I've been thinking about this for years, and bandying it about the forums for a little while, so here I go: H. Beam Piper's Universe as Traveller, as being prepared for a game to be run at some yet to be determined date.

Mission: To add in elements common to a number of stories from noted Sci-Fi author H. Beam Piper to the established Traveller universe (lack of capitalization deliberate).

Pros: Piper's works were massively influential as both a primary and secondary source to Traveller. Elements such as the Sword Worlds, the Imperium and teh slow-but-still-FTL starships all owe a great deal to Piper's vision. In the case of the Sword Worlds they are, in fact, a direct element lifted intact and installed directly.

Cons: A lot of Piperian future-History is incompatable with Traveller Canon, and elements like the Sword Worlds are often reduced to bit players, afterthoughts, rather than significant historical forces. Piper had no analogs to vast alien empires like the Zhodani, the Aslan or the Vargr, nor did he have (to my recollection) Ancients of any sort.

Resolution: The end product should not be mistakable as a Piper RPG, and nor should it feel like a few set pieces were tossed into the Traveller Universe as dressing.  However, the rules of the book, and as much setting information as can be crammed in from both sources without gross alterations should remain intact.

Conclusion: It will be necessary to stress elements of the the Canon that are Piperian, and necessitate a minor rewrite of history. Removing, or rather destressing, the Vlani is probably necessary (impact on the game and 'current' setting is minimal, retaining it as written vastly monkey-wrenches Piperian history).

As I have no intention of including the Ancients as written (not least because there is very little mystery to old hands, and frankly too much of the Ancients, as written, actually sucks...), I may toss in a challenge to make the Ancients/Precursor elements of Traveller more in line with the Mass Effect games (because I can).  In that view I may also chose at a later date to reduce the vast tapestry of 'not quite humans' to a more cosmopolitan (ME) setting... with absolutely no effort to retain any ME fidelity.

As Always, Because I can.

Sometime in our near future, humans exploring space discover the principles of Jump Drive, for the first time allowing true interstellar colonization.  The Sol System was already heavily colonized, with lunar bases mining He3, an extensive Mars Terraforming project (and a less successful Venusian Terraforming project, hampered by the inability to set down viable colonies during the process), Jovian settlements and even Ceres Base, with a powerful mass driver to fire slugs of rare metals mined in the belt back towards Earth.  

Rumors about ancient alien ruins found on one of the extra-terrestrial colonies fueling this discovery have never been substantiated.

Faced with a vast exodus of wealthy, driven, industrial peoples, the first 'interstellar' Earth-Gov began codifying the process of colonization via the 'Corporate Charter System'. As the Scout Survey Corps indentified worlds they were classified according to viability and sold to anyone who could afford the vast expenses of exploiting the worlds.

Notably: Class three worlds were 'Earth-like', capable of supporting human life without terraforming and Class Four worlds, which were often terrestrial but were defined explicitly by the presence of 'Sentient' life. Defying early nay-sayers, both sorts of worlds were surprisingly common in the region around earth.  Worlds settled during this long era were typically named from earth mythology, and the regions surrounded Sol to this day are populated by such famous worlds as Baldur, Nifflehiem and more.   Even in the Third Imperium Era, newly discovered worlds use the old terran charter system and not infrequently names.

The only thing worse for a chartered company than finding a new sentient life form on their expensive Class Three world would be finding Ancient Ruins. When a world became Class IV, the company could claim any assets on world that were properly registered and marked, and even arrange to retain some control over territories where the natives were not. On the occasion that a world was declared a Class V world, it was quaranteened, interdicted and shut down, the colonists and settlers forcefully reduced to prisoners for as long as Earth-Gov (and its successors) needed to verify that nothing remained to threaten their hegemony.

Two notable points from this early era are worth mentioning: Jump mishaps were more common, and in many cases were survived, sending early colonists far from the worlds they expected to settle, often far enough away that contact would not be restored for centuries. The Sword Worlds, for example, came from just such a mishap.  The second phenomenon was the increasing rise of psionic powers, a rise that was clearly linked to Jump Travel in some fashion.   Every known Psion has either jumped extensively, or had a recent progenitor who jumped extensively.  


For several centuries, during which much of the technology currently taken for granted was developed, the terrans expanded alone, finding only scattered primative races such as the Uller. Some were wiped out by greedy colonists, others were so primative that they defied common understanding of Sentience.  The unified government that managed all this collapsed numerous times, rent by civil wars, seperatist movements and more.  Some worlds took up living off the scraps from such wars, others survived so long that they could not be called colonists with a straight face.  

