Mongoose Alien Module 4 - Zhodani

[donm61873]

The lie is that the ideals to which the Zhodani subscribe are attainable, have ever been attainable, and would actually work as intended once attained.

The same is true for each and every historical and present
human society, which would make all those societies "lies".

I can't agree with GypsyComet here. I think much of what makes a society great or not deals with the struggle to achieve their ideals. And I believe that while the Consulate as it exists in 1105 may be gone, certainly its successor states are founded with its glories and stability in mind, and in those endeavors many unsung nobles, intendants and even proles will give their lives to preserve them.

 

[GypsyComet]

The difference between the Zhodani and a great many other Human societies is that most have an ideal that they want to meet, but will generally admit that they don't. The Zhodani will not often admit to that failure.

They don't quite fit the classic utopia/dystopia pattern of Brave New World or 1984, but you could certainly interpret parts of the Consulate that way if you wanted to portray the Consulate as more deeply flawed than it is

The line about how "people get the government they deserve" likely does not mean the same thing to a Zhodani that it does to us.

 

[rust]

The difference between the Zhodani and a great many other Human societies is that most have an ideal that they want to meet, but will generally admit that they don't. The Zhodani will not often admit to that failure.

The existence of the "Thought Police" is in itself an evidence that
the ideal has not been met. Moreover, the cases where nobles and
intendants are re-educated (with the nobles transferred afterwards
and the intendants losing their status) also prove to every observant
prole that the Zhodani society is not an ideal one. Whether and how
often they will admit it ... well, how often do our politicians publicly
admit that our democracies do not meet their ideals ?

 

[Tobias]

The difference between the Zhodani and a great many other Human societies is that most have an ideal that they want to meet, but will generally admit that they don't.

To me the difference between the Zhodani and a great many other Human societies is that the Zhodani are fictional aliens. You seem to be talking about the Zhodani as if they really existed, you've studied them and come to your conclusions.

Now, the pre-written material in AM4 does exist, and you can go in this or that direction expanding on it. Obviously, IMHO my own interpretation of the Zhodani is more interesting in the context of an SF background. It may not be canon, but 18 years post-TNE that is really no longer bothering me.

 

[Tobias]

Let me qualify this: Since it was produced by a Traveller licensee for the OTU, why would it NOT be canon?

I don't know, I thought the final arbiter on what was canon and what was not was Marc W. Miller and maybe he did not "canonize" it.

[Snaps fingers] Now I remember how I might have gotten that impression. I got back into Traveller with the CT reprints, and when I purchased them years ago I read in the intro to [checks back in one of the reprints]:
The Traveller Canon is defined as the set of Traveller materials published by GDW as Classic Traveller materials. This list details the titles that are properly included in the Traveller Canon.
I had not really paid too much attention to the issue of canon one way or the other, but I remember saying to myself "well, works for me" - not that this would not have left in many internal contradictions. But I assume with subsequent developments the definition of canon changed.

 

[alex_greene]

How you interpret the Zhodani depends on you, really, but the touchstone of the nature of Zhodani society would have to be whether it has coffee houses and debating societies, and what the conversations are like on the bus.

If you have a culture where Proles, Intendants and even Nobles enjoy lively conversations together over coffee or sitting next to one another on buses, discussing the nature of politics freely and openly without the Tavrchedle' dropping by to bust up the place every five minutes, then you'll have a culture that is open and as free as the Imperium. Nobody knows why it hasn't fallen apart yet - but it hasn't, so everybody's grateful, and as long as people know where the taboo subjects are - usually involving sex, religion and sports - they can talk as much as they wish, because everybody knows it's just talk.

If,on the other hand, the people are only free to mingle among their own kind, no mixing of Proles, Intendants or Nobles, and they need permission from the Thought Police to go and take their pets for a walk in the public park (and get a signed permission chit) then it's a tyranny held under the iron grip of Big Brother.

And if the Tavrchedle' do come busting down the door to break up a nest of mental deviants, what sorts of weapons do they use? Slug throwers, psionically-backed coercion or mercy bullets (tranq rounds) and narcoleptic soma sprayed into the air a la Huxley's Brave New World?

