Ancients question

[Cryton]

IMTU Im going with one of the following:

1) First it has never made sense to me that once he wiped out his decendants and faced no more opposition, that he would go into hiding. Even 300,000+ years later there isnt a thing anyone in Charted space thet could stop him from doing anything that he wanted to do. That leads me to believe that Grandfather LIED. He hasnt wiped out all of his children and grandchildren, some of them are still out there waiting for him to pop his head out of his duck-blind so that they can commit patricide, and hes waiting for them to make a mistake so he can finish what he started. Oddly enough Mongoose id running with this idea.

2) or, perhapse his hidey hole is a LOT newer than we are lead to believe. He didnt lie. He has been active in the galaxy for the last 300,000+ years, as we all know. He knew well in advance about the EW, and built his pocket universe as a bunker to allow it to pass by him and his chozen, leaving them compleatly uneffected. Its just another of his experiments.

3) Third, and the most odd of my possibilitys. After he wiped out his decendants, he continued his experiments in peace, until he discovered/unleashed something that scared him so much, that he went into hiding by leaving the universe entirely. Perhapse something like unleashing one of H.P. Lovecrafts Elder Gods while experimenting with dimensional science. "ALL HAIL GREAT C"THULHU!"

Hmmmm..... Perhapse its all three.....

 

[Rigel Stardin]

A 4th posibility is, he was told how large his playpen was and as long as he stay there the elder races would leave him alone. He may have done something to upset them and now they're out to spank his butt.

Other possibility is he believed his intellect was on par with the elder races only to discover it wasn't and he went into hiding.

Either way, Grandpa is now hiding but we don't know from what?

And the wave might be trying to tell us something?

 

[Seriayne]

Well, if the 'noise' of his grandchildren were disruptive to whatever great works he was working on, then the 'noise' of all of known space in his immediate vicinity's gotta be downright annoying.

Pocket Universe/Isolationism is his way of having a bit of peace and quiet.

Heaven help us if he gets cranky and comes back out with the Ancients equivalent of "You kids get of my LAWN!"

 

[kafka47]

Found the Image of Grandfather that conforms to my image of curtasy of Solei Productions...not your average kindly grandfather...although, he could like anyone or anything...the beauty of being able upload/download your mind....this is an image that seems to fit.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eJOSYTGhr.../p01ZzIRyyWQ/s1600-h/evangile+selon+Satan.jpg

 

[robject]

Absolutely LOVE this discussion. Thank you all!

I like the idea of Yaskoydray's pocket universe being a duck blind, though bunker and prison also have merits.

I really like the idea of Yaskoydray having created jumpspace, though I think JS is natural rather than artificial. That said, I also really like the idea of Yaskoydray having built something "on top of" jumpspace.

And all the possible tie-ins with the Core Expedition and the Empress Wave and the Primordials are great stuff.

 

[kafka47]

Jumpspace ought to be viewed as something neither good nor evil but it would both Heaven and Hell.

Perhaps, Grandfather in creating the perfect scaffolding for hyperspace (the higher dimensions that have existed since the Big Bang) sought the solution to avoid the Heat Death of the Universe by chanelling energies from the Core's supercomputer into Jumpspace thereby also stumbling a faster-than-light communication system. Whilst, undertaking some hyperspatial engineered demolition, he came across the peaceful migration of the Primordials...each of his servants he sent to capture a specimen went mad (as they were all psionic) determined still to get specimen constructed a trap in jumpspace which unfortunately had a feedback overload causing him to retreat into a bunker/prison. Fortunately, his mind, was uploaded in several places and near simulaneous communication (via the jumpspace communicator relays) prevented him from making the same mistake twice...however, it did not stop his children from trying some who came close the to Primordial herd went mad - coming to believe in a huge conspiracy was afoot with Grandfather turning against them. This led to the madness of the Ancient Civil War...

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I do believe his pocket universe constitutes a bunker more than a prison. And, given that he's got access to well faster than jump 6 drives...

Yeah, if he's the one in prison, then he's got himself a heckuva work release program.

But as I recall, there already is at least one closed-universe prison -- that one Grandfather sealed off for a faction who helped him out, yet he still didn't trust. I wonder how one might arrange a jailbreak from a universe?

Grandpa comes from an age where the culture he grew up in change the course of history for his people. Later when he decide his offspring had outgrown him, their usefulness or made contact with the Elder races, he alter the society once more through the use of war. Therefore the culture we see in Traveller today is not nessarily the one he was brought up in.

That's very true. There's always too much assuming that the state of things now are the way they've always been. The Zhodani weren't always elitist oligarchs, for example, and the Vilani weren't always (quite) as rigid as they are today. And maybe Bwaps were once a planet of sambuca-sucking hedonists... who knows?

But there is evidence of strong similarities between the Droyne of the modern era and the Ancient/pre-Ancient ones. They were always biologically casted, as is much of the life on their homeworld. They also began as a placid, uninspired species -- they loafed around at TL-5 for something like 150,000 years before Grandfather showed up. And as soon as the Ancient Era was over for them, the survivors flopped back down on their local planets and placidly settled themselves back in to the TL 5-9 range.

So Grandpa was tampering with Humans but who was tampering with his race? And why is he so fearful that he is hiding in his bunker, or in his Duck blind waiting for the next duck to fly by?

Nobody waits in a duck blind out of fear; they offer no natural defense except invisibility. The purpose of a duck blind is to give anything outside of it a false sense of security. And I know some people naturally want to make Grandfather uplifted or tampered with in some way; but as for me, I'd rather he wasn't: not every machina needs a deus.

A 4th posibility is, he was told how large his playpen was and as long as he stay there the elder races would leave him alone. He may have done something to upset them and now they're out to spank his butt.

