Solee

[Whipsnade]

"With the nobility I don't think it is really about stupidity. I think it is about greed and a excessive sense of self importance."


Mr. Vernon,

This isn't about greed or excessive self importance, this about selling out yourself, your family, and your world to new overlords in the shape of an alien species. How greedy or self important would you have to be to do that? Why would vast majority of the nobles in your region be greedy or self important enough to do that?

"We have all been brought up to believe that all Imperial nobles are like US senators - charged with the interests of the state and accountable for it to the people. The Imperial nobility are not so, they are accountable to the Emperor or to its ideal. The panegyrics that have often been presented in GDW sidebars are the statements of those who believe in the ideal."

The nobility IMTU has a great deal more incommon with actual US senators; a greedy, self absorbed, herd of boobs whose various squabbles generally prevent them from doing any great harm, than the hymns to nobility found in some GDW sidebars. There is a great amount of difference between self interest and the mass treason you suggest however.

Tobia is the seat of the sector duke. We know nobles often have several patents; Norris has many scattered over the Regina subsector, but for such an important and populated world as Tobia we can be certain there are many barons, a marquis, and (perhaps) a count in the region. Then you need figure on the nobles commanding various military forces; colonial navy (if you buy the weak 'IN has gone to fight the Vargr' excuse), planetary army, planetary navy, COACC, etc.

For the Greedy - Self Important Theory to work ALL of those nobles would have had to been in on the it. You mention Shakespeare and his times as a model for your Reaches, was EVERY noble in his plays a traitor?

All this debate over the sector nobility is spurious however. We're wrangling over the excuses and explanations of one *tree* while an entire *forest* of implausible, incredulous, and impossible events still await our attention. We can create a morass of handwaves to 'explain' each 'whopper' in the Alien Incursions. A more thoughtful metaplot would not have needed so many canonical band-aids.

"Yet, as St Augustine might say, men are weak, they are fallen, not all can strive to the good."

I nice description of MTU.

"I have sympathy with Larsen, I get the sense that Mike Jackson wrote his descriptions having obtained the hymn sheet from GDW/DGP in advance. I get the sense that he felt his hands were tied."

The utter implausibility of the Alien Incursions wasn't 'discovered' by me. The Hobby had pretty much examined and discounted it well before the internet was big enough to support any of the early BBSs. This stuff beggared disbelief when DGP created it and the Rebellion Sourcebook made no sense before it even went to the printers. The story isn't even internally consistent. This isn't a 'discovery' on anyone's part, it's more akin to folks finally admitting that the emperor really isn't wearing any clothes.

"Was Macbeth stupid? No - he was corrupt(ed) and that cost Scotland its children. Dulinor is a kind of Imperial Macbeth and some of the Imperial nobility are like the Montagu's and Capulets, more interested in their local power than the Imperial ideal they learnt in school."

They'll have no local power after the ihatei arrive. Do you believe those paragons of honor and nobility will trust someone who already broke their vow to another overlord, someone who is known to have committed treason?

Again, all this talk about the actions of the nobility is merely a discussion about one tree in an entire forest. Explaining the actions of the nobility to your satisfaction is fine, now come up with explanations for all the rest. You've handled one tree, the forest is still waiting.

For the moment, let's accept the argument that the overwhelming majority of Imperial nobles in the Reaches either held the door open for the Aslan or actively colluded with them. Now explain why all the various planetary governments rolled over too; remember, the Imperium doesn't rule worlds, just the space between them. Tobia has a local, non-Imperial government along with a planetary army and a planetary navy. Explain why all those colonial and planetary forces didn't fight back. Explain why the treason of a handful of Imperial nobles made billions give up. Explain why the suicide of one man made a sector give in. Explain why the ihatei (who are described in MT's own Rebellion Sourcebook as scattered, squabbling squadrons carrying about 10K mostly non-combatant Aslan aboard civilian vessels and guarded by six or fewer small, obsolete by Heirate standards, warships) managed to knock over a hi-pop, hi-tech planet. The Zho's couldn't do it with three battlefleets and a couple of armies at Jewell, but a bunch of mostly civilian squatters with the equivalent of interstellar Winnebagos and a few Humvees can do it at Tobia?

Sure. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

It all comes down to this, if in YTU the ihatei conquest of the Reaches occurred for reasons A, B, and C that is fine. The rest of us have reasons X, Y, and Z to claim that conquest as nonsense. The strength of Our Olde Game is it's malleability, the way it can move so easily between the OTU, YTU, and MTU. It's all Traveller and it is all good.

