I've had an exchange of letters with Chuck Gannon on the subject of
Hard Times and the effects thereoff. He allowed me to post them here
on the TML. I think you will find them interesting. Here's the first:
'>>' and '' is Chuck; '>' is me.
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
[Preliminary greetings]
>>While all this is going on, the big whigs on any planet have
>>one thing upper-most in their mind: to hang on to as much tech
>>level as they can. TL is
>>the primary chip in the interstellar poker game of survival,
>>dominance,
>>ability to enforce one's sovreign right to govern oneself (or
>>others!).
>You don't feel that weapons is equally important to the ability
>to enforce one's sovreign right to govern oneself?
and later:
>But the way things are presented in Hard Times these ships ARE
>essential to their survival. The polities are presented as
>desperate last-gasp attempts to keep things going, doomed to
>fail in a few short years, mainly because pirates makes merchant
>traffic too hazardous. Oh, I agree that worlds wouldn't be able
>to maintain fleets of pre-war proportions, but a world like Prom
>ise could build (not maintain, _build_, from scratch) a force of
>700 Termagants, 25 200 T jump shuttles and 10 Vigilantes in one
>year, using 1% of the pre-war _peacetime_ budget.
I most certainly do agree that weapons are important--and I
wholeheartedly agree with your point (made in other writings)
that the equivalent of shore defense batteries would be a major
investment and offer an impervious defense against pirates. So
too would a local defense fleet. But note that I say `local.'
As we know from the design rules, equal tons of boat carries a
lot more whallop than equal tons of jump-integral ship. With the
politics of isolationism firmly in hand, it is a lot more easy to
build the equivalent of SDBs than convoy escorts.
The problem with building convoy escorts? I see several. One of
the key problems with building ANYTHING at this time in Imperial
history is that the constructing world's actual TL is not
stable--and no one knows exactly HOW FAR IT WILL FALL until the
end of Hard Times. I draw the following very important quote
from HT, pg 19, para 3:
"The UWP alterations are usually the end result of months or even
years of slow change."
In practical terms, this means that you the ref know WELL BEFORE
THE ACTUAL INHABITANTS exactly how far a planet's TL is going to
fall. You the ref can build accordingly, having that
foreknowledge. However, THEY cannot. A world that will (unknown
to its leaders) bottom out at TL A has no way of being sure that
they won't drop to TL 8 by 1129-20--in which case every starship
they've built becomes an unmaintainable white elephant. The TL
shift is integrated into a single, chronologically hard-edged
step in order to make the game mechanics of its application user-
friendly. However, that AIN'T how things happen--and the im-
plications of that discrepancy have a lot of impact on technol-
ogy, costs, and construction strategies.
Personally, I envision a situation where until 1129, the nature
of TL in most of these post-war societies hangs in the balance.
Not just due to trade unpredictability and war damage, but policy
choices. For instance, in this country right now, the defense
industry is losing jobs right and left. As a scriptwriter for
science documentaries, I have heard of countless research
programs--and production programs--being terminated, rolled back,
tossed aside. In short, I am watching as policy changes affect
available TL and associated support infrastructure. In HT, I
think the situation would be more severe--by several orders of
magnitude. I govern planet X which used to have a TL of F, now
falling. How many people do I employ in TL-C industries, hoping
to use that activity as a commercial impetus to shore up my over-
all TL? But what if I'm wrong? What if that still won't
maintain a TL of C? Then I'll fall even further than I would
have otherwise, because I tried to build my technological dike
too far out into the oncoming tides of decline. So, knowing
this, I have to think about also subsidying TL 10 industries, and
employing people there. But now I've created rival interest
groups; the TL 12 industries and the TL 10 industries. THe lat-
ter will want a return to the older, more basic technologies--
since that's how their bread is being buttered. The TL 12 folks
will want to try to hold the line where they are, try to show
that the TL 10 group is unnecessarily recidivistic.