During one such collapse period the Space Vikings struck, the old Sword Worlders having adopted the warrior cultures of their ancestors and re-found their fellow humans. The Space Vikings tore through the scattered humanity like a... well, like a sword... conquering hundreds of worlds, pillaging hundreds more.

In time they fell to bitter squabling as the kings of the various worlds fought and their far flung empire fell into neglect. Yet it was the Space Vikings that spurred the rise of the First Imperium, taking the Star Burst as their sign.  The Imperium took as their credo that all the scattered worlds of Humanity were theirs to rule, that no new Vikings, no barbarians, would rise to destroy civilization again.  They revised the old charter system, allowing worlds to retain their sovereignity, but giving the Imperium absolute hegemony over space.  Many worlds flocked to the Imperium, eager to rejoin an advanced civilized state, others fought bitter wars over fine points of freedom, or because they retained one of the few instituitions that the Imperium would not allow... slavery being the classic example.  

Some say the Imperium must have been prescient, for it was during their golden era, when most of the known worlds of Man had been reclaimed that they discovered that, as far as space travel was concerned, Man was not alone.

The first alien race encountered were the Aslan, who fought beside the Sword Worlders as allies when the IMperium at last came for their old enemies.  In time the Sword Worlds fell, but the ancient animosity that had settled between the Imperium and the Aslan could not be denied, and they fought continually for the life of the Imperium.

The Aslan, however, were the key. All the Major Races of the Galaxy had come together to reduce interstellar warfare and raise prosperity. The Aslan knew of the Vargr, the Zhodani, the Hivers, the Vlani and more. Man, Terran Man, or Solomani as they came to be called, were upstarts, for all their thousand years in space.

The old Vlani Empire, the Ziru Sirka, lay closer to the domains of Man than any other race, and the similarity between the two races meant they were an ideal choice to represent the rest of the Galaxy, ending a long and bloody war, or so the reasoning went.  The Imperium, however, took the Ziru Sirka to be another off-shoot of Man and  in a shocking turn of events, conquered them, absorbing the old and stagnant Empire easily, but not without changing, for the Vlani were not Terrans, and their history and culture was truly alien.  The Ziru Sirka, while smaller than the Imperium, was still larger and more powerful than any faction the Imperium had absorbed previously, and it is often said that the Imperium lost to the Ziru Sirka by winning, for they changed far more than their opponent.

The so called Second Imperium formed from the blending of the two, and from the revelation that the Imperium of Man was but one participant in Galactic politics, surrounded on all sides by potentially hostile alien empires.  The arrival of Earth-men did solve a long standing mystery of the similar genetics of the Vlani, Zhodani and Vargr races, and from the various empires, the terrans learned that the Ancients had left ruins all over space, ruins that each species had benefitted from in turn, but that no race could say who or what the Ancients were, only that they had been destroyed by some ancient war long ago.

THe Second Imperium is notable mostly for the relatively benign politics of the era. Despite their violent introduction to the Galaxy, or perhaps because of it, Terrans, known as Solomani, were given the full respect due the Ziru Sirka they had absorbed.  A reluctant peace with the Aslan was forged, and for a few hundred years the new 'Humaniti' seemed to fit right in, guided by their Vlani cousins/servants.

The Second Imperium collapsed due to racial tensions within the Imperium and without.  Having absorbed the Vlani the Solomani turned their sights on the Zhodani, but the strength of the Zhodani, their vast and impressive psychic talent, stymied and frustrated the warlike factions of the Imperium, and outraged the poorly assimlated Vlani factions.  The overwhelming presence of Vlani in governmental positions, even in traditional earth territory (and their absolute refusal to rename their worlds in 'human' words) created greater rifts within the Imperium and a civil war was inevitable.

During the 'Long Night' the edges of the old Imperium were mercilessly devoured by their neighbors, and only the belligerence and strength of human remanent forces preserved even that much.

A bit over a thousand years ago a new imperium was forged from the ashes of the Old. This THird Imperium, now ruled from Sylea (a compromise choice between the Solomani and Vlani factions) took power and has remained stable for an impressively long time. Unlike the Second Imperium, the THird does not pretend to play neighborly, refusing to abide by ancient military treaties on naval sizes, participat in the 'Galactic Council' and more. It is large enough and wealthy enough to get away with this belligerence (and marginalized major races like the Vargr seem to enjoy this state of affairs, enabling them further).  

The scout surveys of old continue, and the old practice of chartering worlds has been revived.  Recently a new question of sentience has come up on a little known world known as Zarathustra.



