Two aspects of Darrian history that always kind of bugged me

[Cleon the Mad]

Hello,

Since the Darrian book is more or less just around the corner, I figured I'd see what people thought about this. And maybe if I'm lucky the author might pop in with a hint or mention of how such has been handled by him.

1) Why would the pre-Maghiz Darrians have a "Navy"? If I recall right in the CT Alien Module 8, it stated that the Darrian Navy had a few pre-Maghiz Naval ships that survived the Maghiz and these were the core of a small TL 16 fleet. Okay..erm..why did they have them? The Terrans that colonized the planet knew (I assume) that this world with these golden skinned people was in the middle of nowhere as far as they were concerned, they were fleeing the start of the Long Night/end of the 2nd Imperium if I recall. The Sword Worlds didn't exist yet, and I don't think they knew about the Zhodani being fairly close either.

The only answers I can come up with are:

a) They did know about the Vargrs a few subsectors coreward (or at least knew Vargrs COULD be kind of close) so as society advanced, they made sure they kept something of an active navy of some sort that was able to take on corsairs.

b) They assumed or worried about others finding out which way they went, for whatever reason and was paranoid that someone else might follow.

c) The "official" history of peaceful Terrans of Turkish ancestry landing on Darrian and integrating with the natives in a beneficial manner is pure bunk, but it's what people in the circa 1100 Imperium, including the Darrians themselves know as the "truth" now.

d) Maybe they did integrate as history claims, but some Darrians worlds did split off and they fought a civil war.

e) They did explore some, maybe they decided to either build up a navy to protect against an empire/government they bumped into, or to conqueror said race (but if conqueror) never got around to it.

2) Why did it take so long for the Darrians to recover from the Maghiz? Okay, yes having a solar flare go off that kills off 80 percent of your population and sends out a huge EMP pulse to wreck technology on most of your other worlds would be very devastating. But, this is also a society that went from about TL 3 or 4 to TL 16 in 400 years. Even if one says "Okay, the Terrans that landed had TL 10 gear and TL 12 knowledge", there would have presumably had survived people with TL 16 knowledge, if not on Darrian then on Mire where spaceflight was reestablished and where the capital is now located of the Confederation. The first race to TL 16 would be started at TL 10 or 12 using a lot of natives with TL 3 knowledge (although apparently some TL 7 or so theories). The second one, even if all TL 16 knowledge was forgotten would be starting at TL 9 or 10 when Mire regains spaceflight, and apparently enough TL 16 devices survived (like the Navy mentioned above) for them to be able to reverse engineer from that.

Or the short form: Why didn't it take about 400 years for them to hit TL 16 again once Mire regained spaceflight for the race? In fact, they really aren't TL 16 except for the pre-Maghiz items they have that still function, and if this was used from GURPS Humaniti, some limited automated factories that apparently did survive the Maghiz. New items on Darrian seem to be about TL 14, give or take based on the CT Alien Module.

Okay..any thoughts?

Oh for the record, this isn't a flame of the upcoming book, just discussion about what people think about this. In fact I have a pre-order with Mongoose right now. If I see Amazon.com saying it's in stock before Mongoose ships it's pre-orders I may get it from them, but allow my Mongoose pre-order to go through so I have a second copy for a player or friend to borrow.

 

[justacaveman]

Does it say whether or not the pre-Maghiz ships were jump capable?

If the ships were not jump capable, then they were system defence boats or such. And just because you're in a single system does mean you don't need a navy. There's search and rescue, intra-system commerce, exploration, system defence etc..

 

[Cleon the Mad]

Does it say whether or not the pre-Maghiz ships were jump capable?

If the ships were not jump capable, then they were system defence boats or such. And just because you're in a single system does mean you don't need a navy. There's search and rescue, intra-system commerce, exploration, system defence etc..

I'm hazy on my memory, but I want to say they are jump capable. I think it's at least implied they must be since the idea is that the TL 16 ships they found if armed they just basically took out of mothballs, refueld and powerd up. The ones that weren't (they also found some civilian TL 16 vessels that survived) were armed with new weapons at current TL, but again otherwise untouched.

