T5 Only: Traveller History, the Rebellion and Hard Times

[savage]

Virus

Hard Times was a great setting, the only change I would make is to NOT use the Virus at all...write your own game history GMs!!!

I liked MT/TNE and Virus. I've used it and enjoyed it. The AI/weapon Virus is just poorly written and planned. That includes the supervirus leader nonsense in 1248. :rofl:

 

[Stei'awtliyrl]

While I do like the idea of a superweapon being developed by a desperate despot, and it's unleashing being accidental. I never got on board with the TNE plotline. Fortunately, for a Hard Times campaign, if you start in 1125, your plucky band of do-gooders have five years to uncover and prevent the events leading up to VIRUS.

 

[mike wightman]

You could probably play well into the collapse period too.
Virus was over hyped.
While computers and robots going crazy would be a bit of a problem it could have been contained and dealt with if not for one little problem.
By the end of Hard Times and the onset of the Virus triggered collapse interstellar government had collapsed, worlds had turned very insular and mistrustful, some worlds had already failed and others close to it.

Virus released on a healthy Imperium would have been dealt with, Virus released on the already 'diseased' remnant of the Imperium could cause utter chaos. It was also a handy scapegoat for all sorts of other disasters which probably had nothing to do with it but word of mouth and rumour knows better.

A group of hardened adventurers could probably do well for themselves, once they'd learned enough about the truth behind Virus to take precautions.

The only thing I didn't like about the TNE setting is that it is too close in time to MT, I'd have set it a century or two further into the future rather than a just a few decades.

 

[Carlobrand]

I liked MT/TNE and Virus. I've used it and enjoyed it. The AI/weapon Virus is just poorly written and planned. That includes the supervirus leader nonsense in 1248. :rofl:

The superwhowha??

You could probably play well into the collapse peril too.
Virus was over hyped.
While computers and robots going crazy would be a bit of a problem it could have been contained and dealt with if not for one little problem.
By the end of Hard Times and the onset of the Virus triggered collapse interstellar government had collapsed, worlds had turned very insular and mistrustful, some worlds had already failed and others close to it.

Virus released on a healthy Imperium would have been dealt with, Virus released on the already 'diseased' remnant of the Imperium could cause utter chaos. It was also a handy scapegoat for all sorts of other disasters which probably had nothing to do with it but word of mouth and rumour knows better.
...

Virus was over-everything. It was a little too hard to swallow the idea of an uberprogram that could invade and dominate any and every kind of computing device.

Vampire ships, one can do. Speculate on the Imperium dealing with a skilled manpower shortage in the midst of civil war by turning to fully autonomous AI computers, on improving fleet effectiveness by using laser comms to transmit computer-to-computer, and you have a basis for vampire fleets.

Crashing other computers, one can do. Speculate on a clandestine Imperial program of secreting backdoors into the commercial software of planetbound and other computer systems for security and intelligence purposes, on capital ships' computers containing the keys for such backdoors in specially coded files accessible only by flag officers and then only when those officers receive code phrases to enter into the computer. The AI's could crack those files, have access to the signals needed to access and take possession of key computers in a variety of settings.

A Virus based on vulnerabilities created by Imperial policies, one can imagine. However, a Virus that then migrates over to Aslan and Hiver systems, that one's a hard sell.

 

[JBHemlock]

[Edited]

I also have no end of problems with Virus (it's not in my Traveller campaign), but I could see something interesting with AI controlled ships with some sort of cyberwarfare systems.

Mass Effect 2 did a good job with the whole shipboard "cyberwarfare suite", which seemed to be a sort of combination of ECM and fairly specific computer intrusion systems. It made sense, since (Reapers aside) most of the foes a ship could expect to meet in that universe were from relatively well-known races with well-known ship designs. A warship might have systems specifically to help it interfere with Batarian starship systems, for instance. This would rely on the military having up to date intelligence on Batarian systems, but that's what intelligence organizations are for.

I could easily see the same thing applying in Traveller. Knowledge of Zhodani starships and computers could allow a warship to use cyberwarfare systems to interfere with the shipboard systems on a Zhodani ship, while defending against similar attacks. I could see this going to either extreme: Perhaps it's little more than a nuisance to the targeted ship, or perhaps it goes the full "Wrath of Khan" route and shuts down vital systems in the middle of a firefight. Personally I'm leaning more towards the former than the latter, but I could see a successful cyberwarfare attack applying a negative DM to the target ship's rolls.

Since my own players are Scouts, and the IISS is an intelligence organization, I could see some interesting adventures surrounding attempts to gain knowledge of some new piece of Zhodani technology in order to keep Imperial cyberwarfare systems up to date... :devil:

 

[Shonner]

Well, I was excited until I got my T5 book.. But that's a subject for other threads well covered over in the T5 Forum

I was going to say to stick to the rules you're already using for that setting.

 

[savage]

Virus

The key is that Virus needs to be limited. In 1248, Virus achieves ridiculous power. Running a Virus campaign can be fun but your players need to be able to win. It is a game. I also saw no reason to collapse the Spinward Marches states but that is another topic.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

On 1248:

I found the campaign situations presented 1248 to be quite useful because of the cutdown of scale. Due to the scale of Charted Space it was difficult to have a campaigns of different sorts and get characters to those locales without saying things like "Your trip from the Spinward Marches to the Solomani Rim two years. Not much happened."

You want polities arguing with each other, with aliens even (well Aslan and Vargr anyway), Spinward States.
You want classic Imperial Space, go to Gushemege and the Fourth Imperium
You want brash clearing the frontier, saving people etc., go to the Freedom League.
Each campaign area is closer to travel to, moreso than before.

The best part is, like Hard Times, you characters may not be in charge, but they have a much better chance of making a large difference in the universe. And none of that we have to be sneaky thieves because we will get TL15 Imperial Marine smackdown. Well a lot less of that anyways.