Eh. Its rough, and I'm not entirely sure I like it, but there it is to start with.

Revised Contemporary Post


Certain areas marked as 'Shades of Mass Effect' and in italics, are optional add ons, which may not carry over to actual play, and are segregated out for people who don't want chocolate in their peanut butter...

For the main I see no particular value in making sweeping changes to starships to match Piper's work. Ships, in the main, have merely been in service to the need of taking interesting people to interesting places in Piper's works. The Cosmic Computer does put out some hard details that do, in fact, contradict canon Traveller in some ways (spherical ships with gravity in the core, for example), and the single biggest difference is the use of radioactives for power for everything.

Militarily speaking, missiles, to include nuclear missiles are hugely common, and they do exist in Traveller. In the main I'm willing to leave it be.

Some minor points may be made: In Piper's world the assumption is that you go armed where ever you go (large urban areas having more restrictions), it is expected, as is drinking and smoking.  Arms are traditionally conventional small arms. I see no reason to assume some military forces may have transcended slug-throwers for lasers and energy based heavy weapons, of course.

Grav vehicles, armed or not remain contemporary for Piper as Canon, so no change really.  Being a bit old fashioned, traditional semi-open gunner cuppolas are more common for Piper, but that is dressage and minor.

Bonded Superdense: In Piper's terms we have Collapsium, which is essentially a formulation of Superdense.  I propose that the material "Bonded Superdense" is a game term for one of a number of 'supertech' materials with similar principles that commonly serve as heavy armor.  Collapsium might have a more technical term (Electron Shell Entanglement?), of course.

Minor sentient races: Using MongTrav for this makes it easy.  The only sentient aliens that got close treatment in books I've read thus far are the Fuzzies (small? Very Small? fur bearing mammalian creatures, startlingly human in many ways, with ultrasonic hearing and speech. Presumably intelligent enough to be fully 'uplifted' to a technology using species within a generation (Little Fuzzy lights a pipe with an electronic lighter within months, they operate televisions within hours of exposure), and Ullers, which are tri-laterally symmetrical (as I understand) bronze age primatives modeled vaguely on the Sepoy Mutiny era India (following Piper's method of recreating historical dramas as Sci-Fi stories, rather than a statement on India...). Others are named but not clearly detailed.  Though Zarathustra lies 158 light years from Earth (thus well within the First Imperium Era) I have not problem moving it farther out so that the discovery of Fuzzies can be contemporanious with the Players.  Shades of Mass Effect: Secondary 'Major' races can include ME races like the Turians, the Asari and the Salarians, with additional minor races including the Volus, the Elcor, the Drell, Hanar and more. Races like the Batarians are obviously major races, but are treated as minor/secondary due to anti-social behavior and insular cultures.

The Sword Worlds: More or less fully absorbed into the Imperium, but as a fractious, culturally unified bloc prone to rebellion.  They remember their glorious golden age, when they were the conquerers and kings. Prone to racism against varient humans (to include Vlani), as a whole

Ancients: After millenium since their discovery (by terrestrial humans), not much is known about the Ancients. Most known sites have been fully exploited, with some exceptions.  It is believed that multiple 'ancient' races may have existed, with overlapping eras.  Shades of Mass Effect: Ancient culture may have been destroyed by an unknown external force?

Lessee::: Current events? Strephon is Emperor, low intensity conflicts with Aslan and Zhodani forces, rebellious sub-sectors (to include Sword Worlds).. robots. Yes, robots are more common in Piper-Traveller, though far from ubiquitous. Ordinary prospectors, colonists and free traders have a hard time buying and maintaining high end robots, but the upper classes, the Imperial Government and so on use them as 'cheap' labor/servants.  

Eh. I'm tapped for the moment. Its also 3am here, and I started this two days and at least one international border ago...

revised Ancients Post

To be perfectly honest, I've been increasingly disenchanted with the Canon Traveller Ancients.  They aren't horrible, and easily ignored, but just not that fun.  Seriously: 200 odd Super-Beings wiping out half the galaxy etc... just bah.  

Grandfather being the worst of the bunch. I dunno, whole thing smacks of some sort of weird socio-political commentary on God or something.  Also, by law, anything named Grandfather needs to have a long flowing beard, and last I checked the Droyne don't have facial hair.  

Yup. My secret shame is revealed: Grandfather's lack of impressive facial hair is why I hate canon Ancients.  

