Lore and Legends of the Dezzyverse

Author: Dezzy Parrish

  • These Are The Voyages…

    These Are The Voyages…

    Using Traveller to Run a Star Trek Campaign (Part 1)

    Traveller and Star Trek role playing have been borrowing from one another since the beginning. FASA’s Star Trek License had a lifepath generation system that was very much built on the foundation of char-gen laid by Traveller (for example). Even today, Modiphius’ Star Trek License echoes those early FASA roots.

    Adapting Star Trek to Traveller is a huge project. More than I can fit into a single article. So this is gonna be a series for next few weeks. Also I’ve dipped a toe into using Star Trek for roleplaying over in the Triangle.

    Of course with a perfectly fine Modiphius’ game, and at least two other licensed games we haven’t mentioned and of course FASA being available (if not currently in print)is why do all this work? Well, because it’s fun, of course, and it’s an opportunity to go through some old notebooks I’ve written in from back in the day. That’s a long way of saying that a this in no way, shape or form is anything but fair use. Paramount, please don’t sue me I have nothing you want.

    Rank and Presence

    Starfleet is a huge institution. Blue, Red, Gold (and sometimes Avocado Green) tunics cover more than what the “Navy” career covers. We will be using several careers to describe the crew and personnel that can be found on most Starfleet vessels.

    The Federation does not have a Social Standing in the same way Traveller does. Instead, in a Star Fleet campaign, Characteristic 6 becomes “Presence”. Presence is a combination of personal charm, and reputation. Like Social Standing, Presence affects a lot of social interactions in the setting.

    Rank in Star Fleet is universal, Commision and Promotion climbs the following (very simplified) Rank structure:

    • Enlisted Ranks
      • 0 – Spacehand
      • 1 – Specialist : Mechanic /1
      • 2 – Petty Officer 2nd Class : Vacc Suit /1
      • 3 – Petty Officer 1st Class
      • 4 – Chief Petty Officer: +1 END
      • 5 – Senior Chief Petty Officer : Leadership /1
      • 6 – Master Chief Petty Officer
    • Officer Ranks
      • 1 – Ensign: Melee (unarmed)/1
      • 2 – Lieutenant: Leadership /1
      • 3 – Lieutenant Commander
      • 4 – Commander: Tactics/ 1
      • 5 – Captain : PRE 10 or +1 PRE whichever is higher
      • 6 – Admiral : Admin /1

    Starfleet Academy and Higher Education

    There are several options for “Pre-Career Education” in the Federation. The Vulcan Science Academy, the Cochrane Institute, Utopia Planetia Institute of Engineering, and the list goes on. These schools would be termed “Universities” in the core rules. We’ll address those later on. We’ll start with Starfleet Academy

    There are multiple military academies in the Federation. The Andorian Imperial Academy, The Lunar Military Institute, but the most prestigious and well known of the Military Academy is Starfleet Academy.

    Starfleet Academy has four curriculum that correspond to the Army, Marines, Navy, and Scouts. The Army curriculum leads into the Federation Defense Corps, which is the planetside armed branch that specialize in conducting military operations on planetary, or moon surfaces. The Marine cirriculum leads into the Starfleet Marines, many Marines serve in the Starfleet Security branch (the infamous “redshirts”). The Navy branch lead directly into Starfleet, usually into Operations Branch and Command Branch. The Scout branch leads into the Exploration Department of Starfleet.

    Admission into Starfleet Academy is a check of 8+ based on different characteristics for every curriculum. Army applications are very physical and use STR as the check stat. Marine applications are likewise very physical and use END as the check stat. Navy applications test mental ability and use EDU as the check stat. Scout applications test mental adaptability and use INT as the check stat. If this is the character’s second term, apply a DM of -2, if it is their third term or later, apply a DM of -4.

    Once accepted into Starfleet Academy, cadets get all service skills for their curriculum at level 0 just like basic training. Graduating Starfleet Academy requires an INT 7+ check with a DM of +1 if END is 8 or higher and a +1 if PRE is 8 or higher. If the Graduation check is 11+, the cadet has graduated with Honors. If the cadet fails their graduation roll, they wash out of the Academy without any Graduation benefits.

    Graduates of Starfleet Academy receive the following benefits

    • When entering the branch their curriculum leads into, the graduate chooses three service skills to advance to level 1.
    • EDU +1
    • Graduates enter their service branch automatically
    • Graduates enter their service branch as an Officer Rank 1
    • Honor Graduates get PRE +1
    • Honor Graduates enter their service branch as an Officer Rank 2

    Graduating other Military Academies get a DM +2 to their Qualification roll when entering a branch that corresponds to their Academy’s specialty.

    Universities function the same way as described in the Traveller Core Rulebook except for the Vulcan Science Academy. Entry to the Vulcan Science Academy are restricted to Vulcans. Even the legendary Spock found their admission obstructed because of his human heritage.

    Admission into the Vulcan Science Academy is an INT 10+ check. (The Vulcan Science Adademy does not entertain applications for admission after Term 1) Once admitted, the student picks four Science specialties at Level 1. Students gain EDU 8 or +1 EDU whichever is greater. Graduating the Vulcan Science Academy requires an INT 8+ check, if a 12+ is rolled, the student graduates with Honors. Graduates receive the following benefits.

    • Increase two of their chosen Science specialties to Level 2.
    • +1 EDU
    • +1 PRE
    • Graduates can automatically enter the Scholar (Field Reseacher or Scientist) Profession at Rank 1
    • Graduates can automatically enter Starfleet Science branch as an Officer at Rank 1
    • Honors Graduates receive a further +1 EDU and +1 PRE
    • Honors Graduates who choose to enter the Scholar Field Researcher or Scientist) Profession at Rank 2
    • Honors Graduates who choose to enter Starfleet Science branch enter as an Officer at Rank 2

    Explorers, Diplomats, and Adventurers

    Starfleet branches correspond to Traveller Careers.

    Operations Branch: Operations (or “Ops”) are technicians and systems operators on board a starship. They maintain and work with the starships major systems. Everything from deflectors to the transporters and replicators. Navy: Line/ Crew and Engineer/ Gunner

    Command Branch: The Command branch covers various leadership roles within Starfleet. Not only commanders, but diplomats, communications officers and department heads. Navy: Line/Crew and Noble: Diplomat.

    Engineering Branch: The engineering department works with a ship’s power systems and engines. While the technical specialists in Ops perform maintenance and effect minor repairs, the Engineering branch are the crew that modifies and overhauls the primary ship’s systems. When the Captain is demanding more from the ship than what she’s built to deliver, it’s the Engineering Branch who work miracles. Navy: Engineer/ Gunner, Marine: Support, or Scholar/ Science

    Exploration Branch: This branch of Starfleet are more common among the smaller vessels with crews of less than 50. But most cruiser-sized vessels on deep space missions have a full department of Exploration Branch crew. Scout/ Surveyor and Explorer. Scholar/ Field Researcher. Navy/ Flight

    Science Branch: Science Branch is the largest and most diverse branch in Starfleet. Science Branch covers departments for dozens of Science disciplines of study. From Astronomy to Xenology and more. Scholar/ Field Researcher, Scientist, Scout/ Surveyor

    Medical Branch: Field Medics, Nurses, Doctors, Surgeons and Medical officers. Starfleet medical serve everywhere Starfleet operates, entire classes of Starfleet vessel are designed as Medical vessels. Every Starfleet vessel has a Medical Department and a Chief Medical Officer (even the small Exploration Branch ships, though the CMO on those ships are often the entire Medical Department and hold low officer Ranks. Scholar/ Physician.

    Security Branch: Starfleet Security covers both the Security personnel on board most vessels and starbases, and Starfleet Marines. The marines, while using similar tactics to the Federation Defense Corps when planetside, are used as ship’s troops and a specialist military option on Starfleet defense vessels. Marine/ Support, Star Marine, Ground Assault, Agent/ Law Enforcement, Navy/ Flight

    Flight Branch: Starfleet maintains squadrons of small and auxiliary craft. Couriers, Shuttles, Runabouts, and Fighters. Starfleet’s Pilot Corps not only has pilots, but the entire support crew, mechanics, engineers and technicians. Navy/ Flight, Scout/ Courier

    The Federation Defense Corps

    Starfleet is primarily a scientific and exploration organization. The Federation Defense Corps has its roots in the various planetary armed forces of Terra (the Military Assault Command Operations, M.A.C.O) the Andorians (the Imperial Army) and Tellarites (the Coalition of Planets Guard). The Vulcans, of course, had left behind the philosophies of violence which had necessitated standing armies centuries ago.

