Superstition and the educated fool.

[BluWolf]

I am thinking of writing a “color” piece on the oddity of superstition and the average traveler. Several things have kind of inspired this (not the least of which being my military experience and my late father-in-law) but it essentially comes down to the fact that despite the advanced education of a certain population they will still tend to display superstitious habits. Athletes, pilots, politicians, military.....if you extrapolate this to the universe of Traveler you would have to assume that most “spacers’ while being very educated in a number of scientific fields will still demonstrate a very superstitious tendency.

So I would like to write a piece (sort of Andy Rooney human interest sort o’ stuff) on the superstitions of the travelers. Now, being new to the genre’ and milieu I will need to lean on you salty crusty folks here. Can you all codify or at least relate various superstitions you have seen or always thought you WOULD see in the Traveler Universe?

 

[notagoodusername]

A few jump to mind...

Don't talk about mis-jumps whilst prepping for jump, or in jumpspace.

Make sure the ship's name is always clearly painted on the hull, or the seas (stars) won't recognise her and keep her safe (a wierd fisherman's supersticion from my home town).

Never bad-mouth the ship where she can hear.

Never say the word "Pirate(s)" in space, or you'll attract them.

Shane

 

[themink]

Each vessel has a particular sex - always refer to it by the right one. SOlomani ships are always female, Droyne ships are always drones etc etc.

Jump dimming - Just before entering jump, ships dim their lights. Origionally it was because of the power requirements of jump - the jump drive is much more efficient nowadays - but the tradition of dimming the lights still carries over.

On of my players would repaint the ceilings of his ships - Navy blue near the drives fading to duck egg blue at the front. He just thought it looked cool.

One of my minor races painted all their ships in ground camoflage colours. This was useful when landing on rough strips - however even their unstreamlined ships were "cammed" (a minor human warrior race - Think sword worlders)

The Krysta (another minor race) hadn't really made the transition to artificial grav - all of their ships had a ring living section - in theory the ship could be spun - - it made firefights fun because it's much harder to hide behind things when the corridor curves "upwards".

Because space is 2Dimensional, we used to talk about rotating the ship so that Galactic north is "up" before jumping - otherwise we might aim up "out" of the map.

 

[Father Fletch]

Flashing navigation lights in a certain pattern for good luck.

When jumping into a new system ALWAYS has a Vac Suit drill including full depressurization of hull "Just in Case" (Originally done because of possible combat)

Scouts who have a "Lucky" hat that is stinky and threadbare.

The Ithilkur habit of decorating a Gauss Rifle perhaps picked up by a Merc who worked with some. Now he does it after every assignment.

Renumbering a bulkhead because it has an "Unlucky" number

Always having a cat onboard. And you always need to make sure that it is secured during EVA because "She might want to go for a walk."

The juniormost crewman is responsible for the cat.

Making sure there is always a place set at the table for "the lost Traveller." But only when in jumpspace. In normal space the pilot always asks engineering "Did anything follow us through?"

 

[gardclan]

How about:

* Never looking directly at the jumpspace field out of fear that it will "hear your thoughts".

* Always opening the air lock with your "left hand". (We had an old Platoon sergeant in the cav who wouldn't let anybody open a hatch on his tank with their right hand... no idea why...)

* Having an ear pireced after the first jump? (Sorta like crossing the equator).

* Always storing your space suit with the boot soles towards the deck... lest your luck run out.

* Never change the name of a ship after its been comissioned.

* An old friend of mine used to tell stories about working around blast furnaces. The claim is that in the old days a shotgun was used to open the inspection door durring operation (because you would catch fire if you were too close to it when it opened). The story that was told to anybody whom asked why it was there was: "Just in case anything decides to crawl out of the furnace".

Salamanders... ya hate 'em, right?

Perhaps ships engineers have a similar tradition around fusion reactors?

