Rebellion Redux

[Tiikeri]

Gaming Encounters of the 5th Kind:

Broken/forced murderous jokerhobos.


But seriously, the OTU Vilani were just poorly done when they were done at all.

There needed to be a justification for why technological progress stopped, so the plucky Terrans could win. Part of that justification was based on late Roman history, which is plausible, but the other part, that innovation crawled to a stop, got out of control.

It's one thing for characters to have a respect for tradition and reach a small group consensus, but it's quite another to have characters abhor using their own minds to create an innovative solution to a difficult problem.

The book method is for Vilani characters to look to tradition, manuals, and expert systems, anything to keep from using their own creativity. Then, they have to talk it over until everyone's okay with it and then ask permission from their superiors, who would no doubt have to consult their expert systems and have their own meetings.

This is something players don't like, since finding creative solutions to the challenges they encounter during an adventure and then taking action is a big part of the fun. To play a character whose culture requires him to defer to an external source decide what to do would, IMO, be pretty boring.

It doesn't make sense that Vilani PCs are the rebels and freethinkers, because the other races aren't written like that. Aslan, Vargr, Solomani, etc. can all be played as written. Why can't the Vilani? Because the Vilani were written to be knocked down by the Terrans, and everything else grew from the need to justify their implausible fatal flaw.

I think it's because we're all supposed to be 'Imperials', but then 'Imperial' culture is not defined. Vilani culture has the largest population in the Imperium, but I've already pointed out the problems with Vilani cuture as written. Tangent: I think the Imperium would be at least 90% Vilani. The Solomani would've been a drop in the bucket, population-wise, during the Rule of Man. The only reason Solomani are the majority population in the Rim is because of author fiat, plus plagues in the ISW period, sparse Vilani populations on the Rim frontier (possibly, seems reasonable), and then Vilani migrating away from the Rim in the Solomani Sphere/SolCon period.

Then there's the minor races of the Imperium, but they're insignificant specks beside the Solomani, Aslan and Vargr populations in the Imperium.

 

[BwapTED]

Gaming Encounters of the 5th Kind:

Broken/forced murderous jokerhobos.


But seriously, the OTU Vilani were just poorly done when they were done at all.

There needed to be a justification for why technological progress stopped, so the plucky Terrans could win. Part of that justification was based on late Roman history, which is plausible, but the other part, that innovation crawled to a stop, got out of control.

It's one thing for characters to have a respect for tradition and reach a small group consensus, but it's quite another to have characters abhor using their own minds to create an innovative solution to a difficult problem.

The book method is for Vilani characters to look to tradition, manuals, and expert systems, anything to keep from using their own creativity. Then, they have to talk it over until everyone's okay with it and then ask permission from their superiors, who would no doubt have to consult their expert systems and have their own meetings.

This is something players don't like, since finding creative solutions to the challenges they encounter during an adventure and then taking action is a big part of the fun. To play a character whose culture requires him to defer to an external source decide what to do would, IMO, be pretty boring.

It doesn't make sense that Vilani PCs are the rebels and freethinkers, because the other races aren't written like that. Aslan, Vargr, Solomani, etc. can all be played as written. Why can't the Vilani? Because the Vilani were written to be knocked down by the Terrans, and everything else grew from the need to justify their implausible fatal flaw.

I think it's because we're all supposed to be 'Imperials', but then 'Imperial' culture is not defined. Vilani culture has the largest population in the Imperium, but I've already pointed out the problems with Vilani cuture as written. Tangent: I think the Imperium would be at least 90% Vilani. The Solomani would've been a drop in the bucket, population-wise, during the Rule of Man. The only reason Solomani are the majority population in the Rim is because of author fiat, plus plagues in the ISW period, sparse Vilani populations on the Rim frontier (possibly, seems reasonable), and then Vilani migrating away from the Rim in the Solomani Sphere/SolCon period.

Then there's the minor races of the Imperium, but they're insignificant specks beside the Solomani, Aslan and Vargr populations in the Imperium.

'Plagues', AKA Solomani bio warfare.

I'll buy that the Vilani were behind Earth in biotech but I find it hard to believe they had never encountered any harmful viruses. How many minor races had they contacted? How many alien planets had they visited?

