Travellers Needed! Traveller's 50th

Here is my impromptu Top 10 suggestions. (Warning: some are a bit silly, but ideas might lead onto greater things.):

  1. Hold a FTL "Grand Prix" Racing challenge - could take weeks to reach the finish line.
  2. Hold a 50 x 52 Parsecs challenge - In 50 years, a simple Jump-1 ship can travel 50 x 52 = 2600 Parsecs. So map out 2,600 parsecs worth of new sectors (and adjust for the time it takes to refuel.)
  3. Hold a "Pimp your Yatch" competition, with all yatchs entered into the competition being displayed to the public in orbit around some Duke's homeworld.
  4. TAS Bingo. Hold a lottery where first five lottery tickets pulled out of a hat win free TAS membership. Offer anagathics and metabolic accelerators as runner up prizes.
  5. Release an adventure set in a Steampunk World with a Victorian 19th Century TL. Devise rules for Steampunk tech and world. (Idea inspired by Azukail's "100 Things to Find in a Steampunk Workshop.")
  6. Release an "Explorer's Edition" of the Aliens of Chartered Space volumes, especially suited for beginners who want to explore the possibility of being an Alien character but know next-to-nothing about alien races in Traveller's futuristic 'mythology'.
  7. Time Lords and other Time Travellers - devise optional rules for Time Travel within the Mongoose rule system.
  8. Release a foil covered limited-edition of the 1977 LBBs.
  9. Release an online electronic index covering content for all Mongoose Traveller publications.
  10. Aim to cut back on the number of errata being produced per publication release.
I like the Time Travellers idea.
 
"Traveller 50 - 7727AD new setting announced Imperial Year 3209 - Two thousand years after the events of the Fifth Frontier War, new technologies have opened up the whole galaxy."

Or better yet, Imperial year 7727 (12,245AD) - millennia have passed since the wave swept through, the black ships confronted, and collapse after collapse averted.
In one form or another the Iridium Thone continued a line of succession to the far far future.

Humanity and the Vargr discovered their true inheritance. Distant reaches of the galaxy became accessible thanks to new technologies, starfaring species the likes of which could scarcely be imagined have been sailing the galaxy for a billion years or more.
Think Star Wars, Foundation, Twilight Imperium in scope. The races shown on the map in the Companion explored.
 
A galaxy spanning setting would allow for interaction with:
Abyssals - my write up has them as a sort of mixture of pentapod gods and old ones
Denizens - a diverse range of sophonts that were moving between the stars using various forms of STL or at c long before Grandfather invented jump travel
Core Sophonts - may or may not be tied back to the primordials, the Wisps of the Core
Anomaly One - not saying what this is :)
Essaray - immortality has a price
Dushis Khurisi - Vilani colony that wasn't possessed by the entity that lead to the TL stagnation of the Ziru Sirka
The Barren Arm - something has killed off gas giant dwellers
The Kursae mystery - what happened to them, are they still here

One of my pet peeves with charted space is the distances involved and travel between Hivers and the Spinward Marches or the K'kree to the Alsan amke it extremely difficult to use the major races of the setting in a campaign.
 
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My Setting secrets:

the whole of charted space is an experiment, beginning with the seeding of the region with psionic potential

Grandfather invented jump using reality engineering technology to facilitate faster transit for his offspring and not clog up his jump gate network

the Droyne understand the nature of living consciousness, their quantum personality pattern moves on after death, Droyne can re-incarnate if they will it or a coyne ritual dictates - they can also choose to move on

the empress wave is the result of a distant race using reality engineeering technology to further their schemes - hop drive becomes possible once it has passed

the Annic Nova crew returned to the Ziru Sirka with many secrets, one of which was the composite entity that would become the shadow emperor

the Terran experiments with AI during the ISW resulted in a race of machine intelligences that caused the long night in order to hide themselves, they are still around somewhere

the assassination of Strephon is a reality nexus due to his interaction with the empress wave

in the far far future travelling to different eras is possible to observe or to meddle
 
One of my pet peeves with charted space is the distances involved and travel between Hivers and the Spinward Marches or the K'kree to the Alsan amke it extremely difficult to use the major races of the setting in a campaign.
Likewise. That's why I change the Government codes to be:


0 – Unpopulated (Denuli/Insectoid)
0 – Anarchy (wild negotiations)
1 – Corporate (generally human)
2 – Vargr
3 – Hiver Co-operative
4 – Solomani Caucus
5 – Geonee Technocracy
6 – Aslan captured world
7 – Balkanised
8 – Vilani Bureaux
9 – Direct Imperial Rule (generally Human)
A – Zhodani
B – Ithklur
C – Luriani Compact
D – K'kree

Droyne worlds are represented by Amber and Red Zones. The normal population, government and law codes apply to the none-Droyne of these worlds. Amber zoned worlds have Chirper (proto-Droyne) populations present; these are notoriously difficult to accurately measure. Red zoned worlds have fully fledged Droyne societies emerging. In addition Geonee worlds usually have small Chirper groups attached to the households of the Technarchs.