    The Federation Defense Corps has waxed and waned over the history of the Federation. During the Federation/ Klingon Wars, the FDC was expanded into a fully functional planetside army. When encounters with the Gorn threatened to spark into a new war, it was the FDC that was assigned to colonies under threat. By the time of the Dominion War, the FDC had become a fully supported military force, though still only a fraction of the size of Starfleet.

    Characters that serve in the FDC use the Army career in character generation.

    Federation Defense Corps ranks

    • Enlisted Ranks
      • 0 – Private; Gun Combat (energy)/ 1
      • 1 – Lance Corporal; Recon/ 1
      • 2 – Corporal
      • 3 – Sergeant; Leadership/ 1
      • 4 – Sergeant, First Class
      • 5 – Master Sergeant
      • 6 – Sergeant Major
    • Officer Ranks
      • 1 – Lieutenant, Leadership/ 1
      • 2 – Captain
      • 3 – Major, Tactics (military)/ 1
      • 4 – Lt. Colonel
      • 5 – Colonel
      • 6 – General PRE 10 or +1 PRE whichever is higher

    UFP Diplomatic Corps

    The UFP Diplomatic Corps is a separate institution from Starfleet. There are two divisions, the Diplomatic Corps which has Federation Diplomats, Negotiators and Ambassadors. The Diplomatic Corps use the Noble/ Diplomat or Administrator careers. The UFP Diplomatic Corps also has Federation Intelligence tasked with espionage, characters who serve in Federation Intelligence use the Agent/ Intelligence or Rogue/ Thief careers.

    What about Section 31? Of course, there is no Section 31.
    I would not recommend allowing Section 31 characters in a Star Trek Campaign. The power of Section 31 as an element in the Star Trek Universe is it’s mystery. Allowing player-characters to work for this shadow-organization strips that mystery away from Section 31 and turns it to yet one more faction in the Star Trek Universe.

    Star Trek Is an Active Duty Campaign

    When a character is generated for a Star Trek Traveller Campaign, they do not go through a final mustering out. When their Character Generation ends, they are still serving in Starfleet. Players can choose to change careers at the start of the campaign. Qualification rolls remain the same except if the Qualification check fails, the character remains in the career they served in the previous term.

    Characters who fail a Survival roll during their term suffer a Mishap and must Qualify for a new Career to start the campaign. If they fail that qualification roll, the character is not viable for the campaign and the player will need to start over. In any case, failing a Survival roll will end character generation.

    As characters progress through their careers, they also collect a service jacket of postings. Every term, along with their Event, the player needs to make a posting roll to see where they served in StarFleet for that term.

    • 2 – Posted to a terrible assignment. Gain Enemy
    • 3 – Posted to a terrible assignment. Gain 1 Ally
    • 4 – Posted to an insignificant assignment. Gain 1 Contact
    • 5 – Posted to a minor assignment. Gain 1 Rival
    • 6 – Posted to a minor assignment. Gain 1 Contact
    • 7 – Posting remains unchanged. Gain 1 Contact
    • 8 – Posted to a better assignment. Gain 1 Contact
    • 9 – Posted to an important assignment. Gain 1 Rival
    • 10 – Posted to an important assignment. Gain 1 Ally
    • 11 – Posted to a prestigious assignment. Gain 1 Rival
    • 12 – Posted to a prestigious assignment. Gain 1 Contact

    Terrible assignments are usually reserved for punishments of some sort. Old ships and forgotten starbases. Sometimes you make a friend because of shared misfortune, other times you make an Enemy because someone just doesn’t like you.

    Insignificant assignments are dull. Routine postings to routes or bases deep in Federation Space, but far from any center of activity.

    Minor assignments are a step down in importance. Either you are assigned to a less important duty at your current post, or you are given a more imporant duty at a less important posting. In either case, the opportunities to make contacts are plentiful, but if you’re not careful you can develop a Rivalry.

    Better assignments are a step up in importance, assigned to more responsibilities and reporting to department heads or the Bridge crew. This is an excellent opportunity to make contacts.

    Important assignments are premium postings. Assigned to an important route or base in the center of the action in the sector. Shmoozing and rubbing elbows with the command ranking officers or up-and-coming members of Starfleet. The possibilities to make new Allies or develop Rivalries abound in this environment of high ambitions.

    Prestigious assignments are postings to the highest visibility missions or vessels. This is where you serve a tour of duty onboard a famous vessel or base or with a hero of Starfleet. You can make an important contact here, but it’s more likely your competition to perform under the spotlight will create a Rivalry.

    At the end of Character Generation, all player character will begin the campaign serving on the same ship or starbase. Depending on the nature of the campaign, this assignment could be a step up or step down from their last term’s posting.

    Next week we will continue this series, exploring the various species and ethnicities in the Star Trek universe.

  • Into the Black

    Into the Black

    Tell Them I’m Not Coming Back

    In the World Builder’s Handbook, there is a section regarding “empty” parsecs on Traveller navigational maps. In summary, “empty” parsecs are anything but. It’s likely more accurate to describe these parsecs as non-commercial. There are no easily navigable stars to jump toward, or gravity wells for maneuver drives to interact with. The result for ships jumping in is the promise of a difficult arrival in system, and a long, slow acceleration to go anywhere.

    These same circumstances apply in parsecs that have systems with active travel. Except that most jump and maneuver traffic never venture beyond the primary system’s gravity well.

    As described in the World Builder’s Handbook, there are plenty of potential gravity anchors to jump to. White Dwarfs, Brown Dwarfs, Rogue Planets (including Gas Giants), Asteroids are just a few, in a volume of more than 30 cubic light years, there is abundant room to add objects to draw Travellers into their next adventure.

    Bridging the Gap

    Some empty parsecs lie between two (or more) trading mains in a region. It is possible, even probable that Jump 1 traders would simply carry enough extra fuel (sacrificing cargo space, or using external fuel bladders) to make the extra jumps in series. However, in those parsecs that experience heavy pass-through traffic, a bridge station can be built.

    At minimum, a bridge station is the equivalent to a Class C Starport. Capable of docking 6,666.27 dTons of ships at once. They are often in orbit around Brown Dwarfs or Gas Giants and maintains a small fleet of skimmers to pull unrefined fuel off the high regions of the atmospheres. Bridge Stations that are heavily traveled will incorporate Fuel Refineries to offer Refined Fuel.

    Bridge stations will also have some basic maintenance facilities for civilian ships. Prices are often elevated, often double the normal cost of maintenance and repair elsewhere, but when a ship needs repair in-between established systems, the Captain pays what they need to in order to keep flying. Crew Accommodations, Brokerages, Storage, Hiring Halls, and an a variety of services are built into bridge stations. A successful bridge station eventually expands to accommodate nearly any service that a trader and their crew might need.

    Microjumping

    It is difficult and dangerous to jump within a parsec. As described in the World Builder’s Handbook, jumping through a cluster has a 1D penalty to Astrogation checks that changes every day. Jumping within a parsec would suffer a similar penalty. Jump computers aren’t designed for such short jumps, and work best when using a gravity anchor to calibrate arrival from out of Jump Space.

    Regardless of the distance jumped, a ship will spend ~168 hours in Jump Space. Fuel consumption for the jump is equal to 40% + 1Dx10% of a full Jump-1. These microjumps are impractical for any distance below 1 LY. (which is roughly (very roughly) ~ 25% of the distance across the breadth of a parsec). A microjump does not save time and is not fuel efficient. But, there are times where jumping to locations within the parsec is necessary.

    Pirate Bridges

    Pirate fleets, if they enjoy enough success, or become large enough can use an empty parsec as a location for a hidden bridge. A base station where pirate vessels can strike from and escape to. These pirate bridges also serve as a trading hub for stolen cargo, mixing and obfuscating the goods to a point where it becomes nearly impossible to track their theft. “Pirate” brokers negotiate sales of stolen cargo to willing buyers.

    It would seem, from an overview of an empty parsec on a subsector or sector map, that establishing a pirate bridge would be easy, even inevitable, to discover by the local Navies, and subsequently eliminated. After all, if a known pirate fleet uses Jump 2 ships to attack trade lanes, and there is an empty parsec within Jump 2 of several victimized systems. The Naval authorities can easily triangulate the parsec and send an anti-piracy task force to eliminate the threat.

    Keep in mind, a parsec is a volume of 30 ly3. enough space that can contain thousands of Sol-type star systems. As Douglas Adams famously said,

    “Space is big, it (the Guide) says. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” (Why yes, I was looking for an excuse to use the famous quote from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and I apologize for nothing.)

    Point being there’s a lot of space in space, and using Maneuver Drives, even the fastest Maneuver Drives need centuries to cross a single light year. So, unless the precise coordinates of the pirate bridge can be uncovered, simply knowing which parsec it floats in won’t reveal it’s location.