Most of the functions you mention could be done by unarmed vessels though, IF the Darrians were as isolated as they assumed they were. To be fair, at TL 16 they are more then single system, they had an interstellar state more or less the size of the current Darrian Confederation, give or take a few worlds. But, again the Terrans that showed up 400 years before the Maghiz would have 1) known that The 2nd Imperium had fallen apart since they were fleeing it as it was collapsing, and anything that could pretend to claim any legacy to it was a good 2 or 3 sectors trailing at worst. 2) Didn't know about the Zhodani being kind of close. 3) Possibly didn't know about the Vargr being kind of close.

Maybe my first question should be closer to "Okay, why would the Darrians have vessels armed like a Navy? They had no-one to fight".

 

[rust]

According to GURPS Traveller Humaniti, the Solomani contacted the Dar-
rians in -1511 and had fully integrated into their society in -1400. They
began to build a fleet, and the first wave of exploration took place be-
tween -1395 and -1370. Since the Solomani with their military tradition
were the driving force behind this, and their armed ships the models the
Darrians built upon, I do not find it surprising that the Darrians had a na-
vy at the time of the Maghiz in -924.

The Maghiz itself is ... well ... major nonsense. The description that is part
of the Traveller "canon" is simply impossible, either the Darrian system
would have been destroyed completely - no survivors possible - or the
EMP would never have been powerful enough to do any harm several par-
sec away.

This also makes the entire reconstruction scenario rather irrelevant, in my
view the best replacement for all this would be: The Darrian homeworld
was made uninhabitable for many years by the solar flare, the complete
destruction of the industrial workshop of the entire Darrian civilization rui-
ned the economies of the colonies, Darrians from the colonies began to
resettle Darrian after they had recovered from their "Long Night".

 

[hdan]

...unless the Maghiz was actually more than an "accidental" use of the Star Trigger. Maybe there was a brief civil war in which the Star Trigger was used on a few worlds to disastrous (pun intended) effect. Either the general public was unaware of the attack (more of a terrorist action than a real civil war) or as a people, they have "retconned" their own history of the event.

 

[BP]

What?

All of this is consistent with the consistent inconsistencies found though-out the OTU...

 

[AndrewW]

Yes the pre Maghiz warships are jump capable, but the Darrians didn't have access to them till long after the Maghiz.

The Star Trigger device was accidental, they had no idea that was going to happen.

As for why they aren't back to TL16, there is a reason but alas you get to wait for the book on that one.

 

[kristof65]

2) Why did it take so long for the Darrians to recover from the Maghiz? Okay, yes having a solar flare go off that kills off 80 percent of your population and sends out a huge EMP pulse to wreck technology on most of your other worlds would be very devastating. But, this is also a society that went from about TL 3 or 4 to TL 16 in 400 years. Even if one says "Okay, the Terrans that landed had TL 10 gear and TL 12 knowledge", there would have presumably had survived people with TL 16 knowledge, if not on Darrian then on Mire where spaceflight was reestablished and where the capital is now located of the Confederation.

I don't know how the author is going to handle it, but I do know this:

TL16 knowledge may not mean much without an infrastructure to build it.

I have nearly 30 years of electronics knowledge and experience, primarily in radios. Yet if I were to find myself in some sort of post-apocolyptic scenario, all that knowledge would really help me do is scavenge and repair. If I wanted to build a radio from scratch, I'd be forced to build all of my electronic components by scratch - hand wound resistors, hand made capacitors, vacuum tubes, etc. Even with knowledgable help, I'd spend years tracking down the required materials, building my vacuum pumps, hand blowing my glass, etc, just to make radios. And that's assuming I could find the knowledgable help easily in a post apocolyptic world.

