Space Opera verse Hard scifi

[Blue Ghost]

So, in the basic T4 book there's a picture of a bunch of NPCs being herded into an teleporter amongst the ruins of a city in the background. To me this doesn't smack of traditional guns and spaceships space opera, and where T4 is sort of post-Imperium territory, I'm curious of how much space opera is in Traveller verse hard scifi. And I bring this topic up here, because that picture has me curious about other hobbyists opinions.

 

[Timerover51]

So, in the basic T4 book there's a picture of a bunch of NPCs being herded into an teleporter amongst the ruins of a city in the background. To me this doesn't smack of traditional guns and spaceships space opera, and where T4 is sort of post-Imperium territory, I'm curious of how much space opera is in Traveller verse hard scifi. And I bring this topic up here, because that picture has me curious about other hobbyists opinions.

While not a fan of T4, I do have the rules and found the picture. I would say that there is a fair amount of space opera in Traveller, starting with the Jump Drive, small size of power plants, and the personal energy guns. Basically, you have to come up with some way of getting to the stars to open up the Galaxy for exploration. Each author approaches the problem differently, and some mention it more than others. In Andre Norton, the ships travel from star to star without any mention of how it is done. Piper mentions the Dillingham Hyperdrive throwing the ship into another dimension, and that is a far as he goes. Pournelle has the Alderson Drive and Alderson Points to get to other star systems, so his is a bit more thoroughly worked out, but all of them are more or less space opera.

I use deuterium fusion plants as I think that is more likely to be functional first, and if you are going the cold fusion route, I think that is how it will work. Again, that is a bit of space opera. The same with Piper's nuclear to electric power systems. Then you have the plasma and fusion guns, which I have a lot of problems with, so I do not use them. However, blasters are so common in science fiction as to make energy weapons almost a must.

Traveller is space opera when needed and hard science when possible.

 

[Blue Ghost]

While not a fan of T4, I do have the rules and found the picture. *snip*
Traveller is space opera when needed and hard science when possible.

I'm kind of Travellered out at the moment. But I've had it told to me that Traveller is space opera time and again, and I accept that (perhaps begrudgingly in the past, but not really anymore), but this pic with its caption, and Adventure 11 or 12 (Secret of the Ancients) verse something like "The Argon Gambit" or "Prison Planet" kind of made me scratch my head some, but not anymore.

I saw Traveller as a product of the 70s scifi "revolution", and so when I read things like the TTA books or one of the Perry Rhoden books, I get a real sense of murkiness as to what space opera is, what the game was aiming for, and what you can do verse what is allowed.

And I guess your final line kind of sums it up. I'm sorry if I've been over this territory before. I should be trying to finish off Kip Thorne's book on black holes, but … I guess looking at that pic I'm confused as to what the game considers space opera verse hard scifi; time travel, parallel dimensions, super-tech aliens and the like.

It's not a big deal. I understand the game better. Thanks for the response.

 

[kilemall]

Er.


I gotta say, I'm a bit confused.


Traveller was always meant as a toolkit so the answer is 'it can be as Space Opera or Hard SciFi as you want'.


As far as 'allows' go, I don't let anyone from Gygax or Miller on tell me what is allowed. My players have the final say about what they like far more then any given system or 'official ruling'.



Milieus particularly OTU and other published ATUs are a different kettle of fish re: allowed, as well as tournaments.

 

[GypsyComet]

where T4 is sort of post-Imperium territory, I'm curious of how much space opera is in Traveller verse hard scifi.

Only in that it was written last. T4's era is at the beginning of the Third Imperium.

Traveller has been interpreted as "Hard" SF, but it is really only as hard as the SF that inspired it: Paperback SF of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was referred to as "Hard" because it generally established rules and stuck to them, but by today's standards much of that SF was "detailed" instead of being completely accurate according to science. There were certainly exceptions, but looking at Marc's novel makes it clear that the Traveller universe is a bit pulpier than many of us have been assuming.

 

[mike wightman]

Can you have hard science space opera? To me T4 was about discovery, exploration, alien ruins, exotic alien advanced technology verging on magic, but built on the familiar technological tropes of Traveller. Space opera but with consistent background technology that I can at least handwave and technobabble.

I bought the fate space (sci fi) toolkit pdf from drivethru today - I dislike the Fate system but it was cheap and a couple of the reviews said good things.

It has a really good idea - the plausibility scale of the setting.

High-plausibility games emphasize creating a coherent, internally consistent
game universe in line with contemporary scientific knowledge and speculation.
Part of the fun of such games is getting the math right, even if only figuratively—
the aim is to speculate rigorously about the ramifications of scientific
developments and cultural conditions.

In low-plausibility games, the players have a higher threshold for the willing
suspension of disbelief, meaning that they’re not terribly concerned about the
internal coherence of the game universe, so long as it’s dramatic or exciting. At its
core, Star Wars—with its dogfighting space fighters, psychic space samurai, and
giant space monsters—is the benchmark for low-plausibility games.

