Thought someone might like this for their ATU...

[Spinward Scout]

Hey Everybody,

I've been playing around with the Traveller paradigm a little bit, trying to bring it into the mainstream Sci-Fi more. So I'm going to be posting some devices that have been forbidden or unthinkable in a Traveller setting. I've tried to make them as Traveller-like as possible.

The first one, at least, is something that hasn't been integrated into Known Space yet (and I think I might do that with the rest of them, too) so it seems to be a good plot device: Will it be built? What are the consequences? Who will fight over it? Who will fight to stop it?

MTU runs from CT nominal to GURPS Alternate Timeline, so this is a change in that timeline. You can change this to the way you'd like it to work.

Let me know what you think,

Dameon

:alpha: TNS NEWS FLASH
Capitol/Core
018-1111

¶ Today at Capitol, Emperor Strephon announced the unveiling of an amazing device, based on an Ancient Artifact found in the Andory system, claiming that it communicates at Faster-Than-Light speeds through JumpSpace. The research unit assigned to this Artifact project has shown that almost instantaneous communication can be achieved over interstellar distances.

¶ Immediately dubbed "JumpComm," and officially classified as Device X-142A91, this device, TNS has been told, projects a carrier wave through JumpSpace at an incredible 12 parsecs per hour - or one parsec every 5 minutes! At this speed, over a relay system that TNS was told is now being developed, a message could reach Vland in about 5 hours, Terra in about 11 hours, and Regina in the Spinward Marches in less than 16 hours. And if diplomatic expediency is necessary, a message could reach Lair in less than 11 hours, Kirur or Kusyu in about 13 hours, Glea in about 16 hours, or Zhodane in about 26 hours.

¶ The research unit that has been working on this communication system is at a loss to figure out why the carrier wave propagates at this specific speed, as it is sixty times faster than the fastest known level of JumpSpace. A prototype relay array has been set up outward from Capitol towards Reference with a JumpComm node at each system for a communications array of 40 systems, and has been extensively tested over the last year. The research unit has determined that the carrier wave will decay over time, as the signal forced across the JumpSpace threshold will tend to "surface" to become normal slower EM. As this decay occurs, enormous amounts of information are lost, since the modulated signal does not decay evenly. This signal can travel approximately 35 parsecs before needing to be relayed - 35 parsecs in less than 3 hours.

¶ In a stunning political move, Emperor Strephon has decreed that: "Fast and reliable communication is critical to the maintenance of empires, the growth of free thought, and the needs of a modern economy. Any interstellar government who wishes specification plans for creating these JumpComms, should contact the Imperial Ministry of Developmental Science through their respective Ambassadors."�

¶ The Emperor also stated that the Imperium-wide communication network that is being developed would be put into place as soon as possible.

:alpha: END NEWS FLASH
mega:

 

[Merxiless]

Nice. And a nice write-up with the symbols, reminds me of old challenge.

I won't be able to use it, since my own setup is based on the feudalism / speed of travel thing.

But I applaud the effort, nonetheless.

- Merxiless

 

[Spinward Scout]

Thanks! One of the things I was thinking is: what if this never gets built? Sabotage or a Hiver plot or something. Another thing I was thinking is if you change it to the speed of Jump-1, then speed of travel is still faster in the short distance - but maybe evens out in the long run due to refueling, etc... Then it really doesn't change a thing except maybe the X-Boat network gets a little reorganized.

 

[ld80062]

Hi, Sir Dameon!

Like Merxiless, I like the format of your TNS.

Unlike Merxiless, I think that your original, fast JumpComm is a great way to shake things up - much better than that Virus thing. Why? Frankly, just to see What Happens if we change this One Thing...

If you do like Feudal Trav - but also want some JumpComm - you can have the setup equipment be very expensive, or very bulky... or only transmit along specific corridors, like the telegraph...

And you can have Trav be feudal for a reason other than commo tech. IMTU, - following http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc1/lectures/19feudalism.html

"Feudalism can be simply defined as
l) fragmentation of political power;
2) public power in private hands; and
3) armed forces secured through private contracts."

Political power is fragmented IMTU because of the nature of Imperial warfare. On the one hand, the Imperial government utterly dominates space warfare, with expensive weapon platforms that "twelve angry men" cannot hope to fight or defeat. On the other hand, "twelve angry men" can cause havoc on worlds: a single well-planned cyberattack against financial databanks can send a high-tech world spiraling into the Dark Ages - at a cost much less than that of a warship.

Thus, the Imperium can defend the trade lanes easily, but leaves world defense to the locals. "The space between the worlds is Imperial terriroty." as they always say.

[And the starports & Naval bases, BTW]

In summary, my TU is Feudal because of the nature of warfare, and not because of the nature of communication. I suggest that FTL commo can therefore be accomodated within a Feudal Imperium.

 

[Valarian]

I like it ... JumpComm relay stations at the 100d limit and laser/maser/meson comms to the planet. The relays would have to be guarded from those who would work to disrupt communications.

One thing though ... if this was around in the year stated in the TNS and rolled out across the Imperium, would the Rebellion have happened - or would Dulinor have been captured in one of the systems between Core and Ilelish?