This allows me to make use of all the goodies I want to!
 
If they were available both pre-painted and unpainted. My eyesight isn't good enough to paint My own miniatures, nor are My hands steady enough.
Sigh. I bought a bunch of fantasy figs on eBay a few years ago, and all of the paints and brushes and tools, and... discovered the skills and time I had forty years ago, are gone, now that I have the coin to purchase the toys I always wanted.
 
Sigh. I bought a bunch of fantasy figs on eBay a few years ago, and all of the paints and brushes and tools, and... discovered the skills and time I had forty years ago, are gone, now that I have the coin to purchase the toys I always wanted.
I have faced this every 5 years or so when I come back to miniature painting. Get a stand lamp with magnifier. It makes all the difference. Before that I felt like I was using the Force and hoping for the best with some brushstrokes. And the techniques and even the paint have moved on, so that it has never been this easy to get some really good results, way more than was possible in my younger days.
 
My Setting secrets:

the whole of charted space is an experiment, beginning with the seeding of the region with psionic potential

Grandfather invented jump using reality engineering technology to facilitate faster transit for his offspring and not clog up his jump gate network

the Droyne understand the nature of living consciousness, their quantum personality pattern moves on after death, Droyne can re-incarnate if they will it or a coyne ritual dictates - they can also choose to move on

the empress wave is the result of a distant race using reality engineeering technology to further their schemes - hop drive becomes possible once it has passed

the Annic Nova crew returned to the Ziru Sirka with many secrets, one of which was the composite entity that would become the shadow emperor

the Terran experiments with AI during the ISW resulted in a race of machine intelligences that caused the long night in order to hide themselves, they are still around somewhere

the assassination of Strephon is a reality nexus due to his interaction with the empress wave

in the far far future travelling to different eras is possible to observe or to meddle
You sir, are as mad as a Gallifreyan. My hat is off to you.
 
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It's sold on the Mongoose Website
Yes. I already own The Travelle Book in dead tree and pdf on the CTCD.

What I mean is:

  1. Take the format or style of The Traveller Book.
  2. Use the modern rules for Mongoose Traveller v2 Update.
  3. Get permission from the original artists.
  4. Reproduce the artwork from The Traveller Book in real-life (people and animals), or miniatures (mostly starships but some of those people minis are detailed!), or CG artwork (Ian Stead and others). I would donate the pic Andrew Boulton made for me of a Scout/Courier in front of the Horsehead Nebula.
  5. Or even ask the original artists to reproduce the art realistically, if they are interested.
  6. But include everything that's in both The Traveller Book AND the Mongoose Traveller v2 Update.
Just an idea.
 
Hey everyone,

2027 marks Traveller's 50th birthday, and we have been knocking around some possible ideas on how to celebrate the event.

So... what would you all like to see?

Are we allowed to dream of moonshots? My dream would be to see a digital Traveller map, like travellermap.com, but built only with standard technology (html/js/css) and downloadable, so that it can endure the test of time.

I have all books of MgT2 so far, and I'm happy with that, they're here to stay. But as a software developer, I know travellermap.com is not. Their developer did an awesome job giving us this incredible software, and they even open source'd it, which should be praised in deep gratitude. Yet, this is usual software subject to software rot : it has dependencies that will break on updates, uses languages that will introduce backward incompatibilities, as go with all software. If it ever go unmaintained, it will only be a few years before it can't run anymore. We all depend on the developer keeping maintaining it for us, and it will eventually stop.

There is a solution for that, and it's building on standards - and particularly standards having multiple implementations. HTML, javascript and CSS, the building blocks for webpages, are such standards. Building an interactive map application with only that (no dependencies, no backend) would allow people to download it and have it lasting at the very least long enough to survive them, and probably their children too. That's what I would like to see for Traveller, something that writes Traveller down in the digital far future.

EDIT: of course, such lasting/offline application would mean no collaboration on wiki pages anymore, I'm just talking of a map with static content.
 
