2300AD, thoughts and wishes
- Thread starter Colin
- Start date
Colin
Mongoose
Yatima said:
I honestly don't know. It hasn't come up in any conversation I've had yet. I suspect that, as 2300AD is a setting, like the Third Imperium, you likely won't see that level of open-ness.
Though having said that, the idea of opening up something like the Beta Aquilae cluster, or the 61 Cygni cluster, certainly has merit. Not my call, though.
I'm with chrisdw on psionics. Indeed I had completely expunged the presence of psi from my memory of the game.
Now technologically mediated 'psi' being used to do shared consciousness and hivemind stuff (like the Edenists have in Hamilton's Night's Dawn books or the Conjoiners in Reynolds Revelation Space books) is another thing entirely - indeed this would be a good candidate for a significant strand in the Provolution agenda and would help to add some much-needed greyscale to that setting element.
Regards
Luke
Now technologically mediated 'psi' being used to do shared consciousness and hivemind stuff (like the Edenists have in Hamilton's Night's Dawn books or the Conjoiners in Reynolds Revelation Space books) is another thing entirely - indeed this would be a good candidate for a significant strand in the Provolution agenda and would help to add some much-needed greyscale to that setting element.
Regards
Luke
Agreed. Naturally ocurring Psi leaves me cold, but technological devices that LOOK like psi effects, brainwave scanning and so on, I can swallow. TK, PK, cryo, thermo, mind blast, telepathy, empathy, astral projection and any other pseudo-magic effects are right out IMHO.
G.
G.
Another thing about 2300AD, the feel is defiantly a bit retro. This is not Eclipse Phase or Transhuman anything. And while this might seem a bit quaint to readers now, remember that 80s cyberpunk also feels tremendously dated now as well. My point is that don't just ride the current trend, keep it 2300AD, because regardless of what you write it will be dated in 10 years or less.
That being the case feel free to make it an true alternative history. Given that the world of 2300AD has its roots in an obviously didn't happen Twilight War (1995-2000) that killed off at least 70% of the worlds population, we can assume any re-launch will not be our own future history. That's OK! Embrace the not our particular future, future that is 2300AD. If you feel the need to keep the Twilight War a bit obscure just to placate the "It's not hard-scifi if its set in an alternative history." fanatics than so be it. (Though a nice Appendix ((yes I like me my appendices)) giving a bit of detail of the original Twilight War and its global consequences would be nice.)
Further more, if the liscense agreement allows for it. Feel free to deviate a bit from the original setting. Change the Star Map a bit to fit current findings (But Keep the Arms!). Throw in the odd extra-solar planets that we are finding around other stars. Discuss whether you can discharge a stutterwarp drive at a clump of Dark Matter. Mix up the geopolitical boundaries to better illustrate the chaos of the Twilight Period. Add more colonies in the Sol System. (The ESA's L-5 station was begun in 2061 which means industry on the moon before than. Alpha Centauri War occurred in 2162. This gives at least 100 years for humans to establish colony sized installations on other Solar planets.)
Crash an asteroid into Earth. Basically, I'm saying take a few risks. Shake it up a bit and have fun with it. My biggest complaint about 2300AD, especially Earth, was that after the Twilight War and 300 years of history...the Earth hadn't changed enough. Keep it retro but make it interesting. Ya, hoser!
Benjamin
Sorry for the hoser comment, eh. I was watching Strange Brew last night.
That being the case feel free to make it an true alternative history. Given that the world of 2300AD has its roots in an obviously didn't happen Twilight War (1995-2000) that killed off at least 70% of the worlds population, we can assume any re-launch will not be our own future history. That's OK! Embrace the not our particular future, future that is 2300AD. If you feel the need to keep the Twilight War a bit obscure just to placate the "It's not hard-scifi if its set in an alternative history." fanatics than so be it. (Though a nice Appendix ((yes I like me my appendices)) giving a bit of detail of the original Twilight War and its global consequences would be nice.)
Further more, if the liscense agreement allows for it. Feel free to deviate a bit from the original setting. Change the Star Map a bit to fit current findings (But Keep the Arms!). Throw in the odd extra-solar planets that we are finding around other stars. Discuss whether you can discharge a stutterwarp drive at a clump of Dark Matter. Mix up the geopolitical boundaries to better illustrate the chaos of the Twilight Period. Add more colonies in the Sol System. (The ESA's L-5 station was begun in 2061 which means industry on the moon before than. Alpha Centauri War occurred in 2162. This gives at least 100 years for humans to establish colony sized installations on other Solar planets.)
Crash an asteroid into Earth. Basically, I'm saying take a few risks. Shake it up a bit and have fun with it. My biggest complaint about 2300AD, especially Earth, was that after the Twilight War and 300 years of history...the Earth hadn't changed enough. Keep it retro but make it interesting. Ya, hoser!
