Douglas E. Berry

Some sad news from Traveller.

2023-12-22T07:24:00Z

Longtime Traveller Grognard and the driving force behind TravellerCon, Keith Frye, has lost his battle with cancer. To help the family with bills, a Bundle of Holding has been put up on Drive-Thru RPG.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430303/Keith-Frye-Memorial-Bundle-BUNDLE

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Faster than light shipping! Or close to it.

2021-12-01T02:56:17Z

One funny thing today. A few weeks ago I bought the Cepheus Engine PDF from Drive-Thru RPG. I'd heard good things about the game system as a Classic Traveller reimagining and wanted to read more.

Well, I was very impressed. so much so, that I decided to splurge for the POD softcover. I just read better with a physical book. When I made the order, I got all sorts of warnings that due to high volume, shipping delays, and Vargr corsairs, I should expect at *least* an additional 6-8 weeks on top of the Usual 2-3 weeks for printing and cheap-ass shipping.

I made that order on November 21st. This morning, as I left for work at 0700, there was a box sitting in front of the door. I didn't have time to look at it, but when I got home after my first shift, I opened it up.

Cepheus Deluxe. Ten days after I ordered it.

I guess it misjumped.

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Finders, Incorporated. A potential Traveller campaign.

2021-06-01T21:16:00Z

I've got the itch again. I want to run a game for a local group. I'm ready to go back to Traveller. Specifically, Mongoose Traveller v2. And the campaign I want to run is my old Finders, Incorporated campaign.

The premise is simple enough. Space is huge, and things and people get lost. Finders, Inc. locates those items and returns them to the client, or at least issues a complete report on why the target could not be recovered. Recovery operations fall into a few categories:

Skip Tracing Starships are massively expensive and meeting the mounting costs of loan payments and maintenance fees, plus fuel costs, crew salaries, etc., are sometimes more than the owner can handle. So they bugger off, changing transponders, forging ship papers, and trying to put as much distance between them and the bank as they can.

Skip tracing brings in the biggest bounties, as recovery is usually measured in a portion of the ship's value. Of course, shipowners that have skipped out on their payments are not going to hand over the keys when asked politely. Getting a ship back requires planning, guile, and in the end, violence most of the time.

Bounty Hunting This isn't just tracking down fugitives from justice but tracking down anyone who has fled their usual situation. The heir to a planetary throne who ran off with the servant she fell in love with; the archeologist who went missing in the Trojan Reach and his family and university has posted a reward; a megacorp executive who has fled is suspected of trying to defect to a rival. . . all are fair game along with the usual criminals on the run.

Of course, laws differ from world to world, so getting your target back on the ship might be an adventure in itself! Again, Skill trumps violence in this case, for the most part. It's Traveller, the guns will come out at some point.

Objects of Art or Historical Value Things get stolen, lost, or misrouted all the time.Tracking down a minor Imperial Count's heirloom chair can be quite rewarding. Recovering a lost masterpiece by one of the Vegan (the race, not the dietary option) master sculptors? Priceless. Finders might also be sent to search for obscure legal papers, family genbn=anks, or anything under the 11,000 suns of the Third Imperium.

Each of these adventures will be a bit different. Recovering a stolen art piece from a crimelord's mansion will be different from getting access to the centuries-old archives of Strouden's family records. As a GM, I could've fun putting a rare bottle of Terran wine at the center of a firefight.

Debt Collection The reality of interstellar commerce means that debtors can avoid judgments from courts on different planets. The Imperium steps in these cases and will issue writs ordering the payment of the debt or seizure of assets to be auctioned off. Finders, Inc., is one of the companies bonded by the Imperium to carry out these writs.

If you want to know how much fun this can be, look up Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away on YouTube.

"Special" Missions Sometimes, Finders get handed a mission so sensitive they don't even know what they are after. These usually come from the heights of power, A Count-Elector, the Imperial Navy, or a Megacorporation Regional Vice-President; and usually come with an NPC who oversees the mission. These can be quite nasty and even be used for deniable black ops. In which case, the Finders crew better realize that dead sophonts can't spill the beans and guard their collective lives.

The campaign would be episodic, so there would be downtime between assignments rather than continuous "what are you doing this week?" push. Four Player-characters would be optimal, with a mix of investigators, starship skills, and combat abilities.

I'd be looking to play every 2-4 weeks, based on everyone's schedule.

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A thought regarding MegaTraveller skills.

2020-04-14T21:46:26Z

Re-reading MegaTraveller character generation, and I've been struck by an idea that has probably appeared elsewhere, but I either never saw it, or saw it and it got buried in my head somewhere. It concerns technology levels and skills.

In MT, technology levels are grouped into eras. Primitive, Industrial, Pre-Stellar, Early Stellar, Average Stellar, and High Stellar. These are broad overviews, with more granularity in the actual tech level of each world. But it does give an idea of the broad average of what you will be dealing with when you visit a world in that range.

My idea concerns using these eras with skills. As an example, I served as an infantryman in the US Army, so I would have earned Combat Rifleman-2 (Ind), as my skills were with gas-operated weapons like the M-16A1 and the M-60. I can clean, maintain, load, and effectively operate pretty much any weapon in the world today with a minimal learning curve as they all use the same base technology.

But hand me a matchlock musket, and I'd be lost. I wouldn't know where to start with loading the thing, let alone being able to use it effectively. Same thing if a 4mm Gauss Rifle fell out of a time warp at my feet. The same thing goes for most things technological. Manual transmissions are almost extinct, so very few younger people learn How to drive stick. You can be an aces driver but stick you in a car with a stick, and you'd be stalling twenty times in twenty feet.

So my idea. Rather than accumulating extra levels in a skill, once you've reached two skill levels, you can turn a third award of that skill into familiarity with the skill from another tech era. I could spend some time learning and drill on how to fire that matchlock, and eventually be able to use my innate rifle skill with it. That would be recorded as "Combat Rifleman-2 Ind Prm" on my character sheet. So instead of having tasks become harder when dealing with items you aren't familiar with, you'd have that training to make it work.

It could also make for a fun part of backstories, like the Unified Army Commando who has Combat Rifleman-3 AvS Ind. "Oh, I spent a year on this backwater organizing local guerillas against the Zhodani backed local government. That's where I picked up this toy."

This wouldn't apply to every skill, but for ones linked to technology, it gives a chance to make the skill set broader while avoiding the problem of hyper-competent characters.

And when adventuring in the Far Future, it always helps when someone can drive stick.

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Et mortuus est imperator: vivat imperio!

2020-04-13T23:14:34Z

Well, that's a nice boost to my day. I follow the RPG Bundle of Holding announcements because they usually have interesting offers.

Today, they had two Traveller-related bundles, one for MegaTraveller and one for Traveller: The New Era. Vastly preferring MT, I paid $23 for the following:

- The Core Rulebooks
- Errata
- 2 maps of the Spinward Marches, pre- and mid-war
- A map of the Antares Sector
- Arrival Vengence
- Assignment: Vigilante
- Astrogator's Guide to Diaspora Sector
- COACC
- Hard Times
- Imperial Lines issues 1 & 2
- Knightfall
- MegaTraveller Journal issues 3 & 4
- Rebellion Sourcebook
- Referee's Companion

Notably absent, the legendarily bad Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium, or as we called it, Shattered Ships of the Fighting Imperium.

MegaTraveller was always my favorite, and at the time it was noted that Traveller had had ten years of playtesting, time to build a better game. The universal task system is so easy to use, combat is quick and deadly, and playing in a Hard Times campaign gives me what I always wanted out of Traveller: frontiers.

So I'm going to digest all this (insider pun for Traveller geeks there) and maybe set up something.

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The Starpower State – A Reexamination of Traveller’s Third Imperium, Part I

2020-03-25T19:58:57Z

I. Introduction

In 1977 Traveller was released by Game Designers’ Workshop, and the world of role-playing games changed. Traveller was the first real science-fiction game, and one of the first to introduce detailed character backstories through the character generation process. Traveller characters weren’t callow youths, but experienced professionals.

And, of course, you could die during the character creation process. It’s a tough galaxy.

What Traveller lacked, initially, was an official setting. This wasn’t uncommon, as it was expected that groups would create their own campaigns using the rules as a framework. But the gamers of the day wanted official campaigns and settings. So we got places like Blackmoor and Greyhawk, Glorantha and Tékumel, all epic worlds for fantasy adventures. Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) handled things differently.

The first mention of an established empire in Traveller came in Book 4: Mercenary, which was released in 1978. The book states that Traveller assumes that there is a distant central government, the Imperium, that due to travel times and the vast area it controls, has little influence on the frontiers. As Marc Miller has stated that the idea was to create a Roman Empire feel, this image of the Imperium gave you the idea that games would be played in the interstellar equivalent of Gaul or Palestine.

