Should the OTU UWP Data be Updated?

[Icosahedron]

Ok, Hans, you keep asking for concrete examples - here's one that as a writer you can maybe identify with.

I don't intend to keep producing sandcastles for you to knock down, but:

Suppose I've written something for Traveller. Maybe I've written a number of things and haven't got around to publishing them yet. Maybe I've spent a couple of years writing a fanfic novel set in the OTU.

Just as I'm about to publish, I learn that changes - instigated by your good self - have been made to the OTU and, to my horror, I find that the 'anomaly' that forms the central premise of my work has been 'corrected'. Suddenly my work is junk, flushed down the pan; gun to head.

And why?

Because you

a) can't find an existing world in the whole of Imperial Space upon which to set your work
and
b) can't figure a way to alter your work so it fits in the existing OTU setting.

So (and here we come once again to the crux of my argument) My OTU labours have to be altered to fit your interpretation.

My freedom to use the OTU setting becomes subordinate to yours.

Now do you see why I feel that change is unfair, that it hijacks the OTU and that the burden of justification falls upon those advocating change?

Whether or not my hypothetical writer actually exists is irrelevant; the principle is still valid.

The two writers are equivalent: any 'option' you can offer my writer, I can offer yours.

However, my writer has one advantage - he doesn't need to change the OTU. Occam's Razor - the simplest solution is probably best: Leave the OTU alone.

 

[Supplement Four]

You're reading my mind. Many of the X-boat routes do indeed not make any sense. They give the impression of having been set up according to some semi-hemi-demi random process by someone who didn't think about the ramifications of the technology rather than by rational thought processes. I do have a sort of explanation for that, but those doglegs really are ridiculous.

This is what really scares me about changing OTU data. If you were in charge, and you had the go-ahead from MWM, you'd be fiddling with the X-Boat lanes too.

Pretty soon, the Marches would look exactly the way you want it to look, eh?

 

[daryen]

This is what really scares me about changing OTU data. If you were in charge, and you had the go-ahead from MWM, you'd be fiddling with the X-Boat lanes too.

Quite frankly, there is on X-boat route that needs to change (or, more accurately, be outright deleted): Strouden <-> Tenalphi. It is impossible, cannot be used, and shouldn't exist. Yet it remains ...

 

[daryen]

It's ludicrous because there comes a point with changes when the 'new' OTU is no longer recognisable as the same OTU, it's not just corrected, but altered beyond recognition. The ludicrous example clearly crosses that line. I know this is not what you are advocating, but once change is begun, where do you draw the line? Who draws the line? Marc? With several voices in one ear and none in the other?

You know, this is the part that doesn't really make any sense to me.

The OTU already is barely recognizable as the OTU. Changes have already been made. Multiple times.

To take as an example, one suggested change that seems to make people pee on their shoes: changing world sizes to match atmosphere. You know what the canonical impact of this would be? Zero. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.

Written canonical history almost uniformly ignores world size when describing it. If they didn't, they would point out what the effect of adventuring on a size 1 or 2 world is. But they don't. The writers all treated worlds with breathable atmosphere as having fairly normal gravities.

So, quite frankly, increasing world sizes to support atmospheres would not only fail to harm the OTU's printed history, it would actually increase compliance with it!

All of this continues to force me to an unexpected conclusion: That most of those demanding "no changes to the OTU" don't actually understand the OTU. Which is kinda odd.

 

[Icosahedron]

All of this continues to force me to an unexpected conclusion: That most of those demanding "no changes to the OTU" don't actually understand the OTU. Which is kinda odd.

Dunno about the others, but you could be right there in my case.

 

[aramis]

The worst canon change, IMO, was virus. TNE's setting was completely unrecognizable outside the marches, and majorly different even then. And that's mostly due to collapse effects and the changes DN put in RegSB.

WHen MT plunged into a Civil War, most of my friends were expecting the Imperium to Survive, but smaller. It still looked the same, and Hard Times allowed us to see the slow decay.

Virus, however, wipes the slate clean, by eradicating the old setting. Most of my associates felt betrayed, and really wished that it had been an ATU....

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Quite frankly, there is on X-boat route that needs to change (or, more accurately, be outright deleted): Strouden <-> Tenalphi. It is impossible, cannot be used, and shouldn't exist. Yet it remains ...

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ..."

All those poor li'l XBoats, drifting forlornly in the vastness of the space between the stars ... filled with Christmas toys that will never reach the good little boys and girls waiting patiently on the other side of jumpspace.

Seriously, though: I thought I'd noticed everything about my dog-eared Supplement 3 in the nearly thirty-odd years since I first bought it; but it never, ever occurred to me that the Strouden-to-Tenalphi run was a Jump-5 experience.