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Are we allowed to dream of moonshots? My dream would be to see a digital Traveller map, like travellermap.com, but built only with standard technology (html/js/css) and downloadable, so that it can endure the test of time.
There are discussions being had about travellermap.com and its longevity, starting with Mongoose possibly hosting it and so ensuring a degree of continuity should anything unfortunate happen. Beyond that, we are in wish list territory, but this is something that could very much bear looking at.
 
One thing that niggles at the back of my brain is that the map for Traveller is 2D and the Milky Way is 3D. I know why it was done like that and your brain just automatically adapts to the 2D version but still ...

So ...

What I would like and this would be a huge amount of work, is to take the data we already have for the Milky Way and transpose Traveller worlds upon it.
 
What I would like and this would be a huge amount of work, is to take the data we already have for the Milky Way and transpose Traveller worlds upon it.
I think 2300 AD system does this already. It uses an adapted Traveller UPP (Universal Planetary Profile) together with Stellar Coordinates. The Sol System is referenced as (0, 0, 0) and a distance formula calculation is provided. Haven't checked every star on the provided map, but some names ring a bell as obvious Milky Way names. See 2300 AD (Book 2) for details.
There has been talk about transposing that 3D map onto the 2D Traveller subsector map(s) on Discord, which triggered a variety of suggestions, including writing a spreadsheet calculator, stacking subsector maps to create 3D effect and adjusting graphic brightness or star to suggest higher or lower locations. Could also use different colours to suggest height dimension levels.
 
One thing that niggles at the back of my brain is that the map for Traveller is 2D and the Milky Way is 3D. I know why it was done like that and your brain just automatically adapts to the 2D version but still ...

So ...

What I would like and this would be a huge amount of work, is to take the data we already have for the Milky Way and transpose Traveller worlds upon it.

There is Near Space by Stellagamma Publishing which details a quadrant centred on Sol. Well worth checking out.
 
This is absolutely a digression of the segue from the interruption that has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand....
But.
You know what the little kid inside me would really REALLY like from Traveller for its 50th Anniversary [I mean, besides a sequel to Agent of the Imperium]? The 15 year old kid inside me who had to go through evangelical fundamentalist picketers in front of the book store so I could spend my hard-earned fast food money on High Guard would really love to see a Triple A computer game faithfully set in the Charted Space milieu. Something done with the same love, respect and attention that Larian did with BG3.
Yeah, I know... wish in one hand and piss in the other, see which one gets wet. I totally understand the economics of both the print and computer gaming industries. I'm well aware of how difficult it would be to pull in new fans while keeping us old geezers happy.
But somebody asked what I wanted, so there it is.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion already in progress.
 
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I think 2300 AD system does this already. It uses an adapted Traveller UPP (Universal Planetary Profile) together with Stellar Coordinates. The Sol System is referenced as (0, 0, 0) and a distance formula calculation is provided. Haven't checked every star on the provided map, but some names ring a bell as obvious Milky Way names. See 2300 AD (Book 2) for details.
There has been talk about transposing that 3D map onto the 2D Traveller subsector map(s) on Discord, which triggered a variety of suggestions, including writing a spreadsheet calculator, stacking subsector maps to create 3D effect and adjusting graphic brightness or star to suggest higher or lower locations. Could also use different colours to suggest height dimension levels.
But let's be 100% honest about 2300AD's Stellar Map, or for that matter any 3D astronomical map intended for gaming...
NOBODY actually uses them for their intended purpose.
What we do is look at them, get confused by them, be impressed with the artwork, and then go looking at the cross-reference table to find out just how long it'll take to get from System A to System B. Yes, some or perhaps many of us in the gaming public don't have a problem visualizing the spatial relationships. But most of us do, and I'm one of that majority. Way back when Invasion came out, I had a Hell of a time plotting the movements and stratagems and I'm a lifelong military historian who has been playing wargames since I was 12 years old.
And since we want to sell products to as many people as possible, I think it would be wise for us to consider my point here.
 
You know what the little kid inside me would really REALLY like from Traveller for its 50th Anniversary [I mean, besides a sequel to Agent of the Imperium]? The 15 year old kid inside me who had to go through evangelical fundamentalist picketers in front of the book store so I could spend my hard-earned fast food money on High Guard would really love to see a Triple A computer game faithfully set in the Charted Space milieu. Something done with the same love, respect and attention that Larian did with BG3.
My hope is for a triple-A (would settle for double-A) Traveller game that is a cross between equal parts Elite: Dangerous and Mass Effect...
 
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