So what are the Solomani up to in 1248?

[saulweaver]

Perhaps virus was therapic, and they are now the most enlightened of sophnots? I have seen reference to two Solomani states. What is that all about?

I have been kind of interested in the Solomani lately, and am wondering what happens to them in the OTU.

Thanks.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Saulweaver:
those two states are from David Hale's alternate TNE -campaign in the Solomani Rim Sector, which were heralded in the fanzine The Traveller Chronicle (TTC), which ran 13 quarterly issues before its passing away.

The COE, is the Terran republic, a faith based driven reclaim the stars, not the star Viking only smash n Grab of DN's Portrayal of the Reformation Coalition. It is centered on Terra, naturally, and is the larger of the two.

The second Polity there, is the League of Dingir, following it's Federation based roots from the Long Night <collapse period between 2nd & 3rd Imperium>. It is centered on Dingir.

Mr Hale's data on COE is somewhere on line, but I no longer have the links to it, alas.

 

[MJD]

There are two main Solomani groups, the Terran Federation and the Solomani Confederation. Both are successors to the old Solomani confed but rather different in their approach to things.

There are also numerous minor states.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Thanks Oh ANcient One! so the Terran Federation and the Solomani Confederation..<redux!>...More news is good News!<wicked evil grin>

 

[saulweaver]

Originally posted by MJD:
There are two main Solomani groups, the Terran Federation and the Solomani Confederation. Both are successors to the old Solomani confed but rather different in their approach to things.

There are also numerous minor states.

How are the confederations different? Which sectors do each of them encompass?

Thanks.

 

[Antares Administration]

Originally posted by MJD:
There are two main Solomani groups, the Terran Federation and the Solomani Confederation. Both are successors to the old Solomani confed but rather different in their approach to things.

There are also numerous minor states.

Two competing (I assume) polities, and a host of pocket empires.

It's like the Gateway, but in more familiar space (for me, anyway)!

Paul Nemeth
AA

 

[kafka47]

Dare we we even to speculate Digir overcame the Children of Earth? Laying the basis for the Terran Federation?

Or will you (MJD) completely ignore the COE campaign...?

 

[William]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Dare we we even to speculate Digir overcame the Children of Earth? Laying the basis for the Terran Federation?

Or will you (MJD) completely ignore the COE campaign...?

I would hope not. It may or may not be possible to use the material, but perhaps if nothing else it could be written around ala SJG and DGP?

William

 

[Whipsnade]

kafka47 wrote:

"Dare we we even to speculate Digir (sic) overcame the Children of Earth? Laying the basis for the Terran Federation?"

"Or will you (MJD) completely ignore the COE campaign...?"


Sir,

As much as I enjoyed Mr. Hale's superb COE materials and stand in awe of the amount of work put into them, I hope they will be ignored in M:1248. Call me a Terran-chauvanist(sp) but I'd like to see Earth finally amount to something in Traveller's history rather than remain the backwater, radical/reactionary, laughing stock it always has been.

At the end of the IW period, Earth sees its own military mutiny and set up a aristocractic empire. During the Long Night, Earth can't even manage to maintain off-world colonies in its own star system and barely rules a small trading empire of sorts. Early in the 3I period, Earth is ignored for various reasons, only contacted and absorbed a few decades before the Civil War. Soon after that, Earth becomes the capital of a gaggle of fascistic racists who eventually manage to kick off a idiotic war that ends in Earth's recapture by the 3I. Until late in the CT period, Earth is a captive system, unable to even rule itself, and the focal point of various terrorism campaigns.

Mr. Hale's COE setting takes Earth into the Viral Era and maintains the 'Earth As Home To Wretched Wackos' motif. In his COE setting, Earth is the center of a new, goofy, pseudo-psionic religion complete with an growing empire and a burning desire to bring the 'true faith' to the 'infidels'. His materials even include a faith rating for PCs and details on how it will negatively impact their reactions to others not of their faith. Blecch...

So in COE, instead of a bunch of jackbooted, racist goons interested in the contents of your DNA, Earth now is home to a bunch of jackbooted, holier-than-thou goons interested in the contents of your 'soul'. Hell of an improvement, huh?

Here's hoping the Terran Federation of M:1248 is a pluralisic and secular society interested in good government, representative politics, and basic respect for all sophonts. I've enough of Earth-As-A-Bad-Example throughout Traveller canonical history. Shouldn't we be able to get something right after 38 centuries?


