I don't post much (OK, at all, really) though I've been on the board for a long time so I'm a 'logical newbie' here (there are just too many good active forums discussion Traveller to keep up with - the TML, the JTAS boards, here on CotI, just to name the biggest three I know of) but I would like to comment on a number of ideas in this thread (and I hope not stir anything up and I hope actually add something useful).
(Warning: big post ahead. You can probably skip to the last few paragraphs for the gist of it.
Randy wrote: Changes to the status quo so as to present a vibrant, living, and more reality based gaming universe is understandable but radical upheavels which drastically change the landscape would be unwarranted (IMO). <b>I would hate to see the SolCon break apart into numerous pocket empires as a result of this internal conflict/civil war.</b>
That's kind of how I felt when learning of the demise of the 3I in the NE setting years ago. People can get invested in a setting that appeals to them and when it is radically changed (so as to no longer include many of the aspects that made it enjoyable), one can feel "on the outside". For those people who are independent thinkers, rugged individualists, that's fine. "It's a game, play in your own TU, you don't need the OTU" they can say and be perfectly fine with continuing on with their own TUs. But for some people (at least me) that are team players, that like to be part of a bigger community sharing a common experience, it's a blow - your vision of the TU is not part of the official vision anymore. Call it being a team player or a social lemming, a virtue or vice, some people will care while others won't. People who don't like the new direction should be allowed to say they don't like it (and be constructive about it), even years later (the change still happened), but they also shouldn't blindly make the loaded claims like "it killed Traveller" that irks Mr. Thomas and others. And those for whom such changes are inconsequential or even preferred should try to understand that the changes may, legitimately, be seen as undesirable by others. I think we all understand this, but we sometimes phrase our statements too absolutely and things get heated which doesn't help things, or the game.
Back during the TNE days, it was hard for me to take to heart the idea of "if you don't like TNE, play your own TU or stay in the CT era or don't play". It felt nice to have the OTU match (pretty much) my own vision. But reading this thread I was reminded how easy it is for others to go their own way, not investing much in the OTU. I admire
Refs who've created their own TUs nothing like the OTU - in the original spirit of Traveller. But saying "you can just ignore the changes to the OTU if you don't like it" reminds me the argument "so what's the big deal about spam? You can just delete it." Sure, you can just delete it, and for some people that's acceptable (and even preferrable to having limitations imposed on them by ISPs or others) but for others it's a royal hassle they feel they shouldn't have to endure. Two sides, equally valid points of view. We all have to get along in a diverse population.
Personnally, I like the CT 3I. I don't think of it as 'stale and static' but then I'm still mentally anchored in the FFW timeline of my early days. It was great getting the JTAS and reading the TNS entries watching things unfold. By the time things started to slow down I was out of college and into my long Real Life break from Traveller. I didn't get to do as much in MTU as I would've liked, so there's still (to me) lots of CT adventuring possibilities left and thus I'm still focussed on the CT era. I can imagine, though, if we'd played all the CT and MT adventures and months went by without anything new happening, it would feel like the milieu was stagnating. (Sure there are real world limited-resource type reasons, but it would still feel like it was ossifying.)
When first introduced to Traveller, I looked for the 'good guys' for the players to align with (or at least not work against), and it looked like it was the 3I. I wanted the players to be part of a polity that they could *for*, not against. The racist and totalitarian nature of the Solomani Confederation didn't seem to fit. They made a good adversary, as did the Zhos, but not a place to call home and maybe fight for. I wanted the PCs to have a fairly clearly "good home" (with of course, it's share of rotten nobles, corrupt corporate types, EC merchants, et al., but it *tries* to do good), and have fairly clearly defined adversaries - the Zhos, the Vargr raiders, the Sollies, and of course the rotten nobles, corrupt corporate types, and EC merchants. I can understand that's not everyone's preference - and some Evil Empire TUs or ethical shades-of-grey milieus could be entertaining diversions, but I of course preferred it when the official TU more closely matched my own view. Plus the non-American type government of the 3I was cool - an opportunity to do something new and different, learn about how other govts work in trying to figure out how the 3I one worked and how it evolved from what we have today, and fight the Yanks-In-Space image. Though it was hard for some players to understand, much less care about (they obviously would find it much easier to play in a Yanks-In-Space game).
