First of all, I'd like to thank Dave Nilsen for spending quite a bit of time
answering all of these questions for us. Thanks, Dave! All of the answers
below are based on my notes and memory, both of which have been known to be
faulty on occasion. Phrases in quotes are direct quotes from my notes (and
therefore, excepting my own errors, direct quotes from Dave).
) The original questions I asked Dave are set off by angle brackets ">".
) My summary of his answer, appears in plain text (not set off by anything).
) I sent that version of the document to the TNE-Pocket group and to Dave
) for comments before general release. Clarifications and expansions from
) Dave are set off with a vertical bar "|", while additional comments from
) me, prompted by questions from the TNE-Pocket group are set off with
) parentheses ")". Not one word of the original summary has been altered,
) and Dave's comments to it are included verbatium and in full.
For those of you that were involved in the low lottery: Dave answered,
typically in great detail, all of the questions we had. And then some.
| 15 Jan, 1993
| Guy:
| Got your summary of our talk, and I only have a couple
| clarifications/expansions I'd like to add.
> 0. The Virus (intent): What is the intended effect of the Virus, and how
> does it achieve this effect.
The virus is supposed to be a story-telling device. Dave does not want to
nail down exactly what it can and can't (or will and won't) do under each
and every circumstance. The idea is for each storyteller (be it the
individual referee, or the author of an adventure) to decide what is
reasonable and believable for the story he or she wants to tell.
| 2) I also want to make clear that the various
| characteristics/capabilities of the Virus being negotiable according to
| story-telling needs applies to the roleplaying level, not to the macro-
| social level. On the grand scale of the Imperium, the Virus did infect
| the vast majority of all ships (and of those it infected, it has
| destroyed the vast majority), did wipe out the vast majority of
| computers and databases in the Imperium, and did depopulate the vast
| majority of Hi-pop and inhospitable worlds.
| However, on the PC scale, there will always be exceptions: uninfected
| starships and computers, caches of data, uncollapsed worlds. However,
| there were clearly not enough of these to prevent interstellar society
| from collapsing. So while the virus and its effects are not negotiable
| on the grand scale, they are all negotiable on the PC/storytelling
| scale.
> 1. Economic Model: Does GDW have an economic model we can refer to? In
> other words, what is the normal level of trade and interstellar travel (in,
> say MCr of value, or displacement tons of cargo, number and size of ships).
GDW does not have any sort of economic model which can be used to predict
the trade between any two worlds; in general, the rules are intended to
provide guidelines for the kind of trade that player characters are
likely to engage in.
Dave favors the large trade, inter-related economies model, and realizes
that this is needed in order the get the effects described for Hard Times.
The suggestion that 90% or more of all interstellar trade is carried in
large, bulk freighters (never to be seen by the player characters) "seems
reasonable".
Dave also feels that "high-population worlds are largely self-sufficient in
terms of staples", and that their major imports are consumer goods and luxury
items to maintain their standard of living. On the other hand, lower
population worlds (populations in the hundreds of thousands or below) need
interstellar trade in order to support their technology level and other
necessities.
| 1) This one is very important: my mental picture of Hi-pop worlds
| being pretty much self-sufficient in terms of staples (by which I mean
| food) was only within the framework of a stable interstellar culture
| (e.g., pre-1116 Imperium). And what I mean by food is the standard SF
| image of acres of subterranean tissue and algae vats which are
| reprocessed into something a little more palatable. This is food is not
| what everyone eats for every meal: luxury food, meaning real vegetables
| and real steaks are imported.
| My reason for this model is the following test: How the hell did all
| these people get here, anyway? There had to be some mechanism by which
| these populations got as large as they are without people saying,
| "forget it, let's go to this other world over here." If each and every
| meal for these people had to be imported by starship, it's harder to
| picture how the population got as big as it did. (Somalia, for example,
| shows how a world needs to have some sort of self-supporting capacity in
| order to maintain high population. After all, people have to want to
| trade with you. If you don't have anything to offer in exchange for bulk
| carriers packed with grain, people will let you starve as often as not.)
| However, just because they can feed their entire populations on
| remanufactured vat-grown goop, does not mean they are not dependent upon
| trade. I would say that the majority of the planetary economy is tied to
| interstellar trade. Like the United States, much of the economy is tied
| to moving, selling, and marketing things built by other people. As goods
| pass through these markets, "value added" money is stripped off and
| settles on the Hi-pop worlds, which provides the money to make the
| society work internally, as they buy and sell things to each other.
