Why not the Solomani?

[Murph]

Why not campaign as Solomani? After all you can play REAL explorers and Scouts, play black ops espionage against the Evil Empire? The Solomani were made to act and seem like comic opera bad guys a la Mussolini's Italian Empire vs the Good Empire that was the 3rd Imperium.

I like the Solomani

Anyone know where I can get maps of the Solomani Rim area?

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Murph:
Why not campaign as Solomani? ...

Anyone know where I can get maps of the Solomani Rim area?

As it turns out, you pretty much just answered your own question.

The only part of Solomani space that has been mapped to any official degree is the Solomani Rim itself. To get to the interesting part of the Solomani Confederation, i.e. its Rim border, the referee has to make things up completely on his own. There is no official source (of any type of relevance) that covers Aldebaran, Neworld, or any of the other rim border sectors.

Now, if Jon Zeigler can ever be convinced to release a more compact form of his Aldebaran sourcebook for GT in e23 format, this may change. But until then the Solomani Confederation is pretty much unexplored territory.

 

[Maladominus]

My Terra Incognita campaign is a current online Traveller GRIP campaign based in the Classic Era Solomani Rim (and adjacent sectors).

Murph, you are more than welcome to browse our website, which contains tons of material about the Solomani and all the rimward races. I even posted PDF maps of the Rim.

http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=42665&TabID=376526


--

P.S. --- our campaign is tons of fun, because I allow my players group to be a mixture of both Imperials and Confederation characters. It is refreshing and awesome role-play when I see the Imperial versus Confederation characters insulting each other.... but in the end, they still all cooperate with each other in order to complete missions/adventures, and in order to defeat dangerous foes that threaten the interests of both the Imperium *and* the Solomani Confederation!

 

[Murph]

Thank you. I am looking at something in the Rim, far, far away from the Imperium.

 

[Golan2072]

By the way, Maladominus, do you know on what are the rimward sectors (rimward from the Solomani Rim Sector) on the map linked from your site based on? Cannon or not?

 

[Maladominus]

Which map are you referring to? The one that is the Map of the Third Imperium and surrounding known space?

http://www.geocities.com/maladominus/KnownSpace.pdf

That one? That map is 100% canon. It is a map from the MegaTraveller Imperial Encyclopedia.


Or maybe you are talking about the other map:

http://inexorabletash.members.winisp.net/maps/map.htm

This one with the "interactive" map website? That website belongs to Joshua Bell, who happens to be a member of this board. To my knowledge, he uses canon information on his interactive map and does his best to confirm canon info before he adds data to his map.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
http://inexorabletash.members.winisp.net/maps/map.htm

This one with the "interactive" map website? That website belongs to Joshua Bell, who happens to be a member of this board. To my knowledge, he uses canon information on his interactive map and does his best to confirm canon info before he adds data to his map.

The second one; I was just looking to find the source of information he's used for the rimward-most sectors.

 

[Murph]

BRILLIANT MAP! I wish there was a downloadable version of it.

The second one; I was just looking to find the source of information he's used for the rimward-most sectors.

 

[Murph]

What are the sectors rimward that are all Red Zones, and such on the Traveller Map?

 

[77topaz]

What are the sectors rimward that are all Red Zones, and such on the Traveller Map?

I don't see any sectors composed entirely of Red Zones rimward of the Solomani Confederation on TravellerMap.

 

[Murph]

Not entirely, but lots and lots of red zone "X" starport worlds down south there.

I don't see any sectors composed entirely of Red Zones rimward of the Solomani Confederation on TravellerMap.

 

[77topaz]

Not entirely, but lots and lots of red zone "X" starport worlds down south there.

"X" doesn't necessarily meant "interdicted", it merely means there is absolutely no starport. In the Imperium the only worlds without any starport are interdicted worlds, but out on the edges of Charted Space there are lots of worlds which are unpopulated (barren), and thus have no starport, thus starport code X. If you look at the UWPs of those rimward worlds, you'll see almost all of them have UWPs of the form X???000-0, meaning they are barren, and that's why they have no starport. There are also a handful of worlds with low-tech civilisations that haven't yet been contacted by major powers and thus also have no starports yet.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Just to reply to the original post way back when; a couple of my old gaming groups didn't play as "Solis" but as "Earthmen"/"Terrans" gallivanting around in Imperial space.

Not that it made much of a difference, because at that time there was scant on the Solomani Rim. But even as the Solimani Sphere evolved and the Solis themselves were vetted and expanded, no one really took up the mantle of Sol-Sec or a Soviet like "single party" state.

Though it would make for some interesting write-ups.

 

[mike wightman]

Why not campaign as Solomani?

I have.
I even had a rim expedition campaign that was great fun.

After all you can play REAL explorers and Scouts,

Yup, the Solomani area has the advantage that there is the great unknown beyond their borders, rather than the hemmed in borders of the Imperium.

play black ops espionage against the Evil Empire?

You mean against the Imperials?...

