"Marching In Place?" or "Wither the GT ATU?"

[Whipsnade]

Loren Wiseman has mentioned this on a number of occasions, that the concept of Strephon in the MT time line was inspired by the False Dimtri's of Russia. And I wish they'd stuck with that idea too.

I wish they'd stuck with the idea too. GDW's well meant attempt at fan service which morphed the Real Strephon into the real Strephon has caused far too many problems.

Sundry comments:

IRIS - The meta-game story is well known. It began as a variant, was slipped into canon with the variant's author became a line editor, and was neatly excised from canon when another line editor took over.

From a meta-game standpoint I never much cared for IRIS. It smacked of skills inflation that all RPGs eventually suffer from and produced player-characters which, if they weren't munchkins, definitely skirted the edge of munchkindom. From an in-game standpoint, I cared for IRIS even less as it rested on the lazy trope of "secret masters" and the "hidden hand". To my thinking, if you wanted to play 007 and Illuminati there were other games for that.

Strephon's IRIS diary entry - The torturous application of semantics to that entry in order to "prove" that IRIS really existed would be funny if it weren't also so sad. The entry in question was specifically written to remove IRIS from canon, so interpreting it otherwise means you're choosing to deliberately ignore the oft-stated intent of the author.

What IRIS is or was in your personal TU is entirely up to you. What IRIS is or was in the OTU has been stated in no uncertain terms. Live with it.

Dulinor's Plot - I wrote about this when I began this thread and I still believe it is potentially fascinating story GT unaccountably failed to explore. Let me quote something I wrote earlier to explain why the counter-plot to Dulinor's plot is so interesting:

Thinks about it for a moment. Dulinor had lined up support across his entire Domain for his coup. He'd suborned nobles, governments, fleets, armies, bureaucrats, you name it. The plan was that he'd kill Strephon, claim the Throne, and his Domain would rise in immediate support. Immediate support, mind you. No one was going to wait for the news from the Capital to begin their part in the coup, they were supposed take action automatically on a given date. So there were thousands of co-conspirators waiting in Ilelish for the planned date but, in GT's ATU, that date came and went without a single one of those co-conspirators doing what they were supposed to do.

That means, as Dulinor was building his coup, someone else was working right behind him dismantling it. Someone so carefully thwarted Dulinor's plot that there were almost no loose strings left behind, none of the co-conspirators were able to take the actions they had agreed upon. The only piece of the plot that still occurred was a planet-wide media buy on Dlan, the counter-plot had rolled up everything else across an entire Domain and in the Imperium before Dulinor was blown up.

The counter-plot thwarted Dulinor's plot so successfully that there were nearly no loose strings left behind, but what if a few more loose strings were left behind?

Don correctly pointed out earlier that no one wants a setting-wide meta-plot disaster like the Rebellion. I'd like to suggest that the Imperium can be "locally interesting" without becoming a train wreck and that loose threads which the counter-plot failed to account for can provide many "locally interesting" events.

Imagine a border subsector in Ilelish whose fleet commanders aren't identified and subsequently "neutralized" by the counter-plot. D-day arrives and their squadrons jump away on their long planned missions under the banner of Dulinor the First. Might events get fairly interesting in that region for a year or so? Might those events provide for better TNS entries and adventure seeds than a list of Iolanthe's fuel stops and what flavor ice cream Avery had at his birthday party?

A sector's worth, or even Imperium's worth, of loose ends from Dulinor's failed plot could have provided GT's alternate time line with TNS items and adventure seeds for years to come.

 

[MCEvans]

Question: is GT OTU (cannon) or ATU non-cannon?

If OTU we now have TWO timelines. o:
If ATU IRIS is a possible answer the question of why alternate timeline.

The disparaging of IRIS has been in using OTU - MT & TNE sources.

