A New Setting

[mactavish]

About six months ago I was in a really bad car accident on the way to work. I have been off-work and more or less bedridden since November 1. I just had the first of [at least] two spinal surgeries last week, and have another coming up in mid-May.

Now, the reason I mention this is as follows: I have read (or reread) most of Tubb's Dumarest novels. I have read a lot of science fiction, space opera, cyberpunk, and so on as well, as I have had nothing but time.

While reading and sitting, I have been working, here and there, on a new setting for my 1970s 2D6 Retro Rules-based game, but I've hit a roadblock. I am having trouble reconciling a humanity that has spread to hundreds or thousands of star systems while still retaining an Earth-centric mentality.

That is to say, I want settled worlds and established colonies, but I don't want the Third Imperium (or any all-encompassing interstellar government). I also don't want nobility, or at least not universally-recognized nobility. Maybe some world or collection of worlds, but not everywhere.

I have a bunch of other things to include/exclude, and some of those are giving me trouble, too.

I'm going to post some stuff here, and I'd like to constructive criticism. Also, if you have better ideas than me (or better ways of introducing my ideas), please let me know that, too. You won't hurt my feelings.

1. Humanity is the only naturally-evolved sophont in the galaxy. Not because no others have been discovered yet; there just aren't any other intelligent lifeforms out there. I'm still struggling with this one (see 9., below).

2. Earth is either a.) destroyed by some calamity - like literally blown to pieces (i.e. massive, fast-moving asteroid cracks the planet and gravity does the rest), b.) uninhabitable due to climate change, pollution, too little oxygen in the oceans, and/or other problems (i.e. plague, famine, drought, nuclear exchange, etc.), c.) inhabited, but resembling the diaspora from the film Elysium (i.e. everybody that could leave did so long ago), or d.) forgotten by most [if not all] of the now-interstellar human race (ala Dumarest).

3. Human-habitable world are few and far between. A common saying [in the setting] goes, “Pleasant climate, breathable air, hospitable ecosystem… pick any two!”

4. Life is not uncommon in the galaxy. Many worlds seemingly capable of supporting life have ecosystems of varying complexities. Most life is carbon-based, most shares chirality with terrestrial life, and most are either disinterested in humans or want to kill and/or eat them.

5. The Unified Field Theory/Grand Unified Theory/whatever was proven in the mid-21st century, paving the way for practical gravity manipulation (i.e. Maneuver Drive, artificial gravity deck plating, etc.); this discovery led to the development of Jump travel in the late 21st/early 22nd century.

6. FTL travel is hindered in several ways as compared to Traveller:

a. Only ships between 100-2,000 dTons are capable of Jump travel

b. Only ships between 100-200 dTons can travel at Jump-2 (the fastest speed in this setting)

c. Ships between 200-2,000 dTons can travel at a maximum of Jump-1

d. Larger systems ships are possible (up to 5,000 dTons), but few are actually built that big due to limited resources and lack of necessity

7. Trade between worlds is obviously limited (which is intentional), requiring better exploration and exploitation of local [in-system] resources.

8. No retro future tech: computers advance based on today's 21st century understanding, not 1977; “weak AI” robotics are commonplace, but "strong" AI is still a pipe dream (i.e. QUAD-series robots from the movie Interstellar, but without the vacc suit-puncturing corners!); no handheld energy weapons, even at higher Technology Levels, as are too big/require to much power to be used anywhere except on spacecraft, space stations and/or ground installations; no FTL radio, meaning news travels as fast as the fastest starship (Jump-2)

9. Psionics are real, but extremely rare as well as limited in variation (i.e. no teleportation) and power levels.

10. Human polities, whether planetary, interplanetary or interstellar, are – in many cases – derived from former terrestrial powers, meaning there will be worlds or interstellar nations based on ideals and values of the United States of America, of Russia, of China, of India, and so on. However, depending on whether I go with the idea illuminated after this list (see 9., below), there may be some states with no direct terrestrial correlation.

11. Now I'm not really sure about this - I liberated it from GURPS All-Star Jam 2004 - but I'm toying with variant species of humanity on other worlds, transplanted (or "constructed") there eons earlier by time-traveling humans from the far future. (If you're familiar with the book, I'm referring to the Ourobornians.) That is, there are Precursors, but - unknown to the players (at least initially) - they were humans as well. They've also left some of their artifacts laying around the galaxy, and - while they're pretty nifty - they are not reverse-engineerable (or even comprehensible, in many cases).

Do you see elements that can't be reconciled alongside one another? Are my ideas sound? What would you change/do differently/remove altogether?

Please give me your ideas, suggestions and the like.

mactavish out.

 

[mike wightman]

1. Humanity is the only naturally-evolved sophont in the galaxy. Not because no others have been discovered yet; there just aren't any other intelligent lifeforms out there. I'm still struggling with this one (see 9., below).

It's the easiest answer to the Fermi paradox, we are either the first truly intelligent species to make it off our planet, or previous ones are long since extinct and so we are the only current one.
Doesn't mean you can't have bio-engineered human race variants and uplifted Terran animals, no to mention hybrids, synthetics...

2. Earth is either a.) destroyed by some calamity - like literally blown to pieces (i.e. massive, fast-moving asteroid cracks the planet and gravity does the rest), b.) uninhabitable due to climate change, pollution, too little oxygen in the oceans, and/or other problems (i.e. plague, famine, drought, nuclear exchange, etc.), c.) inhabited, but resembling the diaspora from the film Elysium (i.e. everybody that could leave did so long ago), or d.) forgotten by most [if not all] of the now-interstellar human race (ala Dumarest).

How far into the future are you going with this?
Far enough and you can have rumours that all of the above happened, the players may find out the truth one day...

3. Human-habitable world are few and far between. A common saying [in the setting] goes, “Pleasant climate, breathable air, hospitable ecosystem… pick any two!”

By the time you are Traveller TL9 habitable planets are not necessary, you can easily build space habitats - I would recommend watching a few Isaac Arthur videos on YouTube.