Anyway: This entire post will be more or less 'shades of Mass Effect', but you don't actually have to like that game at all to enjoy, since it more or less merely covers random fluff that won't have any more impact than your campaign calls for. Or mine, or whatever.  Also, as the ending of ME3 reveals, ME's ancients are also balls stupid (for different reasons than a lack of impressive beards...), so I'm not at all obliged to remain totally faithful to that vision either.  That's right, I'm gonna piss on two different fan groups at once. I'm talented that way.


So: When the universe was relatively young, the first sentient life pulled itself from the primordial muck on some long lost world.  Civilizations rose and fell throughout space, some gaining the stars first, many falling far short.

In a dim and mostly unloved corner of the universe lay a somewhat shabby spiral galaxy, not terribly young nor terribly old, and it is in this corner of space where we shall direct our attention... for you see, almost no race has ever managed to transcend the distances between galaxies, even in the vast and unknowable eons of space.

In this 'Milky Way', as the poor benighted inhabitants refer to their ghetto, a few billion years ago the first significant life forms rose to the heavens and forged the first star empires. They found they were not alone, of course, for it seems that several races at a time manage to rise more or less concurrently, and it is quite rare for a single race to dominate.  Eventually these first races collapsed, to warfare, to stagnation, to genetic drift as they evolved too far from that strange window of time that allows for tool use.  

Long cycles, some millions of years, passed before anything exciting happened. As the galaxy aged, various regions of stars proved more or less viable than others, and the 'sweet spot' for advanced life migrated, leaving the ruins of previous cycles forgotten in dusty cupboards and cobwebby attics of space, mildewing in a leaky basement may even lie the secret of transcendence itself, who can say.  Perhaps a few degenerate descendants of unimaginable powers remain on some long lost world... but that matters not.

In a cycle that happened fairly early, as we measure these things, arose a great race, the grandest conquerers and mightiest horde that had ever filled the stars with warships.  It is possible even that they may not have originated in our galaxy. No one records what they called themselves, nor what they looked like... indeed, for they did indeed wipe out all other races they encountered, even races they thought might one day become sentient, for they were right bastards of the worst sort. Let us call them the Chicxulub for now.

Eventually even the Chicxulub were destined to fail, to fall, as all races before them had.  Did they see it coming and plan the ultimate act of bastardy? Or perhaps their fall was predicated on the ancient pattern, of creators destroyed by their own creations.  What is known is that the Chicxulub created a strange 'race' of hybrid things, part machine, part flesh, immortal killing machines that could stalk the stars for eternity, carrying on the crusade against all other life forms. Some scholars through the ancient cycles have suggested that they became their own war machines, that the very mind and soul of a mighty Chicxulub warrior motivates the machines that made.  

What is known is that they broke the very cycle of the ages, at least in the Milky Way, and probably a few nearby galaxies as well, for they were truly righteous in their bastardy, and the neighborhood was pretty bad anyway.  

Anyway: Humans have encountered these war machines one, a few cycles ago. Well, not humans exactly but Terra, and so they have named them after the scar upon earth. It turns out that some ancient race, fleeing the unstopable horrors took refuge in the otherwise unremarkable Sol system, even settling colonies on Earth itself. A single strike against the surface caused a horrific wildfire that wiped out 90% of all life, to include all signs of alien settlement... and coincidentally set the stage for a species of small mouse to rise up to full sentience a few million years later.

It is odd to note that the Sol System has played a part in so many cycles, but the Chicxulub war machines are terribly effective and so few signs of the old cycles in this part of the galaxy remain intact and only the latest cycles remain visible in the ruins of the ages.

And as so few clues to the natures of the previous cycles remain, their names will, for the most part, remain familiar to readers.

The earliest known 'Ancient' race are called the Precursors, for they predate all others.  Many believe the Precursors were the original race to fight the Chicxulub (ignoring the matter of several billions of years of dastardly murder that the Chicxulub conducted before the so-called Precursors even flopped out of their own primordial sea...). THe Precursors were not (probably) the only advanced sentient species of their time, but they remain the only one who left records of any sort. The Precursors were wildly advanced, so much so that the secrets of their remaining technology can't truly be unlocked, only studied for clues.  It is believed the Precursors were powerful psychics, and it is hoped they were mostly pacifistic, for if they couldn't stop the Chicxulub, then what hope do the current species have?

