Traveller 2300AD: Rise of the Armistice

[Hopeless]

Have been running a Traveller game set in the spinward marches under the premise that humanity spread throughout their area of space thanks to the discovery of an extra solar gate network and that my game was set fourteen yeats after the gates self destructed taking most of the highest technologically advanced systems with them leaving the surviving humans stranded in the spinward marches which is barely peaceful what with four separate governments all intent on securing control over all of the Marches.

Anyway what with the Prometheus movie coming out and now this it got me wondering if i should run a prelude to explain how humanity first began their journey out into space and more importantly why in my current campaign pretty much all knowledge of their past has been lost and not just because their government is keeping such information as secret as possible...

So my original explanation was that when humanity spread out through their solar system they discovered evidence of other life more specifically ruins and eventually artefacts such as the extra-solar gate.

This was thought out before I found out about Mass Effect and the artefact found out near Pluto, anyway I figured I start this thread get some initial opinions before going into more detail.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lemnoc]

Are you looking for something canonical? I think there is a pretty extensive history of how Humaniti eventually arrived in Traveller's Spinward Marches. You could adopt just about any part of that, or no part of that.

Non-canonically, just about anything goes :|

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Hmm, while 2300AD has nothing at all to do with the 3rd Imperium... you could of course combine them (or parts of them) in your game, but starting from scratch with a custom history might be easier.

I take it you are just using the data from 'Spinward Marches' as a readymade?

 

[2330ADUSA1]

Ok first off there is nothing about your campaign that is canon...so don't swet it!

I too use a Steller System gate system like used in B5 or that style. Just state that for some reason a system overloaded a section of the grid blowing out the controls and thus shutting down a major large section connecting Spinward Marshes to the Sol section of space.

What caused the Steller System gate system collapse, maybe no one knows but the GM does. It could have been one of the gates was in use (activated and being used by ships fleeing the system when that local star went Super Nova)! The burst of pure energy some how flooded the system and caused a surge that destroyed a vast section of the Steller System Grid and the humans just dont know how to go arround it or repair the grid either.

With the Spinward Marshes section of space cut off,everyone was cut off guard and total chaos happened. Much of the former structure collapsed and a backward slide happened in tech on many worlds as they just began to try and survive. Thise that could or managed to survive, in time managed to uplift themselves again and get back into space once again.

Maybe the seats of powere reside arround a few smaller working arms(links) of the Steller System gate system that still works and links up a few systems still. maybe these linked systems manged to survive better and grow stronger and recover faster than much of the others and giving them a advantage. You can write in any amount of time between the collapse and rebirth, maybe make it 500 yrs. That would be like 15+ generations latter and that is allot of time to pass and forget the past, what is remembered would be mostly legends or myths.

Penn

 

[Hopeless]

The way i was looking at it there was an early immigration which the existing governments couldn't control and the artefact found near Pluto was discovered and researched by a civilian group who used it to develop the first working jump drive.

The artefact was eventually activated and a probe sent through that was eventually found when a working jumpship reached the same system and retrieved it.

However once the governments found out about this achievement they moved in to secure the discoveries and the person responsible for inventing the original jump drive was killed by accident and the best efforts of the world authorities could only develop the Stutter Drive (don't have the book on hand to check the name of this) and this ended up being the main jump drive used as the older original jumpships were either dismantled or lost as their owners' fled the solar system to avoid being stripped of their ships as the drive couldn't be replicated.

What i was thinking is that this exodus led eventually to the settling of the spinward marches and the isolation was due to an event in the Marches that didn't reach the other side of the Rift because the only Gate linking them together was disabled by a war with out of control Nanotech entities over a century before.

Anyway need to reread the material as I rather like some of the additional details in the T2300 setting book regarding character generation.

What I'd rather do is have the French part of the setting become the Eurozone instead, seriously thinking that the Greeks left the Euro and need to rethink this out once I download a copy of those two releases (I believe one's called Tricolour, I bet I got it wrong!) still have a hankering for running a game inspired by the Guns of Navarone and its sequel!

Well hope to see Prometheus this weekend which should give me more than a few ideas for this!

 

[2330ADUSA1]

Honestly...do you have any idea how far the Sol system is from the region called the Spinward Marshes? I also think you better read some of the histories of the Imperium and timelines. Your working timeline and ideas have some major holes in it.

