Strange New Worlds

[far-trader]

Originally posted by atpollard:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atpollard:
Zero people is easier to determine from all of the other zeros in the Profile - like Gov, LL, TL, etc. Five people at TL 9 in a corporate government is easier to imagine than Five hunter-gatherers with a "family ties" government having an entire planet to themselves.

Originally posted by far-trader:
Really? I mean sure I can come up with a story for 5 bureaucrats with computers all alone on a world but I can also do the same (and far easier I think) for the 5 hunters with clubs and rocks all alone on a world.

Until you need to answer questions of how they got there and why has the population not increased. Then 5 Scientists studying vulcanism to stabilize a world otherwise rope for settlement makes more sense than a TL 0 hunting party out scouting new worlds to populate. Pop 5 at TL 0 can be explained, it is just harder than a post interstellar TL. </font>[/QUOTE]Easy as snap, the 5 hunters are the last of a dying race, doomed to extinction by whatever. Makes as much or more sense than 5 scientists studying a world ripe for settlement.

The big problem though is the whole context of the OTU. Both these cases are supposed to have been in situ for millenia. Static. THAT is what makes some of these explanations non-sensical. Compress the time frame by a factor of 10 or so and not only is the whole universe more dynamic but such explanations make a lot more sense.

In a TU of millenia of exploration, exploitation, trade, and settlement things should be a whole lot more homogenous and sensible with the high pops on nice high tech worlds and the hell holes relagated to the low pop small science teams or extremists.

The OTU does not fit well with the idea of frontiers and strange new worlds. It's just too old.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by atpollard:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atpollard:
Zero people is easier to determine from all of the other zeros in the Profile - like Gov, LL, TL, etc. Five people at TL 9 in a corporate government is easier to imagine than Five hunter-gatherers with a "family ties" government having an entire planet to themselves.

Originally posted by far-trader:
Really? I mean sure I can come up with a story for 5 bureaucrats with computers all alone on a world but I can also do the same (and far easier I think) for the 5 hunters with clubs and rocks all alone on a world.

Until you need to answer questions of how they got there and why has the population not increased. Then 5 Scientists studying vulcanism to stabilize a world otherwise rope for settlement makes more sense than a TL 0 hunting party out scouting new worlds to populate. Pop 5 at TL 0 can be explained, it is just harder than a post interstellar TL. </font>[/QUOTE]Easy as snap, the 5 hunters are the last of a dying race, doomed to extinction by whatever. Makes as much or more sense than 5 scientists studying a world ripe for settlement.

The big problem though is the whole context of the OTU. Both these cases are supposed to have been in situ for millenia. Static. THAT is what makes some of these explanations non-sensical. Compress the time frame by a factor of 10 or so and not only is the whole universe more dynamic but such explanations make a lot more sense.

In a TU of millenia of exploration, exploitation, trade, and settlement things should be a whole lot more homogenous and sensible with the high pops on nice high tech worlds and the hell holes relagated to the low pop small science teams or extremists.

The OTU does not fit well with the idea of frontiers and strange new worlds. It's just too old.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Both these cases are supposed to have been in situ for millenia. Static.

You've touched on something here.

After all the editions of Traveller, UPP's and technology and what-not seem static.

Why is that?

Then, I read CT source material, and it seems that much more alive. Specific examples escape me now, but you know what I'm talking about. You'll read a world description and it will say it's a lost colony rediscovered 60 years ago. Or, you'll see something that says the world is TL 9, on the verge, though, of becoming TL 10.

References like that seem more vibrant, like the OTU is a living, growing, realistic thing.

I do admit now, after all the years and all the edtions (even with the UPP changes because of the New Era), the OTU seems a bit stale...a bit static.

I'm sure, reading about the Fifth Frontier War in news clips of the JTAS back in the day added a lot to that feeling of a living, breathing universe.

Today, though, it's up to the GM. Don't be a slave to canon. Don't be a slave to published material.

Make your universe "live" for your players. Have a world change it's TL over the course of your campaign. Introduce new tech to your characters, previously unavailable tech.

Consider, in the 80's, cell phones were called mobile phones, and they were big and bulky and expensive and game with a lunch-box sized battery case. Then, in the early 90's, everybody and his brother had a pager.

And now, today, we've all got cell phones. Heck, we can slip a card into our laptops and have internet access without cables..or on our phones...wherever we go.

Consider showing things like this in your campaign.

As GMs, I think we forget to.

-S4

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Both these cases are supposed to have been in situ for millenia. Static.

You've touched on something here.

After all the editions of Traveller, UPP's and technology and what-not seem static.

Why is that?

Then, I read CT source material, and it seems that much more alive. Specific examples escape me now, but you know what I'm talking about. You'll read a world description and it will say it's a lost colony rediscovered 60 years ago. Or, you'll see something that says the world is TL 9, on the verge, though, of becoming TL 10.

References like that seem more vibrant, like the OTU is a living, growing, realistic thing.

I do admit now, after all the years and all the edtions (even with the UPP changes because of the New Era), the OTU seems a bit stale...a bit static.

I'm sure, reading about the Fifth Frontier War in news clips of the JTAS back in the day added a lot to that feeling of a living, breathing universe.

Today, though, it's up to the GM. Don't be a slave to canon. Don't be a slave to published material.

