Transhuman Space anyone?

[Lexx]

You know, I just got into THS and think it's an excellent game setting that in one way reminds me of traveller.

In one way it is a lot like traveller in that it tried to be faithful to real science and physics, like traveller did.

In the other way it's the exact opposite of traveller in that it doesn't limit tech to emphasize player action but instead takes tech advancement and it's effect on everything and goes to the limit with it.

In traveller, the big advances over the world at the time were space travel and gravitich control. Those were about the only two things that were really beyond the pale, so to speak.

Now in THS the ONLY things they DON'T have are advanced space/ftl travel and gravitic control, but what they DO have is awesome and scientifically within the realm of possibility. Genetic modifications, artificial intelligence, digital minds, microbotics, nanotech, etc.

People who like traveller might want to explore THE for a game that has some similar philosophies but takes them in the opposite direction.

 

[Malenfant]

It'd be nice if 2320AD had half the things that THS has... but they are two rather different things - 2300AD is a vision of hard scifi from an 80s perspective, and THS is from a late 90s/00s perspective.

Get the supplements, BTW - they're very good. Especially Deep Beyond and Under Pressure (I'm not saying that about the latter book because I co-wrote it, really. Oh, who am I kidding

)

 

[Lexx]

Mal,

I plan to get toxic memes or fifth wave, what say you on those?

 

[Malenfant]

Haven't seen Toxic Memes. Fifth Wave is pretty good - that covers the hightech parts of Earth. You may want to get Broken Dreams to cover the less good parts too.

In The Well and Deep Beyond are essential reading for the rest of the solar system (ITW is hampered by a crappy, very inaccurate map of Mars though. But I made a more realistic one available on my TS webpage).

Under Pressure covers the oceans of Earth, Europa, Titan, and Mars. Good if you want to know what goes on there

. It also explains a lot more about the so-called "War Under The Ice" on Europa.

Get "Personnel Files" if you're having trouble grokking what a PC would be like in TS - that's got lots of pregenerated characters in ready-made parties, as well as plot hooks. Very useful book.

Don't waste your money on the "Orbital Decay" adventure. It's Zombies in Space, I have no idea why they thought this would be a good idea for TS, there's hardly anything in it that highlights the setting.

"Spacecraft of the Solar system" is a good ship catalogue. Unfortunately it suffered greatly from the line's appalling art direction - Christopher Shy didn't actually bother to illustrate any of the ships there, he just came up with random pictures of nothing in the text . So you'll want to take a look at Nelson Cunnington's ships page to see what the ships really look like...

I think that's all the books...

 

[signless]

Let me echo my admiration for THS. I use it liberally to flesh out the Solomoni Rim in MTU. I've always been in favor of exploring advancements in the cyberpunkish realm in Traveller...but I'm one of "those" in the minority.
I deeply appreciate the background of the OTU, and stay faithful to most of its canon...but as the years have gone by many of the concepts in THS have made their way into my Traveller playing.
Under Pressure, and Deep Beyond are EXCELLENT sourcebooks...they deal with two of my favorite settings - deep interplanetary space, and the underwater environment.
I also really liked Blue Planet, as well.
I think I may have mentioned in another thread somewhere that my players and I have managed to meld Twilight 2K, Trav:2300, and Traveller all into the same universe. A few of the characters in MTU have a family line they can trace back to the T2K setting. When we get bored in a certain era, we just put that campaign on hold, and travel forward or back in time. It's worked out well - and we all get to feel like we've worked together to build our gaming universe.
Anyone else try this?

 

[Lexx]

I was kicking around an idea for a THS character, a concept I call a 'digital phoenix": I.E. someone who's mortal life was trashed and only really began to LIVE after he was digitized and became a ghost in THS.

As I've done him, he was born in the early 2000's in an area where 'class justice' was the norm, as it so often is today.

His mother was murdered when he was around 20, and the system did nothing because his family had no money or connections, and when he rpessed he was flatly told that his class wasn't worth the system caring about so STFU.

Well, a while later he witnessed a crime where a somewhat wealthy young woman who's family had connections was punched in the face hard and had her purse stolen. The robber ran right past him, and while video surveillance didn't catch the mugger it did catch the fact that the character had seen him clearly.

He was brought in and told to describe the robber.

He told the system to FO, in retalliation for the fact it had done nothing when his mother had been murdered.

Well he spent 18 months in jail on coercive contempt, never talked, was finally released after 18 months because that's the limit they could hold someone on coercive contempt. But the system was going to make an example out of him.

He got to his families house and the police were waiting to bust him as he stepped thru the door, the judge had decided to let him out THEN issue an arrest warrent for criminal contempt, aiding and abetting, accessory, conspiracy, etc.

The cops were real "HA HA!" about the arrest and he punched one square in the throat while he was dangling handcuffs in front of his face and laughing at him. He nearly killed the cop by collpasing his trachea.

Well, he ends up being sentenced to life without parole for a plethora of crimes. Attempted murder, attempted murder of a police officer, attempted murder of a police officer while comitting a violent felony (resisting the arrest), attempted murder of a police officer in the performance of his duty, assault, aggrevated assault, assault with intent to kill, assaulting a police officer, ad infinitum. They chanrged him with like a dozen felonies from one act and used it as justification for a LWOP sentence.

He had no other record, BTW.

Well, he refused memetic rehab, not wanting to be programmed to be a part of a corrupt society, and encouraged other prisoners to refuse to be programmed to serve a society that had treated most of them terribly based on class discrimination.

So he was put in solitary, and spent 50 years there.

When he was in his 70's, a social paradigm shift came full term and classism was recognized as being as terrible ans unjust as racism. A search was mae to find victims of class justice in the prison system and release them, and he was one of them.

After 50 years in solitary, he was, needless to say, not in geat shape. He was exhonorated of all charges and given a stipend.

Shortly thereafter he was contacted by a company doing rejuvanation experiments, and offered a shot at taking part. He didn. having nothing to lose, and the treatment failed, doing some severe cellular damage to some organs.

Ghosting had recently been achieved, and he opted for it. This time, things worked perfectly. Now a perfect recreation of his mind, he underwent years of therapy to restore him to a functioning individual and his old genius, cut short by some serious social injustice, finally resurfaced.

So he's a 'digital phoenix", rising from the ashes of his mortal life and determined to make the most of this one.