Taboo (TV Show)

[Quint]

So I watched the first episode last night and mentioned after about 10 minutes that this whole setting would perfectly transfer to Traveller. After finishing the first episode I was even more convinced.

We have the powerful megacorp (East India Company) trying to get rights to some obscure planet at the buttock-end of the empire being an important link in the trade route before some other empire gets them. There's hints of technologically imbalanced trade, well, talk of the Empire!


Anyone else watch and have similar reactions? I'm rather inspire by bits of it for MTU.

D.

 

[Condottiere]

It's like a paramilitary commercial entity from a planet on the other side of the galaxy, slowly absorbed a very large mass of space, made up mostly of a very loose central authority, and regional polities.

 

[Quint]

It's like a paramilitary commercial entity from a planet on the other side of the galaxy, slowly absorbed a very large mass of space, made up mostly of a very loose central authority, and regional polities.

Yup. I mean the observation that Traveller is SciFi Victorianism is a pretty old one, but watching Taboo really drove that home for me in some way. I was also thinking about the Army career needn't be an Imperial or Planetary military, or even some mercenary company, but could instead be with some sufficiently large megacorp that has a standing army (like the British East India Company did).

Strip the game down to ProtoTraveller the setting opens up, and even what's there can get re-interpreted in some fantastic ways.

D.

 

[lostscout5]

I haven't heard anything about this show. But you're right about the East India company. A gold mine of data. If my age fogged brain remembers correctly, I think the company also had a pseudo navy at one point. Mostly armed merchant ships and escorts. Just like certain Traveller megacorps.

 

[kilemall]

I haven't heard anything about this show. But you're right about the East India company. A gold mine of data. If my age fogged brain remembers correctly, I think the company also had a pseudo navy at one point. Mostly armed merchant ships and escorts. Just like certain Traveller megacorps.

East India ship search-

http://www.eicships.info/ships/shipsearch.asp

 

[Reban]

I caught up with taboo over the weekend and I'm enjoying it. I heard it described today as "Crazy Dickens" which is a good description in some ways although in my head I keep thinking "magic realism",..... is this whats actually happening or is it what Mad Delaney is perceiving through the lens of his own sanity?....

What made me chuckle was at one point the Prince Regent is reviewing a map of US Navy blockading activity, in the Irish Sea no less! He isn't happy to find that the Americans have been shown as red crosses while the Royal Navy are marked in blue (today this is the standard for military maps. Red = Enemy, Blue = Friendly/Allied forces).

He directs: "Get the Admiralty to draw the map again and make us red and the Americans blue...or green or something..... we're red!".

It made me flashback to the celebrations for the Trafalgar 200th Anniversary in Portmouth, UK. The Royal Navy and the event management company used tall ships to represent Nelson's fleet engaging the combined Franco/Spanish fleet of Portsmouth harbor. I was portraying a Royal Marine aboard ship, one of my all time outstanding re-enactment memories.

However in the days leading up to the event there were wonderful tabloid headlines poking fun at the fact the RN and event managers had gone all politically correct and decided that the battle would pith the Blue Fleet against the Red fleet and the Royal Navy was going to be the (Traditionally French) Blues while the "enemy" would be the (traditionally British) Reds.

We laughed and blew hell out of the Frogs..... :rofl:

Perhaps the writer remembers the headlines.

 

[Whipsnade]

What made me chuckle was at one point the Prince Regent is reviewing a map of US Navy blockading activity, in the Irish Sea no less!

While "Crazy Dickens" is right in my wheelhouse, profound historical illiteracy is deal breaker.

I'll pencil out Taboo for the time being.

 

[Quint]

Of course, now I have to catch up - but "Crazy Dickens" sounds right from the what I've seen so far. I've stopped looking for historical accuracy in my media - if I want that I'll read history. But when it comes to my entertainment I'll suffer quite a range of embellishment and outright nonsense if it makes for a good story or even a good line or two.

LOL - I'm not watching Taboo for a history lesson...

D.

 

[Reban]

We're seeing the story from 'Mad Delaney's' point of view, emphasis on the Mad....

What we see doesn't actually have to have reference to real history, just what the character, who everyone keeps claiming is insane or disturbed, believes is happening.

The Honorable Company are out to get him, the Prince Regent is out to get him, the alleged wife of his dead father is out to take whats his... and all the time he's searching for a treaty that may or may not exist while from time to time conversing with a young girl called Winter (just Winter) who disappears in the blink of an eye and committing the odd act or arson and murder along the way.

Does that sound a bit.... psychotic?

It is set during a real period in history, but the story may have the same relationship with reality that Alice in Wonderland has to Victorian history.

At least that's my working theory until episode three

 

[Wayned]

Where can I watch Taboo?

 

[Reban]

Well if anyone stuck with Taboo...

The finale makes a great scenario for leaving the starport with a "bang"