Traveller 2300AD

[ElliottWJames]

Is there anyone else out there who enjoyed 2300AD?

It was IMHO a really good hard SF game ruined when GDW decided that they could create a 'cyberpunk' game without creating a new universe.

Which brings me neatly to another point, I'm surprised that the Traveller system seems to contain no cyber-gear. Any thoughts on why? Besides the thought that who would cut off a perfectly good limb and replace it with tinware.

Elliott

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Elliott James:
Is there anyone else out there who enjoyed 2300AD?

It was IMHO a really good hard SF game ruined when GDW decided that they could create a 'cyberpunk' game without creating a new universe.

Which brings me neatly to another point, I'm surprised that the Traveller system seems to contain no cyber-gear. Any thoughts on why? Besides the thought that who would cut off a perfectly good limb and replace it with tinware.

Elliott

Well, there are a fair number of posts in the 2300 forum, so somebody likes it.

Traveller was first published over a decade before the word "cyberpunk" was coined. In fact the integrated circuit was very new and Traveller's computer rules have sucked since 1980.

 

[soloprobe]

I had understood that any GM could make room for Cybernetic implants. (What tech level? Is up to YOU, if you are the GM.) At a high enough tech level; just about anything is possible. For all anyone knows; SuSAG May be growing artificial Limbs in vats!

 

[Rodina]

Well, I think there are a couple of explanations for a lack of a cyberpunk culture.

(A) There is a real frontier. Most cyberpunk is dependent on the need for a frontier in a society which is devoid of one - society in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash or Gibson's Neuromancer is a complete corporate cluster-you-know-what - so the edgey fronteirs of society exist on-line, rather than in, say, Wyoming.

(B) No computer network is going to contain a lot of consolidated data that has Imperium-wide significance. The idea in cyberpunk is that the computers are the backbone of society that a few folks really know how to play. Society in the Imperium, scattered and addled by communication lag, is dependent on men, not machines, for its function. Therefore power is vested in men - and not machines - and society, and its structures of power, cannot be subverted by simple knowledge of information.

(C) Largely as a corollary to (B) Imperium-wide society is not a bureaucracy which acts on data alone but is, rather, a feudal society which depends (at the macro levels) on interpersonal relations, not spreadsheets, limiting how much information (rather than personal communication) can sabotage a person's situation in society. Moreover, any sabotage is necessarily limited in scope (i.e., because of communications)

 

[Secrect Cow Level]

As I see it, in TRAVELLER it is just as easy at high tech levels to regrow damaged limbs or organs as it is to replace them with cyberware. Also, with cyberware you have stigma attached with such a person being "less than human" which varies from planet to planet in the Imperium. I seem to recall reading an article about cyberware and why it wasn't common in much of the imperium in the MEGATRAVELLER REFEREE'S COMPANION, but as I no longer own it I can't look it up for certain.

 

[Lord Iron Wolf]

Psionics is an enhancement to a normal human being and makes the user more than a normal human and thought of as less than human in public opinion. With security in many starports and advanced cities any unusual or enhanced cyberware would be detected easily and depending on laws neutralized easily: static, electric shock, laser and other nastier methods (Plasma???)

Also from everything I've seen of Traveller art and things, personal mutiliation isn't common to the citizens of the Imperium. There may be a severe prejudice against any alteration of the human body except for medical reasons.

Just a Thought,
LIW