It is believed the Precursors technology worked by quantum manipulation. It is known that artifacts are incredibly durable, entirely impervious to entropy (within the scope of a few million years at least... and of course, this does not exclude artifacts that obviously didn't make the cut and disappeared...). What is known is that the Precursors seeded a number of star systems (Sol, on Mars,  the Aslan Homeworld moon and so on...) with artifacts, well concealed, apparently as a warning against the coming of the Chicxulub.  Artifacts take the form of large black stone cenotaphs and monoliths, usually well buried, apparently of a single piece. However, when a sentient being approaches within a few hundred meters they tend to put of a visible glow of some greenish energy and technological objects tend to suffer malfunctions unless specially shielded.  

Atlanteans: So dubbed by human archeologists, an older race than some, and occasionally referred to as 'star brothers'.  Based entirely on their ruins, the Atlanteans were humanoid bipeds, slightly taller, but within tolerences, than modern humanity.  Atlanteans left few ruins, but are responsible for uplifting the Vargr, and left most of their ruins in what is now Vargr space.  Apparently, the loss of the Atlanteans triggered a racial 'uplifting' of the Vargr, for the first records of sentience and history of that race occur slightly after the loss of the Atlanteans.  The Vargr may not be the best 'weapon' against the Chicxulub, but they have a strange racial 'defense', in that the presence of Chicxulub appears to trigger a reversion to presentience in Vargr cubs.

Leone: To all appearances the Leone were actual Aslan, though the ruins of the Leone all predate Aslan civilization, and the Chicxulub are not known for leaving survivors in their wake. Leone 'ruins' are usually in good shape, and are mostly notable for not appearing terribly 'high tech' compared to contemporary civilizations. Also: They tend to leave massive statues in the oddest places, places that occasionally suggest a much higher tech than other elements of their ruins.  Massive. Like: Entire mountain ranges carved into statuary, planetoids turned into edifices to their greatness... truly cyclopean.

Prometheans: Contemporary to the Leone, and the single greatest source of lore on the Chicxulub in the last cycle. Most ruins found that are considered 'ancient' are actually Promethean, and they earned their name for their program of uplifting species throughout space, and preparing for the war to come.  The Prometheans were somewhat higher than contemporary technology, but not terribly so (TL 17+), and technically were a collective of advanced species, at least six have been nominally identified as part of the Promethean Collective. Wether this collective was formed prior to, or because of the Chicxulub is unknown.  Several caches of 'hard data stacks', records that are easily accessed and hard to destroy, have been uncovered detailing records of "The War", which apparently lasted for several centuries.  Hints of super-weapons half completed and stashed away tantalize governments, even the ones that don't believe in the Chicxulub threat. Greater hints of the so called 'lamp lighters', survivors of previous cycles that continuously flee before the Chicxulub, seeking a race that can end the threat for all time, hoping to warn them, to prepare them draw more attention from those that hear strange echos, ancient signals that suggest that maybe the ancient menace is returning once again, drawn by the growth and success of the Imperium and its neighbors.


Bah, another weak one. Way too derivative, and not at all Piper-esque. Then again he never did deal with lost civilizations that weren't human...  I could talk about the dying place of the jellyfish?  The idea is to have a tapestry of ruins and ancient civilizations that is more indicative of a living history, races that rise and fall, leaving only signs of their passage... plus a great menace to end a campaign with (for people who like a good old fashioned war to end all wars....)

OK, this stuff is pretty darn cool, Pika-O-Doom!  

However, you must include the Ga'shta somewhere!

I'll try. I'm about to re-read the Fuzzy Papers again (for the third time in the last 12 months?) just for more 'clues'.  You may want to point me in the directions of specific books of Piper's.

So far I've read all three Fuzzy books, the Uller Uprising, Slave is Slave and the Cosmic Computer, with maybe some other shorter stories a while back that I don't remember. I did try to get into the Space Viking stuff, which I've got (thank you project Gutenberg...)

And, of course, I'll do more posts as I refine it, beyond the three I slated for myself as overviews.



EDIT::: Bah. Several reads of the books (to be honest, I've only read the third one once, surprisingly difficult to find copies of...), and it takes google to reveal Ga'shta is the Fuzzy word for Fuzzies.  Actually, the second book is a bit hard to track down. Probably gonna work on that on... Friday? When I finally am done travelling and back at work. Seems like a good use of my employer's time....

Obviously there must be Fuzzies. That's, like, HALF the reason to do this (the other half is swearing by Niflehiem...)

So, third and final preliminary post is up. I'll let them marinate for a few days, check for feedback and all that before I expand. Eventually, somewhere along the way I'll start shaping it into a campaign notes sort of deal, since so far its just a sketch of a setting.

let me repeat an important part: Feedback, people.  Us creative genii need it.

I like the concept that this possesses.  

