Rise and Fall of the Imperium
Back in the early days of the Imperium, circa 1102, Starship construction was
very simple. All one needed to know to build a starship was held in a small
collection of engineering notes known as Book 2. Only light, unarmored ships
with turret weapons were available. Drives and hulls were standardized.
Interstellar trading was on a small scale, but the people were happy protected
by their Interstellar navy of 1200 ton cruisers.
Then the Fifth Frontier War came. Suddenly, the Navy obtained new rules for
the construction of ships. These new notes for Highly massive ships to Guard
the Imperium were known cryptically as Book 5. The war grew huge in scale.
Cruisers swelled to a hundred times their previous size! Dreadnoughts became
massive structures! New weapons were introduced!
But, fortunately, the Navy did not keep it's new construction capabilities to
itself. It allowed merchant companies to build ships according to their new
specifcations. Thus, while the Navy budget soared, Interstellar trade
blossomed because of the newer, larger more efficient ships.
All went well for a few years until a Hiver named 'Miller' unleashed a horrible
manipulation on the Imperium. This manipulation was known as MegaPlot.
MegaPlot had subtlety. It allowed for Starships to be constructed with
abilities not previously dreamed of by the Book 5 manuals. Mysterious things
like Disintigrator spinal mounts, Antimatter power plants, Jump drive weapons,
More efficient jump drives all suddenly were available! Naval Architects were
overwhelmed with their new toys! They grabbed up MegaPlot and began
experimenting.
Then Miller's manipulation began to have it's effects. The naval architects
soon realized that MegaPlot only allowed those new toys at Tech levels that
were currently unavailable. And the performance of designs that could be made
was far inferior to the older Book 5 designs.
But alas, Book 5 ships were now considered obsolete. Parts were no longer
available. The ships soon disappeared from the space lanes, replaced by ships
that were all inferior to their predecessors.
However, not all had bought into MegaPlot! The Zhodani, Droyne, K'Kree and
Hivers saw it for what it was and stayed away. They were never incorporated
into MegaPlot. But the Imperials, Vilani, Solomani, Vargr and Aslan were
all trapped.
Dullinor, in great anger that the MegaPlot had been accepted, (and because
MegaPlot made scant mention of him) blamed Strephon and assasinated him. In
the ensueing rebellion, very few of the MegaPlot designed ships were
destroyed. This was because all of the MegaPlot ship's sensors could not
detect their enemies at the ranges specified in the MegaPlot manuals.
Another factor was that the ships had so much armor, they were nearly
invulnerable to even the best weapons fielded by the ships.
In the end, the MegaPlot ships all broke down when it was discovered that they
had broken the law of conservation of energy. They were removed from the
scene never to be seen again.
With all their fleets out of commission, the factions of the rebellion got
desparate. And it was just such a desparate move that caused the final fall.
One faction went prowling around in archane ship yards, and managed to send
off a fleet to oppose Lucan. When it reached Capital, all the defenders were
rendered totally helpless. When he learned of the fleet, Lucan himself was
so shocked that he died of a heart attack brought on by helpless mirth.
The attacking fleet was built by Book 2 methods.
The fleet went to the strongholds of all the factions with similar results.
The fleet itself perished after the crews could no longer contain themselves
and themselves died of laughter.
Thus intersteller trade came to a halt, and the Imperium collapsed. Those
that survived, are praying that Traveller: The New Era will not bring about
further manipulations by Miller and the malevolent Hivers. :-)
Scott Kellogg
Well *I* like it better than the virus!
And it's more believable than Hard Times!
The sad thing is it's pretty damn close to the truth...