Just for those who haven't seen it, here was what TNE line editor Dave Nilsen thought about the Empress Wave:
Q: How would you have resolved the Empress Wave?
We would not have had to “resolve” it for a while, as it would have only intruded into the campaign area gradually, and pretty slowly at that. The answer to “how would you have resolved it” has a few answers.
First the point of departure is that it would conceptually refine the relationship of Traveller’s psionics metaphysics with Traveller’s jumpspace metaphysics. Traveller’s psionic skills allow perception over planetary distances in real time, i.e., faster than the speed of light. In physical space, sensory information passes, at best, at C. Psionics in some way places the adept in contact with some medium in which simultaneity is in effect, and the adept is not just waiting for light waves or something else to reach him with their aging data patterns. Similarly, psionic teleperception does not rely on physical phenomena propagated between the observed object and the psionic observer. For example, clairaudience or clairvoyance can hear and see into a sound-proofed or EMS-impermeable room. Further, if a clairvoyant were watching the interior of the room, s/he would see the appearance of a teleported object in real time, not after the amount of time it would take the EMS signature of that object to travel to the clairvoyant at c. Clairvoyance and Clairaudience is not like a biologically-based EMS sensor, which magnifies and classifies light-speed signals which have arrived at the viewer. It is the ability to project some kind of camera or microphone at a distance and perceive the physical signals visible at that vantage point. It seems similar to teleportation except that only the visual or audio sense is teleported (or the eyesight or ears “tunnel through” supraspace to a point closer to the observed zone), rather than the individual. Finally, psionics or psionic devices also allow the seeing of future events.
Jumpspace similarly allowed travel faster than the speed of light (i.e., arrival at a point in the future, at least by the vantage point of light), by allowing entry into it for ~168 hours to allow you to move 1 parsec (J1 space) to 6 parsecs (J6 space). We also know that N space impinged into J space via gravity fields (the 100-diameter G-field causing J precipitation and preventing J insertion. It is therefore possible to imagine the different J# spaces to be similarly related to each other, so that penetration into J space could be thought of as a parabola on a graph. A J1 journey could be thought of as a shallow parabola that did not peak above above the “J1” value on the Y axis. A J6 journey could be thought of as a parabola with a much steeper entry into Jspace which peaked at the “J6” level. The inside of Jspace is a hostile environment for Nspace objects, which require the maintenance of a jump field around them in order to survive Jspace and come out intact after the ~168 hour “immersion.”
Unlike jump, however, psionic teleportation is instant, not ~168 hours. Nonetheless, the notion that Jspace and some psionic realtime space exist “next to” or “above” (hyper) each point in physical space is the same.
The Empress Wave concept was going to explore the relationship between psionic supraspace and Jspace as related phenomena along the same continuum.
So what exists in jumpspace? What happens to ships that misjump, or whose powerplants fail in Jspace and their jumpfields collapse? One of the answers the Empress Wave concept was going to advance was that some events in jumpspace, particularly unusual or catastrophic ones, have ripple effects, and psionic outcomes.
What exists in this psionic supraspace, through which clairvoyant “lines of sight” and teleporting persons pass? Do thoughts merely pass there, or do things settle out there? One of the ideas that the Empress Wave concept was going to advance was that there is consciousness that exists in psionic supraspace, either natively, or as a projection of psionic minds elsewhere, i.e., some of each.
What have all the Research Stations and Jumpspace Institutes been doing all these years? Working on the answers to those questions, of course.
We know that Traveller Jspace is related to gravitic phenomena, both into it and out from it. We know that the physical environment of the galactic core is significantly different from that of the disc, and that the differences of gravitational and radiation intensity may well cause Jspace-Nspace relations to be quite different under those conditions. Likewise psionic phenomena. We also know that the Zhodani have been fixated on the galactic core for thousands of years. There is something there that they are looking for, or rather an explanation to a phenomenon that is psionic in nature.
I know that a lot of your hard science guys don’t like psi, and ignore it in their campaigns to the extent possible, but it is interwoven through Traveller like crazy, but incompletely. It was my intent to regularize it, come up with some principles that would allow it to work better, in short, take it seriously enough to enhance its contribution to the game. You can see the seeds for that in the Lib Data and Refs Notes in RSB in places like point and meta intelligence, psionics, suprastuff, and military research into psi countermeasures, bandwidth, etc. I was looking forward to it, especially the graphs of hyperspace penetration. I kept wanting to take a couple days off and write the Challenge article, but there was never any time.
What the Empress Wave was going to do when it arrived at a place, was to open sentient beings up to a few different results.
