Travellers Needed - The Future of Traveller

[Sigtrygg]

According to historians Rom was started by Greek refugees, in fact probably the most creditable account of the founding of Rom has it started by Troy refugees escaping the Trojan war. The funny part is that tho Rome created the first modern western Army they were never a major naval power even though they originated as Greeks who were known for their naval strength.

I would like to see the history book that says that, the myth of Troy survivors is just that, a myth. It is no more believable than the Romulus and Remus story. The history books I have read state that Rome grew out of the settlements established by the northern Italian tribes, the Latins and the Etruscans among others.

Only the south of Italy had greek settlements, they had no influence at all on the founding of Rome.

Founding of Rome - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As to the first modern army, no. The persian empire (Achaemenid empire) was a "modern army" for its day, and there were many others such as the earlier neo-Assyrian,

Military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Achaemenid Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Have you ever played ancients era wargames? There are some excellent books on the subject of ancient empires and their armies.

 

[Condottiere]

The Romans were big practitioners of what we term cultural appropriation.

Though, the root of divine similarities may also be due to Indo European diaspora.

 

[tytalan]

They learned some when they took on Carthage.

So 142 years after they took Carthage they changed the military to match Carthages
Rome sacked Carthage 146BC
The Roman Legions formed 4BC
First Roman Legionary 107BC “Change from Militia to Professional Soldier “

Not seeing the connection.

 

[Condottiere]

The Roman military evolved over the centuries.

The Marian Reforms might have been a formalization of existing trends and practices.

 

[metlk]

UWP isn't setting dependent though. Those are "Core" rules. If you change the UWP rules in a supplement, you are not creating a setting book. You are changing the core rules of Traveller. If you then apply those changes retroactively, the entirety of Charted Space would have to be changed to match the new rules. You can currently build Charted Space using the RAW, system and sector creation rules. If you change the Core Rules to allow for "more balanced TL and LL worlds across a faction's area", then all of Charted Space as written can no longer be created using RAW.

Perhaps I've been misunderstood. I'm not asking for an entirely new ruleset. I'm referring to alternate rules to generate the same numbers, akin to how the World Builder Handbook alters some generational rolls based on the planet's specific features. The Sector Construction Guide talks about empire spread over time and such, but it lacks any rules on how to do that, leaving it all up to imagination. I'm referring to the rolls and modifiers themselves, not what the results represent. TL5 is TL5 regardless, it would just be generated differently if for example you're generating a world that is a colony of an existing faction, as opposed to a random role. The issue I see with the standard rules for generating a UWP is they are designed to consider the universe as thousands of years old with planets having been populated long before the any of the current large factions ever even existed, and due to the extreme variability available with the way a UWP is generated, it's reinforced. Due to the randomness of the roles, a lot of shoehorning has to be done to make some profiles fit inside of a faction, if at all. Like the WBH allows for a more natural and organic planet, something that does the same for the UWP and how they are distributed within a faction would be nice (and is what I thought I was buying with the SCG, but it didn't say anything I wasn't already doing tediously.) I am not in any way arguing the UWP itself needs changed, nor for any rules that would apply to any "official setting." Just alternate rules to reach those same numbers, something that easily alters the modifiers so if your capital is a TL12 Totalitarian Oligarchy spread across a dozen parsecs, the other planets would actually have UWP codes that fall within a certain range.

That was my thought process anyway, but actually now that I think on it, I'm not sure the best answer isn't to just cap all following planets within their region to the capital's social numbers. Forget I bought it up.

 

[Sigtrygg]

So 142 years after they took Carthage they changed the military to match Carthages
Rome sacked Carthage 146BC
The Roman Legions formed 4BC
First Roman Legionary 107BC “Change from Militia to Professional Soldier “

Not seeing the connection.

The Roman army with legion structure existed a lot sooner than 4BC. Where are you getting your information from?