The problem is that nature and gamers abhor vacuums. We demanded more details, and, with the rise of the internet, began to create more and more stuff to fill out this vague distant government. What became an issue was that most of these writers, fan and professional, were living in western federal states, with a strong central government that handles almost every aspect of government. The writers, knowing almost no other way to govern, began inventing Imperial ministries and departments. There were multiple variations on Imperium-wide law enforcement and court systems.

A great deal of this was caused not just by our reliance on centralized government in our own lives, but on a catastrophic failure to understand the consequences of information moving only at the speed of travel. We are all used to living on a globe where information and communication moves almost instantly. I could, right now, check the current weather in Istanbul, a city some 9,000 miles away. (46 degrees, but a little windy.)

It is impossible to overstate the consequences of Traveller’s “jump takes one week” rule on how an interstellar government would work. Even in a subsector, news of a crisis might take weeks to reach the nearest naval base of subsector capital, and weeks for help to arrive. Informing the Throne? Months. Just to get word of a crisis on the edges of the realm, even with high-jump couriers on stand-by, the core worlds will never have a handle on what is happening in the Imperium except on the largest of scales.

With that in mind, it is clear that the Imperium has to cede most of the powers of planning and enforcement to the local nobles and to the officers of the Navy. The Emperor simply cannot rule in anything short of plans for the next decade. The Imperium is ruled by the nobles of the realm under the guidance and authority of the Emperor. This is a paradigm shift and needs further explanation.
Last summer I read an amazing book. Seapower States, by Andrew Lambert. It examines those historical states the eschewed traditional land empires in favor of sea power and trade. It’s an incredible book, and I highly recommend it. But in reading it, I was struck by how states like Carthage and Holland resembled the canonical Third Imperium.

• The Imperium contains 11,000 worlds, but actually controls less than a hundred of them.
• The Imperium rules the “space between the stars", rather than worlds directly.
• The Imperium allows its members almost unlimited self-rule.
• Most of the rules the Imperium forces on member worlds enhance trade. (Universal currency, calendar, trade language, etc.,)
• The Imperial Navy is cruiser-heavy, and many of its missions support free trade.

From that reading, and close examination of the canonical writings on the Third Imperium, I have to conclude that, for most of its recent history anyway, the Imperium has been operating as a starpower state, if you will. Cleon Zhunastu saw that the cause of the Long Night, and what killed so many failed states during that era, was the failure of trade. The empire he forged was dedicated to one thing, and I’ve created a quote that sums up his view.

“Without the free flow of trade and ideas, without open markets and open minds, the flame of civilization dies in the darkness.”

The Third Imperium at its heart is a trade federation. Everything it does is to encourage trade. If you look at it that way, you see that there is no need for a large, central bureaucracy. The power structure of the Imperium is not a pyramid, it is a web, with all parts working in tandem.

But there is one final problem. Seapower states universally were run by parliamentary organizations. The Senate of Athens, the Dutch Staten-Generaal, even when there was some sort of hereditary monarch or other executives. I have to conclude that the Imperial Moot is far more than the debating society portrayed in official publications. At some point, the Moot grabbed the reins.

That is a topic for the next essay, which is my slightly modified history of the Imperium, showing how it went from expanding empire to trade federation. After that, I’ll tackle the structure of the Imperial government and the Moot, the role of Imperial Consulates on member worlds, and finally, having written Ground Forces, I’ll take on the Imperial Navy.

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C'mon, twist my arm!

2020-03-25T01:12:12Z

So, who wants to see me write an epic set of essays based on the idea that Traveller's Third Imperium is more a seapower state than a traditional empire, which means the Moot will by necessity have more actual power? Bonus essays on the role or regional nobles, consulates, and making the Imperial Navy the primary arm of Imperial power.

I need to write, and I just need a nudge.

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For your consideration. . .

2020-01-30T21:26:59Z

In the default Traveller setting of the Third Imperium, written Galangic is a Logosyllabic script, with each symbol representing morphemes, often polysyllabic morphemes, but when extended phonetically represent single syllables.

This would allow written Galangic to be a truly universal language, as any literate sophont would be able to read it no matter what their spoken tongue, which for some aliens would be none at all.

This gives me the wonderful idea of "chat tables" at all your better Startown bars and hotels. It's a table with multiple handcomp ports. You plug in, choose your spoken language from the table's menus, and once everyone is in, you start speaking. The table transcribes your speech to Galangic and displays it as a hologram in front of you. Or on your comp's screen is discretion is necessary. These kinds of speech to universal text programs might be very common.

Just another bit of worldbuilding.

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Yes, there will be Traveller posts based on this book.

2019-09-05T17:05:52Z

Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World by Andrew D. Lambert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely brilliant. Lambert explores the histories of those states that rejected the usual path of land conquest and empire in favor of building trade empires and strong navies. Athens, Carthage, the Netherlands, and England are all examined in some details, as well as looking at states that became sea powers, but were never true seapower states, notably Portugal and Russia under Peter the Great.

What really made the book sing for me was the in-depth examination of the necessary political environment for a true seapower state to come into being. The requirement for a strong merchant class with true political power to control the building of a navy designed more for trade protection and forcing economic policies that favor free trade means that almost all of the states profiled were, to some extent, republics with varying levels of enfranchisement.

Reading this, mostly at Burning Man, made me think about the established setting for the SFRPG Traveller. The Third Imperium is really a seapower state in space, more concerned with free trade and communication than expanding and controlling territory. This inspired me to start writing, in my head, an essay on how to make the Third Imperium a true spacepower state. I love it when a book inspires me to create, and Mr. Lambert did it in spades.

If I have any complaints, it's that the author tends to hammer the same point over and over, almost like a student trying to fill his word count. It's mildly annoying but does not detract from the overall quality of the writing.

View all my reviews

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Deconstructing the Third Imperium

2019-07-08T19:46:24Z

Once again, it is time to reassess the classic setting, the Third Imperium of Man. From its birth in vague references in Mercenary and High Guard, the 3I has grown mightily over the years. The problem is it was never really designed. Dozens of authors working for different companies added pieces here and there. Oh there was the Moot, and we knew about the Imperial Armed Forces, but it stopped there. It was the broadest brushstroke of a setting. Which suited me when I was 13 years old.

I’m a bit older now.

So, I’m going to rip the Third Imperium to pieces and rebuild it. Comments welcome.

What is the Imperium?

11,000 worlds, the vast majority of them enjoying self-rule is the quick answer. Ruled by an Emperor and his loyal nobles. But most of the nobles seem to have no real power over these independent worlds. So what gives? My answer is that the Imperium is, in a very real sense, the Imperial Navy. It’s the navy that keeps the peace, polices the “space between the stars” and has the best-equipped troops in known space ready for action. The Imperium is a military state with civilian oversight.

But what is the Imperium? Born out of the ashes of the Long Night, Cleon I realized that what doomed interstellar civilization was the end of trade. The new empire was built on three concepts:

A universally accepted currency

A universally used calendar

Near universal freedom of trade

The Imperium is a trade federation, a classic seapower state where the free movement of goods, people, and information is paramount. Everything else is secondary. Threaten free trade, and the Imperium will destroy you.

( The Imperial Court and the Moot )

( The Nobility )

( The Member Worlds )

( The Imperial Navy )

I'll be writing more on these topics in the next few weeks. I look forward to feedback, either here or on Facebook.

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On writing the Great Traveller Novel

2019-06-20T19:59:15Z

On Facebook the other day I asked the rhetorical question about why shouldn't I write the Great Traveller Novel. This came as I was struggling with a piece I had been working on that needed more damn explanation of the universe to make sense, and I was getting sick of trying to shoehorn in more expository material in without it sounding like a guided tour of my world.

The advantages of writing for Traveller are many. I know the material backward and forward. I have a history as a contributor both as a fan writer and in my small way, as a pro. There is an existing market for Traveller, unlike what I'd face as a first-time author with a new setting.

Plus I think one thing Traveller has lacked over the years is strong fiction support. D&D brought in plenty of new players with their fiction line, and what the Black Library has done for WH40K cannot be understated. I'd like to see some good Traveller novels crack that market.

A few people mentioned the issue of owning intellectual property rights to the title and setting elements. Obviously, I would not go forward without a deal in place with Marc Miller and FFE. If I'm going to do this, I'm doing it right, which means spending money on professional editing and cover design.

Because if I ever only get my name on one science-fiction novel, it's going to be the best I can make it be.

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Consider this a teaser.