So if GT is ATU then your arguments against IRIS in GT are pointless because GT is not cannon and thus IRIS can be and may be a reason to a decade or two of peace and prosperity. :devil:

 

[Dragoner]

The counter-plot thwarted Dulinor's plot so successfully that there were nearly no loose strings left behind, but what if a few more loose strings were left behind?

Don correctly pointed out earlier that no one wants a setting-wide meta-plot disaster like the Rebellion. I'd like to suggest that the Imperium can be "locally interesting" without becoming a train wreck and that loose threads which the counter-plot failed to account for can provide many "locally interesting" events.

Imagine a border subsector in Ilelish whose fleet commanders aren't identified and subsequently "neutralized" by the counter-plot. D-day arrives and their squadrons jump away on their long planned missions under the banner of Dulinor the First. Might events get fairly interesting in that region for a year or so? Might those events provide for better TNS entries and adventure seeds than a list of Iolanthe's fuel stops and what flavor ice cream Avery had at his birthday party?

A sector's worth, or even Imperium's worth, of loose ends from Dulinor's failed plot could have provided GT's alternate time line with TNS items and adventure seeds for years to come.

...or just arrest Dulinor, as that is what would actually happen.

A really intelligent campaign would be to have the Zhodani attack at the Narrows Subsector and force the Imperium to play Xerxes at Thermopylae. Then there could be the Marches under siege, because if the Zho's could hold the Narrows, the Marches would fall in their lap like an apple.

 

[rancke]

Question: is GT OTU (cannon) or ATU non-cannon?

The GTU is supposed to be an alternate universe to the OTU. It is supposedly identical to the OTU up to an (undisclosed) divergence point. From that point things begin to diverge, but the two universes stay substantially the same for a while.

Details from one universe can be used as evidence for the other universe as long as proper care is taken. For example, if an admiral is mentioned as being in the Spinward Marches in 1120 in a GT book, a younger version of him will be around somewhere in 1105 in both the GTU and the OTU -- and it will be the same somewhere. He may be dead by 1120 in the OTU, and if he isn't, he's probably not doing the same as he is in the GTU. But the two will share a history up to around 1117.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Question: is GT OTU (cannon) or ATU non-cannon?

It's both. Let me explain.

An alternate time line, ATL, diverges from the original time line. OTL, at a single event known as the "point of departure" or POD. Until the POD occurs, the ATL simply does not exist. After the POD, the manner in which the ATL differs from the OTL depends on the scope of the POD and the amount of time which has passed since the POD.

In the case of GT's alternate Traveller universe, that ATU didn't exist until the POD occurred so that ATU shares the same past as the OTU. One of mysteries of GT's ATU is the POD which created it. We've never been told exactly what the POD is or exactly when the POD occurred. We do, however, have a general idea(1) of when the POD occurred and it occurred well after the alleged creation of IRIS.

IRIS supposedly dated from the reign of Arbellatra and, because the POD which created GT's ATU occurred well after her reign, IRIS would be part of the past the ATU shares with the OTU. IRIS would thus exist in the ATU if IRIS, as described in the Challenge variant, ever truly existed.

Summing this all up, the existence or non-existence of IRIS is not the POD between the OTU and ATU or the primary difference between the two.


1 - While the POD has never been revealed, I thought I had spotted it several years ago after the release of GT's Beyond the Claw. The Fifth Frontier War described in that sourcebook was completely different from the war described in all earlier Traveller products, so different in fact that the two versions could not be reconciled. I posted on the SJGames JTAS forum that the POD might have something to do with this different 5th FW. Loren Wiseman responded that, while the POD had nothing to do with the very different war described in Beyond the Claw, the POD had occurred roughly during that period. Seeing as IRIS supposedly dated from the first half of the 600s, it cannot be part of a POD which occurred during the early 1100s.

 

[Whipsnade]

...or just arrest Dulinor, as that is what would actually happen.

I too had always wondered why Dulinor simply wasn't arrested. Then I thought about the counter-plot and how it must have been handled.

