If not for Virus I'd guess the Empire might have been reunited under Regent Aledon for a young Avery 
Why do you hate the Virus
- Thread starter Adam Dray
- Start date
My 2c on virus. I could never understand why it had to be the only future. One or more coequal futures would have been all that was required. I guess I never got into MT from CT - seemed too cumbersome. Likewise the rebellion pased me by otherwise I might have disliked it too. I did like much of the harder science in TNE though.
But I reckon if there was a straw poll, Most people still playing traveller (whether mongoose or CT or whatever) would not be playing in a Virus universe. Further, That most play on the frontiers of a mostly stable imperium. And if this is so ( and it is a big if)- What was the point?
Regards
But I reckon if there was a straw poll, Most people still playing traveller (whether mongoose or CT or whatever) would not be playing in a Virus universe. Further, That most play on the frontiers of a mostly stable imperium. And if this is so ( and it is a big if)- What was the point?
Regards
Actually, most people would have probably liked a virus.
A virus world or cluster of worlds (like the Chamax Plague) that presented a terrifying threat and a strange new "empire" along one small chunk of the frontier, might have captured the imagination.
Most people who really HATED the virus hated both the Rebellion and the Virus for grinding the Third Imperium to dust. Any means that achieved the same result would have been bad for all of the people who loved the Imperium.
Given the popularity of Classic Traveller, the fan base of the Lorenverse and the choice by Mongoose to reboot with the Third Imperium ... the Imperium seems to have more than a few fans.
Highorbit_drifter
SOC-12
Imagine you had a gaming group back in the CT days. Traders, mercs, Scouts dealing with aliens, all the classic stuff. Then along comes the Rebellion and suddenly everything you have been struggling for is meaningless. Your trade deals are useless. Your merc contracts are meaningless facing huge, official, military movements. Aliens suddenly, and inexplicably for the most part, overwhelm your supposedly safe systems. And it happens overnight with the publishing of the new material, so you don't have a say and you don't participate except to be told this after the fact.
People didn't like loosing their setting, or reasons for adventuring in the CT TU. So to solve that problem? Destroy it all.
If the Rebellion made the reasons for your play group go away, the Virus destroyed the very setting. I remember how visceral my reaction was when I read the flavor text of grav cars not landing and killing their occupants and arcologies becoming huge charnel houses. My group spent a lot of time in arcologies, everybody had a grav vehicle. We had built up an emotional connection with the setting and to see it murdered, literally, was too much.
I was already at that age when work and family made it harder to devote time to roleplaying and Rebellion and finally the New Era nailed that coffin shut. I didn't play Traveller again until G:T
And that is the essence of Mike Metlay's decades-old tirade, Highorbit. It's a position that many Traveller players took. It was a jarring change to a new, different setting.
What if?
What if TNE had instead found a "solution" that let us keep our free traders and mercenary teams? A slow slog back to civilization, a reversal of Hard Times, or even a change in management that caused lots of heads to roll but kept the streets safe (so to speak)? It would have softened the change to House Rules. Would things have ended up better for Traveller?
I think it could have. For one, a lot of fan-based energy left the table with Virus. Keeping that energy around might have been a good thing.
What if?
What if TNE had instead found a "solution" that let us keep our free traders and mercenary teams? A slow slog back to civilization, a reversal of Hard Times, or even a change in management that caused lots of heads to roll but kept the streets safe (so to speak)? It would have softened the change to House Rules. Would things have ended up better for Traveller?
I think it could have. For one, a lot of fan-based energy left the table with Virus. Keeping that energy around might have been a good thing.
Oh, you mean the Regency? That's exactly what that was. Beyond an arguably abstract geopolitical shift of the overall government structure, The Regency was the OTU snapshot. Stay away from the borders and blockades, and you'd hardly know anything had changed.
I don't hate the Virus, I just didn't use it. When I first read about it, it was too jarring and sort of took the shine off my brand new Traveller Book. So I just kept on playing the bits up to it and now as I rejoin the TU, I'm going to use it as an interesting ancient bit of history. Sort of like George Washington crossing the Tiber only to run into the Bulge.
It looked very little like the OTU 3I... the deletion of nobility being the deletion of one of the key feel elements of the OTU 3I...
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, since I did not follow the unfolding drama all that closely, but I always got the impression that the Rebellion/Civil War of MegaTraveller and the details of how it 'officially' unfolded had already pretty much crushed the Third Imperium to rubble. The 'ugly' parts of Hard Times belong to the Rebellion and MegaTraveller, not TNE. The Virus, as implemented, felt more like burning the ruins after they had been bombed flat ... just in case anyone might have survived.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Spot on.
To a lot of us it was MT that ruined Traveller, not TNE.
MT took the setting and smashed it, gave us geopolitical essays, loads of errata and no adventures, You weren't even technically running the rebellion, that happened 1116-1120, you were meant to start in 1120 when the dust had settled a bit and you had loads of competing fractions - not exactly Game of Thrones.
Then came Hard Times which reduced the setting to pure despair (note that this is one of my all time favourite settings for Traveller).
TNE was about rebuilding and is probably third on my list of favoured official settings.
(proto, Hard Times, TNE, GT:ISW)
Virus was a pre-setting event which in game was a mild threat and achieved the secondary aims of introducing AI and playable machines and ships.
The main setting was actually really good - read Path of Tears - and had lots of adventures and stuff for players to do (unlike MT).