The marius reforms were the beginnings of the "modern" Roman Army

Roman army - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Roman legion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tytalan]

And we come back to the basic premise of the Third Imperium, the imperium doesn’t rule planets at its core the imperium was founded to bolster and protect trade nothing else. There’s no benefit for the imperium itself to build infrastructure on worlds, the imperium doesn’t have any reasons to try to rule the planets themselves. The whole ideal of centralized rule does Make sense if your trying to support trade, it only makes sense if your stealing resources and tribute form your member worlds, diversity and free trade makes for a better environment for trade. The whole ideal that the imperium would attempt direct control over worlds with a 2+ month communication loop is unrealistic. People keep trying to use the Roman Empire as a framework for the Imperium, this is an unrealistic comparison since the Roman Empire only cared about the tributes and slaves it received from the province's. Even the British empire which actually did encourage trade is only a partially effective comparison. In both cases the Empires in question suffered rebellion after rebellion from small to large mostly because of the attempt to directly rule its far off provinces.

 

[actionman]

And we come back to the basic premise of the Third Imperium, the imperium doesn’t rule planets at its core the imperium was founded to bolster and protect trade nothing else.

I dunno. The lore says that the 3I rules the space between the stars and lets planets govern themselves. But then there are all the exceptions to policy, like it collects taxes from member worlds, it bans certain things on all the worlds in its territory, it won't let worlds secede, it arrogates absolute power to itself, and so on. That doesn't sound like a political entity that only exists to bolster and protect trade. It sounds like an empire that uses trade as an extension of politics by other means.

It seems like the 3I and its military aristocracy is all about its own power and wealth, and letting planets govern themselves until things might get out of hand is simply what the 3I determined to be the most expedient method of controlling its far-flung dominions.

 

[Vormaerin]

People are always going to be mostly be about their own power and wealth as long as that's the economic model we are operating under. And Charted Space is certainly not some Ian Banks-ian post scarcity economy.

But as mentioned elsewhere, the core reality is that the "Imperium rules the space between planets" and "Imperial government starts at the subsector level" are concept that have been jettisoned. They just still linger around like a bad smell, causing wrinkling of noses.

They could have built that Imperium. But they didn't. Ideally, they would commit to the bit at some point and stop pretending the Imperium is hands off. Because they clearly aren't in the material being produced these days.

 

[Vormaerin]

It always struck me that the point of making a sprawling setting like Charted Space should be to make a lot of different regions customized to different kinds of campaigns.

Here's the Core: Ideal for stuff like the Stainless Steel Rat or palace intrigue or high tech paradigm changes kinds of campaigns.
There's the Marches: Great for frontier conflict themed games. War time smugglers, rebels, Naval officers, mercs, etc
The Rim is great for going where no man has gone before and deep space exploration.
This other space is awesome for trade pioneering. Or savage backwater of the week pulp campaigns. Or Star Vikings.

Whatever your jam is, there's a published sector to support it. That's what I would expect of a centrally planned "primary setting". But, of course, Charted Space is the opposite of centrally planned. Most of the sectors we have were originally designed by 3rd party publishers that weren't talking to each other or to GDW in any planning sense because "this blank space is mine".

And there's been retcons and spinoffs. And, of course, GDW confused the popularity of flavor text like the TAS reports and Rumors with people wanting a centrally controlled campaign progression which resulted in a lot of essentially useless for actual game play material like the original 5FW, the Imperial Civil War, etc. Basically the antithesis of cool flavor text :/

 

[-Daniel-]

It always struck me that the point of making a sprawling setting like Charted Space should be to make a lot of different regions customized to different kinds of campaigns.

Here's the Core: Ideal for stuff like the Stainless Steel Rat or palace intrigue or high tech paradigm changes kinds of campaigns.
There's the Marches: Great for frontier conflict themed games. War time smugglers, rebels, Naval officers, mercs, etc
The Rim is great for going where no man has gone before and deep space exploration.
This other space is awesome for trade pioneering. Or savage backwater of the week pulp campaigns. Or Star Vikings.

Whatever your jam is, there's a published sector to support it. That's what I would expect of a centrally planned "primary setting". But, of course, Charted Space is the opposite of centrally planned. Most of the sectors we have were originally designed by 3rd party publishers that weren't talking to each other or to GDW in any planning sense because "this blank space is mine".

And there's been retcons and spinoffs. And, of course, GDW confused the popularity of flavor text like the TAS reports and Rumors with people wanting a centrally controlled campaign progression which resulted in a lot of essentially useless for actual game play material like the original 5FW, the Imperial Civil War, etc. Basically the antithesis of cool flavor text :/

Very well done.