Dulinor suborned substantial portions of the Imperium. Not only had his plot encompassed most of the political, economic, and military power structures of an entire Domain, his plot also reached into the power structures of Capital itself. Yet the counter-plot was able to roll all of that up. Nearly every individual Dulinor suborned was later "re-suborned" by the Imperium with seemingly no penalties applied. Among the few people we know who paid any price for their involvement in the plot was a brother who retired for "health reasons".

That suggests that part of the Imperium's sales pitch to Dulinor's many plotters may have been something along the lines of "no publicity, no trials, and no retribution". If they gave up their end of the plot, their careers may cease and they might loose their offices but they wouldn't face the noose, their lands and titles wouldn't be lost, and their heirs would still inherit. If Dulinor was placed on trial, none of those promises could be made.

Dulinor was killed so that the Imperium wouldn't have to later execute thousands of his plotters.

A really intelligent campaign would be to have the Zhodani attack at the Narrows Subsector and force the Imperium to play Xerxes at Thermopylae. Then there could be the Marches under siege, because if the Zho's could hold the Narrows, the Marches would fall in their lap like an apple.

No.

Corridor is nearly two sectors away from the Consulate border and any force the Zhodani dispatched there would have to pass and be supplied through Vargr space.

The primary Zhodani goal throughout all the Frontier Wars has been to create a "neutral zone" between the Consulate and Imperium. They don't want to hold the Marches as it's beyond what they've felt for thousands of years are their natural borders. In the centuries since the Third Frontier War, the Consulate has done little to absorb the worlds in Querion it now directly controls and has left the numerous independent worlds more or less alone.

All the Zhodani want is a good fence and, if they ever detach the Jewell subsector from the Imperium, that fence would be complete.

 

[Dragoner]

Domains as per CT were useless, the Navy doesn't even recognize them. Then again TNE says that Dulinor never even wanted the throne, which contravenes everything said earlier. CT was best for continuity.

All the frontier wars make little sense compared to one attack at The Narrows, in an area basically without terrain, it is a natural defile, it becomes the area to hold the Imperium back. As with Thermopylae, it also would make the most of limited forces. Supply through Vargr space the Zhodani did before, so it doesn't really seem an issue, esp if they launched a coreward expedition and swung it around. What is illogical is for the Zhodani to attack five times in the same place without achieving their objective in a concrete manner.

The beauty of the concept game wise, is that it would be the day everything changed and nothing changed. The Zhodani are a relatively homogenous and closed society, they don't want to conquer the Marches; however, turning the Marches into a rump state would be to their benefit. They would play it nice and in a Vichy Marches, Norris would have to decide if to play Darlan or not. It could be everything he ever wanted, a Spinward Republic. Intrigue would rule and if it got boring, just have the Imperium breakthrough, parades all around and nothing changed.

 

[rancke]

Domains as per CT were useless, the Navy doesn't even recognize them. Then again TNE says that Dulinor never even wanted the throne, which contravenes everything said earlier. CT was best for continuity.

Where in TNE did Dulinor's motives get mentioned at all?

All the frontier wars make little sense compared to one attack at The Narrows, in an area basically without terrain, it is a natural defile, it becomes the area to hold the Imperium back.

Sending an invasion force to fight a war 90 parsecs from your base of supply is a monumental undertaking. The logistics would be prohibitively difficult. It really is not a good idea.

As with Thermopylae, it also would make the most of limited forces.

Thermopylae was a narrow pass fought over by forces that couldn't fly, not an area several parsecs across fought over by forces that can teleport behind each other. And the Persians didn't control the area on both sides of the pass either. There's no comparison at all.

Supply through Vargr space the Zhodani did before, so it doesn't really seem an issue, esp if they launched a coreward expedition and swung it around.

