The Gateway: Lords of Thunder Wars, or the Vegetarian Conquests

[Murph]

I think that the Judges Guild maps were removed from canon before the latest maps came out, and that land grant was either up in the air or had been given to another group.

 

[Black Vulmea]

I think that the Judges Guild maps were removed from canon before the latest maps came out, and that land grant was either up in the air or had been given to another group.

JG's Maranatha-Alkahest Sector was replaced by Gateway Sector in AM2 K'kree in 1984, the same year M5 Atlas of the Imperium was released, so it appears this was GDW's doing; however, neither AM2 nor M5 show polity boundaries or allegiances other than The 2K Worlds in AM2.

They really took a hacksaw to their own map, which is rather curious; could they've kept the redline map by simply overwriting JG? They kept JG's subsector names in Ley Sector and three of the four sector names, so it wasn't like they completely -canned everything JG wrote.

In any case, I've got a choice to make: I could go with the outlines of M5 and MTJ 4 and adjust the Taquari' Comnate accordingly, or I can create my own version of Luretiir!girr Sector. That second one's kinda tempting, given that it's largely tabula rasa in TM.

 

[GypsyComet]

In any case, I've got a choice to make: I could go with the outlines of M5 and MTJ 4 and adjust the Taquari' Comnate accordingly, or I can create my own version of Luretiir!girr Sector. That second one's kinda tempting, given that it's largely tabula rasa in TM.

Lure is a parked project. I'll get there.
There are two dot maps for Lure, but the earlier one is extremely obscure, as it wasn't around for very long. It was created by the HIWG analyst for that quarter of the map, but long after HIWG was essentially disbanded. I suspected it existed when the current map was created, but I didn't actually find it until after. Amusingly, we both used the idea of a thinly starred region and proto-rift, but implemented them differently. I wanted to feather into the lower stellar density of Gateway so the sector boundary wouldn't be so obvious.

The political assignments are based on the fate of the Renkard Union and the provided history of the LoT. You can tab TM back to the Rim War map and see the Thunder growing pattern.

The vast open spaces in the middle are on purpose, as the redline map leaves much of it open. That's not to say there haven't been states there, just that there aren't any now. The Ka'ra and the Thunder have suppressed them. Probably violently. The Ka'ra Mandate may present itself as an obsequious gatekeeper, but they ARE clients of the K'kree charged with keeping the frontier under control...

I recognize that some people love the JG version of the region, but their material is so gratuitously random that the replacement was not out of line, IMO. I treat the JG version of proto Gateway) as an entertainment version of the area whipped up by some studio producer far away in the Imperium or Solomani space.

 

[Murph]

Also I think that the whole K'Kree/Hiver/3I area is underutilized since, at least to me, the canon seemed to focus on the Aslan and Vargr (and Solomani). I really liked the write up of the Dynchia Comitia in the JTAS, it had potential. The K'Kree were unfamiliar with most players since no one really ever set much on that side of the Imperium. In my humble opinion, a very neglected area.

Rather than creating Aftermath in Space aka rebellion, dark ages, etc, they could have moved down to Reavers Deep/Dark Nebula, and then set some in the Antares Sector, the Gateway Sector, the Glimmerdrift Reaches, Hinterworlds and Leonidae sectors. There was so much potential there. The Spinward Marches was tapped out, IMHO. So rather than blow things up, they could have opened up new frontiers for the Traveller base. I pretty much gave up on Traveller and its "Official" setting after the whole Rebellion thing.

 

[GypsyComet]

GDW themselves described the trailing races as more difficult to comprehend usefully, and encouraged development on the spinward side of the map.

I *attempted* to write a K'kree book for Mongoose 1e, but never got beyond the collected notes stage after I realized that K'kree space needed to be done *first*. Traveller Map shows that progress, or lack of it. The plan is still in place, but moves slowly. I updated Gur Sector on TM fairly recently, for example. My "notes" are intended to make K'kree space more playable, if not necessarily more friendly. The extremely mercurial reactions toward outsiders remain, while the Ka'ra Mandate exists to prepare visitors or turn them away. Examples exist *from GDW* of unfinished G'naak cleanup within their borders, and of client races that are not as suppressed or cowed. I introduced the so-called Logistics Clients, who use unarmed ships suited to their own physiologies to move commerce around more efficiently than the K'kree can, and I make the leap that K'kree Unity, the massive effort by Blackmane thousands of years ago, is now honored mostly as tradition. The herds fractured as soon as they were assigned to different directions during the G'naak Crusade. In short, The Two Thousand Worlds are "unified", but like one of those multi-colored sponges is unified: clearly defined regions (if you know the signs to look for) and a lot of airspace that isn't sponge...

