I'd like to make a few (possibly final) comments on some of the recent
threads that have gone through the TML before I lose regular net access
for the forseeable future.
NUCLEAR DAMPERS:
I once had a campaign in which we used nuclear dampers to clean up
areas which had been rendered radioactive by bombardment. Remember the
old adventure _Leviathan_? The character who played the captain of the
ship dicovered 0409 Egyrn, the T-norm world that had killed itself in
a nuclear war. Due to other events in the campaign, around the time of
the 5FW he was awarded a barony over the world with instructions to
eventually bring it, and hopefully the area, under Imperial rule. This
may seem an incredible reward, but he was given relatively limited
resources, considering that he was very near the Zhodani colony at
Pa'an/Egyrn....
It was a lot of fun. Ruined cities, colonization of the world,
Zhodani intrigue and outright warfare when both sides dared, and the
possibility that not *all* the original alien inhabitants died made for
aa complicated background.
What does this have to do with dampers? One of the projects he
assigned the Imperial Corps of Engineers involved cleaning up the
contaminated areas so that survey teams and colonists could enter the
area. He mounted expensive nuclear dampers on armored gravitic vehicles,
and they slowly would treat an area in order to remove the dangerous
contamination. It took a long time to clear even a small area -- first
the area was damped as if the vehicles were plowing it, and then teams
had to go in and make sure nothing was missed, and he was continually
trying to work out something to do with the residual material left
behind in the soil -- lead. Besides this, he only had so many decontam
vehicles and teams to spare, and not a few hostile neighbors in the
subsector to keep them occupied with other things. He only could take
the time to clean up the areas he wanted to concentrate on or investigate.
Sometimes, an area would be finished and a storm of rain or dust would
come through, recontaminating everything.
ALIEN ROMANCE:
I noticed in S&A that the Aslan seem to consider such liaisons *very*
dishonorable. The fact that they consider them at all probably means that
there are some of the Ftierle who do engage in what most of their folk
would normally consider perverted....
TNE and the VIRUS FROM HELL:
I'd like to second Metlay's comments. I could put up with minor
typos in the rules when Traveller was going strong. But then GDW
decided that publishing more rule books would be more profitable than
supporting their games with supplements and adventures. In the last
five years, the only adventure I can think of that they've published
was Knightfall, which missed out on the opportunity to develop the
Rebellion in favor of doing a more balanced "Secret of the Ancients"
adventure, complete with typos.
Now I hear that another set of rule books are planned, and that
the current setting will get axed, without any further development.
Furthermore, an unlikely plot device is suggested in place of an
obvious and more reasonable one -- a space virus instead of the gradual
collapse of the Empire. A sourcebook is planned -- for fall release.
Fall, eh? Makes me wonder sometimes how serious GDW actually is about
this talk of "increased support". I've played this game for a long
time, but I doubt that I'll be buying another new rule set quickly.
Incidentally, does anyone know how close DGP and GDW were in
contact on the design of S&A? It seems to me that they're trying to
set up an internal civil war for the Aslan as well, with the little
comments about Yerlyariwo/Khaukeairl dishonor and reckless young clans.
I can just see them setting this war off when they activate the idiotic
space computer virus just to keep them from taking the Daibei area
away. Knock out two of the most important governments in Known Space
to slow things down? Any comments or thoughts?
- --Steve Bonneville
[email removed]