So maybe you should only go with one group? Maybe, but in that
event, most worlds will feel compelled to pursue the path sug-
gested by the axiom `better safe than sorry' and will go with the
TL 10 option (or less). The price of guessing too high is the
same as counting unhatched eggs; without enough chickens, you
will starve. If all the eggs were placed in the TL 12 basket and
it doesn't work out, where will the slide finally stop? The pos-
sibility for this mismanagement of TL downshift is reflected in
the randomizing element (die roll) of UWP change, along with the
DM for government type (there's the fast, and then there's the
dead).
The bottom line is that until 1129, I see HT meaning that
planets--great and small alike--are in a state of immense flux.
SHip building times (and capacities) are further complicated by
the fact that shipyards do not usually produce all their own
parts, nor do they acquire all their needed raw materials local-
ly. In the post HT era, this may change, due to the lessons
learned in HT. But case in point: a few years ago, a small com-
pany that was a subcontractor to a major US defense leviathan
went under. It manufactured one small, humble component for a
very well known--and well respected--US air superiority fighter.
Production of the fighters continued while DC dawdled over what
to do. End result; the part supply ran out and the production of
the jet came to a screeching halt until a makeshift replacement
company was formed up.
Now, let's go one step further; let's say that this company
wasn't US, but foreign. Then you get the following scenario: A
good friend of mine (a published MT author, btw) has a Yugo.
Nice car, but no parts. And his trade-in option for another Yugo
just went south with Sarajevo.
Let's apply these anecdotes to ship construction. Adequate
transshipment (to say nothing of production) of essential com-
ponents has been on the decline since 1118. Since 1120, it has
become quite haphazard, but now, by 1125, it has effectively
dried up. Suddenly, the mad dash is on to try to find a way to
get more parts or make them. But while this is happening, the
forecasters in the ministry of technology are shaking their heads
and saying, `We can't even guarantee you that we'll have the
technology necessary to MAKE such parts six months from now.'
Meaning that any sensible leader is going to look long and hard
at the recommendations to create an industry capable of making
such parts. Such a factory may be useless before it is completed
and ready to start production.
Some foresightful governments have taken it upon themselves AL-
READY (by 1125) to retool for self-sufficiency, but only LARGE
governments can undertake this effectively--and the problem with
generating self-sufficiency BEFORE the end of the war (including
the Black War Years) is that it actually makes you a bigger
target. Consider; a planet that is self-sufficient is producing
just about everything an aggressor wants--needs--to prosecute a
war. Such a planet represents a major logistical asset--
particularly if it is in the Outlands and on the anticipated
route of advance into enemy territory. So until the big boys
stop playing with their big toys, planets must think twice before
becoming TOO efficient. Is this disgusting, a tragic waste of
opportunity (and ultimately, life)? You betcha. Is it avoidable;
probably not. Would-be conquerors and military
hierarchs traditionally lose sight of human values the deeper
they go into their `victory at any cost' mode. Consider the cry
of some of this country's oddball reactionary conservatives dur-
ing the early Sixties: better Dead than Red. The sentiment gets
its monstrous aspect not from the implied political resolve of
the speaker, but from the implied alternative; global nuclear war
to support their desire. Proof positive of the capacity of indi-
viduals to lose sight of how their opinions/objectives become
more than personal choices, but in fact, come to dominate a much
wider social sphere (or in this case, a whole BIOsphere!).
I am not saying all this to suggest that your assessments are
wrong or ill-considered, Hans. Quite the contrary; I think they
are RIGHT. I simply feel that the timing is a little off. Men
on a sinking ship rarely spend time considering how they want to
upgrade the cannon; they think of nothing other than saving the
ship. Rudders must be fixed, breaches sealed, water bailed, be-
fore they will even tolerate suggestions that there are other
considerations. The construction of a new, independent fleet is,
alas, an `other consideration.' Add to this the fact that a siz-
able chunk of the body politic is not likely to accept that the
Imperium HAS gone away for good. These people would see the con-
struction of a home fleet as (at best) a betrayal of faith in the
Imperium--at worst, an act of treason (to whomever they consider
the rightful Emperor).