 

[Black Vulmea]

Lure is a parked project. I'll get there.

Don't hurry on my account.

The political assignments are based on the fate of the Renkard Union and the provided history of the LoT. You can tab TM back to the Rim War map and see the Thunder growing pattern.

They don't fit the redline map, however, which to the best of my understanding was the defining representation of Golden Age Charted Space.

The vast open spaces in the middle are on purpose, as the redline map leaves much of it open.

The redline map shows it as a single polity, stretching from Maranatha-Alkahest/Gateway to the edge of your Ka'ra Mandate.

I recognize that some people love the JG version of the region . . .

. . . but their material is so gratuitously random that the replacement was not out of line, IMO.

I like Judges Guild and Group One stuff because they wanted to play Planet of Adventure: The Roleplaying Game, and wrote modules and settings with that energy, filled with illustrations that looked like they were ripped from garage band acid rock album covers, or drawn on brown paper shopping bags covering middle school textbooks. Is it as polished as GDW or FASA or DGP? Heck no, and that's why I like it.

And I disagree with your "gratuitously random" take: it's a setting filled with simmering conflict and deep history. It oozes adventure for brave or curious or foolhardy travellers, and that's why I LOVE it, and set my Traveller games there for twenty-plus years now.

Since its inception, Traveller demanded referees take random strings of numbers and find an internal logic that inspires fantastic adventures in the Far Future. Starting from too much "sense" spoils that for me, because taking something that doesn't make obvious sense and coming up with a reasonably plausible explanation is speculative fiction's germinating seed.

I treat the JG version of proto Gateway) as an entertainment version of the area whipped up by some studio producer far away in the Imperium or Solomani space.

Yeah, I saw your meta comment regarding Jeff Rients' Carmuur States on the wiki. To each their own.

 

[Murph]

I was alway less enamored of the K'Kree, and more interested in the Hivers per se, but the whole Eastern side of the map had so much potential for some serious role playing, adventures, and whatnot. It is just such a pity that it was never given the level of love that the western portion of the map was. The Zhodani were fine, if a bit boring, but further 'west" in the Far Frontiers, etc you have just a massive area where you could do all sorts of things.

The Vargr always annoyed me, a TL 11 baseline race able to take on the TL 13/14 baseline Imperium. Not happening. Plus the write up on the Vargr always made it seem that no polity could last more than the lifetime of a charismatic Vargr. The Aslans had a lot of fun in them, I never liked the Nazi's in Space write up of the Solomani, it was just too trite and did a horrible dis-service to a huge chunk of humanity. I think the Solomani and Hiver regions had just so much potential.

The Hivers, with their Federation or supervised Anarchy could have been a LOT of fun. The K'Kree were ruminants in space, and biologically speaking, doubtful since how much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a blade of grass? I could see a lot of interaction, skullduggery, etc as the Hivers attempt to mold the Solomani into the Peace loving type...all behind their backs.

 

[GypsyComet]

They don't fit the redline map, however, which to the best of my understanding was the defining representation of Golden Age Charted Space.

The redline map shows it as a single polity, stretching from Maranatha-Alkahest/Gateway to the edge of your Ka'ra Mandate.

The map was based on the redline. Is it exact? No, but they are close. Adjustments were made for the state of Gateway per MTJ#4, which states how many systems the Renkard Union has (or had, by the events of LoT), and for the actual stellar presence. One big decision was making that central state the Thunder, as the lone world in Crucis Margin presented in Gateway To Destiny, a water world with modest population, only a minority of whom were K'kree, was not enough to widely threaten Gateway Sector or take down the Renkard Union with inexplicably large fleets.

Even with that many systems, the Thunder are awfully well equipped only 220 years after exile. It brings a newly sinister tone to the iconic K'kree phrase "All K'kree serve the Steppelord of the Two Thousand Worlds."

I disagree with your "gratuitously random" take: it's a setting filled with simmering conflict and deep history.