Wouldn't it be just as likely that the Earth people would catch something horrid from Vilani?

RE Imperial culture:

My impression from CT books is that most people on most worlds are not really Vilani or Solomani after centuries of admixture, assimilation, and cultural diffusion. The Rule of Man seems to have liberated a lot of subjugated minor human races, so those enter the mix too.
Vland is obviously an exception.
Most of Illiesh culture is Vilani, too, right?

 

[BwapTED]

That's an excellent point about the other races.
They are all written so that a PC may be a normal/typical member of the species.

In the case of the K'kree that means playing a small herd, IIRC.

I'm thinking about Vilani now...

 

[mike wightman]

The Vilani got to TL11 and stayed there for a reason.

The collective 'they' were terrified of what TL12+ would bring and the potential for total destruction of the Vilani race.

There is a lot overlooked about the Vilani - they were bold explorers once, using STL to colonize several worlds before they discovered jump drive.

They used their jump drive to explore further, meet alien races, establish a trading empire of sort; this period lasted three thousand years.

The Vilani made the discovery of jump 2 drive (interesting backstory to that) and began the consolidation wars that would take a thousand years.

At the close of the consolidation wars the Vilani 'Imperium' - actually three empires directed by a shadow emperor - was declared and would continue to grow in strength for another thousand years.

It was the consolidation wars and the years of the Ziru Sirka that stagnated Vilani technological development (I would argue this was deliberate) and entrenched Vilani caste and cultural norms.

By the time the Solomani encountered the Vilani the sheer size of the Ziru Sirka would be its undoing, plus the incursions of the Vargr, the rebellions of subject races, and the Terrans having no hesitation to opening the pandora's box to TL12+.

The next bit is pure speculation on my part.

 

[Tiikeri]

IMO the Solomani were just too few to make a difference.

You're right about what CT books say, but IMO it doesn't make sense. The centuries of admixture would have completely diffused the Solomani in much greater Vilani populations to the point that the Solomani disappeared. Solomani heritage would only be detectable with DNA analysis. Even if the aristocracy pretended to be Solomani, they would be genetically local after the Long Night unless they exclusively had children without other pure Solomani. How long was the Long Night, about 1000 years? 1000 years without much interstellar trade, and especially without significant migration. A planet would need a Solomani population of about 4,000 to be self sustaining, relatively free of genetic diseases, and to support technical capabilities, and they'd need to be geographically or socially isolated to prevent intermarriage and diffusion. If those Solomani intermarried with Vilani majority population, they would just become Vilani with barely detectable Solomani heritage.

It's important to consider how expensive space travel is in Traveller. Low passage costs 1000Cr per jump, with 22lbs of luggage. That's not even a full duffel bag, and if you want to bring a good casserole dish, forget it. I doubt prices were cheaper over the 2000 years prior to the CT's current year. This is a massive obstacle to the kind of mass migration needed to push enough hundreds of millions of Solomani throughout 10,000 planetary 'islands' in the Vilani Empire to mix everybody to the point where entire planetary populations lose their genetic and cultural identity, replaced by the nebulous 'Imperial' culture and heritage. I don't think there would be enough Solomani in Charted Space to do that.

The whole population mixing thing was a classic scifi trope; In John Carter of Mars from the 1920s, the Red Martians were the product of several different kinds of ancestor Martians. H. Beam Piper stories were another, with everybody in the Southern Hemisphere mixing over a couple of centuries. Maybe that's why the idea ended up in Traveller, but I think it's more plausible that the writers didn't want to bother detailing the Vilani. They just said 'oh yeah, there were vilani, but now they're all completely mixed Imperials'. Look at China, 4000 years of history and there's still Manchurian, Han, Hakka, and all the different distinct peoples and languages of China. There are still Assyrians and Yezidi, Basque, Maori and Kalash of Pakistan. To think that the tradition bound Vilani would suddenly start having kids with disease ridden Solomani frequently enough to lose their heritage doesn't pass the common sense test.

 

[mike wightman]

The population of the solar system when they first encountered the Imperium was over twelve billion. Twelve billion on a TL9 industrialised world.