I absolutely agree with your implication that a major use of
jump-capable security craft would be as convoy escorts. And in-
deed, such flotillas would rarely be at risk from pirates of even
the largest caliber. However, what convoys get that type of pro-
tection? My answer is this; only those that are carrying ab-
solute essentials, which I would define as food (if needed) or
parts relevant to the maintenace of tech level and defense as-
sets. Everything else (ie; commerce in general) must simply
wait. And while it waits, it withers and dies. Economies turn
inward. The demand for external trade diminishes. The retooling
for self-sufficiency reduces the need for going to other stellar
systems. If the basic strategy of survival-through-self works,
the need for escorted convoys drops off.
Generally, you can't have it both ways, particularly if there are
limited resources, and much of that resource base (TL) is unsure:
you must either go for self-sufficiency or maintenance of inter-
stellar ties. The latter is too big a job at first; even the
biggest world must put its own house in order prior to ex-
pansionist thought (and providing a protective envelope for trade
and resource pooling is expansionist, in these terms).
But now on to an area of questionable self-sufficiency; food.
>Surely a world like Promise _must_ have been mostly selfsuffi
>cient. Try calcu-lating the merchant fleet you would've needed
>to import food for just 10% of the population of Promise. I once
>worked out that a jump-1 cargo carrier could have approx. 50%
>cargo space. A ship can make 12 round trips per year. Thus each
>ton of cargo ship can import 6 tons of food per ton of ship. Fig-
>ured at 1 kg of food concentrate per day an individual needs
>(roughly) 1/3 ton of food per year. That means each ton of ship
>can support 18 individuals (call it 20). To import food for 500
>million people you need a cargo fleet of 25 million tons. Now try
>basing your economy on importing, say, most of your electronics
>parts and add the ships you need for that. You wind up with a
>quite litterally astronomic number of ships. Medium sized worlds
>could get away with that kind of economy, because they can use
>their neighbouring high-pop world's trade fleet, but high-
>population worlds _cannot_ base their economy on imports.
>
>And of course, accepting your premise, you get a much larger
>catastrophe. If a high-population world really did base their
>economy on importing their food, then a cessation of interstellar
>trade wouldn't just reduce their technology a few levels. It
>would precipitate a civil war that would severely reduce the pop-
>ulation and propably balkanize the planet (Now, that would bea
>way to get rid of those pesky high-pop worlds). A world like
>Promise (startype M1 V = total artificial environment) might
>even be totally depopulated.
Hmm... interesting. My math suggests a few differences. First
of all, I propose using the `modular' design approach put forward
in One Small Step (pg 83 HT, or a past issue of Challenge). Make
the central hull the equivalent of a jump tender. The other 95 %
are no-frills cargo hulls; just big grain silos in space. If you
make the central tender 500 KT to 1 MT, you'll find that one ship
can haul A LOT of food. Furthermore, my estimate re: food is
that the whole foodstuff is not economical to transport; only the
necessary sustenance components (sugars, proteins, vitamins, some
starches). Fully dehydrated and compressed, I think you can get
a person day into about .25 liters.. Mating this with `bulk fil-
lers' (from algae tanks on the high-pop world) at the destination
would give you your food.
However, I fully agree with you that COMPLETE food importation is
still beyond the A-population worlds (and is economically un-
feasible for the pop-9's UNLESS they own and operate their own
food-transport vessels...). If it seems like I was suggesting
this, I'm sorry-- I do not mean to do so. However, I do maintain
that complete self-sufficiency is also unlikely. First of all,
assuming that only 2 % of a population can afford something other
than the basic `protein cake' of fortified, baked algae paste
(which probably tastes worse than cardboard), this still means
hunreds of millions of people. A big market, where a `luxury'
food item is wheat, meat, fruit; anything other than those bland,
frisbee-like cakes of Soylent Green fame.