2018-07-26T22:19:00Z

The Imperium calls this volume of space District 268 and says they will incorporate it into their empire.

The Sword Worlds call it the Víðáttan and say it is their's by right of blood.

The Fteirle call it needed territory and says that we will make room for the Ihatei fleets.

Well, we call it ours. And if you come here, remember this: your laws don't apply, and help is thousands of hours away.

Anyone who wants to help build a subsector, or contribute art, or edit, contact me.

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Rollerball, as promised.

2018-01-29T03:08:56Z

"Welcome to the Mortrith Sports Dome and Lunion State Entertainment! I'm Tory Andelson, and with me is four-time Planetary MVP, Nagano Tanak. Tonight we have a friendly Rollerball match between Consolidated Mortith and Consolidated Ling Standard Products. Tanak, many fans see this as a meaningless friendly, but you disagree?"

"Absolutely, Tory. These are two very good teams and with early selection for the Strouden Cup looming, the players will be looking to stand out. LSP has an incredible, fast defense, so Mortith will need star carrier Janco Marais to continue to crash walls and reach the goal."

"Thank you, Tanak. Looks like we're all in for a good match tonight. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

One of my favorite short stories ever was The Roller Ball Murders by William Harrison. The 1975 movie, Rollerball remains on my list of the top 10 science-fiction movies. James Caan is brilliant as Rollerball hero Jonathon E. Amusingly, the movie is set in 2018. But what really got me was the sport. Merging roller derby, hockey, and a bit of basketball and soccer, the sport is fast and brutal. So I had to put it in Traveller.

As I see it, the birth of Rollerball came when workers were tearing on the colony ships apart and turning it into Lunion's first orbital port. Working in zero-gravity, workers became adept at tossing tools and material long distances to other workers. This led to bragging, which led to competitions using magnetic grapples as targets which led to teams fighting to hit the grapple first with a large ball bearing.

With the port nearing completion, and after several serious accidents playing "Grapple", the game was banned. But furloughed worker brought the game down to the surface, trading vacuum suit maneuvering jets for wheeled footwear. Over the next few decades, the game was refined and popularity grew as Lunion's population exploded. Today, some 500 years later, and it is still the most popular sport in Lunion March, and has spread to neighboring sectors.

The goal of the game is simple. Put a 2.5kg steel ball into a conical magnetic goal set 2 meters up on the track wall. The magnet is strong enough that if the ball enters the cone, it will most likely be drawn to the magnet, scoring one point. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Rollerball is played on a track 10 meters wide with no more than a five-degree slope running from the wall down to 29 meter point. the last meter is level. At the inside of the track, there is a line showing where the playing area ends. This is known as the inside line. At the center of the track is an area 20 meters in diameter. This is where the team benches are located, as well as the officials' tower. The track around the goal is painted a distinctive color (usually the home team's official colors) in a 10-meter semicircle to designate that this is the goal area, with special rules apply. If a player manages to get the ball into the goal from outside this circle, three points are awarded.

Each team is allowed 24 active players, seven of whom are allowed on the track during gameplay. Most teams use shifts, sending out set line-ups to allow players to rest. In the game, there are three basic positions. Carriers are the players best at taking the ball and scoring. They tend to be fast and agile. Blockers are the enforcers, clearing the way for the carrier or knocking players out of the way to stop an opposing player. Finally, there are the Mounts. Each team is allowed two motorcycles on the track during play. These bikes have handles attached to the back so the Mount can tow other players.

Gameplay is straightforward. An official title the Controller fires the ball from a magnetic cannon into a channel that runs the length of the track. The visiting team is always given the first chance at a score. Once caught, the player with the ball must keep it in sight at all times. To score, the ball must pass over a line on the track opposite the goal. This is called the midline. Other lines at right angles to the midline cut the track into quarters.

The team on defense will try to stop the ball from reaching the goal. They can do this by taking the ball away from the carrier by stripping him of the ball or picking it up if it has been dropped; preventing the ball from making forward progress for five seconds; or having the ball cross the inside line. The latter two results in the ball being declared dead and the players form up for the next ball to be fired. If a player scores, a horn sounds, and the ball is dead.

Play continues for three 20-minute periods, with a 10-minute intermission between periods. There is no overtime except in playoff games. Each player begins with five foul points. There are three referees on the track and the crew chief in the tower. Fouls run from one to three points. Cross the inside line and returning to play is a one-point fine. Holding or grabbing a player costs you two points. Get really nasty, like using the ball as a weapon or intentionally hitting someone with a bike, gets you three points. Lose all your points and you're done, out of the game. Interestingly, fouls are assigned to the bikes, not the Mounts riding them. So a team with a sloppy rider can find themselves without a critical tool late in the game.

Teams are organized into leagues commonly known as "Associations." These range from pick-up teams to organized youth leagues. Associations for professional players are numerous on highly populated worlds, and the bigger Associations use the lower-levels as a farm system. The league every kid dreams of playing in is the Premier Rollerball Association of Lunion. Legends play at this level.

300 years ago, the champion team of the Strouden Professional Rollerball Association challenged the reign champions from Lunion to a "friendly" match. As interest grew, the then reigning Marchese of Strouden commissioned a magnificent platinum cup for the victors. Strouden won that first match, and three years later Lunion repeated the challenge, this time in the form of tournament. Thus was born the triannual Strouden Cup, where teams from all over the Marches come to play. Entrants are split into groups according to ranking and play three round-robin heats. The eight teams with the most points then play a series of elimination games to see who gets to hoist the cup in triumph.

"Well, Tanak, I think we can say that this match did not disappoint, and what a finish! I cannot believe what we just saw!"

"You said it, Tory. If you had asked me earlier today if Janco Marais had the arm strength to hit a 3-pointer, I would have laughed. But we all saw it, with less than five seconds left in the 3rd period, Marais left everyone in the area in shock."

"They'll be talking about this for years. Please stay tuned for our nightly wrap up and highlights from across the planet, coming up right after this important message from Planetary Testing Board. Your test is coming, are you ready? Goodnight from Mortrith Sports Dome!"

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Imperial Economics and Rollerball.

2018-01-27T01:58:59Z

OK, I got a little off-topic at the end, but I can fucking WRITE again! I like this new medicine.

I've been thinking a great recently about how economies work in various fiction settings, from the ridiculous amount currency floating around in most fantasy settings to the odd assumptions made to force interstellar merchants to be viable in science-fiction.

Which, of course, led me to my second home, Traveller's Third Imperium. A state built on the howling wasteland (or at least it should have been, I write, scowling at Imperium Games) that resulted from the collapse of trade in the Second Imperium after faith in interstellar currency fell apart. For those wondering how that could happen, imagine what would happen around the world if the dollar lost all value over the next week. Trillions of dollars evaporating. The oil market is backed by the US dollar. By the time a new currency could stabilize the market (probably the German mark) it would be too late.

But anyway, the Third Imperium was built on the idea that Trade Must Flow, because humans are stupid and settle everything they find. The end of regular trade would doom trillions, again. To that end, the first Emperors laid down a strict set of rules: a universally accepted currency (the Credit, backed by nothing but faith and dreadnaughts), a universal calendar, and the decree that while the Imperium ruled the space between the stars, they would own a starport on almost every Imperial world that was not subject to local law so that trade could take place. More often than not, the starport expands to include the local Imperial Consulate if the world rates one, or the offices of the poor sap who got knighted and assigned to be the Imperial watchdog.

On many poorer worlds with starports that are little more than flat bedrock and a few shacks, you may find that the local Colonial Administrator is also the Starport Authority Port Master, the Customs Officer, and run the best bar in town. It's the only bar in town, and he's out hunting for a week.

But with worlds having almost total autonomy on everything except interstellar affairs, how do you get the Imperium the money you need for all those suits of battle dress and heavy cruisers? An income tax would be a nightmare, as most worlds with strong economies have local currencies used on the planet. Some worlds don't even use money, their populations living in communist settlements where everyone works for survival and takes what they need.

The answer is very simple. Every subsector Count (in a previous piece I changed the noble rank in charge of subsectors to Count-elector) taxes worlds directly based on their Gross Planetary Product. 20%, off the top. Payable to Finance Ministry at the Count's complex. The subsector government keeps about half of this income and sends the rest to the Sector Duke, who skims his half for running the Imperial interests in the sector and sends it up the chain to the Domain and on to the Throne.

It may seem like the Emperor is getting the short end of this deal, but recall that he will be getting income from close to a hundred subsectors. On the other end, 20% of GPP may seem high, but Imperial worlds don't have to pay for defense, their freedom of trade is protected, and they don't have to support embassies on dozens of worlds. The Imperium does that for them. Even if a world wants a Navy to protect its territory, the Imperial Navy is quick to sell off older, out of date ships to member worlds. The Imperium subsidizes the required muster of regiments for the Unified Army of the subsector. Member states actually come out ahead with this taxation deal.

