GURPS Aliens

[Blue Ghost]

Okay, as I continue to write and draw upon various sources for Traveller fiction, I'm curious as to how canon some of the GURPS Traveller races are.

I know that GT is essentially CT with an unaltered (sans-virus) timeline, so I figure the races that appear in the GT material are fare game for OTU canon.

Having said that, I'd like some cautionary thoughts, if any.

Thanks much.

 

[Supplement Four]

I haven't read the GT aliens books, but from skimming through them, the aliens look canonical to me. There are several aliens introduced in CT and MT magazines for Traveller, and it looks as if GT cherry picked the best of these to be the more "unknown" aliens in their books.

Does anyone know if any of the aliens from the GT books are seen for the first time in those books?

I don't think so--I think they're all from some earlier source. But, someone else may know better than I.

 

[aramis]

some of them are from SpaceMaster; not their first appearance, but their first traveller appearance. One or two were rejected by GDW and even by ICE, and finally find a home in GT:ARx

 

[Easterner9504]

The only race they seem to regret is the Valkyrie. Why I don't know, if anyone is psychologically equipped to exterminate Alien scum it's the Sols.

"We had to scorch the planet to bedrock to save it." They've allegedly done this to Droyne, why not some parasites.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The only races that are bugging me so far are the dino-sentients. It just seems too easy a ploy to introduce them into Traveller.

 

[aramis]

There was a dino-sentient written up in some third party adventure, and the implications of Shadows are that the race in question was reptilian or dinosaurian; keep in mind, many raptors were smaller than humans.

And droyne are essentially what happens to pernese fire-lizards when they become sentient, right down to the compound eyes... sentient dragons.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

I thought the GT:AR "dinos" and the Shadows "dinos" were two different races?

The "dinos" retconned into Shadows had used STL generation ships until they gained jump drive by "zerg rushing" some Vargr world near the Julian Protectorate. They also have a marked magnetic sense, use maglev more than gravitics, and smoke trace mineral laced cigars for health reasons.

The AR "dinos" were neighbors of the Vargr and Zhodani, received jump drive through trade, and quickly carved out a small empire with a nasty surprise attack on the edges of a recently reorganized Vargr polity.

Whatever they were, I didn't care for either set of "dinos" at all.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, there're the Drakarans from GT Aliens 1, and the Hhkar from GT Aliens 4.

The Droyne/Ancients don't really bother me, nor do the lizards from "Shadows". I didn't know they'd been reconned to fit into whatever and wherever they were needed. I always figured they were a one-off race that made an archeological show in the starter adventure.

Races I'm liking; the Virushi. I actually read about these guys a couple years back, and tried to write some fiction with a Virushi character. The character came out well, but my story sucked

Thew Shriekers seem cool as long as they're not stereotypical "giant spider" people. They seem more like bears with a very loose arachnid like architecture. I don't like the spikey appendages they put on. That's just me.

The Hlanssai seem interesting. I also kind of like the Schalli; I like the drawings of them on page 103 and 104 of GT Aliens 4.

The Tezcat's seem a little hokey, but okay. I'm neutral on the Valkyrie. Haven't they been done somewhere before? ... I can't recall.

The Clotho are just too funky for me.

Anywho, I think I got a good pool of canon stuff to mix with my own inventions.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Whipsnade]

Well, there're the Drakarans from GT Aliens 1, and the Hhkar from GT Aliens 4.

BG,

Thanks! Those are the names I couldn't remember!

The Droyne/Ancients don't really bother me, nor do the lizards from "Shadows". I didn't know they'd been reconned to fit into whatever and wherever they were needed. I always figured they were a one-off race that made an archeological show in the starter adventure.

The Hhkar are the aliens ret-conned into Shadows. In fact, the idea behind creating them may have been Shadows. Hans would most likely know.

Races I'm liking; the Virushi. I actually read about these guys a couple years back, and tried to write some fiction with a Virushi character. The character came out well, but my story sucked

NO. The story didn't suck, you just hadn't put enough work into it yet. It's like looking at a room you're painting while you're still sanding and puttying and declaring the paint job sucks. The paint job doesn't suck and your story doesn't suck because both jobs are still in progress.

Thew Shriekers seem cool as long as they're not stereotypical "giant spider" people. They seem more like bears with a very loose arachnid like architecture. I don't like the spikey appendages they put on. That's just me.

I like them too. The whole "We've been in the Marches for 1000 years and never noticed them before" troubles me, but I like many things about the Shriekers; hard to communicate with, post-catastrophic population, non-humanoid, etc. Traveller needs more aliens that aren't bipeds.

I like the Brinn too and for many of the same reasons.