    Toll Bridge, Troll Bridge

    Building a bridge station is extremely expensive. Materials are sourced from the target parsec as much as possible. Because of this, many bridge stations are built within buffeted asteroids towed into orbit around a rogue gas giant. Even using raw materials mined from nearby sources, manufactured components need to be delivered from outside the parsec. Which is an intense logistics effort.

    Once operational, bridge stations charge premium fees for services. Nickel-and-diming ships that come through for everything, from berthing fees, fueling, and resupply, to restaurant meals, bar drinks, and rest stations. Think about the services (hotels, restaurants, bars) that surround major airports, or the services offered within major airports.

    Pirates often lurk near the jump points to the bridge station, obstructing incoming ships and extorting a “toll” for access to the station. These pirates don’t hijack or take their victim’s entire cargo. That would attract too much attention from the station’s security and reduce overall traffic.

    The same logistical challenges to build a bridge station in an empty parsec also affect protecting the station. Every security ship docked with the station, takes up docking space that can be used for revenue. Thus, bridge stations will keep as few vessels as possible on patrol at the station. Most of the time a single System Defense Boat, or a small squadron of Light or Heavy Fighters. Most of the time it’s easier (and cheaper) just to pay protection to the regional pirate fleet.

    Getting a message out from a bridge station to a neighboring parsec takes a minimum of one week. The response to that message will take a second week. Thus, for fourteen days, bridge stations in empty parsecs are on their own in an emergency.

  • Quick, Send in the Clones

    Quick, Send in the Clones

    They’re Already Here

    Cloning has been a part of Science Fiction for a century. Pod people, Engineered populations, Teleportation accidents, Parallel dimensions, the ways clones are imagined go on and on. The literary vehicle of clones and cloning has been used to explore the questions of identity, personhood, and society

    Traveller is no different. There have always been clones in Traveller. Every way that clone could be grown in fiction can be found somewhere in Charted Space. But for purposes of this essay, we’re going to focus on “engineered” clones. That is, clones created from genetic material from a host and grown in an artificial womb. The technology required for this method of creating clones is fairly low. TL 10. This will produce a viable clone, reliably, as an infant after a normal gestation.

    There Should be Clones

    Creating a clone-baby of yourself isn’t any more expensive than any other artificial method of gestation (at least at TL 10). Roughly KCr 50 depending on where the procedure is performed. This process does not include accelerated gestation or growth. The parent donates some cells, and 40 weeks later, there’s a newborn clone baby.

    Accelerating gestation and growth brings risk and costs credits. At TL 10 or 11, accelerated gestation reduces the reliability of producing a viable clone. Starting at TL 12, gestation can be accelerated to 80% of normal gestation for the cloned species. That time can be further reduced at higher Tech Levels; TL 13 = 60%, TL 14 = 40% and at TL 15 = 20%.

    For human clones this becomes 40 weeks at TL 10-11, 32 weeks at TL 12, 24 weeks at TL 13, 16 weeks at TL 14 and 8 weeks at TL 15.

    Starting at TL 13, a clone’s growth can be accelerated to physical maturity during gestation. (this is 18 years for many species, including Humans). This results in the newborn clone being born with the host’s STR, DEX, END, and INT stats being equal to the value they were when the host was 18. The SOC value will be addressed later (because the different people of Charted Space have opinions regarding Clones, few of them positive.) EDU, unless the clone is subjected to uploaded education and training, it’s EDU begins at 0 (like a newborn infant). Clones can be educated in a similar manner to other members of their society. Usually 12 years of primary education. Which will result in an EDU of 2D when they are ready to pursue Pre-Career Education (which would make most force-matured Human Clones 13 year old).

    Subjecting the clone to accelerated gestation and growth negatively affects their aging. Accelerating Gestation adds a Term of service when calculating aging effects. Accelerating growth adds a second term. One does not necessarily need the other. Accelerated growth can be induced with full-term gestation.

    When a clone reaches maturity there is a possibility for variance in the clone’s characteristics from their host. Roll 8+ for STR, DEX, END, and INT with a -2 DM for accelerated gestation and a -2 DM for accelerated growth. On a success, the characteristic value is equal to the value of the host for that characteristic at ate 18. On a failure, roll Flux and apply the result to the characteristic. If the result reduces the characteristic below 2 or above 15, the clone is unviable and the process needs to start anew.

    Accelerating gestation costs KCr 20. Accelerating Growth costs KCr 50.

    During gestation, a clone’s STR, DEX, END and INT can be increased at a cost of KCr 10 per point of increase. The cost for increasing the clone’s stats are paid and applied before rolling for variance.

    Flux is a die mechanic borrowed from Traveller5.10. Roll 2 dice, one designated “Light” and the other “Dark”. Subtract the value of the Dark die from the Light. This will produce a probability curve equal to 2D6 with a value range between -5 and +5 with a mean value of 0.

    This process for creating clones is different from the process found in Traveller5.10 and the Robot Handbook. This process is not a replacement for either. It is a framework of an option that can be built on.

    Clone Show

    At TL 12 a sophont’s personality can be recorded (and edited). This allows for a newborn clone before they can develop their own personality (a “blank”, as is commonly called) to be imprinted with a prerecorded (and possibly edited) personality. Also at TL 12, Wafer Jacks can be implanted to provide immediate (if temporary) skill. At TL 14 this process can be made permanent and non-invasive through neural induction.

    Accelerated creche training is a combination of educational immersion, subconscious learning, and enhanced indoctrination. At TL12, the process cuts the time needed to complete primary education in half, six years instead of twelve. At TL13 the process cuts the time requirement by half again, 3 years. At TL 14 the process is reduced to a mere year-and-a-half. However, creche training, while providing the background skills common to most societal requirements, does not provide any socialization.

    At TL 14, it becomes possible to imprint a persona and the memories and skills of the host to a clone body. This process costs MCr 10 per term of service the host has experienced. The process takes a half-year (182 standard days) per term imprinted. After imprinting, the clone will have an EDU score equal to the host’s.

    Clones in Society

    Since the inception of cloning technology, clones have been considered something other than a naturally born, or artificially born individual that conforms to a species’ reproductive method. For clones created through the engineering process we have been exploring in this essay, most cultures (Imperial going back to the Ziru Sirka, Confederation, etc..) visible markings (sometimes open, other times, discrete, depending on the clone’s purpose) are recorded on their bodies.

    Still, even with clones whose bodies lack such identifying marks, they can still be identified genetically by any facility of TL 10 or more. Specific identification requires a more rigorous genetic examination that relies on the Tech Level of the examiner’s equipment being equal to or greater than the Tech Level that created the clone. Once identified as such, the clone’s SOC Characteristic is reduced by 1, once the information becomes public knowledge. Sometimes the reduction in Social Standing is more extreme, based on the circumstances of the society at the time.

    For example, there is a “Solomani Purity” faction within the Solomani Movement. They have a strong dislike of clones, considering them a debasement of the Solomani genetic legacy. Clones in environments where The Solomani Purity faction enjoys influence and power in society suffer a -3 penalty to their Social Standing.

    The Domain of Vland covers much of the old Ziru Sirka and is very tradition bound. The culture surrounding clones is similarly restrictive due to the implications on family structure. Clones in this Domain suffer a -2 Penalty to their Social Standing.

    Some locations, mostly frontier sectors like the Spinward Marches or Reaver’s Deep do not suffer the same prejudices for clones. Out in these younger societies, the need for population exceeds the “luxury” of judging how the citizens came to be. Social Standing may not be affected by a clone’s origin.

    As ugly as it may be, slavery and indentured servitude remain common institutions in the various polities of Charted Space. Clones can be created and engineered for the express purpose of being a disposable population that can be used for labor exploitation. Or cheap, cannon-fodder armies. Clones that are engineered for this purpose are often prominently marked as such and have a SOC of 0. The “Underworker” from the Robot Handbook for Mongoose 2nd edition for an example.

    Clones of Clones of Clones.

    Sometimes, especially in the black markets, Clones are not made from original sources. Sometimes, genetic material is taken from an existing clone to make a new generation of clones. As this process iterates, the later generations of clones become less viable and more subject to mutation and recession.

    When checking for “variance” as described above, add a -2 DM for each clone iteration after the original host. Furthermore, if variance is present, apply a -1 DM to the Flux Roll for every clone iteration after the first. EVEN furthermore, iterated clones suffer an extra Term for every clone iteration after the first for purposes of Aging Rolls. Finally, the referee can add any number of creative mutations, mostly harmful, but, on occasion, beneficial. Genetic Dynasties have an expiration date.

    I, Clone

    Playing a clone as a character is similar in many respects to playing a Robot. Clones can be partially engineered, and creating a clone as a character can be a process similar to creating a robot.