 

[Squid]

Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
How about:

* An old friend of mine used to tell stories about working around blast furnaces. The claim is that in the old days a shotgun was used to open the inspection door durring operation (because you would catch fire if you were too close to it when it opened). The story that was told to anybody whom asked why it was there was: "Just in case anything decides to crawl out of the furnace".

Salamanders... ya hate 'em, right?

Perhaps ships engineers have a similar tradition around fusion reactors?

What kind of scary-rearended furnaces do you have over there?

 

[Liam Devlin]

Kewl Topic, I'm almost envious...NOT! Great minds think alike...

Ithklur darken their weapons and armor before battle, yet decorate them in elaborate colors for "parade" purposes ala the Spartans of old.

Different navies use either Numbers for SDB's (have lots of em, assign em numbers, but the crews nickname em anyway!), or names.(smaller system navies).

Father Fletch has taken the threadbare hat idea, but I wore mine when playing Scout "Doc" o'Malley (with fishing lures included) in my CT dayz..the GM loved that, also the "luckY" jacket worn by the skipper (hails back to the red coat a wet navy skipper wore, so none would see he was wounded-My Cap'n Morgan standby), with patches from various systems.

Ship's mascot varied (Ship's cats, Arboreal Hedgehogs, beaker Monkeys, and other marsupials)in the campaigns I went in, But the lowest ranking spacer got to feed and clean up after it. And secure it during drills!

The Jump dimming, "too conserve Power for the Jay drives" was an oldie too.

The standard Chivalric "shot across the bows" first then hit em if they run comes to mind.

The Piping aboard, hailing back to the wet navy tradition of the Skipper, or a senior officer fom another ship.

The ships' hazing of a new crew member (all those Gi-USMC-Navy jokes we played translate well into Traveller-"Hey, skippie, get me a three meter length of Jump coil cable willya? And these chem light batteries are dead, need six of em, sharp! Ask the Bosun where they are!")

And an old time favorite opposite of that: The Grog Bowl for promotions aboard ship!

Running light codes for greeting other ships (since ye cannae run a flag up out there in Space too well.).

Messhall traditions aboard ship...(National anthem/ Pax Britannica/ Imperica/ God save the Empress/ Emperor/ etal" Toasting that is...Queueing in line, lowest rank eatin first, last the Skipper.

Just to name a few not above that is..!

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Not a superstition. but I can see Imperial Navy characters demanding a rum ration so that they can make a daily toast 'To the Emperor'.

Refering to empty bottles as 'dead marines'?

Certain areas having a 'bad luck' reputation?

Legends not of ghosts and goblins but of 'Plague Ships' and 'Unmanned Hulks' sort of non mystical (but perhaps fortean?) legends of Flying Ductman/Mary Celeste type vessels?

Legendary Misjumps -- History arriving out of jump a hundred years after the fact?

oooh that could be fun... reminiscant of Japanese Army types who fought guerrilla wars in the islands (some of them until the '60s) Have a ship that misjumped during some war pop out of jumpspace and either start an incident or have both sides trying to take it down.

Legendary tales of Ancients?

how's that for a few random ideas?

 

[theSea]

Lots of superstitions about jump, I should think. It's big, it's powerful, it can kill you without warning and nobody really understands it....

Don't talk about mis-jumping while calculating jump or in jump space, in fact don't talk about mis-jumping at all... lots of room for euphamisms here: "lost in the void" - "took a bad hop" or "took the big hop" are about as close as most spacers will get to talking about it. Ships that are lost after jump are merely posted as "overdue," their status never updated to "missing" or "lost."

Failure to jump-dim *will* get your ship posted as "overdue."

Don't look at the void at all - ever. Not only are there things out there that CAN hear your thoughts - but some people look out there and never really look away... they're never the same again - as if there is a part of them that left and never came back....

There are things out there. People hear strange noises and see things out of the corner of their eye. Things get moved around or move around by themselves. Ships occasionally come out of jump space with the entire crew simply gone. No log entries - no video - nothing... it's just like they disappeared. Plates on the tables - beds unmade - sensies running on the holo.....