I'm sure the Zhodani could move a limited amount of supplies through Vargr territory (they'd need to use a lot of military ships to protect their supply lines, of course). But when did they do that before? The corewards expeditions worked because they moved in the same direction and extended control further and further over the course of decades and centuries. "Swinging" an expedition around through Vargr space in any kind of reasonable timeframe would be something quite different and a lot more difficult.

What is illogical is for the Zhodani to attack five times in the same place without achieving their objective in a concrete manner.

Three times deliberately (2FW was opportunistic taking advantage of the Civil War and 4FW was a misunderstanding). And the first three wars they achieved their objective. 5FW was quite close to being a resounding success too.


Hans

 

[AndreaV]

Dulinor was killed so that the Imperium wouldn't have to later execute thousands of his plotters.

I would phrase it differently. Dulinor was killed to avoid making his plot public and revealing that an Archduke had organised a coup. The fact that many co-conspirators escaped retribution because of that most likely was incidental.

 

[AndreaV]

Domains as per CT were useless, the Navy doesn't even recognize them. Then again TNE says that Dulinor never even wanted the throne, which contravenes everything said earlier. CT was best for continuity.

The domains were retconned into importance in MT and TNE (more TNE actually). Apparently Strephon "resurrected" their import after 1105.

All the frontier wars make little sense compared to one attack at The Narrows, in an area basically without terrain, it is a natural defile, it becomes the area to hold the Imperium back. As with Thermopylae, it also would make the most of limited forces. Supply through Vargr space the Zhodani did before, so it doesn't really seem an issue, esp if they launched a coreward expedition and swung it around. What is illogical is for the Zhodani to attack five times in the same place without achieving their objective in a concrete manner.

A) maintaining a major offensive two sectors past your frontiers would be a formidable logistic undertaking.
B) The Imperium might notice the Zhodani frontier fleets leaving and sneaking through the extents.
C) The Imperium maintains it strategic reserve in the narrows and therefore the forces there are extremely strong.
D) The Frontier Wars are actually a form of imperialism by suction. The Zhodani don't actually want to advance, they want to prevent the Imperium from advancing. Nor do the Zhodani want to create a substantial (read domain sized) independent "successor state". A small buffer zone would serve their purposes nicely. They make perfect sense as is in that context.
E) The Zhodani have achieved their objective. They have stopped the Imperium advancing. A large part of the Zhodani strategy has been to keep the Imperium on a defensive footing (of course this does always risk the best defense is an offense issue)

 

[Dragoner]

Hans,

It is in there, a better TNE canon hawk could cite the passage about Dulinor better.

Wars are a monumental undertaking, so 90 parsecs is just a further step in logistical planning. But if you are going to refine a war from a whole sector down to just a subsector, it simplifies things to a great extent. Yes, the Persians did get around behind the Greeks at Thermopylae. As for holding the sub-sector, all you need are battle riders for the most part, it becomes only a slugfest, no need for a battle of movement; which in either case, the Imperium's size will eventually carry the day. So the object would be to force the decision at the negotiation table, and just hold until that time.

The problem with the Zhodani "victories" is that they aren't victories, what the Zhodani want is the Imperium to stop encroaching their territory. However, with the steady flow of colonists through The Narrows, it will never end, they will always be encroached. Closing The Narrows is their only one real way to control the flow of the Imperials through there. Now I understand how the game works and FFW was more a device than an exercise in grand strategy. Taking Jewell only delays the inevitable and takes real estate the Zhodani's don't want, it being filled with Imperials. Creating an interface while ceeding the Spinward Marches to it's own state, would stem the tide more. If the Imperium is playing sickman it may go for it and resign what lies beyond the corridor to its fate, same as the Vilani did before.

 

[Dragoner]

The domains were retconned into importance in MT and TNE (more TNE actually). Apparently Strephon "resurrected" their import after 1105.