Between these two styles falls most science fiction. In medium-plausibility games,
the emphasis frequently falls on exploring the consequences of some “What if?”
conceit. They often blend and bend genre, introducing one or two big, blackboxed
implausibilities in order to drive the questions in which the fiction is
interested.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Only in that it was written last. T4's era is at the beginning of the Third Imperium.

Traveller has been interpreted as "Hard" SF, but it is really only as hard as the SF that inspired it: Paperback SF of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was referred to as "Hard" because it generally established rules and stuck to them, but by today's standards much of that SF was "detailed" instead of being completely accurate according to science. There were certainly exceptions, but looking at Marc's novel makes it clear that the Traveller universe is a bit pulpier than many of us have been assuming.

Yeah, I remember you telling me this a couple years back at Kublacon. I guess, as usual for me, it takes a while to sink in. I never cracked a Doc Savage nor finish a Tom Swift book, though I did read John Carter. Most of my scifi exposure started with Star Trek circa 1968 I believe, and up through the early 70s. By that I mean adult scifi that dealt with societal issues, but also had "strange phenomena" in them. In spite or reading Mike Mars and the like.

I did see Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Starman (Japanese) and a few other serials, but not in enough quantities to extract espionage / spy plots or international intrigue from them, but that's what Traveller, classic Traveller, focuses on, and I've only just realized that these last couple of years.

T4, what little I read, I thought was TNE. I cross connected both. Oh well.

When I think of classic Trek verse Traveller, verse what the LBBs stated that they were a "toolbox", I have it in my head that a type-S with a bunch of PCs can visit the CT's version of "the Mirror-verse" and other out-there tropes. But in spite of the pic in the basic T4 book, CT or T as a whole, is again more about addressing plots within reasonable tech reach, than taking on super-phenomena. And T4, as you all say, is about exploring the remnants of a pre-Imperial civ, and meting out plots that occur from that.

So yeah, I'm on track here. Thanks.

 

[Maksim-Smelchak]

Traveller has been interpreted as "Hard" SF, but it is really only as hard as the SF that inspired it: Paperback SF of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was referred to as "Hard" because it generally established rules and stuck to them, but by today's standards much of that SF was "detailed" instead of being completely accurate according to science. There were certainly exceptions, but looking at Marc's novel makes it clear that the Traveller universe is a bit pulpier than many of us have been assuming.

Yes.

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Theme#THEME-1:_Victorian_Intellectual_Theme
Shalom,
M.

 

[whartung]

I think it's Space Opera is a hard edge.

I mean, to me, I like Traveller to be basically star system spanning Johnny Quest. Where going out to do an EVA is about as dangerous and scuba diving.

Shirt sleeve worlds, etc.

I like my Traveller more like Firefly than "The Expanse".

Why? Because living in space is a pain in the neck. Everything will kill you. If not an atmosphere leak, then its radiation, a poisoned air system, alien bacteria in your food, etc. etc.

Just getting through the day is hard, who has time for adventure and travel?

 

[aramis]

Only in that it was written last. T4's era is at the beginning of the Third Imperium.

Traveller has been interpreted as "Hard" SF, but it is really only as hard as the SF that inspired it: Paperback SF of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was referred to as "Hard" because it generally established rules and stuck to them, but by today's standards much of that SF was "detailed" instead of being completely accurate according to science. There were certainly exceptions, but looking at Marc's novel makes it clear that the Traveller universe is a bit pulpier than many of us have been assuming.

Probably, but for me, it was LESS pulpy. As I once told Hunter, I like my "Errol Flynn, swinging from the chandeliers, Zorro Meets Star Wars."

 

[GypsyComet]

As I once told Hunter...

I can only imagine the reactions had T20 drifted further that way...

T4, at least at a typical PC level, is easy to project Anderson's Trouble Twisters onto. Falkayn wooing whoever he needed to, Adzel pretending to be just violent enough, and Chee Lan providing the necessary support and/or extremes, all topped off with a poker game. The adventures and explorations of scattered worlds by people who consider themselves ordinary even when the evidence suggests otherwise. That vibe fits T4's setting quite well, and is a bit more swash and buckle than the often staid CT or MT, or the optimistic desperation of TNE.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Another sleepless night :rant:

A lot of scifi I read in the late 70s and 80s had experimental psychology or even psychiatric overtones, and it wasn't until I read the Keith Brothers Carrier series, or even Mack Maloney's Wingman series, did I get a taste of prose that moved well, was descriptive, and emphasized plot and story verse some proselytizing about thought processes.