The Vilani had a habit of only putting a few tens of millions, perhaps a hundred million, people on their settled worlds, their high population worlds only scape a couple of billion.

Thus the Earth was the equivalent of about half a sector if Imperial territory - and don't forget a lot of the early 'wars' were 'not won' by Earth. If the Vilani had taken the Earth seriously as a threat it would have all been over rather quickly. If the Vilani had even maintained the tactics they used during the consolidation wars the Earth would have been scrubbed.

Instead the Terrans managed to get a couple of colonies off the ground, sent 'merchants' into the Imperium to learn what's what, and made preparations for the next war.

The Vilani were fighting for containment and never imagined what would happen once the Earth was fully on a war economy and catching up with Vilani technology.

Then the Terrans opened the box - they made the leap to TL12 with jump 3, meson guns and AI - it is that last bit that is so contentious within Traveller circles.

 

[mike wightman]

IMO the Solomani were just too few to make a difference.

You're right about what CT books say, but IMO it doesn't make sense. The centuries of admixture would have completely diffused the Solomani in much greater Vilani populations to the point that the Solomani disappeared. Solomani heritage would only be detectable with DNA analysis. Even if the aristocracy pretended to be Solomani, they would be genetically local after the Long Night unless they exclusively had children without other pure Solomani. How long was the Long Night, about 1000 years? 1000 years without much interstellar trade, and especially without significant migration. A planet would need a Solomani population of about 4,000 to be self sustaining, relatively free of genetic diseases, and to support technical capabilities, and they'd need to be geographically or socially isolated to prevent intermarriage and diffusion. If those Solomani intermarried with Vilani majority population, they would just become Vilani with barely detectable Solomani heritage.

Think of it like this being Solomani or Vilani has nothing to do with genetics - think of it more like being British during the height of the British Empire. You were British if you adopted British cultural norms.

During the Rule of Man an awful lot of Vilani worlds adopted Solomani cultural ways because the populations were sick of the oppression of the Vilani caste system or they just wanted to play lickspittle to their new lords and masters. One of the reasons the RoM collapsed was that the Solomani way of doing things just couldn't cope with the size of the Empire they had just taken over.

It's important to consider how expensive space travel is in Traveller. Low passage costs 1000Cr per jump, with 22lbs of luggage. That's not even a full duffel bag, and if you want to bring a good casserole dish, forget it. I doubt prices were cheaper over the 2000 years prior to the CT's current year. This is a massive obstacle to the kind of mass migration needed to push enough hundreds of millions of Solomani throughout 10,000 planetary 'islands' in the Vilani Empire to mix everybody to the point where entire planetary populations lose their genetic and cultural identity, replaced by the nebulous 'Imperial' culture and heritage. I don't think there would be enough Solomani in Charted Space to do that.

There was no mass migration of Solomani into the Imperium. But consider the situation where a fleet is sent to take over a subsector capital, the fleet contains tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand troops and sailors. On some Vilani worlds this would be a sizable addition to their population.

The whole population mixing thing was a classic scifi trope; In John Carter of Mars from the 1920s, the Red Martians were the product of several different kinds of ancestor Martians. H. Beam Piper stories were another, with everybody in the Southern Hemisphere mixing over a couple of centuries. Maybe that's why the idea ended up in Traveller, but I think it's more plausible that the writers didn't want to bother detailing the Vilani. They just said 'oh yeah, there were vilani, but now they're all completely mixed Imperials'. Look at China, 4000 years of history and there's still Manchurian, Han, Hakka, and all the different distinct peoples and languages of China. There are still Assyrians and Yezidi, Basque, Maori and Kalash of Pakistan. To think that the tradition bound Vilani would suddenly start having kids with disease ridden Solomani frequently enough to lose their heritage doesn't pass the common sense test.

How much Neanderthal DNA do you have? Have you looked at the statistics for how many of us have genes that can be traced back to the Mongol invasions?
I agree that there would not have been much mixing of Vilani genes and Solomani genes to produce a hybrid Third Imperial, but in some places there would have been.

