Empty Jump Hex Solutions: comments critiques and rants

[GamerDude]

In theory, the OTU is what we all have "in common". As you imply, a simple statement of MTU is enough to do what you like, but a lot of folks start from an OTU base.

And the fact of the matter is that the reasons behind allowing or forbidding this type of travel can cascade into other areas of the setting. That's why these things get such involved discussions.

I agree that the OTU is our mutual starting off point for our own TUs, but it's the force and the sometimes forced logic that borders almost on religious zelotry that I commented about.

So Marc has stated that rulebooks, supplements, adventures, etc. created by any and all licensed companies such as Steve Jackson Games, Avenger Enterprises, Quicklink Interactive, and Mongoose Publishing is not official nor canon material. In effect only Marc's writings and/or publishing through GDW, Imperium Games and/or FFE is canon and official.

Early when MGP was working on their version of Traveller, Matt posted on these forums about the other licenses being allowed to laps so that there will be one source of material for the OTU. I won't claim to know how MGT material wil fit into the OTU (if at all).

The statement Marc Miller made to me in an email months ago was that licenses were the middle ground between cannon and non-cannon, they were great sources of material but not cannon. I'm happy with that and have purchased most of the GDW/FFE material in PDF. I'm am working through all of it and now just shake my head at the people who cry-out against a certain viewpoint, against the "cannonistas" while becoming a cannonista for their own viewpoint, etc. and laugh.

It's a game. Marc Miller or Matt Sprague or anyone won't be baited into going to a particular forum and make a statement on something just because someone demands it and such, so to those people I say just sit back and enjoy your game.

 

[EDG]

Randy: Marc has consistently said that only GDW/IG/FFE materials are canon.

It's actually much simpler that way. It means that the various lines don't need to work together, only within the "Marc-Owned" canon and their own line.

That being the case, if we're talking about "the OTU" (as defined by Marc) then perhaps this entire discussion should really be taking place on FFE's own discussion boards. But they don't have boards of their own, they just use CotI - a board owned and run by one of their licensees - to talk about FFE stuff and playtest T5 (and tbh that should really be making (and does make) other licensees more than a little uncomfortable about their relationship with FFE).

But if that's how we're going to define things, then this is the board for Mongoose Traveller. As such, MGT defines what is and isn't possible in Mongoose's version of the game, and nothing else - if it's not in MGT, then it's not been covered yet and MGT canon says nothing about the subject. Same goes for GT - GT and GT:IW defines what is and isn't possible in the GT universe and nothing else should apply - and in GT EHJs quite clearly and explicitly weren't possible during the IW era but became possible later, and whether CT agrees with that or not doesn't matter for GT.

Authors for any license can base whatever they like on the "Marc OTU", but whatever they end up writing in their licensed product is canon for that product, not what the "Marc OTU" says. So if MGT says that jumpspace is filled with dancing pink elephants, then that's what it is in MGT canon. Most of the times they'll agree, but sometimes - be it out of choice or necessity - they won't. Since all the licensed editions are heavily based on the "Marc OTU", there's obviously a lot of overlap - the problem comes when there are contradictions between the "Marc OTU" and the licensed OTU and we try to reconcile them by trying to pull the different versions together, and after all this I think that's just asking for trouble.

MGT's version of Jump Drive is a lot looser than CT's. Jumpspace as defined in CT isn't even mentioned - in MGT the ship just makes a pocket universe around itself and flings that outside our own universe to arrive back at its destination a week later. And annoyingly, while the rules on p141 of TMB initially say that a ship comes out of jump space as soon as it hits the 100D limit of a body, it also says a few paragraphs later that it arrrives "outside or on the verge of the 100D limit". So already we have an ambiguity here - does the ship actually always precipitate at the 100D limit or beyond it? The implication is that it always precipitates at the 100D limit, but apparently it can precipitate beyond it too - especially given that an inaccurate jump just dumps the ship "somewhere in the inner system", which presumably means somewhere beyond the star's 100D limit.

