Are there rules for the creation of a permanent agent wafer/stack for a clone?

[ottarrus]

Something to remember:
Agent of the Imperium portrays TL 12-13 personality overlays using wafer technology as having a hard limit of 30 days wear. Once you reach that threshold any further wear will severely damage the neural pathways and can result in catatonia. This is in addition to the manufacturer lifespan limitations on 'free' clones [clones who don't have personality overlays and are intended as the 'heir' to a sophont in case of death].

I base the 'TL-12-13' estimate on two basic facts that are clearly stated in canon: In Year Zero, Cleon's Imperium was TL 11 in common technology and edging into TL 12 as 'high tech'. And canon sources are very clear that during the Solomani Rim War Imperial forces were a mature TL 14 and achieved a stable and deployable TL 15 during the War. Since Agent of the Imperium discusses events between 300 and 750, it's reasonable to extrapolate that by Margaret II's reign, the 3-I had achieved a mature 13 and TL 14 was 'high tech' insofar as consumer goods were concerned.

It would be reasonable to extrapolate that by TL-15 [roughly Year 1000], personality overlays via wafer were more stable and able to be worn longer. However, I can't imagine the Imperial government allowing such technology to leave its control. Even if someone knows that personality overlays via wafer jacks is possible, there's still a HELL of a long road to follow on that research trail. And you can bet your last Imperial Credit that the 3-I has most high-tech companies infiltrated with scientists who 'make a little extra on the side' by letting the Imperium know what's cookin' in the lab.

 

[Condottiere]

The technology could actually be very experimental.

 

[Sigtrygg]

They went back to mostly CT Third Imperium. So BEFORE Mega-Traveller. Before the virus.
This new continuity stuff? Irrelevant.
IF those other systems had been popular, we'd be playing them and discussing Traveller on THEIR website. Not the Mongoose forum.
The fact that we are here, and that Mongoose chose a time from before those other systems means that they are NOT obliged to conform to any other setting changes of the intervening rewrites.

Agent of the Imperium is set in the Third Imperium 350 to 736 while Names ends in 1105, just when the MgT ATU Third Imperium begins. The Third Imperium setting is MWM's, his works trump anything a third party author writes for the setting and Mongoose has to stick to canon if it wants to use the setting.
It doesn't belong to them.

Oh, and wafer tech is already in MgT - just go look for it.

Adventures that have involved personality/memory shenanigans
Expedition to Zhodane
Memory Alpha

 

[Sigtrygg]

Even the cyber tech that Mongoose introduced has changed how the game works if you include it . The wafer jack feels compulsory for any sensible player as it gives so much extra skill potential.
Including stuff like downloading or uploading personalities makes it into a really different game I think. Depending on how common it is, it could make a mockery of the current character creation, as everyone would have 9 careers with skills right up to their (unnaturally-extended) limits. Things like anti-aging drugs have less meaning, kind of. Even death is no biggie as you just download your "brain clone". It is why we abandoned Eclipse Phase, a game with absolutely wonderful background material, but it just felt pointless as an rpg. Then the issues of having multiple clones in existence at once....blah blah

The copy is not you. It is a copy that thinks it is you.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Something to remember:
Agent of the Imperium portrays TL 12-13 personality overlays using wafer technology as having a hard limit of 30 days wear. Once you reach that threshold any further wear will severely damage the neural pathways and can result in catatonia. This is in addition to the manufacturer lifespan limitations on 'free' clones [clones who don't have personality overlays and are intended as the 'heir' to a sophont in case of death].

I base the 'TL-12-13' estimate on two basic facts that are clearly stated in canon: In Year Zero, Cleon's Imperium was TL 11 in common technology and edging into TL 12 as 'high tech'. And canon sources are very clear that during the Solomani Rim War Imperial forces were a mature TL 14 and achieved a stable and deployable TL 15 during the War. Since Agent of the Imperium discusses events between 300 and 750, it's reasonable to extrapolate that by Margaret II's reign, the 3-I had achieved a mature 13 and TL 14 was 'high tech' insofar as consumer goods were concerned.

Where is it stated in canon that the year 0 Imperium was TL11? Everything I have read says TL12.
Canon is clear that the IN and the ISS had TL14 ships in the 430s and TL15 ships in the 730s.