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[kafka47]

Good friends,

I do not think a defeated COE (at the hands of Dingir) would neccessarily lead to a serious modification of canon nor find Earth in the hands in a bunch of fanatics.

Gabrieelism defeated, would pose more interesting questions as the miliennial revialists spread throughout Chartered Space trying to find a safe haven. Your arguements do not neccessarily persuade me that an interregium dominated by the COE would be a harmful thing.

 

[DED]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Mr Hale's data on COE is somewhere on line, but I no longer have the links to it, alas.

Liam my friend. COE is offline. Mr. Hale hopes to bring it back, but for now it is unavailable, unless of course it's been archived somewhere. However, Mr. Hale did not state as such.

 

[DED]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Sir,

As much as I enjoyed Mr. Hale's superb COE materials and stand in awe of the amount of work put into them, I hope they will be ignored in M:1248. Call me a Terran-chauvanist(sp) but I'd like to see Earth finally amount to something in Traveller's history rather than remain the backwater, radical/reactionary, laughing stock it always has been.

<snip>

So in COE, instead of a bunch of jackbooted, racist goons interested in the contents of your DNA, Earth now is home to a bunch of jackbooted, holier-than-thou goons interested in the contents of your 'soul'. Hell of an improvement, huh?

Here's hoping the Terran Federation of M:1248 is a pluralisic and secular society interested in good government, representative politics, and basic respect for all sophonts. I've enough of Earth-As-A-Bad-Example throughout Traveller canonical history. Shouldn't we be able to get something right after 38 centuries?

Sincerely,
Larsen

I have to completely agree with Mr. Whipsnade. As excellent as Mr. Hale's COE work is, I was just as disappointed as to the outcome.

 

[saulweaver]

I too completely agree with Laren on dumping the space Nazis, not only for the reasons he describes but because the Solomani Rim is the best place for characters from "our" civilization to explore the frontier. The Imperium is basically surrounded, but the rimward frontier is wide open. True exploration is an aspect of Traveller that has always been neglected, but it has been difficult to have a campaign on the rim because of all of the (IMHO ludicrous) space Nazi baggage.

Hopefully at least one of these Confederations will not be straight from Nazi central casting, and have access to the frontier.

 

[daryen]

Personally, I think that the CT era rim of the Solomani Confederation is a great setting. You have your outcast PCs on the run from the police state confederation. Pretty cool setting in my book. (Do note that I don't personally want to LIVE there, but its a great play to adventure!)

The rim of the Solomani Confederation is basically the Firefly setting in all but name.

For TNE, I don't necessarily want to see Terra ruling anything, I would like to see the poor planet embody the characterists described by Mr. Whipsnade.

 

[Whipsnade]

saulweaver wrote:

"True exploration is an aspect of Traveller that has always been neglected, but it has been difficult to have a campaign on the rim because of all of the (IMHO ludicrous) space Nazi baggage."


Sir,

Hear, hear! My group was itching the run a 'pure' exploration campaign once LBB:6 Scouts came out but the only 'open' frontier in the OTU belonged to the Solomani. The idea of exploring new star systems for the Nazi/KKK/Soviet-troika Confederation was just too distasteful. The PCs would have spent too much time trying to figure out which PC/NPC was the SolSec monitor assigned to the mission to have much fun doing anything else.

I putzed around with a pocket empire setting way out on the Rim; an old and distant 'bolthole' colony dispatched from Earth during the IW period that has begun to expand, but it never really took off. The players were too wrapped up in their OTU PCs to start over again.

"Hopefully at least one of these Confederations will not be straight from Nazi central casting, and have access to the frontier."

I'd just like to see a Traveller setting in which visiting Earth would actually be fun and not depressing. Changing the rulers of Earth from the Nazi goons of most of OTU history to the Jihadist-Crusader 'Gabreelist' goons of COE isn't much help, IMEHO.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[kaladorn]

When you say the only open frontier is form the Rim,
what is it that blocks the Zhodani 'rear frontier' from being open or even their rear-and-rimward frontier? It seems you could go spinward or spinward-rimward from there.

Now, I too would like to see a little more nuanced Solomani. Maybe some depiction of the average persons disdain or apathy for the whole 'racial superiority' stuff and how the party is just a big bureaucracy (I'm not in favour of ripping up the old work...) and maybe some anti-Sol sec revolutionaries and reformers (politicians and insurgents...)

To me, when I looked at CT, my big thing was always "Gotta get Terra back!" as a Solomani. But the neo-fascist (or is that communist?) rubbish about Solomani Superiority is just sad. It's sad because you usually prove you are superior by how you act, when you start talking about it that's pretty good evidence you aren't!