 

[TheEngineer]

Yeah...JumpComm & Virus...just a dream team

 

[princelian]

I would think that if Dulinor's assassination of Strephon had happened while such a system was in place, his ascension to the Iridium Throne would have been affirmed by the Moot, because he would have used it to transmit his successful completion of the Ascension by Rite of Assassination across the stars.

Lucian would have had a devil of a time countering it, and powerful personages like Margaret and Norris would have probably accepted it.

Not to say you couldn't have had civil war while various groups resisted it, but it might not have been the Imperium-destroying thing it became in the MTU.

Which is a good thing, IMHO.

<rant>;The nature of starship combat in Traveller, where a force can jump in past nearly any defensive force and engage, and where a force can accelerate up to relativistic speeds and then jump past defensive forces and engage....well the leaders of the various forces in the Shattered Imperium would have gone the way of so many of the Admirals of the Flag: killed in action. The fact that the thing dragged on the way it did, engaging tremendous megatonnage of warfleets, always bothered me immensely. It's like the main players agreed to follow pre-Modern warfare guidelines (American Revolution and back), where you line up your men on each side of the field and fight, and then continued this practice throughout the wars.
</rant>

 

[ld80062]

(edited for spelling & clarity)

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Yeah...JumpComm & Virus...just a dream team

Don't make me start screaming, TheEngineer: I've loathed Virus for a decade now, and I see no reason to stop!

On the other hand, you have sparked a long and involved thought experiment - I enjoy playing with new ideals.

*******************************

First View: "weaponized" Viruses is released, accidentally or thru war. It spreads very rapidly through the JumpComm network, smashing *everything* in Charted Space, and infecting *every* system even remotely connected to the network.

Sentinent life in this arm of the Galaxy suffers a near-extinction event.

But, the completeness of the Extinction Event depends on how long the infection/latency period of Virus is. If it only waits a few hours/days/weeks to spread before destroying it's host, it is *possible* that non-networked worlds, starships and space stations can survive Virus. These survivor locations can begin anew the spread of sophont life, without fear of Virus: this Virus is too efficent, killing itself by killing it's host too quickly.

Second View: If Virus has a longer latency period, it may evolve into different, more interesting forms, as TNE outlined. The initially destroyed worlds remain smashed, but initally unaffected worlds, should they be infected by upgraded forms of Virus, will be changed in various ways.

Third View: In my opinion, survivng civilizations of a post-Virus, JumpComm universe will either be a cybernetically-dominant culture, or a cooperative project between the more peaceful strains of Virus and organic sophonts. A strictly organic civilization will be in immense risk of infection as it expands, a vulnerability a cybercivilization can handle much more successfully.

Fourth View: Of course, a cyber culture will have certain weak points - dependency on artifical power resources, and a much slower rate of "workunit" growth, but these weaknesses can be allievated/worked around.

Fifth View: assuming sufficent production facilities survived (a network of factories, from optical glass foundries to robot construction sites to power-plant factories) and can be restarted.

It will be exceeding difficult to find non-infected production facilities. The very few that weren't connected to the network would be run by isolationist/paranoid sophonts, who will be very hostile to Virus. The likelyhood that these facilities will be destroyed/made unusuable in an attempt to take them over is very high.

There is a reasonable possibility that there may be NO usable production facilities available for a non-suicidal Virus to take over. And Virus will need
* enough intact production facilities
* of the needed types & varieties
* with enough raw materials and energy supplied
* and sufficent, detailed planners & leaders
- focused enough to avoid aimlessness and unproductive waste
- but not so rigid as to be unable to adapt to new circumsances and problems

Virus leadership must avoid internal conflict, at least in the initial decades (and preferably the next three centuries or so). Without sufficent production facilities, any internal war will threaten the viability of any Virus society.
* Fortunately, JumpComm makes such control possible.
* Unfortunately, such centralized control is just asking for trouble, and suffers from various forms of failure,
- from ignoring critical information, because the central AI fails to grasp it's sigificance, and alternate ways of thinking & acting is not permitted.
- to "single point of failure": Kill the central AI, and you kill the Virus threat.

Sixth View: The division of labour was smashed by the initial strike of Virus. This intense specialization of labour is what make interstellar society possible in the first place. The standard example is the amzing amount of work and energy needed to produce pencils - never minds robots, fusion power plants, and jump engines!

Of course, this division of labour was smashed into kindling during the initial Virus infections, everywhere across Infected Charted Space. JumpComm Virus infections will be very through: there may not be a single radio within a given system that wasn't infected and destroyed by Virus.

Recreating this division of labour, using only an assorted group of surviving infected warships, computers and robots is impossible, in the ruined environment of a post-Virus universe.

Seventh View: Therefore - at least for a few centuries - organic labour (sophont or not) will be needed to jumpstart Cybernetic civilization. Humaniti being a tribal, parochial race - especially Solomani humaniti - the utility of Imperial human labour is problematic. Vilani labout despise nontraditional authority figures, and will react porly to alien, bizarre Virus rulers - it will be costly to keep them suppressed. Zhodani authority is focused on psionics - assuming that Virus is not psion-capable, keeping the Zhodani in line can be very dificult indeed.