 

[steelbrok]

There is nothing to stop Hopeless moving the Marches closer to Earth if that suits his game better, he (she?) is going for an alternate set up after all

 

[2330ADUSA1]

I understand that completely, but he is trying to merge to much together. I feel he should drop most of the defined history and write his own. Change the names even and do that sort of thing.

 

[Lemnoc]

There is nothing to stop Hopeless moving the Marches closer to Earth if that suits his game better, he (she?) is going for an alternate set up after all

I guess if I was going to radically adopt my own setting, I would probably not bolt it onto things like the Spinward Marches. That region is fairly fully fleshed with the trappings and assumptions of the Imperia, it holds together because of those assumptions and trappings. The appeal of the SM lies in the fact that it is at the point of many swords, each with long and complex histories, not particularly dominated by any. It has a feel.

I would think it would set up an expectation among players of a particular sort of game different than that Hopeless describes.

It's like wanting to write about the New York Yankees baseball team, only with the assumption that they are a Bolivian reggae band. You're certainly free to do so, but why?

I probably would eschew the CT map altogether and run the setting out of some globular cluster where there are many stars in proximity to one another. YTUMMV.

 

[2330ADUSA1]

OK my advice is to search for Near Star Systems...refer here to start...

http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm

And map out as close as you can a star map and then build your Steller Gate System, and then figure out what failed and build it out....then write your own history and etc

 

[Hopeless]

Tried this before it got wiped.

My original campaign is set a few millenia beyond the T2300 era, what I want to do is explain what happened to start them on their way there and hopefully turn this into a sandbox campaign so when pieces of information filter through into the future one they will recognise what it relates to and help me avoid some pitfalls along the way.

The exodus I previously mentioned is intended as a subplot which will initially be used to cover up the actions of a group called the Ultimatum (think similar to Cereberus from Mass Effect except more inclined to seizing power) who are building up their resources to secure whatever advances they can find and loot from alien sites as well as keep abreast of advances in the various arms.

My starting game idea for T2300 is have the player character's recruited for an exploratory mission run by a well known scholar with military and political links who wants to explore a system that can only be reached via a neighbouring system.

Once there the PCs as well as a few npc's are sent to investigate the inhabitable world there and upon returning find their base ship empty and lacking a jump drive.

Checking the records (and very probably hacking them) they discover the good professor is a member of an unknown organisation and is using a jump drive that by all rights shouldn't exist to reach this system.

It has been removed to install on one of a vast graveyard of alien spaceships which is his actual target and then jump it out leaving them behind.

However the ships weren't abandoned, the Kaefer were originally stranded in this system to end their previous rampage and the good doctor's efforts is going to allow them to escape their prison and set off the invasion as noted in T2300's history.

The PCs have a way out though, because an escape ship is present but it has a stutter drive which would ordinarily not work but only because jumping into this system is only possible using an original jump drive, jumping out isn't that dangerous only that to survive they will have to enter suspension animation as the ship isn't likely to remain intact after the jump so that the starting game ends up with them found asleep by a human ship who rescues them learning of the kaefers invasion and when the good professor's friends find out they survived guess who is going to be blamed for the Kaefer's release?!

Figure that would make a good starting point, but watching Prometheus should help give me some more ideas fine tuning it!

 

[Hopeless]

Watched Prometheus might have to add androids to the mix!!!

Was thinking that the professor uncovered evidence of ruins that included a rosetta stone he stole to translate some of the records they found.

Figure they spoke of an ancient war and that the great menace was trapped within an enclosed system which had originally its own extra stellar gate but it was removed both from inside the system and outside making it impossible for their enemies to return although at great cost.

Having access to an original jump drive makes it possible to make the trip across but his plan is to secure one of the alien ships which he believes given how old the records are, would be easy to recover once they transplant the jump drive aboard and if necessary add a few power plants even if its means scrapping their own ship to do so.

To avoid unnecessary scrutiny many of the personnel are rogues, scoundrels and down their luck people with the right specialties and none are aware exactly whats involved only they're being paid alot of money for what is supposed to be a simple exploration mission.

It is possible they have an agent or military operative coming along but thats the province of the PCs since they're supposed to be the one element he hasn't considered.

I suppose I could have named this the Advent of the Kaeffer but that would be giving away too much wouldn't it?!