As a Referee, do your Thought Police act sincerely for the preservation of harmony in what is, to them, a just society, or are they hired boot boys and thugs, enforcers of the Nobles' desire to retain the Nobility's centuries-old hegemonic domination? (And why would that make them any different to Imperial Marines who, instead of re-educating their victims, simply deep-fry them with an FGMP blast?)

It's little details like that which make the difference.

 

[rust]

I may well be reading too much into it, but there is this sen-
tence on page 11 of Classic Traveller's Zhodani module:

Local councils are extremely responsive to local pressures.

To me this looks like a society where the nobles and inten-
dants listen to the proles and react positively to their ideas,
a society where debate is common and not suppressed.

 

[Tobias]

How you interpret the Zhodani depends on you, really, but the touchstone of the nature of Zhodani society would have to be whether it has coffee houses and debating societies, and what the conversations are like on the bus.

If you have a culture where Proles, Intendants and even Nobles enjoy lively conversations together over coffee or sitting next to one another on buses, discussing the nature of politics freely and openly without the Tavrchedle' dropping by to bust up the place every five minutes,

Well, IMTU they do. There are just some things they don't discuss - and it's not like they would like to discuss them, but don't out of fear. They don't discuss them because they know they are absurd and antisocial. A Zhodani talking to you on a bus about how maybe a Solomani social model is better after all would be like somebody talking to you on the bus about how society could be improved by reintroducing human sacrifice. In both cases your reaction would be "That guy is insane and possibly dangerous."
Now the main differences are that a) Zhodani society has different standards for determining what's insane and possibly dangerous, that b) it is less tolerant of insane people running around and c) it is much better at curing insanity. As a consequence, a Zhodani would be much more likely to alert the authorities so they can take care of the crazy person.

Nobody knows why it hasn't fallen apart yet - but it hasn't, so everybody's grateful, and as long as people know where the taboo subjects are - usually involving sex, religion and sports

Those wouldn't be taboo subjects IMTU. Religion maybe, though this is another point I'd spin differently than MGTA4/GTAR1. All religions with a strong emphasis of obedience to a supreme being (such as all the Abrahamitic religions in our world) would likely be out of the question, though.
Then again, there would be no "taboo" subjects at all in the normal sense. A taboo is something that people would normally do, but don't because they fear social consequences or divine wrath. IMTU in Zhodani society there are no such things - only things that people do not do because they are firmly convinced that they are nonsense and/or morally anathema.

A key point of Zhodani society is a much greater congruency of internalized and externalized ethics. Again IMTU, of course.
This harmony is where the philosophical disagreements are likely to stem from. One topos I mentioned before is that "human nature" means that in every society there is a "facade" and and something "true" behind it. Often, something "dark", and the more harmonious the "facade" is, the "darker" are the hidden elements. I have a different view, not of human societies IRL, but of the portrayal of the Zhodani as fictional aliens.

 

[Tobias]

I may well be reading too much into it, but there is this sen-
tence on page 11 of Classic Traveller's Zhodani module:

Local councils are extremely responsive to local pressures.

To me this looks like a society where the nobles and inten-
dants listen to the proles and react positively to their ideas,
a society where debate is common and not suppressed.

I wouldn't say you're reading too much into it. I'd say there are different ways of building a more detailed description from this snippet. And I'm fairly certain yours is very close to the one I prefer.

 

[rust]

My settings usually are more "grey" than "black and white", and in the
only one where I used the Zhodani they were a "lighter shade of grey"
than the Imperials, much more likely to show an interest in the opinions
and wishes of third parties and to negotiate a mutually acceptable solu-
tion than the Imperials with their tendency to rely on violence because
of their "when your favourite tool is a hammer, every problem begins to
look like a nail" mentality - but this was just the interpretation of Zhoda-
ni and Imperials which fitted the campaign best, although I had the im-
pression that it did not contradict the source material available at that
time.

 

[donm61873]

Let me qualify this: Since it was produced by a Traveller licensee for the OTU, why would it NOT be canon?

I don't know, I thought the final arbiter on what was canon and what was not was Marc W. Miller and maybe he did not "canonize" it.