Again I go back to the history of the Vilani - they were not always so rigidly culturally stagnant - that was a deliberate decision. Once the Ziru Sirka had fallen an awful lot of planets are free to develop their own cultural norms. Some had a considerable Terran influence, others had only passing knowledge that the Solomani existed.


So during the Long Night you have ex-Ziru Sirka worlds that have little Solomani presence from the get go and culturally over the next thousand years they no longer identify as Vilani (or Solomani). Also worth noting that there were lots of human 'minor' races adding to the genetic and cultural mix.

 

[whulorigan]

RE Imperial culture:

My impression from CT books is that most people on most worlds are not really Vilani or Solomani after centuries of admixture, assimilation, and cultural diffusion. The Rule of Man seems to have liberated a lot of subjugated minor human races, so those enter the mix too.

Correct, according to OTU canon going back to CT. The Rim tends to be more Solomani in culture, whereas the "Imperial" culture is an admixture largely of Vilani and Solomani cultural values.

Vland is obviously an exception.

The Vilani cultural region is centered on Vland Sector and tends to roughly correspond with a region somewhat smaller than the Domain of Vland, as this entire region had been a "pocket empire" at he time of Cleon I, and was absorbed into the emerging Sylean Empire/Third Imeprium as a unit at its foundation.

Most of Illiesh culture is Vilani, too, right?

The planet Ilelish was the homeworld of the significant minor race, the Suerrat, who had already established their own STL pocket empire when the Ziru Sirka had forcibly absorbed them. The Suerrat were very glad to help the Terrans fight against the hated Vilani when they encountered them. So Ilelish was actually anti-Vilani. In fact, during the Third Imperium it became a trouble spot in the 400's during the Ilelish Revolt.


Also, Gushemege was the home of the Lancian cultural region.

 

[mike wightman]

The third Imperium was declared when the Sylean Federation was no longer a concern for Cleon - he had outgrown it.

Consider Sylea - a world that did have a mix of Solomani and Vilani genes to be sure, but as you say the vast majority were of purely Vilani ancestry. But Cleon wasn't. He did have Solomani genes, and so did his immediate cronies. he used his Solomani heritage to legitimise his founding of his Imperium as a successor to the first two. If you wanted to be part of the big boys club you claimed some Solomani ancestry.

It would be several centuries before the third Imperium would invite the worlds of the Solomani area of influence to join and 588 before Terra itself joined the Third Imperium.

The vast majority of the third Imperial worlds are settled by genetically Vilani but are culturally 'Imperial', some may have traces of Solomani genes, other worlds are settled my the minor human races and hybrids of those with the Vilani, again with a slight chance of Solomani ancestry.

The big mistake the OTU authors made was to have the genetically Vilani longer lived than Solomani, at a stroke making every PC a member of the Solomani line. I would have had Vilani longevity linked to some sort of anagathic regime peculiar to the Vilani.

 

[Garnfellow]

Note that there are many worlds within the Solomani Sphere that strongly identify as Vilani, ironically because of Solomani supremacist ideology.

Over the Long Night many of these world might have drifted rather far from the Vilani culture of the Ziru Sirka, but once the Solomani Movement began sorting out populations by genetic heritage, you started having groups forcibly identified as Vilani. (Imagine a Celtic Revival movement in England that tagged whole communities as "Roman.")

Over a few centuries you started seeing voluntary and involuntary population sorting and an accompanying revival of Vilani language and culture. After the Rim War, the Authentic Movement really focuses this cultural drift.

 

[BwapTED]

Vilani psycho-history needed to keep the ZS stable would not work if aliens races ran wild or technology disrupted things.
So the psycho-historians who ran things took more or less humane steps to assimilate or sideline aliens and the clamped down on research and innovation.

The Terrans won in part because the psychohistorians decided to help them win, after the first two ISW.Terrans were the lesser of two ills. If a Terran dynasty arose, the Ziru Sirka might be salvaged in some form.

The real menace was a feral, unpredictable, innovative nonhuman species.
The Vargr.

 

[mike wightman]

The Vilani explored a greater region of space than the 3I now occupies.

In jump 1 ships.

