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Vote to eliminate the Star Vikings

kafka47

kafka47

SOC-14 5K
Marquis
Perhaps, if we could develop a consensus on what we would like see retained in any future TNE Milieu product.

Star Vikings: NAY

Empire of Solee: YES

Regency: Yes, but in a weakened form

Zhodani (im)migration: NAY

Pocket Empires: YES

Children of Earth: Maybe

Black Curtain: Yes and something more sinister than robotic life.

Empress Wave: Well...what the hell is it and maybe.

Low Tech solutions: NAY

TEDs: Yes but more diversity about the different types.

Guild: NAY

Hivers/Ithkur: NAY, as they appeared in TNE. Maybe bring back CT version.

Sure the final decision is going to be up to MJD. But, hopefully this will help.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kafka47:


Black Curtain: Yes and something more sinister than robotic life.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I agree with all your suggestions. I would like to see Lucan still alive in the Black Curtain as the source for all the trouble going on or at least part of it. As father of Virus and the last Emperor of the Third Imperium, it would be intersting to see him still around.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kafka47:
Perhaps, if we could develop a consensus on what we would like see retained in any future TNE Milieu product.

Star Vikings: NAY

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Already a null vote. TNE Rulebook, page 82. The first three quotes, including the one dated New Era Year 44 (Imperial year 1244, IIRC), all refer to the Star Vikings in the past tense, and not in a "warm memories" kind of way, either.

The quote on page 86 is earlier, 1235, and still refers to them in past tense.

It was pretty clear in 1993 (when TNE came out) that the Vikings wouldn't survive recontact with the Regency even if the RC continued, and that future generations would revile them for actions they saw as necessary.

Aside from convincing MJD that canon needs to be adhered to in this case, I see no reason to vote on this one...

As for the others, your core reason for this vote is muddled. Do you (A) not want to see coverage, or would you (B) rather these elements just vanished from/change in the setting completely?

If you mean (B), not to sound nasty, but go write your own book and allow me to not buy it.

If you mean (A), then the book MJD proposes looses its audience rather quickly, since it will NEED to be as much about "and THEN what happened?" as it is about "NOW what?" Casually tossing aside a published, major event or set of events with an "Oh that? Nothing, really. Not worth mentioning." will get the exact responses MJD has stated would kill the project...
Like the plot elements or hate 'em, MJD HAS to deal with them.

[This message has been edited by GypsyComet (edited 12 October 2001).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GypsyComet:


As for the others, your core reason for this vote is muddled. Do you (A) not want to see coverage, or would you (B) rather these elements just vanished from/change in the setting completely?

If you mean (B), not to sound nasty, but go write your own book and allow me to not buy it.

If you mean (A), then the book MJD proposes looses its audience rather quickly, since it will NEED to be as much about "and THEN what happened?" as it is about "NOW what?" Casually tossing aside a published, major event or set of events with an "Oh that? Nothing, really. Not worth mentioning." will get the exact responses MJD has stated would kill the project...
Like the plot elements or hate 'em, MJD HAS to deal with them.
B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


(C) I would favour that we see a Third Force shifting the focus away from the Star Vikings and Regency. WHich is why I like the Children of Earth milieu.
I am glad that you researched and found that the Star Vikings don't continue to exist well into the future. It has been a long time since I re-read the TNE storyline. If the third force is path is followed, I don't see why it would lose its audience as they were many pocket empires as established in cannon and from what I gather the Star Vikings are not that popular anyhow.
 
Children of the Earth, the source of new civilization
Weakened Regency
Death to the Vikings
Rough and dirty edges
An evil cybernetic / robotic empire behind the BC


I'm with the ayes to the right.
 
I must confess that while I owned TNE, it's the one version I never actually played (I had stopped role-playing for a few years in the early-mid 90's).

But, I liked the Star Vikings as a concept, I thought it was perfect for adventuring. Why are people so down on them?

------------------
Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson
 
In 1248, as the New Era dawns, the Star Vikings are gone. Their legacy remains, and their story is not ended. But in the New Era, the Reformation Coalition has become something else and the Star Vikings are gone from what used to be "Imperial Space"
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DrSkull:
I must confess that while I owned TNE, it's the one version I never actually played (I had stopped role-playing for a few years in the early-mid 90's).