The Hlanssai seem interesting. I also kind of like the Schalli; I like the drawings of them on page 103 and 104 of GT Aliens 4.

The Hlanssai to me are meh. You've merely taken the flighty Vargr and turned up the dial. The Schalli don't do much for me either. I'd like them to be weirder but I don't see how they could be weirder and still be found aboard starships.

The Tezcat's seem a little hokey, but okay. I'm neutral on the Valkyrie. Haven't they been done somewhere before? ... I can't recall.

Both are retreads from other games. The Tezcats are not worth the bother and the Valkyrie shouod have been exterminated by the Solomani centuries ago.

The Clotho are just too funky for me.

They'd just been a name in CT for years. Some of the ideas behind with them are very interesting, I just couldn't figure out how to use the Clotho however. The whole glyph things makes communication very difficult, something I normally applaud in aliens, but I can't quite grasp how, given those communication difficulties, the Clotho are as integrated into the Consulate as canon says they are. I penciled in an extensive "pidgin" that both races use to speak with each other and figured there'd be extensive segragation too. For instance you wouldn't normally have a Clotho aboard a Zho ship, but you'd have a Clotho ship within a Zho flotilla. There'd be Clotho "sections" in Zho cities, Clotho regions on Zho worlds, Clotho majority colonies, and so on. Certain Clotho would have a "Zhodani liaison" skill just as certain Zhodani would have "Clotho liaison" skill.


Regards,
Bill

 

[BlackBat242]

Virushi: JTAS #12 1981

Hlanssai: JTAS #22 1985

 

[Supplement Four]

It seems to me that the aliens you use in your fiction should be determined by where your Traveller story is set.

Don't forget that it's very expensive to star travel in Traveller. Only a select group of people do it: Travellers. The vast majority of the empire's citizens stay put on their homeworlds, no matter their TL.

 

[GypsyComet]

The Addaxur have been a name in Zhodani materials for years. The Clotho are another Spacemaster import grafted into the Addaxur's niche, from what I understand.

The Clotho would be fine and useful if they were in their own niche instead of a stolen one.

The Valkyrie are a clear steal from Jack Chalker's Well of Souls books (book 3 or 4, IIRC). Can't stand 'em, and as they are "unique" to GT, I don't have to.

The Tezcat struck me as odd at the time, but I haven't revisited them since. As yet another feloid, I can give them a miss.

The GT take on the Zhodani is not ideal, either, but the bits that are off are subtle enough that I'd have to reread them to tell you what I didn't like.

The Newts have now been visited about as often as the Aslan, and are just as contradictory in their various incarnations.

The races that are more worrying are those unique to T4, which Marc considers Canon (unlike GT, which is "a decent reference"). Most of those are sad victims of "Marvel Universe" art and comic book pulp write ups. I suspect there is a lot of use to be had there, but they really need to be re-written and redrawn in most cases. As it is, I consider the Denaar the only useful thing in the book.

 

[Whipsnade]

The Addaxur have been a name in Zhodani materials for years. The Clotho are another Spacemaster import grafted into the Addaxur's niche, from what I understand.

GC,

Thanks for reminding me of that.

Because GT inserted the Clotho into what had been the Addaxur's "niche", I continually get the two confused.

As for the subtle differences between "canonical" and GT Zhodani, ISTR that it was mostly due to GURPS treatment of psionics. GURPS psionics, which was naturally developed to be used in as many setting as possible, is markedly different from Traveller's version.

I strongly agree with your assessment of T4's aliens. For the most part they were a shoddy mixture of tired tropes, one trick ponies, and wildly overpowered uber-threats. A few weren't aliens at all, they turned out to be human minor races. I found the So super charismatic and/or pheromone laden that all humans will eagerly succumb to their control so they must be forever interdicted and fixed by geneering aliens to be particularly appalling.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

When I was developing my version of Foreven (With the Weltbund and not the Avalar Consulate, thank you very much), I used the Irari from GURPS Aliens as the natives of one of the worlds (called Fliegerwelt, naturally). I also put in Big World from Jack Vance's book of the same name (called Lebensraum ). Since I knew I'd never be able to get it published, I felt no need to beware of copyrights. Several of the aliens from GURPS Aliens are perfectly suitable as Traveller minor non-humans.


Hans

 

[GypsyComet]

I strongly agree with your assessment of T4's aliens. For the most part they were a shoddy mixture of tired tropes, one trick ponies, and wildly overpowered uber-threats. A few weren't aliens at all, they turned out to be human minor races. I found the So super charismatic and/or pheromone laden that all humans will eagerly succumb to their control so they must be forever interdicted and fixed by geneering aliens to be particularly appalling.