As an example, let's use one of my favorite places, Lunion March in the Spinward Marches. Yes, I changed that as well. I figure if you're going to call a place "the Marches" it makes sense for the subdivisions to be called (Name) March.

Lunion has 25 systems with an approximate population of 16 billion sophonts and a Subsector Gross Product (SGP) of roughly 149.46 Trillion Credits (TCr). Taxing at 20%, the Markgraf's government (yes, German titles. I mess with things! Besides, they sound cool) receives 29.892 TCr in tax payments. After forwarding half up to Herzog of the Marches, they have 14.946 TCr to spend.

Much of that is going to support the Subsector Navy and the subsector's share of the Unified Army forces. Aside from the allowances to nobility (who get paid based on the economic output of their fiefs) and the maintenance of the Count-Elector's holdings, the rest will be invested back into the well-being of the subsector. The government will invest in infrastructure projects to increase trade, back industrial factions, give grants and scholarships to institutions of education and research, back cultural exchanges to reduce tensions in-between member worlds.

One important event that the Count's offices give support to is triannual Strouden Cup Rollerball tournament. The game is played almost everywhere in the subsector and a few places beyond. Teams are raised based on world population, so there are always several teams from Lunion and Strouden and smaller worlds field consolidated teams. The entrants and seeded in pools and play in a round-robin tournament for gaining points rounds, gaining points to move on to the next stage. The last eight teams play in elimination games until a champion is crowned.

The 1114 Tournament was canceled due to the Fifth Frontier War. The up-coming 1117 event, hosted on Lunion this year, is already controversial, as Border Worlds Consolidated, a team from the worlds stripped from the Sword Worlds in the late war, has applied to play and has been approved by the Marches Rollerball Association.

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Lunion/Lunion

2017-11-21T17:35:10Z

I recently was alerted to the existence of a program called Explanator. This is a world-building aide for Traveller, which takes the extended Universal World Profile (UWP), a string of numbers and letters that give the raw details of a system, and expands them into rough prose. An amazing tool for both a little gear-heading and a more readable text-based description of the world.

And when I say rough, I mean rough. The output needs a ton of cleaning and revision. Because the program essentially takes raw data and plants it in an assigned place. But still, the depth of information generated is gratifying to a busy game master.

To test it out, I turned to one of my favorite planets, Lunion, capital of Lunionmarch and crossroads of the Marches! Lunion is a large, heavy world with a thick atmosphere choked with pollutants and dust. Several billion people live there, enjoying a fair government and high technology.

Now to flesh it out. Reading the "first impressions" block, I got a vision of a world of mostly dry wastelands. With only 47%of the surface covered by water, there isn't much of a heat trap to drive weather. So much of the world away from the isolated seas and lakes are dry as a bone, and the dense atmosphere holds dust in a perpetual haze. A 38-degree axial tilt means that during the summers and winters, heating is going to be drastically uneven, causing powerful windstorms. At the Great Southern Ocean, summer brings real weather to the region.

Lunion has life, although it is primitive. Great mats of a yeast-like organism are found on most of the seas and lakes. These yeast-analogs, called Glien, form the basis of Lunion's food supply. Small shrimp-like critters feed on the mats but aren't eaten by humans because they are toxic to humans. Large mollusks can be found in most tidal areas. Their shells are highly prized by artists since they incorporate the dissolved metals found in the ocean water. Life on land is more limited, with some mosses and lichens which are mainly found in the southern hemisphere.

The planet is home to 8.589 billion sapients. Due to the harsh conditions, the vast majority of the population live in giant arcologies known as "Urbs." The five largest Urbs house over a billion residents each. Massiurb, the largest of the five great urbs, sprawls over 41,000 square kilometers and its towers rise several kilometers into the sky. A small percentage of the population lives outside the urbs. These are mostly the members of the population involved in harvesting Glien from the oceans.

Government is a civil service bureaucracy operated as a strict meritocracy. Testing is a fact of Lunionese life. Ever step in life requires testing; from advancement in school, to getting a promotion at work, even as far as gaining government office. The idea of patronage or nepotism is anathema to Lunion's idea of a perfect society. Testing involves not only examination of academic and physical qualifications for the position being sought, but psychological testing as well.

The actual governing functions of society are carried out by councils. Between the local neighborhood councils in the urbs to the Executive Committee that runs the system, there are thousands of councils running every aspect of the government. The councils hold legislative and judicial powers over their area of responsibility. The execution of those regulations and rulings are in the hands of police forces. Rulings from the highest level councils override lower council decisions. But travelers should be aware that the laws can change wildly from place to place, even inside one urb.

In general, the laws and law enforcement are very light-handed. Police are there to maintain the peace. While carrying weapons of most types is technically allowed, anyone doing so will find themselves being asked to leave commercial areas and attracting the attention of law enforcement. "Disturbing the Order" is a common offense visitors find themselves charged with.

The consent pressure of testing, and the fear of unending review, has left most Lunionese somewhat tense. Dealing with a Lunionese business can be exhausting, as everyone rushes around making sure that they show that they are doing their best to welcome the visitors and conclude their business quickly. Lunionese work long hours, rarely take breaks and are cut-throat when it comes to winning favor with their superiors. Because there's always a dark rumor that the tests can be manipulated.

Lunion is an industrial powerhouse, with multiple shipyards in orbit and extensive manufactories on the surface. Some of the smaller urbs are nothing but the housing for a single industrial plant. Lunion produces much of the heavy equipment used in the neighboring subsector.

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Freedom in the Spinward Marches!

2017-11-10T21:12:35Z

Back in the Golden Age of Wargames, one of my true loves was SPI's Freedom in the Galaxy, designed in response to the space-opera film craze set off by Star Wars. The premise was simple. One player was the Evil Empire, seeking to crush all dissent by any means necessary, while the other player was the plucky rebels, fighting against hopeless odds to topple the cruel regime and bring, well, freedom to the galaxy. Like it says on the box.

The board showed several star systems split into five sectors. Each system had a ring-shaped track for each planet showing what environments were on the world, any special notes, and a loyalty track showing how strongly the world was cheering for the Emperor. Actions taken by both players move that marker from utterly loyal to outright rebellion.

What made the gameplay so interesting was that it wasn't just cardboard counters being pushed around the map, each player had control of several characters who could move from place to place and perform missions to gain allies, find equipment, kill the enemy characters, or shift the alliance of a world in their direction.

Which made for some interesting strategic planning, as you had to have the right people in the right place to advance your agenda while foiling the plans of your opponent. Is this the right time to send young Adam Starlight to kill the seductive but deadly Thyssa Kimbo? Or is he needed to accompany Doctor Sontag on a desperate mission to destroy the dread Planetary Stabilizer?

Given the large number of characters, items, and ships available, play changes with every game. Which I like in a wargame. There are only so many ways for the Warsaw Pact to invade western Europe, no matter how many times you play the Third World War series from GDW. Mixing up what was almost role-playing (the group I played with totally acted all the parts) with traditional board gaming was a lot of fun.

In actual gameplay, the key was to focus on one of the four outer sectors and work all the worlds towards rebellion without actually triggering one. You had to make sure that when you did trigger the uprising, the domino effect would spread the call to rise to other worlds without you having to do anything. As the Imperial player, you need to crush these insignificant worms before they can do just that. Harder than it looks.

SPI took this track with another of their great games, Swords and Sorcery. As the name suggests, this game is set in a totally cliched fantasy setting, with even more puns and industry in-jokes. Not quite as fun as Freedom, but still playable.

I'm thinking about this game, and its character cards, because since I've dropped my NaNoWriMo project after what I learned from my psychologist, I've turned back to planning a Traveller game. Yes, again. Trust me.

I want to do my Finders, Inc. game. The players are contractors for a corporation that finds things for a fee. Starships skipping on their bank loans, missing heirs, a rare book last seen in a museum shortly before the Sword Worlds landed troops . . . that kind of thing. It's great for an episodic game, as each mission is self-contained while giving hints of a larger arc.

The setting will be Glisten March and the surrounding areas in the Spinward Marches sector. Yes, I'm not using subsector, it annoys me. Besides, Exarchos sounds so much better than Duke, don't you agree? I'm trying to find a good list of all the Freedom in the Galaxy character cards (or a set of the cards themselves) because they'd make awesome NPCs. Emperor Coreguya becomes Exarchos Coreguya, Kephalē Glisten. I can use the existing character structures in the game to build a nice web of intrigue for the characters to get caught up in. Nothing like palace politics in a backwater province to spice up life!