But, I liked the Star Vikings as a concept, I thought it was perfect for adventuring. Why are people so down on them?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All across the former Imperium people are trying to rebuild their lives. Sifting through the ruble looking for technology that both works and is free of the taint of virus. The work is long and hard and successes are few and far between. But there are successes and you can begin to feel that although the last seventy years have been a time of unparalelled horror there will come a time, perhaps even in your life, when some shadow of the glory and beauty of the Imperium will rise again because of your efforts.

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And then the Effing Star Vikings come steal it all to put up for auction.

Sure that isn't exactly how it's written in the book but read between the lines.

------------------
I am increasingly of the opinion that RPGs are by the nature of their creation subjective phenomenon. due to the interaction between game designers, game masters, and game players all definitions, rules, settings, and adventures are mutable in acordance with the uncertainty principle as expounded by Heisenburg. This is of course merely my point of view.

David Shayne

[This message has been edited by DaveShayne (edited 14 October 2001).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MJD:
In 1248, as the New Era dawns, the Star Vikings are gone. Their legacy remains, and their story is not ended. But in the New Era, the Reformation Coalition has become something else and the Star Vikings are gone from what used to be "Imperial Space"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whew! Turn down the "Pontificating Historian" there.

And not to quibble too much, but the New Era started in 1200 unless some later-day pundits decided to call that the "False Start"...
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GypsyComet:
Whew! Turn down the "Pontificating Historian" there.

And not to quibble too much, but the New Era started in 1200 unless some later-day pundits decided to call that the "False Start"...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps the improvement of conditions hushed the chroniclers to proclaim a New Era in 1200. However, as the New Era eventually became associated with the Fourth Imperium, it is not surprising that later scholars, with the advantage of historical distance, adjusted the dates to more representative facts.

Ron
In a revisionist mood.
History is often changed anyway.
 
if we're changing anything, change this:

Move the "new era" (original meaning) from 1201. 70 years is not, IMO, time enough for the changes to occur that seemed to in TNE; planets sliding into barbarism, forgetting spaceflight, deifying technology etc. Maybe 100 years, more likely 2 or 300.

This might mess up the timeline going forward, of course, but it seems to make more sense to me.

Allen
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AllenS:
if we're changing anything, change this:

Move the "new era" (original meaning) from 1201. 70 years is not, IMO, time enough for the changes to occur that seemed to in TNE; planets sliding into barbarism, forgetting spaceflight, deifying technology etc. Maybe 100 years, more likely 2 or 300.

This might mess up the timeline going forward, of course, but it seems to make more sense to me.

Allen<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oddly enough, the timing was always one of my bug-bears with TNE but I recently re-acquired a copy of th ecore rules and from a cursory skim through, I have the feeling that actually the text itself implies that the New Era came AFTER the Star Vikings: it is if you like what the Star Vikings and the Regency (and others) construct from the Ashes. And having recently reread C J Cherryh's 40,000 in Gehenna, I think 70 years is ample time for things to go severly pear-shaped and wierd. In fact if things were left much longer a lot of the (horribley naff T2K-isms / cool variations for Opponents [delete as appropriate]) would disappear: TED's and such like "extreme" cultural structures are likely a reaction to the Hard time and the loss of the technological underpinnings of the society. Given a few centuries, more stable cultural patterns (with a higher species survival factor) would emerge or the human population would simply become extinct on that world...

Either way, think about how many generations there would be between 1130 and 1200, think about how reliant the "parental" generation had been on technology and about what its sudden catastrophic loss would do to key services like health-care and education...

That TNE had a tendency to overlook the large number of locally low tech (4-6) who were perfectly aware of the Imperium and everything that went with it but were also virtually immune to Virus (no chip based computers tech) was always a shame. But low to medium tech worlds still quietly holding themselves together and surviving quite well after adjusting to the loss of intersellar trade never seemed to appeal to the core TNE writers.

One of the things that I'm looking forward to in the new TNE sourcebook is to see how MJD and co address that legacy of worlds that have realised they DON'T need hi-tech and the Imperium to survive particularly and have very good grounds to distrust it all. Think about the current attitude if we had absolute proof that World War I was caused by Off-worlders whose empire collapsed in the 1920's and whose "inheritors" popped up now saying "it's OK, we've come to restore the Empire?"
 