4. Life is not uncommon in the galaxy. Many worlds seemingly capable of supporting life have ecosystems of varying complexities. Most life is carbon-based, most shares chirality with terrestrial life, and most are either disinterested in humans or want to kill and/or eat them.

Good, plenty of stuff to annoy the players...

5. The Unified Field Theory/Grand Unified Theory/whatever was proven in the mid-21st century, paving the way for practical gravity manipulation (i.e. Maneuver Drive, artificial gravity deck plating, etc.); this discovery led to the development of Jump travel in the late 21st/early 22nd century.

Handwavium at its best - do not go into too much detail just handwave

6. FTL travel is hindered in several ways as compared to Traveller:
a. Only ships between 100-2,000 dTons are capable of Jump travel
b. Only ships between 100-200 dTons can travel at Jump-2 (the fastest speed in this setting)
c. Ships between 200-2,000 dTons can travel at a maximum of Jump-1
d. Larger systems ships are possible (up to 5,000 dTons), but few are actually built that big due to limited resources and lack of necessity

I can think of a few good reasons to build big system only ships - they can have lots of redundant systems and thus hold their own against several 2000t jump drive equipped warships...

7. Trade between worlds is obviously limited (which is intentional), requiring better exploration and exploitation of local [in-system] resources.

Once again, by TL9 you have all the technology you need to exploit every resource a system has to offer, mining asteroids for rare earths, mining moons and gas giants for helium3, aluminium, iron, carbon, silicon all so abundant you can build anything you want to in space and exploit any resource.

8. No retro future tech: computers advance based on today's 21st century understanding, not 1977; “weak AI” robotics are commonplace, but "strong" AI is still a pipe dream (i.e. QUAD-series robots from the movie Interstellar, but without the vacc suit-puncturing corners!); no handheld energy weapons, even at higher Technology Levels, as are too big/require to much power to be used anywhere except on spacecraft, space stations and/or ground installations; no FTL radio, meaning news travels as fast as the fastest starship (Jump-2)

That's pretty much my default view for any version of Traveller I run.

9. Psionics are real, but extremely rare as well as limited in variation (i.e. no teleportation) and power levels.

Considering the hardish nature you are shooting for why not just roll psionic abilities into biological or cybernetic enhancement? Or are you linking their development to exposure to jump travel or even the Precursors you mention later on?

10. Human polities, whether planetary, interplanetary or interstellar, are – in many cases – derived from former terrestrial powers, meaning there will be worlds or interstellar nations based on ideals and values of the United States of America, of Russia, of China, of India, and so on. However, depending on whether I go with the idea illuminated after this list (see 9., below), there may be some states with no direct terrestrial correlation.

Depending on how far into the future you place your setting there could be a considerable change in the nature of the world governments we have at the moment. Even if the diaspora from earth begins in the mid twenty second century you may have big changes in the geopolitical climate. And also be careful that you don't use caricatures of governments rather than the reality...

11. Now I'm not really sure about this - I liberated it from GURPS All-Star Jam 2004 - but I'm toying with variant species of humanity on other worlds, transplanted (or "constructed") there eons earlier by time-traveling humans from the far future. (If you're familiar with the book, I'm referring to the Ourobornians.) That is, there are Precursors, but - unknown to the players (at least initially) - they were humans as well. They've also left some of their artifacts laying around the galaxy, and - while they're pretty nifty - they are not reverse-engineerable (or even comprehensible, in many cases).

Ever read Blue Planet? The ancient alien race in the background (the ones that built the gates and the long john) could inspire this.
How about a few colony worlds that are changed by primordial relic machinery into 'Precursors' but don't let on to how they have been modified or why.

Do you see elements that can't be reconciled alongside one another? Are my ideas sound? What would you change/do differently/remove altogether?
Please give me your ideas, suggestions and the like.
mactavish out.

I think it sounds like a great setting.

 

[Adam Dray]

Charles Stross's Singularity Sky postulates the Eschaton, an advanced AI that time travels and terraforms planets and transplants Earth humans all over the known galaxy, so by the time Earth gets there via their TL9 or whatever colony ships, they find TL7 civilizations.

It's a bit "Grandfather," probably without ever having seen Traveller, though I wouldn't be surprised if Stross was familiar with Traveller.

 

[mactavish]

See, there's the rub.

I want the setting to have some familiarity to 21st century players, but to clearly be much later. Centuries, millennia... I just don't know.

I love Paul Elliott's HOSTILE setting for Cepheus Engine, as it addresses many of my issues. I have postulated a lot of this setting by gathering up the parts of [mostly] genre-relevant books, television shows and films, and a lot of what I want to include is seen clearly in Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant and Outland: mechanics and engineering, less-than-hospitable worlds, big guns, genetic engineering, alien "seeders," and on and on and on...
But I also fall back on Firefly and Serenity, which is almost frame-for-frame my go-to setting for Traveller, as is Battlestar Galactica (both the original and the updated series).

Also, regarding space habitats, I've considered that, especially after binge watching 2001, Elysium and Interstellar; O'Neill cylinders are great and wheel-shaped space stations are awesome. But part of what I liked about Traveller when I played in middle school was putting my players on different worlds with all kinds of things to deal with.

Back then I was definitely a TPK type of Referee, but I've evolved over the years and - after reading so many 1970s and 1980s articles from JTAS and White Dwarf - I've come to embrace many of the subtleties and nuances of the setting.

For example, I've developed a planet, bigger than Earth but less dense due to a lack of heavier metals, where the various nations exist on islands or archipelagoes. The starport is located not on the land of the strongest or most advanced state, but the most cosmopolitan. Its a C-class starport, but still has a lot to offer visitors, and the startown gradually melds into an Amsterdam/old Las Vegas where nearly everything is available for a price.

However, the planet is balkanized, and while the relatively advanced (TL8) and vehemently neutral Switzerland-like state that hosts the spaceport tends to mesh pretty well with the rest of the galaxy, there are other nation-states more like Stalin's Soviet Union on angel dust, or a wildly-jingoistic Civil War-era United States-esque nation, and many of them boast spaceports, each claiming that theirs is the "official starport." It's classed as Amber (or whatever I end up using), and offers tons of roleplaying possibilities.