The Solomani were made to act and seem like comic opera bad guys a la Mussolini's Italian Empire vs the Good Empire that was the 3rd Imperium.

Wait, I thought it was the Vargr who are the Italians? Two caricature empires sharing the same caricature?
I have always seen the Imperials as the evil empire and the Solomani as a brave confederacy standing up to their evil machinations.
What if we rebrand SolSec... :devil:

I like the Solomani

Me too.

 

[Murph]

We'll both are played fairly comic opera with the solo and having overtones of fascism, and communism. I disagree with that attitude. I just found my copy of Solomani and Aslan by DGP, and had forgotten how well they had written up the Solomani. I just wish they had given the Solomani an entire book to themselves. I also think that the Confederation would be larger to the rimward area.

I have.
I even had a rim expedition campaign that was great fun.

Yup, the Solomani area has the advantage that there is the great unknown beyond their borders, rather than the hemmed in borders of the Imperium.
You mean against the Imperials?...
Wait, I thought it was the Vargr who are the Italians? Two caricature empires sharing the same caricature?
I have always seen the Imperials as the evil empire and the Solomani as a brave confederacy standing up to their evil machinations.
What if we rebrand SolSec... :devil:
Me too.

 

[Timerover51]

As this thread starts out with a mention of the Italian Army in World War 2, I thought that the following comment would be in order. The following assessment of the Italian Soldier comes from the Intelligence Bulletin for December 1942, published by the US War Department Military Intelligence Service. I should note that this assessment is for the Italian Army, not the Italian Navy. For information to get an understanding of the Italian Navy, I would strongly recommend Bragadin's The Italian Navy in World War II.

One of the first things to remember about the Italian soldier is that he entered this war without any strong personal conviction that it was necessary. Italy had no Pearl Harbor to unite her people and fill them with a relentless determination to win. A private belief of this kind can go a long way toward helping men to withstand the heavy psychological strain of combat. The American soldier has it; the Italian does not. As a result, a question commonly asked by American troops—"Is the Italian a good or bad fighter?"—cannot be answered in a single word. The Italian knows how to fight well. What offsets this is the fact that his moods are anything but predictable. Sometimes, when a flood of propaganda temporarily convinces him that the battle is above all for the sake of his homeland, and that there is a fair opportunity for success, he fights with great courage, skill, and imagination. On the other hand, military reverses often have a decided effect on his morale, and can change his attitude from one of bright optimism to one of complete pessimism. It should never be said that his reactions will always be thus-and-so; only tendencies can be pointed out. It is certainly true that as the failure of Fascism becomes increasingly clear in spite of the propaganda, and as events indicate the manner in which Italy is being handed over to Hitler, the Italian soldier shows a tendency to put up a halfhearted fight and then surrender.

I added the emphasis. One other problem affecting the Italian soldier throughout the war was the question of whether they should be fighting on the side of Germany or against Germany. In World War One, they had fought against Germany. The ambivalence clearly appears in the Ciano Diaries.

 

[Timerover51]

The Solomani Rim does have the only available area of unexplored space to expand into. Jumping off from one of the planets in the Rimward subsectors of the Solomani area puts you into totally unknown, at least to the Traveller canon. That does allow for all sorts of things, including areas where the Universe gets stretched a bit thin, and all sorts of things can leak through in either direction.

 

[RandyB]

The Solomani Rim does have the only available area of unexplored space to expand into. Jumping off from one of the planets in the Rimward subsectors of the Solomani area puts you into totally unknown, at least to the Traveller canon. That does allow for all sorts of things, including areas where the Universe gets stretched a bit thin, and all sorts of things can leak through in either direction.

Emphasis added, because that is an awesome thought. Whether you want to go Lovecraftian, Judeo-Christian, or simply borrow from other fictional properties (SF/Fantasy or whatnot).

 

[kilemall]

As this thread starts out with a mention of the Italian Army in World War 2, I thought that the following assessment would be in order. The following assessment of the Italian Soldier comes from the Intelligence Bulletin for December 1942, published by the US War Department Military Intelligence Service. I should note that this assessment is for the Italian Army, not the Italian Navy. For information to get an understanding of the Italian Navy, I would strongly recommend Bragadin's The Italian Navy in World War II.



I added the emphasis. One other problem affecting the Italian soldier throughout the war was the question of whether they should be fighting on the side of Germany or against Germany. In World War One, they had fought against Germany. The ambivalence clearly appears in the Ciano Diaries.

The general impression I get is they had reasonable light arms and very good artillery, very good gun navy, but not good operational art/generalship and were sorely lacking in top tier armor and air equipment.

 

[Timerover51]

Emphasis added, because that is an awesome thought. Whether you want to go Lovecraftian, Judeo-Christian, or simply borrow from other fictional properties (SF/Fantasy or whatnot).

Thanks for adding the emphasis. I should have done that. I was thinking of some of the John Grimes novels by A. Bertram Chandler, where things keep leaking through the Rim from other Universes. You could have a lot of fun with that. Think Bermuda Triangle meets Traveller.