Thank you so much for posting your ideas and for giving us a peek into your TU. I know my TU has been made better thanks to what you kindly shared.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[daryen]

Larsen keeps referring to Jewell's defense against the Zhos.

Keep in mind that Jewell was a TL12 planet fighting an organized TL14 navy. Tobia is a TL15 planet fighting a disorganized TL12/13 squadron.

 

[Liam Devlin]

In short synopsis, Mr whipsnade, MT was dead on arrival before the printers got it:
(A) the authors had not written an end to the war before they wrote it.
Subsequent re-writes/ additions spun the war outta control into the Virus TNE era..

(B) The best view we have of the IN & Colonial fleet system defies the unreality of the Ihatei/ Vargr threats (INVALIDATES them)!

(C) It is impossible for Tobia to have fallen, as jewell did not(See daryen's posts), barring complete Collusion of the subsector's nobility in its entirety!(TALK about a Horsepill to swallow!)

(D) those of us that used our noggins and saw this and went our own way using what had come before are seen as non conformists, or something..

I say, Mr Whipsnade-welcome to fold of heresy!
Well met!

heretically yours,

 

[Elliot]

Dear sirs,

How mighty the pen can be, after a good few moments of thought, I cannot come up with an argument to counter your forceful submissions on the fall of Tobia. I can do nothing but accept the deus ex machina nature of the Rebellion.

I can still believe the Glorious Empire might fall, the worlds of the former Sindalian empire also but I accept the Imperium would remain strong on the text of the Rebellion sourcebook (which having just compared the two differs from Mike Jackson's write up and trumps it by the GDW logo).

Perhaps it would have been more plausible to have a state of cold war (a la Solomani Rim pre-rebellion) on the Tobia border with Quinn committing suicide because of an embarassing and personal mistake. Tobia would then be paralyzed while Sharik learnt the ropes. That is not canon and so is in the realms of IMTU.

As to the nobility, I do not seek to suggest all are corrupt but that factionalism creates a degree of paralysis in a ruling elite. That I think is the Shakespearean analogy. Hamlet was noble and true, but could not seek the counsel of his best friends because of the rotteness of Denmark. Again I concede this does not explain how Tobia's army could not fight Aslan incursions on Tobia's contintents.

I am glad it has been a fruitful discussion, it has for me too. I hope the Reaches get a few more, as I think it is truely a frontier to travel in.

Yours, as ever

Elliot Vernon

 

[Whipsnade]

"I can do nothing but accept the deus ex machina nature of the Rebellion."


Mr. Vernon,

Same here! The story of the Rebellion stinks, it was poorly thought out, it was begun and nutured without an ending in mind, it ignores it's own canon, and it screams for disbelief, BUT it is official. So I accept it too! I don't like it, but that doesn't change a thing.

"I am glad it has been a fruitful discussion, it has for me too. I hope the Reaches get a few more, as I think it is truely a frontier to travel in."

So do I. I do know that G:T had begun producing a sector book for the Reaches; like BtC or RoF. Doug Berry, the fellow who wrote G:T Ground Forces, was working on it. Sadly, he had to drop the project for reasons I am not privy to. Whether a Reaches book is still being considered is something Mr. Zeigler could answer.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Liam Devlin]

I would like to thank the participants Mr Whipsnade, Mr daryen, Mr Elliot Vernon, Mr Richard P, Mr Arsulon, and Mr kafka47 for this civil discourse.

MJD has said there's gonna be a a lot of room for individual GM/refs to tweak details out in between the major events he's forecasted to get us to 1248.

To me gents, thats wiggle room we can all look forward to--and as gamers/ campaign refs, room we didn't have before with REBELLION/MT.
I for one am looking forward to how things move from 1200 to 1248, and maybe helping out filling the corners, and gray places...

Thank you all!

 

[Arsulon]

Excellent discussion gentlemen. What other game forum can sustain such well-argued, civilized and informed discourses?

It seems to me that the Rebellion plotline (if you can really call it that) was a mishmash of divergent story ideas: very dramatic but confused and incoherent. The Vargr and Aslan incursions, for example, look like they're intended to recreate those Victorian paintings/etchings of A.D. 476. Yes, it's wonderful to have barbarian invasions, but the historical migrations took place over a long period of time and were, in part, negotiated settlements. MT only has a few "game-years" to accomplish its goal so we have the imperium inundated (against all logic considering the realities interstellar travel, communications and combat) in a few years. It IS canon, but it sticks in my craw the same way DN's "story weaving" does.