Actually, have looked at it I'm rather over stating the case in my first paragraph but there are several passages of quotes from pseudo-historical sources dated using the TNE as a dating referent, upto over 100TNE which combined with the revisionist tone implies that the New Era is something that arises the generation after the RCES and Regencies pushes outwards into the wilds.

Whatever, I'm still itching to see the new stuff and whilst I can never see myself running a Star Vikings game I have no problem with their presence in cannon and I think we have to build foerward on everything that was established in TNE. With the advantage that much of the material in that era was explicitly stated as being to varying degrees subjective. So other truths can come to light that change the way things are viewed...
 
TNE Rulebook, page 9 timeline:

"1201 The New Era begins"


so I was off by one year...

The definition as infered by the main book is that the New Era begins when the first "significant" pocket empire (The Dawn League/RC) starts to "Look outward" again. The same standard applied to the Regency would put the New Era start at 1206 (IIRC, the year the border was opened), and some pundit speaking for (and from) the state(s) that resulted from these two meeting might argue that the "New Era" for old Imperial space as a whole started sometime later. Frankly, the first optimists (if you consider the RC optimistic; the Dawn League certainly was...) win in this case.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GypsyComet:
TNE Rulebook, page 9 timeline:

"1201 The New Era begins"


so I was off by one year...
.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Could this not just be the rhetoric of whomever is writing the history books. Notwithstanding, the TL G of the Regency and the RC virus helper plus the Hivers (who play a minor role anyway, if you read carefully) is there any concievable way that with the limited resources could take on TL G+ civilization such as the virus. What the Regency and RC have encountered were small pockets in the Wilds. What would happen if they came across the full blown sentient virus?

This is why I prefer that RC get wiped out by the Empire of Solee. It is much more credible to have hundreds of little pocket empires thriving in the post-Imperium campaign and also allows for a lot of mixing up, as witnessed in the Candles Against the Night Campaign.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
The definition as infered by the main book is that the New Era begins when the first "significant" pocket empire (The Dawn League/RC) starts to "Look outward" again. The same standard applied to the Regency would put the New Era start at 1206 (IIRC, the year the border was opened), and some pundit speaking for (and from) the state(s) that resulted from these two meeting might argue that the "New Era" for old Imperial space as a whole started sometime later. Frankly, the first optimists (if you consider the RC optimistic; the Dawn League certainly was...) win in this case.[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I will agree with you that the New Era was supposively the meeting of the two. Can we not agree in the new sourcebook to have a new definition better reflecting the new realities for Traveller. Marc/Avery has suggested that there exists a Far, Far Future & problems like the Heat Death of the Universe as enigmas to deal with. (Ask Swordy for details). What I think we can all agree upon is that the New Era ought to be about something different than the standard Imperium Campaign as we have known it up to now. I don't knock this milieu, but, it is just that one of the possible background choices. For it to be really effective it has to stress continuity and discontinuity. The original TNE did this by keeping the Flame alive in the Regency. However, there always a complex set of checks and balances. For the Regency had to deal with the Empress Wave which was the push for expansion but also the pull backwards to fortify positions on the home front. Similarly, the RC faced the more advanced Empire of Solee and trouble with Orinflammers.

I am hoping that the new sourcebook will have resolved some of these tensions by coming up with something new. I would favour a much darker milieu which is something that I really like in MJD fiction. A whole under explored area was the dynamics of the Guild, who are protrayed like the Russian mafia of the Stars. I would have liked to seen a more factionalized guild which is both local and interstellar in scope. What of the K'kree and the Lords of Thunder? Perhaps they are on the march? One of the reasons that I look forward T20 is the building up to the events depicted in the Keith module.
 
1. Yes, I'll be exploring the Guild (DIaspora Phoenix gives a little detail about them).

2. New Era: Well... The Reformation Coalition seem to think it starts in 1201 and adopted a dating system accordingly, but other material specifically takes it that the New Era is POst Star Vikings. My take is that several New Eras were declared. the one that stuck was the one proclaimed by the 4th Imperium in 1248, becuase they're writing the history books. I don't imagine the RC "New Era" would impress the Regency, or the Restored Ziru Sirka ("New Era? Hardly, just a few hiccups over the past centuries... it's still the same as always...")
 
