Alternate Traveller Universe (ATU):
- Thread starter Bygoneyrs
- Start date
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I am convinced that Pournelle's work was one of the main sources for Traveller, along with Asimov and HB Piper.
Traveller could easily be run without alien races.
Traveller could easily be run without alien races.
Asimov, Piper yes, but Pournelle's first stories came out about the same time Traveller did so...perhaps mutual influences but probably not. To sources I think you need to add Poul Anderson, Andre Norton, A Bertrum Chandler, EC Tubb (Dumarest of Terra series) and a host of SF writers from the 40's, 50's, and 60's.Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
I don't know - I can see that there is potentially little overlap between Pournelle and the original LBB, but once you start describing the background of 3I in Supplement 3 and Adventure 1 onwards (noble rule, previous empires, black globes/langston fields, imperial warrants, navy being a career of the nobility, use of independent mercenaries, etc) the comparisons become pretty strong.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
Does anyone know if there is/was a Farscape RPG? That might make a nice alternate setting.
I'm toying with an ATU idea with a Proto-Traveller flavor to it. The idea is a relatively near-future (set somewhere between 2150 AD to 2350 AD, I am yet to decide), near-earth (one to nine sectors centered on Earth) game where the Imperium (not the Third, just the Imperium) is the result of an Admiral of the previous Earth government launching a coup (installing himself as Emperor, his associates and his corporate financiers as nobles).
The Imperium isn't all-out evil but is still pretty repressive and heavy-handed, much like the Imperium described in CT's A1: Kinunir and A4: Leviathan. About 20-50 years have passed since the first Emperor took power, and now the new system has more or less taken a stable form; the original emperor has been assassinated but the system was solid enough to continue in his stead, with his nephew becoming the new emperor.
Other Human polities exist - most controlled by group who've fought against the Imperium in the Civil War (which was the result of the coup), some settled by refugees, others broken free from the Earth government/Imperium by the cease-fire treaty at the end of the Civil War.
Technology should be in the TL10-12 range. Robots are common, but AIs, cybernetics and extreme applications of biotech are frowned upon due to some nasty experience in the past (an AI taking over a research station and nearly decimating a heavily-populated colony).
I'm sorry if those ideas are a bit unclear but I was now just trying to put my general thoughts to paper.
The Imperium isn't all-out evil but is still pretty repressive and heavy-handed, much like the Imperium described in CT's A1: Kinunir and A4: Leviathan. About 20-50 years have passed since the first Emperor took power, and now the new system has more or less taken a stable form; the original emperor has been assassinated but the system was solid enough to continue in his stead, with his nephew becoming the new emperor.
Other Human polities exist - most controlled by group who've fought against the Imperium in the Civil War (which was the result of the coup), some settled by refugees, others broken free from the Earth government/Imperium by the cease-fire treaty at the end of the Civil War.
Technology should be in the TL10-12 range. Robots are common, but AIs, cybernetics and extreme applications of biotech are frowned upon due to some nasty experience in the past (an AI taking over a research station and nearly decimating a heavily-populated colony).
I'm sorry if those ideas are a bit unclear but I was now just trying to put my general thoughts to paper.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
pasuuli said:
Firefly is still available for licencing (they're two entirely different things, legally speaking). A clone of Serenity/Firefly, well, Serenity/Firefly is a clone of Traveller without aliens.
pasuuli said:
If you squint and tilt your head at the right angle, a proto-Imperium setting can look a bit like Firefly.
Scatter the Firefly worlds across a few subsectors, and make the interstellar government overbearing and, at times, twisted. Assume a recent civil war. Put the wealthiest three or four worlds in the middle of the empire, and put the poorest worlds on the edges.
Populate the empire with imperial cruisers, merchants, small governments, pirates, reavers, assorted scumbags, and a small number of decent people, and there you are.
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
pasuuli said:
Pretty certain, yes.
