What Would You Want to See in a New Major Race?

[J Harper]

I know that the odds of this happening in a new supplement are slim to none, but if one or more new 'Major' Races were introduced, what kind of civilization and type would you like to see? Is there a niche open in the Third Imperium setting that would be a good fit for a new Major power, so it wouldn't feel redundant?

I think a heavily roboticized or cybernetic-reliant civilization could work. For example, in the couple of non-TI games I ran years ago, I had a human-variant polity known as the Mechus Empire. Several disasters forced an exodus fleet to heavily innovate their AI. They succeeded tremendously and grew to be one of the most powerful factions in human territory. The human population remained small and either retired to live luxuriously on carefully tended and heavily defended garden worlds or uploaded their consciousnesses into a VR network designed to be a paradise. Their robotic servitors' purpose is to maintain their beloved masters' standard of living, and if that means being an expansionist power exploiting lesser human or alien polities, so be it.

For the Third Imperium, the founding humans of the Mechus Empire could simply be another Ancient transplanted branch of Humaniti, though them being human is not an important part of their backstory.

When researching 2300 AD recently, I ran across mention by one or two Referees liking to introduce the Kaefer into Charted Space. The Pentapods also seem to be a good choice, IMHO. Any opinions on this?

Does anyone have any homebrewed Major Races, or experiences with games introducing them, they'd like to share?

 

[Sigtrygg]

The whole point of the major race/minor race delineation is to show the inherent racism of the setting. It has long been one of the holy edicts from on high that in the charted regions of space there are only 6 major races. So you would have to go back and change the Droyne coyns if you introduced another
Joke.
Vargr, Humaniti, Hiver, Aslan, K'kree, Droyne. According to canon they all independently invented jump drive. Except they didn't.
The Aslan reverse engineered it from a Terran ship.
Humaniti invented it on three separate occasions (but there may be more to that story too)
The Droyne are not quite the same race that invented the jump drive, although they are the modern descendants.

The extended galactic map shows that there are other major powers out there in the galaxy.

If you want to include a new major power in your Traveller universe go for it

I have the Kafers to rimward of the Solomani, along with other races from T2300 and a couple from Alternity.

I too have a machine people major power of sorts but

Spoiler

The machines gained sentience during the ISW period. They hid this from humans until they could come up with a solution to the one existential problem - human vs machine conflict. Their eventual solution was to just leave human space, they hid their passing with the banking crash that had the unfortunate effect of triggering the fall of the Rule of Man and the long night that followed.
The machines are still out there, in the dark places between the stars, hidden in pocket universes and jump space...

 

[TrippyHippy]

Orcs.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Not being in Charted Space.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

The whole point of the major race/minor race delineation is to show the inherent racism of the setting.

It's a great dynamic that really adds a lot to the setting, since it's one of those things that can't be taken at face value and has all sorts of implications for how the factions relate to one another.

The Vilani invent the distinction to justify their superiority over the Geonee and Suerrat, in turn to justify the Consolidation Wars, which are required because their social system works very well so long as it's *closed*. But in time they have to accept that, under the definition they came up with, they are not the only Major Race. They have to share the title -- except none of the other claimants get it "right". The Vargr don't build permanent empires, they just sprawl across a quarter of charted space making a mess; the Solomani inherited/stole the Vilani's empire rather than build their own; the Aslan are actually not a Major Race (that's an open secret now) but try telling them that (and by any other measure they obviously count); the Droyne don't project political power and didn't bother explaining to anyone that they were a Major Race (they don't care); the Hivers and K'kree do have imperial power but neither is a carefully controlled Vilani-style state -- rather near-anarchism loosely held together by Hiver string-pulling and one massive crusading family, respectively.

The only Major Race that actually fits the Vilani model is the Zhodani, and that's politically problematic too, I imagine!

Poor Vilani; Chirpers have to count as a Major Race, since they're Droyne. All high-and-mighty ideas about being the Top Race and you end up being on a level with Chirpers. And fanatical horses. And meddling starfish. And dogs with discipline problems. And humans who do weird things with their mind or innovate all the time like some sort of pervert.

