Probably.
Settingless Traveller: What is Imperium and What is Not?
- Thread starter Ackehece
- Start date
Probably.
Done (I hope I did it right).
Yep. Looks right.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I would say that the move was quite warranted. This issue is not specific to Traveller 5, but to all of the various editions.
Ackehece
SOC-13
yep... it started there as a conversation about T5 and was spun into it's own thread there.
But this is a better location
so Please read and comment on it :coffeesip:
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
This is a subtle and complicated question -- mostly because the answer to this question can vary so much from person to person based on
• when they first played Traveller
• with which edition they first played Traveller
• how deeply they continued with different Traveller editions
• how deeply they have dug into, and invested into, the OTU
For me, I have only read and played Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller. And my time with MegaTraveller was brief.
I picked up a copy of the Traveller boxed set at the Compleat Strategist on 33rd Street in Manhattan back in 1977.
For two years there were no explicitly OTU material in the core Book line, Supplements, or Adventures. As Marc Miller has stated several times Traveller had been designed for the Referee to create his or her own setting based on whatever SF books, novels, short stories, and movies he or she found intriguing -- and Books 1-3 gave the tools for the Referee to create and run such adventures.
In Books 1-3 you will find no mention of the OTU, the Imperium, or any specific setting. (In the 1977 edition of the rules you will not even find the word "sector" (only "subsector") let alone any concerns for dividing up political boundaries. That would be left up to the Referee, dependent upon the kind and scale of interplanetary governments he or she created.)
Books 1-3 did have an implied setting. When I say setting, I mean "the setting of play." That is, the geographical subsectors where the PCs would have adventures. The 1977 edition suggested only creating one or two subsectors, which would provide "years" of adventures.
So, no matter what was happening beyond the "setting of play," Books 1-3 implied a setting of play that with the following characteristics...
• The PCs came from a centralized interstellar government, which has military branches of several types
•▮The setting of play was a remote distance from this centralized interstellar government (allowing the Players agency and the ability to adventure without constant government entanglements)
• Communication was limited to the speed of Travel (the one and only core SF concept in the Traveller game, as far as I've been able to determine; the OTU develops more)
• Trade, commerce, and communication (in the setting of play implied by Books 1-3) is limited, depending on subsidized or privately owned ships rather than services run specifically by government agencies. (The X-boat route is introduces in the 1981 edition of the rules, but did not exist in the 1977 edition.)
• Trade and travel between stars is dangerous. (See rules: misjumsp; piracy; hijacking; Low Passage odds; limited fueling options; communication (SOS) at the speed of travel; and so on.) Note that the notion that "interstellar travel will be as common as international travel is today," found in the opening paragraph of both The Traveller Book and Starter Traveller is not found in Books 1-3 and runs counter to the both the spirit and the letter of the rules. (It is, however, a perfect assessment of what travel is like in the OTU.)
• No uniform culture is expected across the worlds in the setting of play. We know this because Tech levels, government types, and implied cultures are all so varied and working at such odd extremes. When the PCs go to new worlds, they have the thrill of going to a new world. The culture, science, people, customs, and more can be as unique as the Referee wishes. (This ties back to the notion that the Referee could steal from any SF source material he wanted. Each world was a playground for him to build a unique adventure or adventures.)
• The Universal World Profile digits were there as a "springboard" to the Referee's imagination. They were not official coding from the in-fiction Scout service. (That would come later, and reflected in Supplements and later editions of the game.) This matters because it offers the Referee much more freedom to be elastic in his interpretation of the numbers rather than trying to conform his worlds to static interpretations of a fictional bureaucracy.
• Just like the UWPs, the game is a toolkit. It is there to be used and bent and abused by the Referee to his or her own agenda. Archaic weapons are there to handle any sort of setting the Referee might come up with. But if he only wants high tech weapons in his setting -- POOF! -- the are gone. In the same way the Psionics institute can follow many of the rules listed, but could serve as anything ranging from a Jedi Order to a secret society of the Bene Gessrit. This matters because issue like Social Standing are there for the Referee to use as he or she wishes. It's in the game, but what does it mean? It's up to the Referee. Do family feuds really matter? Or are noble titles fancy names for pencil pushers? Different setting will handle this differently. But the key is this: There is no official way to use these things for a setting. Each Referee will interpret how Jump Drives, Psionics, Nobility, interstellar governments and more work for his or her setting.
