Merging of the timelines?
- Thread starter pzmcgwire
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Mongoose have adopted a policy of starting their Third Imperium games at year 1105 and then it is up to the referee to take it from there. The Mongoose Third Imperium has been frozen at 1105 start date for over a decade now.
The FFW can either be added to an 1105 campaign when you want to - it doesn't have to start in 1107 although that is the canonical date - or you can start a campaign in 1107 and cut to the chase.
From conversations the Mongoose position is that they may never do the Rebellion era, unless they can think of a way of doing it better. As it is it would be an era book - start the game in the run up to the assassination, or start after the first wave of shenanigans in 1121 as per MT, or just right to Hard Times in 1125.
Personally I like the concept of era campaign books there are even a couple of in universe explanations of how it could be done.
GDW had plans for a MT campaign that would begin during the Interstellar Wars era - the conflict between the Terrans and the Ziru Sirka. The PCs would be survivors of something and have to take to cold berth/stasis to survive - leaving their stasis every so often to see if technology can provide a cure, The PCs would thus be able to play through major events.
There are now a couple of other options.
Wafer technology in T5 allows you to experience events as if you are there using entertainment wafers, and now the Sim technology introduced in the Singularity campaign allows for entire virtual universes, with PCs unaware they are digital...
The FFW can either be added to an 1105 campaign when you want to - it doesn't have to start in 1107 although that is the canonical date - or you can start a campaign in 1107 and cut to the chase.
From conversations the Mongoose position is that they may never do the Rebellion era, unless they can think of a way of doing it better. As it is it would be an era book - start the game in the run up to the assassination, or start after the first wave of shenanigans in 1121 as per MT, or just right to Hard Times in 1125.
Personally I like the concept of era campaign books there are even a couple of in universe explanations of how it could be done.
GDW had plans for a MT campaign that would begin during the Interstellar Wars era - the conflict between the Terrans and the Ziru Sirka. The PCs would be survivors of something and have to take to cold berth/stasis to survive - leaving their stasis every so often to see if technology can provide a cure, The PCs would thus be able to play through major events.
There are now a couple of other options.
Wafer technology in T5 allows you to experience events as if you are there using entertainment wafers, and now the Sim technology introduced in the Singularity campaign allows for entire virtual universes, with PCs unaware they are digital...
This seems smart. The Imperium and surrounding areas are big enough for plenty of content at that time.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
here is a brief overview that sort of cobbles together T5 and MgT:
T5 first, during character generation you can muster out with an insurance package.
"Life Insurance archives a personality scan and DNA (or equivalent) sample during the Mustering Out Process. When notice of death reaches the archive, it enables the creation of a Clone and Implantation of the character’s personality.
Notice that unless updated, the replacement clone will revert to the memories and skills recorded at Mustering Out.
Life Insurance may be purchased: the premium is MCr1 to start a policy and Cr100,000 to update."
"A Personality Can Be Recorded
Personality Scanners make an editable, reproducible record of a Personality from any sophont. The record preserves the Elements of a Personality in a digital format.
The Scanner. Brainscan technology is commonplace and part of modern medical diagnostic practice. Any ship (or other) Autodoc has the ability to perform a brainscan (it takes about an hour)."
"For example, Duke Adawulf of Efate knew he was living a dangerous life when hostilities started in the Spinward Marches; he quite responsibly bought life insurance. In the last days of the enemy assault, Adawulf held off the enemy at the portico of his estate as his staff made their escape. After several hours, he was killed when Zhodani artillery levelled the palace. His loyal butler gathered up a few scraps of the Duke, and after the war ended, notified the insurance company. About a year later, the Duke made his appearance at a party in his honor, but with no memories of the past three years."
Relicts have force-grown organic bodies, cloned brains, and implanted personalities."
"After a terrible groundcar accident, Spyke Alpha and his bride Majack Sierra both lay in autodocs with extensive injuries. Spyke was 62 years old: the doctors took tissue samples and force grew a completely new clone body over about 18 weeks. When it was ripe, they implanted his brainscan into the new (18 year-old) body and allowed the old one to expire. Majack is 58 and her injuries are confined to the left leg. Doctors could have removed the leg and replaced it with a temporary mechanical; then when the clone body was ripe, replaced the mechanical with a clone leg and finally destroyed the remainder of the clone body. Instead, they implanted her brainscan into the new (18-year-old) body and destroyed the old one. Or did they?"
And another couple of really creepy examples:
"For example, during the Second Frontier War, Zhodani and Imperial forces repeatedly held, lost, and retook strategic
positions on Arden. Thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed.
By chance, a non-human prospector Zognar and crew were in the Arden system and saw a chance for profit in midst of all this destruction; they collected cell samples and brainscans from several dozen of the dead (some were actually not quite dead when the samples and scans were taken).
The result was a bonanza: dead soldiers became guest security guards and bodyguards; dead technicians became guest factory workers; a dead doctor became a series of sorely-needed medical staffers. Zognar made a fortune."
A note - a guest is another name for clone with an edited memory/personality and sterilised.
For example, Morio Nakamura grew up on Boughene, the child of prospectors in the copper-rich Swalian Mountains;
he was the operator of a small copper mine for more than 40 years. Both strong and smart, he was good at what he did and he enjoyed his work.
