Why do you hate the Virus

[mike wightman]

Is there a version of the Virus that you could love?

Sandman, and the others like him waiting to be discovered. Not to mention his 'children'...

 

[mike wightman]

I've just had a though for another atrocity that the Star Vikings may have had to run away from.

What if the DN version events played out and the RC/Regency alliance finally made its way into the Black Imperium. There they used Sandman as a weapon to counter the Imperial forces, committing various acts of mass slaughter along the way - having read about the scrubbings in Agent I tend to think this wouldn't be too morally distasteful.

Here comes the atrocity. They secretly built a kill routine into sandman and its offspring. Despite the fact that sandman was sane, helpful and willing to coexist if not help humanity they decided they couldn't take the risk and committed genocide on every copy that sandman had made - every cyborg host (killing the human as well) every computer system, leading to yet more deaths on high TL worlds within the black Imperium.

Perhaps the last Star Vikings heading off into the unknown were racked with the guilt of having killed a friend and are seeking to atone by finding another sane Virus somewhere out there.

 

[mike wightman]

But as written, the Virus ravaged setting is both too close and too far away from the setting I know and love to fill me with much more than revulsion.

I always thought the TNE setting offered a lot more hope than the best Traveller setting ever - Hard Times. Now there was some revolting stuff going on.

Actually playing through the fall as Virus smashes what's left would be about the most horrific setting I could think of.

But TNE to me was all about exploration and rebuilding - a noble path.

 

[Supplement Four]

What if the Virus had an effect similar to what is stated, except the more populated and high-TL worlds (and their entire subsectors) were able to beat it back pretty easily? Low-TL worlds weren't really affected much at all. That leaves some of the mid-TL worlds in weaker sectors as pockets of Virus trouble.

What I would have liked, and bought into, at the time, would have been an area of space where Virus existed. I didn't want to play in a post-apocalyptic version of the Imperium. I wanted my old Imperium. But, if a section of space was walled off to where, "The Virus? Yeah, it's in that sector of space."

Just as long as most of the old Traveller universe remained intact.

That's why I embraced the Rebellion. It was a change, but still a recognizable universe. It was still the Traveller that I knew and loved.

TNE was a new thing. Something different. It felt like an entirely different game.

So, had the game felt the same, but with some more detail--such as the Virus stuff added to a couple of sectors--then I would have been OK with TNE.

 

[Swiftbrook]

Why do I HATE virus

Oh where to begin ....

1) Never bought into the concept of the super, all-consuming, super computer virus.

2) FF&S mechanics just didn't work for me. A 1G merchant, given enough fuel, could go 'faster' than a 6G courier but the fighter required more hull armor to protect it from micro meteors.

3) Satellite disk shaped laser. What in the ......

What I like about TNE (it wasn't all bad)

A) Aurora-Class Clipper - I loved that ship and concept!

B) TL 16 based stuff built from old Darrian technology.

 

[aramis]

My personal issues with TNE are many.

1) Virus as presented does the impossible.
1.1) AI cannot be done, per prior rules, pre TL17, or with the prototype rules pre-TL15. TL15 ships are a small portion of the fleet, especially in the rebellion era.
1.2) it can infect computers via personal hardware sneaker-net
1.3) It can transmit in seconds a code that requires a mainframe to execute.
1.4) it can transform non-SDG chips into SDG chips via code alone...
2) The method of propagation screams "Virus isn't the code"...
2.1) if the virus isn't the code itself, then it has to be soemthing else.
2.2) TNE introduces a new psionic effect: Machine Empathy
2.3) the combination leads me to think that the code is a focus for a psionic entity that resides in/feeds off of/takes parasitic control of mainframes.
3) TNE personal combat is terrifically flawed. (I've had multiple PC's survive FGMP blasts, but have never seen an NPC go down from a .22LR under RAW. (same flaw exists in T2K2.x ... it's a function of the damage modelling system)
4) A clean slate setting wasn't needed, and a "no big empires" setting had already been presented in Hard Times.
5) The promise to retain the Imperial feel in the Domain of Deneb was a lie.
6) the presented corebook setting for TNE was explicitly focused upon KTAATTS* play, something not present in prior editions. (Not that KTAATTS wasn't done in prior editions, but it was not explicitly the suggested style.)
7) Hiver and Ithklur. Shouldn't have been published. Dave should have been supervised better....
7.1) insulting your customer base in print is about as bad a thing as you can do. Especially in the introduction... the text that most are likely to skim in store...
7.2) making fun of religious holidays in print is always bad form.
8) 70 years is not sufficient for the collapse presented. 60-70 years is typical "living memory length" - and you need at least 1.5 lengths to get real mythology building, preferably two - long enough that almost no living person knew a living person who remembers. Most of us knew someone who was an adult in WW II.... Some of us know people who remember the Spanish American War. The Civil war, however, is pretty much myth and history to most of us, tho a few of the older of us may still remember hearing firsthand tales of the Indian Wars being told to us, or even firsthand tales of the US civil war.