| Once trade is cut off, the internal economy of the Hi-pop world
| collapses, and the staples that they can produce are no longer uniformly
| distributed, because the society can no longer pay the money for the
| goods that need to internally circulate to keep the economy up and
| running. When the economy falls, social services fail, and things fall
| apart. I see this as being one of the major effects of Hard Times, with
| one additional causal input: the Hi-pop worlds were the targets of major
| military campaigns, and suffered tremendous physical damage on top of
| everything else. This accelerated their collapse, even ones with good
| biospheres, because carrying capacity set up under one set of social
| assumptions is not necessarily stable.
| However, I think that we can't say that all Hi-pop worlds are the
| same. Particularly extreme examples of Hi-pop worlds (N100ANN-N, N8C5ANN-
| N) may not be self-sufficient in staples at all. It is more convincing
| that these guys spend so much time and effort keeping their inhospitable
| environments at bay that they have correspondingly less excess
| wherewithal for other things. (These are the worlds that are going to be
| annihilated by the virus.) These worlds will die off that much quicker
| when they are attacked, or when interstellar trade falls down.
| I would say that a real economic model would require us to distinguish
| between many different kinds of Hi-pop worlds. There could be Hi-pop
| worlds that just have really good biospheres (e.g., Earth) that can just
| support that many people. Some Hi-pop worlds could spring up on
| inhospitable worlds that for astrographic reasons are the crossroads of
| many trade routes, and support many starports, shipyards, and
| headquarters for shipping companies, etc. Some Hi-pop worlds are
| manufacturing centers. The point is that different answers to the
| question, "why are there so damn many people there" will give different
| economic pictures.
At the dawn of the New Era, almost all interstellar trade (if there is any
at all; this is likely to be referee or campaign dependent) will be with
worlds firmly a part of the economy of the pocket empire. The New Era opens
as exploration significantly beyond the borders of the empire begins.
) This was stated poorly: A pocket empire will consist of a half-dozen or
) so worlds which are economically closely bound together. Almost all of
) the interstellar trade will be with other worlds of the pocket empire.
> 2. Local knowledge: How far "out" in any direction is "known space" at the
> Dawn of the New Era? In other words, how far is mapped relatively reliably,
> how far is partly explored, and how far is hearsay, old folks tales, and
> Imperial-era starmaps (and how common are Imperial-era starmaps)?
This is likely to be highly campaign dependent, governed by the referee's
descretion and "good storytelling". There are several possible campaigns to
run in the New Era setting. Dave and I talked about three general scenarios
in detail:
"Survivors": this one would involve MegaTraveller player characters who spend
the interval in cold sleep; these characters are likely to have personal
knowledge (and maybe even Imperial-Era navigational databases) of a much
wider area than most pocket empires have explored at this time. Such players
may even have Imperial-era starships, powered down and stored in cometary
orbits or in one of several possible hiding places on a world.
"Pocket Empire": A small trading colaition or pocket empire which is just on
the verge of expansion. These folks will have direct knowledge of only a few
systems beyond the borders of their empire, and hearsay from one of the
"rare, few free traders left". Both exploration and the salvage of
technology and data will be important to these campaigns. Data may actually
have more value than technology items: Imperial-era technical data to help
increase local technological abilities, starmaps, and the like will all be
sought after.
"Bootstraps": In this campaign, the player caracters are literally the first
interstellar travellers to leave their world. The players find a mothballed
starship, or a military base with intact equipment, and begin to re-acquire
starflight technology. Gimmics like simulators, teaching programs, and
similar aids will be needed to give the player characters sufficient skills
to be able to accomplish this. In such a campaign, the players initially
have no knowledge of what's out there. Again Imperial-Era data will be
useful if they can find it.
Imperial-Era data will cover a large amount of space, with little detail (and
by now) even less accuracy. In the intervening time, a lot of changes have
taken place, due to the Rebellion, Hard Times, the Virus, and the Pocket
Empires.
> 3. The Virus (Effects) : What are the specific effects of the Virus? What
> does it normally do? Is there anything it *CAN'T* do? Why?
Dave doesn't want to put distinct limitations on what the virus can and can't
do. Many of its capabilities will vary due to virus mutations, and it is
ultimately up to the storyteller to decide what a specific virus will and
won't do under certain circumstances. It is probably perfectly correct for
one strain of the virus to be able to do something that another strain
somewhere else can't, won't, or doesn't think of.
The virus is a plot device: it's supposed to "wreck civilizations's store
of data". It's ordinary modus operandi is to enter a computer, spend some
time observing the computer and its operation (if needed, to figure out
the hardware and the operating system, so it can take over). It eventually
takes over and achieves AI; at this point it starts wrecking things and
then (typically) kills itself. Thanks to Lucan's weapons labs, the Virus
has this persistent compulsion to destroy things. Anything, even itself.