I own a fair amount of Judges Guild material in its 70s and early 80s print runs, and even their carefully curated fantasy campaign material reeks of random map fill and that heady 70s and 80s D&D mix of Monty Haul and one save, one kill. The Traveller material, aside from the four sector folios themselves, is a little better but shows the signs that the Traveller setting as a whole was still finding its feet. Marc loves the JG stuff, the big ships poster set in particular, but it was just a bit off-step from where GDW wanted to go at the time. Ironically that region still has much of the JG feel, but gets there with different actors.

I will concede that the current version of Gateway is suspiciously history light. Most of its polities are only a few centuries old, with vague statements about founding or what may have come before. There is also a conflict across the border with Star's End to figure out.

 

[Murph]

And I very much appreciate your taking on the project. I look forward to it.

 

[Black Vulmea]

The map was based on the redline. Is it exact? No, but they are close.

OTU Charted Space ceased to be the redline map with Atlas of the Imperium, apparently, but since the JG sectors map tightly to the redlines, that makes the redlines the Charted Space of my campaign.

Clearly I'm going to be doing some sector building.

I own a fair amount of Judges Guild material in its 70s and early 80s print runs, and even their carefully curated fantasy campaign material reeks of random map fill and that heady 70s and 80s D&D mix of Monty Haul and one save, one kill.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I cut my teeth on the Wilderlands, and interpreting that "random map fill" is what prepped me for Traveller when I started playing it.

The Traveller material, aside from the four sector folios themselves, is a little better but shows the signs that the Traveller setting as a whole was still finding its feet.

Which is a big part of the appeal for me. It's fresh sediment to sift, not hardened sandstone like the Marches.

 

[Krikkitone]

GDW themselves described the trailing races as more difficult to comprehend usefully, and encouraged development on the spinward side of the map.

I *attempted* to write a K'kree book for Mongoose 1e, but never got beyond the collected notes stage after I realized that K'kree space needed to be done *first*. Traveller Map shows that progress, or lack of it. The plan is still in place, but moves slowly. I updated Gur Sector on TM fairly recently, for example. My "notes" are intended to make K'kree space more playable, if not necessarily more friendly. The extremely mercurial reactions toward outsiders remain, while the Ka'ra Mandate exists to prepare visitors or turn them away. Examples exist *from GDW* of unfinished G'naak cleanup within their borders, and of client races that are not as suppressed or cowed. I introduced the so-called Logistics Clients, who use unarmed ships suited to their own physiologies to move commerce around more efficiently than the K'kree can, and I make the leap that K'kree Unity, the massive effort by Blackmane thousands of years ago, is now honored mostly as tradition. The herds fractured as soon as they were assigned to different directions during the G'naak Crusade. In short, The Two Thousand Worlds are "unified", but like one of those multi-colored sponges is unified: clearly defined regions (if you know the signs to look for) and a lot of airspace that isn't sponge...

Sort of like the Mongol Empire.

 

[GypsyComet]

I think that the Judges Guild maps were removed from canon before the latest maps came out, and that land grant was either up in the air or had been given to another group.

The JG maps were essentially deCanonized by the late CT release of The Atlas of the Imperium, though only the two spinward sectors were included in that. By the end of MT not many years later, M-A was replaced by Gateway. Crucis Margin would keep its name and stellar placements in Gateway To Destiny (T20) but everything else was changed. Unfortunately, Crucis Margin shows signs of authorial burnout. That's not a big surprise, frankly, other than the fact that it took the community way too long to notice it; even one sector is a LOT of work and that book has FOUR. Attempts to fix it in the 2010s may have made the problem worse, as noted in other older topics here on Citizens.

Sort of like the Mongol Empire.

Potentially, yes. The parallels are strong enough.

 

[Kilgs]

I'm much more of an obsessing Crucis and Glimmerdrift stalker and I'm a loyal one so rarely stray. But same Domain so I'll get there someday on my "Fulcrum project" (Rimwar to Virus)(that storyline needs fixing!). At my current rate, I should be there around 2050. I actually got way more into the Trailing aliens the more time I spent thinking about them. The Hiverspace possibilties are huge... tons more xenosentients, an odd and confusing bureaucracy and politics/intrigues that have been laid down a century or so in advance... I've always thought a crew of hominids could paint the stars red in Hiverspace with the right push. Started working on a series of adventures that would have them being the catspaw for a Hiver and basically being at the mercy of all these weird, vague starfish who would claim to have socially devastated them at the dinner party and deposit larva on your shoe its arrogant scuttle out of the room... (how do they slam doors with finality?).

