On the Virus

          How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Virus:

     Okay.  I've read _Survival Margin_.  I've read _Arrival
Vengeance_.  I've read _Hard Times_, the Rebellion sourcebook,
and the New Era rulebook.
     And somehow I'm still not convinced that destroying
thousands of (albeit imaginary) worlds and killing trillions of
(admittedly notional) sophonts is the right way to go about
revising your rules system.
     Like many of the people on this list, I'm a bit
uncomfortable with the Virus.  Here's why:

     I *like* the Third Imperium.  I agree with Strephon:  "Shall
not perish...shall not perish."  The idea of a community of
autonomous worlds, each free to chart its own path under the
umbrella of a benevolent Imperium, is an attractive one to me.
     The Rebellion Era background, it seems to me, is informed to
a large extent by the American Civil War.  By that I mean:  the
issue, ultimately, is in both cases to decide the fundamental
nature of a federal government "conceived in liberty".
     That may sound like a boring question, but it really isn't.
The workings of government are the game mechanics of freedom, if
I may be excused for drawing such a metaphor.  They're important.
     Unleashing the Virus put the brakes on how that issue gets
resolved, in our fictional Traveller universe at least.  And
that's an unsatisfying resolution to a rather dramatic story.

     "But who won?" one asks.
     "Oh," says GDW.  "Nobody.  Everybody dies at the end."

     Dave Nilsen (I think) has Dr. Kuligaan seemingly argue in
_Survival Margin_ that to resolve the Rebellion in victory or
compromise would be to fool (imaginary Traveller universe)
humanity into believing that it could routinely walk along the
brink of the abyss without plunging over.
     So to make this point absolutely clear, the logic seems to
be, we have to kill *practically everyone* in Charted Space and
send most of the rest back into the Stone Age.  I dunno.  I think
there may be a better way to make PCs, at least, understand how
high the stakes are.
     Because the question of how to best rule 11,000 worlds
hasn't been resolved, and seems to be part of what drives
the RCES' Star Vikings and the Regency, with its newer, more
democratic institutions.  But the Virus isn't necessary for
either of those.  The Regency was already isolated "behind the
Claw" by vargr corsairs, and the Wilds existed as early as
1125--the Reformation Coalition could have begun as one of Chuck
Gannon's "emergent autonomous polities".
     The only thing you really have to wait for is whatever it is
from Project Longbow that's closing in at lightspeed on "Meridian
78, Prime Radial" (where ever that may be).  My guess is that
it's the 57th Century's equivalent of the telegraph.  Sub-space
radio, anyone?  Let's see...90 years plus 1115 is...1205.  Not
much longer, now.  I guess all those years in cold sleep will be
worth it, after all.
     My prediction is that it will be a technological fix that
will solve the problems of governance that plagued Strephon,
Dulinor, and the rest of the leaders of the Shattered Imperium,
and make a reformed New Imperium possible in the official GDW
future history.
     My point is simply that the Virus is extraneous to the drama
that was being played out in the Traveller universe 1117-1130,
and in fact detracts from it, IMHO, and that's why I dislike it.  If I
took too long to say so, I apologize.  I would appreciate
whatever comments anyone cares to make, even it's just an "Oh,
shut up."

Bill White
Terran Psychohistorical Institute
[email removed]