 

[rancke]

It's ludicrous because there comes a point with changes when the 'new' OTU is no longer recognizable as the same OTU, it's not just corrected, but altered beyond recognition.

Well, if the aspect that is no longer recognizable is that the 'new' OTU is not riddled with verisimilitude-destroying contradictions and inconsistencies, then I think it is a good thing. If you're talking about Glisten no longer being an asteroid belt or Regina's companion moons being molten blobs of lava instead of being habitable worlds, then I agree with you completely. However, as I do not propose any changes that would make the OTU unrecognizable in that way, I consider your concern moot.

The ludicrous example clearly crosses that line.

Why? How would following the example (in the subtlest way possible, of course) change the OTU beyond recognition?

I know this is not what you are advocating, but once change is begun, where do you draw the line?

Long before the OTU becomes unrecognizable in your sense.

Incidentally, as Darrian has pointed out, change began decades ago.

Who draws the line? Marc?

Yes.

With several voices in one ear and none in the other?

Why none in the other?


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

Quite frankly, there is on X-boat route that needs to change (or, more accurately, be outright deleted): Strouden <-> Tenalphi. It is impossible, cannot be used, and shouldn't exist. Yet it remains ...

Now, why ya gotta go picking on Strouden, huh?



But, seriously, this is why I'm glad you pro "change" people aren't changing these things. Just like I just described in this post on the other thread, these are creative opportunities to add the peculiarities of real life into the Traveller Universe.

The Strouden-Tenalphi run shouldn't be deleted (slaps your hand). No, not at all. You just need to think creatively about it.

Why is it like that?

Well, maybe that run is important. Maybe it's political. Maybe it was important a hundred years ago, and now it's just "like" that, a result of politics a century ago.

As for the J-5 jump, maybe there are these special, unique J-5 X-Boats that make that run.

Oh, you read in Traders & Gunboats that there are "no known variants" of the X-Boat? That all X-Boats are J-4?

No problem.

Look that the world data. Spirelle is a Rich world, but it only has a Class C starport. What if a powerful noble family calls Spirelle home? What if they were able to convince the powers-that-be to station an out-system base there. Since the Jump Lane came so close to their world, they tried and tried to get it to go through Spirelle, but the best they could muster was the outsystem base.

Or, maybe it's just a meeting point for a couple of X-Boat Tenders out from Tenalphi. Either way, the actual run is Tenalphi - Spirelle - Strouden and back.

Don't like the political angle? OK. Let's look at the world data. Spirelle is Rich. Maybe there's an export from that world that doesn't have a long shelf-life. The export (whatever it is) is so popular and needed that the X-Boat lane was actually altered to come through the Spirelle system. Maybe this is a software that can be transmitted digitally to the X-Boat. Maybe there's gambling on Spirelle, known all throughout the subsector, and updates are needed.

Or...better yet.

Spirelle, being the Rich world it is, could be the banking hub for the entire subsector. Data on accounts is transferred to the outstation where the X-Boat stops on the run...




You see. Don't look at issues like this as a "problem". Consider them opportunities to get creative and add "life" to the Traveller Universe.

And, don't get rid of all these peculiarities just because you think they are misprints or "wrong" or whatever.

You're just not thinking about the OTU creatively (the way a GM should).

 

[rancke]

Suppose I've written something for Traveller. Maybe I've written a number of things and haven't got around to publishing them yet. Maybe I've spent a couple of years writing a fanfic novel set in the OTU.

Just as I'm about to publish, I learn that changes - instigated by your good self - have been made to the OTU and, to my horror, I find that the 'anomaly' that forms the central premise of my work has been 'corrected'. Suddenly my work is junk, flushed down the pan; gun to head.

I've actually experienced something like that. If you work in a shared universe, that's a risk you run. You were equally likely that someone else would publish a writeup of your anomalous system that 'explained' the anomaly (instead of eliminating it) by some handwave, and the odds are very good that the explanation wouldn't have fitted in with your work.

And why?

Because you

a) can't find an existing world in the whole of Imperial Space upon which to set your work
and
b) can't figure a way to alter your work so it fits in the existing OTU setting.

Not at all. It was because the anomaly you based your work on was either self-contradictory or contradicted other, equally canonical statements. Odds are very good that your work only works because you glossed over those parts.

But if you actually managed to come up with an explanation of the anomaly that works, you can always try to get Marc Miller to change it back. I'll certainly support you.

Or you could move your adventure to another part of the OTU. That's what I did when Behind the Claw messed up Mevey for me (quite legitimately, I hasten to add). And before you tell me that your anomaly was so absolutely unique that this is just impossible, I'd want a concrete example.