* Pinging off the last point, notice that the Tech Levels in Books 1-3 make no mention of the Imperium. The word is not present; there is no mention of Average, Above Average, or Maximum “Imperial Technology.” This is a big deal, since the OTU is built on having TLs at the higher end to function as described. But for me, for example, I’d rather have the max TLs of the PCs be around 11 or 12, leaving the higher TLs as astounding and mysterious science for them to explore and encounter.
• And continuing with this run: Notice that when a Referee rolls up a Naval base or Scout base in Book 3, there is nothing to suggest that this base is part of the remote centralized government the PCs came from. Because, of course, not only is the Imperium not mentioned, but the books saying nothing about this matter. It is up to the Referee to determine if these are outposts from the distant centralized government. Or part of a local interstellar community within the subsector. Or a base owned by that world. Or part of a government located far from the subsector the PCs have not even heard about yet. Again, notice how this opens up the setting in game in so many ways, once the assumption of having a Third Imperium, or something like the Third Imperium assumed in the game.
I bring all these things up before I answer your question because for me Traveller is… well, the game Traveller. Not the OTU. Not MegaTraveller. Traveller: The New Era. Not GURPS Traveller. Because those games, no matter what one thinks of them, have different agendas than that of the game called Traveller.
Also, the OTU has little interest for me because I like the setting implied in Traveller… which, as robject’s Toward a Philosophy of Traveller makes clear, is different than the OTU became.
For a lot of people Traveller is the setting and the rules don’t matter. But for me it is just the opposite. And unless I lay out how I look at the rules and text of Books 1-3 (the 1977 and the 1981 edition) how I answer your questions might not make sense.
[CONT'D]
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creativehum
SOC-14 1K
[CONT'D]
A final point in terms of the difficulty of teasing out an answer:
I see the later books in the Traveller Books as tools for me to use as I see fit. Not obligations
My Traveller “kit” contains Books 1-3, Supplements 1, 2, and 4, Book 4 (for the weapons)… and that’s it. If I want to blow the players away with the awe of encountering a 20,000 ton ship, I might grab Book 5. But I could probably fake it as needed.
The points is, one can play Traveller just fine with Books 1-3.
However, with each Book , starting with Book 4, more and more OTU entered the Book line. Book 4 introduced the concept of megacorps. Book 5 introduces the concept of sectors and sector level fleets. Book 6 introduces historical details from the OTU. And so on…
I bring these latest points up because none of these elements added to the Traveller setting are needed to create a setting with the Traveller rules. One doesn’t need megacorps. One doesn’t need sectors or sector fleets. They are definitely part of the Third Imperium, and for that I’m glad, because the Third Imperium brings many people pleasure. But in no way are they core to the game of Traveller. Can megacorps and sector fleets be part of a solid Traveller setting built with rules and text found in Books 1-3? Absolutely! And they might be a blast! It’s all up to the Referee. But I don’t think they are core.
So, to your questions:
• Ship Types and Names
Sure
• Set Planet Descriptions (I would probably put this Imperium)
Nope
• Precursors vs. Ancients
Nope
• Scout Service? (smaller? Less Ubiquitous? Who is the sponsor?)
Not as described in the OTU. The fact that there is a Scout Service somewhere that that the remote centralized government runs doesn’t mean it is working in the setting of play. There might be local Scout Services however. It’s up to the Referee
• Navy? (as above)
There is a Navy. The Player Character can serve in it. The question is, just because there is a navy that the remote centralized government runs, is it here, in the subsector, where RPG adventures are taking place?
• Sector Fleets?
See above
• Sectors! (maybe some other form of generating polities?)
Nope. I mean, they can be there. But there’s nothing to assume they are. A government might be contained within a subsector. There are might be several small interstellar civilization within one or two subsectors. This is something the Referee can happily decide when making the setting of play
• Nobility? Social Rank? This appears core to the system to me.
Yes. But how they are expressed in the setting is up to the Referee. Because that all depends on the setting.
That's what I've got.
Cheers!
A final point in terms of the difficulty of teasing out an answer:
I see the later books in the Traveller Books as tools for me to use as I see fit. Not obligations
My Traveller “kit” contains Books 1-3, Supplements 1, 2, and 4, Book 4 (for the weapons)… and that’s it. If I want to blow the players away with the awe of encountering a 20,000 ton ship, I might grab Book 5. But I could probably fake it as needed.