*Kill Them All And Take Their Stuff

 

[ovka]

On the whole, I like the idea of virus. I didn't care for Hard Times because the setting felt too dark to me. Following virus through the 70 year stretch leading up to TNE would have been worse. However, I liked the "rise from the ashes to throw off the shackles of the last 70 years" feel of TNE.

There is an adventure for Mongoose Traveller (I won't mention the name because I don't want to spoil it for anyone) that includes a computer-entity. I thought it was well done. I also like the wafer-entity in Agent of the Imperium.

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[Theophilus]

Coming from that personal preference, the virus, as presented, seemed a little too 'boogey man' for my tastes. It transmits itself like a radio message and can even take over my TL4 radio, transforming it into a Borg monster ....

all IMO.

No it can't. Virus is a living silicon lifeform found by the imperium and kept in a little box.

It is not a computer program that overwrites your operating system.

It cannot "grow" in my HP laptop. the Intel CORE i5 processor, using TL8 silicon chips is simple not a 'fertile ground" for it to grow. the gallinium arsenide type chips we use have micro transistors that are too far apart for the "virus" lifeform to grow.

Only at higher tech levels, using more advanced types of silicon chips, where the layers are thinner and the transistors closer together does "virus" find fertile ground to grow and reproduce.

The Imperium took this lifeform, neutered it, stuck it in a box and called it an IFF Transponder. Only when Lucan's scientists found a way to restore it's ability to reproduce did it become a threat. When it was accidentally released, it did what any animal would do. It mated with the IFF Transponder neuters and released "Virus" on the unsuspecting Imperium

I think this basic misunderstanding of what virus is/was is what turned many people off to the setting. They think of virus as we do, a software/malware problem, and not as a H1N1 Bird flu that mutates into something deadly in computers problem.

 

[Redcap]

It's really simple. If I want to play games set in an apocalyptic setting, I'll play twilight:2000. Add to this, a computer virus that can destroy civilisation? Yeah, and did no-one have firewalls? Or AV/AMW packages? And worked across all manner of operating systems and programming languages? Sorry, but the willing suspense of disbelief factor went right out the airlock for that idea. In short: It sucks on so many levels it's practically indescribably awful.

Hey, you asked!

 

[aramis]

It's really simple. If I want to play games set in an apocalyptic setting, I'll play twilight:2000. Add to this, a computer virus that can destroy civilisation? Yeah, and did no-one have firewalls? Or AV/AMW packages? And worked across all manner of operating systems and programming languages? Sorry, but the willing suspense of disbelief factor went right out the airlock for that idea. In short: It sucks on so many levels it's practically indescribably awful.

Hey, you asked!

All of which could work if it was a psionic entity using the computer as a host rather than an actual computer virus...

 

[Redcap]

Which leads me back to premis the first: If I want an apocalyptic setting, then it's Twilight:2000.

I'll stick to the CT/Lorenverse, thanks very much.

 

[RandyB]

Which leads me back to premis the first: If I want an apocalyptic setting, then it's Twilight:2000.

I'll stick to the CT/Lorenverse, thanks very much.

And if I want a technoapocalypse, Cyberpunk 2020.

Make mine LTU!

 

[GypsyComet]

So it seems to me that people thought the Virus was a cool idea, though maybe heavy handed in actual implementation, but they resented having all of their investment in the current universe "table-flipped" out of existence.

The thing to understand is that many people held this belief, while others objected on Hard SF grounds to the technical details of Virus itself. Irony itself, in that the real world has taken exactly the steps required to make something a lot like Virus a real threat.

I do NOT hate Virus or its effects on the setting, but I found the GDW House System clunky.

 

[nobby-w]

I've seen a lot of hostility toward the idea of the Virus. Is it the concept or how it played out in the setting? It seems like a cool idea, but I prefer a darker, apocalyptic space setting to Traveller's fairly new and shiny feel (yes, even in the frontier).

Why do you hate the Virus?
[...]

I felt the underlying concept was rather naff and had a contrived feel. it seemed to exist just to make a 'dark future' Traveller at a time when this was getting fashionable. The execution felt ham-fisted and contrived.

The fall of the Second Imperium is a far better apocalyptic setting.

It's eerily prescient; the Rule of Man was run by a military-industrial complex that had gotten completely out of control after a century-long war. They flipped a finger to the civilian government on Terra and set up shop in the middle of their conquered territories.

They made a complete hash of the interstellar economy and grew progressively more corrupt, eventually collapsing in an empire-wide banking crisis.

 

[Supplement Four]

3) TNE personal combat is terrifically flawed. (I've had multiple PC's survive FGMP blasts, but have never seen an NPC go down from a .22LR under RAW. (same flaw exists in T2K2.x ... it's a function of the damage modelling system)

Elaborate, please. I'm curious about the combat rules.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I've seen a lot of hostility toward the idea of the Virus. Is it the concept or how it played out in the setting? It seems like a cool idea, but I prefer a darker, apocalyptic space setting to Traveller's fairly new and shiny feel (yes, even in the frontier).

Why do you hate the Virus?

Is there a version of the Virus that you could love?