Okay, cool, right?

But how does a world like that - clearly fleshed out (to at least a kiddie pool depth) - fit into a setting that is either post-Earth by only 100 years? Or, failing that, 1,000 years in the future?

I also borrowed from an excellent article from Freelance Traveller (Sept/Oct 2017) by Cian Witheren titled 'Making Your Own Road: Replacing the Third Imperium." I read this article over and over, picking it clean and then implementing many of the concepts presented therein.

For instance, in the absence of an umbrella uber-gvoernment is the Interstellar Commerce Commission, which is supported by most starring polities, and is important because it: a.) acts as neutral third party for [binding] arbitration between interstellar powers; b.) established the credit as the common currency for interstellar trade; c.) is responsible for licensure of interstellar merchants, ranging from individual independent traders to massive transport consortiums (including private paramilitary contractors and bounty hunters), d.) created, maintains and operates this setting’s equivalent of the Travellers’ Aid Society, and e.) builds, maintains, operates, and defends extraterritorial starports (but not spaceports, which are locally administered).

My ICC replaces many of the "standards-setting" activities of the Third Imperium (or whatever), and maintains itself through licensing fees, incremental tariffs, grants from wealthier polities, and so on.

As I wrote, most states recognize its importance and defer to its authority, but then there are (as always) rogue states that flout their dictates and do as they please. Usually those guys are isolated and destitute, or they tend to get their collective asses kicked by everyone else that nominally plays by the rules.
Besides the ICC, there are other interstellar NGOs that perform other important features typically handled by governmental agencies, but - as there is no alliance or federation or empire - in this setting they are massive, far-reaching and [typically] benign bureaucracies that have been around long enough that everyone recognizes them and just about everyone plays by their rules.

Oh, and the personnel of these organizations come from many of the [primarily freedom-loving] member states who, upon becoming part of the organization, renounce their citizenship and become part of the vast web of interstellar bureaucrats.

Oh, there are also no forces maintaining peace and justice between the stars, so no Imperial Navy, no Space Patrol, and so on. Pirates are dealt with locally, which often means - if they have Jump Drive - they do as they please and then flee to another system to continue their illicit activities. That really sucks for lower-TL worlds that lack aerospace/deep space forces but rely on trade from outside their system.

Wow, that just went on and on. Sorry about that.

Please comment. I'll make more posts from my notes after I have a break.

mactavish out.

 

[mactavish]

Since I'm on a bit of a roll here, I'm going to post a couple of other things while they're still fresh in my mind.

As I mentioned, there are other NGOs that perform numerous important interstellar duties. Among them are the Terrestrial Colonization Authority (which is just a placeholder until I come up with something else that doesn't reference a destroyed or long-forgotten Earth).

Like the ICC, the Colonization Authority is accepted and supported by those spacefaring powers whose opinions actually matter. Among its various responsibilities include operating the Colonial Survey, an organization like the Scouts that sends out individual operatives in fast 100 dTon surveyors to explore previously unexplored systems; survey already-known but unoccupied systems in greater detail for potential settlement, resource exploitation, and so on, and; report back to the Colonization Authority, which complies the information and sells it to interested parties, whether colonists, corporations or interstellar nations.

Additionally the Colonization Authority is also the agency responsible for licensing claims for settlements on other worlds. It offers training and acts as a resource for potential colonists (at a reasonable price, of course). Finally, it works with the ICC to include established colonies on at least one trade route (if possible/necessary).
Okay, now I really am wiped out and in need of food, drink, and rest.

I'll post more later.

mactavish out.

 

[Supplement Four]

About six months ago I was in a really bad car accident on the way to work. I have been off-work and more or less bedridden since November 1. I just had the first of [at least] two spinal surgeries last week, and have another coming up in mid-May.

Damn, brother! I hope you get well soon!

I was in a jet ski accident with similar results back the late 90's, so I definitely know what you are going through.

 

[mactavish]

Here I am, back again with some additional ideas for my setting.

I think I've settled on early 23rd century. Earth is still occupied, but is a wreck thanks to wars of varying sizes (proxy, regional and global, including at least a couple limited nuclear exchanges), climate change/rising sea levels, and so forth.

With the Jump Drive developed in the late 21st century, pretty much all of the survivors able to leave Earth did so, many in induced hibernation, for a new start on a new world (since even those with "problems" were still better).

At its height, the Earth has a population of nine billion. After all the aforementioned calamities, that number was reduced by a third.

After a century of building FTL-capable ships of various sizes, anyone with even a little cash (or something else worth trading) could manage to depart their homeworld.
So, by the end of the 22nd century, the population of Earth has stabilized at about 1.2 billion, most spread across the southern hemisphere (since the northern didn't fare to well thanks to the exchange of atomic weapons between east and west).

So Earth of 2229 has a UPP of C877974-7 due to ecological degradation, pockets of lethal radiation, toxic atmosphere, and because anything of value (artistic, technological, or otherwise) was taken off-world as well.

The remaining powers on Earth are:

Brazil - The largest and most economically powerful of the post-Exodus states, the capital of Brasilia boasts a population of over a million. They host a class-C spaceport on the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, and the startown gradually fades into Rio itself. Brazil holds hegemony over all of South (and most of Central) America, and possesses perhaps the largest ground force military on the planet.

South African Union - The second of the newest generation of Great Powers, South Africa has the largest, most powerful wet navy on post-Exodus Earth, including a salvaged and refitted 200-year-old American Wasp-class aircraft carrier, now with a fusion reactor, carrying four attack helicopters, three utility helicopters, and three VTOL jet fighters. Like Brazil, South Africa has a well-maintained class-C spaceport near Cape Town.

