On the Shadow (not SHADO) Fleet

By [unnamed sender] ·

TML message #2761From bundle 227

Erm, Steve, I said "Shadow," not SHADO. As much as I loved UFO, that
wasn't what I had in mind....|-> But I'm not objecting to the designs;
the Skydiver is a brilliant example of a later-commonplace idea (a
planetary defence fighter with what essentially amounts to a mobile
undersea launch pad) at a low TL. Great fun! Oh, parenthetically, the
"coolest car ever designed" that the show's star drove was a real
automobile, although very few of them were ever made available for
sale; it was a Chevrolet Astro III, last in the series of Astro "concept
cars" (and LEAST flashy of them all; the Astro I literally looked and
drove like something out of The Jetsons).

The Shadow Fleet is something that's still floating around my MT universe,
altho it's now tied (sorta) to the official MT historical line in a clear
manner. Basically, the Shadow Fleet is a widespread, mysterious "fleet" of
starships ranging in size from scouts to Tigresses, usually appearing
only one at a time under bizarre circumstances at various points in the
Imperium. The ships of the Fleet are always painted absolutely flat dead
black from end to end (illegal under Imperial shipping laws, which require
that a certain large percentage of ships be painted brightly to aid in
visual starport approach and docking guidance), and very often they do
NOT show up on any planetary defense sensing systems (for reasons I can't
really divulge here, since people who play my game read this). They're
usually seen only briefly under mysterious circumstances, and those who
DO see them rarely talk about them-- people who do tend to vanish.

A lot of my early Traveller adventures were built around the Shadow Fleet,
and my current party may run into them eventually-- in which case you'll
read about the carnage here. |->

And speaking of ships, I don't suppose anyone out there who seems willing
to mouth off at great length about agility (Steve? Rob? Adrian?) would
be willing to achieve some sort of a consensus for TDR? Hmmmmmmm?

oboy I get ta use my .sig,

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