Let's assume that 2-5 % of each world do rely on these off-world
`delicacies.' I would also assume that there is actually a fur-
ther deficit of food, simply because although you can grow LOTs
of algae cheaply, the necessary nutrients can only come from one
of four sources;
1) off-world supplies
2) chemical synthesis from basic organic molecules
3) reprocessed wastes
4) reprocessed, um... `neighbors'
Option 4 IS Soylent Green and is probably still a social taboo
violation (I HOPE so!). #3 will hardly be popular, and watch out
for a breakdown in qc! Fatal food poisonings a plenty! (And
processed wastes is probably the only biomass of sufficient
volume on a hi-pop world to be the growing culture for the basic-
mass additive, the algae. Makes those little grey cakes more ap-
pealing than ever!)
#2 is a nice idea, but gives you the same problem as number one;
if the environment does not come ready-equipped with the chemi-
cal/catalyst raw stocks, you have to import.
So #1 probably still gets used, particularly in the sense of
transshipment of protein, sugar, and vitamin additives to the al-
gae paste. However, with FULL reduction to the basic compounds,
(i.e.; toss the starches) you can get a person-day of nourishment
into as little as .1 liters.
One last comment; I do NOT think that all this is a logical prog-
nostication of interstellar development (based on the assumptions
of the jump drive as defined). As you will note in my last mes-
sage on TML, I think the UWP generation process creates some un-
tenable results (or at least creates some results in unrealistic
quantity; the nature of hi-pop worlds as being possible on in-
hospitable planets is, in my opinion, the worst of this). How-
ever, Traveller exists as is. We can either choose to throw away
the high-pop worlds (and thereby change fundamental drivers
within the game universe) or try to find explanations.
Your explanation--that the worlds are all essentially self-
sufficient--is a perfectly good variant. However, I feel it begs
one question; HOW did those worlds with inhospitable atmospheres
and hi-populations really evolve? Environment costs big bucks--
and the gruesome reality is that a planet without food, air,
shelter (other than rock which must be bored out), or water is
going to compel leaders to discover an affordable alternative;
mandatory sterilization. Unless the Imperium is dominated by a
wild-eyed fertility cult, all those teeming bodies would not have
been born if they do not represent some kind of valuable asset.
Given the autocratic governmental tendencies of such hi-pop
societies, you can bet that harsh population control measures--
whatever they might be--would have been proposed and enforced.
And probably, eventually willingly espoused by the inhabitants.
Fewer people in a finite environment almost always means a higher
quality of life for those within it--until you fall beneath the
thresh-hold population required for techno-social maintenance at
the established level.
My point is this; if those populations are not in fact of benefit
to the society, why have they not been reduced to acceptable size
long ago? Most global overpopulation today is the result of a
changing reality outstripping social adjustment. Most overpopu-
lated regions on Earth are so because infant mortality plummeted
in the 20th Century and because the individuals in those
`rescued' societies are still having large families--a necessity
up until the infant mortality rate took its plunge. Now, how-
ever, the institution of the large family is a time-honored tra-
dition; it was socially and economically wise for so long that it
has achieved a position that exceeds its utilitarian value. It
now is a component that defines the culture. However, in several
generations, that will probably change (barring the intervention
of reactionary religion); persistant misery has a way of upset-
ting traditions.
Taking this to our Imperial model, we find no evidence of per-
vasive religious fanaticism, nor any evidence that those areas
with theocratic rulers are disposed toward maximum fertility, no
matter the costs. So it would seem that there must be a reason
why populations would remain high, since large-family traditions
are unlikely to endure the stresses of these environments, and
there seems to be no religious issue to maintain high levels of
procreation.