When the megacorporation Naasirka opened a much larger mine, it needed more skilled workers than the planet could provide, and they struck a deal with Morio: in return for his cell samples and brainscan, they provided him with a new cloned body and bought his mine for enough to support him in luxury for the rest of his life.
Naasirka’s Nakamura Copper Mine (they named it after him) is staffed by a workforce of strong smart Nakamura
clones, each implanted with the proper skills and a personality which enjoys its work. Naasirka’s cost-benefit analysis was confirmed: it was cheaper to create a clone workforce than to recruit, transport, and train hundreds of offworlders."
To be continued...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Assuming the default setting for T5 is the 1900 era solves some of the issues of where wafer technolgy has been. Turning to MgT:
T5 doesn't actually mention destructive brainscans - setting not following rules as written, very Traveller - it does, however, mention that brain recordings can be made as low as TL12 (in the Robots section). Adding in the relevant bits of the tech tree
TL 12 - personality recording and editing.
TL 13 - cloning, forced growth, wafer technology, wafer jack, wafer headset
TL 14 - temporary personality transfer
TL 15 - mindwipe and editing, pattern personality transfer.
TL 17 - permanent personality transfer
So destructive scans at TL12.
Skill wafers and entertainment wafers TL13
A temporary personality transfer (Agent of the Imperium) TL14 (Bland et al are experimental/prototype)
Non-destructive at TL14 - immortality but at a price - every week you have to re-upload your personality to your clone, failure to do so results in a mindwipe (this is how I think the Essaray do it)
Cloning and transferring the personality permanently TL15
Altered Carbon/Eclipse Phase at TL17
The one thing I have missed is that the wafer jack is TL13 in T5 and there is a helmet based interface alternative for those who do not wish to be evasively modified. Having a waferjack is a mustering out option in T5.
T5 doesn't actually mention destructive brainscans - setting not following rules as written, very Traveller - it does, however, mention that brain recordings can be made as low as TL12 (in the Robots section). Adding in the relevant bits of the tech tree
TL 12 - personality recording and editing.
TL 13 - cloning, forced growth, wafer technology, wafer jack, wafer headset
TL 14 - temporary personality transfer
TL 15 - mindwipe and editing, pattern personality transfer.
TL 17 - permanent personality transfer
So destructive scans at TL12.
Skill wafers and entertainment wafers TL13
A temporary personality transfer (Agent of the Imperium) TL14 (Bland et al are experimental/prototype)
Non-destructive at TL14 - immortality but at a price - every week you have to re-upload your personality to your clone, failure to do so results in a mindwipe (this is how I think the Essaray do it)
Cloning and transferring the personality permanently TL15
Altered Carbon/Eclipse Phase at TL17
The one thing I have missed is that the wafer jack is TL13 in T5 and there is a helmet based interface alternative for those who do not wish to be evasively modified. Having a waferjack is a mustering out option in T5.
I thought the intro to the new Mongoose FFW book said it moves the timeline a few years and stated in their intro that their FFW is the "Canon FFW" and any previous discussions, theories, conflicts in narrative, etc. are and so on are explained away computer simulations, alternate universes, apocrypha and so on and will be ignored by them or a new explanation given. Newer supplements will be reporting the war going forward in time, incrementally.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Only FFW supplements will mention the FFW, and according to Matt it will be for individual referees to decide on the outcome, there will be no official version of the outcome going forward.
The FFW is in effect an era book, which is one of the ways Mongoose have mooted doing other Traveller historical settings. Rather than ignore 1105 an era book for the Rebellion would be self contained to that era. In effect it is permanently 1105 for new stuff unless set in a different era.
The new Singularity campaign for example starts in 1105 with no mention of the FFW.
Now that the first full Singularity book is out to backers exactly what I thought would be possible will be possible. Post Singularity you could run a game in a simulation of any era and the characters would be completely unaware that they are in a simulation. Which sort of begs the question "is the Third Imperium a simulation all along..."
The FFW is in effect an era book, which is one of the ways Mongoose have mooted doing other Traveller historical settings. Rather than ignore 1105 an era book for the Rebellion would be self contained to that era. In effect it is permanently 1105 for new stuff unless set in a different era.
The new Singularity campaign for example starts in 1105 with no mention of the FFW.
Now that the first full Singularity book is out to backers exactly what I thought would be possible will be possible. Post Singularity you could run a game in a simulation of any era and the characters would be completely unaware that they are in a simulation. Which sort of begs the question "is the Third Imperium a simulation all along..."
This is sooooo Sci-Fi that it gave me goosebumps.
It's about as meta as you can get. Technically speaking, it's also an accurate description.
Granted, it's an RPG, with a capital G on G.
Existentially, if that's the case, it just seems to make it all "extra pointless".
"You and your determined crew salvaged the ship, crossed the galaxy, saved the Emperor and the Empire lives happily ever after!"
Or, you know, "not". "Yea, not really important, just a sim...we'll reboot and try again."
I appreciate the idea of not committing to a story line, but, really, the galaxy should be big enough for "infinite" story lines.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
you never tell the players...
the characters don't know they are in a Sim...
the characters don't know they are in a Sim...
or are we the sim being played by people of the far future?
