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[pasuuli]

Another mystery that likely will never get an answer is what was the point of departure between the OTU timeline (now overwritten by Mongoose Charted Space timeline) and the GT ATU timeline. Loren always said he would one day reveal it. He never did.

To a certain degree, this doesn't really matter: the point of departure of the LTU from the OTU is below the resolution of the setting, so it's enough to know that GURPS indicates it in its core book when it has a TNS entry noting the explosion of Dulinor's craft.

Close enough, I say, and there's more important things to bother with: namely, when they can inflect, and my money is on 1450.

 

[pasuuli]

Also, Marc wanted the Wave out of the way for other reasons, and at FTL speed it departs Charted Space in just a few centuries (c. 1450) instead of nearly a millennium (c.2000).

And I need it out of the way by 1450 in order to allow a reasonable time for the LorenVerse to inflect back with the OTU -- for those who like to keep that option open -- and well before the Galaxiad may begin in 1900.

1450 has the benefit of being a "hazy" point in time where not much, if anything, is officially written about it. We can potentially make it a time where the previous history becomes legend and becomes a little fuzzy. This also permits some open freedom with the timeline without coupling the "history before" with the "history after".

 

[Endie]

This is hyperbole, of course. Nilsen liked Traveller as much as the rest of GDW; the company's success with Traveller was tempered by mistakes, it's true, but everybody involved wanted Traveller to succeed. You might say there were competing visions, and you might say that there were other priorities for GDW, and the usual issues that plague small publishing houses in the 1980s and early 1990s.

What you can't say, though, is that the quality of TNE was fueled by hatred. It did more than justice to Traveller and GDW; in fact it corrected minor errata to a degree that I didn't see in CT or MT. Heck, there's a "typo" that was part of the "primordial" intent of Traveller from the 1977 Book 2 that was quickly updated... except for that original "typo"; that item was propagated through all CT rules, through MT, and wasn't corrected until TNE. If you know it, you know it; otherwise it'll be hard to see. But it's there.

In other words, Nilsen cared enough to do a full editorial pass on setting text. And integrate the system with the House Rules. And take the setting out of Hard Times, which among other things required curating the TNS and selecting a representative sample. And write (good) sourcebooks.

If you don't love Traveller, you don't do those things -- even if I think some of them are wrong things.

Nilsen (in his series of self-justifying answers on CotI where he got increasingly insulting at Aramis for keeping questioning him) doesn’t say outright that he hated the Traveller charted space universe, but he is explicit that he wanted to destroy it utterly because he found it hard to learn it and wanted a clean start where he could tell stories that he preferred.

He is also very open about the fact that he found the wider community’s resistance to this baffling and annoying.

As to the quality of what emerged? You can judge that by its legacy: almost nobody plays it; it is loathed in a way that even 4e is not; its setting is scorned or ignored, while the Golden Era charted space setting is back and widely adored. It was an abject failure that served only to put Traveller into cold sleep for a great many years.

 

[Vormaerin]

The New Era setting was actually quite good. Its problem was almost entirely that it was not a separate setting, but directly replacing something many people were invested in.

Completely changing the rules was a different issue.

GDW then went out of business for unrelated reasons (disastrous non fiction book sales and a lawsuit over Dangerous Journeys, amongst other things) that put pretty much all their products into cold sleep. Whether a supported T:NE could have worked out or not is something we'll never know.

Regardless, spending time on this forum attacking a guy who is long gone seems pretty pointless.

 

[steelbrok]

I was away from RPGs during the TNE era (TNE^2?) and only starting picking some bits up after GDW folded. I quite liked the setting, it seemed (to me) to have more "baked in" adventure potential and I liked the smaller scale of the Reformation Coalition and the integration of Hivers and Ithklur.

That said, with sentimental attachment to my early Spinward Marches games, my Traveller-ish game (should I ever get a campaign going) would be based there.

 

[Endie]

Regardless, spending time on this forum attacking a guy who is long gone seems pretty pointless.

The thing about discussion is that, when someone replies to something one says, it’s not wholly out of order to respond. Policing that seems kinda odd to do: if you don’t want to see responses, don’t reply! The discussion was over two weeks ago, but someone disagreed and wanted to state why. There’s no ban on that, nor on replies thereunto.

And, in any case, talking about things from decades ago is what fuels this forum!

 

[Vormaerin]

I didn't say you couldn't reply. I said that it seems pretty pointless to me to attack individuals.

Discussing topics, timelessly rehashed as they might be, is one thing. Venting one's spleen in an attack on an individual not even here to see it or defend themselves seems a different thing. But I'm just a forum user, not a mod or anything. You can continue merrily on your way as you please.

 

[Endie]

I didn't say you couldn't reply. I said that it seems pretty pointless to me to attack individuals.

Discussing topics, timelessly rehashed as they might be, is one thing. Venting one's spleen in an attack on an individual not even here to see it or defend themselves seems a different thing. But I'm just a forum user, not a mod or anything. You can continue merrily on your way as you please.

Thank-you. Your permission means a lot to me.