Re-formed Coalition?

[san*klass]

I am planing on refereeing Traveller again, and the New Era has always inspired me, since playing a successful RCES campaign, back in the day.

But my more mature (?) tastes are slightly turned off by certain things, like:-

- Hivers (nuff said, just Hivers full stop!).
- RC politics - it was obviously there to create fully rounded RC characters, but it just irritates me, now. Yes the Aubaini are manipulated by the Hivers (see above), and they manipulate the rest of the RC. And they "use" the Schalli to bolster their vote in the council. Yes the Flamers are TED's in disguise and are power hungry.
- The whole naive "12 ships" vibe. How stupid were the Dawn League to send out unarmed trading and diplomatic missions into the wilds, and not expect substantial casualties? Didn't the wise and intelligent Hivers tell them anything? Or the Free Trade Network? And then to throw a League wide hissy, crying, fit as a result seems a little childish!
- PoT talks about how resource and tech poor the RC is, but every published scenario (especially "Smash & Grab") has the troops armed up to the max with high tech gear. And, in 1201, just two years after the "12" they have already built 7 Clippers and myriad modules to fill them. A slight disconnect?
- Lastly, with only a few ships (probably mostly J2) how do they hold the worlds together, since they are widely dispersed with many 3 parsec gaps between them.

So, I am planning to write a modified Dawn League, with just 1 or 2 parsec gaps in between, and so just in Aubaine sector. Aubaine, Phoebus, Fija, Aurora, Trybec & Vezina as founder members. Obviously Vezina would have to be rewritten, although it could still be a Balkanised TED world, but one that has the sense and openness to see the benefits of League membership. Maybe keep a xenophobic rebel TED in hiding and make it a lesser Oriflamme in nature. And so, logically remove the "all TED's are evil and must be killed" jingoism, which is very suggestive of UK (I am English, by the way) and US attitudes and actions towards Gaddafi, Hussein etc.

Remove the Hivers altogether. Maybe have them with smaller client states to Trailward, but not involved in the DL at all, except as occasional diplomats, if at all.

I will lower the tech and resource, so removing ship building with a concentration on repairing, converting and maintaining what they already have or can salvage. And Battledress and Fusion guns being in short supply. TL10 gear being more the norm. After all they have one TL12, one 11, two 10's and the rest below that. Recovered relic gear of higher TL's should be rare.

Have most ships being J2, with very few above that, so reducing where they can go. Probably take away the idea of the "12", but keep the idea that ships go missing, occasionally, and crews need to be rescued etc.

And so opponents will be more evenly matched, Kide's DSE becomes much more of a threat, as does the Guild. And it supports the idea of less frequent, but potent Virus activity. And so, the Vampire Highway becomes much more of a perceived (and actual) threat!

I am not anti RC/PoT, in fact far from it. I just want to suggest a different view of events.

 

[epicenter00]

I think it's a promising start, about the only thing I'd look at closely is the size and the number of worlds in your RC.

I cut down the RC's member planets. The RC is, simply put, large and spread out to an extent that seems utterly ridiculous given what it is. The RC despite being a "new" polity (it's larger than a subsector!). As a result most of the member worlds are generic in the extreme, going counter to GDW's stated aim to make each world in the RCverse unique (as explained in PoT). It also results in "o rly" situations with much of the "north" and the "southeast" of the RC unable to communicate with the rest of the RC without Jump-3 ships. In addition, the new nation is already so large that getting from Aubaine to Oriflamme would effectively take four jumps in the Jump-2 ship, jumping non-stop that means it takes a month to get to Oriflamme, then another month to get back. I fail to see how Oriflamme can coordinate or build much of anything in the way of technology transfers and so on in the two years that the RC has existed given that kind of communication lag.

My stripped down RC consists of four worlds, which I believe would give it sufficient variety and as well as allowing for some detail. I also moved the beginning of the New Era to 1300 to let the dust settle more.

Spires, Saloga (Zloga), Willow (Helios), and Nemyer (Oriflamme). Of these only Spires, Willow, and Nemyer would be inhabited. Their Pre-Collapse UWPs would remain identical, but their post-Collapse UWPs would be different from the PoT information.

Saloga was a high-tech largely automated manufacturing world that exported high TL goods to surrounding worlds. Its low population, A-class starport, and high TL are the results of a limited population of a robotics technicians, executives, corporate guards, and service workers. Due to the effect of the Hard Times and that the world could not natively support human life, the world was in the process of evacuating its population to Spires when the Virus hit (something considered in the realm of reasonable even with only a few Jump-1 and Jump-2 ships due to the world's low population). Saloga has since been the target of limited repopulation as they attempt to get the starport working again with Nemyer's help. The stock of salvagable TL14 goods (once pretty plentiful on Saloga) is running out, and the RC now turns covetous eyes outwards...

