You might also consider the works of A. Bertram Chandler, which go back to the 60s.
Help with literary foundation for CT
- Thread starter Sci-Fi Neophyte
- Start date
I adore the ProtoTraveller Aesthetic, but vastly prefer MT's personal combat, skills, and character gen. I also prefer the HG ship design methodology, but prefer a smaller scale, capping about the size of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (around 20k Td - too lazy to search it out.).
There is, however, a LOT of setting buried in those rules. The Imperium exists with a single page of description in Bk4 (page 1), is notional in Sup4 (especially in the title), is important background in A1-4. The named list of characters in the back of S4 (and their sources) set a strong tone... having GDW's stats for them wasn't a thing for me, it told me what kind of books to read... Tho' I've still not read several on it. I'll note that the Imperium also exists in the Marine Tradition Rule, the 7 term limit, the fixed-by-length-of-serivice universal retirement, the crew requirements, the Law Levels system, the Tech Level scale. There's a lot one can unpack from character gen.
Note for pedantry: the stats for about half of them are in Sup 1; the stats without the names are, really, just more bland NPCs to figure - but the list of who they represent (both the S1 and S4 lists are keyd in S4) and the series they are from is far more guidance than all of the rest... but the character gen, world gen, ship encounters, ground encounters, and trade rules do encode quite a bit setting. And then, Sup 3, the Spinward Marches...
Wm. H. Kieth's and Elizabeth "Liz" Danforth's drawings also shape a lot for me; my first Travdeller rulebook was The Traveller Book.
Last edited:
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Cold berths/ low berths are an old idea in sci-fi, going back to at least Andre Norton's 1954 The Stars Are Ours.
Winds of Gath was first published in 1967.
In TSAO a starship is built by an enclave of rogue scientists, to escape an Earth ruled by an anti-tech/anti-science elite. In order to survive the trip they have just developed equipment to enable the crew to "hibernate" for the trip - the first test of the equipment is the actual voyage.
Out of 59 total aboard 6 failed to survive revival... which is 9.8% failure rate.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I recall skimming this at some point and disagreeing with some of his assertions, but I no longer recall specifics.
A well-researched article with good primary source recommendations.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I don't recall paying for it, so it's possible I read a draft or early revision. Or a completely different document on the same subject. It has been years.
Sci-Fi Neophyte
SOC-10
My wanderings through HB Piper’s universe(s) is/are about to end. I’m not a fast reader by any means. I’ve been in an auto accident that has forever changed how my brain functions.
Nevertheless, I can see Piper’s influence on CT rules. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but I can safely say the following things could have come from Piper’s short stories:
It was a shame Piper took his own life in the end. We may have missed out on many other great works of SF literature.
I’ll be moving to the Dumarest Saga shortly.
Nevertheless, I can see Piper’s influence on CT rules. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but I can safely say the following things could have come from Piper’s short stories:
- PCs with military backgrounds
- Noble titles
- Blades and cartridge firearms
- Examples of several CT skills in use in stories
- Interstellar and interplanetary travel
- Sentient alien species
- Air/rafts, futuristic helicopters, and others (construction, space-whaling, etc.)
- Personal and starship combat (lasers, missiles, etc.)
- Starship economics
- Different government types
- Trade and commerce
- Big computers
- Psionics/precognition
- A lot of drinking and smoking
- A really neat PC naming convention
- A lot of nukes
- Alien tech
- Many gov’t agencies, lots of bureaucracy at all levels
- Many socio-political themes (global unemployment, terrorism, infrastructure issues, racism, climate change, public school systems/educational disparities, state of moral values, budget deficits, violent crime, sexism/gender inequality, colonialism, ability of different political parties to work together, inflation, overconsumption, housing crisis, artificial intelligence, threats to journalism, etc.)
It was a shame Piper took his own life in the end. We may have missed out on many other great works of SF literature.
I’ll be moving to the Dumarest Saga shortly.
You'll see even more direct influence from Dumarest.
Note that among the T4 lists of equipment (in Central Supply Catalog, I think), there is a nod to Asimov and others concerning supposed "future smoking habits" with the availability of the "flashtray".
Last edited:
Classic Traveller adventure "Exit Visa" is all about this - many people who run it tend to find that player's find it frustrating and/or boring since it is so very, very different from what players are expecting out of Traveller, YMMV. I've run it and I think the key is to keep it at the edge of frustration, along with a high dose of eye-rolling comedy (kinda like a similar sequence out of the movie Jupiter Rising) and then knowing when to end it before things spoil...
Yeah, my very long-running Traveller campaign (25+ years now) dives deep into colonialism, racism, classism (which in turn spins out into terrorism) and dips into AI and what we'd now call Transhumanism (drawing deeply from the Cyberpunk genre). I based my Imperium even more explicitly on the British Empire, but I have also mainly set it in the Foreven and now decanonized Paranoia Press sectors (with occasional visits to Far Frontiers and the Spinward Marches). One of the main instigating events that continues with repercussions now was the party (one character being a journalist) stumbling across evidence of an Imperial atrocity and cover-up, with an often mixed party of somewhat anti-Imperial types and Imperial supporters (nobles, former high-ranked Imperial service, etc). Always makes for some interesting dynamics with the PC and players.
D.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Do you mean Jupiter Ascending? Great film.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
That's spelled grate.
Yeah - misremembered the title slightly. It got bad reviews but I actually enjoyed.
D.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
No, I meant great. I enjoyed the film, I saw it a couple of times at the cinema and have it on blu ray and electronically.
Much like John Carter I would like to have seen more films.
Don't think I saw Jupiter Ascending, but
to John Carter of Mars. That's another film that deserved a much better reception and should have had sequels.