This is kinda similar to what I've suggested earlier in this thread. My initial idea was a variant Firefly where the Independents weren't totally crushed by the Alliance, but have managed to survive and control several fringe worlds and force the Alliance into a cease-fire agreement. The resulting Independent polity would have good intentions in mind, but, facing shortage in nearly anything (the result of controlling several poor fringe worlds and suffering from an Alliance embargo), would be somewhat harsh in certain aspects.pasuuli said:
The idea later evolved into having a Proto-Traveller-style Imperium (though a much younger one - about 32 years old) in the core and a loose coalition of anti-Imperial polities (coming apart at the seams) at the periphery, plus a wide swath of "no-man's land" where the fighting (and the cease-fire treaty) have left worlds independent of either side.
Well, what I did doesn't really count as ATU material, however, due to the nature of GDW's old 1201 setting, it could lead to a lot of possibilities on worlds not previously explored in the OTU.....
1. On a garden (habitible) world in the Aldeberan Sector, the planetary computer network was tapped into just about every installation and factory onworld. When Virus came, it infected it all - with a desire to kill all organic life on the planet. After multiple nuke strikes, the factories started producing robotic troops and vehicles to finish the job on the survivors. The humans resisted, causing "SkyNet" to change tactics, and start sending pseudo-biologicals (the old Traveller term for androids) with orders to "Terminate"......
2. On a non-inhabitable world, Virus didn't kill the humans locked in the planetary domes. This strain took on a "motherly" personality - taking care of all the humans needs - whatever they were. Humanity led a life of total leisure - with one catch. Due to limited resources available in a society cut off from the rest of interstellar society, life ended at 30..........
3. On another world in the Sol Sector, a world was devistated not only by suicidal Virus strains, but the previous Final War scorched earth policies. The human's civilization fell to ruin. Previously, on this world, there were experiments with uplifting simians (Terran Apes, to be exact). With their masters blasted to oblivion, they could be in charge......
Just some thoughts.....
1. On a garden (habitible) world in the Aldeberan Sector, the planetary computer network was tapped into just about every installation and factory onworld. When Virus came, it infected it all - with a desire to kill all organic life on the planet. After multiple nuke strikes, the factories started producing robotic troops and vehicles to finish the job on the survivors. The humans resisted, causing "SkyNet" to change tactics, and start sending pseudo-biologicals (the old Traveller term for androids) with orders to "Terminate"......
2. On a non-inhabitable world, Virus didn't kill the humans locked in the planetary domes. This strain took on a "motherly" personality - taking care of all the humans needs - whatever they were. Humanity led a life of total leisure - with one catch. Due to limited resources available in a society cut off from the rest of interstellar society, life ended at 30..........
3. On another world in the Sol Sector, a world was devistated not only by suicidal Virus strains, but the previous Final War scorched earth policies. The human's civilization fell to ruin. Previously, on this world, there were experiments with uplifting simians (Terran Apes, to be exact). With their masters blasted to oblivion, they could be in charge......
Just some thoughts.....
cross-quoted from another forum:
I would definitely buy into an ATU based on Hamilton's Confederation. Even though I hated the conclusion of that trilogy, I loved the universe he created...
Actually, I'd want to bring in some (but not all) of the concepts - rejuvenation, corporate dynasties, etc. - from the Commonweath series as well.
Lorcan Nagle said:
I would definitely buy into an ATU based on Hamilton's Confederation. Even though I hated the conclusion of that trilogy, I loved the universe he created...
Actually, I'd want to bring in some (but not all) of the concepts - rejuvenation, corporate dynasties, etc. - from the Commonweath series as well.
area_51_games2
Mongoose
well see I GOT THIS IDEAL for a ATU
for 10,000 years a lose republic existed but when traders got greedy and the republican congress got placent a Chancellor moved in and declare a state of emergency, this Republic fostered a psionic law enforcement organization fosted around religion and tradition of pious and Poverty!
but when the republic came into power it destroyed this religion and it when into hiding because psionics where outlawed ! no the old republic is and Empire and . . . . . .
well I think by now you got it!
actually before there was a SWRPG , we played it with traveller , but then I am showing my age!
for 10,000 years a lose republic existed but when traders got greedy and the republican congress got placent a Chancellor moved in and declare a state of emergency, this Republic fostered a psionic law enforcement organization fosted around religion and tradition of pious and Poverty!
but when the republic came into power it destroyed this religion and it when into hiding because psionics where outlawed ! no the old republic is and Empire and . . . . . .
well I think by now you got it!
actually before there was a SWRPG , we played it with traveller , but then I am showing my age!