It would seem that it might be more fruitful to following the Pipper's cannon more carefully, and couching it in Traveller terms.  You can then add "neutral" Traveller U elements, to help fill out what is going on.  That way, you get more of what you want. You then get to use the existing Traveller stuff as your filler, saving time and effort.

The basic concepts are sound.  Is it close enough to your vision to be okay, or do you need another time around with it?

Hrm...

Well, I'm not going to claim expertise on the entire corpus of his works, being that I only branched out from the various Fuzzy stuff in the last decade, and that rather slowly, but Piper, to my knowledge, never laid out much of a timeline or anything. I mean: I think we get a year (or at least a ballpark) in the Fuzzy papers, and we know that at some point the space vikings romp all over shit then collapse and then there's the Imperium... I'm sure a greater expert than I could put that into a good timeline, but I'm grabbing pieces from various places, so its easier to stick it into an established framework that is already a close match.

Also: as far as I recall, Piper didn't really have alien empires, which works great for the stories he was telling, but is a little drab. Likewise, little tidbits (like power generation or his very (VERY) nuke friendly warfare) are either minor enough to be ignored or problematic for an RPG.


If you'd like to point out some better resources I've read
The Fuzzy Papers (all three books, though I only have a copy of the first one handy),
The Uller Uprising (er... ten years ago)
Slave is Slave
The Cosmic Computer.

I also have teh Space Viking book (is that the proper name? I can't recall), but I couldn't really get into it much.  I seem to recall a couple of other short stories I read a while back that, if not actually Piper, were strongly based on some of his ideas (chartered worlds and such...), but I can't claim much knowledge of them beyond that.

Meanwhile: I'll work on an actual campaign post to put up in the next day or two, spit-balling ideas.  

Note: Some aspect of keeping the Traveller as intact as possible is the ready use of resources to answer questions like 'whats the name of the emperor' and 'what year is it'... shit i tend to gloss in my designing when I look at the big picture and the small local picture. I'm lazy

Having talked a bit with Imperator with a mixed Mass Effect/Traveller mash-up, I've been thinking more on the issues.  I actually like most of the ME race/political stuff more than Traveller canon, but its not a good mashup with Piper.

Leaving aside momentarily the political issues (and wanting to avoid the Imperator style 'two earth' mash-up) it occured to me that an interesting economic issue needs to be addressed before I continue.

Nostalgia for its own sake doesn't appeal to me. Seventies Era computing was meant, I assume, to be high tech when it was written in the Seventies.  Its silly and counterproductive forty years later, so I'm willing to update both Traveller and Piper.

Now: In Mass Effect the economy is based on intellectual property. You don't buy a pistol, you buy a pattern for a pistol and the right to use any proprietary material technology to make it. Universal access to nano-fabrication hasn't created a post-scarcity society, but rather like the use of containerized shipping has vastly streamlined logistics.  This has the potential to be massive. And yet: Not really.

On the one hand, it could be relatively simple to just keep inventory management largely as it is now in Traveller, and ignore the ME set dressing... or conversely, toss ME set dressing onto Traveller's inventory.  

Ultimately, its a relatively minor issue compared to simply giving players access to the ME Omni-tool on any level.   I don't think it cleans up the Piper-esque rough-edged colonies.  Zarathustra, for example, exports mostly luxury goods, and is otherwise self sustaining. Piper made a big deal, from my readings, about the improbability of shipping vast quantities of life support materials.  Cosmic Computer points out that abandoning even high end military goods in place (even ship facilities) is far cheaper than shipping it back home.  

So, do we postulate that sufficiently advanced computer interfacing technology, combined with man-portable nano-fabrication (at least on the micro-scale) would naturally lead to something at least similar to (if not identical to) the Omni-tool, and if so that it actually has a place in a Traveller Universe that has directly imported Piper-verse elements?  

While I think so, I'll leave it open to commentary before I make a final decision.



The natural follow up is: How involved should I get with the nano-fab economy?

Inspired by Imperator's Post, I can try to include more ME stuff into the setting. Replacing Zhodani with, say, Asari is entirely unappealing, yet just tossing in the ME races as minor bit players for ME fans is also not particularly any better.

So, keeping Contemporary-ish:

Roughly twenty years before the start of the campaign, shortly after the coronation of the current Emperor (Strephon, somewhat younger than canon I believe in this case), an 'Ancient' artifact was found in space, the first Mass Relay. An Imperial Navy force managed to activate and use the Relay, once they had adapted their ships to take advantage of the device. On the other side they encountered a Turian Fleet of the Alliance, and a brief (by Imperial Standards) shooting war that went poorly for the Imperials. However, when the Turians followed the Relay back to Imperial Space they found that a slight technological advantage did not at all make up for the vast numbers of human ships waiting for them, or the vast industrial complex backing the Imperial Fleet.