Well, my current IMTU hypothesis is that the Final War was the result of an 'agreement' that Grandfather came to with the Primordials. After some increasingly unpleasant incidents involving Droyne attempts to access the Core Singularity, Grandfather was able (or forced?) to negotiate a truce with The Powers That Be. Unfortunately, terms of the truce demanded that in exchange for allowing the Droyne (and Grandfather) to continue to exist, his Children and Grandchildren had to be 'neutralised'.

I really like the idea of Yaskoydray having created jumpspace, though I think JS is natural rather than artificial. That said, I also really like the idea of Yaskoydray having built something "on top of" jumpspace.

Funny that everybody seems to be assuming that whatever transdimensional scaffolding Grandfather built (if he did it at all) is what allows jump to exist. What if whatever is there hinders jump in some way?

A TL 21 civilization apparently has enough grasp of quantum gravity to create localised jump dampers. As I understand it, the Ancients were goofing around with TL 35 tech at the time they were shut down. That's, oh... lessee if I got my math here right... another 14 TL's worth of apples falling on people's heads. Assuming for a second that jump equipment becomes exponentially more difficult to calibrate with each new level reached, then perhaps something that creates an extremely subtle background gravity 'tremor' might be able to short-circuit any jump above a certain threshold for an entire region of the galaxy.

I don't know if even a TL 35 civilization is capable of interdicting a region the size of Charted Space. But I would think that anyone with access to the Most Powerful Information Processor In 2.5 Million Light Years ought to be able to make a go at it.

 

[Whipsnade]

And I know some people naturally want to make Grandfather uplifted or tampered with in some way; but as for me, I'd rather he wasn't: not every machina needs a deus.

Kashi,

That's pretty much my feeling on the question.

I don't want to see Traveller fall into the Fantastic Four trap of having to continually come up with a new Big Bad Guy who is bigger and badder than the old Big Bad Guy. There's no real need to "out-Grandfather" Grandfather as it were.

Grandfather muscling his way into the He Man Psionicists Supermassive Black Hole Computing Club is one thing. Grandfather hiding from a spanking by a super-Grandfather, then an uber-Grandfather, then a super-uber-Grandfather, and on infinitum is essentially worthless.

The trouble is that we know too much about Grandfather and too little about Grandfather at the same time. If he and the Ancients had remained a mystery, then we could have Droyne "ancients", Primordial "ancients", and all sorts of other "ancients" who existed at various periods and who left scattered bits that bedazzle, zap, and otherwise screw with the players.

SotA's "answer" wasn't satisfying because it wasn't enough to "solve" the mystery it alone presented: Why is Grandfather sitting in that pocket universe? We need to "get through" Grandfather and return to a true, never-to-be-solved-so-we-all-can-solve-it-to suit-out-needs mystery on the other side.

That's why I like the black hole supercomputer angle. Grandfather has his reasons for sitting in that pocket universe and, after that, it's all both a mystery and, perhaps, beyond our comprehension.

If this post-SotA version of Grandfather can be dialed back to something more along the lines of the mystery presented in 2300AD's Bayern sourcebook, I believe the situation would settle down. The Hobby would then be able to answer the unceasing questions about Grandfather, the Primordials, and the rest by saying "There's no one answer and no one answer was never envisioned. Do what you will.".


Regards,
Bill

 

[mike wightman]

The MgT take on Secret of the Ancients is pretty good IMHO, well worth reading the adventure outline http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/soacampaignintro.pdf

 

[Whipsnade]

The MgT take on Secret of the Ancients is pretty good IMHO...

Mike,

It's very good IMHO too.

It's among the many good things Mongoose has done with the game.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Rigel Stardin]

The ancients should never be solved or should they intervene in a player character's life. It doesn't have to be about creating the next uber-grandpa either. This is the way I veiw Acients.

I believe in a Darwinian universe. So there is a possiblity for several races have evolved around Grandpa time to the same tech level. They do a meet and greet and set down some ground rules about how they are going to conduct themselves in the future.

If grandpa breaks the rules (as I have suggested) then we're waiting for him to get spanked. Or one of the other aciient races broke the rules and he's one of the good guys.

Babylon 5 was in the end a morality play when it came to there dealings with the Ancient races.

Chariot of the Gods scenario makes uplifted individuals races common place and a purpose only the Ancients knew. (I hate uplifting as a plot device, because they make mankind out to be dumber than a box of rocks.)

Finally this sceneraio comes from a short story I once read. Mankind comes to find out that the ancients that spread them out across the universe veiwed them as rodents and left known space fearing mankind may one day infest the entire galaxy, distroying it in the process.

It depends on how you play the scenario out, that counts...

(Never try to respond to a post when your wife is in the area. They always find something else for you to do )

 

[mike wightman]

Mike,

It's very good IMHO too.

It's among the many good things Mongoose has done with the game.


Regards,
Bill

The specific things I like about it are:

it develops the droyne based ancients in a much more satisfying manner than the original CT adventure

IMTU when I ran an historical war of the ancients campaign many of grandfather's offspring did survive - so it ties in nicely with MTU

nearly all of the great ideas from this thread can be bolted on to the MgT SotA.

I personally will go with jump space/extra dimensional meta conscious entities (from DN interviews) being among the oldest lifeforms in this universe. They evolved during the initial stages after the big bang.
The 'ancient' first starfarers from MT being a variety of extinct civilisations, one or several of these could be responsible for the black hole supercomputer.
The primordials or sparklers who were the first race after the MCEs to find psionic based teleportation/jump travel possible.

Grandfather was/is a mutation, not an uplift. He used technology and psionics, eventually blurring the distinction between them (psionics IMTU are very much magic tech rather than witchcraft).

In the far far futureof MTU humaniti may achieve the TLs of these older races - but they may just wipe themselves out instead.