Re: Sword Worlds

>>>Sword Worlders could be genetically enhanced super men ......etc
>
>Hans Rancke replies:
>>Perhaps, but if so those genes didn't breed true over the centuries.
>
>Its possible that over 1500 years some genetic drift has occured. More likely
>is that their internecine conflicts have probably done much to keep them
>technologically backwards. Also their language and attitude makes them
>insular and little may be known of their physical attributes. Granted that
>they have not been militarily very succesful but they have been fighting
>Imperial forces atleast 4 TLs above them. If your opponent is in battle dress
>and armed with FGMPs enhanced dex/or enhanced ability to take damage does
>little for you....

There's nothing in the material we have about the Swordworlders to suggest
that they are genetically superior in any way. The character generation
system in JTAS #18 specifically says they aren't.

>As far as settlement goes. The indications are that the SWs knew of the
>Darrians existence when the decided to settle on Gram.

What indications? I agree that it is strange that they didn't find the
Darrians, but not inexplicable.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]

>>As far as settlement goes. The indications are that the SWs knew of the
>>Darrians existence when they decided to settle on Gram.

>What indications? I agree that it is strange that they didn't find the
>Darrians, but not inexplicable.

From GDW's Darrians Alien Module 8:
        Rebuilding the Confederation:
        ...
        The Sword Worlds: In -399 Solomani colonists arrived in
        the sector and settled on Gram.....
        ... When the original settlers of Gram arrived in the Spinward
        Marches, their survey of the various systems detected the
        Darrian worlds and their low-tech settlement. Because the
        Solomani wanted to create their own independent community
        of worlds, they avoided contact with the Darrians and instead
        selected the worlds of the Sword Worlds subsector.

This raises several points:

1) The Solomani settlers were actively trying to avoid contact. This explains
why they didn't want to settle in the core worlds but doesn't explain
why they went that way if that was their purpose? As mentioned earlier
rimwards is the shortest way to go somewhere where there is noone. However
since no one knew of the Zhodani existence till much later it was a valid
choice if you wanted to live far from anywhere (valid but not necessarily
sensible).

2) The knew of the existence of Darrians and perhaps even knew the fact
that the Darrians had once been more technologically sophisticated.

3) It implies a substantial and well organised effort in that they were
searching for a particular set of conditions. They probably had growth in
mind before they settled considering the easy J-1 accessibility of all worlds.

From: Cynthia Higginbotham [email removed]
Subject: Sword Worlds

About the course the SW took to get to the Marches....

>For some reason I always thought they went by way of the Reft;
>this leaves the
>question of "Why didn't they settle in the Trojan Reaches?"
>Well, if you look at the
>T.R. map, you notice a lot of worlds with classically Terran names
>(not Vilani, not
>Sylean, not Imperial, but Earth-flavored).  I suspect that either
>(a) other Terran
>groups beat them there (possibly during the Rule of Man), or
>(b) the Sword Worlds are a spin-off of the Trojan Reaches worlds
>-- maybe they couldn't get along with them.

About crossing the Reft...
To me the question that is raised is how and why? If they crossed the
Reft they did it for a specific reason i.e. they knew exactly where they
wanted to go and then took the "shortest" path. I don't know if it is
even viable to do it with J-2 maybe J-3 technology. Remember the Reft
was only crossed in 1090 by a specialised Scout ship and that was done
in Corridor. If they did it I can see why it took them 20 years....but I
can also see them changing their minds from frustration and skimming the
spinward edge of Vland into Corridor-Deneb-Marches.

About SW being from Trojan reach.....
I believe there is reference somewhere that indicates that Trojan Reaches
was settled by Third Imperium via a route from Deneb sector. There is
sufficient info elsewhere that SW did leave Terra dominated territory if
not Terra itself. 20 years isn't really sufficient for the SW to reach
Trojan Reach and then split up to the degree that you imply.

I think it is
>The "losers of a war" scenario was the first thing I thought of when I read the
>questions raised in the original post.  It need not have been the "Gene War".
>If they had been sufficiently obnoxious in the course of whatever war they lost,
>they and their kin might be persona non grata anywhere in Terran space

And they might have been isolationist/racist enough not to settle in a world
that was pre-populated..... Any takers on what they might have done to get
so isolationist? It seems that the reasons might still be applicable to
current SW as they are still have an isolationist/antogonistic attitude.

>....  All of the
>questions about why the Sword
>Worlds are "way, way out here" are explained if the Sword Worlders were
>desperately *afraid* of the Terrans they left behind.

That's understandable, and would explain why they seem intent on an alliance
with the Zhodani and are so focused on disrupting the Imperium especially
considering their small size and low tech. However one would think that
after the Solomani Rim War they would have slackened up on annoying the
Imperium.

Still the main question now seems to be what they did back then to be exiled?

Lastly from a lack of response can I presume that no one knows when
the Solomani "Gene War" occured.....??

Ameer