Malorn Sector states

[GypsyComet]

So you can not like them, and not put them in to your campaign. But they are as much canon as anything else.

I think the Devi have been implicitly over-written, as their stated worlds are not present.

Dave's transplant for the Addaxur has been explicitly over-written, but the race he used is fine on its own, even in Zhodani space.

The only other added race that really causes issues is the Valkyrie. There are several ways to nerf them down to a non-existential threat, revolving mostly around taking away their ability to casually infect and possess a broad spectrum of sophonts.

There are some overused tropes in the SpaceMaster group, but there are also a LOT of alien races in the OTU.

 

[mike wightman]

So you can not like them, and not put them in to your campaign. But they are as much canon as anything else.

Nope - Marc decanonised them.

 

[77topaz]

The story as posted by David Pulver on the SJGames boards was he created the aliens for his early Traveller campaigns. He then write them up and tried (and failed) to sell them to GDW. As an enterprising games writer, he later wrote them up for the Spacemaster system. Again, a number of years later, David became an editor for SJGames. Working with Loren during the publication of the GT: Alien races books, Loren asked David to include some of the "Spacemaster" alien, as they were originally for Traveller, for the Alien races books.

The whole collection was included by the request of Loren and the approval of Marc, and processed through the SJGames playtest process.

So you can not like them, and not put them in to your campaign. But they are as much canon as anything else.

Then, there shouldn't be a copyright issue, should there?

 

[Almuric]

He transplanted them into the GT:ATU.

They are non-canon for the OTU.

As is the case for just about everything post-GDW, I believe.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Well that was thought provoking...
I did not think it was a legal issue as SJ Games had become more legally aware due to GURPS Cyberpunk government raid.

 

[77topaz]

As is the case for just about everything post-GDW, I believe.

Actually, isn't the general maxim that previously published material is canon unless Marc has explicitly declared it non-canon, or it has been overwritten by a later publication?

 

[GypsyComet]

Well that was thought provoking...
I did not think it was a legal issue as SJ Games had become more legally aware due to GURPS Cyberpunk government raid.

I suspect it comes down to the contract Dave Pulver had with ICE. With "For Hire" at one end of the spectrum and "first publication only" at the other, even a supposedly clear copyright statement in the SpaceMaster books is of variable enforceability.

 

[Almuric]

Nope - Marc decanonised them.

Heh. Maybe he can let me know sometime, so I don't accidentally reference them in anything official...

* As the text makes clear, the Inheritor sphereworld has an environment with a corrosive atmosphere that is not habitable for any of the major races of charted space; it's also not a solid space fantasy-style Dyson sphere but rather a structure of rigging and modules and solar collectors as Dyson originally envisioned, and it's orbiting a small star. I think the concern about megastructures is that you don't want everyone giving up on space empires and instead settling the giant ring world or whatever with space for a million earths on it. The sphereworld here is carefully designed so that this is not an issue; it's not much more habitable for anyone but inheritors than a big asteroid belt would be.

* The alien races were never submitted to GDW and rejected. I sent a general query regarding writing sourcebooks for GDW, but at the time they were only interested in freelance submissions for non-Traveller lines; they were transitioning from megatrav to TNE. Instead, I ended up doing several articles for Challenge and a number of game reviews.

* I was not an editor for SJ Games at the time I wrote the Alien Races books. (I was hired a few years later.) I had helped with GURPS Traveller and was selected to write the Alien Races I book. Loren and Steve remembered I had regained copyright on the races that had appeared in Aliens and Artifacts, and as they'd liked them, asked to use them as minor races.

* As Alien Races I was the first supplement, it went directly to Marc for approval. We corresponded regarded the aliens in it and he sent me a very early draft of what would become his T5 alien material. Loren and I worked closely together to evaluate each race and work out which would fit with Traveller. (I suspect the process of vetting was actually even more rigorous than what went into the average minor race when Loren was editing JTAS.)

* Regarding the Valkyrie, that was one of two races I was somewhat wary of including (and said so) but I think someone wanted them included to give people the option of running horror-style games, so they were.

* There wasn't any Well World influence that I'm aware of (but then again, I never read the latter books in that series). But they're basically body-controlling parasites, a theme that is certainly not original (cf. Heinlein's Puppet Masters). I'm sure there's dozens of equivalents. I suspect that was why Loren and Steve wanted them included, to give Trav a minor race of that type for GMs who wanted to run that sort of scenario. I remember we joked that SolSec vs. the Valkyrie would be a fun campaign idea.

 

[Almuric]

I suspect it comes down to the contract Dave Pulver had with ICE. With "For Hire" at one end of the spectrum and "first publication only" at the other, even a supposedly clear copyright statement in the SpaceMaster books is of variable enforceability.

