Some IMTU stuff

[BwapTED]

I recently ran a pickup game of Classic Traveller, and the players are down for more games in the future. I've hashed out some notes on my variant TU.



What's the same?

• Core rules, including character generation, jump drive, and all the other stuff you would normally expect-- although the jury is out on psionics....
  
• The Imperium exists and works more or less as described in the LBBs. This doesn't mean that the history and all the worlds are the same- a lot of that stuff has changed.

What's different?

• No Grandfather, the Ancients were not Droyne and never moved humans from Earth, no Vilani and thus no Ziru Sirka
  
• None of the major Races besides (Terran) Humans have appeared in my game. I probably won't be using any of them, but Minor Races from the OTU may show up.

The capital of the Imperium (Capitol) is an ecumenopolis like Trantor or Coruscant. The city (not the planet) was built by the Precursors/Ancients and later colonized and partly built over by humans.
This world possesses a great population and matching economic power. It's a huge market for goods. What commonality exists in the varied worlds of the Imperium is due in good part to the influence of Capitol on fashion, language, art, etc.

(The Imperium is still very diverse indeed- the city-world simply provides a political and cultural core)



I also have some aliens of my own.



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Some history:

The the various human inhabited worlds all trace their cultural roots back to Earth/Terra.

Major players in the colonial efforts the first phases of the ‘Diaspora’ include (not limited to):
o The Southern Alliance (‘Southern Cone’ nations of South America; Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay)
o Brazil
o China (evolved from Communist to technocratic/neo-Confucian)
o India
o Russia (the ‘Russian Easter’ of resurgent Orthodoxy and rising birthrates followed the period of post-Soviet malaise and demographic decline)
o Islamic Colonization Trust (set up by principalities of the Gulf, but taking colonists from all over the Dar-al-Islam, with marked preference shown to Sunni Muslims)
o British Commonwealth

Students of ancient history may note the absence of one of the great powers of the last two pre-starlight centuries; the USA. That state isn’t on the list because it collapsed and broke apart before the advent of the FTL era. Members of the American nation went to the stars mainly in the colony ships of other, larger and more powerful, states.


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[77topaz]

Interesting.
A note: Hivers and K'kree never had anything to do with Grandfather, so you could include them.
Another: This is reminescent of 2300AD.

 

[mike wightman]

The Aslan have nothing to do with Grandfather either...

I quite like the idea of using all the non-human Traveller (and T2300?) races as minor races to be encountered in nothing larger than a pocket empire perhaps.

 

[robject]

I agree with my colleagues above.

Since you're following the LBB (TTB?) scheme, does this mean Capitol is the "key" system nestled in a narrow corridor through a vast rift?

You know, this would be a cool ATU. Do you have subsector lists?

 

[77topaz]

The Aslan have nothing to do with Grandfather either...

I quite like the idea of using all the non-human Traveller (and T2300?) races as minor races to be encountered in nothing larger than a pocket empire perhaps.

Weren't they modified lions?

 

[mike wightman]

No. They don't even look particularly cat like according to the text. Too many bad artists over the years haven't read the descriptions properly and as a result most of the illustrations you get make them far too feline in appearance.

The story is that the first humans to encounter them were of turkish origin and noticed a vague lion like look to them and so used aslan meaning lion as 'description' - much like the T2300 aliens got christened kafers by the german speakers who first encountered them (it means bug).

 

[Orr]

I recently ran a pickup game of Classic Traveller, and the players are down for more games in the future. I've hashed out some notes on my variant TU.

I like it.

IIRC, Freelance Traveller did some work in a similar vein a few years ago. It was called M:5641 or some such and had pretty much the same "No Grandfather" premise your TU does.

II also RC, the project put together a list of canonical Major and Minor races the expanding Terrans would meet. The Hivers and Kkree were on the Majors list naturally and there was some discussion whether the Aslan would be a Major, a Minor, or simply extinct!

Please do write your TU's background up and share it with us.

 

[BwapTED]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!


I'll share chunks of it as it develops.


T 2300/2300 AD is an influence, although not (so far) on anything specific.


H Beam Piper is definitely an influence-- but I think he's fairly important for Traveller as a whole.



My take on aliens does lean towards pocket empires, planetbound races, and so on. They make good 'natives' for the Terro-Humans to encounter, trade with, or conquer.

That doesn't rule out large alien powers further away from the sectors the PCs are currently tooling about in...

I'm undecided on the Aslan , K'Kree, and Hivers-- but any and all of them might fit.I can hold off on them for now, and see how my roster of aliens develops.


No Vargr. No Droyne. Nothing wrong with those two, but they don't really fit MTU.




I don't have well-developed subsector lists yet, but those are coming along...


I had the players roll up their home worlds and then flesh out the UWPs a bit. They are still working on some of that, but here’s a sample:

The former LTC of Armor (who was promoted insanely fast in the Army only to be booted by a failed re-up roll just before making retirement) hails from a 'garage world.' It's basically a moon with gigantic crater-hangars. This is a place where ships are mothballed. The world has an ‘impersonal bureaucracy’ type gov’t and a high la level, so we decided it was a bit like the DMV if run by fascists. The PC’s father is the 'Imperial Governor' but that actually means little-- the entrenched bureaucrats run the whole show on that little world. The PC left to join the army but was later booted for war crimes and political missteps. Yeah, he’s a bit of a loose cannon…

Another PC (a flyer, 2 terms) is native to a small but dense high gravity world, geologically active and rather radioactive too boot. Fissionable materials and dense metals are mined here. It was settled by South Africans, Botswanans, and some other groups. Most people are ‘black’ more or less. Minor mutations are fairly common, due to the high background radiation. The government is a civil service bureaucracy. The air is thin, like high mountains on Terra, but people can survive on the surface with O2 tanks and warm clothes. It’s a harsh world, but not unlivable. The PC left for adventure; he didn’t want to keep working flying transport and passenger runs between mining townships and the capital.
There is more, but I’ll save that for later posts. I’ll put up the UWPs later, and names and more detail when the players have that settled.