On thing I've never liked about Traveller is the huge fuel requirements for Jump Drives - It makes little to no sense technologicaly (Mega Traveller tried to fudge it semi-successfully), and also means almost every ship ever designed is forced to scrounge around for sources of fule. Several times as a player and Ref I've hit situations where the players have ended up in a system with no apparent means of refueling and had to improvise. Realisticaly, ships getting stranded through lack of a fuel supply would happen all the time.
The problem is you can't change this easily becasue then all the published ship designs become useless. However I finally have a fix, which is a variation on the MegaTraveller solution.
Jump Drives are fusion powered, but the fusion drive burns much, much faster and hotter than normal Power Plants. This isn't a problem so much in terms of fuel usage, the real problem is cooling. They burn so fast and so hot, passive cooling systems can't cope. The only practical method is liquid cooling. 90% of the 'Jump Fuel' space required by a Jump Drive is in fact liquid coolant, usualy water. The space required for fuel per full-rated jump is actualy 0.5% of hull size per jump number, so standard designs actually allow for two jumps, rather than one. They can get out of emergency missjumps and situations where no fuel is available, but don't have an unlimited number of jumps available.
e.g. A 100DT ship with Jump3 uses 30 DT of it's hull for fuel under classic traveler rules. In this variant actualy only 3DT of this are fuel and the rest is coolant that is recycled between jumps. Jump 3 requires 0.5% of the hull per jump or 1.5 DT in this case, so 3DT of fuelmeans the ship can manage two jumps of 3 Parsecs.
Coolant does need to be replaced, typicaly about once every 10 jumps or so.
Thoughts?
Simon Hibbs
The problem is you can't change this easily becasue then all the published ship designs become useless. However I finally have a fix, which is a variation on the MegaTraveller solution.
Jump Drives are fusion powered, but the fusion drive burns much, much faster and hotter than normal Power Plants. This isn't a problem so much in terms of fuel usage, the real problem is cooling. They burn so fast and so hot, passive cooling systems can't cope. The only practical method is liquid cooling. 90% of the 'Jump Fuel' space required by a Jump Drive is in fact liquid coolant, usualy water. The space required for fuel per full-rated jump is actualy 0.5% of hull size per jump number, so standard designs actually allow for two jumps, rather than one. They can get out of emergency missjumps and situations where no fuel is available, but don't have an unlimited number of jumps available.
e.g. A 100DT ship with Jump3 uses 30 DT of it's hull for fuel under classic traveler rules. In this variant actualy only 3DT of this are fuel and the rest is coolant that is recycled between jumps. Jump 3 requires 0.5% of the hull per jump or 1.5 DT in this case, so 3DT of fuelmeans the ship can manage two jumps of 3 Parsecs.
Coolant does need to be replaced, typicaly about once every 10 jumps or so.
Thoughts?
Simon Hibbs
Nickbergquist
Mongoose
I'd love to see the following books get adapted to a Traveller Campaign Setting:
Known Space by Larry Niven (Ringworld! Puppeteers! Kzin! Nuff Said...)
The Academy Universe of Priscilla Hutchins by Jack McDevitt (Great setting for a humanocentric Space Archaeology setting)
The Takeshi Kovacs universe of Richard Morgan has already been mentioned, but it would make a great Traveller setting as well, and would guarantee transhumanism and cyberware makes its way in to the game in a big fashion!
The Dorsai Universe of Gordon Dickson - I can only assume this hasn't been made in to a setting before because it's an older setting, and is already easily modelled by Traveller, GURPS, or other systems in conjunction with some of the existing published books and a little footwork.
Known Space by Larry Niven (Ringworld! Puppeteers! Kzin! Nuff Said...)
The Academy Universe of Priscilla Hutchins by Jack McDevitt (Great setting for a humanocentric Space Archaeology setting)
The Takeshi Kovacs universe of Richard Morgan has already been mentioned, but it would make a great Traveller setting as well, and would guarantee transhumanism and cyberware makes its way in to the game in a big fashion!
The Dorsai Universe of Gordon Dickson - I can only assume this hasn't been made in to a setting before because it's an older setting, and is already easily modelled by Traveller, GURPS, or other systems in conjunction with some of the existing published books and a little footwork.