It is the large reason I'm not a Star Wars fan in spite of my adoration of the art injected into the films, which makes that environment enticing. Apart from space samurai with schizophrenic "powers" and WW2 dogfights in space, Yoda has his "anger, fear, aggression" diatribe, which to me is more mental health nonsense (without stepping into politics and religion or other pit territory).

Traveller, in all its iterations, has an element of that, but unlike books by Harrison, Le Guinn, Eklund or some others, the game doesn't push going after bad guys with abnormal psychology, but addressing scenarios that may or may not have a component of law enforcement in them which could, but doesn't necessitate, some NPC who's gone off the deep end. The Kinunir's computer may have gone off the deep end, fine, but you still need to haul that beast back to a starport.

I'm an "adventure in space" kind of guy. And where I may have been weened on scifi that had some of those previous themes, I prefer straight narratives. I guess I was born too late for the high adventure pulp from the 60s, and I was really interested in reading about historical pirates, cowboys and a lot of other mainstream stuff, so I read Trek novels, an occasional SW novel, and they had a distinctly different flavor from the pulps (the Han solo trilogy from the 80s, BTW, is a very fun read).

Having said all that, I find it odd that the game has foils / rapiers, cutlasses, broadswords and the like. But whatever. That's kind of what the game is, and I tend to forget that.

I'm going to bow out of my thread, but want to thank everyone who replied.

 

[aramis]

I can only imagine the reactions had T20 drifted further that way...

T4, at least at a typical PC level, is easy to project Anderson's Trouble Twisters onto. Falkayn wooing whoever he needed to, Adzel pretending to be just violent enough, and Chee Lan providing the necessary support and/or extremes, all topped off with a poker game. The adventures and explorations of scattered worlds by people who consider themselves ordinary even when the evidence suggests otherwise. That vibe fits T4's setting quite well, and is a bit more swash and buckle than the often staid CT or MT, or the optimistic desperation of TNE.

T20 as in the MS 20 draft easily ran in that mode.

Doubling all the XP gains in the release did it no favors. (both in play and in CGen. If high level play feels undertested, it's because it was...)

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So, in the basic T4 book there's a picture of a bunch of NPCs being herded into an teleporter amongst the ruins of a city in the background. To me this doesn't smack of traditional guns and spaceships space opera, and where T4 is sort of post-Imperium territory, I'm curious of how much space opera is in Traveller verse hard scifi. And I bring this topic up here, because that picture has me curious about other hobbyists opinions.

All hard sci-fi means is that space helmets are required.

 

[willtron3030]

All hard sci-fi means is that space helmets are required.

I want to 'thumbs up' the holy living frell out of this.

 

[whartung]

All hard sci-fi means is that space helmets are required.

... all the time.

 

[Blue Ghost]

All hard sci-fi means is that space helmets are required.

One or two antenna? Marvin the Martian or Gam from Space Giants?

 

[SanDragon]

As opposed to Space Opry, which involves banjos and is one step short of Cthulhu space...

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

One or two antenna? Marvin the Martian or Gam from Space Giants?

Anything better than those sphinx helmets used in '70s BSG, that leaked air like a sieve.

 

[ManOfGrey]

How plausible is T4? Because "gravity" isn't what you think it is.

I'm curious of how much space opera is in Traveller verse hard scifi. And I bring this topic up here, because that picture has me curious about other hobbyists opinions.

To approach your question from the opposite direction, I'm not sure that T4, like most Traveller editions, is terribly plausible. At least not from the viewpoint of our current understanding of Physics today. All the Traveller editions rely on the idea of manipulating not only gravity, but anti-gravity as well. It's easy to imagine that we could walk around on the deck of a spaceship just like we do here on Earth, just because we do it all the time, (at least here on Earth.) And we certainly see magnets in action, so it's easy to imagine that there is a huge magnet in the center of the earth that is pulling us down like a magnet moves a metal slug from the underside of a table. But that's not what "gravity" really is.

Now I don't have a PhD in Physics, or anything... but it is my understanding that "gravity" is really something much different that a "field." Mass causes both space and time to curve. What we feel as "gravity" is us "sliding" down the curved space caused by the mass of the Earth. There isn't a force actually pulling us down. We are propelled towards the center of the Earth due to the curvature of space/time itself.

Yea... I know. It's deep.

Creating such a curve in space/time, (i.e. artificial gravity,) without using a substantial mass, is far beyond anything science as we know could ever hope to explain. Never mind something that did the opposite and repelled mass. (Really... how would you "create" gravity? With electricity? :rofl

But that's OK. If you like hard core science fiction, that's why we have 2300 A.D. In T4, if you want to jump in your spaceship, and blast off without worrying about which way is "up," and from which direction, and how hard, inertia is pushing you, big deal! Who cares!? Just have fun with it! Meet aliens, shoot lasers, and barter goods. Have a fit! It's just a game. Neil deGrasse Tyson won't stop by and write you a ticket for pretending to violate the Laws of Physics. I promise.