyzing the stone finds the original ship in a battle after restocking a secret Zho base, so they ask the man to take them to the ship. After recovering the bodies (it was a small scout ship) the Zhodani are able to find the secret base from the scout ship's nav computer. This leads to the secret base, that has been wiped out !

Eventually they get back to the subsector HQ (their Chiadle membership is actually a cover they work for the Consulate) and are given rather cryptic orders to "handle things appropriately". A further meet with a Zho Commando Officer pushes them further, leaving them a pair of satchel charges, once they determine the ship that lead both attacks. The PCs would have a teleporter amongst them.

The final scenario would lead to the team finding the 400-ton merchant, responsible for both attacks, owned by GENEM and their cybernetic troops, refueling at some neutral point...

The rest is up to the pcs.


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