Khon Tha Domain - A Southeast Asian "empire" centered on Bangkok and including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and portions of Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar, the Khon Tha Domain is the power that it is by default: China, Japan and Korea all emptied out during the Exodus, leaving little of value behind. The pathetic class-D spaceport in Da Nang sees next to no off-world traffic, its primary exports being seafood and unskilled laborers.

Alyeska - Russian-dominated Alaska, now a corporate-run state sitting on Earth's remaining petroleum reserves, is in a decent situation. Higher global temperatures make the region more comfortable, and the descendants of the American, Inuit and Russian people all work for the descendant of Rosneft, a Russian oil conglomerate. The class-D spaceport near Anchorage actually sees a great deal of off-world traffic, as Alyeska's petroleum distillates are used on Mars (and elsewhere) for plastic production.

Hawai'i - Perhaps the sole bright spot on a broken world, Hawai'i boasts a population of former Americans, native Hawai'ians and numerous Southeast Asian and Japanese expatriates. Hawai'i, unlike the rest of the terrestrial powers, is TL9, has over a million citizens, and is home to Earth's official starport, a class-B facility with all the amenities where Hilo International Airport once stood.

Besides its excellent aquacultured seafood and vegetation, Hawai'i is the sole source in all the galaxy of "heirloom" [non-engineered] chickens and eggs (thanks to the large population of [formerly] wild chickens).

The rest of the planet is more or less George Miller's Road Warrior, with nomadic gangs roaming the devastated lands of North America, North Africa, and most of Eurasia and Australia. One especially large group in the steppes of Russia emulate the Iron Age Mongols under Genghis Khan (or perhaps the Dothraki from Game of Thrones), roaming the lands on horseback, killing as they please and taking what they want.

The primary reason that few know the truth about Earth is that most of its inherent value and the bulk of its surviving population fled over a century earlier. There are, however, still traders who make a point of stopping in the Sol system when they're at the periphery of human space (as pretty much every other human-occupied world is coreward from Sol).

Mars [C431576-8 Po] is in some ways far better off than Earth, but in others it is a sad, ruddy pretender.

The Martian Terraforming Authority, formed in 2045 and spearheaded by the China National Space Administration, enacted a series of bold initiatives, from redirecting ice-bearing asteroids and comets to collide with the Red Planet to orbiting a satellite network of solar mirrors to raise the temperature planet-wide (presently ~5ºC).

By 2229, Mars has an atmosphere of more than just carbon dioxide. The combination of locally-constructed atmospheric processors, each a ~40-meter-tall contraption spewing forth nitrogen and greenhouse gases (synthesized primarily from captured asteroids), and the terrestrial mosses, lichen and other plants brought by the earliest terraformers, produced a stew of an atmosphere much more like Earth's, but terribly thin. Indeed, walking the surface still requires cold weather gear, eye protection and a respirator, but - in a pinch - a normal human can survive breathing the Martian air for 1D6 ± Endurance DM × 5 minutes (min. 5 minutes).
There are several small to medium-sized, widely-scattered, extremely briny saltwater lakes, especially in the lowlands and craters on either side of the equator, and a modest percentage of the Martian polar ice has melted as well.

Scores of domed habitats, ranging in size from small 2-3 family dwellings with greenhouses to massive photo-arcologies housing thousands. The bulk of the population is of Chinese ancestry, but a US Aerospace military base, Camp Jackson, was built early on, near Schiaparelli Crater, much of its infrastructure underground.
The Chinese majority resents the American military presence, but their hardened facilities, combined with their significant firepower (possibly including a massive "doomsday weapon" capable of activating destructive vulcanism planetwide).

In reality, since departing the Sol system, the Chinese nation-state broke apart, with no less than three separate governments claiming legitimacy, so any perceived support from their superiors seems unlikely.

More to come.

mactavish out.

 

[robject]

I'll post a reply BEFORE I read the others, and hopefully it will generate more ideas.

I have read (or reread) most of Tubb's Dumarest novels. I have read a lot of science fiction, space opera, cyberpunk, and so on as well, as I have had nothing but time.

...

I want settled worlds and established colonies, but I don't want the Third Imperium (or any all-encompassing interstellar government). I also don't want nobility, or at least not universally-recognized nobility. Maybe some world or collection of worlds, but not everywhere.

The Dumarest setting (and Andre Norton's Space Patrol setting) are nice pulpy settings with lots of action, lots of wrongs to right, and an ineffective or completely absent galactic authority... but both settings have social stratification as central element of their stories. So keep SOC, just don't tie it to galactic authority. SOC could even be only locally meaningful; in the next subsector, your dukedom isn't worth crapola.

2. Earth is [irrelevant]

I see no problems there.

3. Human-habitable world are few and far between. A common saying [in the setting] goes, “Pleasant climate, breathable air, hospitable ecosystem… pick any two!”

OK then, my suggestion:
1. when the atmosphere is 6, make the ecosystem inhospitable
2. when the atmosphere is 8 or greater, make the climate torrid
3. when the atmosphere is 5 or less, make the climate frigid
4. when the atmosphere is tainted, make it thoroughly unpleasant

4. Worlds capable of supporting life typically have carbon-based, shared chirality life, and are either disinterested in humans or want to kill and/or eat them.

No problems there.

5. [blah blah Theory so gravitics and the M-drive is TL8 and the Jump drive is TL9]

Sounds OK to me. Oh wait, here come the buts:

6b. Ships between 100-200 dTons can travel at Jump-2 (the fastest speed in this setting)
6c. Bigger ships can travel at a maximum of Jump-1
6d. It's too expensive to build bigger ships, and there's no need.

OK. I assume it's to constrain travel and force people to live on inhospitable worlds. Got it.

7. Trade between worlds is obviously limited (which is intentional), requiring better exploration and exploitation of local [in-system] resources.

Supports one of your setting's Prime Things (people have to make do with crappy worlds).

8a. “weak AI” robotics are commonplace,
8b. "strong" AI is still a pipe dream (i.e. QUAD-series robots from the movie Interstellar, but without the vacc suit-puncturing corners!);
8c. no handheld energy weapons [power requirements too high]
8d. energy weapons permitted on spacecraft and ground installations
8e. no Ansible

Except for 8d, all of these appear to be unmodified Traveller. And 8d is fine. Do you have a reason for it, other than on principle?