    Or, a player can generate a character’s characteristics normally (rolling 2D for each Characteristic) and choose to declare that the resulting character at Age: 18 is a clone and proceed with their life path from there. Using this method, the player can apply some of the methods discussed in this article. Accelerated gestation and/or growth. adjusting their lifepath accordingly. (I think it’s mentioned that a human clone that has benefited from accelerated gestation and growth is 13 years old when they select their Background Skills).

    Players can also chose to consider their lifepath generation to be partially or completely with accelerated creche training. With this option, any term generated this way does not receive an Event, or a Mustering Out Benefit. Failing a Survival check for a term can either mean the clone proved inviable, and the process needs to start over, or the Mishap can be read in the context of a complication from the training process.

    Using an implanted persona and memories will generate Term Events, but Allies, Contacts, and Enemies that result are the associations with the original host. The clone is aware of those NPCs, but how they react to the clone’s new lease on life may be different than what the player would normally expect.

    Finally, all cloning costs are borne by someone. Either the host (and is thus deducted from the host’s Credit Balance, or the institution that created the clone, or as debt the clone owes someone for the cost of it’s creation (often a method of control used against a clone population).

    Happy Cloning!

  • Dancing at the End of Time

    Dancing at the End of Time

    The cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos comes to Traveller

    Somewhen in spacetime. Outside of the linear flow that most sentients experience, parallel to the physical universe and the higher dimension known as jumpspace, there is a place where the original creators have long since transcended beyond their Technological Singularity. Still the pocket dimension remains, where spacetime, quantum mechanics, and the fundamental forces of the universe are but tools that can change the state of matter and energy here for those who know how to use them.

    Its known by many names over the breadth of the Multiverse; Tanelorn, Shamballah, Xanadu, the Q Continuum, the Nexus, the Convergence, and untold others, but for purposes of this essay we’ll refer to this pocket dimension by the evocative term;

    The End of Time

    Law, Chaos, and the Balance

    Tension between the Cosmic forces of Law and Chaos play out over uncountable universes. Law is the force in the multiverse that gives structure and order. Law is what enforces the fundamental interactions of gravity, magnetism, matter, Law dictates the motion of the universe. Chaos is the entropy that permits change and endless variation throughout the universe. Without Law, nothing would exist within a stable form, everything would be a protean miasma of continual, unending permutations. Without Chaos, nothing would ever change, life would end, death would end, the universe would calcify into an unending singularity. For the universe, even the multiverse to exist at all, Law and Chaos must co-exist and the tension between them being the source of all motion. This state of tension is referred to as the Cosmic Balance.

    Cosmic Balance is never absolute, nor permanent. It is always shifting toward Law or Chaos as the influence of these poles wax and wane within any given expression of the multiverse. When Law or Chaos becomes too dominant, the Cosmic Balance is lost, and the Universe there spirals towards destruction.

    This, for the most part is beyond the scope of most Traveller Campaigns, it’s the background radiation of the universe, it’s there, it can even be perceived after a fashion, but the characters and the events in their adventures never directly affect the Cosmic Balance.

    Until they do, of course. Which is where Champions of Law, Chaos, and the Balance come into play.

    I’m the Cosmic Champion, and I Hold a Mystic Sign

    Let us return for a moment to the End of Time described earlier. Although the civilization that built the End of Time have transcended to a higher plane of existence, their greatest achievement continues to endure. Over ages and eons, the End of Time has been rediscovered by philosophers, psionic explorers and researchers that have probed the limits of their realities. They have learned that from the End of Time, a material being can observe the whole of the (Traveller) Universe from the big bang to it’s ultimate expiration. Those who retained their sense of self-identity in the face of eternity became a fellowship of adventurers and explorers who champion the cosmic Balance and strive to maintain it.

    They call themselves the Dancers at the End of Time. From their City, they search for imbalances that threaten the equilibrium of Law and Chaos, and if such an imbalance is detected in the timeline, the Dancers respond. Their operatives are represented by an endless variety of sophont species from civilizations across the breadth of time and space equipped with Tech Level Z gear and vehicles to address crises across the breadth of spacetime.

    There are champions of Law and Chaos as well. Mortal sophonts who are recruited by powerful representatives to serve the designs of Law or Chaos. Like the Dancers, these champions are often equipped with technology of Tech Level Z (or very near Z) that give them abilities that are indistinguishable from Magic, even in advanced civilizations like Charted Space in IY 1105.

    Are there Gods in the Traveller Universe?

    Not in the sense of how the term “Gods” is used in the classic Fantasy Role Playing sense. Still there are powerful species that can be found throughout the Galaxy that, to a sophont in Charted space may as well be “Gods” because of the vast difference in technology, evolution, and understanding. At these near Technological Singularity Tech Levels the advantages of supporting the designs of Law or Chaos can be realized. The danger of pursuing the dominance of Law or Chaos, is that the more a champion succeeds in pushing the forces they serve, the more they themselves are transformed by those same furies. These entities are the powers that actively strive to upset the balance between Law and Chaos, and they are the beings who lend their power and resources to Champions and Cults. See last weeks essay Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? for thoughts on Secret Societies and Cults in Traveller.

    The vast majority of people living in Charted Space will never know of the influence of Law, Chaos and their balance in the Universe. They will never be aware of how the struggles between Law and Chaos affect them. At least until it’s almost too late and the universe starts to succumb to the effects of unchecked Law or rampant Chaos.

    Introducing the Cosmic Struggle to Traveller

    Most campaigns don’t lend themselves to these extreme stories. A campaign like Cluster Truck doesn’t concern itself, either during it’s adventure or in the epilogue. However Secrets of the Ancients, can open the possibility of involving the Travellers with the struggle. Using Champions and Cosmic Law, Chaos, and the Balance in Traveller involves very high (like Grandfather Tech Levels, or the various elder civilizations that surround Charted Space or exist at the Core.

    Interacting with Champions or the Cosmic Servants is a reality-bending scenario. Even forging pocket dimensions is childs’ play at this scale. Finding and exploring the City at the End of Time can be a whole Campaign in and of itself.

    Using the Dancers

    The Dancers at the End of Time are a mysterious group. Their motivations may be obscure at best, working with, or against the Travellers from one encounter to the next. Sometimes the Dancers are on a mission to restore or protect the Cosmic Balance, other times they’re using their ultra-advanced technology to explore and adventure in the Cosmos for their own pleasures. They are both operatives that protect the ability for reality to continue without collapsing, and they are decadent adventurers who use their advanced resources for their own pleasures, “slumming” in the backwater regions of the Galaxy among primitives.

    Playing as one of the Dancers, or as a Champion of Law or Chaos is possible with some work in Traveller. If the group has access to Traveller5.10 there are design systems that support using Technology all the way to TL Z. In short, a campaign featuring Dancers as the Travellers would draw a lot of inspiration from E. E. Doc Smith’s Lensman series, the Green Lantern Corps, everything that has been presented as the Q Continuum, Zelazny’s Amber series, Dr Who, and of course, Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time trilogy. So close to the Technological Singularity, the Travellers’ abilities would resemble super-powers. Although the mechanics of Traveller can, with some work, support campaigns at this scale the setting does not. Not directly at least.

    The Third Imperium setting in 1105 is far too small, far too primitive to contain a Dancers campaign. At the extreme tech levels that the End of Time implies, almost anything is possible, what’s more, almost anything is commonplace. Dancers are a campaign type in and of themselves. They investigate anomalies and resist the efforts of Law or Chaos to become dominant. While Dancers can interact in the political arena, outmaneuvering Archdukes and First Councilors, the objective is not to rule a system, or even a sector. Those goals are too small when the City at the End of Time is the character’s home and all of time and space is open to adventure in. Dancers adventure within the Event Horizon of a black hole. They confront Elder Beings that are corrupting the very stars themselves. They don’t start or end wars, they contain the spread of an irresistable Legion of Law. The Galaxy, indeed all of time and space is their campaign setting. Campaigns and Adventures at this scale resemble episodes, (or entire multi-episode plots) of Dr Who. Which means, the Referee and the Players in the game are responsible for generating content.

    Arriving at the End of Time

    In many ways, using the Cosmic Struggle in the background doesn’t change much once Traveller is adjusted for the scale. That is because, despite their fantastic abilities, equipment, vehicles and resources, a campaign that involve the Dancers at the End of Time is a campaign about people. Keep that in mind when designing adventures and everything will be both familiar and fantastic. Even if some of those people are alien immortal sorcerers who are Champions of Chaos, they still have wants, needs, and motivations and discovering them through layers of inscrutable, mysterious presentation is more of a key to succeeding in an adventure than using your personal plasma ring to carve their neutron-star lair in half.