Spires was primitive world during the Imperial Era. All that changed with the inhabitants of Saloga arriving. When the Virus hit, the world endured several decades of "dark ages" as the hydroponics and similar high-tech survival items the Salogans expected to use to survive in their own high-tech city without interacting with the natives much failed due the Virus. As a result, the Salogans were forced to compete with the Spiri for local resources at gunpoint, leading to massacres, population displacement, slavery, and similar terrible situations. Since then, the Spiri and Salogans have made efforts to reconcile but racists on both sides exist one side looking down on the "stupid primitives" while the other hates the "invaders" and continually brings up the brutal early years of Salogan "settlement" -- most Salogans on the other hand consider that dark period terrible, but a thing of the past. On the other hand, significant (and growing) numbers of Spiri move to live around the Salogan city and take advantage of Saloga-sponsored education and social benefits and many wish to live technological lives (it's a booming job market). The majority of Spiri still live as they did before the Salogans arrived, though efforts are ongoing to raise the native TL of Spires.

Willow is basically the Heppling/Baldur of this RC. Effectively a water-world (the atmospheric taint refers to the toxic pollens of the native land plants which look like willows, which force humans to live far out to sea to escape the taint), it was inhabited by a few groups of people from Heppling for whom living out to sea was something they were used to. They worked in aquaculture and were in the process of prospecting the world to see what could be mined; essentially there was no actual government, only foray teams and a few clans of homesteaders. The Virus hit the world hard, as the machines they depended upon to survive shut down and it was only through effort and sacrifice that Willow's people continued to survive.

Nemyer was a lower-tech industrial world in the Imperial era though I explained the original atmospheric taint was because of industrial pollutants thick in the air and absence/poor enforcement of "clean air" regulation. Since the Virus collapse and rebuilding, Nemyer has invested heavily in cleaner technology (laws to enforce it) so the taint is gone in the New Era. For much of the immediate collapse era, Nemyer was balkanized into dozens of technological city-states that popped up in the wake of the disaster which survived on trading with each other and salvaging the failed cities where civilization collapsed. These states, almost without exception consisted of a combination of militaries and technicians who united to prevent rioting, looting, and damage to the critical infrastructure - this is the root of Nemyer's technarchs. The shifting alliances and wars that marked this era finally came to an end with the unification of the largest alliances around 1270 around the specter of the return of the atmospheric taint due to re-industrialization and a lack of ability to of the city-states to inspect and enforce environment legislation (since polluters are more economically competitive) and eventually moved forwards as a way to end wars on-world with the promise of resources off-world. Nevertheless, even on modern-day Nemyer, these states (the former city-states) still wield considerable power, and the government of Nemyer sometimes grinds forward haphazardly as various native factions push their own agendas. Things such as human rights, industrial safety, and so on varies considerably among the states of Nemyer, though efforts of true unification are ongoing, progress is slow.

The politics of this version of the RC are as follows:

"The RC should expand to re-contact space and create a new interstellar state via diplomatic means, negotiation, and treaties" - Nemyer (unification worked with us misfits, it can work anywhere!) and Saloga (we need relic items and industrial markets!) support this. Spires and Willow oppose it (Spires because they feel that others should not be meddled with and Willow because they feel the RC doesn't have the resources).

"The RC should Smash and Grab - take what is needed from inhabited worlds if necessary" - Saloga, Willow, and some Technarchs who feel if resources are being misused they should be "appropriated" for use in the RC. Opposed by most technarchs on Nemyer (who feel it violates the sovereign rights of a world's people) and Spires (again, who feel that others shouldn't be meddled with).

"The RC should have strong, federal government" - Supported by Spires and Nemyer, who both feel that in the absence of a strong government to enforce justice, the powerful do what they want to the weak (Spires) and the unscrupulous will profit over those with conscience (Nemyer). It's opposed by Willow (since the world was inhabited people who wanted to get away from the government of Heppling) and Saloga (who feel a strong central government might consider their occupation of Spires to be unjust and evict them or make them pay further monies for crimes that were committed by people by past generations).

"The RC should have strong central military" -Nemyer pushes for this as their world was raided several times by "raiders" during the Hard Times so they want protection (they also want something for the military men and women of the former city-states have something to do instead of being divisive, disgruntled idle hands post-global unification), Saloga supports them as they feel military building would help their industries. Willow opposes the expense while Spires thinks a military would only be used to oppress.

"The RC should work on native shipbuilding industries on Saloga" - Supported by Saloga (duh), opposed by Nemyer (who feel their own starport could simply upgrade itself instead of restoring Third Imperium-era slips on Saloga). Willow sees the benefits from both sides. Reactionaries on Spires marginally support Saloga as they see the re-inhabitation of Saloga meaning more Salogians will leave Spires.