Even my engineering friends who understand the ins and outs of silicon transistor design would be forced to resort to older technology to get to a level of building what they know. The more advanced their knowledge, the harder it may be to rebuild the interim knowledge that got them there. I see that first hand everyday - there are plenty of highly skilled computer techs out there who do not understand the basics of the electroncs that make up those computers. And programmers who can make those computers do all sorts of amazing things without understanding the components of their computers. As we progress, it's only going to get worse.

That's just the reality of advancing technical knowledge. There are other factors to consider as well, a major disaster like that could cause fear and distrust of technology, setting aside the desire to rebuild merely to deal with day to day survival, etc.

 

[rust]

TL16 knowledge may not mean much without an infrastructure to build it.

True, but even if a solar flare in the Darrian home system could have ig-
nored the inverse square law and produced an EMP powerful enough to
damage electronics at least about 206,166 AU further away, how could
that EMP have destroyed that infrastructure on Mire and elsewhere ? :?

 

[kristof65]

..how could that EMP have destroyed that infrastructure on Mire and elsewhere ? :?

I don't have any of the books to check on things right now, so the following may be irrelevant:

It depends on what the infrastructure on Mire and elsewhere were to begin with when the EMP happened. Even if they were completely untouched, they may not have had the infrastructure the higher tech level needs.



Personally, because of the inverse square law, the way I would have handled writing it was that the device didn't trigger a solar flare itself, but triggered an unknown wave with a slower decay rate that rode the boundry between real space and jump space, and triggered solar flares in each star and other bizzare effects in each large gravity well, like planets, etc that it passed through.

 

[Jame Rowe]

The Darrians could have had a Navy 'cause the Sollies were there, knowing that the Vilani could show up at any time.

 

[rust]

Personally, because of the inverse square law, the way I would have handled writing it was that the device didn't trigger a solar flare itself, but triggered an unknown wave with a slower decay rate that rode the boundry between real space and jump space, and triggered solar flares in each star and other bizzare effects in each large gravity well, like planets, etc that it passed through.

Yep, a good idea.

 

[Captain Jonah]

TL16 knowledge may not mean much without an infrastructure to build it.

True, but even if a solar flare in the Darrian home system could have ig-
nored the inverse square law and produced an EMP powerful enough to
damage electronics at least about 206,166 AU further away, how could
that EMP have destroyed that infrastructure on Mire and elsewhere ? :?

The more advanced the tech becomes the more the infrastructure depends on computers to function. EMP a modern country and almost every car fails, they are still there just non working. They rust away over time till by the time you recover the ability to make the computers in them they are long gone.

The more of your tech manuals are digital the less of them you can access after an emp. After all your libraries have gone online and the last few hard copy vaults are emptied and closed you reach a point where your survivors may have the knowledge but no machines to use or repair as even the repair tools are dead, Plus you have word of mouth and writing new tech books from memory onto paper to pass on that knowledge so the knowledge base fades over the generations.

Anyway you are still left with the physics behind it just not making sense.

Unless the Darrians secretly had something like a jump gate network/wormholes/portals that could channel the emp flash to every nearby darrian world allowing the blast to be just strong enough to fry the tech but not toast the planet.

I'll be waiting to see what the MonT version of this is

 

[Mongoose Pete]

Since the Darrian book is more or less just around the corner, I figured I'd see what people thought about this. And maybe if I'm lucky the author might pop in with a hint or mention of how such has been handled by him.

I'll try...

1) Why would the pre-Maghiz Darrians have a "Navy"? If I recall right in the CT Alien Module 8, it stated that the Darrian Navy had a few pre-Maghiz Naval ships that survived the Maghiz and these were the core of a small TL 16 fleet. Okay..erm..why did they have them?

Some things to consider about the Darrians:
1) They are very smart.
2) Their sensor technology, even post-Maghiz, is second to none.
3) They had in influx of Solomani colonists who arrived with warships.
4) They know that the 2nd Imperium is fracturing and that Humaniti engage in space warfare.

So although they may not of made direct contact with any other polity, they are perfectly aware of civilized worlds beyond the periphery of their sector, even those unknown to their Solomani allies. Alerted to 2nd Imperium instability and the troubles encountered by the refugees, the Darrians prepared for potential conflict.