It would be reasonable to extrapolate that by TL-15 [roughly Year 1000], personality overlays via wafer were more stable and able to be worn longer. However, I can't imagine the Imperial government allowing such technology to leave its control. Even if someone knows that personality overlays via wafer jacks is possible, there's still a HELL of a long road to follow on that research trail. And you can bet your last Imperial Credit that the 3-I has most high-tech companies infiltrated with scientists who 'make a little extra on the side' by letting the Imperium know what's cookin' in the lab.

Go and read Names.

 

[Vormaerin]

Something to remember:
However, I can't imagine the Imperial government allowing such technology to leave its control. Even if someone knows that personality overlays via wafer jacks is possible, there's still a HELL of a long road to follow on that research trail. And you can bet your last Imperial Credit that the 3-I has most high-tech companies infiltrated with scientists who 'make a little extra on the side' by letting the Imperium know what's cookin' in the lab.

Going by MWM sources, this isn't true, though. T5 has clone & personality implant insurance as thing people have available and can get as a mustering out benefit. I can think of lots and lots of ways to make it not as disruptive as it might be, but that's not the way Marc's envisioning it. I think folks generally overestimate the ability of governments to control technological spread.

My thing is that I consider Traveller a game first and foremost. And the Third Imperium is a game setting. Marc is free to turn his game setting into a fictional setting for his novels, of course. But what is good for a novel and what is good for a game are not the same things at all. And, unless their license says otherwise, I don't feel like Mongoose is obliged to make the GAME SETTING match Marc's novel setting. And I won't consider it a moral crime if they pull a new Lorenverse forking. I'd be happier if they follow the "canon" future history and just make it matter to the players instead of GDW's "constant sound and fury signifying nothing" to major events.

In the end, it doesn't matter, because we all play IMTU anyway. But I personally find it annoying when people drop technologies into the setting because they are cool in this adventure or story they are making and otherwise pretend they don't exist and won't change anything. Traveller, like many other RPGs, has a very long history of this, though, so I don't expect it to stop.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Canon is for authors not referees

 

[Jame Rowe]

Going by MWM sources, this isn't true, though. T5 has clone & personality implant insurance as thing people have available and can get as a mustering out benefit. I can think of lots and lots of ways to make it not as disruptive as it might be, but that's not the way Marc's envisioning it. I think folks generally overestimate the ability of governments to control technological spread.

My thing is that I consider Traveller a game first and foremost. And the Third Imperium is a game setting. Marc is free to turn his game setting into a fictional setting for his novels, of course. But what is good for a novel and what is good for a game are not the same things at all. And, unless their license says otherwise, I don't feel like Mongoose is obliged to make the GAME SETTING match Marc's novel setting. And I won't consider it a moral crime if they pull a new Lorenverse forking. I'd be happier if they follow the "canon" future history and just make it matter to the players instead of GDW's "constant sound and fury signifying nothing" to major events.

In the end, it doesn't matter, because we all play IMTU anyway. But I personally find it annoying when people drop technologies into the setting because they are cool in this adventure or story they are making and otherwise pretend they don't exist and won't change anything. Traveller, like many other RPGs, has a very long history of this, though, so I don't expect it to stop.

This is pretty much how I take it, and how I suggest everyone take it.
I like AotI and might refer to it, but I view it as how Mr. Miller thinks of the setting-not how I do.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I don't like gravitic m-drives, so I don't have them IMTU. The Glorious Empire and other PoD shenanigans have no place IMTU either. As a referee I can pick and choose which bit of the OTU/ATU/BTU I use.

But if I pick up a MgT book with Third Imperium on the cover there are certain things I expect to see based on the Traveller corpus to date.

To date Mongoose has retconned the Ancients, introduced personal energy shields, invented a subspecies of Aslan that much closer to Kilrathi or Kzinti than they are to OTU Aslan and that's just off the top of my head. If I don't like it I don't include it.

But when the owner of the setting writes a guide (I can not claim T5 to be a playable rpg) and a novel that show how the setting work then Mongoose authors have to include it or they are not writing for the Third Imperium. You can side bar, you can give alternate views, you can introduce new stuff, but you can not just put your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes and lala away wafer tech.