The points is, one can play Traveller just fine with Books 1-3.
However, with each Book , starting with Book 4, more and more OTU entered the Book line. Book 4 introduced the concept of megacorps. Book 5 introduces the concept of sectors and sector level fleets. Book 6 introduces historical details from the OTU. And so on…
I bring these latest points up because none of these elements added to the Traveller setting are needed to create a setting with the Traveller rules. One doesn’t need megacorps. One doesn’t need sectors or sector fleets. They are definitely part of the Third Imperium, and for that I’m glad, because the Third Imperium brings many people pleasure. But in no way are they core to the game of Traveller. Can megacorps and sector fleets be part of a solid Traveller setting built with rules and text found in Books 1-3? Absolutely! And they might be a blast! It’s all up to the Referee. But I don’t think they are core.
So, to your questions:
• Ship Types and Names
Sure
• Set Planet Descriptions (I would probably put this Imperium)
Nope
• Precursors vs. Ancients
Nope
• Scout Service? (smaller? Less Ubiquitous? Who is the sponsor?)
Not as described in the OTU. The fact that there is a Scout Service somewhere that that the remote centralized government runs doesn’t mean it is working in the setting of play. There might be local Scout Services however. It’s up to the Referee
• Navy? (as above)
There is a Navy. The Player Character can serve in it. The question is, just because there is a navy that the remote centralized government runs, is it here, in the subsector, where RPG adventures are taking place?
• Sector Fleets?
See above
• Sectors! (maybe some other form of generating polities?)
Nope. I mean, they can be there. But there’s nothing to assume they are. A government might be contained within a subsector. There are might be several small interstellar civilization within one or two subsectors. This is something the Referee can happily decide when making the setting of play
• Nobility? Social Rank? This appears core to the system to me.
Yes. But how they are expressed in the setting is up to the Referee. Because that all depends on the setting.
That's what I've got.
Cheers!
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*** What is the difference here? ***
I have always seen the Ancients as a precursor race.
I would love to hear what others have to say on this matter.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Ancients were not the first advanced civilisation, they probably weren't even the thousandth.
They were the first to invent jump drive within the OTU, but the OTU gives us maneuver drives that can achieve 90% of light speed so slow colonisation of space is a possibility for them (even the Vilani in the OTU started off this way, and so did the Solomani, although with slower STL ships).
They were the first to invent jump drive within the OTU, but the OTU gives us maneuver drives that can achieve 90% of light speed so slow colonisation of space is a possibility for them (even the Vilani in the OTU started off this way, and so did the Solomani, although with slower STL ships).
Ancient MTU we're one of many high tech races. They we're more communicative than others. Defense and commerce oriented than most of the races. Quickly stated without details, for lack of another comparison, like the Klingons and Ferengi in one race.
There was a mention in Knightfall and MTJ4 of an even older precursor race called the Primordials, but Marc later decanonised them.
Yeah. Interesting. Marc has been great about keeping the Ancients as the only canon, precursor race. I think its a good thing for refs.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
He passed comment on the sparklers/baddies from the core scenario outline presented in the last MT journal IIRC
The first starfarers box text is still in my copy of the MT RM, and I still have Knightfall, so the idea of a psionic primordial race is still sound - but they can not have ever invented the jump drive, that was Grandfather's and his alone as I understand things.
The first starfarers box text is still in my copy of the MT RM, and I still have Knightfall, so the idea of a psionic primordial race is still sound - but they can not have ever invented the jump drive, that was Grandfather's and his alone as I understand things.
Isn't the primordial race in Knightfall also meant to be the "sparklers"?
Yes, I think it was Grandfather who invented jump space, but that doesn't preclude an older race from using NAFAL drives, or even other FTL drives like hop drives.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
They would have been if DGP had continued their MT line
Generation ships, electronic personality transfer, even psionic teleportation are all possibilities
According to MT:Referee's Manual:
Note that T5 also mentions, Inertialess Drives and Reality Drives at ultra-high TL, and mentions Alcubierre Drives as well, but does not give a TL for them.
Also, I don't know if there is any canonical information that suggests that Yaskoydray invented Jump-Space, or simply discovered it. But it is certainly not precluded.
