References for Reavers' Deep

[rancke]

Eep! I guess I need to read up on the era and on the area, eh?

Has SpaceBadger decided on a date for the campaign yet? Otherwise you'd have a bit of trouble reading up on the era.


Hans

 

[SpaceBadger]

Has SpaceBadger decided on a date for the campaign yet? Otherwise you'd have a bit of trouble reading up on the era.

No, and I'm actually finding darn little to "read up on" the era anyways. Just the little bits and pieces we have discussed in this thread. So I'm really trying to decide where among those bits and pieces I can make up the stuff that I need for the campaign, without diverging from what is already published.

One thing w going into the "past" like this; I've already decided that while I want it to fit in w published OTU at the point where we begin, from that point forward it is an ATU and if the players change "history" that is fine.

 

[GypsyComet]

One thing w going into the "past" like this; I've already decided that while I want it to fit in w published OTU at the point where we begin, from that point forward it is an ATU and if the players change "history" that is fine.

Much of the Long Night is very nearly a blank slate. There are allusions and references to states in Imperial space* that survived and even thrived, but almost nothing concrete at the system by system level. Even a mere century before the rise of the Syleans, you could have movers and shakers that are subsequently lost to history.

Canon says the Aslan had to be forced from the area in a conflict that took nearly 200 years, and it places a maximum period on Aslan occupation of the region. You are also provided with the borders and UWPs 700 years later. You would have to work at it to violate Canon significantly.

--
*- The Long Night was solely an Imperial event. Though the K'kree and Zhodani also stopped expansion during that period, they did so for completely different reasons that were unrelated to state collapse. The Vargr and Aslan were expandng, the Julians thrived, and the Hivers consolidated.

 

[rancke]

No, and I'm actually finding darn little to "read up on" the era anyways. Just the little bits and pieces we have discussed in this thread. So I'm really trying to decide where among those bits and pieces I can make up the stuff that I need for the campaign, without diverging from what is already published.

My suggestion would be some time around -100, then.

One thing w going into the "past" like this; I've already decided that while I want it to fit in w published OTU at the point where we begin, from that point forward it is an ATU and if the players change "history" that is fine.

Just as any other historical campaign, then. At least, I've never yet run a historical campaign where the player characters had the power of precognition.


Hans

 

[SpaceBadger]

My suggestion would be some time around -100, then.

Currently considering either -100 or -1000. Both have pros and cons. Or maybe about -800.

 

[Hyphen]

Paul Sanders' Reaver's Deep Sector Sourcebook collected everything that Paul could find (plus an adventure by me ). Unfortunately the book (and its companion books) were only published in 100 copies.

100 copies? I have one of only _100 copies_??? Wow!

Hans, thanks for pointing out my oversight. I hadn't mentioned it because it's not a web site. Note that it should be regarded as one of the most canonical sources, because it contains primary source material that Paul received from J. Andrew Keith - probably the last Traveller contribution he made before he passed away.

I have lost touch with Paul - last I heard he was moving to Hawaii to go to university there, but that was about 10 years ago. Anyone else know where he is? Maybe the books could be reprinted through Marc or DriveThru.

 

[Hyphen]

Much of the Long Night is very nearly a blank slate.

(As an aside...)

Amusingly enough, there is no stand-alone canonical Library Data entry for "Long Night". It only appears as part of other entries, or in timelines.

Well, it's amusing to me, anyway. ;-)

Weirdly enough, "Twilight" DOES have its own entry. Go figure.

 

[GypsyComet]

(As an aside...)

Amusingly enough, there is no stand-alone canonical Library Data entry for "Long Night". It only appears as part of other entries, or in timelines.

Well, it's amusing to me, anyway. ;-)

Weirdly enough, "Twilight" DOES have its own entry. Go figure.

Having been shamelessly borrowed from Poul Anderson, the semi-avoidance of the term "Long Night" may be on purpose.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I already announced this in my blog and over in the [SBRD] campaign discussion thread, but since y'all have been so helpful w info and suggestions in this thread I thought I should tell you that I have decided on Year -790 Imperial (3728 AD Terran) as the beginning of our campaign. I think this will be an interesting time for adventures: enough years after the famous raids of Duquesne and Izanak for them to be legendary, still plenty of other Reavers out there to worry about, Drexiltharan Empire growing rapidly, a few wars going on... Interesting times! :devil:

I am looking forward to using the campaign features that tjoneslo has added to the Traveller Wiki. I just wrote up what was intended to be my first article for the Wiki, only to discover that most of it is redundant with articles already in the main Wiki. Anyway, here are the parts about historic dating during the Long Night, which had not been previously addressed:

Much of the historical writing that we have about The Long Night was written from the point of view of scholars living during the Third Imperium, and therefore uses Imperial dating, although the Third Imperium and its system of dating were not yet in existence at the time of the events recorded. Therefore, our first concern must be with what dating systems were in use at the time of the events recorded.

Following the collapse of the Second Imperium and beginning of the historic period known as The Long Night, dating systems in use in the area of the former Second Imperium varied primarily by politics, culture, and tradition. In areas where the cultural influence of the First Imperium outweighed that of the subsequent but shorter-lived Second Imperium, most worlds and multi-world governments reverted to the Vilani dating system. In areas where the influence of the Second Imperium remained strong (and particularly in those colonized from Terra during the Interstellar Wars and the Second Imperium), the Terran dating system continued to dominate. Throughout the whole area of the former Second Imperium, individual worlds and multi-world governments established their own dating systems based on such things as date of colonization, date of formation of the current government, or date of some other locally important event; however, for purposes of interstellar trade, even these tended to use either Vilani or Terran dating, whichever was dominant in the states around them.