Other ships come out of jump or are found in strange places long after the fact - their entire crews slaughtered - either by some powerful unknown force.... or by each other.

Sometimes people bring things back with them. Oh sure it looks like them - but you can tell that inside there is something very, very alien, wearing them like some kind of mask. They inevatibly disapear shortly thereafter.

----------

Belters are extremely superstitious people - you spend that much time alone in a seeker ship hunting rocks in the wastes between worlds and you'll develop some interesting points of view as well...

Never orbit a system's primary retrograde - anything coming at you will have your orbital as well as its own if something goes wrong. Likewise when making orbit around a planet - always orbit with the planet's rotation... even if it's against the orbit of its moons.

The best rocks are always in the trailing trojans.

Most Belters have a custom vacc suit that is painted in an outrageous color scheme. They won't wear any other vacc suit and any new suit must be painted with the same scheme. If two Belters meet and find they have similar schemes the younger one is obliged to change until the older one dies... this sometimes precipitates the older one dying a bit prematurely.

Belters are rife with superstitions about where things need to be stowed. If a thing is not exactly in its place it has to be put there immediately.

And we know that they all wear mohawk haircuts (thank you Larry Niven) but they refer to them as 'crests.'

----------

Some generalisations - there is no Bay 13, or Pad 13 at any up or down port. No ship or station has a deck 13 or bulkhead 13. No system has ever had a significant settlement survive on it's 13th planet and no planet is ever refered to as XIII (i.e Sirius XIII).

Vargr will not load cargo during planetary day if there is any alternative, this causes a lot of problems on plantets with loooong days or that are tidally locked to their primaries.... arbitrary systems like a ship's 'day' or 'day' on a station don't seem to bother them.

Black Aslan are rare - but very bad luck.

Solomani military ships with chameleon skins always default to a pattern of irregular orange and black stripes... nobody knows why. Civilian ships default to a similar pattern but the orange is replaced by white.

And of course - every ship must have a stuffed penguin sitting on the holo tank.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Squid:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
How about:

<SNIP> The story that was told to anybody whom asked why it was there was: "Just in case anything decides to crawl out of the furnace".

Salamanders... ya hate 'em, right?

What kind of scary-rearended furnaces do you have over there? </font>[/QUOTE]We use the really big type... you know... the ones that pipe in the exhaust gasses from Hades to start the flue.

This fella worked in a rather large steel mill, a LONG time ago. I can't vouch for the accuracy his stories... but you have to admit that its an interesting one!

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by theSea:
And of course - every ship must have a stuffed penguin sitting on the holo tank.

It's 4:18, and time for the penquin on the holo telly to explode

BOOM

One tradition I made for Imperial Navy and Scout ships is the New Years/Holiday dinner. This is a formal occasion with various traditions including ringing in the New Year with Old Lange siegh<SP>, toasting to the Emperor, and a drink to remember those who did not make it thru the year.

 

[MichaelL65]

I agree that jump-space is potentially a very scary and mysterious place - for both those who frequent it and those who have never left their planet. Here are some of my ideas:

No mention of fallen comrads in jump-space. (They might come to visit)

Things lost on a ship while in jump-space are never seen again.

The Ancients aren't ALL dead...some live in JS

JS is the home of the gods...and/or demons.

If you see a (insert favorite symbol here) in JS, your ship is doomed.

You don't mention the symbol while in JS.

You don't serve (food item) while in JS, it gives JS indigestion.

Just some ideas.

 

[trader jim]

As Captain of the King Richard, i have NO superstitions......just DONT touch those bootys
hanging on the rear view mirror, on the BRIDGE!!!!!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Jump space legends abound.