But yeah, working on my setting and game gives me something to that I can cut into small pieces. Which is good for me right now. I'm going to spend some time really reading the Mongoose Traveller book (which I still call Rikki Tikki Traveller for obscure reasons, ask if you're interested) and begin doing text details of the systems, first in Glisten and then District 268.

Hopefully, I'll have something ready to run by next March. I'm taking this slow and not over-promising. Who knows, maybe the characters really will fight for freedom in the galaxy!

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It lacks a black cover with a red stripe, but I'll deal.

2017-10-09T23:06:32Z

Today I dropped off a ton of books and old games at Half-Price Books and got just enough back to pick up Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition. I like Half-Price because even though they don't pay the highest price, they take everything you bring in. We have cleared enough space to shelve all our books on actual bookcases, with room to spare.

My standard for removing a book from the collection is simple. If I look at it and either remember it completely from reading a single line or just have no desire to ever read it again, it goes away. I know many of my friends see getting rid of books as anathema, but we live in very cramped quarters and need the space.

Now to Traveller, purchased at my Friendly Local Game Store. Whenever possible, I prefer to buy locally and from small businesses. I practice what I preach. The new Traveller is a very nice book. The print is clear and large enough to be easily read. There are some odd breaks here and there that leave you searching for where the text resumes, but that's pretty rare. The illustrations are full color and well done, evoking the feel of Classic Traveller. I love that the equipment chapter is set up as a catalog, with illustrations and sales text. This moves Central Supply Catalog to the Must Buy Soon position.

First look at the rules shows a nice, clean system that uses a simple target number system. 2D6+Skill+Characterisitic modifier. Clear rules for time (and the benefits and penalties for taking your time or rushing things) and modifiers for things like having excellent tools or working under harsh conditions. Combat is equally streamlined but will have a bit of a learning curve to master. On the surface, it looks deadly, which I approve of heartily.

Lots of options in character generation. No, dying is no longer an option. These kids today will never know that joy. But you have 12 broad career paths, each with three subsets, allowing for lots of customization. As an example, the Noble career allows you to be in Administration, serve as a Diplomat, or, my favorite, the Dilittante, a useless scoundrel living off the family's fortune and name . . . or is he something more?

In each four-year term, the character gets a misnamed survival roll and an advancement roll. Failing the survival roll takes you to a disaster table and ejection from that career (usually). There is also an Events table for each career category. These rolls really help define the character, creating not only narrative points, but giving the character contacts, allies, and rivals, all of which create potential storylines to explore.

A character is free to try to enlist in a new career after each term, although it gets harder as you get older. One career, Drifter, is an automatic option for anyone expelled from a previous career. (This really describes the career path of Beowulf Shaffer, come to think of it.) Mustering out and aging is similar to earlier editions.

There is a 13th career path: Prisoner. Several results on the various disaster tables can send you to prison; local, planetary, or Imperial, it's up to you, and you stay until you roll for parole. Again, a great character-building tool.

Just thinking about it, I'm realizing that John Rambo was a three-term character: Army, Drifter, Prisoner. No one would say he was an inefficient character!

Delving further, we get the skill listings with subskills as needed. I might make a pistol/longarm subskill requirement for my game. The skills for shooting are quite different. But the skills are comprehensive and well described. A good chapter on environmental dangers, animals, and encounters. All sorts of way to die!

Then we get the starships! Operations, combat, and a selection of some of the classic designs all with "exploded floorplan" deck plans. Very, very nice, but I have to reread the chapter to answer some questions I have about fuel use. A short chapter on psionic powers, trade, and then a woefully short chapter on world building.

Lastly, we get the sample setting: the Sindal subsector. This one hurts a bit, as Sindal is in the Trojan Reach. I had the contract to write the Trojan Reach for Steve Jackson Games, and the project got killed due to my failures and declining sales of GURPS Traveller. Still, it's a good basic subsector.

This is a good game and playable as is. I'll have no trouble teaching new players. I plan on starting a game in January. Finders, Inc. is looking for YOU!

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This post is Moot. (Traveller Government Stuff)

2017-08-04T02:51:03Z

(Sorry if this is choppy, my case manager called in the middle of writing it.)

The Great Hall of the Moot has been described as one of the most impressive spaces in known space. Under a soaring 50 meter dome featuring an Imperial Sunburst crafted from the remains of a First Imperium warship, lay the desks and benches of the nobles of the Moot, each a work of art celebrating the home County of the noble. At the center is the pure black marble of speaker's dais, and opposite the great main doors to the chamber is the raised throne of the Lord President of the Imperial Moot. An impressive sight, with banners for each of the 300-odd noble houses hanging from the ceiling, the trophies and relics in niches around the viewers' gallery. Not to be missed.

It's also almost empty most of the time. The full Moot only meets sporadically, usually to vote on measures and packages to be presented to the Emperor. The true work of the Moot happens in hearing chambers and offices.

But who are the nobles who serve in the Spire? Currently, there are 347 members of the Moot, each one either an Elector or representing an Elector. The vast majority of seats are held by Counts-Elector, with 12 Baron-Electors and one Duke-Elector. Only a fraction of the actual title-holders serves on Capital. Time and distance combined with the responsibilities of holding an Imperial title force many Counts-Elector to remain at their county capitals.

Various Imperial Orders have, over the years, refined who can serve in the Moot. All Electors are required to maintain a presence on Capital. As the Imperium grew, that presence was allowed to fall into the hands of family members "of appropriate rank." Which means that a Count-Elector's representative must be drawn from the immediate family. This is often a duty given to favored cousins, and one eagerly accepted, as the social whirl on Captial is unsurpassed anywhere in known space. For many noble families, a stop at Capital is de rigueur on a young noble's grand tour. A chance to learn the ins and outs of the Imperial bureaucracy and make important contacts for the future.

Such noble stand-ins are granted a limited Imperial Patent naming them Viscount [County name] for the duration of their tour in the Moot. This patent can be revoked by both the Emperor and the actual Elector. While serving as Viscount, the noble has all the powers of the elector but is expected to keep his lord well-briefed and obey any commands issued.

The day to day business of the Moot is advocacy. Each and every member sitting in the Great Hall is there to get the best for their homes. More money for defense, increased allocation of assets, subtle cloakroom maneuvering to solidify power in the home sector. The hallways of the Moot Spire are always filled with intrigue and secrets. Much of the open work is done in the Standing Committees. These ad hoc groups are formed with the permission of the Lord President, and some have endured for centuries. The Standing Committee on the K'kree Issue, for example, is made up of nobles from Gateway and advocates of a larger navy. They exist to convince the rest of the Moot and the Emperor that the K'kree are the greatest threat to the Imperium and that naval building and deployment should reflect that fact.

There are dozens of such committees that meet daily, drawing on the advice of the hordes of experts that descend on Capital every year. Every committee and faction chimes in on the many reports and proposals that get forwarded to the Emperor. Generally, a majority of the Moot must sign off on any document destined for the Palace, but this is not a hard rule. Minority reports are politically risky, as offended factions within the Moot can call for a new Lord President or work to sabotage rivals and their agendas.

There are two days when the full Moot meets in all their glory and finery. Holiday, when the Moot is formally opened for the new year, and the Emperor's Birthday, where the assembled nobles receive an Imperial address and renew their vows to the Imperium and to the Emperor.

The Loyal and Honorable Nobles of the Imperial Moot live in either spacious estates for the older, wealthier noble houses, or in luxury apartments in the Palace Districts. Most have large retinues of servants and advisors as well as personal house troops guarding their estates. The social circle of parties and receptions is seen as being just as important as the hearing rooms of the Spire for getting business done.

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I just like to say Moot. (Traveller government stuff)

2017-08-03T01:48:48Z

Every visitor to Capital agrees that the highlight of the visit is the looming mass of the Imperial Palace, a burnished brass sphere a kilometer wide hovering 500 meters over Zhunastu Park. The museums, the precise drill of the Imperial Guard regiments, and the somber remains of the Palace of Martin II which was destroyed in the Civil War, all impress the visitor with the power and legacy of the Emperor of the Third Imperium.

However, 5 kilometers down the Imperial Promenade stands the Moot Spire, a needle soaring 3 kilometers into the sky, by law the only building on Capital allowed to be taller than the Palace. Most citizens understand vaguely that the Moot is where the nobles of the realm meet, but their actual function remains a mystery to most.

Cleon I created the Moot as a way to keep the new nobility under control and in one place. As the Imperium grew, that became impossible as more nobles were required to attend to their own fiefs. The Moot remains of vital importance to the Imperium and Emperor, as it holds two vital powers.