Benjamin
Sorry for the hoser comment, eh. I was watching Strange Brew last night.
There are many ways to do the asteroid bit. Say the asteroid was discovered and a mission was sent to divert it or whatever. What happened is that the asteroid broke up, and the impacts were in the middle east. No super accurate strikes on cities and oil fields, but enough disruption to cause a serious shortage of oil supplies. Some impacts in the asian area of the world caused some disruption as well. There are still some nations that have an imperialistic bent. Russian leadership has shown several times that it would go on a binge if it could get away with it, as well as China. China makes most of what the US imports now, and having the disruption and the fallout of a serious oil shortage would cause a lot of tension between countries that use a lot. The US economy would go through a major "adjustment." The EU and US would most likely send out humanitarian and peacekeeping forces throughout the world and get mired down and drained of resources. Back-room deals and subtle undermining of allies happens all the time, even in the EU, so it is easy to see some rivalries eventually breaking down the EU over time. There are people who would willingly use nukes, and with the breakdown of the Soviet Union there are some suitcase sized nukes that have disappeared, so limited nuke use is easily something that could happen. After things settle down a more "healthy" space race could be easily seen, as readily available resources on Earth have been used up. 1 nickel-iron asteroid has enough raw material equal to over 100yrs of steel production in the US at 1982 levels. That is just one example. In the modern world we have tapped out our readily and easily obtained resources, and we have to use very complex and recently developed technology to obtain the more difficult resources. After a tragic event like the asteroid hit, going to mine the Solar system seems like the way to go.
just my thoughts
just my thoughts
Colin
Mongoose
DNA mods were a rapidly-advancing technology, and the possibilities were endless. Then humanity encountered the pentapods, and everything changed. Suddenly humans saw where this technology could take them, into a world where user and machine were interchangeable. Mankind stepped back from that brink, and over the years laws were passed limiting and restricting the development and application of DNA modification therapies. The most common use of it, at least on the Core Worlds, is gender reassignment. It's actually become a bit of a fad for those with too much time and money, and not enough brains.
I think updating the star list would be a good idea. There really doesn't need to be any rationalization for the Arms other than treaties limiting the signing powers to areas or "arcs" that radiate out from Earth. We do that with borders now, so why not apply that to space? There might be even more of "The Great Game" then. The stutterwarp would still help to hem it in a bit, make the borders enforceable anyway. The only problem would be some of the adventures and a bit of the canon would need to be handwaved. It wouldn't be a game changer though.
Colin
Mongoose
Ireland does what it has always done. There are people of Irish descent on close to a dozen worlds: Tirane, Beowulf, Beta Canum, Crater (especially), Hermes, Nibelungen. There just aren't any actual Irish national colonies.Yatima said:Ireland needs a colony, or at least an outpost. We're small, but emigration has always been our speciality
John
Yatima
Cosmic Mongoose
Colin said:
Fair enough, we'll just have to open up loads of bad Irish pubs on those other worlds and ship out all the second-rate guinness LOL
On a more serious note, have you thought about attributes, Colin? Are you going to keep Social Standing or replace it with something like Eloquence, Presence or Charisma? Something else, maybe?
John
Yatima said:
The original game had a Reputation score - so how about that? Probably that's a bit too ephemeral to model as a relatively unchanging stat, so some kind of 'social impressiveness' stat that wasn't explicitly tied to an aristocratic social hierarchy would be handy.
Dunno if the 2320 project is going to stray into rules engine tinkering, but I've thought that adding some low key mechanical support for pull, rep and the like would be a good extension to the Traveller ruleset (something like the Reputation, Panache and Prizes subsystem in FantasyCraft).
Regards
Luke
Yatima
Cosmic Mongoose
silburnl said:
2300 AD attributes map fairly well to MgT:
Size – I'd discard this; no idea why you'd track this as an abstraction when you can list height, weight and body type.
Strength – Maps to MgT
Dexterity – Maps to MgT
Endurance – Maps to MgT
Determination – Maps to MgT End attribute
Intelligence – Maps to MgT
Eloquence – I'd consider replacing this.
Education - Maps to MgT
That leaves Determination and Eloquence. The Definition of Endurance in Traveller includes Mental as well as Physical endurance, so you could rule Determination is covered by End, and convert between systems by taking the average of a 2300 AD's End and Det for the MgT End attribute.
That leaves Eloquence, which I'd replace with an attribute like Presence, which is a mashup of physical appearance and charisma, similar to what you suggest. That'd give characters an attribute to test in social situations that is not tied to the rigid social stratification of the OTU.
There was an article in Challenge 44 on Social Class in 2300, by Andy Slack, so if you wanted to keep Soc there's some basis for doing so. But I'd prefer to ditch it.
John
