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Are the Aslan a major race?

Valarian

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I got the following quote as a reply to a post on one of the other forums on this site. However, it's raised the question of whether the Aslan are a major race.

As I understand it, the major races are those who invented jump drive on their own. The Geonee discovered jump drive by researching an Ancient ship and are disqualified as a major race because of this. If the Aslan discovered jump drive by researching the Terran scout ship Pathfinder, why are they included in the list of major races?

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Canonically, the Aslan didn't independently invent jump drive. Instead, a Terran scout vessel; TNS Pathfinder, misjumped into the Aslan home system and the Aslan took things from there.
 
It's explained in Solomani & Aslan.

The Aslans kept it a secret. The ancient crash of the Pathfinder (Terran Confederation starship). The Aslans kept it a secret all along.

It was not until Imperial Year 1109 that a human expedition actually "discovered" the remains of the Pathfinder on Kusyu. And then apparently... no one really made a huge effort to discredit the Aslans as a major race. Sure, a few Solomani racists probably said "Yeah, you fookin Aslans should be taken off the Major Race List, cuz we found out that you cheated, and didn't really invent Jump Drives on your own, goddam frauds!" Apparently, no one took this sentiment seriously. So the Aslans remain a major race.

Sooo technically:

1) By Traveller metagame definition: the Aslan are not a major race. Because they reverse-engineered a crashed starship

and

2) But as far as most sophont empires are concerned, they still remain on the Official List of Major Races.

Confused yet?
 
Like Maladominus said, yes, they did not invent the Jump Drive.

I always figured they invented it and then found the Pathfinder, so IMTU they are.
 
However, as the whole Pathfinder storyline remains within the canons of Traveller's Digest. Marc will neither nor deny the existance of the Aslan as a major race.

However, they were naturally on the cusp of inventing Jump Drive anyhow and clearly they would have had the warrior types not wanted another world war. Because the technology and knowledge (read Marc's article on Humpspace) needed to reverse engineer implies as much. As I am sure that Aslan speculated that they were not alone in the universe but merely did not care about the answer. The question is: why?
 
Originally posted by kafka47:
However, as the whole Pathfinder storyline remains within the canons of Traveller's Digest. Marc will neither nor deny the existance of the Aslan as a major race.
Just to add one thing: My information of the Pathfinder and Aslans was from DGP's Solomani & Aslan.... which was a canonical source during the time when MWM allowed DGP to run the show with MegaTraveller. But I know what you are saying Kafka. You might be implying that DGP went a little too far by hinting that the Aslans are not a major race.... despite the fact that MWM had said all along in all GDW products that the Aslans were always canonically Major.

This is one of those grey areas. Any Traveller GM who purchased the DGP products would know of this hint that the Aslan were not major. But any GM that ignored the DGP supplements (or failed to purchase them) would not have known this at all, and thus would have considered the Aslans as 100% qualified Major Race "because Marc Miller said so".

So yes.. I much agree with you. It does seem like a grey area in canon. In the end, it's not a huge problem. This just lets each individual GM interpret it as they wish. :cool: In my campaign, the Aslans are Major Race. In my campaign, hardly anyone outside of Kusyu's Science Academy KNOW about the secret crash of the Pathfinder. Therefore, no one is in the position to discredit Aslan Major Race status.
 
Perhaps the Aslan were independently developing a jump drive of their own...

The Aslan aren't united and it's possibly that independent researchers could have working without knowledge of the Pathfinder...

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
 
I speculate there was a Cat Fight between two female Aslan researchers over the correct theory about Jump Space. With the arrival of the barbarians this became a moot point, as the discredited researcher turned out to be right and the current lead researcher then hired assassins to kill her off and take the credit for the invention of Jump Drive and successfully persuading the Council that if it did not expand Kusu, then all land would be gone to the barbarians and then it was a matter of time before Kusu would fall.

Don't watch too much Anime or read Manga but others that do would be able to paint a better picture of betrayals and sutle power plays amongst the Corporate blocs.
 
I think the issue is also addressed by a comment that the DGP staff made in the TD issue set on Kusyu.

It basically amounts to, "Who is going to stand up to the Aslan and tell them they are not a major race?"

The whole situation is used to illustrate how labels like that are completely arbitrary and implemented as a taxonomy by those in power to keep certain groups in their place.

Also, in game-world terms, so what if that news got out. It would only be reported as nothing but rumor anyway.

I'm sure there would be a huge number of right-wing Aslan bloggers denouncing the evidence as faked. :D
 
Regardless of where the story about the Pathfinder was printed, it was still Marc Miller's idea and plan. Even Joe Fugate has stated that DGP only implemented Marc's idea. So regardless of copyright issues, the Pathfinder story is still part of 'canon'.

As to the larger issue, the ambiguity is the whole point. The whole "invented jump drive" thing was simply a ruse to support those already in power. Just because it is "accepted" and seems to work doesn't mean it is correct. The Pathfinder story was intended to pull that back and show the definition to be ridiculous.