MGT is unclear on the matter of EHJs then - it doesn't say that they are possible and doesn't rule them out. If ships can deliberately arrive beyond the 100D limit then the question is "do they need a mass to be present at their destination at all to precipitate out of jump", or can they just arrive at any point beyond an object's 100D limit (even if it's a few million diameters away) and thus arrive in empty space lightyears from a star? But if ships need a 100D limit to be able to precipitate out of jump space, and always precipitate out at that distance, then they most certainly do need a mass at the destination at least.

For the Marc OTU, Imperium (which has been defined as a canon product) states that it was only possible to jump between star systems in the IW era. Early CT book 2 did as well. Then adventures set in the 1100s said that it was possible to jump to an empty hex given sufficient fuel. The problem is how we interpret that - some people say "the rule was rewritten later on and it must have always been possible to do EHJs" and others say that EHJs were clearly not possible at one point but became possible at a later point in the history of the game setting. But using "Marc OTU" material alone, there's just not enough info or clarity to be definitive about this, because at no point has a Marc OTU book stated that EHJs have always been possible throughout the entire history of the setting.

 

[EDG]

Well, actually, they are and can. The main limit is fuel. Way stations are one of those annoying issues, I agree. From a merchantile POV, multiple refuels over several hexes would probably be cost inefficient, but I could see great utility in having them to bridge gaps between mains or just extend them. On the other hand, J2 merchants can bridge them, and that kind of situation (jobs J1 traders can't do) is where they make their bread and butter, I've always felt.

If the fuel is available at the calibration point though, it's less of an issue. The problem is that it takes more time to make several jumps than just one, but then look at it this way - a J1 ship is cheaper than a J2 or J3 ship. How much money is the owner saving by opting for a cheaper ship but taking longer to go further, instead of getting a more expensive ship that gets there faster? And at least this way a J1 ship can get anywhere, instead of being stuck on proper mains or in clusters.

One idea I found I had thought about in the other threads was the idea that a suitable mass has to be capable of supporting P-P fusion -that would rule out brown dwarfs and subjovians.

So you'd basically be saying that you need to be near a huge source of neutrinos to precipitate out of jump space? That would make things a bit interesting - so it's not mass that's the limit, it's neutrino emissions?? Though sticking to P-P fusion specifically means that red giants or white dwarfs aren't suitable, because they don't do P-P fusion (I'm assuming that instead of "capable of" you actually mean "must be undergoing").

A different observation involves ignoring the pseudocanonical stellar designations for given starsytems. I simply note that the given density of local stars in a traveller map can be obtained by ignoring most M type stars in the real world (I think).

Sort of. A lot of low mass objects are definitely missing, but there's an overabundance of more massive stars too.

I don't have the info for this actual calculation, but could one exclude the top and bottom end of the stellar types to create a 1/3 to 1/2 distribution in real stars ? Say, assuming that O,B, A and M stars aren't particulalry useful for jump navigation , and that the traveller maps are just those F,G and K stars which are also most likely to be useful for habitation and useful jumping destinations ?

Even if you do that, those stars are still way too common. In a more realistic stellar distribution, I would guess (off the top of my head, but probably in the right ball park) that F/G/K stars should be separated from eachother on average by at least 3 - 5 hexes - so you'd need J3 to J5 to travel between them.

 

[rust]

I won't claim to know how MGT material wil fit into the OTU (if at all).

Since there is not one single "Marc OTU", this is a somewhat moot point, I
think.

Remember for example Traveller New Era, which used a technology that
was fundamentally different from all earlier "Marc OTU" versions. Just ta-
ke a look at how maneuver drives work in CT and in TNE, and what con-
sequences this has for interplanetary travel.

In the end, each of the versions - whether GDW/FFE or license - has its
own OTU and its own canon, valid within that version and within that ver-
sion only.
Whether such an OTU or canon is the same as or different from any of
the GDW/FFE OTUs / canons may be interesting to find out, but it says
nothing about what is "right" or "wrong" within a certain version.

In other words: What Marc says goes for his versions of Traveller, but it
is meaningless for all other versions once they were published with his
approval.

 

[EDG]

To be honest I'm surprised that Marc actually considers TNE to be part of "his" canon. As rust points out, it's very different in a lot of ways, and arguably the brains behind TNE were everyone else at GDW (and Dave Nilsen), not Marc - IIRC he'd already moved more into the background regarding Traveller by that point.