I think that you need to make firm decisions to untangle conflicts of the current TNE canon vs player expectations/desires of 1248 and beyond. Some topics from the first post...

Regency: Is the TLF+ canon now? Psionics acceptance in the Regency? Did the RC/Reg meet?

Zhodani (im)migration: Perhaps on a smaller basis. Since psionics are at the beginnings of acceptability in the Regency, which means Zho/Reg tension should be easing, but perhaps not as fast(maybe decades more)? But what about the panic situation with the "Empress" wave?

Pocket Empires: YES. Pick an area or areas (if possible, I know the Trav stellography) and say "Here there be the player's reserve". This will probably annoy some who feels "their" beloved sector is destroyed, but this was done "officially" before in First Survey to Delphi, Fornast and Zarushagar sectors. I am sure some people just went on...

Children of Earth: YES, please<Solomani Uber Alles Weenie Mode/>
andmaybetherewillbesomemorematerialonthebirthplaceofhumanitiDidyouknowthattherewaslsoawhol
ebunchofmaterialpublishedbyDGPthatwasnotmoredetailedlikethegenewarandwhathappened
totheupliftedspeciesuplifteddolphinsarecanonrighttheywereinearlytJTASarticles
</END>.
I have always had an...eagerness about the future of humaniti's birthplace for good or bad...

Black Curtain: It sits at the center of the former contenders of the Rebellion. Have the "sentients" there adopted an isolationist policy? Is Lucan still crazy after all these years? Anagathics? Downloaded mind to a robot/clone? Hmm. A yummy adventure/campaign no doubt. How about a team of researchers going to ask him for his memories on the disintigration of the 3I, or better yet *evil Chuck Jones grin* he is the narrator MJD's new book? Grandfather might know all of it too through androids and such, but he isn't much on guests lately...

Empress Wave: This one sounds sticky. From implications on other posts it sounds like this was a psionic activation field moving at the speed of light. I am not in the know about Dave/Marc vision and conflicts, so, would someone leave a clear and unambiguous post on what this is "officially" in current OTU? In addtion, this seems to be a prime mover on the Zhos. Remove it and you have to explain why they have the space madness and migratory patterns.

TEDs: The reasons motivations have been explained in TNE. I agree with other posts that their power would wane and stable goventment would arise.

Guild: Yes. The old TNE novels showed there something bigger brewing for them. Perhaps a showdown with the RC. Please bring them to a better role or resolve their role as of 1248.If your PE or TED needs and can't get it, perhaps they can, at a high cost...Perhaps they fulfil a niche similar to ones the Orions had in DS9. And will someone please publish the third novel?!?

Hivers/Ithkur: They are canon, but perhaps the Ithklur silliness should go. Or, perhaps there should be official rules for Ithkur sports. There were "official rules" for Runequest's Trollball, using the BRP rules...

I wish you the best of luck. Regardless, you have one buyer here. Still, I hope your new media will be published on TL3/4 materials...

[This message has been edited by Nathan Brazil (edited 26 October 2001).]
 
Can I just send you the money now (for the sourcebook)?

Star Vikings: Y'all are too sensative. These guys saved the galaxy from themselves. How do you expect things like TEDs (especially the mean ones) to fall without outside influence? Sure the Star Vikings had to employ violence, but they only did it against the bad guys that deserved to topple, and once the TED was gone, no more suffering populations. I think you guys would've not even bothered trying to liberate Europe in WW2.

Which is worse? He who uses violence for fun and profit, or he who uses it to end violence?

I didn't care for the Guild, in that I wanted to see a series of major fleet actions against them... They belong in the story as much as anyone.

Y'all's ideas about Lucan and a super-virus are going to do what you don't seem to approve of for the Star Vikings; they're gonna cause hate and discontent in the galaxy, and the only way to stop them is to smash them.

New Era: Wha-HECK! Either I didn't notice, or I forgot, but I was under the impression that the dated item "The New Era begins" was more speaking about the actual book/storyline... Only later did I start thinking that NE1 meant 1201. But it doesn't matter. As long as the author comes up with something plausible.

