Douglas E. Berry

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

(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.