The first power is to confirm the heir to the throne and conduct the ceremonies acknowledging the heir and eventually crowning the new ruler. To this end, the Moot maintains an office that tracks all potential heirs and their place on the Succession List. As of 1115, this list has some 17,000 names on it. The Office on Succession and Continuity scours census data and reports to keep the list as up to date as possible. The Imperial Household also maintains an office that tracks heirs, but their list is much shorter.

The nobles who volunteer for this office take their duties seriously. The monitor the extended Imperial Family for signs that a candidate for the Iridium Throne would pose a danger to the stability of the Imperium. Imperial family members can expect to be asked for interviews, have their actions scrutinized, and their accomplishments judged. Only once in 500 years has the Office had to inform a sitting Emperor that his heir would not be passed by the office. The heir was quietly removed and granted an office in Gateway.

In 654, the Empress Arbellatra issued Imperial Edict 378, which gave the Moot the power to establish a Regency Council in any case where the Emperor died with no clear heir, the heir was below the age of 16, or the Emperor was missing in action but not confirmed dead. The Council is to be made up of the senior noble of each Imperial Sector in residence on Captial, the Second Fleet Lord, and the senior member of the Imperial family not in line to succeed to the throne. The Regency Council is charged with resolving the empty throne as quickly as possible with a legal heir.

(The preceding is part of my annoyance with the whole "Rebellion" in MegaTraveller. The idea that the Imperial government would grind to a complete stop is stupid. Even if Dulinor was able to pull a pistol in the Octagon and kill the Imperial family - and that's another groaner - the Moot would immediately summon a Regency Council and assume command.)

The second official power is to dissolve the Third Imperium. The Moot can, on a three-quarters vote, dissolve the Warrant of Restoration and strip the Emperor of all powers. Obviously, this is an act of last resort and was last invoked as a threat during the Civil War. All analysts and historians agree that this power would only be used if the Imperium was already failing, as a sort of lifeboat measure to allow local governments to bind together for survival.

Never the less, almost every year some noble with an ax to grind introduces a measure to dissolve the Imperium to the Moot. Such measures are usually shouted down in short measure, then a quiet inquiry into why the noble felt such a measure was necessary. The Vilani nobles can be relied on to try to dissolve the Imperium on a regular basis.

Moot spokesmen have denied for years that there are contingency plans locked away for how to assign Imperial assets should the Moot vote to end the Imperium. Rumors continue to fly over secret deals concerning post-Imperial states, re-flagged fleets, and even splinter states having their own governments ready to roll. Every few years someone leaks documents that "prove" the Imperium is about to fail.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about what the Honorable Nobles of the Moot do all day, and who they are.

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It's good to be the Emperor.

2017-07-25T20:35:19Z

Still thinking about a revised Third Imperium for Traveller, and making it "crunchier" and a better setting with more holes and internal conflicts. This is definitely going to be a "weak Imperium" build, as a strong Imperium simply clamps down on too many opportunities for things to go pear-shaped. So today, I'm going to look at the man at the top, the Emperor of the Third Imperium.

There's an old saying in the Imperial corridors of power. "The Counts make plans for the next year; the Dukes make plans for the next decade; the Archdukes make plans for the next century; and the Emperor makes plans for dinner." Although a bit over the top, the truth of the matter is that the Emperor is too far removed from his empire to really have that big an influence on matters popping up in systems that can be months away from Captial. This is why the Imperium has become decentralized, looking to the Imperial hierarchy more for support than real-time leadership.

But in a very real sense, the person of the Emperor is the Imperium, and all authority flows from the commands given by him or his predecessors. Those commands come in several forms.

Imperial Edicts are the most formal and powerful of the Emperor's commands. An Edict is law and will be enforced throughout the 11,000 worlds of the Imperium without question. In the Imperium's 1,100 year history, fewer than 400 Edicts have been issued. Over a hundred were issued by Cleon I and Artemsus in the first century of the Imperium, and these Edicts defined and shaped the state and how it was to be run.

Second in precedence are Imperial Commands. These are orders from the Emperor that directly address issues facing the state. A command might be issued to a Sector Duke to mobilize his military forces to support another sector or a command that a former Count-Elector is an Enemy of the Imperium and is to be found, captured, or killed. Commands are less formal than Edicts and expire once they have been carried out.

Warrants, Patents, and Charters are the next level of Imperial command. These are grants of authority from the Emperor to groups or individuals to carry out duties or activities. Every noble family has an Imperial Patent of Nobility and when a new person ascends to a position as Count-Elector or Duke, the Emperor will confirm their position with a new Patent. Any corporation seeking to do business on an interstellar scale will seek out a Limited Imperial Charter (LIC) which gives the company assurances of Imperial protection.

Warrants are a special case, as they directly give the holder the power to act for the Emperor. Every naval officer holds a Warrant confirming his commission and allowing him to act for the Emperor inside Naval regulations and orders. Many Warrants are limited in scope. Some Warrants have been vaguely worded due to Capital not having a good idea of what was happening.

This is is how Norris, Markgraf-Elector of Regina, was able to proclaim himself Erzherzog of Deneb. He had a Warrant in his possession which granted him full Imperial authority to take any steps needed to secure the Spinward regions of the Imperium from further threats. Norris decided that a united Domain under his leadership was the best answer to that. Strephon is still fuming over that trick.

It must be noted that many of these orders are first issued in the field, as it were, and sent to Capital for the Emperor's approval. This can take years for minor patents and commissions, so the standard has been to assume assent unless otherwise told.

Lastly, comes the Emperor's wishes or desires. These are minor commands that generally are used for issues inside the palace or dealing with the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the Imperial Household. The Emperor might state, "It is the desire of the Emperor that Flumb fruit no longer be allowed inside the palace, or at any event attended by His Majesty." Wishes and desires are common when arranging large social events and ceremonials. It is commonly known that many of these orders come from the Imperial Family's large social staff and the Emperor considers such "mindless details" boring.

Day-to-day, the Emperor is a busy man. He is constantly dealing with reports of issues inside and outside his realm and tasked with decisions that can send thousands of warships into a battle or affect the economies of a hundred worlds. Luckily, just down the Promenade from the floating sphere of the Imperial Palace is the towering Moot Spire, where hundreds of nobles work to keep the Emperor informed and plot to keep him focused on their problems.

I'll cover them next.

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Rethinking the Zhodani

2017-06-06T00:54:46Z

I'm going to mess with the Traveller default setting again. It needs it. This time, I'm looking at the Zhodani, those mind-raping scum! Or not.

The Zhodani might be the oldest official races in the game, first appearing as the "barbarians" defeated at the Battle of Two Suns. Then they earned a name, and we began to learn about them. The Zhodani are human, the descendants of the stock taken from Earth 300,000 years ago by the enigmatic Ancients, and scattered across space. Many of those transplants died out, but the Zhodani thrived.

Uniquely, they embrace the use of psionic powers, and have made them almost the center of their society. The psionically gifted are nobles, everyone else the lower classes. Nobles hold all positions of power in the Consulate, civilian and military. To keep control, the dreaded Tavrchedle' - the Guardians of Our Morality - constantly scan the masses for thoughts of rebellion or anti-social acts.

Or at least that's what the Third Imperium would have you believe. Later remakes of the Zhodani softened the edges a bit, making them less leering villains in black capes and more an alien-human race. The capes stayed, because they are cool.

Here's my first problem. The idea of an entrenched psionic nobility. In Traveller, psionic ability is unpredictable and not inherited. So there is no guarantee that a noble's children will have any psionic potential at all, while Zeb, son of a dirt farmer, could be a prodigy. There would be no institutional memory, outside of a true celestial bureaucracy. Even then, what's to stop a non-psionic son of a powerful noble from seizing the reigns of power?

The problem is the writers were in love with feudal autocracies when writing up the setting. The Imperium, the Aslan, the K'kree, the Zhodani, and even the Droyne all had some variant of "rule by tiers of nobility" as their government of choice. Which simply doesn't make sense.

Mainly because life as a member of the psionic nobility is pretty damn awful. Consider the fate of the Tavrchedle' officers. They spend day after endless day inside the minds of the sick and broken. Know any cops or social workers? Imagine their war stories if they had to probe deep into the raw psyche of each and every unhappy person they encounter. Then they have to fix them. I don't know how you say "alcoholic" in Zhedtl, but one thing for sure, there's no Alcoholics Anonymous in Zhodani Space, because the Tavrchedle' handle that as well!

No, being a noble in the Consulate means a lifetime of service. I would imagine that the word the Imperials translate as "noble" actually means "Servant of the People" or something similar. Because there will be a strong "you owe it to the people" push in this society.

