Re: The Imperium

I once ran a campaign for a short time based on post-holocaust Earth (this
was before the advent of Twilight 2000/Traveller 2300).  It was totally
different from any other Traveller game that I have played.  I based it on
the premise that the Third World War was truly devasting and led to wild
mutations, etc.  That way I could throw in some curves (monsters).  I even
took some Gamma World monsters and converted them into Traveller form (it
was actually very simple to do).

Here's how the campaign went:

The character (in my case there was only one player) started out in post-
holocaust Earth fighting to survive.  He had quite a few skills and great
physical attributes, but no technical training (imagine a barbarian, only
tougher and smarter).  This was, of course, due to the daily rigors of
survival in a post-holocaust Earth.

After a bit of time spent just trying to survive and rebuilding some of
Earth's cities, the character came upon a crashed spaceship.  Exploring
the ship was somewhat hazardous and didn't reveal much anyway, but
eventually the owners of the ship came looking for it.  They had known
about the war on Earth, but were "too late" to stop it, and didn't know
that life was returning to the planet, or, in fact, that anyone was still
alive.  This is what the character was told, at least.  What actually
happened was that the alien race had seen the impending menace of humanity
and used their guile to cause a nuclear conflict on the Earth.  They were
quite upset at the fact that humanity had managed to start rebuilding so
soon (the character had played a big role in this earlier).

Rather than tipping their hands, the aliens pretended to be "friends" and
offered to help rebuild what was left of humanity.  We never finished the
campaign, but it was left off with the human leaders willing to accept
the aliens' aid without question, but the character was already starting
to get suspicious about certain discrepancies in the aliens' stories.  The
aliens also used slave labor from conquered races, and the character would
eventually have discovered this, since he was learning to use the alien
technology alot faster than he let on.  One interesting twist is that the
aliens had used the war as an excuse to grab tens of thousands of humans,
which they had bred and used as slave labor.  By this point there were
millions of humans being used as slaves throughout the nearby stars.

I made a great effort to use real nearby stars when devising this campaign
in order to add a more realistic feel (the Near Star List would have been
a great help at that time).  With any luck, the character would have
discovered a rebellion ready to happen among many slaves, and maybe even
saved a few humans along the way.  Actually, the character would be more
likely crossed by human slaves than by other aliens -- humans are less
reliable than most races.

It was an interesting campaign -- too bad we both left for college and
never got to finish it.

By the way, this was a long time ago, so I don't remember any of the
details, although I probably still have my campaign notes somewhere...

Gerald S. Williams : [email removed] : AT&T Bell Laboratories
[address removed]

P.S.  If you were looking for a history where, for instance, the Third
Imperium survived, then simply use the old Traveller setting.  Many
campaigns developed in that setting (including some I've been in).  I'm
sure that many people who had already developed elaborate campaigns
didn't want to screw them up by introducing the Shattered Imperium.  A
common one I have seen is the Solomani Revolt, where Earth decides
enough is enough and kicks some Imperial ass.  I personally liked the
idea of a conquered Earth.  In my campaigns in the Third Imperium, the
people of Earth were actually happier under Third Imperium rule, since
they had been tired of fighting and didn't really care who ran the
government anyway.  (Of course there were some who would have preferred
home rule anyway. 8-)