Note that with the publication of T5 we have more information, namely that there are other galactic regions with interstellar societies (apparently some quite large). We do not know how they achieved interstellar travel. And we do not know if the proscription on Jump Drives being unique to Yaskoydray and/or Charted Space holds for higher level drives (Hop, Skip, etc) or not.
Note that T5 also mentions, Inertialess Drives and Reality Drives at ultra-high TL, and mentions Alcubierre Drives as well, but does not give a TL for them.
Also, I don't know if there is any canonical information that suggests that Yaskoydray invented Jump-Space, or simply discovered it. But it is certainly not precluded.
It's tentatively canonical that Hop Drive wasn't discovered until circa 3IY 1850-1900... despite some worlds in charted space being capable of having done so since 3IY 1000.
I say tentatively only because it's in drafts that I have seen (and am commenting on), but Marc's been emphatic about that point.
T5.0 and 5.09 both are explicit that TL alone isn't enough for ANY FTL drive... neither Stutterwarp, Jump, Hop, Skip, Leap, Bound, Vault, nor Hyperspace portal.
Same is true for Fusion+ and gravitics, but not as explicitly.
It's also canonical that some races have been advanced in certain subfields and retarded in others. Solomani had +1 TL in medicine, but –1 in gravitics; Hivers +1 in computers and robotics, –1 in small arms. IIRC, K'Kree also had a +1 in Robotics.
I say tentatively only because it's in drafts that I have seen (and am commenting on), but Marc's been emphatic about that point.
T5.0 and 5.09 both are explicit that TL alone isn't enough for ANY FTL drive... neither Stutterwarp, Jump, Hop, Skip, Leap, Bound, Vault, nor Hyperspace portal.
Same is true for Fusion+ and gravitics, but not as explicitly.
It's also canonical that some races have been advanced in certain subfields and retarded in others. Solomani had +1 TL in medicine, but –1 in gravitics; Hivers +1 in computers and robotics, –1 in small arms. IIRC, K'Kree also had a +1 in Robotics.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Well, I would assume that a settingless Traveller would be based strictly on what is in the Little Black Book set, or Starter Traveller. Once you get past that, you get into the setting being the Imperium.
If you go with just the LBBs, then you can add a lot of other material without worrying about canon of other books. For prior spacefaring races you have Andre Norton's Forerunners and the Bald Space Rovers, with the Forerunners being a really long time ago. Then you can add in the race that set up the conservatory and zoo on Arzor, the ruins on the planet of the Catseye novel, the automated defense system on Jumala in Star Hunter, the Wyverns of Warlock, the transformed humans on Janus, and also the human Diaspora described in some of H. Beam Piper's books.
Essentially, a much wider range of possibilities for adventure than in the Imperium setting.
If you go with just the LBBs, then you can add a lot of other material without worrying about canon of other books. For prior spacefaring races you have Andre Norton's Forerunners and the Bald Space Rovers, with the Forerunners being a really long time ago. Then you can add in the race that set up the conservatory and zoo on Arzor, the ruins on the planet of the Catseye novel, the automated defense system on Jumala in Star Hunter, the Wyverns of Warlock, the transformed humans on Janus, and also the human Diaspora described in some of H. Beam Piper's books.
Essentially, a much wider range of possibilities for adventure than in the Imperium setting.
But does that also apply universally to all now-extinct Precursor/Pre-Ancient societies as well? And does it apply to any of the other Galactic Societies in other sectors of the Galactic Map that will be encountered as Charted Space expands during the Galaxiad-era?
It's a fundamental axiom of the Technology system that the "speculatives" other than practical fusion are not a given for any body politic/technic at the listed tech level, and that the major ones (FTL, Gravitics) may not occur at all until stolen from someone else.
It's also fundamental that no FTL existed prior to Grandfather. (It is implied that Grandfather created jumpspace; Marc hasn't confirmed this theory. In fact, Marc's avoided defining whether J-Space is natural or artificial. Ibid. Hop, Skip, Jump, Leap, Bound, Vault).
It's also explicit from the text that Hop does not have jump as a prerequisite; while the two are related, it's possible for a STL body technic to never develop jump, then at TL 18, suddenly discover Hop 1. Ibid for skip, leap, bound, vault.
Stutterwarp is non-extant in the OTU by 3IY 1900.
Portals are canon.
Gravitics in the OTU are relatively common.