[Snaps fingers] Now I remember how I might have gotten that impression. I got back into Traveller with the CT reprints, and when I purchased them years ago I read in the intro to [checks back in one of the reprints]:
The Traveller Canon is defined as the set of Traveller materials published by GDW as Classic Traveller materials. This list details the titles that are properly included in the Traveller Canon.
I had not really paid too much attention to the issue of canon one way or the other, but I remember saying to myself "well, works for me" - not that this would not have left in many internal contradictions. But I assume with subsequent developments the definition of canon changed.

Certainly Marc is the final arbiter of what is Canon for the OTU. The real answer to your question is, "Yes, Marc said to pay attention to 1248 as well."

But remember, canon is for writers and developers. You can have blue Zhodani in your game if you want.

 

[Tobias]

Certainly Marc is the final arbiter of what is Canon for the OTU. The real answer to your question is, "Yes, Marc said to pay attention to 1248 as well."

But remember, canon is for writers and developers. You can have blue Zhodani in your game if you want.

Naw, my good old AM4-based, MT-inspired Zhodani are quite enough. :wink:
I'll add the new Addaxur though.

 

[GypsyComet]

To me the difference between the Zhodani and a great many other Human societies is that the Zhodani are fictional aliens. You seem to be talking about the Zhodani as if they really existed, you've studied them and come to your conclusions.

It was a bit of a brain dump on my part, but using "it's just a game" as a response is overly dismissive.

Anyone who wants to run the Zhodani as much beyond their original "black hat" role needs to crawl around in their heads for a bit. The original AM4 was a bit sparse for this purpose, and the JTAS article only helped a little. I'm not convinced that DGP would have helped much, as they seemed to love the crunchy historical and technical stuff but had a tin ear for cultural details beyond cliche level. The GURPS treatment of alien races was similarly lacking, even in the longer treatments they gave races like the Zhodani.

 

[Tobias]

It was a bit of a brain dump on my part, but using "it's just a game" as a response is overly dismissive.

"It's just a game" is not what I am saying. I am saying it is fiction dealing with an alien species (for most practical purposes) in the far future and that drawing parallels to historical societies on Earth and saying they are "normal humans" seems like a somewhat limited approach to me.

The original AM4 was a bit sparse for this purpose, and the JTAS article only helped a little.

Hm? :|
The JTAS article predated AM4 by several years. In fact, it has always been my understanding that AM4 superceded the information in that article. (Assuming you mean the original Contact! article here - there was an additional one about "Zhodani philosophies" in JTAS 23 which was published at about the same time as AM4. Did you mean that?)

I'm not convinced that DGP would have helped much, as they seemed to love the crunchy historical and technical stuff but had a tin ear for cultural details beyond cliche level.

I disagree, obviously. In my opinion DGP's Alien modules were head and shoulders above everything else ever written for Traveller Aliens before and since. Here's why:
1. Inner and outer perspectives. I don't think there is any in-universe text in MGTA4, is there? As far as I recall there was none in any of the CT Alien modules either.
Having the whole first section about history and culture written from an interior perspective of the Alien race in question, then follow it up with an outer perspective "behind the scenes" look was an excellent idea and went a long way in conveying a "feel" for the background.
2. Roleplaying section. This received considerably more attention than in any comparable material and was enhanced by several examples in the form of short fiction, each of which was longer than the entire section on playing Zhodani in MGTA4 is.
3. Layout, illustration and organization. IMHO, there's no arguing here. a) Efficient, pleasing layout and text style. b) High quality art throughout, with a good unity of style and a lot of attention of actually illustrating what's in the text (partially because Rob Caswell, who illustrated most of the technical stuff, was also a writer and player.) c) High ratio of information to data, but enough crunchy bits to use in the game.

I'm not quite sure what you found lacking about the treatment of Alien cultures by DGP. They did expand on the bare-bones sketches that the previous AM series provided quite a bit. Then again, Vilani, Vargr, Solomani and Aslan have never been the most creatively written Alien races in Traveller to begin with. I really don't see how you could make the Aslan, for example, break from the cliches without reimagining them from scratch.

Now, I don't know if the hypothetical "Zhodani & Droyne" would have pleased me as far as its interpretation of Zhodani culture was concerned. It might have actually gone in the same more oppressive direction as MGTA4 & GTAR1, though this seems unlikely given the blurb in Imperial Encyclopedia. But I am certain that it would have been more thorough, more creative and more useful than all other efforts so far.