You'll note that the TL16 fleet was found in a military stockpile in the far reaches of the Daryen system. Having several dozen warships sitting in storage suggested to me that the Darrians were creating arms caches in the event they might need a fleet, rather than perhaps actually running one at the time (although they might well have had).

Another interesting point is that knowing there are civilisations out there, the Darrians journeyed out to 20 parsecs, made sure their region was clear, and then returned home. Considering their almost genetic prevalence for scientific curiosity, this strikes me as a very significant fact. Were they deliberately trying to avoid being noticed?

2) Why did it take so long for the Darrians to recover from the Maghiz?

Okay, before I continue I have to point out that I went to great efforts to rationalise as many of the inconsistencies in the canon as I could. Some were redacted by the inner circle, but on the whole the science (where applicable) has been updated and common sense applied to fix the worst contradictions.

That said, the Maghiz of course was one of the biggest bugbears to take care of. As Rust rightly pointed out, a stellar eruption capable of producing the Maghiz would have caused far more serious effects. Faced with either a global extinction event or a single system disaster with no interstellar EMP wave, I decided on the former - albeit still greatly diluting the strength of the wave.

I had several reasons for this. Firstly it better supported the TL crash and slow recovery. Secondly it also explained why after two millennia Daryen still only has a fifth of the population of Mire. Thirdly, it was more horrific.

With the majority of Darrian colonies being little more than scientific outposts (explanations are given in the book as to why on a world by world basis), almost all manufacturing (shipbuilding especially) remained centralised on Daryen. As kristof65 quite rightly postulated, with no infrastructure you cannot support a high TL, so the Darrians backslid a long way, some worlds further than others.

Why it took so long to recover was based on the extrapolation of several points. The Darrian's original intellectual explosion gained a significant kickstart by having access to an imported TL10 manufacturing base. Additionally they had a large, stable population which could be assigned to research and project development. The post-Maghiz colonies had neither and were forced to devote everything they had just to survive. Most of their knowledge base was destroyed too, whole areas of science being completely lost with the Daryen universities.

However, once they regained interstellar travel they do seem to have been slow to recover, especially considering their social focus towards study and research. As to why this is I have left a hint or two in the book.

Oh for the record, this isn't a flame of the upcoming book, just discussion about what people think about this. In fact I have a pre-order with Mongoose right now. If I see Amazon.com saying it's in stock before Mongoose ships it's pre-orders I may get it from them, but allow my Mongoose pre-order to go through so I have a second copy for a player or friend to borrow.

Don't worry. I'm expecting to get it in the neck from a few canon purists. Whilst I've tried to be minimalist and sympathetic to updating the original AM8 material, where I was allowed, I'm sure my interpretations and extrapolations might frustrate some people.

On the other hand, I am hoping the majority of purchasers will be pleased that I finally answered, or fixed, many of the outstanding questions, and made the Darrians a bit more interesting and fun, rather than propagating the space-elf stereotype the Darrians have been cursed with since their conception...

Personally, because of the inverse square law, the way I would have handled writing it was that the device didn't trigger a solar flare itself, but triggered an unknown wave with a slower decay rate that rode the boundry between real space and jump space, and triggered solar flares in each star and other bizzare effects in each large gravity well, like planets, etc that it passed through.

If only I could have!

 

[rust]

Faced with either a global extinction event or a single system disaster with no interstellar EMP wave, I decided on the former - albeit still greatly diluting the strength of the wave.

I think this was the best of the certainly not many options you had.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

The more of your tech manuals are digital the less of them you can access after an emp. After all your libraries have gone online and the last few hard copy vaults are emptied and closed you reach a point where your survivors may have the knowledge but no machines to use or repair as even the repair tools are dead, Plus you have word of mouth and writing new tech books from memory onto paper to pass on that knowledge so the knowledge base fades over the generations.

QFT. Whilst researching and writing the book, the Darrians were looking disquietingly like a prediction to me. As technology advances, our civilisation, as our electronics, is becoming ever more fragile.