A) maintaining a major offensive two sectors past your frontiers would be a formidable logistic undertaking.
B) The Imperium might notice the Zhodani frontier fleets leaving and sneaking through the extents.
C) The Imperium maintains it strategic reserve in the narrows and therefore the forces there are extremely strong.
D) The Frontier Wars are actually a form of imperialism by suction. The Zhodani don't actually want to advance, they want to prevent the Imperium from advancing. Nor do the Zhodani want to create a substantial (read domain sized) independent "successor state". A small buffer zone would serve their purposes nicely. They make perfect sense as is in that context.
E) The Zhodani have achieved their objective. They have stopped the Imperium advancing. A large part of the Zhodani strategy has been to keep the Imperium on a defensive footing (of course this does always risk the best defense is an offense issue)

That is why I like the continuity of CT the best, Marc had the best handle upon how things progressed.

As per the battle of The Narrows, looking at the map, it is the natural place to fight. The Zhodani also seem to have little trouble dealing with clients like the Sword Worlders, the Domain sized state, esp if in time turned hostile to the Imperium would serve their purposes far better, settle the issue really.

Yes, at how the space and warfare work, offense is the best defence, that is why I think the Imperium is playing the sickman, certain canonical statements allude to it as well.

 

[AndreaV]

While the POD has never been revealed, I thought I had spotted it several years ago after the release of GT's Beyond the Claw. The Fifth Frontier War described in that sourcebook was completely different from the war described in all earlier Traveller products, so different in fact that the two versions could not be reconciled. I posted on the SJGames JTAS forum that the POD might have something to do with this different 5th FW. Loren Wiseman responded that, while the POD had nothing to do with the very different war described in Beyond the Claw, the POD had occurred roughly during that period. Seeing as IRIS supposedly dated from the first half of the 600s, it cannot be part of a POD which occurred during the early 1100s.

I suspect the very different 5FW in BtC may well be due to a more mundane reason

However on the PoD, Loren has commented several times about the poor reception of the solution to the Ancients plot in A12 and that he believed it better not to reveal the PoD, so I suspect we will not get to know what it is for a long time.

 

[Whipsnade]

I suspect the very different 5FW in BtC may well be due to a more mundane reason

I suspect that we both suspect the same thing. I won't go further into that suspicion, however, as I don't want a warning from the mods.

 

[rancke]

It is in there, a better TNE canon hawk could cite the passage about Dulinor better.

I suspect you're misremembering. I can't see why any TNE material should pay much attention to the motives of something that happened 85 years earlier and I especially do not see why it would make any statements in the authorial voice about it.

Wars are a monumental undertaking, so 90 parsecs is just a further step in logistical planning.

No, it's not just planning, though that alone would be a nightmare. It's logistical capacity. The transport fleet that can just support operations 30 parsecs from your border will be hopelessly inadequate for operations 90 parsecs away. And you need to use more of your fighting ships on convoy duty, thuse reducing your effective fighting force.

But if you are going to refine a war from a whole sector down to just a subsector, it simplifies things to a great extent.

It simplifies it for both sides. And the side that has its reinforcements closer and on both sides of that subsector will benefit more than the one that is moving its forces 90 parsecs to get to the scene of the action.

Yes, the Persians did get around behind the Greeks at Thermopylae.

The expectation that the Persians would be unable to flank the Greeks was what made the stand at Thermopylae possible at all. That the Persians did eventually find a way to flank the Greeks led to the Greeks being killed almost to the last man. Thermopylae was a strategic victory for the Greeks, but it was a tactical disaster.

The problem with the Zhodani "victories" is that they aren't victories, what the Zhodani want is the Imperium to stop encroaching their territory. However, with the steady flow of colonists through The Narrows, it will never end, they will always be encroached. Closing The Narrows is their only one real way to control the flow of the Imperials through there.

There's a whole host of unsupported assumptions here that I'm not going to bother dealing with, because they're not really germane (see below).

Taking Jewell only delays the inevitable and takes real estate the Zhodani's don't want, it being filled with Imperials. Creating an interface while ceeding the Spinward Marches to it's own state, would stem the tide more.