Indeed, it was a contractual issue.

* ICE indicated they would pay the author for Aliens & Artifacts.

* They suffered financial problems in the early 90s and neglected to pay many of their authors and licensees, including myself.

* Their contract stated that rights reverted to the author in the event of non-payment.

* I was one of many creditors who ICE owed money to when they went bankrupt. I never received money, but was sent all the bankruptcy deal paperwork, and as part of the legal settlement of ICE's debts I received a written letter from ICE's representatives returning all rights to the material (with the exclusion of any references to ICE trademarks that appeared elsewhere, e.g., their background).

* As far as I know, no Spacemaster product other than Aliens and Artifacts used the material; if so, they were not supposed to.

* SJ Games were fully aware of every element of this when they hired me to write Alien Races; they acquired all rights to those races that were published. The parts of the book that did not appear in the Alien Races I retain rights
to (e.g., the creatures and the couple of aliens we thought didn't fit into Traveller).

* I think but cannot confirm that Far Future Enterprises was acquiring the SJ Games material following the end of the license; if that is correct (and I don't know whether it is or not), FFE would now own the rights to the aliens, and would be free to do whatever they want with them, from making them go aware to rewriting them to retaining them in a separate Lorenverse sub-canonical setting.

* Don was fully aware of all these details, thanks to correspondence we had on the subject when he asked me about it last year; whether they were of interest to or passed onto Marc I have no idea.

 

[Almuric]

Actually, isn't the general maxim that previously published material is canon unless Marc has explicitly declared it non-canon, or it has been overwritten by a later publication?

Could be - I may have missed a statement to that effect.

What I'm thinking of is the statement in Books 0-8: The Classic Books from FFF under "The Traveller Canon:"

"The Traveller Canon is defined as the set of Traveller materials published by GDW as Classic Traveller Materials. This list details the titles that are properly included in the Traveller Canon" followed by a list of all games, books, posters, and magazines that comprise this.

It may be that there's another statement, but that's the one I've seen in print.

I've always assumed that meant all other material is only semi-canon: applicable for particular lines like megatrav, GURPS Trav, or mongoose trav, but subject to being overwritten
if someone else ends up with the Traveler license.

(I assume, of course, that stuff like Marc's novel would also end up being canon, but that wasn't available at the time.)

 

[77topaz]

Could be - I may have missed a statement to that effect.

What I'm thinking of is the statement in Books 0-8: The Classic Books from FFF under "The Traveller Canon:"

"The Traveller Canon is defined as the set of Traveller materials published by GDW as Classic Traveller Materials. This list details the titles that are properly included in the Traveller Canon" followed by a list of all games, books, posters, and magazines that comprise this.

It may be that there's another statement, but that's the one I've seen in print.

I've always assumed that meant all other material is only semi-canon: applicable for particular lines like megatrav, GURPS Trav, or mongoose trav, but subject to being overwritten
if someone else ends up with the Traveler license.

(I assume, of course, that stuff like Marc's novel would also end up being canon, but that wasn't available at the time.)

There's a link in my post to the statement I was referencing. It was originally written by Don McKinney and includes the following quote:

Status of This Post. Marc Miller's reviewed this several times and actually did approve it. This probably opens more questions than it answers.

 

[Garnfellow]

Nope - Marc decanonised them.

I don't think so. Source?

Don included them in his T5 Sophont Review, which was a last of canon candidates for Marc. Having Valkyries on the list doesn't make them canon, of course -- but I don't think they would have been there if they had been officially decanonized.

 

[77topaz]

I don't think so. Source?

Don included them in his T5 Sophont Review, which was a last of canon candidates for Marc. Having Valkyries on the list doesn't make them canon, of course -- but I don't think they would have been there if they had been officially decanonized.

Don's T5 Sophont Review does include some non-canon sophonts, but those are explicitly labelled in the tables as such. The Valkyrie were not labelled non-canon, suggesting Don thought they were canon.

 

[inexorabletash]

Thanks for jumping in!

* Don was fully aware of all these details, thanks to correspondence we had on the subject when he asked me about it last year; whether they were of interest to or passed onto Marc I have no idea.

...and that makes speculation here rather difficult. Don had particular opinions and advocated his viewpoint to Marc. He had sway, but did not dictate canon. I don't know what Marc is thinking now - he's got a lot on his plate.

(FWIW, I'm a fan of both the Lithkind and Inheritors; I haven't spent enough time with the rest of the gang to form much of an opinion.)

 

[Garnfellow]

Valkyries

After reading Agents of the Imperium a couple of months ago, I think Valkyries fit in pretty well in the OTU. AotI has 2, maybe 3 parasitic species in a similar vein -- and we learn that the Imperium does not screw around with these types of threats.