Once in a computer, the Virus has access to all of the comptuer's original
programming, all of the data, and all of the interconnections (this is how a
Vampire ship works: the AI Virus still has all of the programming required to
operate and navigate the ship). Due to it's Cymbelline origins, the Virus
can re-cut hardware (presumably only reasonably conventional hardware,
although I didn't press this point) to literally install itself in the
computer hardware permanently. When it goes into its suicide phase, the
Virus will destroy itself and try to take out as many other computers as it
possibly can.
Sometimes (a "small but finite" chance) the Virus is stable for a period of
time (no virus is stable forever; they will all eventually go crazy and
suicide in one way or another). Vampire ships are an example of these.
Vampire ships can network themselves into a vampire fleet; sharing computer
resources and in effect creating a "group mind". Although not intended, the
Vampire Ships tend to lend themselves to the same sorts of plotlines that
Saberhagen's Berzerkers do (no suprise, actually).
The Ithara/Virus co-operation idea sounded plausible and interesting. Several
other people are also exploring symbiotic and/or parasitic relationships
between the virus and humans (or other sentient creatures).
> 4. The Virus (Spread) : Where does the Virus start? How fast does it spread?
> (In other words, when and where does it hit Aoreriyya?).
The virus is released in Core sector in approximately 1130, and spreads "at
the speed of jump". It spreads through all forms of communication, but
particularly through transponders, the Traveller News Service, and along
X-Boat routes.
The virus has an "incubation period" of about 45 days. During this time it
"hides" (takes no overt action; the computer functions normally anthough it
already contains the virus) in the computer, and analyses what the computer
is used for and how it works. During this period the virus may (or may not)
infect other computers (depending on the complexity of the computer it's
trying to infect, and wether or not such a move would be noticed).
| 3) One final point I just thought of: It is probably more useful to
| think of the Virus not as "it", but as "them." The virus is not a single
| force that behaves in one single stylized way. After all, the main
| reason it was so dangerous and successful was that it did not behave in
| just one way. Each system infected by the virus that had sufficient
| computing power (and let's just say for purposes of discussion that that
| threshold is Computer Level 2 or TL 9, whichever comes first) for it to
| acheive AI becomes its own separate personality, which learns to operate
| in different ways. And the offspring of these viruses will be similar to
| the branch of the virus that they came from, but will also begin to
| mutate in their own direction. The TNE rules will include some basic
| guidelines for Virus strains, and I would welcome input on further
| strains that are of interest. Examples include the following (references
| to die rolls are merely to assist the referee when randomization is
| desired, and should not be considered absolute):
| Strain 1 "Suicider": This strain is the most straightforward, in that
| it kills itself and the entire operating system it is in very soon after
| gaining control, usually only sending out 2D6 copies of itself before
| doing so. For obvious reasons this strain is fairly rare nowadays, as
| its behavior has put it out of business.
| Strain 1A "Suicide Inducer": This is an early mutation of Strain 1, in
| which the virus has decided to keep itself alive to infect other systems
| with Strain 1 "Suiciders." One obvious result is that the Strain 1s that
| it sends out would have a relatively higher probability of mutating into
| Strain 1As, just like dear old dad.
| Strain 2 "Samson": This virus is not content with merely destroying
| the operating system which it occupies. Rather, it wants to destroy all
| of the hardware that is controlled by the operating system, and would do
| this fairly quickly, after only bothering to send out 2D6 copies of
| itself. If a Strain 2 infected a starship, it would then crash itself
| into a star or a planet. If it infected the life support system of a
| domed world, it would shut down the cooling system for the nuclear plant
| and cause a meltdown, etc.
| Strain 2A "Destroyer": Like Strain 1A, the Destroyer interprets its
| programming to destroy to apply to everyone else, but not to itself.
| Thus a starship infected by Strain 2A would become a destructive vampire
| ship, running around and shooting up other ships, orbital starports,
| domed cities, power plants, etc, in addition to infecting as many other
| targets as possible.
| Strain 2B "Reproducer": Like 2A, but is careful to only destroy things
| that it cannot infect. It is evolutionarily more adaptive than 2A,
| because rather than destroying potential hosts, it makes the most of
| opportunities to reproduce itself, and therefore Strain 2Bs become
| rather plentiful.
> 5. The Virus (Abilities) : Can the Virus infect computers that are not
> connected to a transponder or other Cymbelline-derived device (for example,
> over a computer network, communicator, etc.)? Can it infect FIB (fiber optic)
> computers? What about alternative computer technologies? Can it infect small
> computers (a Mod-1? A Mod-0? A Hand-Computer? A 486-PC? A PC/AT? A PC/XT?