To me "virus" was partially a riff on the coming Year 2000 thing, and also a riff on actual computer viruses. Animal brains, including human brains, are a conglomeration of networks that constantly exchange information. Back then networking was pretty primitive, and even with more advanced networks today, one of the primary reason we don't see hyper intelligent viruses trying to take over world is because computers simply don't work like human minds.

So, from that standpoint alone, I simply shrugged my shoulders at it. I didn't hate it largely because my gaming groups had dissolved by the time TNE rolled around. Still, when I finally heard about it I half laughed at it for the aforementioned reasons, but found it moderately compelling from a pure fictional point of view.

I think ultimately it was given way too much power from a story and canon perspective, and as Traveller was becoming a setting based game as opposed to a do-all sci-fi RPG, people probably objected to it really revamping the official background, which had become familiar to most players.

 

[BwapTED]

I felt the underlying concept was rather naff and had a contrived feel. it seemed to exist just to make a 'dark future' Traveller at a time when this was getting fashionable. The execution felt ham-fisted and contrived.

The fall of the Second Imperium is a far better apocalyptic setting.

It's eerily prescient; the Rule of Man was run by a military-industrial complex that had gotten completely out of control after a century-long war. They flipped a finger to the civilian government on Terra and set up shop in the middle of their conquered territories.

They made a complete hash of the interstellar economy and grew progressively more corrupt, eventually collapsing in an empire-wide banking crisis.

I like the idea of a late/ failing Rule of Man campaign. Right at the start of the Long Night.

 

[kilemall]

I don't hate Virus.

I ignore it into non-existence.

 

[mike wightman]

Marc's Agents of the Imperium book offer several new slants on Virus within the OTU - consider the following:

a world where the Imperial computer network achieves sentience

a world invaded by robots that can mimic humans and are intelligent, yet lacj jump technology

wafer technology - a personality can be recorded onto a wafer and the personality can be downloaded onto a computer or onto a person to overwrite their personality for a time.

With stuff like that going on Virus is totally plausible within the setting.

since its early days Traveller has used machines as adversaries - A1 has an experimental AI taking over a ship, A2 has robots (dumbbots) staffing a research station, and of course one of the early multi-issue articles in JTAS were MWM's guide to robots, synthetics, clones and cyborgs to use the T5 terms.

There is an interesting quote from TNE:

Humanity had naturally thought of computers and electronic machinery
as tools, for that is what they were. It was easy to imagine the development of these tools would also remain
tools. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Humanity created a new form of life that, since it was made from the
tools, knew the tools better than humanity itself did.

 

[CliffBates]

My personal issues with TNE are many.

1) Virus as presented does the impossible.
1.1) AI cannot be done, per prior rules, pre TL17, or with the prototype rules pre-TL15. TL15 ships are a small portion of the fleet, especially in the rebellion era.
1.2) it can infect computers via personal hardware sneaker-net
1.3) It can transmit in seconds a code that requires a mainframe to execute.
1.4) it can transform non-SDG chips into SDG chips via code alone...
2) The method of propagation screams "Virus isn't the code"...
2.1) if the virus isn't the code itself, then it has to be soemthing else.
2.2) TNE introduces a new psionic effect: Machine Empathy
2.3) the combination leads me to think that the code is a focus for a psionic entity that resides in/feeds off of/takes parasitic control of mainframes.
3) TNE personal combat is terrifically flawed. (I've had multiple PC's survive FGMP blasts, but have never seen an NPC go down from a .22LR under RAW. (same flaw exists in T2K2.x ... it's a function of the damage modelling system)
4) A clean slate setting wasn't needed, and a "no big empires" setting had already been presented in Hard Times.
5) The promise to retain the Imperial feel in the Domain of Deneb was a lie.
6) the presented corebook setting for TNE was explicitly focused upon KTAATTS* play, something not present in prior editions. (Not that KTAATTS wasn't done in prior editions, but it was not explicitly the suggested style.)
7) Hiver and Ithklur. Shouldn't have been published. Dave should have been supervised better....
7.1) insulting your customer base in print is about as bad a thing as you can do. Especially in the introduction... the text that most are likely to skim in store...
7.2) making fun of religious holidays in print is always bad form.
8) 70 years is not sufficient for the collapse presented. 60-70 years is typical "living memory length" - and you need at least 1.5 lengths to get real mythology building, preferably two - long enough that almost no living person knew a living person who remembers. Most of us knew someone who was an adult in WW II.... Some of us know people who remember the Spanish American War. The Civil war, however, is pretty much myth and history to most of us, tho a few of the older of us may still remember hearing firsthand tales of the Indian Wars being told to us, or even firsthand tales of the US civil war.


*Kill Them All And Take Their Stuff

Amen, amen. I have been carefully looking at some of the equipment from TNE and alot of it is interesting and can be retrofitted into CT/MT. But the kind of play is radically darker and the graphics presented is un CT like more akin to a gaming system like Space Opera or Star Frontiers from TRS in tge 80s.

Some of the senerios were good and again retrofited in CT. And the Star Viking feel out to be projected back into the OTU past, esp the Long Night period.....