 

[MongooseMatt]

But remember, canon is for writers and developers. You can have blue Zhodani in your game if you want.

This.

Absolutely, 100%.

There _is_ no right answer.

 

[BP]

There is no spoon. :mrgreen:

 

[lastbesthope]

There is no spoon. :mrgreen:

Or there can be if you want there to be....

Think of it as a Schrodinger-Heisenberg Spoon...

LBH

 

[Hans Rancke]

Is it actually possible in MGT to have no psionic talent at all? It wasn't in CT.

It's not possible for player characters to have no psionic talent. And since Traveller writers very early started using the character generation system to make NPCs, one could argue that everyone has talent. The problem with that is, IMO, that using the standard rules, more than half of a population (~power level 5+) would be able to have some form of useful psionic ability if tested and trained at age 22 (It gets worse if you extrapolate from the rules to give no minus for training at age 18 (and maybe even a +1 at age 14 (but NOT +2 at 10... :wink: ))). I find it hard to imagine the canonical envy and fear and loathing of the unknown that played a part in the Psionic Suppressions if everyone either has useful psionic talent himself or at least several close relatives with it.

IMTU I've added psionic potential. That is hereditary and if you have it, you fall under the rules for psionic ability. If you don't, you don't have any psionic ability at all. PCs all happen to have potential, but the majority of the population doesn't.

The Imperium, for example, is a hereditary monarchy. Fundamentally, it is the least meritocratic form of government imaginable.

It's certainly not anywhere close to a true meritocracy, but it's not completely without meritocratic elements, especially in theory. High nobles are supposed to work for a living and the Emperor has the right to pass over an heir who isn't up to the task. He can even transfer the job entirely out of the family if no satisfactory candidate is available. Commoners can work their way up and be ennobled to enable them to hold the Imperial post they're qualified for. Only the descendants of honor nobles gets their rank entirely without any merit of their own (The first holder of an honor title got it as a reward for contributions to the Imperium).

If you believe that character generation reflects "reality" realistically (which, I admit, I don't), you don't even get much mileage out of high social rank. You get a bonus to some throws, but the bonus applies to everyone from the gentry and up, and being a duke gives no more advantage than being a country squire. (IMO it should be MUCH easier to advance in ranks for Imperial nobles than indicated; when I roll up an NPC who is an Imperial noble, he gets posted as attache every time the rules allow it and usually hits rank O10 somewhere in his mid-thirties and he gets thrown out only on a throw of 2 (usually as a result of the machinations of some enemy Imperial noble with even more clout than himself).


Hans

 

[Hans Rancke]

I'll fully agree with everyone that this is NOT the setting of AM4. AM4 did not have a Qlomdlabr fully aware that the clock was ticking on its own survival. I can accept that some people do NOT like that change, but I didn't have a choice to make there...

I'm sorry to lose the Zhodani purpose for launching the frontier wars that was revealed in MT: They simply wanted to keep the Imperials out of their back yard. And I don't like having Ancient artifacts play such a huge role in interstellar events. But then, I disliked the original precognitive artifact intensely, although that had more to do with my dislike of causality violations (except in time travel stories, that is). If anything would have pleased me, it would have been some retcon that eliminated the precogntion part of it.

But at least it's a purposeful retcon, not just an author writing something without checking previously published material on his subject. As such, I see it as "the law of the land", and if I don't like it, I can just refrain from using the Zhodani.


Hans

 

[donm61873]

But at least it's a purposeful retcon, not just an author writing something without checking previously published material on his subject. As such, I see it as "the law of the land", and if I don't like it, I can just refrain from using the Zhodani.

You can do whatever you want in your games. I went to Marc Miller and asked if there were items not previously mentioned, and there were two: one was fixing the Addaxur to be more as originally intended, and the other was the Controller of Wills.

This is sort of what the "Zhodani Conspiracy" computer game was about, except that Microprose never understood what Marc meant. Put those items with the Chilling Thought (Empress Wave) and things were pretty clear.

I just wish Tobias and I had this discussion a few months back. But I still do have my original notes, and I think I'll talk to Matthew about a web article... after I get the Droyne out of my head.