But, as noted above, there is almost nothing to go on... it feels daunting. Odd,because you could probably present them anyway you want due to the lack of material.

 

[Kilgs]

Thread resurrection.

In planning for the transition of my campaign from BeltStrike to 'Gateway Quadrant Rogue Trader,' I noticed something unexpected: what's shown on the Traveller Map (hereafter TM) doesn't match GDW's 'redline' map of Charted Space. Specifically, what TM shows as the Renkard Union and Lords of Thunder is a single polity on the redline map.

I don't own Gateway to Destiny, so am I correct in understanding that the single polity of the OTU Charted Space map - presumably the former boundaries of the Renkard Union? - has been mostly conquered by the Lords of Thunder (LoT) in 1120, at the start of the MTJ 4 adventure?

I'm running the JG Gateway sectors; what the OTU designates the Renkard Union, JG calls the Taquari' Comnate, a polity ruled by Vilani exiles from the Ziru Sirka but with a number of minor alien races strongly culturally influenced by the K'kree as well. The Imperial date in my campaign right now is 1109; what TM shows as the Ka'ra Mandate would make a better home for the Lords of Thunder, with border conflicts between the Comnate and the LoT just heating up as my travellers set out across the Lesser Rift . . .

I know this answer!!! It's been a long time but its due to a few years one way or the other in Charted Space history. I'll see if I can track down the actual reference but there is a "spat" or a polite "Pope sending the Duke off to the Syrian desert" between the leadership of the K'kree and the Lords of Thunder. They get shoved or politely asked to move in the direction away from the rest of the herd-states. Which is a totally solid idea...

"...you want to go kill meat-eaters? Why are you looking in this direction? They're all over there!!! I'm starting to question your dedication to killing the carnivores..."

So the Lords of Thunder head towards the Renkard Union and actually live within their systems for a bit. It's strongly implied that they're calling the shots though or they took it eventually from wthin. Can't remember. But... then they invade that one system that is on the border of Crucis Margin and everyone starts looking for their wallet. I believe the COMBINE actually does pay them to stop there which pisses off their neighbors.

Your timing is excellent. I dusted this stuff off last weekend and am back in the jump-seat for a few months of "puttering in the garden."

 

[Murph]

The JG maps were essentially deCanonized by the late CT release of The Atlas of the Imperium, though only the two spinward sectors were included in that. By the end of MT not many years later, M-A was replaced by Gateway. Crucis Margin would keep its name and stellar placements in Gateway To Destiny (T20) but everything else was changed. Unfortunately, Crucis Margin shows signs of authorial burnout. That's not a big surprise, frankly, other than the fact that it took the community way too long to notice it; even one sector is a LOT of work and that book has FOUR. Attempts to fix it in the 2010s may have made the problem worse, as noted in other older topics here on Citizens.


Potentially, yes. The parallels are strong enough.

Yes working on more than one sector is rough, but darn, I really like the concept of more love being given to this area of the universe.

 

[GypsyComet]

So the Lords of Thunder head towards the Renkard Union and actually live within their systems for a bit. It's strongly implied that they're calling the shots though or they took it eventually from wthin. Can't remember. But... then they invade that one system that is on the border of Crucis Margin and everyone starts looking for their wallet. I believe the COMBINE actually does pay them to stop there which pisses off their neighbors.

Your timing is excellent. I dusted this stuff off last weekend and am back in the jump-seat for a few months of "puttering in the garden."

The lone world in Crucis Margin is in Gateway to Destiny, and thus earlier than the Renkard threat. GtD took the situation in MegaTraveller Journal 4 and... didn't back date it. GtD made the assumption that the lone world WAS the Thunder, but the narrative in MTJ4 doesn't support that. I made the wedge shaped state in Lure the Lord of Thunder for Traveller Map, and then back dated it. Check the Solomani Rim War era on Traveller Map. Renkard can see them coming, but they're just eating loose colonies and lonely outposts. Oh, and stealing a few systems from existing client states. Like those videos of being stalked by house cats, every time Renkard looks away, the Thunder gets a little closer...

I hope to explain this in print some day.