I'm not even clear on how T4 is considered to be Marc's - when I look at the credits for it I see that he's credited for "Original Design and Development" but the Lester Smith is credited as "Design and Development", and a whole bunch of other people are listed for everything else, so how much influence did Marc actually have on that? The impression I get is that he did design the T4 system, but the credits make it look like he was more the inspiration for it and other people did most of the writing for it. So did Marc do most of T4, or was it another design group working in his name?

 

[GamerDude]

So did Marc do most of T4, or was it another design group working in his name?

Now that's a question to email him for the answer.

 

[EDG]

Even if you do that, those stars are still way too common. In a more realistic stellar distribution, I would guess (off the top of my head, but probably in the right ball park) that F/G/K stars should be separated from eachother on average by at least 3 - 5 hexes - so you'd need J3 to J5 to travel between them.

And just to get some hard numbers, I generated a realistic sector's worth of stars (Standard density for system presence (4+ on 1d6)) and placed them on a sector map. I had 650 systems in total in the sector (1280 hexes total, so nearly 51% of hexes have a system).

41 hexes contained F V stars, 52 hexes had G V stars, and 87 had K V stars (I wasn't including size IV or VI stars in the total count here, though there were some - but they're not habitable systems). So 14% of the hexes in the sector had F/G/K V stars in them. On average there were 11.25 F/G/K V systems per subsector - they were placed according to sector columns though (not subsector by subsector from A to P), I think the separation of the stars would be different if they were done subsector by subsector. In this case, some of the time the stars are right next to eachother, in other cases there's only a few per subsector. Just by eyeballing the sector map though, I'd say that the average separation between F/G/K V stars in a sector is three or four hexes.

 

[AKAramis]

EDG: the writing requirements for "OTU" stuff for T20 required not contradicting CT/MT/TNE/t4 non-rules elements without explicit permission from MWM. I suspect the same is true of MGT.

 

[EDG]

EDG: the writing requirements for "OTU" stuff for T20 required not contradicting CT/MT/TNE/t4 non-rules elements without explicit permission from MWM. I suspect the same is true of MGT.

What about rules though? I can get that he wants the setting to remain the same (as far as anyone can determine, given the contradictions already present in Marc's OTU) - but surely Marc saw GT:IW and saw the EHJ rules there, and must have approved them. Otherwise how did it get published? Or does GT not require such supervision and approval?

Unless... Marc doesn't actually pay all that much attention to all this stuff. TBH I can't imagine he thoroughly reads and checks absolutely everything that all of his licensees publishes - that'd take far too much time. I suspect his attention is only drawn to things when people actually point out that there's an issue (e.g. with Martin's suggestion to change the SM UWPs in the Mongoose book).

 

[AKAramis]

EDG: the writing requirements for "OTU" stuff for T20 required not contradicting CT/MT/TNE/t4 non-rules elements without explicit permission from MWM. I suspect the same is true of MGT.

What about rules though? I can get that he wants the setting to remain the same (as far as anyone can determine, given the contradictions already present in Marc's OTU) - but surely Marc saw GT:IW and saw the EHJ rules there, and must have approved them. Otherwise how did it get published? Or does GT not require such supervision and approval?

From what I've read, GT isn't as tightly constrained, and had less oversight in the initial run, due to Loren's involvement. I don't know if that continued.

But it also specifically wasn't the OTU from the get go.

 

[EDG]

But it also specifically wasn't the OTU from the get go.

You keep saying that. But while it's clearly diverged at some point around 1100 (Loren's hinted that the divergence isn't specifically at the time when Strephon was assassinated, but sometime before that in recent Traveller history), it's also clearly the same setting as CT up to that point.

Arguing that the rules and technologies make it "alternate" is disingenuous too - TNE's rules and technologies were at least as different than GT's, yet TNE is strangely considered to be OTU.

So yeah, GT is alternate past the 1100s era where Strephon wasn't assassinated. But before that? No, it's the same. And arguably that means that GT:IW is implicitly canonical for the CT era too (and if it wasn't supposed to be, and Marc failed to get it "corrected" to conform to his view of canon, then that's his loss. It's out there now).