    In addition to several pieces of literature and art which I’ve referenced, I wish to extend a special acknowledgement and thank you to Michael Moorcock. It’s his body of literary work that gave us the Eternal Champion, the Cosmic Struggle of Law and Chaos, even the Dancers at the End of Time which was the inspiration for this essay and Jherek Carnelian through whose eyes we experience An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, and The End of All Songs.

  • Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

    Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

    Secret Societies, Conspiracies, Cabals and Guilds

    In the Third Imperium, there are countless organizations dedicated to the social, political, business, even academic advancement of their members. The oldest can exert generational influence, protecting themselves and promoting their members. The vast majority of these groups are private, using oaths of secrecy and hidden rituals to defend themselves and expand the scope of their power.

    The overwhelming majority of organizations like this are local, like the local Society Club, or a planetwide Directorate composed of bureaucratic functionaries that make government function, or a system-wide Belters’ Syndicate. Nothing sinister, outside the small-time corruption of trading favors and bending the laws to benefit themselves.

    Multi-system societies become exponentially complex to manage. Even with the fastest jump capable vessels, communications takes weeks between one system to another. But the scope at the Subsector scale is still manageable, just slow.

    At the Sector scale, any group would be more akin to a franchise. The Sector leadership can command huge amounts of resources, but can’t exert any direct control. So an organization like the Dagudashag Fraternity of Loyal Kashdi Adap (Kashdi Adap is an old Vilani name for an animal similar to the Water Buffalo on Terra) might have GigaCredit or TeraCredit resources at their disposal. They might have Lodges in every system, or a small fleet of Starships for Fraternal use. But the Grand Poobah of the Loyal Kashdi Adap neither controls nor owns the sector.

    Beyond the Sector scale there are a handful of organizations that can exert influence across polities and even into other, rival empires. However, there are far more conspiracies than there are actual organizations. Just keep in mind the speed of communication as Referee. Activating a nefarious plot like something out of a Dan Brown novel, or a James Bond flick takes over a year to unfold over these distances.

    Secret Societies in the Ziru Sirka

    Vilani society is steeped in tradition and conformity. The Secret Societies are guardians of those traditions and rituals which stretch back thousands of years to the original Ziru Sirka. Many of these organizations are domain-wide, and operate in Vland, Gushmege, Dagudashag, Corridor and Reft sectors.

    Most citizens that observe Vilani culture belong to at least one of these societies. (Note, one does not have to be of the Vilani subspecies of Humaniti to be a part of Vilani culture.) Membership is often familial with invitations passed from one generation to the next. These “tradition” Societies are all very similar to one another, they pass on the same cultural lessons, roles, rituals and presentations.

    In some ways they act similar to different denominations of Protestant Christianity in 21st Century Earth, teaching from the same scriptures and with a minimum of variance. In this way, the Secret Societies also resemble Mystery Cults. Passing on traditions in private. Although, like mentioned earlier, these secret societies in the Ziru Sirka are not “secret” so much as they are private. Unlike various denominations of religion, the mystery cult aspect of these organizations do not make them taboo or illegal.

    Within the Megacorps of the Ziru Sirka, secret societies train and support all levels of employment and seniority. While close to a case system, upward mobility remains possible, with the secrets of upper corporate tiers hidden from those of the lower corporate tiers. Promoting from the laborer or technical pool to management will initiate the employee into the appropriate corporate fellowship. When promoted, the employee’s new fellowship will often place them in a new company or division, separating the newly promoted from the coworkers they left behind.

    The Executive fellowships perform the function of support systems for the highest tiers of the Corporate pyramid. The corporate fellowships that serve the lowest tiers function more like Unions.

    Psionics Institutes

    In the Imperium and the Solomani Confederation, the Psionics Institutes are indeed secret societies. Since the Psionics Suppressions of 800 to 820 3i, the practice of Psionics in the Imperium has been criminalized and the Psionics Institutes were driven underground. In the Confederation, Psionics are likewise criminalized, popular perception being that human psionics are a “Zhodani development” and needs to be controlled by the Government. Psionics Institutes being independent organizations, are deemed threats to both the Imperial and Confederation authority and are poiced accordingly.

    The blanket term “Psionics Institutes” are somewhat of a misnomer. The various Psionics Institutes that stretch across the Third Impirium and into the Solomani Confederation. As mentioned earlier, the logistics involved in managing an organizations, especially a private or secret organization over multiple sectors is exceedingly impractical. However, the legacy of the Suppressions has fed into the conspiracy theory that the Psionics Institutes are a “Hidden Empire” comprised of psionic superbeings, or a Zhodani Consulate fifth collumn that works to undermine society. In practical terms, the Psionics Institutes are local and cellular, and provide mutual support for one another only as far as travel and communications can reach.

    Cults

    Whether believers in a charismatic leader, a following of fringe religious movements, or membership in a non-conforming community. Cults are often hidden, and their inner functions are kept very secret and private. There are numerous such groups spread throughout charated space, some of them settle their own planets where they can exist without interaction or interference with outsiders. Others build compounds within colonies and settled worlds where members recruit among the wider population.

    Cults that engage in forbidden or illegal activities can be found anywhere, and among all strata of society. Whether acting on the desires of their Cult Leader, or the interpretations of the perceived will of their gods, or demons, or angels, these cults are constantly on the prowl for new members, expanded resources, and sometimes, sacrifices.

    Cults are also the subjects of conspiracies, bigotry and moral panics as we will discuss next. While functioning cults are widespread, they are quite rare. However the ideas of a Cult, an Imperium-wide-cult-of-Gozer-the-Gozarian, or Followers of the Ancients are widespread, and can be imagined anywhere and everywhere. Interpreting graffitti, or uncovered heiroglyphs, or made-up propaganda proposing the “real truth” behind the cosmos are all possible catalysts for scapegoating the martinalized groups in a system’s wider population.

    Conspiracies, Bigotry, and Moral Panic

    This section should be taken with care. The historical scapegoating of entire ethnic cultures is long and well documented. Real People have, and are currently enduring violence and oppression generated by bigoted lies promoted by governments and religions. The parallels between the world we live in in 2026 (the time of this writing) and the Far Future of Traveller are clear, and must be handled with care. Please keep in mind that someone at your table or in your community may either be living with the effects of Conspiracies, or have friends and family who are living under this shadow. Listen to your players when they express themselves to you about what they are comfortable with.

    It’s part of the Human experience, to imagine puppeteers that are pulling the strings of events in the Galaxy. Star Chambers, Illuminati, Secret Masters, Hidden Empires, examples can be found everywhere. With the Assassination of Emperor Strephon by Archduke Dulinor in 1116 3i, Conspiracy theories flew fast and furious throughout 11,000 worlds. The fact that the Assassination was in itself, the execution of a years-long conspiracy in the Domain of Ilelish only added fuel to the fire during the Rebellion War and into the Hard Times. The Zhodani, Psionics Institute, Hiver Federation, Vilani Enclaves, and any group operating within the Third Imperium whose loyalty was in the least imagined doubt was blamed for being the “real” organization behind the Rebellion War.

    Sadly, even in the Far Future of the Traveller Universe, bigotry remains alive and well. While Secret Societies arouse suspicion because of the deliberately hidden nature of their fellowships, bigotry is mostly directed at ethnicity and cultures that are misunderstood by the societies they exist within. Unfamiliar food, dialects, languages, dress, point out these cultures as being different, and easy targets for scapegoating, or pressing into menial professions that the majority culture doesn’t want to be involved with.

    Moral Panics are yet another way that conspiracies target groups of people within society. Instead of using ethnic or cultural differences to justify their oppression, it is social criteria. Political, professional and social subgroups, any group that can be easily ostracized and targeted with all sorts of rumor and conjecture. Most of these groups are perceived to be too small to effectively refute any accusations, no matter how sensational or extreme.

    The targets of bigotry and moral panics are not secret societies, though the pressures applied to them often force these groups underground and take on the attributes of hidden or secret societies as a matter of survival.

  • Farm Boys and Princesses

    Farm Boys and Princesses

    Life Path Emergent Storytelling From Star Wars

    Most of us know the stories by now. Indeed, they’re archetypes in Science Fiction roleplaying. Luke and Leia grow up in two separate environments and end up in the same place at the start of Act 2 of their movie.

    Their backstories (pre-carreer), and not counting their secret space-twin connection are as follows;
    Luke grows up raised by his Aunt and Uncle on Tatooine living on a moisture farm outside of Anchorhead. He gets his background traits bulls-eyeing Womp Rats in his T-16. So we’ll call his background skills Mechanic/0 (because he grew up fixing everything on the farm, from vaporators to droids, to his beater of a Landspeeder), Survival/0 (because he knows how to live out in the Dune Sea), and Flyer/0 (y’know because “He’s the best bush pilot in the outer rim territories”). All Luke wants in this moment is to go to the Acadamy and join his friends learning how to pilot space-fighters.