So (and here we come once again to the crux of my argument) My OTU labors have to be altered to fit your interpretation.

My freedom to use the OTU setting becomes subordinate to yours.

The exact same thing happens every time someone publishes anything that establishes a new fact about the OTU. Is that unfair too? Should TPTB just stop publishing new Traveller material to avoid infringing on your freedom to use the OTU setting?

Now do you see why I feel that change is unfair, that it hijacks the OTU and that the burden of justification falls upon those advocating change?

Whether or not my hypothetical writer actually exists is irrelevant; the principle is still valid.

No, it most certainly is not. Hypothetical entities do not have any rights.

The two writers are equivalent: any 'option' you can offer my writer, I can offer yours.

Such as the option to publish first. I can assure you that I generally prefer to explain seeming inconsistencies to retconning them. If your hypothetical author does come up with a good explanation, I'll applaud him and adapt my work to his forthwith.

But if he merely provided a lame handwave that doesn't actually work, I think it would be a blessing if someone (not necessarily me) retconned his work out of existence ASAP.

However, my writer has one advantage - he doesn't need to change the OTU. Occam's Razor - the simplest solution is probably best: Leave the OTU alone.

Except that leaving the OTU alone is not the simplest solution, because it doesn't fix what's wrong with it.


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

Except that leaving the OTU alone is not the simplest solution, because it doesn't fix what's wrong with it.

The problem with that is that not everyone sees a problem. As I just described in my post above, the X-Boat route from Tenalphi to Strouden seems to be an issue for Daryen. But, it's not for me. I can come up with a lot of reasons why that J-5 route is what it is.

In fact, I prefer things like this. They get my juices flowing.

And, I sure as heck don't want someone in there "correcting" things like that--because that's some of the stuff I really enjoy about the OTU.

 

[Foxroe]

I thought I'd noticed everything about my dog-eared Supplement 3 in the nearly thirty-odd years since I first bought it; but it never, ever occurred to me that the Strouden-to-Tenalphi run was a Jump-5 experience.

While technically an Xboat would have to zig-zag through 5 hexes to get from Strouden to Tenalphi, the actual straight-line distance is the same as going straight through 4 hexes...

<braces self for what will possibly be another long, heated debate>

-Fox

 

[rancke]

This is what really scares me about changing OTU data. If you were in charge, and you had the go-ahead from MWM, you'd be fiddling with the X-Boat lanes too.

No, I've managed to come up with a blanket explanation that can cover most of the peculiarities, so that wouldn't be necessary. (Basically, when jump-5 was invented, the Imperial Navy glommed onto it and kept it a military secret for a generation. By the time the X-boat could have upgraded to jump-5, the Imperial Bureaucracy was using the Navy's courier network for its orders and reports, so the X-boats had become superfluous and quickly turned into a boondoggle. The X-boat network is so inefficient because its only purpose nowadays is to provide money for a favored group of people.

Hmm... I might still do away with the dog-legs. They're just silly.

Pretty soon, the Marches would look exactly the way you want it to look, eh?

Probably not. It's just to big a job for one man to do, so I'm quite sure there would be bits of the Marches written up by others that I wouldn't approve of. As long as they weren't inconsistent or self-contradictory, I wouldn't feel entitled to change them.

Not even if Marc had given me carte blanche to do so.


Hans

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

While technically an Xboat would have to zig-zag through 5 hexes to get from Strouden to Tenalphi, the actual straight-line distance is the same as going straight through 4 hexes...

<braces self for what will possibly be another long, heated debate>

-Fox

Yeah, I was going to half-jokingly suggest stellar drift as an explanation, too; but I wasn't sure I could duck fast enough to avoid the brickbats, so I just kept that one under my hat.

Until now.

 

[rancke]

The problem with that is that not everyone sees a problem.

That's inherent in working with a shared universe. People disagree. If you don't want that, don't work with a shared universe.


Hans

 

[Captain Midnight]

The problem with that is that not everyone sees a problem. As I just described in my post above, the X-Boat route from Tenalphi to Strouden seems to be an issue for Daryen. But, it's not for me. I can come up with a lot of reasons why that J-5 route is what it is.

In that case, let's hear your top four reasons why there is this particular J-5 leg in what is supposed to be a J-4 network. I'd also like to hear some explanation about why similar solutions haven't been put into place in other areas as well.

While I like knowing about various bits of canon, I'm not fundamentally wedded to many of them. There are some key elements that I think are important to building stories, and if there are other bits that come up that are extraneous to those, I feel free to change them. I do appreciate the creativity required to explain some rare occurrences, but when they stop becoming "rare", and it starts becoming more and more obvious that there are just some logical holes that need to be addressed, I would prefer to go with coming up with a workable fix.

