Zhodani Adventures

[email removed] (David Johnson) says:

>Certainly the Zhodani Core Expeditions suggest an `exploratory' interest
>in the Consulate.  Has anyone ever run across a Zhodani equivalent to the
>IISS?  I would think the Zhodani exploratory service would be similar to
>Starfleet in the "Next Generation" era with `counselors' on every ship
>to help the crews deal with the stresses of the unknown.

 This was never a question.  The best "gung-ho" adventures available
to the Zhodani are the Core Expeditions and all the little stuff
on and off the Core Road between Expeditions.  As such, the sectors
of the Core Road (term coined by me, BTW; no need to look it up)
are marvelously safe from a private campaign point of view.  There
are more sectors on the Core Road than in all the rest of Explored
Space, and _no_one_ will ever publish anything to counter your work
(Security Leak #5 not withstanding).  Sure all your PCs are Zhodani,
but once you peel off the respective Noble layers the Zhodani and
the Imperium are _very_ similar.

 But I was asking about adventure _within_ the Consulate.  Because
of one inherent difference (not psi, BTW), we poor Solomani cannot
conceive of and detail the vast range of Zhodani world-bound cultures.
We have enough trouble with _Imperial_ world-bound cultures.  The
result is that the Consulate looks fairly monochrome to us, and no
fun to adventure in, native PCs or not.  I suspect that in "Real
Life" this just isn't so.  As many Solomani philosophers will tell
you, "Life is an Adventure," and this applies to the Zhodani as well
as to all other Human races in Explored Space.  The high degree and
unusual success of the Zhodani social engineering scheme does little
to affect this maxim of humanity.
 What is the difference that makes visualization so difficult?  The
basic underlying (and utter) honesty of the Zhodani.  This immediately
cuts out a great many adventure seeds that work just fine in Imperial
space.  Think about it.  How many Amber Zones over the years have had
lying, cheating, or stealing somewhere in their makeup or motivation?
Or private military operations?  Murder?  Dropping any of these into
Zhodani space will attract every Tavrchedl' in the subsector, not to
mention the Consular Navy and maybe SORAG, all of whom are much
nosier than their Imperial counterparts when it comes to member
worlds.
 This problem makes the sectors that _border_ the Consulate much
easier to detail than wholly interior sectors.  In these places there
are peoples with honesty levels closer to Imperial/Solomani norms
who are much easier to develop, leaving the Zhodani (who probably
dominate the sector from the real estate point of view) as the
"big, stuffy, puritanical neighbors."

James Kundert [email removed]
              [email removed]

There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was much faster, much faster than Light.
She departed one day in a relative way,
And returned on the previous Night.
   --Albert & the Heart of Gold