Low tech worlds: Worlds that were pre-microchip and doing fine are NOT immune to the Virus! It's not that hard for a Vampire to come along and nuke them... or start preying on them if it needs slaves.

But the RC isn't going to be interested in them much anyway. The RC (and surely the Regency settlers) are going for the profitable stuff first. That's worlds that used to have high tech, and could still have their Jumpstart caches intact, or may have otherwise useful HI-TECH stuff laying about.

The RC gets involved in populated worlds (formerly high tech, now TL3) because the treasure troves on these worlds are being destroyed actively by the inhabitants. Otherwise, why would they care until they could really do something about it? They're looking out for number one, because that's all they can afford.

It's also an immense irony that the "slow driver" didn't get into an accident, but the "fast driver" did while he thought everything was just fine. (Remembering a scene from that James Bond movie where he's in the Louisiana Bayou and the cops go racing past this tracter driver, and they crash and he just drives around them.)

The galaxy cannot be reunited by force by 1248. There are too many little empires. They don't want to join up and make a big empire again because they're afraid that that's why they had the big Rebellion problem, and they don't want that again. There's an awful lot of uplifting to do besides. Too many people want to ply the stars again, or maybe have a better than 50% chance of reaching their 40th birthday.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Originally posted by TheDS:
Can I just send you the money now (for the sourcebook)?
.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Ditto. I may have my serious grips about TNE but in no way does it measure up with just keep things with the status quo.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Star Vikings: Y'all are too sensative. These guys saved the galaxy from themselves. How do you expect things like TEDs (especially the mean ones) to fall without outside influence? Sure the Star Vikings had to employ violence, but they only did it against the bad guys that deserved to topple, and once the TED was gone, no more suffering populations. I think you guys would've not even bothered trying to liberate Europe in WW2.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We are sensitive not so much to Smash and Grab approach. We simply argue that it is not a feasible way to run an interstellar government. As you keep on expanding that way, sooner or later someone finds out about you. Attacks your supply lines and poof there goes you your RC. Who would do it? The Guild, the Virus are likely candiates. We just say that the RC is an impossible organization.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Which is worse? He who uses violence for fun and profit, or he who uses it to end violence?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In ideal world that TNE is trying to construct. Neither, violence only will beget more violence.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I didn't care for the Guild, in that I wanted to see a series of major fleet actions against them... They belong in the story as much as anyone<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What fleet? Neither the RC nor the Guild have a fleet that we know about? The Guild is another construct. Eliminate the overarching storyline, and keep the Guild as a quasi-Russian mafia organization which has sprung up to offer protection to TEDs. No problem with that. Have them as an interstellar criminals, just doesn't fit with the rest of TNE universe.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>[BY'all's ideas about Lucan and a super-virus are going to do what you don't seem to approve of for the Star Vikings; they're gonna cause hate and discontent in the galaxy, and the only way to stop them is to smash them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Relegate the virus to the background, as something occasional encountered not the centrepiece as the last TNE adventure - Vampire Fleets did. Make it something that inhabits the Dark between the Stars, lurking, waiting and perhaps in the black curtain...planning.


<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
The galaxy cannot be reunited by force by 1248. There are too many little empires. They don't want to join up and make a big empire again because they're afraid that that's why they had the big Rebellion problem, and they don't want that again. There's an awful lot of uplifting to do besides. Too many people want to ply the stars again, or maybe have a better than 50% chance of reaching their 40th birthday.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is why the hints offered by MJD seem so tanatizling. That we can dispense with the idea that the Regency and the RC are going to march in like cowboys and save the galaxy from itself. Rather we are going to see a completely new configuration of power emerge from the ashes {pardon the pun} from the dominant Imperium Campaign. The real question is what lies beyond the Fourth Imperium?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MJD:

2. New Era: Well... The Reformation Coalition seem to think it starts in 1201 and adopted a dating system accordingly, but other material specifically takes it that the New Era is POst Star Vikings. My take is that several New Eras were declared. the one that stuck was the one proclaimed by the 4th Imperium in 1248, becuase they're writing the history books. I don't imagine the RC "New Era" would impress the Regency, or the Restored Ziru Sirka ("New Era? Hardly, just a few hiccups over the past centuries... it's still the same as always...")<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What happens to dispense with the Hivers? Or are they the real masters of the Fourth Imperium?
 
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