The rest of my article was fairly much a waste of time and redundant, although I will save my custom timeline for events concerning the area of this campaign, and see if I can post it without having to reformat the whole table by hand.

 

[SpaceBadger]

(As an aside...)

Amusingly enough, there is no stand-alone canonical Library Data entry for "Long Night". It only appears as part of other entries, or in timelines.

Well, it's amusing to me, anyway. ;-)

Weirdly enough, "Twilight" DOES have its own entry. Go figure.

True. In most of the timelines, they refer to the collapse of the Second Imperium in -1776 as "Twilight", then later on will refer to the general collapse of interstellar trade in human space about -1526 as "9 PM" which I have assumed means the real beginning of the historic "Long Night". At least, that is what I use it to mean in my timelines.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Does anyone know who did the entry for Coventry (RD 3207) in the wiki? It says it comes from the Traveller's Digest #16. How canon are the TDs? How close to the article is the information there?

 

[rancke]

Does anyone know who did the entry for Coventry (RD 3207) in the wiki? It says it comes from the Traveller's Digest #16. How canon are the TDs? How close to the article is the information there?

Thomas did the original entry[*]. I'm pretty sure he quoted the article in TD16 verbatim. At a guess it's originally from one of the Gamelords publications, and so not under DGP copyright at all (but I could be wrong).

[*] There's a button marked 'View history' next to the edit button that'll show you these things.​

Hans

 

[GypsyComet]

True. In most of the timelines, they refer to the collapse of the Second Imperium in -1776 as "Twilight", then later on will refer to the general collapse of interstellar trade in human space about -1526 as "9 PM" which I have assumed means the real beginning of the historic "Long Night". At least, that is what I use it to mean in my timelines.

According to one reference I've seen recently, Twilight is the period, ranging from 150 to 250 years, when *something* that claimed to be the Rule of Man still existed, gradually shrinking from its inherited borders. When the lights finally went out completely, the Long Night began.

 

[SpaceBadger]

According to one reference I've seen recently, Twilight is the period, ranging from 150 to 250 years, when *something* that claimed to be the Rule of Man still existed, gradually shrinking from its inherited borders. When the lights finally went out completely, the Long Night began.

But the lights never went out completely. There were still pockets of civilization all during the Long Night, and in my opinion, several probably claiming to be the legitimate remnants of the Second Imperium. (What should I call that? IMOTU? )

I just got the Twilight and 9 PM from the original Third Imperium setting article in Different Worlds #9.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Thomas did the original entry[*]. I'm pretty sure he quoted the article in TD16 verbatim. At a guess it's originally from one of the Gamelords publications, and so not under DGP copyright at all (but I could be wrong).

[*] There's a button marked 'View history' next to the edit button that'll show you these things.​

Hans

OK, thanks, Hans. Looking up the TD #16, it is labelled as a DGP, but I have no idea how precise that is. I asked because there's some discrepancy with respect to dates and such. So, we were wondering.

 

[BlackBat242]

But the lights never went out completely. There were still pockets of civilization all during the Long Night, and in my opinion, several probably claiming to be the legitimate remnants of the Second Imperium. (What should I call that? IMOTU? )

I just got the Twilight and 9 PM from the original Third Imperium setting article in Different Worlds #9.

They are also on the timelines in CT Supplement 8 Library Data A-M and in the entry for Twilight in CT Supplement 11 Library Data N-Z (Supp8 specifically credits the Different Worlds #9 article, however). There is no text entry for "9PM", but:

Twilight (-1176 to -1536)
The failure of the Rule of Man triggered the collapse of most of interstellar civilization. While interstellar travel and commerce continued, it was at a greatly reduced rate, and many worlds of the Imperium turned in on themselves. The period of collapse is termed Twilight and lasted for two and a half centuries.

Modern historians consider Twilight to have begun in -1776 when the treasury on Hub/Ershur refused to acknowledge a monetary issue of the branch treasury at Antares, triggering a financial collapse and the destruction of large-scale trade within the Imperium.

The end of Twilight is commonly accepted as the year -1526, when the last governmental body claiming to be the Rule of Man ceased to exist.

Note that there was a clear and definable end to those "claiming to be the legitimate remnants of the Second Imperium" in -1526... thus providing a clear demarcation for the "end of Interstellar Empire".

But, as there is no statement to the effect that there were never new claims of "We are the Rule of Man in exile/reborn", you are free to have as many as you want and still be "OTU".

 

[GypsyComet]

But the lights never went out completely. There were still pockets of civilization all during the Long Night, and in my opinion, several probably claiming to be the legitimate remnants of the Second Imperium. (What should I call that? IMOTU? )

I just got the Twilight and 9 PM from the original Third Imperium setting article in Different Worlds #9.

Right. We know more about those pockets now than back then, but only a little. Known pockets of interstellar travel persisted around Terra, Vland, Ilelish (home of the Suerat), and the home of the Darmine in Zarushagar. I think the Luriani in Ley also kept the lights on, and the Julians maintained a large and vital state and several neighbors.

We don't know of anyone keeping the lights on in the face of the Aslan in Daibei, but that doesn't mean someone didn't.

 

[shield]

Have you looked at the Traveller Chronicle. It discusses the revears deep sector. Okay its from a Traveller TNE perspective but it does give worl descriptions and some history. I think it was in Traveller Chronicle 5-7 from memory

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

Or you could look at the formulas used in the date template, which based upon the date conversion discussion. The date template formula are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate to a year.

Maybe I'm a little slow, but that link takes me to what looks like an edit page. What do I do with it?