Originally posted by Thelor:
>>Any civilization they brought to the wilds would be an infinitesimal drop in the proverbial bucket.
<<
But it is still theirs little insignificant drop.
They helped re-civilize that world. They are local heroes!
Which is no different than adventuring in the Golden Age of the 3I.
Originally posted by Thelor:
Or they are the ones that make first contact with the Regency etc.
That would have to be across the very big and very black "wall". The implication of that stretch of space is that it's near-automatic death to enter. It would be a huge detour around it to get to the Regency.
Originally posted by Thelor:
And whats so special with a small cultural quirk such as terran cats in the Glisten system?
Anyone that buys the most recent Scout survey update knows this fact.
Library? Updates? The Scouts publish updates to libraries? Uh, just because there exists something called "Library Data" does not mean there are magical libaries/databases of data sitting around with associated groups going around updating them as a free service to all. I can't recall any Library Data entry that suggests it. (Ok, someone point out that I'm wrong . . .)
In any event, if such things existed, are you sure you can rely on them? After all, as stated they'd be maintained by ones who pretty much botched the Second Survey in the first place.
Originally posted by Thelor:
Only the less clever people do not update their library programs.
Where do these "library" "updates" come from? The 3I? I don't know, but I don't think so. Megacorporations? Maybe, but information is power, and they're not going to let such valuable information go cheap. A Sector Library update might go for millions, it would certainly cost huge sums to update. Maybe the cost could be cut down by only getting Sector Library Updates, but that would still be very expensive. And given computer sizes in Traveller, it would occupy a large building. Not something you'd carry around on your Model 1 or Model 2 (fib, bis, or otherwise) computer on a little 200 ton starship.
Just because the Scouts might publish updated
astrographic data, knowing which altered orbit the local highport has been moved into is not the same as knowing not to ask after the health of the local portmasters wife and children, who were abducted and murdered five years before; or knowing that a law was passed against unauthorized grav vehicles flying withing ten miles of Startown, etc.
In David Brin's Uplift Milieu, the "Galactic Library" comes in various "editions", some more complete than others. And all of them very, very, very expensive. I view high accuracy massive databases such as these to be something that aren't necessarily in PC hands.
Take the internet itself, for an example. It can be quite difficult to find information at times.
Example: I was recently browsing through the latest developments in fusion power technology, specifically I was looking into how they intended to use the plant itself to produce electricity (the entire reason for creating the fusion plant in the first place). There were plenty of websites detailing the latest efforts, including lots of esoteric math and engineering numbers. Not one site that I found actually broke down and discussed how they actually planned on generating the electricity. Conventional steam powerd turbines and dynamos? Who knows . . . the websites didn't say.
The 3I is a far vaster sink of information than Earth today, and finding information in that sink could eat up massive amounts of computer time, and that's with good search tools.
Originally posted by Thelor:
And this is what to me makes the 3I so incredibly dull.
I find the TNE situation of apocolyptically blasted worlds with no meaningful future to be incredibly dull.
In a big sprawling SF universe, people are going to have written down things about the world around them. Eventually, by whatever means, if a PC gets access to it, they'll have that knowledge to. It was the revoluation that began with mass book printings and the invention of moveable type. Down through that history, to today on Earth, many people have written books, travel guides, how-to-its, catalogs of species, and a great deal of what was printed turned out to be dead wrong. I wonder how much of any publicly available OTU "library database" of info is going to contain similar useless, out of date (no matter what the external "update date" is), and inaccurate information. The Encyclopedia Britannica recently suffered from similar problems, with many articles being horribly out of date (sometimes decades).
Originally posted by Thelor:
Whereas in TNE everything is broken and needs fixing.
Yes, I noticed that . . . quite irritating, too.
Originally posted by Thelor:
I like the feeling being pioneers. Bringing
That pioneer feeling . . . by treking into the previously human inhabited blasted zones, which are still populated by Virus in its many hosts, on worlds with sky's glowing purple from radiation fields, and Erps and Narl Eps stalking in the forests of Tangler Trees.
Originally posted by Thelor:
players up against almost impossible odds and
Ok, I'll agree with that one.
Originally posted by Thelor:
going where no one has gone before!
Where no one has gone in the last 70-odd years. Not counting ships piloted by AI-sentient Virus, and that the regions are populated by the remants of the descendants of humans (and others) who've lived in the area of the last several thousand years.
Originally posted by Thelor:
In an imperial campaign I lose interest quickly.
That's what I was trying to say before, I'm sorry you ran in a campaign like that.
Originally posted by Thelor:
There is nothing new around the corner. It is only new for the PC's that haven't seen it first hand before.
But some scout or wossname has already a full detailed survery and demographics done of the world.
If seeing advance survey information ahead of time makes things dull, then how is that differnt from finding one burnt out world after another . . . in that case, I don't need advance information to know what's next, I just know they're all the same because they're all burnt-out low-tech virus-ridden pools of ignorance and intolerance.
Originally posted by Thelor:
I fail to see why the TNE problem is to large?
The problems facing the fictional inhabitants of the TNE milieu aren't too large. The TNE setting is one where you can have loads of fun doing everything and anything you want. All types of adventure, all levels of threat, against whomever you please and wherever the GM guides or gets guided to.
There is no difference in the 3I and TNE settings, only in how they're presented and run.