9. Psionics are real, but extremely rare as well as limited in variation (i.e. no teleportation) and power levels.

What's the purpose of psionics in your setting? In other words, if you need to limit it, could you just toss it completely?

10. Human polities, whether planetary, interplanetary or interstellar, are – in many cases – derived from former terrestrial powers, meaning there will be worlds or interstellar nations based on ideals and values of the United States of America, of Russia, of China, of India, and so on. However, depending on whether I go with the idea illuminated after this list (see 9., below), there may be some states with no direct terrestrial correlation.

So similar to 2300AD? Or something else? Suggestion: extract two or three TYPES of qualities you wish to model, and scramble them up to represent a polity. e.g. spiritual/materialist, extraverted/introverted, and a couple other binary pairs.

11. Variant species of humanity on other worlds, transplanted (or "constructed") there eons earlier by time-traveling humans from the far future.

I don't like that you have to bring in time travel to get variant humans. Unless time travel is a major thing that your setting needs, I'd not bring it in. My two cents.

For example, you could take the "Ancients" trope from Traveller and strip it of any Droyne sensibilities. Just note that Precursors seeded homo two million years ago, and don't explain how or when or why. Would that do?

 

[Major B]

1. Humanity is the only naturally-evolved sophont in the galaxy. Not because no others have been discovered yet; there just aren't any other intelligent lifeforms out there. I'm still struggling with this one (see 9., below).

2. Earth is either a.) destroyed by some calamity - like literally blown to pieces (i.e. massive, fast-moving asteroid cracks the planet and gravity does the rest), b.) uninhabitable due to climate change, pollution, too little oxygen in the oceans, and/or other problems (i.e. plague, famine, drought, nuclear exchange, etc.), c.) inhabited, but resembling the diaspora from the film Elysium (i.e. everybody that could leave did so long ago), or d.) forgotten by most [if not all] of the now-interstellar human race (ala Dumarest).

I concur with Mike Wightman's comments here and just add the following - The reason for the diaspora should rather be the reasons. Your idea of tracing planetary culture back to an old earth nation or group lends itself to each group having their own reason for leaving. Economic pressure, Religious persecution, Political subjugation, and a host of other possible reasons can push groups away and changes caused by the departure of one group can have consequences that drive another group out. The result years or decades later for someone trying to piece the story together would be a different answer on every world you happen upon to ask the question.

3. Human-habitable world are few and far between. A common saying [in the setting] goes, “Pleasant climate, breathable air, hospitable ecosystem… pick any two!”

4. Life is not uncommon in the galaxy. Many worlds seemingly capable of supporting life have ecosystems of varying complexities. Most life is carbon-based, most shares chirality with terrestrial life, and most are either disinterested in humans or want to kill and/or eat them.

5. The Unified Field Theory/Grand Unified Theory/whatever was proven in the mid-21st century, paving the way for practical gravity manipulation (i.e. Maneuver Drive, artificial gravity deck plating, etc.); this discovery led to the development of Jump travel in the late 21st/early 22nd century.

I think 3 and possibly 4 give you a host of possibilities that you may be missing in number 6 and 7 so see my comments below. On 5 - I agree with Mike's advice.

6. FTL travel is hindered in several ways as compared to Traveller:
a. Only ships between 100-2,000 dTons are capable of Jump travel
b. Only ships between 100-200 dTons can travel at Jump-2 (the fastest speed in this setting)
c. Ships between 200-2,000 dTons can travel at a maximum of Jump-1
d. Larger systems ships are possible (up to 5,000 dTons), but few are actually built that big due to limited resources and lack of necessity

7. Trade between worlds is obviously limited (which is intentional), requiring better exploration and exploitation of local [in-system] resources.

Mike gave a sound military reason for bigger in-system ships but given the lack of trade you have postulated I think there will also be a lack of military conflict - at least not of the planet-invading variety - and only a little of the piracy and plundering on a small scale kind. I think there are some good economic reasons for bigger ships - most importantly gathering resources. Also, your emphasis on inhospitable worlds gives important reasons for trade - getting resources to survive. I would recommend you think about pairs of worlds that can provide one another with essentials for survival - like a mineral poor world that can grow food to feed a mineral-rich world that can't produce enough food. These mutually-beneficial pairs will form relationships that will eventually grow into polities larger than one system. Also, think about potential relationships like this that are prevented by differing ethics or social norms that have the potential to lead to war or piracy. All interesting details that also provide a ton of adventure seeds.

8. No retro future tech: computers advance based on today's 21st century understanding, not 1977; “weak AI” robotics are commonplace, but "strong" AI is still a pipe dream (i.e. QUAD-series robots from the movie Interstellar, but without the vacc suit-puncturing corners!); no handheld energy weapons, even at higher Technology Levels, as are too big/require to much power to be used anywhere except on spacecraft, space stations and/or ground installations; no FTL radio, meaning news travels as fast as the fastest starship (Jump-2)

I think this nests well with the other points you've laid out.

9. Psionics are real, but extremely rare as well as limited in variation (i.e. no teleportation) and power levels.

As Robject posted - maybe the setting could do without psionics. Or maybe limit it to polities that practice selective breeding or go a step further to genetic manipulation and killing those offspring considered unpromising. Maybe too dark for you, but this would put psionics (with the limits you have set) in the hands of a group or groups that are considered "bad" by most world's standards which also gives "good" players with psionics cause to hide their abilities.

10. Human polities, whether planetary, interplanetary or interstellar, are – in many cases – derived from former terrestrial powers, meaning there will be worlds or interstellar nations based on ideals and values of the United States of America, of Russia, of China, of India, and so on. However, depending on whether I go with the idea illuminated after this list (see 9., below), there may be some states with no direct terrestrial correlation.

I think this opens up some interesting possibilities and many potential conflicts. Do you plan to chart any drift from the origin culture? See my note above.