 

[BwapTED]

I agree with my colleagues above.

Since you're following the LBB (TTB?) scheme, does this mean Capitol is the "key" system nestled in a narrow corridor through a vast rift?

You know, this would be a cool ATU. Do you have subsector lists?

Hm....key.....


I like that idea.

I may use it.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

My take on aliens does lean towards pocket empires, planetbound races, and so on. They make good 'natives' for the Terro-Humans to encounter, trade with, or conquer.

That doesn't rule out large alien powers further away from the sectors the PCs are currently tooling about in...

I was building my TU, and found myself making most of the aliens plantebound, or limited to one system. (Not like the interstellar cockroaches called humans. ) So, I made sure I built a couple into a "pocket empire". They aren't far off - they're right over on that edge of the sector. And, they're hungry.........

 

[BwapTED]

I was building my TU, and found myself making most of the aliens plantebound, or limited to one system. (Not like the interstellar cockroaches called humans. ) So, I made sure I built a couple into a "pocket empire". They aren't far off - they're right over on that edge of the sector. And, they're hungry.........

Nice, I like it.


Another note-

I haven't decided about Book 5, but I'm leaning towards a big ship & small ship universe. The small ships are ship's boats, couriers, shuttles, etc.

What about small traders? Beowulf class? Those ancient things?

Yeah, they are still clunking around the backwater space ways or pushing out at the frontier, servicing the routes that the big boys don't bother with. The crews of these tramps are frequently suspected of smuggling. They can't hope to compete in bulk trade on the established routes, so...

Firefly, yeah!

 

[Orr]

Hm....key... I like that idea. I may use it.

IIRC, it's from a very early CT Library Data entry. Capital is called just that, Capital. There's no mention of Sylea or anything else. Again IIRC, this early version of Capital is said to control the only crossing place in the rift for thousands of parsecs.

It would certainly make for an interesting map set-up.

 

[BwapTED]

There are also 'dropship traders' or 'remoras' IMTU, who operate small vessels ( either J-1 or not even jump capable) and ride along with bulk trade heighliners to go long distances. The big ship jumps to a sector or system and the little guys go and do their various deals, then come back to the big ship and pay their cut to its captain.

 

[BwapTED]

IIRC, it's from a very early CT Library Data entry. Capital is called just that, Capital. There's no mention of Sylea or anything else. Again IIRC, this early version of Capital is said to control the only crossing place in the rift for thousands of parsecs.

It would certainly make for an interesting map set-up.

Well, that sound like a swell place for my Ancients/Precursors to have created their ecumenopolis.

 

[BwapTED]

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Heighliner

They may not be that huge IMTU, but I do like the concept. I need to check Book 5 to see how big I could make merchant liners under those rules...

 

[Orr]

I was building my TU, and found myself making most of the aliens plantebound, or limited to one system. (Not like the interstellar cockroaches called humans. ) So, I made sure I built a couple into a "pocket empire". They aren't far off - they're right over on that edge of the sector. And, they're hungry.........

That's a good way of doing it, IMHO. You've neatly divvied your aliens into two categories; those with FTL and those without FTL. You've then put the FTL aliens "over the horizon" so to speak.

A long range scouting campaign involving the PCs which turns into a first contact situation with another long range scouting group of FTL aliens would be lots of fun.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

That's a good way of doing it, IMHO. You've neatly divvied your aliens into two categories; those with FTL and those without FTL. You've then put the FTL aliens "over the horizon" so to speak.

A long range scouting campaign involving the PCs which turns into a first contact situation with another long range scouting group of FTL aliens would be lots of fun.

The horizon is really close. The only thing keeping these aliens at bay is that J3 is still relatively new. (There's only one J2 bridge to a human polity, the rest require J3 - and they are spending a little time consolidating their last bit of 'exploration'.) Encountering a scouting trip by the aliens could be very interesting, indeed! :devil:

EDIT: As to neatly dividing the aliens, that wasn't intentional. I found I was creating mostly lo-tech, barbarian style aliens. I didn't want to have them all as zoo artifacts, "oh, isn't that interesting what he's doing with his hand, dear. Are they all that crude?"

 

[Carlobrand]

...Students of ancient history may note the absence of one of the great powers of the last two pre-starlight centuries; the USA. That state isn’t on the list because it collapsed and broke apart before the advent of the FTL era. Members of the American nation went to the stars mainly in the colony ships of other, larger and more powerful, states.

The USA did WHAT??? And you're telling me Texas couldn't have managed to pull together a space flight program? Balderdash! Texas needs to be on that list somewhere!

 

[robject]

Hm....key.....


I like that idea.

I may use it.

...and I can't find the original reference to it, but Orr told it right.

 

[Orr]

...and I can't find the original reference to it, but Orr told it right.

Is it in the Kinunir book?