Interestingly, the developers of T4 seem to have largely agreed, as the Denaar are the only race unique to that book to have gotten any exposure in any other T4 product. This was only as art, mind you, but they make two appearances in the vehicles book. The rest of Aliens Archive? Not even that much.

It seems to me that the aliens you use in your fiction should be determined by where your Traveller story is set.

Don't forget that it's very expensive to star travel in Traveller. Only a select group of people do it: Travellers. The vast majority of the empire's citizens stay put on their homeworlds, no matter their TL.

True, but for some active players the need to know and be confident in the "rightness" of the whole setting is still important. The games I've played in or run have been in or near Solomani space (Terra system, Aldebaran, and Daibei), the Marches and Trojan Reach, the Zhodani Core Road, Massilia, and Lishun. I've toyed with running in the Hinterworlds, The Blight (Afachtiabr), and behind Windhorn. The whole cast of muppets and rubber suits is on the table.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I have the Alien Archives from T4, but have never read them. I glanced at them, and the art seems okay, but I'm unsure of their social structures and psychology. Anything that looks alien enough, and seems plausible, is okay in my book. If I take the time to read the book I'll have a better opinion.

 

[Jame]

I always liked the Drakarans, and wish there were a CT conversion for them.

Because GT inserted the Clotho into what had been the Addaxur's "niche", I continually get the two confused.

As for the subtle differences between "canonical" and GT Zhodani, ISTR that it was mostly due to GURPS treatment of psionics. GURPS psionics, which was naturally developed to be used in as many setting as possible, is markedly different from Traveller's version.

As for me, I never knew that there was a difference between CT's Addaxur and GT's Clotho, and still don't - all I know is that there is one.

Never got the T4 aliens book so I can't comment.

 

[rancke]

As for me, I never knew that there was a difference between CT's Addaxur and GT's Clotho, and still don't - all I know is that there is one.

The Zhodani Alien Module is one of the CT books I don't have, alas, so I could be wrong, but the way I understand it, the 'Addaxur' was a throwaway reference with no descriptive underpinning; when the GT book was being playtested, someone suggested using the empty reference to give the Clotho a bit more connection to the OTU. A 'trick' of which I thoroughly approve.


Hans

 

[aramis]

ISTR about a paragraph; akin to what was given by Judges Guild to the Danin.

 

[Peter Newman]

Addaxur

"In -5,120 [1], Zhodani ships encountered the Addaxur, an intelligent race of six-legged carnivores from a high gravity world about 40 parsecs from Zhodane. The Addaxur had established their own interstellar empire of 37 systems with communications maintained by sublight ships. The Zhodani observed the fringes of the Addaxur empire for about ten years before making first contact. Carefully planned overtures established friendly relations and reserved 10 of the Addaxur's 37 worlds for the Addaxur without restricting Zhodani expansion. [CT Am 4 Zhodani, p 8, 1985 by GDW.]

Another note on the Addaxur from the same source:
The Addaxur reservation is in subsector G of Tienspevnekr Sector (i.e. the one just anti-spinward of Zhdant Sector, or two sectors spinward and one coreward of the Spinward Marches. [op cit p 10]

Notable [2] differences between CT canon and the Variant GURPS canon.
1) In CT the Zhodani first encountered the Addaxur in -5,120 and in GURPS it was -5,127. Given that this was thousands of years ago it may make no difference, but it's a bit disconcerting to have unnecessary changes for no apparent reason.

2) In CT the Addaxur were encountered by Zhodani 'ships' (plural) but in GURPS Traveller the Addaxur were first encountered by '_an_ exploration starship' [GT: AR 1 p 113] (i.e. one ship). Again it probably makes little difference thousands of years later, but it is an unnecessary change.

3) In CT the Zhodani studied the Addaxur for ten years (apparently that's ten Imperial years, as none of the other references in that section are in Zhodani years or Olympiads) before contacting them, which would be in -5,110. In GURPS Traveller contact was initiated in -5,112 to -5,110 [op cit p 115]. Yet another unnecessary change that probably makes no difference thousands of years later.

4) In CT the Addaxur are from 'a high gravity world' but in GURPS Traveller the Addaxur are from a 1.1 G planet which is noted as being 'significantly greater than the Zhodani homeworld'. The problem with this is that in CT their world was not noted as 'being high gravity to the Zhodani' it was noted as being 'high gravity' in a section written by earth humans for earth humans using earth human standards. THerefore in CT the Addaxur were established as being from a planet with a high gravity _relative_to_Earth_ not Zhodane.
Yet another unnecessary change that probably makes little difference.


[1] -5,120 Imperial = Zhodani olympiad 732, (possibly 732.2, but we can't say for sure).
also = Solomani 602 BC.

[2] Well they're notable to me, you may be less pedantic.