'Citadel Space', occasionally referred to by Cartographers as Relay Space (the network of star systems linked by Mass Relays, and their immedeate neighbors), lies beyond Zhodani Space, beyond conventional jump drive reach.  

Upon finding a space faring power the size of the Imperium beyond a Relay (as far as anyone knows, the only relay in human space), the Citadel Alliance immeadiately attempted to co-opt the Imperium into Alliance Politics, fearing a true war, and not realizing that the Imperium had enemies of its own. The Imperium, however, preferred to treat with the Alliance as a seperate soveriegn power rather than suborning themselves.  It didn't take long before the Imperium began absorbing Citadel technologies (Omni-tools and Mass Effect fields would be at least TL 16, and a high 16 at that), and adapting. Meanwhile, the Citadel races absorbed some imperial technologies, such as Jump Drives and some energy weapons.

Imperial Space has been rocked by the advent of easy Nano-fabrication, and the presense of a power like the Alliance, and has struggled to overcome the technological differences. Not helping matters, the Aslan have gained a seat on the Council, representing 'Imperial Space' (taking on the other non-human races such as the Hivers and the Vargr) as client races, making diplomacy in the Imperium much more challenging.  On the other hand, the Imperium is not bound by the Treaty of Farixan, limiting 'dreadnaught' class ships, and while small scale fabrication has caught on, industrial scale fabrication is still behind.

Biotics/Psionics: The theory of Biotics in Citadel Space is that early exposure to 'Element Zero' awakens potential, but is only useful with mind expanding implants has worked well for millennia. To their shock they found that rare human Psions have almost no exposure to 'Eezo', as that element is non-existant in Imperial Space, and no implants, yet can match an biotic for raw power, and even do things that lie beyon conventional biotic behavior (the commonality of telepathy in human psychics is disturbing to Alliance Races). On the other hand, biotic Implants do allow biotics to perform consistently, almost mechanistically, very high effort telekinetic effects, with much less effort.   Shockingly, biotic implants are easily adapted to human psychics, though it still requires a minute quantity of Eezo to manufacture them, and human psychics produce manifestations of biotic powers via the implants (thus the implants do nothing to aid telepathy or teleportation).



In essence: The Alliance represents a coalition of races covering a number of worlds roughly equal to the Imperium, but spread over a wider stretch of space. Primary FTL travel is by Mass Effect Relay, backed by weak Warp Drives (powered by Eezo, an exotic 'super-science' material that the Alliance can not manufacture, only 'mine', possibly a byproduct of the Mass Effect Relays, as it is mostly found in systems with Relays or with civilized ruins.   The Alliance is slightly ahead of the Imperium in a number of key areas, both gravitational fields (mass effect), psionic research (biotic implants), and industrial science (nano-fabrication), but behind the Imperium in all energy weapon research, jump drives. Widespread use of nano-fabrication and defensive fields, as well as biotics (and implants, the Alliances are not afraid of cybernetics!), means the average Alliance Soldier is better than a conventional Imperial soldier, but weaker than battledress (while more numerous).   The existance of the Alliance has made the diplomatic situation of the Imperium a lot weaker by strengthening many of their neighbors, but has also strengthened the position of Emperor Strephon by shaking up the static Imperial culture, reinvigorating it.  Traditional approaches are overturned by the Imperium wide renovation project.  New ships have to be made, new industrial companies are being founded every year and many of the old, entrenched powers are falling by the wayside, unable or unwilling to adapt so quickly.  However, reforms also breed unrest... and not all of the new technologies have been beneficial (theives using optic-camoflage, disposable 'Tech' drones and more have made a mockery of most Imperial Security measures).


This is still a notional idea, and a lot more similar to Imperator's setting than I intended.  I'm sure my next post will be pure Piper-esque.

Given the debt Traveller already owes to the Terro-Future History I'm actually hard pressed to figure out a good way to bring in more Piper.  

I'm probably gonna Gutenberg a few more books, but I'm not expecting much insight.

In the meantime:  As a general rule, within the Imperium it is very common for citizens to go about armed.  This is much truer outside the core and outside of urban areas than within.  Due to threats of piracy, many independent ship crews also go about armed in space.  Ettiquette demands one hang up ones guns when visiting (much as you would a coat or hat).  