The Aslan aren't actually a Major Race. The S'mrii actually might be. The Geonee developed the jump drive but don't count because the Vilani say so. ("Technically correct -- the *best kind* of correct"; as if we can trust that Vilani and Zhodani didn't get some inspiration from Ancients relics...). The Suerrat and Hhkar were journeying interstellar space for a long time in generation ships, so the distinction hardly matters. The Dynchia and others probably *would* have developed jump drive if a Major Race didn't come along and sell it to them first, meaning they miss out on the title.

It's full of holes, which of course is the point.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

The Kafer from 2300AD are a good choice, but not for playing. They make an excellent existential threat, simply because of the impossibility of negotiation.
I've used the Pentapods to save a stranded group after a misjump. Big bio-engineered world ships floating around were nobody looks. Never tried it, but I imagine they would be quite playable.
The 2300 aliens are some of the best thought out aliens in any game. They are less guy in a rubber suit, and have something about them that is truly... alien.
From Sci-Fi authors, David Brin (Startide Rising et.al.) does a good alien, I've used his Jophur in one of my games.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have plans for the Pentapod "gods" that ties in with the Abyssals...

 

[Condottiere]

I was thinking parrots.

They already can speak English.

Probably pretty polly good at reverse engineering.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

I was thinking parrots.

They already can speak English.

Probably pretty polly good at reverse engineering.

In time we will come to fear the warfleets of the Psittacus Empire. "Polly want a planet-cracker"

 

[Nelphine]

In MTU, there is a major race that are first encountered by the Vargr.

The Vargr find a reasonably habitable world and colonize it. A decade later someone decides to check on them, only to find several million of a new species have built multiple cities, and the Vargr colonists are gone.

In turn, this new species explains (although they dont use these words, as they dont jnow what a Minir or major race is) that they are a Minor race that was transplanted there by their masters - the new major race.

The new major race generally have a crew of less than 10, on ships of upwards of 10000 tons. Planets and fleets are owned, and ruled, by individual members. A single member is more than a match for a standard unit of imperial marines.

The idea was to introduce a species that individually have the power of entire planets, but, despite the power that comes with, they have no concept of war, and their concept of property is completely alien (they have no concept that another being - including one of their own species - can have property. There is only their own property, and that which is not yet their property) - and then to explore how that concept and how it would conduct trade with new Major powers. (The Vargr are the first Major power they've encountered which forces them to consider that 'another' may be as powerful as them, which is completely impossible in their world view, due to how powerful each individual is.)

 

[alex_greene]

A species which has coexisted with Humaniti for centuries, hopping rides with them on Starships, and suddenly Humaniti discovers their homeworld and realises that this long-lived species has had its own form of Jump all along.
They just enjoy riding along in other people's ships and taking their cargos along with them, because it's cheaper, and they get to enjoy human company, even if they are going the long way around instead of making instant Jumps.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[J Harper]

Perhaps I should have used a different term. Until fairly recently I only knew the Third Imperium through RPG osmosis, not really looking deeper into it until a month or so ago. I wasn't aware of the Aslan Major/Minor controversy until it was mentioned in this thread, for example. I do know that the Major/Minor split is a chauvinistic construct created by the Vilani to justify their conquests and ultimately does not matter. The Droyne technically are minor due to not controlling a large continuous territory in Charted Space, no one is going to dispute Aslan power even if they retro-engineered the Jump engine instead of building it from scratch and in the late Rebellion timeline I doubt it matters to anyone that Virus hijacked Jump ships, not constructing them through its own ingenuity.

I probably should have used a term like 'Great Power' instead - the discovery of one or more polities with a strength on par with the Imperium, Hierate, Two Thousand World, etc. Even if not hostile or interested in expanding into known Charted Space, mere knowledge of such civilizations' existence could shake things up in potentially interesting ways. I'll admit my asking this question was for curiosity of what other people thought of the idea - my very, very young campaign is set in Core, far away from an area that could be affected by such an event, and I have no intention of introducing something like that in my game - crawl before you walk, etc.

 

[J Harper]

I have plans for the Pentapod "gods" that ties in with the Abyssals...

View attachment 1247

Again, the problem of being a newbie. I had no idea that areas outside of Charted Space had official, if only very briefly described, new civilizations. Hell, I thought Matt Sprague created the Essaray for the Starter Set until I looked them up on Traveller Wiki.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

I would like the major new race to be able to proofread.

 

[Studio Cat]

Something odd, like the Jgd-Il-Jagd would be a nice change of pace.