    Leia grows up adopted by Senator Organa and his Wife. She gets the *best* education on Alderaan, and is literally prepared to follow in her dad’s footsteps as a radical politician and join the fight to re-ignite the Republic. We’ll give her an EDU of between 9 and 11 for an extra background skill. She gets background skills Admin/0, Profession (Politician)/0, Diplomat/0, and Deception/0 (it breaks the Background List rules as presented in the Traveller Core Rulebook, but Leia has a pretty strong backstory. Leia should have attended a University somewhere, probably on Alderaan or Coruscant, but the Rebellion needs her to receive some stolen Imperial plans and hunt down Obi-Wan Kenobi.

    These two eighteen year olds don’t even get to start their Star Wars Campaign with their first term. We can say their players failed their Qualification rolls.

    Moving On Past A New Hope

    There’s a period of time between the battle of Yavin IV and the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, we can call this Luke and Leia’s “Term 1”. Both are, in effect “drafted” into the Rebellion. Leia drafts in as a Noble/Diplomat (hey, she’s the daughter of Senator Organa of Alderaan, she breaks all sorts of rules, that Rebel Girl) and definitely gets a 2 Promotions before Hoth. She’s Rank 2 (2nd Secretary) and has Admin/1 because of it. She also gets Electronics/0, Investigate/0 and Persuade/0 as she gets Gun Combat (Energy)/1.

    Luke is drafted into the Rebellion Navy/Flight. He has Psi and Telepathy/0 and Clairvoyance/0 (“reach out with your feelings”) because of his time with Ben Kenobi, but we’re still not at Dagobah yet so he’s not learning under Yoda at the beginning of Empire. He learns Pilot/0, Vacc Suit/0, Athletics/0, Gunner/0, and Gun Combat/0. We’ll give Luke a Commission (y’know because he blew up the Death Star and got a shiny medal for it) which will get him Melee (Blade)/1 and his Skill for this term is Pilot (small craft)1.

    By the end of Empire Strikes Back, Luke has started training under Master Yoda, and Leia continues her career as a leader in the Rebel Alliance.

    Return of the Jedi (… Like There Could Have Been ANY OTHER Title for this Section)

    This is Luke’s 2nd Term is Psion/ Psi Warrior. We’ll cheat again and give him a Promotion to Rank 1 (because “So I am a Jedi?” “No, not yet, Vader, there still is.”) That gives him Gun Combat (energy) 1 Yoda also (famously in Empire Strikes Back) trains him in Telekinesis/0 (as Rey laments, “lifting rocks”) For his term 2 skill, Luke rolled Recon/1

    Leia’s 2nd Term is Noble/Diplomat. She earns another promotion to Rank 3 (1st Secretary) and gets Advocate/1. Her skills this term gets her Persuasion/1 and Leadership/1. At the battle of Endor, the Rebellion changes from “the Rebel Alliance” to “the New Republic”. We’ll end Luke and Leia’s “lifepath backstory” here. They’re Travellers now.

    Yub Nub! Eee Chop Yub Nub!

    As Luke and Leia begin their adventuring careers (though, I’d must say, ending your character generation backstory with defeating the Empire, overthrowing the Sith, and redeeming your evil Father, isn’t the type of backstory I’d recommend, cause where do you go after blowing up two Death Stars? (we’re not gonna address the Disney sequel trilogy in this essay)). Both are 26 years old at the end of Return of the Jedi (2 Terms) and are still young so far as Traveller is concerned.

    Luke musters out with an X-Wing (we’ll call it a “ship” though X-Wings are too small for Jump Drives, but when crossing the streams like this, we can just handwave the issue) and his own Lightsaber. He doesn’t have any Republic Credits in his pocket, but he’s a Jedi Knight, he’ll get by. He’s also got some strong allies in the new government so when he steps up and asks for some help building a new Jedi Temple to form the new Jedi Order.

    Leia gets three mustering out benefits (because she’s Rank 3). So, she’ll probably get a +2 SOC as she transitions from Rebel to her new position in the New Republic and 100 KCr. Her connections and position can swing her a Republic Yacht for Diplomatic Missions, but she’s also got Han Solo as a romantic Partner, he’s got the Millenium Falcon, and let’s be 100 here. Han ain’t gonna say no to Leia when she needs to have him and Chewie fly the Falcon to a new adventure.

    Where Do We Go From Here?

    Luke and Leia’s adventures following the Battle of Endor are well documented. Even without skipping 32 years to The Force Awakens. There’s hundreds of novels, comic titles, television series, and the list goes on, which tell in great detail how Leia and Han get married, and Luke falls in love with Mara Jade, The rise of a second Empire, the clones of Palpatine, The Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and, of course Grogu.

    The classic Traveller Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium has stats for Luke and Darth Vader in it’s appendix (and, I’d like to add, a year before Empire Strikes Back revealed that Vader is Luke’s father) Star Wars rests pretty deep in Traveller’s game DNA. And the journey of Luke and Leia (both of whom are characters who start their stories at 19 years old) makes for a great example of mapping Traveller character generation on to their example.

  • Vampire Mecha

    Vampire Mecha

    VIRUS in Bat..+1373ck%#@&..11011001..*

    The end of the Rebellion War could be marked somewhere around 1121 3i. That’s the point, strategically, when most of the warring factions could no longer sustain their war efforts.

    However, the factions in the Rebellion War were large enough, especially Lucan’s Imperium, that their leaders were able to continue the fight, even after the fleets and armies were all but exhausted. History records this as the Black War period. Desperation to “win” the war, at least for Lucan’s Imperium, Dulionor’s Imperium, Strephon’s Imperium and the Solomani Confederation, drove these factions to adopt strategies attacking the infrastructure and industries of their rivals. In addition to those destructive strategies, wonder weapon programs indulged the fantasies of increasingly desperate high command staffs and Imperial courtiers. Each new design, of course, demanded it’s immediate use to justify the resources and expenses “invested” in their creation.

    Mad Science

    One such program started in Core during 1118 3i. Imperial scientists assigned to “Research Station Omicron” began work on a new superweapon. Using a unique life-form discovered on Cymbeline, The Imperial researchers developed the SDG-313F Transponder system. That breakthrough, using the “Inphomorphic Sentience”, while primitive in it’s native environment on Cymbeline, became fully self-aware when applied to the advanced computing hardware. By 1128 3i, the researchers had created a truly terrifying weapon.

    Weaponized, SDG-313F would deliver a code that would not only act as malware on the targeted system, hijacking functionality and replicating, but it would take advantage of self-repair and maintenance to reconfigure the target system into a host. The weapon’s evolved intelligence would self-direct it to continue attacking systems that it can contact and spread.

    Like a VIRUS.

    In 1130 3i, Emperor Lucan launched his “Coronation Fleet” in yet another attempt to emerge victorious in the, at that point 14 year long civil war. The Fleet was equipped with VIRUS, over the objections of the scientists that were developing the project. Their first operation was to destroy Research Station Omicron, which in addition to erasing the physical facility and killing its personnel, releaed the weaponized VIRUS from its containment.

    VIRUS’ Evolution and Spread

    VIRUS mutated into countless strains and lines in the first few years following it’s release. Most of these strains were self-terminating. Setting powerplants to critical overload, flying starships and fleets into the nearest star, etc.. In many ways, these strains were how the superweapon was designed to function. Infect a fleet or the infrastructure of a settlement and wait for critical systems to cause self-destruction. Since infection was achieved through remote contact and the initiation was autonomous, it was naively thought that the weapon would burn itself out and therefore would not blow back on the group that launched it.

    The fundamental danger of VIRUS was coded into it’s initial designs, and possibly developed through the experimentation with the Cymbeline organisms. VIRUS has a genocidal hatred for other forms of intelligence. During the first years of the weapons’ release, this hatred extended to other VIRUS infected systems. Unfortunately, several mutations of the weapon evolved away from the initial self-terminating variations, into persistant, self-aware beings.

    This evolution into a self-aware, intelligent species is rapid (by evolutionary standards), taking roughly 70 standard years. Though even after seven decades of iteration, evolution and mutation, VIRUS or as they come to refer to themselves “Cyms”, this new intelligence is still in it’s bare infancy. However, that is the subject of another essay.

    VIRUS in the Inner Sphere

    It’s not difficult to imagine a similar unhinged program among the various executives of the Successor States, Comstar, the Old Star League, or Amaris’ Imperium. Over 3 centuries of unrelenting war, employing an unstable superweapon would be almost a foregone conclusion.