Make your universe "live" for your players. Have a world change it's TL over the course of your campaign. Introduce new tech to your characters, previously unavailable tech.

Consider, in the 80's, cell phones were called mobile phones, and they were big and bulky and expensive and game with a lunch-box sized battery case. Then, in the early 90's, everybody and his brother had a pager.

And now, today, we've all got cell phones. Heck, we can slip a card into our laptops and have internet access without cables..or on our phones...wherever we go.

Consider showing things like this in your campaign.

As GMs, I think we forget to.

-S4

 

[Space Cadet]

You want an example of a zero-population Garden World, how about Earth before Humanity evolved?

 

[Space Cadet]

You want an example of a zero-population Garden World, how about Earth before Humanity evolved?

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
You want an example of a zero-population Garden World, how about Earth before Humanity evolved?

Perfectly good example of a world with ZERO (sentient) population.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Space Cadet:
You want an example of a zero-population Garden World, how about Earth before Humanity evolved?

Perfectly good example of a world with ZERO (sentient) population.

 

[TheEngineer]

1-9 sentient beings garden world:

- (Imperial) reservate (red zone?)
- simply private property ?
- terraforming experiment ?

At least red zones provide same more opertunities for possible explanations as officially non-protected worlds.
Anyway a "private property" sign is nearly as good.

A greatly agree with S4s' hint on the dynamics in the TU. Things change here, too and we should keep in mind, that the AotI data is not considered to be static. Its just a snapshot.

Regards,

TE

 

[TheEngineer]

1-9 sentient beings garden world:

- (Imperial) reservate (red zone?)
- simply private property ?
- terraforming experiment ?

At least red zones provide same more opertunities for possible explanations as officially non-protected worlds.
Anyway a "private property" sign is nearly as good.

A greatly agree with S4s' hint on the dynamics in the TU. Things change here, too and we should keep in mind, that the AotI data is not considered to be static. Its just a snapshot.

Regards,

TE

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:
Make your universe "live" for your players. Have a world change it's TL over the course of your campaign. Introduce new tech to your characters, previously unavailable tech.

No argument there. Back in the days when I still ran games in the Spinward Marches, I kept track of a complete set of UWP updates for worlds encountered by my players. Obviously, there is no need to change worlds if they never go there, but even on first (PC) contact it can be fun to have things differ from their library survey data.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
A greatly agree with S4s' hint on the dynamics in the TU. Things change here, too and we should keep in mind, that the AotI data is not considered to be static. Its just a snapshot.

Regards,

TE

Well if you mean things change here too, as in the real world of Earth, yes they do, quite rapidly in fact. We have climbed several TLs in a very short time and at an increasingly rapid pace. Something that just isn't shown in the OTU. Perhaps there is a natural dynamic where any civilization reaches a plateau, and these differ for different societies.

But I'm not saying the OTU or MTU or any YTU should be static or vital, only that the Classical Age OTU is clearly static and it seems designed to be that way, offering it's own reasons and effects in explanation.

The AotI and other official data are certainly intended to be snapshots as you say, but they are snapshots that clearly show a lethargic if not dead Imperium. Take even the most recent Imperial Survey* and you have to wonder, it's been how many centuries that the Spinward Marches have been settled and you still have major worlds that aren't TL15 with class A starports. Why? Because no one is doing anything. There are no entrepreneurs, no experimenters, no risk takers. Well, with the excpetion perhaps of the Darrians. And the Vilani will all point and say "See where that got them? They nearly blew up their own sun and killed themselves! We shall proceed slowly, and safely."

What you have are hidebound MegaCorps only concerned with sticking with what has worked for centuries. Service a route at standard prices and if anyone, a rival MegaCorp or a new startup, come too close you shut them down with extreme prejudice. And where is the mighty Imperial Navy, protectors of the space between the stars, in all this? Like the refs in hockey they just wait and watch until the fight is over before blowing the whistle and sending the bad boys for a time out. After which they'll be back in the game. Well the MegaCorps will be, the independants will have been too bloodied and intimidated to play again.

That's just a couple points showing the trend. So I'm uncomfortable in changing UPP data for MTU when trying to keep it close to OTU style. I wouldn't be as uncomfortable doing it in the Solomani Sphere (because I'd make my SS different) though there you have a different kind of control issue leading to similar stagnation. Same with the Zhodani. Even the Aslan and Vargr seem designed to make as many steps backwards as they do forwards leading to yet more static empires.

Just because the Classical Age OTU is stagnating doesn't mean there aren't those who try to make a difference and change things, they just have a whole lot of hostile momentum to overcome before it's likely to affect anything. This is one way The New Era helped. The shaking things up and tearing them down allowed for a much more dynamic setting.

* More evidence of the static nature of the OTU Imperium, there have been what, TWO surveys in a couple millenia. And that was only because the data was lost and changed by the Long Night. That indicates either a lack of interest in any changes, which seems unlikely given how important it is to governance, or a decidedly slow to the point of stagnation rate of change.

 

[Plankowner]

I developed an IMTU that was statted over 1500 years. I did a new Grand Survey every 500 years. The TL did change there.


At Year 0, the highest TL was 11
At Year 500, the highest TL was 12
At Year 1000, the highest TL was 9 (Long Night)
At Year 1500, the highest TL was 11 (recovery)

I had worked out the main subsector in each of those eras. I had atmospheres and Hydrographics change too (but not by much).