It doesn't matter if cutting the Imperium's connection in Corridor would work better, if the Zhodani are incapable of mustering the force to do it. Which they evidently are, since they couldn't even muster the force to win the more limited objective they attempted to win in the 5FW. They were close, true, and might have pulled it off if things had gone differently, but to do something useful in Corridor would require vastly bigger forces.


Hans

 

[rancke]

1 - While the POD has never been revealed, I thought I had spotted it several years ago after the release of GT's Beyond the Claw. The Fifth Frontier War described in that sourcebook was completely different from the war described in all earlier Traveller products, so different in fact that the two versions could not be reconciled. I posted on the SJGames JTAS forum that the POD might have something to do with this different 5th FW. Loren Wiseman responded that, while the POD had nothing to do with the very different war described in Beyond the Claw, the POD had occurred roughly during that period.

When we wrote Sword Worlds I got permission to ignore the version of 5FW from BtC. I confined my timeline to events that concerned the Sword Worlds, but I assume the rest of BtC's version is equally decanonized.

I didn't realize the change point was as far back as somewhere between 1107 and 1110. The earliest difference I've detected is somewhere around 1115 or possibly 1114.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

All the frontier wars make little sense compared to one attack at The Narrows...

The Frontier Wars make perfect sense when you're aware of all the various canonical information regarding the reasons why both empires find themselves in the Marches.

Because the region forms a defensive glacis for a Consulate border which hasn't substantially moved in millennia, the Zhodani have been patrolling the Marches since well before the Second Imperium fell.

The Imperium is in the Marches, and was in the Marches nearly 500 years before recontacting Earth and well before the Pacification Campaigns had absorbed regions much closer to Sylea, because of the deal with Vland which gave the Imperium much of it's legitimacy. As a prerequisite for their involvement and the legitimacy such involvement would bring to the new empire, the Vilani demanded that the new Imperium's spinward border be as far from Vland as practical.

Thus both empire had individually staked out the region as the future border between even before both empires had even met.

Given the background, a Zhodani attack on Corridor, even if it could be supplied through Vargr space, makes no sense whatsoever and would only serve to rouse the Imperium to greater efforts.

As with Thermopylae...

Please drop this wholly faulty Thermopylae comparison. The Greeks could walk to the Gates of Fire through friendly territory which supplied them. The Zhodani must cross two sectors to reach Corridor through territory they and no single Vargr polity controls.

When you look at the map - and I strongly suggest that you should - you'll realize these so-called "narrows" that you suggest the Consulate seize are nearly half a sector wide. Furthermore, roughly a third of the systems within the space that the Consulate must seize belong to the Vargr, the same race who are supposedly going to allow the Zhodani transit rights.

Supply through Vargr space the Zhodani did before...

The Zhos supplied major fleet elements through Vargr space? Chapter and verse then, tell us when that allegedly occurred.

What is illogical is for the Zhodani to attack five times in the same place without achieving their objective in a concrete manner.

The Zhodani did not attack five times in the same place, only the False and Fifth war were fought in the same locations, and t ihe Zhodani record in Frontier Wars is 4 wins, 1 tie, and 1 losss one of general success. The Consulate's four victories in the Frontier wars first allowed them to evict Imperial settlements in Foreven and Ziarplians sectors, then forced the Imperium to withdraw completely from the Cronor and Querion subsectors and partially from the Jewell and Vilis subsectors. A victory in the last war would have seen the Consulate's plans for a neutral zone complete.

The beauty of the concept game wise, is that it would be the day everything changed and nothing changed.

GDW were wargamers first and, perforce, autodidact historians. The reason they didn't suggest or apply the same concept you're suggesting here is because they knew it was unworkable. It's said that military amateurs study tactics and strategy while military professionals study logistics. A Consulate offensive aimed at Corridor, launched through, and supplied across two sectors of Vargr space is a logistical fantasy.