So, I went to the other option: that those masses were, in some
way, economically desirable. Why? Cheap labor, even as sources
of huge (and cheap) merc organizations that put money in the lo-
cal tillers (a sort of industrialized version of the Dorsai no-
tion). My solution begs a different question; what about automa-
tion and the reduction of labor? WHY use all these bodies in-
stead of machines? GOOD question--to which I can only answer,
humans are only more expensive in the LONG term. Machine
alternatives have a high start up cost; savings follow. And bes-
ides, any move toward automation generally is received with
worker suspicion, even worker violence. I posit that many of the
high-pop worlds are slowly trimming their numbers back as they
slowly add more automation to their industrial mix. (And
certainly, the Imperium's on-off discomfort with robots in gener-
al will tend to help lend a sense of thematic unity to this
alternative explanation.)
However, I completely concur with your assertion that Hard Times
WILL introduce a food shortage; no doubt about it. Bulk material
will probably not be lacking (the algae should be plentiful), but
the necessary nutrients will. I think we'd see malnutrition more
than classical starvation, with governments giving less `essen-
tial' social members algae cakes with fewer nutritive additives.
In areas where any of the algae growing media have been damaged
by the war or loss of environment, or power failure (or any of
the other myriad problems that attend violent conflict), we can
also anticipate outright starvation. Most of these assumptions
are built into HT's UWP change format.
However, let me reemphasize; I feel the hi-pop world structure as
defined by Trav/MT is flawed from word go. I do not believe
there is a `right' explanation for the hi-pop world phenomenon,
because the situation has resulted from a game-mechanic. That
game-mechanic is the dark side of one of Traveller's best fea-
tures; the original game's user-friendly, simple system for world
generation. I think this leaves us with two choices; we either
uproot the whole structure and start afresh with our own, more
empirically satisfying vision OR we find a way to explain what is
really a statistical aberration that was never intended.
Yes; I am saying that the king is not wearing clothes. I do not
believe in defending errors in game logic (as many game companies
and designers feel it necessary to do). However, I think we have
to remember that if Traveller hadn't been built (in large part)
upon easy to use, consistent paradigms, it might never have be-
come popular and we might never have heard of it. This doesn't
make statistical wrongs right, but I think it does suggest that
no one game (or rule or supplement) can be all things to all
people, particularly to those of us who like really HARD facts in
our hard sf.
>But what they need is defined by how big the pirate menace is
>(I'm assuming that the nearest rival polity is too far away to
>be a factor yet). Thus the only way pirates could be a sig-
>nificant threat would be if they outnumbered the world's poten-
>tial fleet.
>And IMO Cymon Milligan and Indro the Lightless dosen't come
>close.
>Note the 'significant'. I'm perfectly sure that pirates would
>flourish for a time in the marginal systems. But they won't come
>close to any high-pop world if they know what's good for them.
>Defense has always been a paramount concern of any society. (Any
>threatened society, of course), and I just can't see any world
>putting a higher priority on increasing (or even maintaining) the
>quality of life than on the means to go to hell in their own way.
>If people thought that way England would be a German province
>today.
I went back over the relevant parts of HT and failed to find any
mention that Indro (et al) ever intended to topple Khavle itself;
only to destabilize and disrupt the Accordment. This would be
done by preying on all commercial traffic that was not `convoyed'
with security vessels.
On another, possibly important note, I must say that the ap-
pearance of my name as one of A:V's designers is, umm...somewhat
misleading. Very little --VERY LITTLE--of what I wrote got into
A:V. A:V is actually a vastly cut-down version of another
module. For instance, Milligan et al is not my creation; the
first I ever heard of the name was on TML. I have since received
my copies of A:V. Furthermore, many important aspects of the
Promise Unity (originally called simply, The Promisary) have been
altered.
When I originally proposed HT to Marc, I included a proposed
time-line (that has since been supplanted by the new revision).