They established a trade empire because they had an advantage, the jump drive. They would only encounter one other race with a primitive jump drive, the Geonee a minor human race who claimed direct descent from the Ancients and had a jump drive to prove it.

Sadly for the Geonee's claim to grandeur their pocket empire was no where near as big as the Vilani and so the Geonee were conquered and their claims of Ancient descent and independent jump drive production squashed.

The Vilani encountered aliens and technology way beyond their own, much of this knowledge was hidden away in secret archives (see Agent of the Imperium), and eventually came to the conclusion that if they continued along the technological path to higher and higher TLs their own cultural identity would be wiped out, indeed the whole human rave could be wiped out by some of the eldritch horrors they encountered.

So they took the decision to stagnate at TL11.

Why TL11 and not TL12?

TL 12 is the game changer - direct mind/machine interface, AI advanced enough to learn and innovate (not self aware though - that would take TL16+), manipulation of nuclear forces in a way that can be harnessed to transmute matter. An of course TL12 leads to TL13 where personalities can be copied, edited, downloaded, artificial biological beings can be built or cloned, transhumanism (transVilanism?).
The Vilani had encountered alien races and ruins that highlighted the dangers of runaway technological advancement, so they took the decision to not advance beyond TL11.

Of course when the first Terran 'ethically challenged merchants' learned of these secret archives and eventually plundered them they had no qualms whatsoever over using the knowledge to advance to TL12 just about overnight on the galactic scale of things.

Terran TL at ISW outset was 9. Reverse engineering and espionage would allow for the rapid progression to TL11, but the jump to TL12...

TL;DR version, the Vilani were culturally terrified of overly smart machines and runaway technology - possibly due to ancestral memories of the wars between the machine gods...

 

[Vargas]

It does seem implausible when you put it all that way.

Maybe...


Dulinor assassinates Strephon and Iolanthe but is himself killed in the throne room.

Ciceneia Iphegenia escapes the assassination attempt, wounded but alive.
Dulinor's men are all killed or captured.

Now it's Isis Alethian leading the Second Iliesh Revolt against her former friend, Ciencia.

The Iliesh rebels are in a bad position without outside help. So Isis allies with the Solomani Confederation and various Aslan ihaetai.

The Zhodani see what's going on and then decide to renew pressure on the Imperium along their border...

NOTE Forgive my typos. A lot of made-up words in this post.

That's a pretty good alternate approach. I'm not sure the Zhodani would ratchet up the pressure though. Their aim is to keep the Imperium from expanding in their direction and a civil war would likely make the chance of that less. They're for stability on their border, rattling the Imperial cage would be counter to that, IMO.

 

[BwapTED]

That's a pretty good alternate approach. I'm not sure the Zhodani would ratchet up the pressure though. Their aim is to keep the Imperium from expanding in their direction and a civil war would likely make the chance of that less. They're for stability on their border, rattling the Imperial cage would be counter to that, IMO.

Well, a civil war in the core of the Imperium could slow expansion along the Spinward Marches, as the Navy cannot be equally strong everywhere at once.

Though we don't have Lucan issuing nutty fleet orders in this scenario and the Imperium isn't hopelessly divided into a half dozen factions/splinter states.

A Sixth Frontier War might be more a matter infiltration, terrorism, coups, merc actions, etc. The big guns come out in the second phase if things get that far...


ONE POSSIBLE OUTCOME OF THIS ALTERNATE SCENARIO:


I'd think the Imperium probably would defeat the Rebellion and hold most of the Solomani Rim (and the Spinward Marches, if it has to also fight Sword Worlders and Zhodani), in the end. But it might lose some worlds and be pressed hard by fighting a civil war and a couple of size-able foreign wars all at once.


Not Bill's 'Wounded Colossus.' Definitely not Hard Times.
But the assassinations and the wars will have an impact.

Empress Iphigenia may sour on the 'Strephonian Reforms', deciding that these changes were , after all, things Dulinor supported and wanted to go further with.
Instead of following in Strephon's footsteps as a liberal reformist, she patterns her reign after Arbellatra, the all-conquering empress who crushed rebels and false emperors, and brought unity and glory back to a divided Imperium.