Let's look at the life of Zeq Chtilnats. On the occasion of his Third Olympiad (roughly nine years old), Zeq, like all the other kids his age, is tested for psionic potential. It's a big deal, and Zeq and his classmates have been preparing mentally and emotionally for a year. The tests are odd, but fun.

Several days later, the Chtilnats family gets the fantastic news! Zeq has tested as one of the highest potentials in the District! His family starts planning his big party while he studies his packing list. Because Zeq is leaving home. He's losing his family name. Zeq is now Zeqiepr and will stay that way until he is trained.

Zeqiepr's new school is a huge facility on an important world. Here, the new students both learn the usual lessons (with a lot of political indoctrination) and undergo more and more testing to see what their skills are. Zeqiepr turns out to be wired for teleportation, clairvoyance, and telepathy. Right then, his career is chosen for him. Zeqiepr is going to be one of the elite Consular Guards, troops trained to teleport in full combat armor and use their skills to defend the Consulate!

His training shifts. He and the others destined for military careers live in a more regimented way. Endless physical training, weapons training, and learning about the threats facing the Consulate. Much of the time is spent honing his ability to teleport accurately while carrying more and more weight. And always, there is the reminder that he is a servant of those who have not been blessed with his talents. Finally, after three Olympiads of training, Zeqatl claims his new rank as a Commissioned Assault Specialist and reports to his Legion.

Fast-forward thirty years. General Zeqiashav, commanding the 35th Consular Guards Legion, steps down. But his career isn't over! He's invited to join the Regional Defense Council as a military expert, and help guide the Regional Council on defense matters. His is a life of unending service to the people.

Now being one of the elect doesn't just mean work! They get great perks and universal respect. The turban worn by nearly all Zhodani nobles is both a symbol of rank and of humility. The bind their hair in turbans, because they work too hard to have the time to style it.

A different look, one that makes the Zhodani a little more alien.

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Fixing the Third Imperium -- A series of utterly immodest proposals, part 4

2016-07-17T01:43:40Z

Yesterday I took a nap (not uncommon when you've survived a stroke, you get tired easily) fully intending to get up and write the first part of the Threats to the Imperium article.

I woke up to a coup attempt in Turkey. Since we were just there, I sort of got distracted by the news. But it does serve the point that any society, any government is going to experience instability. And on occasion, that instability will require an active intervention.

Once again, I have to emphasize the huge size and variety of the Third Imperium. There are going to be literally millions of cultures, religions, and old simmering conflicts. We've often wondered why the Imperial Navy doesn't just post a cruiser in every system to deter piracy. The simple answer is they're too busy putting out fires.

So what triggers an Imperial intervention? Any event that could:

1. Disrupt trade over the region. As the Imperium is primarily a trade federation and dedicated to preserving the free flow of trade, anything that threatens that will be stopped as soon as possible. It doesn't even have to be a direct assault on the mechanisms of trade, freighters and the like, but an event that is causing damage to the economic health of a county. Civil war on an important planet might trigger an intervention to lessen the economic impact on the nearby worlds.

2. Weaken the security or integrity of the Imperium. Revolts, rebellions, and crusades against the Evil Empire will crop up constantly. This will be a big problem on the Solomani Rim. Anything that weakens the Imperium will be squashed with overwhelming force. For most of these, a show of force followed by the hunting down of ringleaders will suffice. In other cases, the Unified Armies will be tied down for years hunting partisans. The Ine Givar insurgency on Efate/Regina is a classic example of this.

3. Create mass causalities. This is an unusual one, as it includes natural disasters. Any event that threatens the lives of a significant number of Imperial citizens can trigger an intervention. This is a long-standing exception to the rule of sovereignty for member worlds; oppress them, fine. Genocide? Not cool. In this case the focus will be on both stopping the deaths (if possible) and rendering aid to the affected population.

4. Destroy Imperial property. Attacks on Imperial facilities, ships and vehicles, and sapiants in Imperial Service are grounds for an intervention. Two guys jumping the fence at the Consulate isn't going to be enough, but a mob storming and torching the place is. Attacks on the nobility are seen as attacks on the person of the Emperor, and *will* result in an Imperial response. Starports, military bases, Research Centers, and pretty much anything else with the Imperial Sunburst slapped on it.

So, who can call for an intervention? Normally, it's either a member state asking for aide, or an Imperial official who sees the need for such an act. Every Imperial Navy officer is drilled with the idea that they have to be ready to take action. Usually, the decision for a large scale intervention lies with the Count-Elector and his Fleet Admiral and Marshal. Most nobles are wary of intervening too often, because it builds distrust with the worlds of his county and drains the treasury.

When an intervention is called for, the Unified Armies motto for planning is "Maximum Force, Minimum Time." The Imperium wants to stop problems as quickly as possible. If the commander on scene determines that the best solution is the overthrow the local government, so be it. In most cases, the Imperial Marines embarked on a light cruiser can handle smaller events, at least until reinforcements arrive.

On a wider front, the navy deals with threats that cross space. Piracy, is the most common, of course, and Naval Intelligence has learned that piracy usually means someone backing it. The image of the interstellar freebooter with a cybernetic hand and a flaming eye tattoo is mostly a myth. Most pirates are back by governments or corporations, and set out with a definite target list.

Every so often, there will be an actual interstellar war to handle. Powerful worlds can field their own small navies, and as I said above, you can have grudges that date back centuries. Such wars tend to be fought with full understanding that the Imperial response will be devastating. Such wars tend to start out with cold war tactics, and escalate over time.

This is why the Navy isn't everywhere, it's too busy racing around answering the latest crisis. At least internally. Exterior threats will be covered in the next couple of articles.

I hope y'all are enjoying these. I really want to get feedback on them.

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Fixing the Third Imperium -- A series of utterly immodest proposals, part 3

2016-07-09T20:10:04Z

I swear to Halford the next installment will be about the threats the Imperium faces, but I realized that after the post on Imperial Law, or the lack of same, I needed to address how the Imperium regulates things.

Cleon the Great realized that even with a light hand on the member worlds, some things needed to be defined and controlled to prevent the conditions that brought on the Long Night. To this end, many of the early Imperial Edicts established regulatory agencies with broadly defined powers to established regulations and enforce the same. In the early 12th century, the main ones functioning are:

The Imperial Treasury. Responsible for managing the Imperial monetary supply and ensuring the the Credit is the sole currency used in interstellar trade. There will be more on the economics of the 3I in a later post.

The Starport Authority. Oversees and administers all legitimate starports in Imperial space. Over the centuries they've also acquired a role in inspecting starships for safety and compliance with regulations.

Standards and Measurements Bureau. Originally the Office of Calendar Compliance, this office has grown to enforcing common standards for everything from weights to struggling to keep Galanglic from drifting into different tongues.

Colonization and Migration Bureau. Created to repopulated the barren worlds after the end of the Long Night, this bureau now oversees ongoing colonization projects and manages any requests for large-scale movements of populations.

I'm welcome for suggestions for any I may have missed.

This literal Celestial Bureaucracy will have offices on almost every world of the Imperium, even if it's four bored C&M agents who spend the day playing cards. But their main jobs is data. All of these various bureaus produce reports in staggering numbers. Take the Starport Authority. One of the responsibilities of a Port Master is to maintain a log of all ships passing through the port. Name, transponder code, name of the ship's master, and reason for visit. This information is dutifully collected and forwarded to the County capital, where it is collated with reports from the other worlds of the county. Those reports are sent to the Sector capital, and finally, to Capital.

Capital is a temple to data collection. Those port logs from across the Imperium are feed into massive data farms where they can be used to do everything from modeling trade patterns for the coming century to tracking a single ship's travels. Beyond the Imperial Palace and the Moot Spire, the Imperial Capital city is filled with the magnificent offices of these agencies.

From these offices, updated regulations and reports issue forth based on the incoming data stream and the wishes of the Emperor. Dissemination can take years to reach every backwater world, so these new regulations tend to come out every ten years or so, except in cases of vital changes or emergency alerts. I suspect that a large proportion of the traffic on the X-boat network is encrypted Imperial data. Getting a specific report, or changing the data before it reaches its destination could be a fun adventure.

Who enforces these regulations? The SPA has it's own police and security apparatus, as it has physical plants to defend; as does the Treasury when it comes to mints and the branch Imperial Banks in the counties. They others depend on the the threat of an Imperial intervention to force compliance. Or they just hire mercenaries to do the job.

So we have 1100 years of regulations, some of which may be out of date, or ignored, and varying degrees of enforcement depending on the local official. This is why Bribery is a skill.

As always, I'm looking for comments and expansions.