The secondary setting, the Regency, was a continuation of the SM of old, with changes made because of the MT rebellion.
To a lot of us it was MT that ruined Traveller, not TNE.
MT took the setting and smashed it, gave us geopolitical essays, loads of errata and no adventures, You weren't even technically running the rebellion, that happened 1116-1120, you were meant to start in 1120 when the dust had settled a bit and you had loads of competing fractions - not exactly Game of Thrones.
Then came Hard Times which reduced the setting to pure despair (note that this is one of my all time favourite settings for Traveller).
TNE was about rebuilding and is probably third on my list of favoured official settings.
(proto, Hard Times, TNE, GT:ISW)
Virus was a pre-setting event which in game was a mild threat and achieved the secondary aims of introducing AI and playable machines and ships.
The main setting was actually really good - read Path of Tears - and had lots of adventures and stuff for players to do (unlike MT).
The secondary setting, the Regency, was a continuation of the SM of old, with changes made because of the MT rebellion.
Ah. You're looking for something like Bill's "Wounded Colossus".
http://www.users.qwest.net/~n2s/traveller/Wounded-Colossus.html
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
TNE did let us keep our free traders and merc teams though. Star Vikings were the ultimate expression of that particular player type who wanted to run around in BD slaughtering low TL foes with impunity.
The Guilded Lilly adventure was all about a free trader...
It was perfectly possible to play as the crew of a free trader wandering from world to world in the TNE setting. The ref had the ultimate freedom to make up the worlds in the wilds you encountered. You know about Virus and how to take countermeasures, unless you are stupid it is not a great threat.
The Guilded Lilly adventure was all about a free trader...
It was perfectly possible to play as the crew of a free trader wandering from world to world in the TNE setting. The ref had the ultimate freedom to make up the worlds in the wilds you encountered. You know about Virus and how to take countermeasures, unless you are stupid it is not a great threat.
From what I gathered from Dave's postings years back, that would simply have justified the slaughter, death, and destruction.
The Third Imperium was literally half dead by the time the new cohort at GDW took over the direction of Traveller, killed at the hands of their fellow citizens. And a large number of the planets were just gone, glassed over in Black War strikes.
So I can see his point.
TNE was supposed to be, like the name said, a New Era where the players were working towards rebuilding starfaring civilization.
epicenter00
SOC-13
Regency was the weakest setting, I thought. It was supposed to be business-as-usual-Third-Imperium for those who didn't want to play TNE.
Except it wasn't.
I think it would have been a lot more interesting without so many democratic reforms and so on, where the problems that had made the 3I brittle were still there because the old power structure of the 3I was still there.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
You mean if Norris had declared Imperial direct rule over planets that were used to extensive home rule freedoms...
I agree it was the weaker setting.
I agree it was the weaker setting.
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All that said, if your adventures weren't really tapping in to how the Government works, then it was the "hi tech, civilized, safe" area of TNE where you could go about trading and doing corporate contracts, frontier work on less developed planets, etc. Just like the old 3I.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Spinward Marches from its inception was set up with only limited Imperial rule. It was a frontier where due to distance from the centre of government extensive home rule was the norm.
Norris could elevate himself to archduke and declare martial law, but that wouldn't stop the world governments in the Marches from wanting to maintain their sovereignty.
Norris may well have invited the Aslan in to the Marches under the pretext of an 'invasion' so he could maintain martial law, and then offer land to those same Aslan for fealty.
The Zhodani - as Norris well knew - were never a real threat. Their only aim throughout the frontier wars was to limit Imperial expansion.
So he manufactured an Aslan invasion , and refused to send fleets to the Imperial core worlds due to them being needed to protect against the Aslan incursions, the Zhodani threat and the {laughable} Vargr.
Only problem to him consolidating power was the fact that the Imperium didn't actually govern any worlds directly - so he had to play world governments off aginst the perceived threats.
Norris could elevate himself to archduke and declare martial law, but that wouldn't stop the world governments in the Marches from wanting to maintain their sovereignty.
Norris may well have invited the Aslan in to the Marches under the pretext of an 'invasion' so he could maintain martial law, and then offer land to those same Aslan for fealty.
The Zhodani - as Norris well knew - were never a real threat. Their only aim throughout the frontier wars was to limit Imperial expansion.
So he manufactured an Aslan invasion , and refused to send fleets to the Imperial core worlds due to them being needed to protect against the Aslan incursions, the Zhodani threat and the {laughable} Vargr.
Only problem to him consolidating power was the fact that the Imperium didn't actually govern any worlds directly - so he had to play world governments off aginst the perceived threats.
What constitutes extensive home rule in the 3I? I mean, the Imperium rules the space between worlds, not the worlds themselves. So does extensive home rule mean that the worlds in question also control a good part of in-system space, uninhabited but useful moons and planets, etc? Maintain fleets with jump capability?
Functionally, It makes almost ZERO difference in the Marches. The Fleets of the 3I still have authority down to 10 diameters, and locals have no authority past 100 diameters (COACC)....
Realistically, given the T4.2/T5 fief systems (Yes, the fief system predates serious T5 development, or at least was about the first thing Marc let out of the bag to playtest for T5), the Marches probably have a LOT fewer actual fiefs around... In Capital/Core, it's a fairly safe bet there are a LOT more fiefs attached to hereditary reward nobles, simply because there's been 400 years more of the peak of the reward folk getting enfeoffed. And at a time when the Emperors were probably more willing to do so...
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