I had originally proposed that the Vikings would, by 1130, be
evolving into more of a Varangian guard--much as you suggest
would happen when various worlds might offer them support and
refit in exchange for protection. The Vikings are those raiders
with enough organization, cohesiveness, and honor to actually be
reliable parties to such a contract. The rippers and corsairs
are intrinsically too undependable; the few polities that would
contract with them would regret it. This is why I saw the rip-
pers as all but vanished by 1130, the standard pirates (corsairs)
fading back to pre-war numbers, and the Vikings as finding a
place in the new, evolving political order.
One last comment; re: raiders arriving on hi-pop worlds. I agree
that no smart one would ever go there directly. But the
criminal mind is opportunistic and given to wish-fulfillment fan-
tasies. I envisioned Indro's thought as something like this;
`IF I can disrupt routine trade so much that only Khavle's essen-
tials are being convoyed, perhaps they will be forced to cut
loose the worlds on the rimward extent of the Main as too ex-
pensive to make runs to. Or, perhaps those worlds will break
away and I can gather tribute from them.
Either way, IF that occurs, then perhaps deeper rifts will arise
within Khavle's government itself. Some parties are likely to
feel morally obligated to object to the abandonment of the lesser
planets, others will harden in their self-interest. And where
there is division, there exists the opportunity to feed the
flames of dissent. Where there is enough dissent, there can be
civil strife. And where there is civil strife, there can be
chaos. And if the chaos grows large enough, who knows? Perhaps
I can make alliance with one of the factions, raid their rivals.
You never know . . . '
(A note: none of the lesser worlds discussed are MEMBERS of the
KA, but rather part of the Main that provides the KA with a
larger economic arena and routine contact with more distant trad-
ing and security partners [Margaret, for instance]. If the
worlds along this path are abandoned by the KA entirely, then
raided, eventually eroded to the point where they are isolation-
alistically hostile to any interstellar transits through their
system [and offer an unbroken string of X-class port facilities],
then Indro has some reason to hope for larger success. He would
hope that the KA would begin to suffer decreased external con-
tact, decreased trade in necessary high-tech items from the
nearest Safe, and a further depressed economy. Indro would then
look for this weakening to result in political fracturing, which
he could capitalize on.)
This is of course a prime example of overblown ambition and wish-
fulfillment fantasy. But consider the personality profiles of
the Indro and the other piratical individuals presented; they are
voracious and insatiable. And some such individuals throughout
history (Atilla comes to mind) have been able to indulge those
fantasies with no grander a start than Indro has had.
Granted, Atilla was part of a people that he was able to rally to
him; Indro exists outside such a structure. However, Indro
doesn't necessarily want to see or believe that--AND--if he's
right, if he can receive a letter of marque from one side of a
factional war on Khavle itself, perhaps he CAN manipulate events
to his favor and rise to precedence. The last two centuries of
the Roman Empire offer some good examples of this kind of social
climbing over the bodies of the slain.
>Well, evidently my main gripe with Hard Times is not with you,
>but with GDW. I don't believe in the size of your pirate bands,
>but that is after all a minor disagreement - a question of
>scale rather than kind - but I totally disagree in the view
>that these polities will dry up and blow away in a few years. IMO
>the aftermath (after a few years of recovery) will see a large
>number of these mini-states involved in endless sceemings and
>small wars, with the various big governments all trying to move
>in and even more trying to prevent their rivals from moving in.
>Actually a rather exiting background.
and later:
>Incidentally, have you (or GDW) reflected that if you _don't_
>allow these polities to become reasonably strong, then the Safes
>will, after a few years of recovery, be able to roll over the
>Frontiers, Outlands and Wilds until they meet each other? Or
>perhaps that's what GDW want?
Once again, this reflects the difference between what I had in
mind with HT, and where it seems like things will be left, given
Traveller's upcoming jump forward into time. First of all, your
opinion regarding the aftermath of HT--a balkanized area largely
comprised of polities that would then be involved in byzantine
dealings with competitive factions--is exactly what I had in
mind. By 1130, Hard Times was to be winding down--meaning that
any polity which lasted through to this time had a good chance of
surviving. The more years of indicated duration, the more stable
and sure its survival (note that this made Khavle a `borderline'
case for survival).