To me, the 3I isn't a true 'empire' as in a collection of captive nations held together by force (I will admit to liking the word empire, but then I like learning about the Roman Empire). It's a "beacon in the dark" that brought worlds together after the Long Night, bringing security and economies of scale for improved standards of living and technology, home-rule, etc. (Sure, it's not perfect - but that's the patriotic slogan/propaganda the Imperials like to use; who'd want a goody-goody 3I (q.v. the rotten nobles mentioned above) but they aspire to be that good. And without something like that for the masses to believe in, and to entice them to buy into the common culture, how long could the 3I survive anyway? While they provide those benefits and even for a while after, but even that wouldn't last forever. (I would've liked to have seen a mechanism in the 3I that would make it possible for the people of a world to oust the bad nobles other than trying to go above their heads and hope the noble above him will do something, but no system is perfect.)
TNE, to me, wasn't my cup of chai. I understand the need, as seen by the GDW designers (Mr. Nilsen's recent revelations are great and helped that immensely) to 'start afresh', and the real desire of players looking for something more, or new and different, but adventuring in a setting that was (to me) an endless series of burned out and barely recovering worlds with trillions dead wasn't appealing to me (those are obviously the elements that I didn't like and couldn't get over - the loss of [imaginary] life was shocking, and just how many TEDs can one depose? - but that's my problem, not the game's). It also meant the OTU was diverging radically from my preferred view of the milieu, so I felt left behind or on the outside. I'm betting others felt similarly.
The other Traveller fan in my group really likes TNE and we've had discussions about it. He likes the 'more heroic feel' of it - where PCs are 'larger than life' or at least 'matter more'. I still think I prefer the CT adventure possibilities. I like classic 50s-70s SF and how the OTU emulates that. I also like the grittier feel of a group of PCs trying to make things work (a la Firefly). I prefer my 'heros' to be more the unsung hero rather than given ticker-tape parades and keys to the planet. But I understand his preference for a setting where PCs 'make more of a difference'. I do think, though, that PCs could still make a difference in the CT 3I, it's up to the ref. I also think his preference was also a vote against a 3I with an inescapable long arm of the law - in our earliest games in high school in the early 80s, our first ref's interpretation of the 3I was like that and it was almost impossible to get away from the Law - though it was also a device to get the group onto the Prison Planet. So I can also see where the comparative freedom of the TNE would be appealing to him.
The AI aspects and other 'advances' of the game technology in TNE were good (well, OK, not Virus). I like the classic SF feel of CT but science and SF have advanced since then, and it would be cool to see what kind of impact they'd have on things (or for me, figuring out how they fit into my 3I view).
I think it would have been great to have had an unexplored border to the 3I where active exploration, investigation and even colonization was proceeding apace. (Would've made a good 'Ref's Preserve' sector.) True, there's the areas spinward and trailing the 3I but they seem kind of small and confined by other existing polities or the Rifts. An unexplored area to expand into would've provided a truly 'lawless' place for our old group, opportunities for exploring uncharted worlds, discovering alien worlds/cultures/archeology, etc.
(The Spinward Marches I thought of as the frontier for a long time, but it's such an old frontier that it didn't make much sense to me after a while - but Larsen's argument on the TML last year that it's a "Sector, Interrupted" - a neutral zone between the 3I and the Consulate, still a 'frontier' after centuries because of inadequate
colonization/expansion efforts lest it provoke a war, sounds right to me now.)
Interestingly, despite my feelings about TNE, reading the "Ask Dave" thread and reading about 1248 I find myself actually thinking it might be an intriguing setting. (Oh, of course I'll buy it anyway, but it might be far enough in the future away from the devastation to the 3I that could ignore or not focus on that and get into the setting.)
Finally, I like Sigg Oddra's idea the best - if there was a Solomani successor state that wasn't the totalitarian SC, had more of the ideals that Jeffr0 desired, with an huge open border for exploration and adversarys on the other sides, that might be a very cool setting - a faction the players could cheer for, fret over, believe in, and maybe fight for. It would make a very nice alternative setting.
Rob