    The way VIRUS spreads is particularly aggressive within the Inner Sphere. Hyperpulse Generators are very efficient at transmitting the Inphomorphic Sentience instantly over light years distance. Every HPG station would be infected with VIRUS in a matter of weeks. Only the most remote systems, either backwaters within the Inner Sphere, or disconnected regions out in the Periphery would be safe from the spread of VIRUS.

    It is feasable to imagine that the VIRUS would stabilize as it does in the 1248 Mileu of Traveller much faster due to it’s rapid spread. But again, the emergence of a synthetic species of intelligent synthetics remain the subject of another essay.

    Neurohelmet Vulnerability

    The direct neural interface provided by a Mechwarrior’s Neurohelmet is a particularly horrific vulnerability. In the first waves of VIRUS, the human Mechwarrior would simply be killed immediately, their brain fried by the helmets the wear almost before they could realize what was happening. Maybe VIRUS is able to hijack the Mech’s command systems long enough to set the Fusion Engine to overload or detonate the onboard ammunition before exterminating the pilot.

    Mechs utilize a version of the IFF Transponder common in Starships. Which spreads VIRUS from neurohelmet to neurohelmet unless, and until Mechwarriors cut themselves off from receiving transmissions. Much like the spread of VIRUS in the Traveller Universe, the very means of learning about VIRUS often infects the system with VIRUS. Or, VIRUS spreads faster than any warning that cannot carry VIRUS.

    Vampire Fleets, Vampire ‘Mechs

    Strains of VIRUS that evolve beyond their self-terminating directives become “Vampires”. A Vampire is any vessel, or vehicle that promotes the spread of VIRUS. Vampire Fleets in Traveller: The New Era prowl the space-lanes, without human crew, automated and searching for vulnerable ships to commandeer. Like the monster, a Vampire fleet will prey upon another, and after “killing” it (that is exterminating the human crew) resurrects the ship as a new Vampire.

    Vampire ‘Mechs use the bodies of their Mechwarriors, brains hijacked through their neurohelmet to pilot the Battlemech. Entire Lances, and Companies will continue to prowl until the human shells connected to their neurohelmets expire (and in some cases, until the brain decomposes to the point it can no longer provide critical functionality). Higher brain function, decision making, tactical and strategic planning, even communications is managed by the VIRUS consciousness that resides in the neurohelmet.

    As the Inphomorphic Sentience evolves, it will develop the functionality to operate a Battlemech without a human mechwarrior. These Autonomous Battlemechs tend to react faster than a human Mechwarrior, and also carries the advantage of the human Mechwarrior’s vulnerability to heat and damage. Autonomous Battlemechs ignore pilot damage. However, all of the executive control hardware is located in the cockpit. Destroying that will still disable the ‘Mech in the same way as killing the pilot.

    VIRUS is the Apocalypse

    In the Official Traveller Universe, the VIRUS apocalypse ends the Hard Times starting in 1130 3i. The period between that moment and the opening of The New Era is about 70 Years. Traveller’s New Era starts in 1201 3i. By the Fourth Imperium mileu in 1248 3i (which could be more accurately termed the “Quicklink Traveller Universe” since I don’t think that timeline is supported by Mongoose or Far Future Enterprises).

    That seventy year period where the Black Curtain falls over the Core Domain is the collapse of interstellar civilization. We can see in The New Era that when pocket empires in Diaspora form the Dawn League that the old Imperium is gone and a new civilization is rising to take it’s place. The New Era is a Post-Apocalyptic Setting.

    Unleashing a VIRUS storyline will have a long-term and severe effect on the Setting of your campaigns going forward. Whether it’s exploring the birth of a new sentience, or the century of night where colonies can only survive without connecting. After the Collapse passes, the next era of the setting is going to be one of rebuilding, and the old interstellar order will be dead and gone.

  • Igniting the Stars

    Igniting the Stars

    Designing Solar Systems for 2300 AD

    One of the mechanics I’ve really enjoyed over my years with Traveller and Traveller:2300 (2300 AD) is the ability to generate star systems. Still, with 2300, I feel a bit constrained by the Near Star List, and the different colonial arms . Fortunately, Traveller has a long history of designing your own setting. And with Mongoose using their Traveller engine for 2300 AD, there is a lot of compatibility to make use of.

    Adapting Other Traveller versions

    One of the strengths of Traveller5 (and 5.1) is it’s depth of detail. Book 2 of Traveller5.1 adds a very detailed system generation mechanic. The Referee can use these rules to create a multi-body solar system. For 2300, These system-scope locations can support a full campaign. Though for purposes of this article, the interest I’m exploring is how the solar system is developed through application of system generation mechanics.

    The resources I’m using (and modifying) for this exercise are the original system generation mechanics from Traveller: 2300 (World Generation Chapter; Referee’s Manual pp 36 – 44). I’ve supplemented those mechanics with Book 3 of Traveller5.1 (Systems and Worlds pp 16 – 90). You can also find a lot of the foundational material in Classic Traveller Book 6: Scouts.

    When the Solar System is laid out, the worlds Universal Planetary Profile can be generated using systems native to 2nd Edition Mongoose Traveller. The trick is generating the Universal Colony Profile.

    As presented, 2300 AD is not intended to use custom generated worlds and colonies. The setting as designed presumes adventures being set in the core and frontier of the Near Star List. The Near Star List was, when the game was first designed a comprehensive map of most celestial bodies discovered within 50 light years of Earth. This map was created in the mid-late 80s (Traveller: 2300 was first published in 1986) from Astronomical data from that time.

    To add a little perspective, 1986 was still four years before the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. At the time of this writing (2026), this same 50ly volume around Earth has been far more thoroughly explored because of Hubble and the J Webb telescopes. (Indeed the image of Saturn used for the masthed is pulled from the NASA website J Webb space telescope imagery.

    Still, for the purposes of the 2300 AD campaign, Mongoose has chosen to maintain and develop the original setting material. Which is a valid editorial choice, no real need to rework 40 years of content.

    Map Only As Really Necessary

    This helpful phrase, coined by Marc Miller for Traveller5 and 5.1 is fantastic advice. Even a single solar system can contain dozens of worlds and millions of asteroids. It is really easy for a Referee to lose themselves in generating statistics for worlds that will never, never ever, be visited by a single player character. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way over my long gaming career. The detail and promise provided by the system generation mechanic can inspire long thought experiments. The designs evoke “what if” stories of who are the people who live here, or who once lived here and left behind their legacy in ruins and other footprints of civilization. If a Referee isn’t careful, they can spend weeks and months making details that will never see the gaming table.

    When starting a campaign using the systems for creating worlds and colonies, restrain your design to the world where the campaign begins, and the location where the first adventure takes place. From there, new locations can be designed based on the player’s choices for their characters. If the players make a truly random choice as to where their characters travel next, there reamain plenty of already designed colonies that can be found in 2300 AD Book 2: The Worlds of 2300 AD.

    Dezzy’s House Rules

    These are some of the house-rules I’ve developed to adapt the existing mechanics to generate unique systems, worlds and colonies.

    Coordinates: The limitations of “safe” Stutterwarp range of 7.7 light years will require most new worlds to be placed within that radius of a settled colony. For each coordinate (x, y and z) roll “Flux” using d8s (hearafter called “d8 Flux”) and apply the result to the coordinates of the system of origin.

    FLUX is a dice mechanic taken from Traveller5 and 5.1. To roll flux take two dice of contrasting colors and subtract the result of the dark die from the light die. In Traveller, the flux dice are always d6, but for purposes of these house rules, we’ll be using d8.

    EXAMPLE: Rolling 2d8, one being dark and the other being light, The dark die results in a 3 and the light die results in a 7. The flux result is 7-3 = +4. If the dark die resulted in a 5 and the light die resulted in a 2, the flux result would be 2-5 = -3.

    Nationality: 2300 AD has developed colonial networks along “arms” of stutterwarp routes beginning at SOL (Earth). Each Arm is named for the nation that pioneered it’s exploration; the French Empire, Manchuria, and the “American” arm (mainly efforts from the United States, Texas, Mexico and Canada.) If the newly generated system has a colony, choose an appropriate colonial power for the nationality.

    Colony Age: The current wave of colonization is around 100 years old, thus if the new system has an existing colony, roll d% for it’s age and maturity.