Deep space and many fringe worlds (making up the majority of human settled space) is fairly lawless. The Imperial Navy protects core worlds and major shipping routes from predation, and enforces Imperial Law on member worlds. The Imperium's political and financial power is largely concentrated in Space industry, and most spacers view themselves as Imperial Citizens, while most 'grounders' view themselves as citizens of their local world.  

Most of the Fringe worlds are either chartered colonies, belonging to a corporation (many founded merely to exploit a single world, and beholden to shareholders within core systems), and entirely bound by whatever laws the corporation choses to enact, and unchartered worlds, which may have a corporate presence but don't actually belong to anyone (except what the natives make for themselves. Natives being either non-human sophonts or human colonists).

Early in the days of the Terran Federation (early colonization), a number of 'Interstellar Laws' were codified, including chartering, respect for native Sophonts (within limits), attitudes about slavery, salvage and piracy laws and so forth.  It was the utter rejection of all the Federation stood for by the Star Vikings that enshrined the Star Vikings as utter barbarians, and the re-adoption of most of the Federation's 'Star Laws' in some form or another by the Imperium, to include an anti-slavery provision in the Imperial Charter, one of the more strongly enforced Imperial Charter laws.  While the Imperium is strongly humano-centric, their respect for native sophonts in the charter system (the Star Vikings are reputed to have wiped out several minor races during their time, and persistant rumors that one or more of the Sword Worlds was occupied when the Sword Worlders arrived remain to common despite a lack of evidence).

Most of the fringe was was settled by the Terran Federation, then conquered (and in some cases freshly settled) by the Star Vikings, rather than freshly settled by the Imperium, though exceptions do exist... mostly high quality worlds that were overlooked in the initial settlement rush, off the main jump routes or otherwise hard to find.

One of the first worlds discovered by the Terran Federation was a Flourine World, then a fascinating scientific curiosity, named Nifflehiem. Once high quality radioactives were discovered on Nifflehiem (and mined mostly by remote robot miners), Nifflehiem became a major work site for many early spacers, with almost every spacer of note working the Nifflehiem 'digs' in some fashion for almost a century.  This common point of reference combined with the absolutely hellish conditions of the world led to the still common practice of swearing by or to Nifflehiem. While eventually easier sources of radioactives were found, the Nifflehiem mines remain in use, supplying ores to shipyards in the Sol system, among others.



Debating methods of pulling in wreckage of previous wars (a la Cosmic Computer. Not working well time-wise).


Space-ships and warfare:

Space Ships in Piper-verse appear to be spherical with gravity and FTL drive cores buried in the center. Not actually planning to use this. In fact, for the most part I think I'll keep the main Traveller ship designs for now. However, as a reflection of the piper-verse, System Boats are a lot more common.  While small, independent jump ships do work/exist, the military prefers to rely on a small number of jump capable warships (both battleships and riders), and building small naval-bases/shipyards in key systems to build additional combat vessels locally as 'fortress systems'.  Presumptively, small, short ranged combat jump-ships are also made locally to reinforce and patrol local systems to take pressure off the true warships.  

Ground War takes full advantage of the prevelance of nuclear missiles and grav vehicles.   One of the most important 'weapons' in a military arsenal is anti-missile missiles.   While powerful direct fire weapons exist and are commonly used by the Imperial army, the easy access to nuclear weaponry makes them sadly common for more irregular forces.  Semi-armored Grav Skiffs are commonly used as cheap psuedo-tanks.   While they are no match for proper proper tanks, a Grav Skiff, with heavy, old fashioned machine guns and a few missiles can easily match a squad of Imperial Battledress.

Quote from: Spike;545174Bah, another weak one. Way too derivative, and not at all Piper-esque. Then again he never did deal with lost civilizations that weren't human...  I could talk about the dying place of the jellyfish?  The idea is to have a tapestry of ruins and ancient civilizations that is more indicative of a living history, races that rise and fall, leaving only signs of their passage... plus a great menace to end a campaign with (for people who like a good old fashioned war to end all wars....)

Well, that's not entirely true - 'Omnilingual' involves the lost Martian civilization and the trouble it takes to try and translate with a truly alien language.

Thank you for reminding me that I had assigned myself homework. Got Gutenberg up on another tab right now...

Just finished both Omnilingual and Edge of the Knife. I had read Omnilingual, maybe ten years ago but hadn't remembered it.

Definitely will have a giant lost civilization on Mars, but I may have it state secret... Yes, Piper wasn't too huge on state secrets as I recall, but whatevah.  Busy with Thunderdome, so I'm still thinking on it.