Look at us now. We are currently living in a world where a big X-Class flare could take out the majority of our telecoms. The US military no longer insists on hardened electronics in standard equipment based on a risk analysis of likely HEMP attacks. And we fail to train students in the intermediary technology and manufacturing steps required to rebuild infrastructure, if we suffer some global catastrophe.

Poor forethought on our part, based primarily on economics. But it does go to show that the possibility of collapse is prevalent, at least amongst Solomani. :wink:

I'll be waiting to see what the MonT version of this is

Description-wise, it is considerably more err... dramatic.

 

[BP]

QFT. Whilst researching and writing the book, the Darrians were looking disquietingly like a prediction to me. As technology advances, our civilisation, as our electronics, is becoming ever more fragile.

Not really. More our understanding of our vulnerabilities. (And cultural self-importance stimulated by drama-centric media.)

Granted, modern solid state electronics is more sensitive to EMP than the larger TTL and tube based systems of yester-year, but in general, electronics has not really become more fragile - quite the opposite.

And, on the EMP front - optical technologies - the next natural progression (one seriously delayed when the U.S. Reagan administration broke up AT&T for Cable companies) negates EMP issues (especially if fully implemented).

Look at us now. We are currently living in a world where a big X-Class flare could take out the majority of our telecoms.

Actually, no - though a large amount, yes (at least temporarily). But, mostly that is a luxury and not truely essential. Dramatic, yes. Catastrophic, no.

The US military no longer insists on hardened electronics in standard equipment based on a risk analysis of likely HEMP attacks.

True - based on the same type of hard analysis that fostered the original policies. If it should become an issue with conventional forces, things have escalated to a whole different level - where such assets become secondary.

This does not mean the modern U.S. soldier is unable to fight nor operate (even without extended communications) - effectiveness in conventional warfare would be impaired - but, again, at that stage that is no longer an issue.

And we fail to train students in the intermediary technology and manufacturing steps required to rebuild infrastructure, if we suffer some global catastrophe.

In the case of the U.S., we largely fail to train them on the fundamentals, period. Dependency on foreign parties for manufacturing, is rampant. (In general - the U.S. is after all a very large country with almost 1/3 of a billion people.)

Then again - most folks aren't really involved in that infrastructure to begin with.

Poor forethought on our part, based primarily on economics. But it does go to show that the possibility of collapse is prevalent, at least amongst Solomani.

Greed more like.
Economically, it makes sense to plan ahead for contingencies.

 

[rust]

In Germany the measures to ensure long term data protection include a
bunker in a former mine where currently about 28,000 km of microfilms
with together about 850,000,000 pictures are stored, everything from our
cultural heritage to entire technical libraries. I have no doubt that several
of our neighbouring nations have established similar protected long term
archives which are designed to survive a major nuclear war.

To protect both the cultural heritage and the technical and scientific know-
ledge of any culture in such a way seems so obviously necessary and pru-
dent that I would find it very difficult to imagine that all Darrian colonies
should have ignored it or somehow lost their long term archives - which
is why I really doubt that any EMP, no matter how strong, could wipe out
the technology of a civilization.

 

[BP]

Yep. Not only is data being archived and protected - so are all matter of living and tangible aspects of our world. Seeds, DNA, bacteria (probably even viruses) are all being preserved by several governments (and other parties) in the event of catastrophic natural and man-made disasters.

This is not to say that civilization, as we know it today, cannot cease to exist between heartbeats. That aspect is no different for civilization as a whole than it is for any person...

 

[Cleon the Mad]

I missed the author's post until just now, so thus just deleted a couple recent posts I also made just now since they were rendered more or less moot.

Anyway, my thanks to "Mongoose Pete" for posting. That does to a degree answer at least the "Navy" part of my question for me, and to a lesser degree the "Maghiz recovery" part of my question. And, makes me wish I had the book in my hands even more now. I suspect I'm going to be printing off a small stack of character sheets the night the book gets here and making a few charaters.