Think about the implications, explain why the nobility publicly shuns it - Names very much gives the impression that those with wafer jacks and who rely on wafers are considered "lesser" than people who learn the skills through hard work and experience.

Was wafer tech included in the psionic suppressions? From a metagame perspective you can not get experience in a skill you have used a wafer to access. Wafer tech does not offer immortality (except perhaps for the digital entity).
Anagathics, rejuv treatments, cloned organ replacement all offer life extension and perhaps even immortality.

 

[Condottiere]

Could be the possibility of mind jacking.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Does the inclusion of wafer tech give more or less opportunities for interesting adventures? If your answer is yet then include them, if your answer is no then restrict or remove them.
I pretty much ignore psionics, but have lots of available tech that can duplicate some of their effects.

Comm implants, insect sized sensor drones, drugs or bioimplants that reproduce Awareness abilities.

 

[Vormaerin]

Well, as I said, we are just going to disagree on that. And the truth is that is entirely between Marc and Matt as to what they agreed when Marc sold permission to make content to Matt.

 

[wmarshal]

I appreciate all the feedback, but I also feel like I ought to apologize for starting up a dust up. I’m sorry, guys!

 

[NOLATrav]

I appreciate all the feedback, but I also feel like I ought to apologize for starting up a dust up. I’m sorry, guys!

No way, don’t feel bad! No need to apologize, this game has a very long history of heated debate

Hopefully somewhere in there you found your answer, or at least enough of one to move forward.

 

[Vormaerin]

Also, I don't consider this to have been a "dustup". Its entirely possible to have disagreements without it being a source of hostility. I don't agree with Sigtrygg on this subject, but a lot of other things I do agree with him. I don't use the 1000D limit, personal force fields, or have much use for PoD, just of things mentioned in this thread.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I will echo what Vormaerin has said, sometimes people disagree but can discuss things in a civil way. I have always found Vormaerin to be level headed and polite in these discussions, we can each make our points, agree to disagree and then move on.
It is up to individual referees to decide what happens in their games after all

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Have you consider the combination described on page 92, of the Robot Handbook? Robot Brain Implant + neural link+
remote initiated biological avatar control interface (RIBACI)?
For clones, I created an adventure involving quick-grown clones who are printed in an enhanced fabrication chamber with the cybernetics built in, before they are rapid grown. [Basic Neural Link - Neural Link with Neural Lace + Neural Comm (improved)+ Computer/0 +encryption module,
Remote-Initiated Biological Avatar Control Interface, Biological Avatar Control Interface] and then fitted with an external "spine" that attaches a Hunter/Killer (Tactical) with lots of external sensors. Turns them into fairly brutal, but cheap, shock troopers....... and then one of the players decided to "try it on for a spin" and discovered what a puppet feels like.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I don't like gravitic m-drives, so I don't have them IMTU. The Glorious Empire and other PoD shenanigans have no place IMTU either. As a referee I can pick and choose which bit of the OTU/ATU/BTU I use.

But if I pick up a MgT book with Third Imperium on the cover there are certain things I expect to see based on the Traveller corpus to date.

To date Mongoose has retconned the Ancients, introduced personal energy shields, invented a subspecies of Aslan that much closer to Kilrathi or Kzinti than they are to OTU Aslan and that's just off the top of my head. If I don't like it I don't include it.

But when the owner of the setting writes a guide (I can not claim T5 to be a playable rpg) and a novel that show how the setting work then Mongoose authors have to include it or they are not writing for the Third Imperium. You can side bar, you can give alternate views, you can introduce new stuff, but you can not just put your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes and lala away wafer tech.

Think about the implications, explain why the nobility publicly shuns it - Names very much gives the impression that those with wafer jacks and who rely on wafers are considered "lesser" than people who learn the skills through hard work and experience.

Was wafer tech included in the psionic suppressions? From a metagame perspective you can not get experience in a skill you have used a wafer to access. Wafer tech does not offer immortality (except perhaps for the digital entity).
Anagathics, rejuv treatments, cloned organ replacement all offer life extension and perhaps even immortality.

PoD?

 

[AndrewW]

PoD?

Pirates of Drinax.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Pirates of Drinax.

Thanks