Non-psions: no change
Non-psions: development of psionic powers
Non-psions: development of psionic powers with communication with supraspace intellect
Psions: no change
Psions: development of expanded or new psionic powers, initially difficult to understand or control
Psions: psionic powers damaged or burned out by “power surge”
Psions: killed outright by “power surge”
Psions: Various of above plus “possession” by supraspace intellect
The possibilities above would have been placed in two matrices. One for referees who wanted to deal with things randomly (and I would have provided random or pseudo-random characteristics to associate these results with, as Traveller had already established that psionic talent is not base on genetics), and one for referees who knew how they wanted they campaigns to develop, and wanted to be able to deliberately apply the results above, and have justifications to do so.
The wave is the physical manifestation in Nspace of an upheaval in Jspace/supraspace starting at or near the galactic core, or more specifically, the interface or “membrane” between Nspace and Jspace/supraspace. I had been thinking that it could be a variety of things from a gravity wave (if anyone ever decides the things actually exist) to simply an inferred wave because of the fact that the psionic events take place along a moving front. But I see that I described it as an EMS phenomenon. To the best of my knowledge, what I meant by that is that it is moving at the speed of light like an EMS (or gravity) wave. I don’t recall if the final answer would be that the wave would represent a one-time surge of energy that would expose access to new psionic possibilities, or that behind the wave would be a changed environment in which the membrane between Nspace and supraspace would be somewhat more permeable, evidenced by the presence of more psionic possibilities. Jspace physics would not be changed, but to the extent that Jspace and psionic supraspace were related, that supraspace would be “closer” to Nspace. (“I am Ozymandias, King of kings, look upon my works, ye mighty and despair…”)
The Nspace phenomenon was manifested as a surge of psionic energy whose result varied from individual to individual. It was maybe triggered by the Zhodani finally getting to the end of that Ancient gadget corridor they were exploring, or a natural periodic event that happens every few million years, or something, again, I don’t remember which way I was leaning.
What Crocker saw and implanted in Strephon’s mind was like a “test pattern” preceding the surge of energy. The listening posts went off the air because they were staffed heavily by psions and were most susceptible to the damaging effects. The visual image is conditioned upon race and culture. Zhodani would see something about the same, but Zhodani nobles who were aware of it would recognize the sceptre as that core-mapping Ancient widget. Vargr might see a big queen bitch asleep, nursing like 50 puppies at once or something (hyperbole).
Just the same way that psionic talents in humans seem capricious and don’t follow genetic lines, the above variable responses would be almost random, and come with a lot of guidance to referees on how to have it affect or not affect their campaigns as they preferred. There would also have been material on how the effects could be mitigated or prevented, by individuals or governments.
The proximate result of this is already seen in the Zhodani Consulate as far back as 1119 in the overturning of their psionic-based society, with nobles going nuts, being wiped out, and former proles suddenly getting powers, but being regarded with suspicion because of the way some of the nobles went nuts, etc. The very well-ordered Zhodani society would take this hard.
In the Regency the effect would be less, because society is not based on the distribution of psionic ability, and psionics, being in the open now, are less feared than previously.
The overall result would not be a sea-change of the fabric of the campaign background, but the introduction of new abilities. These abilities, if manifested in a PC in a roleplaying group that wanted such a thing, could make quite a difference in the feel of the TNE campaign. However, for an old-time hard-sf roleplaying group, the effects could mostly be, “Didja hear, they hauled away that psion down the street for going nuts?” “Yeah, well that’s what they get for being different.”
In game terms, it would take years for the new powers to become regularized and institutionalized. In addition, the majority of those radically affected and surviving would have made common cause with the exiled Star Vikings and headed off toward the Core to deal with the stuff there.
In the long term it might have allowed an alternative House System science fantasy game set decades or centuries in an alternate Traveller future where thinking starships and “psionic knights” are able to storm Castle Anthrax. However it would have had no such impact on the TNE campaign. I think I threw in a line about a psionic lance somewhere just as a reminder of that possibility. At one time we were considering a lot more House System milieus, and that was just one of many possibilities.
The notion of the possession included a lot of interesting impacts on roleplaying, including temporary control, short or long-term control, opposed control, cooperative control, etc. One of the challenges for players in dealing with data/consciousness from supraspace would be figuring out which was native and which was projections or echoes of things from Nspace so they would know best how to deal with it. And of course the “science” of understanding it would be developing as the plot line moved.
While no one really knew everything about the Empress wave, Strephon ensured that Avery had psionic abilities, was trained in all of the knowledge available, and this was the problem he was focused on. Avery would have returned with information on mitigation and extenuation.
Those were the rough ideas as I remember them (and honestly, I just now had to look up to see if Avery was a clone or not, I couldn’t remember the final decision, but certainly people were expected to wonder if he was), but like I said above, if a better idea came along that fit the concept, we’d have gone with it.
