Paques

[daryen]

I imagine this is common knowledge, but I just figured it out and I have never seen this before.

In the Trojan Reaches, in the Menorial subsector, there exists a world Paques in the cluster of five worlds that includes Strend.

Except for Strend, all of the worlds have French names. Because I am working with those worlds as a pocket empire, I wanted to figure out what the names of the four worlds with French names meant.

The cool one is Sable des Etoiles. Since the world is an asteroid belt, calling it "Sand of the Stars" is pretty poetic.

However, Paques is an outright pun. Paques has an "E" atmosphere. You know, the atmosphere that has to bands of breathable atmosphere because the world is "egg" shaped? Well, Paques is French for "Easter".

So, the world Paques is literally an "Easter egg" in the Traveller OTU. And it has been hidden under my nose for 15 years ...

I realize I am probably just a dumb American tripping over a common piece of Traveller trivia, but just in case ...

BTW, I renamed Strend to Aquitaine. Strend is not French, and Aquitaine is a cool play on the whole French theme for the cluster.

(I also found out that Allemagne is French for Germany.)

 

[Plankowner]

These kinds of little nuggets from GDW are all through their material. I have always assumed that Marc Miller and others are out there counting up the number of hidden references that we all find and saying "YES! FINALLY someone found that one!"

 

[kafka47]

And, dead obvious ones that were in Interstellar Wars...

One day when I have time, I must commit myself to re-reading Gateway to Destiny to find the Easter Eggs contained within. Thus, far, I just find it an invaluable source of information...even if lots of the planets have ruins that I would want some explaination to who were the Builders.