Or something that pushes the boundaries of the Major Race/Minor Race definition, like an interstellar polity of sophonts who travel solely by slower-than-light starships but have stretched across a subsector or sector.

 

[Galadrion]

Perhaps I should have used a different term. Until fairly recently I only knew the Third Imperium through RPG osmosis, not really looking deeper into it until a month or so ago. I wasn't aware of the Aslan Major/Minor controversy until it was mentioned in this thread, for example. I do know that the Major/Minor split is a chauvinistic construct created by the Vilani to justify their conquests and ultimately does not matter. The Droyne technically are minor due to not controlling a large continuous territory in Charted Space, no one is going to dispute Aslan power even if they retro-engineered the Jump engine instead of building it from scratch and in the late Rebellion timeline I doubt it matters to anyone that Virus hijacked Jump ships, not constructing them through its own ingenuity.

I probably should have used a term like 'Great Power' instead - the discovery of one or more polities with a strength on par with the Imperium, Hierate, Two Thousand World, etc. Even if not hostile or interested in expanding into known Charted Space, mere knowledge of such civilizations' existence could shake things up in potentially interesting ways. I'll admit my asking this question was for curiosity of what other people thought of the idea - my very, very young campaign is set in Core, far away from an area that could be affected by such an event, and I have no intention of introducing something like that in my game - crawl before you walk, etc.

I think that the concept you're reaching for is "hegemon". Nearly all of Known Space's Major Races qualify as such (the Droyne, as in so many related matters, go their own way), and honestly, I think the main reason the Third Imperium tends to be dominant (in perception, at least) is their interior position - they are the hegemonic power that all the other hegemonic powers interact with. If you look at matters with a different focus, other powers become more important - both the Solomani and the Zhodani are doing much more with exploration, the Aslan and the Vargr have a near-constant level of internal politics/turmoil/chaos, the K'kree are constantly on the path of jihad, and who knows what the Hivers (or the Droyne) are up to...

 

[FreeTrav]

If anyone beside me has read the Jao Empire stories (The Course of Empire, The Crucible of Empire, and The Span of Empire), I think any of the aliens portrayed there could make for interesting Traveller, even absent the standard interactions between them as portrayed in the novels.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The fact that the game is written from the Imperial perspective massively overrepresents their importance and influence...
the only time the veil has slipped is that little note in the original Spimward Marches supplement.

Are the Zhodani a goose-stepping hive mind - nope. If there is one society in charted space I would prefer to be born into it would be the Zhodani.
Are the Solomani fascist goose-stepping space Nazis - nope. In point of fact the Imperium invented the Solomani hypothesis and promoted the racist major race/minor race distinction.
Are the Vargr a bunch of space pirates who couldn't organise a puppy playdate? The Jullian Protectorate says hello...
The Imperium knows little about the Aslan - the Solomani understand them a lot more - and even less about the Hive Federation. Much easier to label them as strange.
And then there are the K'kree. Are you really going to believe the Imperial propaganda?
Finally the Droyne, granted major status because they have jump drives but the Imperium can not explain why.

 

[alex_greene]

The fact that the game is written from the Imperial perspective massively overrepresents their importance and influence...
the only time the veil has slipped is that little note in the original Spimward Marches supplement.

Are the Zhodani a goose-stepping hive mind - nope. If there is one society in charted space I would prefer to be born into it would be the Zhodani.
Are the Solomani fascist goose-stepping space Nazis - nope. In point of fact the Imperium invented the Solomani hypothesis and promoted the racist major race/minor race distinction.
Are the Vargr a bunch of space pirates who couldn't organise a puppy playdate? The Jullian Protectorate says hello...
The Imperium knows little about the Aslan - the Solomani understand them a lot more - and even less about the Hive Federation. Much easier to label them as strange.
And then there are the K'kree. Are you really going to believe the Imperial propaganda?
Finally the Droyne, granted major status because they have jump drives but the Imperium can not explain why.

I know.
I'd rather rewrite the K'Kree herbivores, and remove the whole Lords of Thunder BS as just Imperial propaganda - some human who found out that K'Kree do not make good hunting, and spun this whole "aggressive herbivores" malarkey to cover up for his obscene desire to bag K'Kree heads as trophies on his wall.
Same sort of guys who painted the Zhodani as evil, and psions as amoral head benders, just because the psions could see the Impies coming, and refused point blank to let those Impies climb into the psions' pants.