11. Now I'm not really sure about this - I liberated it from GURPS All-Star Jam 2004 - but I'm toying with variant species of humanity on other worlds, transplanted (or "constructed") there eons earlier by time-traveling humans from the far future. (If you're familiar with the book, I'm referring to the Ourobornians.) That is, there are Precursors, but - unknown to the players (at least initially) - they were humans as well. They've also left some of their artifacts laying around the galaxy, and - while they're pretty nifty - they are not reverse-engineerable (or even comprehensible, in many cases).

Again, concur with Robject that time travel is not the route I would advise to implement this idea. A long-dead race that left behind artifacts works for me as does a long-dead race that seeded modified humans here and there. Even a long-dead race that isn't really dead works but time travel would be difficult to implement without causing a bunch of cascading narrative problems. Just my take though - I am sure there will be others who like the idea.

I like your concept and the additional details you have provided. Please keep on posting as the ideas develop. Hopefully it will keep you occupied while you recover.

 

[mactavish]

Wow, Mike Wightman, robject and Major B! Thanks for the notes. Your suggestions are fantastic and are definitely advising some of the changes I'm making as I move from handwritten pages of notes to word processed paragraphs and meaningful charts and tables.

A couple of responses to some of the notes posted...

Psionics is kind of a bugaboo for me, particularly Teleportation and Telekinesis (as written in Mongoose Traveller 2e, anyway). I do like the "powers of the mind" component as an additional tool for PCs to use, but I don't think that they should necessarily be as useful as their other natural talents, learned skills, or actual equipment that they carry with them.

Granted, I'm not looking for a Deanna Troi-like character (i.e. "Captain, his emotions suggest he is hiding something."), but neither do I want X-Men's Phoenix, who can destroy stars and toss people about like chaff from a combine.

I like the more introspective abilities, like Telepathy and Clairvoyance, and less so things like Awareness, Telekinesis and Teleport.

The suggestion of making Psi abilities something of a government conspiracy could work, especially given the Russians' experiments with such things in the 1960s and 70s.

Of course, just dumping them wouldn't really change the overall timbre of the setting either, so maybe that's the answer. I guess we'll see how things shake out in the next draft.

The next piece, regarding the time traveling future humans as the explanation for finding other human-occupied worlds is indeed a copout. I like the idea on the face of it, but it causes too many other issues, particularly if the PCs figure it out too soon.

My concern is this: humanity is, in this setting, the ONLY intelligent species to have evolved into sentience. By, arbitrarily or otherwise, having an extinct [or not] race of Ancients or Seeders responsible for spreading mankind to the stars supersedes that previous statement UNLESS those Ancients are themselves humans.

I suppose they don't have to be time-traveling humans, though. Maybe more like the Engineers from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, where their DNA is essentially identical but divergent evolution due to planetary and regional space features (i.e. differing amounts of solar radiation, different amounts of atmospheric contaminants, varying gravity, etc.) could also explain away some of those concerns as well.

I guess I just like the symmetry of having the created, over time, become the creators, clearly locked into an unending loop. Kind of fatalistic, I know, but it has that sort of verisimilitude that I like.

Okay, good food for thought. Let me work on this some more and I'll endeavor to post some more (with some thoughtful changes) later.

mactavish out.

 

[wellis]

Why do you even want Ancient Humans so badly if the entire idea of ultra-ancient, long dead aliens is so irksome to you?

I mean honestly, time travelling humans from far in the future sounds quite a bit worse. And wouldn't something like the Engineers be a "ancient aliens" thing you dislike?


Why not just have the rare garden worlds found be like those in Hostile, where they have possible issues like being really cold or having super storms or whatever? Make the jewel that is sort of similar to Earth very super rare, and thus possibly pretty exclusive to get into.

Like it's a gated community almost.

 

[mactavish]

I guess what I'm really looking for is a network of human-occupied systems waiting to happen.

As I originally wrote, I want humans to be the only sophonts in the galaxy, and, by extension, the only sophonts that ever existed. That right there is what they call a wrinkle.

So, back to my first statement: I want a bunch of star systems already occupied by humans, but not terrestrial humans. That is, at some point in the distant past, someone or something placed a genetically-diverse enough populace of Homo sapiens on multiple worlds, and at least some of them survived and thrived (though [as far as we can tell] Earth-native humans are the only ones that have managed to leave the confines of their own planet let alone their own star system).

I agree with your analysis. I don't like having the Ancients be humans, but how else does one explain away various planets with Homo sapiens throughout the galaxy when HUMANS are the only sentient species that ever existed to this point?

I guess what I want is aliens without having actual aliens. Human groups that have evolved independently for, say, 100,000 years, many on worlds far less anthropocentric than Earth.

Several have already commented that it might suffice to say "something" moved these groups of early humans and spread them across the galaxy, but - unless it was also a group of humans doing the moving - it violates one of my core principles of the setting.

I know I'm coming across like a whiny b!tch, but I want what I want, and I want it how I want it.

I suppose that I could just assume Homo sapiens evolved elsewhere in the galaxy/universe and deposited their control groups throughout the Milky Way - including on Earth - but it feels like that takes away from terrestrial humans being the original stock rather than just one of hundreds or thousands of test sample groups.

Does that make sense? I know it's nitpicky, and I see no reason why it couldn't be another alien race that puts the humans where they ended up, but it's just not how I want the setting presented.

I frankly don't like using time traveling humans as the primary motivator unless that's the whole point of the campaign (which it isn't).

Good suggestions about the other stuff, too. Keep them coming.

mactavish out.

 

[mike wightman]

I don't see an issue with time travelling humans from the far far far future - Stephen Baxter is using time travel in his Xeelee novels to good effect.