However, I couldn't reveal this in HT, not without giving away
some of the changes I foresaw coming in the next stage (1130 and
after). I felt that enough worlds and space would still be un-
claimed to present large reaches of Outland between the estab-
lished polities and factions. I intended this mix of factors to
create an environment with elements of frontier, international
intrique, and opportunities for reclamation of `lost' societies
and planets. I foresaw the Vikings as mercenaries helping to
resist the factions. I saw the factions sending out exploration
and salvage teams, competing for the unclaimed and/or abandoned
worlds during a re-expansion period. Finally, all these forces
would have to band together against a common foe, and then more
synthesis, and then...
Sound like the ever-turbulent stewpot of the Marches from the
`old days' of Traveller? I guarantee you; any similarities you
see are wholly intentional. Marc Miller came up with the best
formula for maintaining a perpetually interesting SF RPG environ-
ment, and my attitude is/was; if it works, don't fix it. The
Rebellion stultified the play environment. HT --and what I had
hoped might follow--was to free it up and return it to the
`golden era' feeling of Traveller. This may be what GDW will try
to accomplish with their new revision; I do not know. I am not
in that decision-making loop.
> there's one big problem with any starspanning RPG campaign:
>That the need for background information far outstrips the ca-
>pacity of all but the most prolific Referee. That's why support
>of a game like Traveller is so important (And that's why I feel
>so let down by GDW's decision to dump most of what they've al-
>ready done and move two generations into the future). But that
>also means that you have to keep your own campaign fairly close
>to the official version. That's not a question of blind
>obedience, it's nessescary to be able to use what is published.
I agree completely, since my foray into writing for games long
post-dates my involvement as player, but primarily, ref.
However, unlike a series of books authored by the same person,
games are almost inevitably patchwork quilts, where many hands
have been at work. Changes in vision mean changes in direction,
and often, inconsistencies. At the very least, a new steersman
may have to cut a few `internal consistency' corners to get the
ship on the new, desired heading. At the same time, it is gener-
ally sacrilege to hold up a hand and say `Oops! We did that last
thing wrong, so we're rewriting things. Now everything will fit
correctly--so just ignore the last three modules. Hope you don't
mind that we're tearing up a lot of what came before.'
To some degree, I think this is what GDW may try to do with their
new revision. I think it is equally motivated by a marketing im-
perative to appeal to a broader audience by making the game more
accessible. I cannot speculate on their success in either
endeavor; I wish them luck.
But back to the point at hand; in the articles and materials I
have published re: MT, I have not only tried to entertain, but to
pull loose ends together. In a sense, that was the raison de
etre of HT; to get MT out of what I felt was the quagmire of the
Rebellion and to illuminate some of the realities of Imperial
life and economic structure.
However, some realities had to be dispensed with, or at least,
made optional. For instance, my personal assessment is that the
loss of life due to the disruption of the Rebellion would have
been MUCH more severe. In fact, it would have been ghastly. TOO
ghastly to put into a role playing game that has to please a gen-
eral audience. If Traveller was a series of novels, I would have
stayed right on the money, damn the torpedoes. But the commer-
cial realities of the gaming market are such that I felt that GDW
would have (rightly) declined to publish anything that reflected
a realistic level of planetary depopulation. Instead, I took a
middle course; I allowed referees to do this themselves, if they
CHOSE to--by using the planetary decline tables. A referee who
wants to avoid the stark and tragic probabilities of the
aftermath can modify die-rolls, or find explanations why each and
every population of a doomed world finds a way to escape or
endure. On the other hand, brutally realistic refs need not
ameliorate the effects; indeed, they may wish to intensify
them...
I think you CAN use HT as is, as much as any other MT product.