 

[GamerDude]

From what I've read, GT isn't as tightly constrained, and had less oversight in the initial run, due to Loren's involvement. I don't know if that continued.

But it also specifically wasn't the OTU from the get go.

Exactly... from the start it's been an ATU, with (what I imagine) are basic deviations cleared through Marc. Since it's a separate Traveller universe from his, I can see Marc allowing the material in GT:IW (as well as any other GT book) without major problems.

 

[AKAramis]

But it also specifically wasn't the OTU from the get go.

You keep saying that. But while it's clearly diverged at some point around 1100 (Loren's hinted that the divergence isn't specifically at the time when Strephon was assassinated, but sometime before that in recent Traveller history), it's also clearly the same setting as CT up to that point.

Arguing that the rules and technologies make it "alternate" is disingenuous too - TNE's rules and technologies were at least as different than GT's, yet TNE is strangely considered to be OTU.

So yeah, GT is alternate past the 1100s era where Strephon wasn't assassinated. But before that? No, it's the same. And arguably that means that GT:IW is implicitly canonical for the CT era too (and if it wasn't supposed to be, and Marc failed to get it "corrected" to conform to his view of canon, then that's his loss. It's out there now).

I've argued for years that TNE, MT, and CT are three different universes.

Marc specifically announced GT as non canonical before its release. Not "non-canonical after 1115" but flat out "Non-authoritative".

Now, leading up to strephon not being assassinated means a significant change in Dulinor's character, and that has to go back at least as far as the planning, but probably a lot further. And a significant alteration in the Domain of Illellish, from which Dulinor derived the support for his coup. We don't have enough data to actually list the fundamental divergence point.

 

[GypsyComet]

The timeline evidence is that Dulinor was the same, but was intercepted either by patriotism or fate, and died before he could carry out the plan. As such, weak divergence in the events around him, strong divergence once his lander explodes over Capital.

 

[EDG]

Marc specifically announced GT as non canonical before its release. Not "non-canonical after 1115" but flat out "Non-authoritative".

Find me the exact quote that he used to declare GT "non-authoritative" and "non-canonical", and find me the exact quote where he declared GT:IW to be non-canonical too (and by "non-canonical", we mean "not in line with Marc canon"), and then we can all be clearer on this.

Obviously it's different after the assassination/accident that killed Dulinor. But I have seen absolutely nothing to convince me that GT:IW isn't canon. Everything Loren has said implies that there is a divergence point after which the GT universe is a different setting, but before which it is the same - and that divergence point is way after GT:IW. And given that CT has little to no information about that era and GT:IW has lots, why shouldn't it be used as the base of information for that era in CT? It doesn't even contradict anything in CT anyway.

And either way, GT and GT:IW are still canonical internally - if people are playing GT then nothing that Marc says about the GURPS stuff would invalidate their games. That's something I really hate in these canon discussions - the sneery implication of "ew, you're not playing REAL canon so your games must be inferior". Marc's canon isn't inherently "better" than anyone else's just because it's got his name on it - people should just use whatever the heck they want in their games.

 

[AKAramis]

Marc specifically announced GT as non canonical before its release. Not "non-canonical after 1115" but flat out "Non-authoritative".

Find me the exact quote that he used to declare GT "non-authoritative" and "non-canonical", and find me the exact quote where he declared GT:IW to be non-canonical too (and by "non-canonical", we mean "not in line with Marc canon"), and then we can all be clearer on this.

It was on the TML in late 1996 or early 1997. The floppy disk I stored it on went bad back in 2002. So I can't cite it save from memory. However the exact wording was "[...]a non-authoritative rule set[...]"

It was clear at release that it wasn't canon. If you don't like having to deal with canon, don't hang out places where canon is discussed. Don't play in people's games who want to adhere to canon...

 

[rust]

However the exact wording was "[...]a non-authoritative rule set[...]"

Well, if we want to continue the "Traveller Exegesis Game", this state-
ment mentions only the rules, but not the setting information.

The GURPS rules are of course not the Traveller rules developed by
Marc, so this is nothing new. The question is whether the setting the-
se non-authoritative GURPS rules are used for is canonical or not. :wink:

We could carry on with this for quite a while, but in the end this would
hardly be worth the effort.