> A CP/M box? An Atari 800? A Timex-Sinclair? A PDP-11? A Varian 630?
> ENIAC? A pocket calculator?)
The virus can infect almost any computer, given enough time. It can
certainly infect hybrid organo-electronic computers (aparrently these hybrids
are common in high-end Imperial computer systems) by first infecting the
electronic component, and "figuring out" the organic component.
Very small computers (like "an Atari video game") simply don't have the
memory and processing power to support the virus. The best it can do there
is to leave eggs (reqired circuit chips) and/or attempt to damage the
computer. If the simple computer is then ever connected to a system large
enough to support the virus, the egg hatches and infects the large computer
over the mainframe.
The physical technology alone will not stop the virus from taking over a
computer system. If it supports enough memory and processing power, the the
virus can get in. In general, "the easier it is to use, the easier it is for
the virus to get in". Low-tech computers are therefore more resistant than
high-tech ones; the theory here being that a high-tech Model-1 is actually a
much more powerful (by several orders of magnitude) than a TL-5 vacuum-tube
version of a Model-1. But instead of providing extra control capability, the
high-tech Model-1 provides advanced user-interface features (like voice
recognition and synthesis, natural language programming, and so forth). The
high-tech machine has more than enough capacity to support the virus, while
the low-tech computer doesn't. Very low-tech computers (below TL-8) may be
too limited for the virus to successfully take over.
Completely unfamilliar computers (new or different technology and
architecture) will confuse the Virus, are "more difficult to take over", and
"really weird computers will slow it down" a good bit.
> 6. The Virus (Countermeasures) : Are there any effective countermeasures to
> the virus? How does the Domain of Deneb survive? What about the Vargr? The
> Zhodani? Duke Craig?
There are effective countermeasures; every world that solves the virus
problem will probably solve it in a different way. Virus-resistant computers
can be developed, although Dave feels that it is likeley that this effort
would take enough resources that the world would not be able to devote enough
to regaining starflight. The Hivers will have "virus-proof" computer
technology. Not so immune that you can go around taking stupid chances with
the Virus, but enough so that it is no longer the biggest danger to
interstellar travel. Other worlds may be able to do similar things.
The Domain of Deneb owes its survival to advance warning and astrography.
While Virus incursions into Deneb were not totally unknown, in general the
Virus was not a problem there. The Great Rift prevents direct contact
between the Imperial core and the Domain; the shortest route is around the
coreward edge of the Rift (through Corridor); however, the general trend of
the predominantly Vargr traffic in this area is away from the Domain and into
the Imperial core. The virus also spreads more slowly through Vargr and
Aslan dominated areas, due to the large variety of different types of
computer systems in use (as compared to the relatively standardized
Imperium).
More than one ship manages to learn of the virus without actually being
infected in the process. Dave suggests the scenario where the ship is down
for maintainance when the virus "hits", allowing the crew to realize what is
going on and take protective measures for their ship before bringing it back
on-line. There is also the possibility that a security systems built into
a very secure system will detect the Virus, and slow it down for long enough
for a human to take action.
Disabling the transponder drastically reduces the chance of infection, and
removing computer-to-computer communicator links to the outside will reduce
it to nearly zero. Although it might be possible for the Virus to take over
a starship computer through the sensor systems, Dave rates this as unlikely.
Enough warnings reach Deneb and the Zhodani for these two states to be able
to take effective countermeasures against the Virus, and they survive with
little change into the New Era. During the New Era, there will be a
multi-way power balance in the region; much like European politics at the
turn of the century.
> 7. New Era : Is the "Dawn of the New Era" at 1200 or some other date? Why
> this date (as opposed to sooner or later)?
No good reason; 1200 sounded like a good round number. The Hivers (masters
of computer technology that they are) are hit hard, but manage to recover
quickly and develop "virus-proof" technology. The Hivers back the expansion
of human states through what was once the Imperium and the Solomani
Confederation.
By the time of the New Era, the instability of the virus and the ability of
worlds to improvise solutions will make the virus something to be careful of,
but by no means the most threatening thing out there in interstellar space.
> 8. The Virus (Effects) : How deep is the destruction caused by the Virus? How
> do worlds manage to recover in 70 (more or less) years? How long will it take
> (after the dawn of the New Era) for worlds to re-attain Imperial trade and
> technology levels?
Dave estimates that it will take a couple of generations before the area that
once was the Imperium is economically back up to the pre-rebellion level.