It will not work and, because they were created by the sensible people of GDW, the inhabitants of the setting know it will not work.

The Zhodani are a relatively homogenous and closed society, they don't want to conquer the Marches; however, turning the Marches into a rump state would be to their benefit.

While the Zhodani Consulate has not expanded outside of the Core Route for longer than the Third Imperium has existed, the Consulate does have a fairly aggressive and long standing "over the border" policy as evidenced in canonical materials concerning the Far Frontiers sector and others. The Consulate would be happy with a clutch of subsector or smaller sized polities close to it's borders, but it would not be happy with a rump Marches/Deneb whose existence sparks revanchist feeling in an empire larger than the Consulate itself.

As I explained before, the Consulate wants a fence and the Consulate doesn't want the people on the other side of the fence to be pissed off. Knocking off the Marches/Deneb region and planting their fence along the Vland border will not produce the results the Zhodani desire.

 

[Whipsnade]

When we wrote Sword Worlds I got permission to ignore the version of 5FW from BtC. I confined my timeline to events that concerned the Sword Worlds, but I assume the rest of BtC's version is equally decanonized.

Hans,

I believe BtC's version of the 5FW was decanonized as soon as the book came from the printers. The apocryphal story has an early working draft and not the final playtest draft being sent to the printers by mistake.

I didn't realize the change point was as far back as somewhere between 1107 and 1110. The earliest difference I've detected is somewhere around 1115 or possibly 1114.

Loren was coy as always. He said the POD was "around" the "period" of the 5FW, fully and deliberately using the maddeningly vague nature of the English language.

My best guess is the 1114/15 time period too, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an earlier POD which created the possible POD I may have spotted.


Sincerely,
Bill

 

[aramis]

That is why I like the continuity of CT the best, Marc had the best handle upon how things progressed.

If you look at the credits closely, it's pretty clear that CT canon was more other GDW staffers.

Bk4: FC
Bk5'79: MWM
Bk5'81: WMM, FC, JH
Bk6: MWM
Bk7: MWM JAK
Bk8: JDF & TBB
AM1: JAK JH & MWM
AM2: JAK & LKW
AM3: JAK MWM & JH
AM4: JAK MWM & JH
AM5: JAK MWM & JH
AM6: MWM & JH, JAK & RT
AM7: JAK MWM LKW
AM8: MWM RP NP MR
S3: GDW
S4: GDW
S5: GDW
S6: LKW
S7: MWM CP WHK LKW FC JH
S8: FC JH MWM LKW
S9: TBB; Dev- FC MWM
S10: JH; Asst- LKW & JA
S11: LKW MWM JH
S12: MWM
S13: TBB

I could go on, but I won't. Marc may have provided input, but Marc wasn't the sole, nor in many cases the lead, designer on much of CT.

Many of the JTAS articles are not MWM, either.

CT canon isn't monolithic, either.

 

[LeperColony]

Hans,

It is in there, a better TNE canon hawk could cite the passage about Dulinor better.

I consider myself pretty well up on TNE canon (not so great anywhere else though), and the only work that would really go into Dulinor's motives is Survival Margin, which happens to be my favorite TNE work (tied with Hard Times for my favorite Traveller title) so I have a little more than passing familiarity with it.

I can't really recall any statement Dulinor makes indicating he doesn't want the throne. The best I can manage is a statement to the effect that he doesn't want it out of mere ambition. I'm out of town right now, so a direct quote will have to wait (if desired), but it's near the front of Survival Margin and it says something to the effect that of all the Imperial leaders, only he has the vision to renew 3I society. The only other statement that might sort of qualify is when Strephon reveals himself and Dulinor denies the emperor lived, and at the same time stating that he "loved our former emperor" and that he was forced to kill Strephon for the greater good.

While we're at it, someone mentioned earlier that it was TNE that changed the "Real Strephon" into the real Strephon, but actually wasn't it Arrival Vengence, an MT product, that did it?