In the end, canon is important for the people who consider it important,
for whatever reasons, and meaningless for those who do not, for what-
ever reasons. :lol:

 

[EDG]

It was on the TML in 1996. The floppy disk I stored it on went bad back in 2002. So I can't cite it save from memory. However the exact wording was "[...]a non-authoritative rule set[...]"

Your memory of it isn't important or useful - what's important is what was actually said. Until or unless someone posts the exact statement that Marc posted, then it'd be somewhat foolish to go by a dimly remembered memory.

And "non-authoritative" is quite meaningless on its own. GT is authoritative for GT, at the very least. I can see how if GT says something that contradicts CT, then the preference (for Marc OTU canon) is to take the CT source. But it's daft when GT and CT are pretty much the same anyway up to the non-assassination - so if GT and CT say the same thing about something then is GT to be ignored? Are we expected to waste time hunting for references in a CT book when we have a GT book that says exactly the same thing right in front of us? If GT expands on something said in CT without contradicting it then is that material also just to be ignored?

It was clear at release that it wasn't canon.

Either way, just from the timing of it, Marc's statement says absolutely nothing about GT:IW. Did Marc explictly say "anything that SJG ever publishes for Traveller at any time using the GURPS ruleset is never to be taken as part of Marc OTU canon"?

The thing about GT:IW is that it can be taken either way - either it's still part of the GT universe and therefore just as "alternate" (in which case the only detailed source on the IW era is not valid for CT), or it's set far enough back in the history of the setting (prior to the divergence point) that it counts for both GT and CT. And both the GT:IW and CT views of that era are the same anyway - it's just clarified in GT:IW that EHJs are not possible in that era (which was said in CT anyway). My view is that it's foolish to just ignore a perfectly usable detailed source of information that doesn't contradict CT (particularly given that Marc has shown no inclination to write anything set in the IW era himself).

If you don't like having to deal with canon, don't hang out places where canon is discussed. Don't play in people's games who want to adhere to canon...

I don'tt know about you, but I'm quite comfortable discussing this.

 

[captainjack23]

Well, without stoking the issue too much, and bearing in mind the fact that I was trying to simply reconcile a storyline for my own edification, I'd have to say that the exclusion of any and all GURPS material from the repeated lists of what is canon rather clearly excludes it, in much the same way that the boardgames are included in canon, and have to be dealt with, if you feel the need to deal with canon.

Wow. Was that a runon/geekon sentence or what ?

 

[EDG]

Like I said, canon is relative - there's no real reason why 'canon' should just mean "Marc's OTU".

CT,MT, TNE and T4 (and T5?) are canon for Marc's OTU.
GT and all its supplements are canon for GT, and GT:IW obviously is as well.
Gateway to Destiny is obviously canon for T20.
The Mongoose SM book is canon for MGT.
The 1248 books are canon for games set in that era.

The problem is that there's a lot of overlap between all of the above and Marc's canon. And AFAIK Marc hasn't explicitly said that for the past, present and future, ONLY material published by FFE or GDW is canon for the "Marc OTU". He hasn't said anything specifically about GT:IW either, and we're all basically just filling in the gap based on our own assumptions about that. Sure, if he does say anything he'll probably say that it's part of GT canon but not his own canon - but he hasn't said that yet and until or unless he does we will continue to just be guessing.

Either way, he can say absolutely nothing to invalidate the canonicity of licensed properties within their own lines. Only SJG can do that for GT/GT:IW, only QLI can do that for T20, and only Avenger can do that for 1248.

The other problem with EHJs is that in GT it's explicitly stated that yes, the technology did change over time internally within the history of the game setting. However, in Marc's OTU it changed over time in the external expression of the rules of the setting. The former is a historical change where EHJ's weren't possible at one point but are now, the latter is a blatant reality shift (if one assumes that the current version of the rules is actually "correct" and Imperium, early book 2 drafts etc have been superseded). The GT version is therefore trivial to reconcile, but the CT version isn't because it depends on which version of the CT rules you are using (and Imperium hasn't been ruled out of Marc's canon either).