In the days BEFORE MT--when the focus of existance was the Mar-
ches and the rest of the Imperium was some vague, off-stage
leviathan--that was different. In my personal opinion, by
delivering to us players what we were clamoring for--a full ex-
plication of the Imperium and its territories--Traveller may have
come perilously close to undoing itself. With everything
revealed, there was no mysterious `quantity' from which we could
derive hyoptheses that would explain away inconsistencies in the
game. Anything unusual in the Marches could have simply been
dismissed as a local aberration. But once we got a look at the
whole elephant, we had the basis for poking holes in the underly-
ing suppositions (or lack thereof).
So now we have to go back and fill in holes. I tried to do that
with HT and still take the game in the direction that GDW was in-
terested in going (at the time I made my product proposal). I'm
not saying the module was a shining success, but I will maintain
that it leaves things better off than they were before. I felt
that Traveller had lost direction entirely and couldn't seem to
extricate itself from the Rebellion because it lacked a new place
to go.
Of course there are still holes to fill, and may always be. I
feel that Traveller has steered a careful course away from hu-
man/cybernetic interface technologies, cloning and other biologi-
cal sciences. In many ways, this is wise, because to introduce
ALL the probable technological ramifications concommitant with TL
13-15 would produce a universe we might find hard to recognize at
all. And if the universe becomes so alien that we poor,
retrograde 20th centuriers don't recognize it, how can we then
referee it or play it? As with all SF and fantasy, the final
threshold is the beholder's capacity for recognition. In a game,
that threshold is lower than in a novel. In a novel, we need
merely follow the author's guidance and be willing to believe.
But in a game, we have to be able to manipulate concrete algo-
rithms that dictate events; in an RPG, reality is not an
autocratic creation of imagination, but a moderated result that
all participants can usually understand.
Whoa! Let's bring that back to earth! I'm just saying that the
further into the future we go, the more we must accept that our
vision is imperfect, that we are compromising and not represent-
ing all the changes that would exist. And if we try to represent
all the changes, we can no longer rely on any of our intuitive,
common-sense knowledge; things are simply too different.
But these concerns are immaterial in the minds of most gamers.
Most gamers want flash and excitement and ENOUGH plausibility for
them to become involved in the experience. More than that is, to
them, an academic and pointless exercise. Who cares if cyber
technology of level x would so change society that the players'
value structures are hopelessly outdated and inappropriate? The
only thing that matters is how colorful and NEAT it is; leave the
logical extrapolation for someone else and pass me that
neuroblaster, oh my little droogie . . .
I gravitated towards Traveller because it tried to encompass both
fun and logical extrapolation, but it has always shown signs of
its mixed pedigree. I don't think one can purge all the in-
consistencies from the game; the best we can do is try to find
plausible explanations that hold the seams together enough. I
write this trying to further share my efforts in that regard--but
just because I wrote HT doesn't mean that my answers are best or
right. True, Marc Miller liked them better than anything else
coming down the pike, and we were in very close step regarding
the nature of the Imperium and what was happening in it. But I
never felt that Marc was selfish or narrow in his view of the
possibilities inherent in Traveller. To him, those areas that
were unaddressed represented possibilities for new development,
not errors. He believed--as I do--that in the process of finding
the explanation, something very interesting and fun can be creat-
ed. What you see here--and in HT--is my attempt to do just that.
Sorry for all the rambling responses, Hans, but I think it is im-
possible to talk about the fiction presented in Traveller without
addressing the issue of what is going on in terms of the actual
mechanics and considerations of game design. Quite simply, there
will never be a perfectly thought-out game, because that would be
a work of art--and gaming has become a business, where the empha-
sis is on Product. Personally, I find that sad, but then again,
I'm a gaming dinosaur. I simply try to live with in-
consistencies, try to find rational (if occasionally unusual) ex-
planations for them, and enjoy the whole. With HT, I hoped to
try to pull a bunch of thoughts and explanations together, make a
fun environment that also re-empowered individual players and
perhaps suggest a workable model of Imperial society (which in
turn might illustrate why it was so susceptible to disruption).
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