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Fixing the Third Imperium -- A series of utterly immodest proposals, part 2

2016-06-20T17:39:49Z

I know, i said last time that this would feature a discussion of the threats facing the Imperium. I lied. Or more accurately, I realized that there was some that needed to follow the discussion of the now-ripped apart nobility. Namely, we need to examine Imperial Law.

There isn't any such thing as Imperial Law. Drive home safely!

You need more detail? OK. One of the big problems in the ongoing development of the Third Imperium is that is was defined by people living in Western democracies for the most part. This grossly affected how we defined a functional government. For those of us living in the US, the idea that we are "A government of laws, and not of men." as put forth by John Adams dominates our views. So we invented civilian ministries and the entire concept that there were three branches to the Imperial government, giving the Moot some sort of shadow legislative ability and assuming a standing court structure relying on published laws.

Which absolutely would not work in something on the scale of the Third Imperium. Imagine the logistical nightmare of a thousand regional courts issuing rulings on the same laws in wildly different ways, all crawling up the chain to the Imperial High Court! Between the backlog of cases, travel times, and the general slowness of high courts, it could be years or decades before the correct interpretations filter down.

No, the Imperium is a nation of men, not laws. One man, actually. The Emperor holds supreme authority over the state, and rules through Edicts that have the effective force of law. Over a thousand years Edicts and how they are enforced has built up into a semblance of a legal code. As an example, Imperial Edict 7 states that "the possession of weapons capable of mass destruction if forbidden unless specifically authorized by the Throne." Well, that's vague. But over the centuries numerous enforcement actions have defined both what constitutes WMD and what the punishments should be.

Most of the early Edicts are like this. Cleon I issued 27 Edicts in the first few years of his reign that defined the Imperium. Edit 4 defines treason as "making war upon the Imperium or a member state of the Imperium, adhering to the enemies of the Imperium, or any attempt to undermine the sovereign rights of the Imperium." Again, a very broad order that has been interpreted over time.

Now we come to enforcement. As I said above, it is insane to think that any court system could function in this setting. So instead you have the Imperial Navy. All naval officers (including Marines) act in the Emperor's name and with his authority. So when there is a violation of law, nine times out of ten the investigation and punishment will be handled by the Navy. Usually this means Naval Intelligence and Admiralty Courts. But out on the frontier it might be the next light cruiser to come by on patrol. A green Commander might find herself sitting in judgment of a group of conspirators against the realm. (Hint: this is a campaign hook.)

So what prevents abuses? Such trials and their results are reported up the chain of command and to the local Consul-General and Count-Elector. Appeals also go to the Count-Elector for review. If that Commander botches the job, she might not only find her career trashed, she might be riding a prison barge into exile himself! (Possibly with a few other interesting fellows, who are suddenly given a chance to escape. This is a Blake's 7 campaign hook.)

Despite the informality and vagueness of Imperial Edicts, there are lawyers who specialize in Imperial Law. They study the precedents from across the Imperium to ferret out arguments and loopholes. They are very expensive, and every good Travellers' Aid Society office has a few in the Rolodex right next to the hostage rescue team's contact information.

There you have it. A state where one man rules, but those rulings are carried along by the force of traditional and precedent, and where your fate may in the hands of a Naval officer who slept through his Legal Theory classes at the Academy.

As always, comments wanted.

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Fixing the Third Imperium -- A series of utterly immodest proposals.

2016-06-12T22:00:01Z

At this point in history, as we approach Traveller’s 40th birthday, it is time to reassess the classic setting, the Third Imperium of Man. From it’s birth in vague references in Mercenary and High Guard, the 3I has grown mightily over the years.

The problem is it was never really designed. Dozens of authors working for different companies added pieces here and there. Oh there was the Moot, and we knew about the Imperial Armed Forces, but it stopped there. It was the broadest brushstroke of a setting. Which suited me when I was 13 years old.

I’m a bit older now.

So, I’m going to rip the Third Imperium to pieces and rebuild it. Comments welcome.

What is the Imperium?

11,000 worlds, the vast majority self ruling is the quick answer. Ruled by an Emperor and his loyal nobles. But most of the nobles seem to have no real power over these independent worlds. So what gives?

My answer is that the Imperium is, in a very real sense, the Imperial Navy. It’s the navy that keeps the peace, polices the “space between the stars” and has the best equipped troops in known space ready for action. The Imperium is a military state with civilian oversight.

But what is the Imperium? Born out of the ashes of the Long Night, Cleon I realized that what doomed interstellar civilization was the end of trade. The new empire was built on three concepts:

1. A universally accepted currency
2. A universally used calendar
3. Near universal freedom of trade

Using these three principles, the state grew quickly. (As an aside, the one thing I hated about 4th edition more than anything else was the Core Sector was filled with inhabited worlds. It should have been one desolate, ruined world after the other.) This would have been the glory days of the Scouts Service, who cemented their role as the more subtle option when compared to the navy’s hammer. Early merchant princes also struck out, using the promise of free trade to sign deals. It was a golden age.

And it established how the Imperium would run for the next thousand years. The Navy everywhere; gaining more power.
The Nobility.

One thing that always bothered me (once I started reading history, that is) was the neat pyramid of Traveller nobles. Everyone in their little slot. The reality is much different. So I’m scraping the nobility for the most part.

In the Imperium the only rank that really matters is Count-Elector. These counts replace subsector dukes, and they are the members of the Moot. They are the meat of the Imperium’s administration, as they control far more manageable areas of space. The local fleet admiral answers to them and the Sector Admiral. They control the local Unified Army, and oversee a vast bureaucracy dedicated to making sure that taxes and levied and apportioned correctly. The Count-Elector is the sophont on the spot. These posts are hereditary, but the Emperor can strip a family of their office if high crimes or gross incompetence are proven. Not all Counts are Counts-Elector, and it’s the Emperor alone who decides who get the title.

As members of the Moot, Counts-Elector are required to “maintain a presence” at Capital. As this is impossible for most Counts, a relative is usually sent as a proxy. The Moot is mostly a debating society, where the assembled member study issues and provide guidance to His Majesty. A year on Capital is a standard stop for a young noble’s Grand Tour.

Sectors are the province of Ducal families, and only rarely would a duke be an Elector. (One example is Grosherzog Norris of Deneb, who used the power of an Imperial Warrant to retain his title as Markgraf Regina.) Archdukes oversee Domains, and like the Emperor, are limited to mostly long range planning.

Barons are mostly life appointments, and are awarded for service. Most come with a manor house somewhere nice that provides a nice income. Knighthood is unchanged.

A note about Social Standing and noble rank. It is entirely possible for someone to be SS F and not be a noble, or not hold a title consummate with his power and influence. A merchant prince who controls the bulk of shipping across three counties might be of low birth, but his money opens many doors. This guy is probably a knight and should have his home estate declared a baronial holding. But still, he’ll be hob-nobbing with the glitterati while the Count-Elector of a poor frontier county will be ignored.

The Member Worlds.

The 11,000 worlds of the Imperium govern themselves, with certain limits. Imperial Worlds are strictly limited in their ability to conduct “foreign affairs” with other systems. In almost all cases, they are denied jump-capable warships (although a blind eye is usually turned to the “armed merchantmen” fielded in frontier regions.) They are forbidden to make war on other systems.

Controlling this is the office of the Governor-General. Appointed by the local Count, Governors-General work out of the Imperial Consulate usually found in the planet’s capital city or close by the starport. Consulates tend to be near fortresses in most places, and are guarded by Imperial Marines. Because the Governor-General has the power to forbid any action taken by the local government if she feels that it threatened the safety of the planet or other systems, it would unduly restrict trade, or violates the few laws the Imperium has. Governors-General tend to be people who've spent years in the Imperial bureaucracy and have shown a talent for diplomacy. The larger and more powerful the world, the lighter the Governor-General has to tread.

Sadly, there have been thousands of instances of Governors-General using their positions to enrich themselves through corruption, theft, and in one notable case, co-running a pirate fleet with the world’s system defense commander.

Less populated worlds tend to have a Colonial Administrator assigned instead, leading a much smaller office. On very low-population planets, the Administrator could also be the Starport Authority Port Master, the Customs Officer, and run the best bar in town (it’s the only bar.) Such assignments are seen either as stepping stones to bigger and better things, or the inglorious end after not making the right moves to further a career.

In all of these levels, from the Count-Elector down to the Governor-General, the key problem is time. Even if you have a courier ready to go, the minimum response time is going to be two weeks. So at every level, you will find leaders taking action. Sometimes the wrong actions, but that’s where we get adventures!

Next up, the threats faces by the Imperium, or how your character got six Starburts for Extrem Heroism.

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