Transhuman traveller?

[alex_greene]

What you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

G.

Well, unless you are playing Gamma World, of course.

Or Shadowrun, during the UGE, Goblinization and SURGE phases - elves, dwarves, orks, trolls, changelings.

 

[rust]

What you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

It depends on how your suspension of disbelief reacts when you completely
delete the "science" from "science fiction" and replace it with "pure fantasy".

 

[DFW]

It depends on how your suspension of disbelief reacts when you completely delete the "science" from "science fiction" and replace it with "pure fantasy".

Polymorph spell?

 

[justacaveman]

My take on Gamma World type mutations is runaway nanotechnology that reacts in unpredictible ways to radiation exposure changing living organisms in strange ways.

While unlikely, this would at least be possible (Some of it).

 

[GJD]

grumble grumble grumble...

OK.. instead of:

What you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

G.

I should have said was:

In the real world, what you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

Of course, in the new Gamma World you randomly sprout new mutations every scene. I'm guessing you also have to eat 50,000 Kcal every day and everybody has a hyper-evolved metabolism to support all that rapid cell growth.

G.

 

[GamerDude]

Well, unless you are playing Gamma World, of course.

ahh one of the games I was referencing in my posts on the topic of 'mutations'...

 

[kafka]

I had the same problem with mutants until I saw Terra/Sol Twilight Sector's treatment of them. Both SIMs and NOMs are great additions to Traveller. Grafting them onto the Third Imperium is tricky but one has to remember in the 11,000 worlds of the Third Imperium - there is no single baseline human. We have changed the species to adapt to different environments - which does not mean that mutants cannot look like us more or less...their special powers are not the stuff of X Men but accelerated evolution - but the drawbacks make it difficult for them to exist outside their environs. Then Boy Mutant meets Girl from Another Planet - then it gets complicated...

 

[GamerDude]

...Grafting them onto the Third Imperium is tricky but one has to remember in the 11,000 worlds of the Third Imperium - there is no single baseline human. We have changed the species to adapt to different environments - which does not mean that mutants cannot look like us more or less...

Of course that is always my opinion (stated numerous times to the groan of some others)... and that is do what you want in your home games, what feels right to you. I was thinking next month of adding point to point Instantaneous Transporter Beam-Up developed by Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott and told to me in a bar over a mug of Vargr Ale (tastes like a dirty dog bowl to me, but hey it got him talking). :shock: 8)

 

[zero]

Funnily enough, these two posts have been for me the best two in this thread so far :lol:

 

[kafka]

Of course that is always my opinion (stated numerous times to the groan of some others)... and that is do what you want in your home games, what feels right to you. I was thinking next month of adding point to point Instantaneous Transporter Beam-Up developed by Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott and told to me in a bar over a mug of Vargr Ale (tastes like a dirty dog bowl to me, but hey it got him talking). Very Happy Shocked Cool

But, transporters do exist in Traveller. Just not at the tech of the Third Imperium and experiments to date have resulted in The Fly mutation... :lol:

Seriously, the Imperium is a big space and Chartered Space even bigger. There are bound to geneered humans that have been tailored to different environs and not only the Jonkeereen (http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Jonkeereen). Not to mention the Scandians... Now, this is not an argument for the Jacksonian heresy of Humaniti but a balanced argument for augmentation or as Terra/Sol defines it - mutation. Potato or Potatoe still tastes good.

So, yest YTUMV but the secret for Traveller has been about balance. If mutations upset that then it is no longer Traveller but something else. Which is why Gamma World could not become Traveller, as for me, it is indeed rooted in the D&D experience. Which is to say that I side with A Canticle for Leibowitz over Judge Dredd/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...for my Traveller Universe.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Not saying that the Third Imperium setting is "soft" sf, but..

The subtypes of humaniti are for the most part interfertile with each other even after 300,000 years, aren't they?

However...

While subtypes on other planets might not be affected on the microscopic level, didn't Solomani get affected because they were in an enviroment which allowed for compatible viruses and such to impact them?

Vilani still need to do that food prep thing because native environment life is not digestible