The Aslan are, without a doubt, a major race. They have a multi-sector empire that is as large as any of the other major powers. They are one of the major powers in Charted Space. The Aslan are a major race because they succeeded.

The Geonee are not a major race because they barely extended their influence outside their own subsector. Even when left alone, they still did not establish a relevant presence in Charted Space. The Geonee are a minor race because they did not succeed. (Yes, they did survive, but they did not succeed.)
 
And there's another strange twist to the tale: anyone remember the cliff art mentioned in Mission On Mithril?
 
I had completely forgotten about that and had to look it up.

I love that stuff that seems "out of time" in the OTU. That one is akin to the Fulacin octagon.
 
Originally posted by robject:
And there's another strange twist to the tale: anyone remember the cliff art mentioned in Mission On Mithril?
You can't just leave it at that. Please pity us poor newcomers and give the details.
 
SPOILER ALERT: don't keep reading if you want certain items in Mission on Mithril to be a surprise.
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Off the top of my head, the adventurers find cliff are clearly depicting Aslan in a remote location of the planet Mithril, in the Sword Worlds subsector of the Spinward Marches. It's very, very old, and definitely predates any known Aslan visits to the Marches - and perhaps predates known human visitation as well.

I think there are also metal containers of radioactive material with Aslan marking somewhere, but I don't recall the precise details.

- John
 
Ah! I'd forgotten about the containers! The stuff was so old the material was actually valuable again (or something like that). Anyone care to do some guesstimating with that kind of data?

Tens of thousands of years?

You're right, Octagon-quality tidbits like that really do it for me.
 
Originally posted by Valarian:
As I understand it, the major races are those who invented jump drive on their own. The Geonee discovered jump drive by researching an Ancient ship and are disqualified as a major race because of this. If the Aslan discovered jump drive by researching the Terran scout ship Pathfinder, why are they included in the list of major races?
Valarian,

First, don't confuse labels with reality.

Second, because the GDW staff were wargamers and either history buffs or actually historians, they gleefully mined actual history to use as a guide for creating the millenia-deep arc of Official Traveller History.

Keeping all that in mind, why are the Aslan a Major Race? The answer is they're a Major Race because they are a Major Race. The invention of jump drive has nothing to do with it at all.

The 'Independently Invented Jump Drive' label is just a 'reason' created after the fact to justify why three Human Races and four Alien Species own pretty much all the real estate in Chartered Space. Despite having jump drives the Geonee aren't a major race because the Vilani beat them, despite having settled a STL empire the size of a sector the Suerrat aren't a major race because the Vilani beat them, all the other Minor Races are minor races because someone beat them.

Getting stomped or not getting stomped in the only real qualifier for Minor or Major Race status.

You can see the parallels in actual history; empire of all stripes are 'pre-ordained' because the empire builders are of the 'right' religion, race, language group, have nukes, etc., etc., etc. The argument is the same no matter what the label, the empire builder comes up with a 'reason' after the fact to explain away their power grab.

Hopes this helps.


Have fun,
Bill

edited for spelling
 
So ... might is right in the Traveller universe as well as in real life. So much for idealism.

The wooden spoon went in to stir things up, and the answers have been interesting. Thanks to everyone who replied.

I especially liked the "Do you want to explain it to them?" answer. I can just picture someone trying to explain to an Aslan why they aren't a major race after all, whilst trying to pick their entrails from off the floor.
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A good point of minor/major race debate is the Poixch, a minor race I created for my beyond campaign. For humaniti point of view,these insects are a minor race who developed the jump drive from human traders who reached their planet Hoelle IV in the Aslani subsector of the Beyond.
In fact they are a race who discovered the jump drive long before human contact. They just had the misfortune to live in what became Aslan space.
They got their star empire smashed & their remanents fled to the Beyond, abandoned starflight & dug in. Centuries later, the Aslan caught up with them & conquered their new worlds.
Today the Poicxh are a gypsy trading race spread
thoughout the Beyond. So despite they accomplishments they do not fit the status of a major race. However their TL(15, 16?) in sensor, navigation & commo technology make them very useful in trade & conflict.
 
I can see that the Aslan found the pathfinder, but they would have to find out how it works and what it does, and what use would it be and Aslan Race is Tribal the liklyness of using it for war would be great inthat they can make there own ships.
Basically what i'm saying is, the Aslan are a major Race in the fact there devoleped there own jump Ships. By this there simply didn't use the J-drive in the pathfinder in on of there own ships as they would not know how it is put together or can't put together that way so there'll make one based upon it's input=output which would explain why all races j-drives are nearly the same in respects of input=output.
And a second example would be that of the Terrans who would need a minimum of a 2-parsec drive system.
 
Given that the Aslan were able to expand so quickly...I wonder if the timing of the Pathfinder was a prototype of a J-3 drive or even if it was a J-2. This would account for the leapfrogging and quick assimulation of the Terran colonies in the Trailing edge. Also, it is cited that the humans have adopted Aslan ways, other than the Japanese which other nationalities would have taken to Aslan culture?
 
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