Reinventing Traveller

[Tiikeri]

pretty much this for me (and see the thread about system generation). We've barely scratched the surface of knowledge. I remember a short story years ago where pretty much every other race in the galaxy had figured out FTL during their Middle Ages equivalent, and so were off fighting interstellar ways in wooden ships that barely had enough air to last the trip. They get to Earth thinking easy conquest and we have tanks, jets, all that stuff. Turns out it was a simple mathematical process that we just never discovered to whatever reason.

Anyway - yes, there are definite issues with our current understanding of the universe with a lot of the Traveller tropes. I've a feeling in 5000 years a lot of that may well go away with the "how quaint they were" impression.

So back to the point of the thread, as Traveller has been re-invented several times already (just how many Cepheus versions are there now?) each solves its own set of issues. To use one of my favorite comics:

View attachment 3064
from https://xkcd.com/927/

I think it was The Road Not Taken, by Harry Turtledove.

 

[kilemall]

Because you are not duplicating the brain, you are mapping the memory and personality.

A TL12+ robot would likely fool us today into thinking it is self-aware and sentient, but true machine sentience doesn't come along until much higher TLs.

You can run wafer personalities on a computer, probably keeping them occupied in some sort of virtual worlds.

But if you cannot solve multidimensional field equations in your head neither can a wafer personality, whereas a jump generate program can.

What about wiring a robot brain that has nav skill front ending a ship computer that can run Generate? Just like having specialized video or encryption cards.

 

[Tiikeri]

1. More depth on the different cultures of the Imperium and other empires. I've always found the idea that the populations of the Imperium think of themselves as "imperial" rather than Vilani, Solomani, Sylean, and so on to not resonate with how populations develop. The Imperium isn't a country with easy movement of millions of people and a media norming effect, it's an empire of 10,000 semi isolated islands in the void, with relatively few populations moving and media updates occurring every week at the most. Cultures would change, languages would change, especially after the long night.

I would have really liked to see more detail on the main cultural blocs in the Imperium, making them distinctive with good and not so good qualities that would motivate players to play characters from those cultures

Example the solomani military aristocracy that formed the 3rd Imperium hadn't heard from Terra in 1000 years. They'd be vastly different from the Solomani of the Sphere. Many populations probably would've intermarried like the Romans in Britain and speak both vilani and some kind of old anglic dialect. Solomani could even be more of a social caste than a nation, and someone is considered "Solomani" because he had one solomani ancestor 500 years ago.

 

[mike wightman]

The Syleans were a minor human race first colonised by the Vilani and then later a smattering of Solomani were added to the mix during the Rule of Man. A typical Third Imperium Sylean could have quite an interesting genetic heritage.

Consider for a moment just how widespread the Vilani genome becomes during its 7000 year diaspora - the Vilani population of the Ziru Sirka would have been close to trillions, with a few billion minor races mixing in. The population of Terra was 12 billion during the ISW era, even assuming a billion migrated into the Rule of Man that still makes a typical Third Imperium human mostly of Vilani stock.

But this is reinventing the Third Imperium setting, not re-inventing Traveller

 

[Grav_Moped]

The Syleans were a minor human race first colonised by the Vilani and then later a smattering of Solomani were added to the mix during the Rule of Man. A typical Third Imperium Sylean could have quite an interesting genetic heritage.

And as I've noted elsewhere, claiming Solmani heritage at one point in time could have enabled your ancestors to opt out of the rigid Vilani heirarchy. There are a lot more people claiming Solmani ancestors than those who actually have them...

 

[Condottiere]

Hellenization.

 

[McPerth]

1. More depth on the different cultures of the Imperium and other empires. I've always found the idea that the populations of the Imperium think of themselves as "imperial" rather than Vilani, Solomani, Sylean, and so on to not resonate with how populations develop. The Imperium isn't a country with easy movement of millions of people and a media norming effect, it's an empire of 10,000 semi isolated islands in the void, with relatively few populations moving and media updates occurring every week at the most.

I disagree with this view.

I guess most of Imperial population see themselves as planetary population (even country, on balkanized worlds), with only a very small minority (that still amount to millions at least) see themselves as Imperials.

Even while travel seems easy, this is not entirely true, as, aside from being expensive, it’s likely to be restricted in many worlds, mostly those with restrictive governments (and this includes most HiPop ones.

Only those serving (or having served) on Imperial services, or those regularly travelling off planet (and this probably means high society or traders) would think about themselves as Imperials, with most of the population not even caring about the Imperium, either fully ignoring it or seeing it as a remote entity with no effect on their lives. And I believe those two groups rarely merge (to see my view of the Imperial society and culture, see this old post of mine)

But, as Mike says, that’s for another thread…

 

[Tiikeri]

I disagree with this view.

I guess most of Imperial population see themselves as planetary population (even country, on balkanized worlds), with only a very small minority (that still amount to millions at least) see themselves as Imperials.

Even while travel seems easy, this is not entirely true, as, aside from being expensive, it’s likely to be restricted in many worlds, mostly those with restrictive governments (and this includes most HiPop ones.

Only those serving (or having served) on Imperial services, or those regularly travelling off planet (and this probably means high society or traders) would think about themselves as Imperials, with most of the population not even caring about the Imperium, either fully ignoring it or seeing it as a remote entity with no effect on their lives. And I believe those two groups rarely merge (to see my view of the Imperial society and culture, see this old post of mine)

But, as Mike says, that’s for another thread…

I think we agree.

I said people would not consider themselves Imperial, but identify with their primary culture. And that travel in the 3I is not cheap or easy enough for mass movement of populations that would create a fairly uniform Imperial culture.

In your post you brought it down to the planetary or national level, which I think is even more realistic.

 

[aramis]

B

What about wiring a robot brain that has nav skill front ending a ship computer that can run Generate? Just like having specialized video or encryption cards.

been canonically doable since CT Bk 8...
And semi-canonically since the JTAS article on Robots.