 

[tytalan]

But as mentioned elsewhere, the core reality is that the "Imperium rules the space between planets" and "Imperial government starts at the subsector level" are concept that have been jettisoned. They just still linger around like a bad smell, causing wrinkling of noses.

By who and where? Because I’ve seen no where in mongoose T2 where they’ve stated differently. The CRB literally states the opposite of jettisoning it “The Imperium commands the space between the stars, ensuring that civilisation endures and trade continues. Megacorporations and feudal lords conduct the bulk of this trade but there will always be a place for the free trader – hardy Travellers and adventurers on the fringes of Charted Space, dealing in strange goods and smuggled cargoes, doing whatever they can to make a Credit.” Page 3 CRB 2022

There are good solid reasons for the imperium not to directly control the planets themselves biggest is communication lag.

 

[Condottiere]

The Roman Empire expanded until it couldn't, for geographical and socio economic political reasons.

It's sort of implied that the Third Imperium has, or had, reached that point.

Also, from what I heard, Augustus was deeply interested in trade, to lubricate his Empire, especially that part about flow and liquidity.

 

[tytalan]

Also, from what I heard, Augustus was deeply interested in trade, to lubricate his Empire, especially that part about flow and liquidity.

Yes he was to bad none of the other who followed him were.

The Roman Empire expanded until it couldn't, for geographical and socio economic political reasons.

It's sort of implied that the Third Imperium has, or had, reached that point.

except that’s only in regards to the Marches, because it’s also been implied that the imperiums current expansion is aimed in the opposite direction. But the imperiums expansion has definitely slowed

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's sort of implied that the Third Imperium has, or had, reached that point.

It is flat out stated in the original Spinward Marches

 

[Sigtrygg]

One of the mistake Frank et al admitted to was surrounding the Imperium on all sides so there was no longer any potential for exploration and expansion.

Spinward is possible, but a solution to the Zhodani would have to be reached - a continuation of Imperial encroachment and then expansion beyond the Marches could be achived by convincing the Zhodani the Imperium will leabe the Consulate alone.
Trailing is possible but will run into the K'kree at some point.
Coreward is not possible due to - Vargr, Jullian Protectorate, Zhodani
Rimward - closed off by the Solomani.

Not that it matters, the empire collapses to infighting in 1116

My personal view is that they also made the Imperium too big in the first place, or should have included a jump gate technology to allow limited rapid transit from sector to sector. Not something warfleets of bulk haulers could use, but PCs could.

 

[MasterGwydion]

By who and where? Because I’ve seen no where in mongoose T2 where they’ve stated differently. The CRB literally states the opposite of jettisoning it “The Imperium commands the space between the stars, ensuring that civilisation endures and trade continues. Megacorporations and feudal lords conduct the bulk of this trade but there will always be a place for the free trader – hardy Travellers and adventurers on the fringes of Charted Space, dealing in strange goods and smuggled cargoes, doing whatever they can to make a Credit.” Page 3 CRB 2022

There are good solid reasons for the imperium not to directly control the planets themselves biggest is communication lag.

I am still trying to figure out why the CRB has any reference to Charted Space. The CRB is a Core Book and not a Setting Book.

 

[Sigtrygg]

One of these days I am going to sit down and track where the "the Imperium rules the space between the planets" trope comes from, it makes no sense at all.
For example - did the Sylean Federation rule the worlds that made up the Sylean Federation or was the federal level just an oversight governmental tier? Federal US government or federal EU government.
When Cleon declared the Imperium did the Imperium take up the mantle of ruling the Sylean planets, did the Imperial governemt just replace the federal government, or was the Imperium yet another tiers added on top?
Without ruling planets and having their own economy how does the Imperium generate the wealth necessary to cover the costs of the nobility, ministries and armed forces?

 

[Condottiere]

I thought it was High Guard.

Which seems the most relevant in terms of clarifying that statement.

 

[Sigtrygg]

"The force that rules the space between the stars controls both transportation and communication, and as a result, controls all intercourse between worlds. The instrument of such control is the Navy." HG'79 intro.

Doesn't say that the Imperium doesn't rule planets though.