Aslan, Vargr and K'kree labour is also of limited utility. Hivers are the most promising labour: they already have the best computer technology in Charted Space, and can be easily intimidated by personal violence. Long-term, however, their subversive, manipulative nature - and skill in programming - may be more threatening to Viral rule than the open resistance of humaniti.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

IMTU I developed a FTl commo system, but had difficulties integrating it into the social structure without unbalancing everything. Reading the discussion about the Assassination and Virus has given me a flash of inspiration. Could my literary Muse be returning?

FTL commo was discovered, many important things IMTU are, by accident. With the patonage of a General grade officer, the system was developed in secret and used by ConFederation Justice (people with black uniforms, not very friendly) as a tool to aid their consolidation of explored zones formerly controlled exclusively by Mercant Guilds.

Naturally, the device, and CJ, were subverted by thode seeking power. CJ became the Loyalty Office, and the formerly benign ConFederation became the militaristic and expansionist Terran Dominion. Hard to fight a corrupt government that can get word ahead of you, especially when you don't expect it.

It took a galactic war and a galaxy-wide epidemic to break their power.

Am I making sense, or do I need to balance my meds?

 

[ld80062]

Originally posted by Dominion Loyalty Officer:
IMTU I developed a FTl commo system, but had difficulties integrating it into the social structure without unbalancing everything. Reading the discussion about the Assassination and Virus has given me a flash of inspiration. Could my literary Muse be returning?

Hey - I hope so! Traveller needs technology, sensawonder and adventure, but we MUST have stories! More good story lines, please!

FTL commo was discovered, many important things IMTU are, by accident.

Heh. Out in my TU, most discoveries are a combination of serendipity, 'educated guesses' and reverse-engineering Ancient tech.

Accidents can be a good driver - but they must happen to someone who understands what he is seeing. Apples have been falling on heads for a very long time, but it took a Newton-scale intelligence to understand WHY they are falling.

Adventure seed: The travellers are ferrying around a Jumpspace researcher/mathematician when there is a run-of-the-mill misjump. The researcher asks for the drive & engineering records of the jump, "just for curiosity." Nothing is heard from him over the next few months, until an AMAZING scientific paper is published, putting forward a major unified theory of Jumpspace. The paper makes extensive use of the jump/engineering data of the PC's starship.

Suddenly, a lot of people are Very Interested in their Starship....

With the patonage of a General grade officer, the system was developed in secret and used by ConFederation Justice (people with black uniforms, not very friendly) as a tool to aid their consolidation of explored zones formerly controlled exclusively by Mercant Guilds.

I really need to write a Trav paper on "who gets to wear Black Uniforms - with those dashing silver highlights, of course." I'm not sure if I should write it straight, as satire, or as pure comedy...

Naturally, the device, and CJ, were subverted by thode seeking power. CJ became the Loyalty Office, and the formerly benign ConFederation became the militaristic and expansionist Terran Dominion. Hard to fight a corrupt government that can get word ahead of you, especially when you don't expect it.

It took a galactic war and a galaxy-wide epidemic to break their power.

Am I making sense, or do I need to balance my meds?

Sounds excellent, Dominion Loyalty Officer! - I'm looking forward hearing more!

But, just a bit of advice - don't be too predictable when drawing up the Dominion. It's easy to model the Dominion on the perposterous totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, and it's cool to use recognizable cliches that the players can recognise.

But also, throw in some oddities and unexpected things as well. Suppose that the Dominion is very patriarchal, with women kept under tight control - but those same women have remarkable freedom as well. ("She's just a woman - we can ignore her/she is no threat to us men!") A paternalistic culture may even put women on a pedestal, holding them Above Suspicion, to be protected At All Costs.

Or make the Dominion despise non-humans - but at the same time, the Dominion elite has a certain fascination with alien societies. While there isn't a single Aslan living in Dominion space, say, Aslan fashions and ship design esthetics are very popular, and sophisticated people pepper their conversation with Aslan words.

Perhaps most Dominion humans adores the ideals the Dominion stands for - but gags at the sight of uniforms, and nasty jokes about the Dominion leadership, their morals, and their intelligence are surprisingly common.

What I'm really getting at is: don't make them too predictable - unless, of course, that what gives your players the most fun!

PS: if you want to model a sophisticated Political Loyalty Officer, I recommend that you grab a copy o David Weber's "The Service of the Sword", and read up the story "Fanatic" by Eric Flint. It's a good place to start, and pick up the mindset of an intelligent, hardcore political officer.

 

[signless]

I developed a certain type of FTL commo that allowed packetized electromagnetic signals to be carried through jumpspace at a fantastically greater range than that offered to hunks of massive matter.
The range of my FTL was 60 parsecs per signal - which created a demand for translator and repeater stations to be built throughout charted space. Message transmission still takes a week (same as travel), but the need for a physical container for the signal has evaporated.
The effort is new and ongoing, without any major shifts in culture, society or politics...yet. The Ine Givar in the Marches are already drawing up plans for their first strike...