The are couple of other options:

this universe of ours was created by humans in the first place, humans from an earlier universe. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology are designed to produce humans eventually on any world where life can take hold

an early version of humanity was the first race to evolve intelligence billions of years ago, they used their machines to spread the human template throughout the galaxy wherever there was a world suitable for the evolution of human life

our universe is an experiment by beings that exist beyond our universe that have seeded terrestrial like life throughout the galaxy, the human form etc are the closest this universe can construct a form of life in the designers' image

misjumps can throw ships backward and forward in time as well as space, a very early jump accident sent an entire industrial manufacturing/research station back millions of years, the population of that station were able to survive, build more stations, grow their population and spread throughout the galaxy, cultural collapse after collapse mean there are only a few places in the galaxy that have records of the true history

 

[aramis]

I don't see an issue with time travelling humans from the far far far future - Stephen Baxter is using time travel in his Xeelee novels to good effect.

A lot of people dislike time travel as part of a background because it makes time-travel a non-optional part of the setting.

The current physics says "Time travel seems extremely unlikely." (Even wormhole theory says the travel with the wormhole can only be back to the start of the wormhole.)

And, Time travel has been mishandled a lot in fiction, leading to bad experiences.

If the Time Travellers can justify the population of humans all over, it needs 3 elements to work:
1) they have to still be human when they go back
2) they can go back beyond the first turn on of the time travel device
3) they don't create closed time loops (because that's a causality violation)

3 is the issue. But there is the implication also of...

4) they don't meddle in the intervening times (or if they do, it's solely to prevent causality violations)

Such a setting element also implies the timeline is fixed, and there is a single continuum of time. But that's not hard and fast, still, it can cause the same issue T4 had: We knot the future, so why bother?

 

[McPerth]

Just some thoughts:

6. FTL travel is hindered in several ways as compared to Traveller:
(...)
d. Larger systems ships are possible (up to 5,000 dTons), but few are actually built that big due to limited resources and lack of necessity
7. Trade between worlds is obviously limited (which is intentional), requiring better exploration and exploitation of local [in-system] resources.

I see a minor inconsistency on those points. If you need to fully exploit the resources of your own system, this will probably (IMHO) make large system ships desirable, so I'd expect them to exist.

Another (fully different) thing I see is that commerce would be expremly limited, if the inhabitated worlds are far apart one another and the ships are limited to J1 (as J2 ships would be littel more than courriers, at most with limited cargo capacity). This means you'll need several jumps to reach the closest market, and this means more expensive trade.

If you couple this with the lack of an extensive anti-piracy force, I see ample room for pirates to act, hiding in uninhabited systems (depending on how costy are artificial habitats they may have good bases or just supply caches).

I'd add among those NGOs you talk about one (or several of them, even with rivalry among them) dedicated to commerce protection and pirate hunting. They may be independent (as some religious orders tried to fight bandits in Middle Ages) more or less government sponsored (and maybe recognized by some, treated as pirates themselves by others) or mercenaries, or even some of them may have become a kind of mafia group, collecting tolls for free passage...

So Earth of 2229 has a UPP of C877974-7 due to ecological degradation, pockets of lethal radiation, toxic atmosphere, and because anything of value (artistic, technological, or otherwise) was taken off-world as well.

...

Hawai'i - Perhaps the sole bright spot on a broken world, Hawai'i boasts a population of former Americans, native Hawai'ians and numerous Southeast Asian and Japanese expatriates. Hawai'i, unlike the rest of the terrestrial powers, is TL9, has over a million citizens, and is home to Earth's official starport, a class-B facility with all the amenities where Hilo International Airport once stood.

I see this incosistent, as I always understood the UPP to mark the best starport in the system, even if its access is limited.

I also see it odd if Earth is where the first ships were built that it does not keep an A rated spaceport, no matter how small. Of course I undersand from the background you tell that it was downgraded with the time, albeit (if I undertand well) the exodus (and so the building of the ships) occurred after the nukes exchange.

As for the reasons humans are found in other planets too, do they really mind?

Think for a moment as the first Vilani who found other humans in OTU. They did not understand how this was possible, but they simply had to live with the fact, even if they could not explain it. And they lived like this for millenia...

I think this could also be the scenario in this case. Has it any importance in the game? if it doesn't, reasons are just an academical point, and probably one that will give you more headaches than rewards.

As mike told you, just handwave it. It is this way, but no one knows the reasons.

Of course, if you want to introduce some ultra-high TL artifact (as you hintered too), then some ancients, precursors, or call them as you like musat have existed, but, again, the players do not need to know more about them than the people in this ATU does. Just accept the fact.


PS: BTW, I wish you a quick and full recovery of your injuries.

 

[mactavish]

Again, much thanks for the suggestions and critiques; they are quite helpful.

Mike Wightman wrote:

an early version of humanity was the first race to evolve intelligence billions of years ago, they used their machines to spread the human template throughout the galaxy wherever there was a world suitable for the evolution of human life

This actually works for me.

The race of Homo sapiens developed on some unknown world perhaps a million years earlier. They built a technologically-advanced civilization. For some reason, they were, as a species, dying out due to an incurable genetic syndrome. In one final effort to leave their mark on the Milky Way, used their vast technological prowess to create FTL artificially-intelligent drones programmed to assess planets they encountered, and (as Mike has suggested) did whatever thing they were programmed to do so that, over the course of the planet's evolutionary development, the genetic programming for the development of humanoids like the Seeders themselves (Homo sapiens), likely along similar lines (i.e. from multicellular creatures to primates, at least one of which eventually evolved into humans.

As most of the worlds encountered that were at least marginally appropriate for humans to evolve, survive and thrive, the Seeders' machines hijacked that local evolutionary process - including those that already have a complex local ecosystem - and made changes, both subtle and direct, to produce Homo sapiens.
Consequently, each of these human-occupied worlds, regardless of whatever other life evolved there, have some primate analogue that eventually blossomed into the equivalent of modern humans.

Of course, unable to directly control the process themselves, not all of the worlds these Seeder machines attempt to "imprint" with eventual human evolution actually produced humans, or - if they did - the local human population succumbed to the local flora or fauna.

And, in the end, once the Seeders' machines have either completed their programmed duties, they self-destructed (i.e. disintegrated leaving no trace, flew into the local star, etc.).