In Gushmege there is near Medurma in that subsector, a lost Cruiser sqaudron from the 2nd Imperium and a pay heist/ mutiny that was never solved. A sort of Bermuda-Triangel of Jump space. IIRC

Looking at Jump space causes madness. Those who can and are unaffected (a rare 1 in 10,000,000 trait), wear a glowing green tatoo on their left-cheek (A Crecscent Moon. four stars, and a Sword, pointed downwards) I stole it from CJ Cheryh, so there), and are considered rare, and fey people. They can "see" the Jump exit hole, and steer for it without computer assist. Killing such a person invites mishap/ Albatross/ Rime of the Ancient Mariner type stuff.

I have used the Jump to the future Space embolism time affect a number of times. The first time the Pc ship jumped from 1117 3I to 1131! hey repaired their drive, wondered where the humans went to, two weeks later, they re-appeared, all dead (ala Event Horizon) aboard their ship. The Raccoonids are from a heavy grav world, and so were unaffected by the gravitational displacement of the embolism-the humans weren't so lucky!). They tested their drives out at a Jump 0 to the far end of the system they found themselves in, leaving the 150 other coonids planetside. They masered back 6.5 days later when all semed to be working, and the starport acknowledged all was well...They jumped back, and found themselves in 1202, same system. Their descendants have mutated to hexapodalism (a mutagenic factor of the world Raziira/pasdaruu/Diaspora)--and they(eight of them) are the remaining quadrapedal "Ancestors"...PCs called me a bastiid. (And I grinned). Have to work up stats for the Hexacoonids now! (won't the Sydites be surprised!)

I have also used the jump/ misjump in my history of Solee-two instances three years apart (1127 & 1130) and two relic warships of opposing sides (margaret & Lucan's Navy)that were recovered by them. The first reappeared in 1187 (missing since 1127, a Black war raider SEH Light cruiser (30ktn)
and the 1188 recovery of a 50ktn Planet class CA with the maggie's crew.
Oddly, the Maggie ship had been out hunting the very kind of people from the first. Ironically, The Lucan folk of Solee rescue them, and they wind up in the Soleean navy--under the command of the people they once hunted to kill and stop.

In another instance, a rescue eveacuation task force misjumped and was trapped at the far end of their system as=and they went into lowberths using their black globe generator, and thegrandadaughter rescues her grandmother (an maggie navy person)in 1200 when they reachieve space and retake the system. (Happy ending??)

 

[Liam Devlin]

In the repaint the room theme:
My daughter's Luhtalan PC (TNE-from Lucifer) believs navyGray is bad for the pysche, and so reddoes any stateeroom she inhabits on any ship, as this is a religious belief, the RCES/ RCN is forced to allow her to do that.
Though, she did settle for a box of paint Slugs she purchased from Sufren when they went on the contact mision there!

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
In the repaint the room theme:
My daughter's Luhtalan PC (TNE-from Lucifer) believs navyGray is bad for the pysche, and so reddoes any stateeroom she inhabits on any ship, as this is a religious belief, the RCES/ RCN is forced to allow her to do that.
Though, she did settle for a box of paint Slugs she purchased from Sufren when they went on the contact mision there!

Paint Slugs? Do they leave color coordinated trails?

 

[trader jim]

Hey Folks - Iwas just making up a new batch of COFFEE JUICE - does any one need some fresh Vorpal Bunnie feet for good LUCK?????....will sell them CHEAP....See Trader JIM...

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by George Boyett:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
In the repaint the room theme:
My daughter's Luhtalan PC (TNE-from Lucifer) believs navyGray is bad for the pysche, and so reddoes any stateeroom she inhabits on any ship, as this is a religious belief, the RCES/ RCN is forced to allow her to do that.
Though, she did settle for a box of paint Slugs she purchased from Sufren when they went on the contact mision there!

Paint Slugs? Do they leave color coordinated trails?

</font>[/QUOTE]______________________
Yes, they're found in Geneering (or How Much is thats..?? in the window), TC # 8, 46-55. covers pets in Traveller, some cloning issues as well.

And yes, they use a phermone stick to mark off the boundaries for the slugs (one per wall surface). they are a geneered criter (lifespan 1-3 years).