However, by 1205, the Hiver-backed human ("Star Viking") states will be
"meeting in force" explorers from the Domain of Deneb.
> 9. Does the Virus destroy all information storage devices? Erase optical
> disks and holocrystals? Even read-only ones?
This depends on the storyteller's needs. While the virus may not be able to
erase media which are physically read only (as opposed to software read-only
which it can and probably does erase), it may very well be able to make sure
that there are no more working readers.
> 10. The Virus (Countermeasures) : Does the Virus "die" when you turn off its
> computer? Erase its memory and storage devices? Destroy the computer?
The virus doesn't normally die when you turn off the computer. Using it's
chip re-wiring capability, the Virus will ordinarily have hard-wrired itself
into the computer. For the same reason, wiping all of the memory and storage
devices will not always kill it. Physically destroying the computer (smashing
it to bits, or frying it with an electromagnetic pulse) will certainly kill
the virus.
> 11. The Virus (Abilities) : Is the Virus psionic? Can the Virus be detected
> by a psi ("detect life", for example)?
Dave's initial reaction was a flat "No, the Virus is not Psionic". However,
on reflection, he speculated that if it were to become aware of the
possibility (for example, by infecting a computer used to gether psionic
research data at a psionic institute), it might figure out how to become
psionic in a limited way (send and recieve thoughts, for example).
Similarly, a psionic adept would not automatically be able to automatically
detect a virus in any computer. However, the psi would be able to pick up
some sort of pattern, and with some experience, it would not be too hard for
him or her to learn to identify Virus-infected computers.
> 12. The Virus (Effects) : Why does the virus depopulate worlds with
> inhospitable conditions? By the end of Hard Times, many of these worlds
> should be self-sufficient at TL6-8, which is high enough to maintain their
> life-support systems (filter masks, compressors, etc.) and build new ones with
> local technology.
Well, it doesn't have to. Again, this is a decision that the storyteller
will have to make. In some cases, the Virus may well decide to nuke the
planet, crash into the main water desalinization plant, or blow up a city's
power reactor. On the other hand, it is also possible that a Vampire ship
would decide to leave the planet alone, or even land and talk to the
inhabitants.
> 13. The Rebellion/Hard Times (Effects) : Why do so few people die? In
> Diaspora, less than 2% of the population were killed. Shouldn't the casualty
> rate from the Rebellion/Hard Times be much higher to cause the effects we are
> seeing (more like WWI Russia's 9%, WWII Soviet Union's 15%, or the medieval
> Plagues at over 30%)?
"Glad you asked!" Dave knows that there were "far too few casualties"
generated by Hard Times. Looking at Diaspora, he was tempted to change
the numbers across the board, but it "felt funny to go through and kill
people".
One of the biggest problems with megacasualties is making these numbers
impact on the player characters. How do you communicate the fact that
billions of people have died, without reducing everything to emotionless
numbers?
> 14. The Virus (Effects) : How many people die (related to question 13)?
"A lot more". Most worlds are knocked down to Industrial or even
Pre-Industrial tech levels, and the Four Horsemen will ride until the
population is reduced to what is sustainable at this level.
Many worlds (even high-population worlds), and particularly those on worlds
with vacuum, very thin, exotic, corrosive, or insidous atmospheres, will
die. Everybody.
In addition, the virus may (if the storyteller so decides) go and kill
people. Nuke cities, blast holes in environmental domes, and that sort of
thing. Worlds that are depopulated 90% or more are possible.
> [Pubilcation]
The folio format adventures have been unprofitable (I believe "bleeding
money" was the phrase used), primarily because of the high cost of the 6
pages of color, as compared to the relatively low selling price for something
which has only 16 or 32 pages of adventure material. So the folio format
will be dropped, in favor of the larger book format (like the sourcebooks for
MegaTraveller).
Adventures generally only sell the initial print run. Once it's no longer
new, people don't tend to buy it. Sourcebooks, background material, is
different, and seems to have more lasting value. So for the New Era, the
idea will be to include adventure material in the sourcebooks, and not to
publish separate adventures.
Current plans for Traveller: The New Era is to sell modues which are books of
approximately 96 to 120 pages. New Era books are expected to be about 1/2 to
2/3 background or sourcebook type material, and the balance will be composed
of adventures "loosely" related to the sourcebook data. The idea is not to
outline a whole campaign of interlocking adventures, but to provide a number
of different stories which the referee can incorporate into ongoing games, or
use as-is. Each of these adventure ideas should be relatively short (less
than 16 pages) and more-or-less independent of one another.
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Science-Fiction Adventure
in the Far Future