And, as Earth is the one planet so similar to their own, humans developed there faster. Thanks to the climate, atmosphere and the [relatively] docile local flora and fauna, Homo sapiens thrived, even to the point of wiping out other contemporary sophonts and/or photo-sophonts (i.e. Neanderthals).

So, assume a evolutionary success rate of 5% ± 2%. That means tens of thousands of worlds - at some point - had locally-evolved humans. In some cases they survived and created civilizations. In others they failed and fell to extinction.

While they share near-identical DNA, local variations in atmosphere, gravity, radiation from the local star, and so forth led to subtle changes to the genome over hundreds of thousands of years.

Regardless of the subtle differences between humans that evolved on high-G planets, tidally-locked worlds, planets orbiting dimmer stars, moons orbiting gas giants... they are clearly humans, even if eye, hair and skin color fall outside terrestrial norms, or height and mass are atypical in comparison to Earth-native humans.
Finally, as these Seeders developed "somewhere else," the only real artifacts one could expect to find in the Milky Way would be one of their drones that failed to destroy itself. (Now that could be a very interesting find...)

While terrestrial Homo sapiens may not be the first human population to evolve, they are definitely... well, probably... the most technologically advanced.
I am going to assume a relatively common foundational physiology and psychology, meaning that not many of the humans they encounter will be completely alien, but there will definitely be some that exhibit traits objectionable to Earth-native humanity.

Thanks to all for your suggestions and input (especially Mike Wightman). This gives me a lot more direction for my setting. I can't wait to develop some variant humans, the worlds they evolved on, and their civilizations, both ancient and modern.

mactavish out.

 

[wellis]

Hmm since ships between 100-200 dtons are capable of Jump-2, but ships 200-2000 dtons are forced to go at Jump-1, would trade here rely more on small independent traders, or still the bigger bulk traders even if they're slower?

In addition, do you think a lot of potential adventure places in this setting would be more like massive asteroid stations, like say Ceres equivalents such as like the one in the Expanse?

 

[mike wightman]

A lot of people dislike time travel as part of a background because it makes time-travel a non-optional part of the setting.

Completely agree, time travel games are better when you plan them that way from the outset.
Time and Time Again was a fun game.

The current physics says "Time travel seems extremely unlikely." (Even wormhole theory says the travel with the wormhole can only be back to the start of the wormhole.)

There may be a workaround but it requires FTL, so probably not possible in the real world - and that's assuming we ever get wormhole tech - but in a science fiction setting with FTL you at least get the possibility. But yes, it is magic.

And, Time travel has been mishandled a lot in fiction, leading to bad experiences.

Also very true.

If the Time Travellers can justify the population of humans all over, it needs 3 elements to work:
1) they have to still be human when they go back
2) they can go back beyond the first turn on of the time travel device
3) they don't create closed time loops (because that's a causality violation)

3 is the issue. But there is the implication also of...

1 - or capable of building/growing/making human evolutionary pathways possible on all those worlds
2 - if you can go FTL you can travel back in time
3 - that's the big issue as you rightly say

4) they don't meddle in the intervening times (or if they do, it's solely to prevent causality violations)

Which in itself opens its own can of worms.

Such a setting element also implies the timeline is fixed, and there is a single continuum of time. But that's not hard and fast, still, it can cause the same issue T4 had: We knot the future, so why bother?

One could make the same statement about MgT re-imaging the 3I 1105+ setting and the forthcoming FFW... if they stick to canon we know what happens, if they change it then its out with the torches and pitchforks Alternative universes?

 

[mike wightman]

Thanks to all for your suggestions and input (especially Mike Wightman). This gives me a lot more direction for my setting. I can't wait to develop some variant humans, the worlds they evolved on, and their civilizations, both ancient and modern.
mactavish out.

Glad I could be of help, I'm looking forward to seeing this setting develop further.

 

[Major B]

The are couple of other options:

this universe of ours was created by humans in the first place, humans from an earlier universe. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology are designed to produce humans eventually on any world where life can take hold

an early version of humanity was the first race to evolve intelligence billions of years ago, they used their machines to spread the human template throughout the galaxy wherever there was a world suitable for the evolution of human life

our universe is an experiment by beings that exist beyond our universe that have seeded terrestrial like life throughout the galaxy, the human form etc are the closest this universe can construct a form of life in the designers' image

misjumps can throw ships backward and forward in time as well as space, a very early jump accident sent an entire industrial manufacturing/research station back millions of years, the population of that station were able to survive, build more stations, grow their population and spread throughout the galaxy, cultural collapse after collapse mean there are only a few places in the galaxy that have records of the true history

I like Mike's ideas but I thought of another option might be already inherent within the setting. It stretches plausibility but not as much as time travel (for me at least). Consider that the current collapse on Terra isn't the first such collapse on Terra. Maybe it is the second or possibly even the third. You can tie it to the Atlantis legend/myth or something else but the backstory is that humans rose once to the point of building sublight colony ships that set out to escape a pending collapse. Make the collapse social or something other than nuclear, put it during an ice age so the signs of civilization left behind are now underwater. Many (most) of the colony ships failed and left behind their own ruins. A few survived and fewer still thrived and these are the other "human" races out there to be found.


Genetic testing will find commonality among the other "human" tribes but with centuries of drift making for some interesting changes for you to chart out. And that is in addition to cultural differences. These "humans" could end up being VERY different.

The surviving humans on Terra collapsed all the way back to hunter-gatherers and 6000 years ago began to climb back up. Knowledge of the past civilization(s) are only a few fragments of ancient legend but a version of "The Secret of the Ancients" for YTU might be an expedition back to Terra to go undersea exploring and find relics of the previous civilization. The start point could be finding a colony ship that failed. Everyone aboard is long dead and the ship was captured from it's course in a cometary orbit somewhere so it was missed for a long while until the orbit brought it into the habitable zone. What is found leads them back to Terra...

Again, it stretches plausibility but it does make Terran humans both the precursors and the current stock of explorers and it opens up some very interesting storytelling possibilities.