This is one of the reasons I think it's useful to have discussions about how things work, and about what would be necessary in order for certain things to exist (such as the interminable discussion on how piracy could exist). I will tell stories for my players (and prefer to play in games where stories are told for me) that minimize the number of places where I have to discourage extensive poking at the consequences of certain facts and rulings. There are some places that you just have to shrug and say, "Well, that's how the rules are" -- I'm thinking specifically of the two-dimensional universe here, but there are others. I'd rather not have to give long explanations of various exceptions to general rules, either, especially to folks who aren't Traveller grognards and don't want to be.

There are many "canonical" sources that I'm not familiar with, the people I game with aren't aware of, and that just don't generally strike me as good things to use for basing a gameworld on. For example, I've never read "Twilight's Peak", nor have I played it, and since I haven't played CT in 20 years, I don't expect that to ever change. I don't know how that adventure explained why Fulacin has a Class A starport with a population measured in the hundreds, but I have doubts that it is an explanation widely applicable to other worlds with excellent starport ratings and tiny populations. I can deal with a few worlds like Fulacin, or Pixie, but when we keep stumbling across them in "canonical" data, it makes me wonder just how useful the data and the classifications really are.

If we're bringing up questions about canon... why does the Xboat network have a dead-end at Capon (Spinward Marches 2324)? Wouldn't it seem important to have messages from Mora, the sector and Domain capital, over to the Lunion-Strouden area more quickly than the rather meandering way that the Xboat network dips down into Trin's Veil and Glisten subsectors?

If it's OK to change things about how the Xboat network works, then why isn't it OK to change something like a UWP? If the only defense that can be presented is "It might make it hard for me to write an adventure if the strange premise I might have wanted to use got retconned", I'm not swayed by that argument.

 

[Supplement Four]

In that case, let's hear your top four reasons why there is this particular J-5 leg in what is supposed to be a J-4 network.

You must not have read my post above. I mentioned several justifications. And, a creative GM could come up with several more, I'm sure.

 

[Ishmael]

I prefer to make creative justification when I WANT to..not when I HAVE to.
That's why I don't use the OTU for much

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

If we're bringing up questions about canon... why does the Xboat network have a dead-end at Capon (Spinward Marches 2324)? Wouldn't it seem important to have messages from Mora, the sector and Domain capital, over to the Lunion-Strouden area more quickly than the rather meandering way that the Xboat network dips down into Trin's Veil and Glisten subsectors?

Are you going off the online Traveller map? 'Cuz if you are, it's wrong. My 1979 edition of Supplement 3 clearly shows an Xboat link between Glisten and Mora subsectors, via Resten to Capon, then Carey and Fornice.

If it's OK to change things about how the Xboat network works, then why isn't it OK to change something like a UWP? If the only defense that can be presented is "It might make it hard for me to write an adventure if the strange premise I might have wanted to use got retconned", I'm not swayed by that argument.

Because there are methods for altering the Xboat network beyond the blunt tool of retconning. Going back to Supplement 3 again, the text mentions that Tureded (Lanth Subsector) is "expected" to be upgraded to a Class B starport and Scout Base, for the likely purpose of establishing an new Xboat route through that system to Dinomn (with presumably another as-yet undecided link between the two).

Altering a UWP could be just as justifiable, if it's accounting for some kind of in-game political, social, or environmental change. But in this thread we're not talking about the results of interworld political jockeying, or Fifth Frontier War atrocities, or an exceptionally rough inter-megacorporation tradewar, or a nuclear-powered coup gone bad, et al.

Meta-gaming reasons for altering an in-game environment -- whether it's because the world in question is physically "impossible" under current theories of stellar development, or is socio-economically "ridiculous" under someone's personal idea of cliometrical analysis -- need a lot more backing than that.

 

[Captain Midnight]

You must not have read my post above. I mentioned several justifications. And, a creative GM could come up with several more, I'm sure.

True, I had missed that post. However, your explanations are either "there are some J-5 Xboats", which is both non-canonical and has HUGE implications for the rest of the Xboat system, or "the Xboat route shown on the map doesn't actually exist, and instead is something different", which certainly is an appealing idea if its consequences are considered, but it's still a major change to canon.

If there are J-5 X-boats, why would they be restricted to one run of minor importance? Strouden's a pretty important world, but Tenalphi is several orders of magnitude less important. Coming up with "creative" explanations for every weirdness and inconsistency is like pulling on a loose thread on your sweater -- pretty soon, things start to unravel if you keep pulling. I'll avoid going too far with that analogy, but there are ways to resolve "loose threads" that keep things from unraveling any further; however, you have to be willing to do something about them.