But the Empress hasn't lost her interest in exploration. It's past time the Imperium began growing again...

 

[whartung]

So they took the decision to stagnate at TL11.

Why TL11 and not TL12?

TL 12 is the game changer - direct mind/machine interface, AI advanced enough to learn and innovate (not self aware though - that would take TL16+), manipulation of nuclear forces in a way that can be harnessed to transmute matter. An of course TL12 leads to TL13 where personalities can be copied, edited, downloaded, artificial biological beings can be built or cloned, transhumanism (transVilanism?).
The Vilani had encountered alien races and ruins that highlighted the dangers of runaway technological advancement, so they took the decision to not advance beyond TL11.

I assume they had no real external threats to them either, as an arms race is always a driver of technology.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I assume they had no real external threats to them either, as an arms race is always a driver of technology.

they took care of the external threats, thats kinda what the Consolidation Wars were. they basically spent a thousand years overrunning and stomping down on every possible or potential threat they could reach, then went into cultural stasis to preserve their empire.


Its intresting to look into the dates given for the history of the 1st imperium, just to marvel at how long it took. the vlani discovered jump back in -9235. That's about the same time as the solomani discovered that other great transportation invention, the Wheel (give or take a few hundred years).


Then, for the next four thousand years, they slowly expand, establish a very loose trade union with the surrounding minor races and bring them up to stellar tech levels, with what is implied to be cordial relations with them.

They eventually grow tired of this and start the Consolidation Wars in about -5,400, or around the same time the Neo-Assyrian empire was consolidating itself with armies that contained some of the first horsemen, who had no stirrups or saddles and fought as pairs, one man holding the reins of the second so he could use his bow.

The Vlani Bureaus reorganised into a single unified state in-5273/753BC, or the traditional date of the founding of Rome. The proclamation of the 1st imperium was -4045 imperial, or A.D. 476, the year the last Emperor of (Western) Rome is disposed. I'm guessing that those two dates coincide with was not a accident.

it took something like 1200 years form the end of the Wars to the first contact with the terrans, and it took the terrans another 200 years to actually beat the Ziru Sirka.

 

[Tiikeri]

Think of it like this being Solomani or Vilani has nothing to do with genetics - think of it more like being British during the height of the British Empire. You were British if you adopted British cultural norms.

A non-Japanese who thinks he's Japanese is a weeaboo, not Japanese.

But consider the situation where a fleet is sent to take over a subsector capital, the fleet contains tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand troops and sailors. On some Vilani worlds this would be a sizable addition to their population.

So, a migration, if those troops and crew stay on the world, which I doubt they would. If they did, the RoM would lose the fleet, and they'd have to ship another 100,000 troops and crew at enormous expense just to get that fleet operational again. Doesn't seem plausible. If the troops are sent as a permanent occupying force, it would depend on the ratio of Solomani to Vilani, and the ratio of men to women among the Solomani migrants. If the Vilani population is big enough, the Solomani would be absorbed the way the Mongols were absorbed in China. After a 2000 years, again, non-Vilani heritage would only be detectable by DNA analysis. If the populations are roughly even, and the sex imbalances provide a motivation to intermarry instead of keeping to coexisting but distinct nations, then IMO a new people and culture would grow, ethnogenesis. But they would not think of themselves as 'Imperials'. They would no longer be Vilani or Solomani, much less the vague 'Imperial'.

The whole concept is severely flawed, and it's another thing I have to paper over when I run a game in the OTU. But, by dealing with that problem and other problems, the game is no longer in the OTU.

 

[Condottiere]

The Solomani Party has a big tent, necessarily so since it's a one party state.

It's consumed by factionalism, but everyone, at least lip servingly so, agree that the Sphere must be Wholey Again.

The Confederation is more similar to the Federation of United Planets, than the Imperium is.

 

[Tiikeri]

I might have to go back to CT's LBB 1-3 settingless state and just do my own thing. Pity, because there's so many good things in later CT, MT and even TNE.

 

[Tiikeri]

The Confederation is more similar to the Federation of United Planets, than the Imperium is.

That is a very true, very relevant observation which deserves consideration by more people.