 

[Whipsnade]

kaladorn wrote:

"When you say the only open frontier is form the Rim, what is it that blocks the Zhodani 'rear frontier' from being open or even their rear-and-rimward frontier? It seems you could go spinward or spinward-rimward from there."


Sir,

We were lamented the fact that the Imperium is rahter hemmed in, not any of the other OTU empires. If the Solomani nonsense were removed, the Third Imperium would have an open frontier to rimward.

Adventurers and PCs operating in the Zhodani Consulate, Vargr Extents, Two Thousand Worlds, Hive Federation, Solomani Confederation, and Aslan Heirate can all putter about on open frontiers. No one in the Third Imperium make the same claim. You can 'sneak out' spinward of the Marches, but you'll first need to cross a few sectors until you get to some place no one has gone before and even then things are what they seem.

Foreven may be a GM's preserve, but it is pretty much settled with several canonical pocket empires mentioned. Further out, the Far Frontiers is settled too; the Keiths set some of their awe inspiring CT adventures there.

The Consulate does have a official border, but the Zhos also make sure there aren't too many problems on the other side. They pretty much control a sector-wide buffer zone full of client states all around their empire.

Add to that Zho buffer zone the fact of the Trans-Rift Aslan colonies. Their ihatei will have been slowly settling systems further and further to spinward for millennia.

Throw the buffer zone, the ihatei, the Keith's League of Suns, and all the rest together and any party of Imperial PCs hoping to 'go where no one has gone before' will have to cross 3 or 4 sectors to spinward before achieving their goal.

"To me, when I looked at CT, my big thing was always "Gotta get Terra back!" as a Solomani. But the neo-fascist (or is that communist?) rubbish about Solomani Superiority is just sad."

That it is.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
[QB] When you say the only open frontier is form the Rim, what is it that blocks the Zhodani 'rear frontier' from being open or even their rear-and-rimward frontier? It seems you could go spinward or spinward-rimward from there.

I'd certainly presume the Zhos are not even thinking of going Corewards given the Empress Wave (or whatever's behind it, which seems to be the bigger problem if I read the Regency Sourcebook correctly). Spinward does seem to be a generally open direction for the Zhodani though, but then they're still going to end up within the Empress Wavefront.

 

[saulweaver]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
When you say the only open frontier is form the Rim, what is it that blocks the Zhodani 'rear frontier' from being open or even their rear-and-rimward frontier? It seems you could go spinward or spinward-rimward from there.

Nothing, I just don't see them as "us." While human, they are alien. As with the space Nazis, there is a lot of baggage with the Zhos that gets in the way of the exploration plot. While some might see the complications as interesting, others do not want to get side-tracked.

Fundamentally, societies based on a single concept, whether that be race, psionics, religion or communism, are uninteresting because it is difficult to do anything other than play to that single issue. Modern civilization, from which I think the 3I is derived, seems to have no single unifying concept. Or it has a bunch of them that compete against eachother. It is therefore much easier to do your own thing, such as exploration. Or mercenary adventures, or free trading, or bounty hunting, or smuggling, etc. While adventuring among the Zhondani or Space Nazis, it can't be helped that their core concept is always going to interfere with what the referee and players want to be the focus of the adventure.

I have no problems with having Space Nazis. It might be a might place to visit, but of course I would not want to live there. What I do not like is that the Space Nazis have the only outlet to empty space for the 3I, leaving those who want to play in the baggageless 3I setting without a frontier.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by saulweaver:
Fundamentally, societies based on a single concept, whether that be race, psionics, religion or communism, are uninteresting because it is difficult to do anything other than play to that single issue.[/QB]

I think you're selling short the Zhos. (Too much Impie propaganda I guess...)

They are a more harmonious society, but perhaps only a more advanced case of a sweden or switzerland. Sure, you could focus on the Tav'chredl or the conflicts with 3I, but you don't have to. They are also *great* explorers. They have a few more tools in the toolbox (psi) but they are also vulnerable to a few more things (psi). They can be just as curious, just as interested, just as exploratory as the 3I people.

I don't like to play Zhos precisely because they are harmonious and well adjusted (sometimes literally... *grin*) people - they aren't flawed enough to be interesting in a dramatic study in many cases (the flawed, less capable brethren of the 3I and the Client States are often more fascinating). But they can be done as explorers very easily.

Anyway, I agree the Solomani should be cut a break. I just don't think they're the "only" way to go for an exploration campaign.