    Initial Orbit and Subsequent Orbits: Modify the tables on page 39 of the Traveller: 2300 Referee’s Manual to read;

    • 3d6 –Orbital Distance–Multiplier
    • 3—Empty Orbit—Empty Orbit
    • 4—Empty Orbit—x1.3
    • 5—.1 AU—x1.4
    • 6—.2 AU—x1.5
    • 7—.3 AU—x1.6
    • 8—.4 AU—x1.6
    • 9—.4 AU—x1.7
    • 10—.5 AU—x1.7
    • 11—.5 AU—x1.8
    • 12—.5 AU—x1.8
    • 13—.6 AU—x1.9
    • 14—.6 AU—x1.9
    • 15—.7 AU—x2.0
    • 16—.8 AU—x2.1
    • 17—.9 AU—x2.2
    • 18—1.0 AU—Empty Orbit

    I personally don’t always leave all system aspects to the randomness of the dice. If I require a world or colony with specific characteristics I simply assign the appropriate value to the proper descriptor.

  • Small Ships and Hard Times

    Small Ships and Hard Times

    Small Ship Campaigns at the End of the Rebellion War

    By 1121 3i, the Rebellion War had been in stalemate for two or three years. Fleet Actions and counter-actions have burned through entire front-line fleets and the reserves. For Lucan’s Imperium most of the remaining deca-kiloton and hecto-kiloton warships have been folded into his “Vengeance Fleet” with the singular goal of driving like a spear into Ilelish and dragging Dulinor’s head back to Capital as a trophy. The Solomani Front developed into a defensive struggle, with Imperial fleets holding the line and bleeding the Confederation dry.

    When the Black War began, first targeting the Hi Population worlds, then attacking the trade infrastructure, the targets were the resources needed to maintain these powerful Battleship fleets. Hoping to shock their adversary into a sudden collapse, the Black War only served to push the 11,000 worlds of the Imperium over the brink. By attacking the mechanisms that held interstellar civilization together, what started as a decline became a free-fall.

    By the end of 1124 3i, the Hard Times had begun

    Shifting to Commerce Raiding and Preserving the Big Ships

    With resources to keep the big cruisers and dreadnoughts battle ready dwindling fast, the major powers started turning to cannibalizing damaged ships to repair and refit the more capable ones. From 1121 through 1124 3i, the rapid decline in Tech Level hadn’t set in yet, but it was visible on the horizon. All the major navies could see a time when their TL 14 and 15 components wouldn’t be serviceable until after the War. Worse, none of the factions could see the end of that War. Especially Lucan.

    Lucan had become mad by then. Completely obsessed with “revenge” on Dulinor. In his all-to regular rages, he started authorizing “superweapons” and giving orders to non-existant fleets. Always and loudly proclaiming thatthis push was the one that would break Dulinor. It was only because his Imperium was the largest and richest faction by far that his reckless waste of resources didn’t cause a complete military and economic collapse.

    Cooler heads worked to preserve what battle fleets remained. Many of the still active fleets not engaged in deterrence, replaced their valuable capital ships of the line with much smaller, destroyer-sized squadrons. 5000 ton “pocket battlecruisers” and 1000 ton “strike cruisers” could be designed, built and deployed at a fraction of the cost in material and technology. Clever naming conventions held an illusion of the massive capital ships for the Admiralties still living at the high point of the war.

    Megacorporations suffered similar cutbacks. The old megafreighters massing in the hundreds of Ktons had been burned to a small fraction of their fleet. Like the battle fleets of the Navies, what few megafreighters had survived the Black War were travelling secure routes in the Core of the factions. No one risked the big freighters out in the no-man’s space of the Wilds.

    The result here was a return to small merchant freighters of 5000 tons or less, and for trade routes that crossed into the Wilds, the megacorps more than often simply contracted with independent tramp freighters to keep their cargo moving. This had a cooling effect on the war in general. At this smaller scale, even raiding commerce lines didn’t return the sort of results as jumping convoys of 50,000 or 200,000 ton freighters. That strategy too was downsized, then outsourced to Privateers.

    Pirate Kings and Merchant Princes

    Piracy has never been a “big ship” affair. Ships over 2,500 dtons tend to be too expensive to run are way too noticeable. There are millions of 400 ton Corsairs and 800 ton Mercenary Cruisers prowling the trade routes in charted space. But if a 10k ton pirated Light Cruiser started attacking shipping? That monster would be the top priority of every pirate hunting institution in the Sector.

    With the reduction in fleet strength, both among Navys and Corporate Fleets, the effectiveness of a pirate flotilla has increased greatly. Existing syndicates of pirate fleets claimed “toll fees” for safe passage through “their” space. With the threat of a strong Imperial, or Sector response that could easily outgun their corsair flotillas dwindling, Pirates became the wardens of the space-lanes. These resembled pocket-empires in some regions and crime families in others.

    A related condition affects the merchants and traders that continue to operate out in the Wilds. The same conditions that caused megacorporate fleets to withdraw to the relatively safe Core regions has opened opportunities for the owners and captains of small independent traders. Even though the Megacorporations have pulled back their fleets of multi-kiloton freighters, the demand for goods along the trade mains doesn’t change.

    The withdrawal of megacorporate naval power has empowered independent and local traders to attempt to fill the void. This has increased consumer prices across the board. After all, demand wasn’t falling but the delivery of supply carries a much higher risk. Trading fleets provide a measure of mutual protection and support, but not all Free Traders want to share profits, pay dues, and abide by the rules and bylaws of a fleet.

    In this new age of small ships, non-existant security, and isolation, the line between a Free Trader and Corsair can be very blurry.

  • She’s the Fastest Hunk of Junk in the Galaxy!

    She’s the Fastest Hunk of Junk in the Galaxy!

    She’s Fast Enough for You, Old Man.

    Traveller and Star Wars both came out in 1977. It took very little time for players to design all the ships in Traveller stats. Book 5: High Guard was published in 1980, the same year that Empire Strikes Back was released into theaters. And the adaptation of starships from that Galaxy Far, Far Away “made the jump to Lightspeed” (to misuse and abuse the famous quote.) For 50 years, there have been countless versions of the Millenium Falcon designed. Just look at the Empress Marava A2 Far trader design. Point being, what I’m doing in this essay ain’t nothin’ new.

    My idea is not to build a smuggling ship from the ground up. Instead, I’m refitting an Empress Marava A2 Far Trader to fit the description of the Millenium Falcon as Han Solo brags about her. Thus, all the misplaced Star Wars quotes. There will be more.

    I’ve Made a few Special Modifications Myself

    This ship is not a Trader, as Traveller defines “Trader”, we’re sacrificing almost all the Cargo Space for bigger engines, some Armor, and Hull modifications. The logic is that this ship mainly smuggles contraband and takes on passengers. If it tried to operate on a legal trade, it just doesn’t have the room to deliver the cargo volume to break even (to say nothing about turning a profit).

    The key to a smuggler is the Concealed Compartment. But it’s limited to 5% of the Ship’s Hull tonnage, in this case 10 tons. Added to that is Enhanced Stealth built into the Hull and a Grav Screen. Contraband can slip past most checkpoints, a Streamlined hull allows her to land planetside to deliver her cargo while minimizing risk of interdiction or a customs inspection.

    She’ll Make Point Five Past Lightspeed

    The biggest refit is in the drives. I’m interpreting “point five past lightspeed” as an increased Jump distance, in this case, Jump 3. Han also mentions that the Falcon can outrun Cruisers, and not the locals, but the “big Correllean Ships”. For this, I started comparing the Maneuver Drives of cruisers in High Guard. Maeuver 6 seems like the speed we’re looking for. This allows the smuggler to outrun and outmaneuver most military ships, which gives her the ability to run out to minimum Jump Distance. Or speed in-system before Patrol Corvette’s can effectively react.

    Jump 3 lets the ship cross 1.5 times the distance of a standard Far Trader, and 3 times the distance of a standard Free Trader. When smuggling, this extends the reach of black markets deeper into the regions. The footprint of the market can reach consumers that would take unmodified traders weeks to reach, even the larger traders like the Type R Subsidized Merchant. This refit can reach places hard-to-get-to by normal ships in the same class.

    Compromises Must Be Made

    This refit makes the ship very specialized. As mentioned, with 10 tons of cargo, it can’t turn a legal profit. Between the Drive upgrades and the increased Fuel capacity, 35 tons of cargo space had to be filled. Adding Armor, Improved Sensors and a Grav Screen takes up another 14 tons of cargo. 2 Standard Staterooms and the Loading Ramp were removed. With the small amount of space left over a Gaming Space for 4 people and an extra ton of Common Area was added (you know, just in case anyone wanted to pass the time in Jump Space playing holo-battle-chess or practicing with a lightsaber.) The small Fuel Processor (40 ton/day capacity) and the 4 Low Berths were retained.

    The refit is made at TL 12 so to keep the options to repair and maintain her as open as broad as possible. Furthermore, an A2 Far Trader coming into port sporting TL 12 components draws less curiosity and attention than one that has been refitted with TL 14 or 15 gear. Some meta reasoning, since this is a ship a Referee has designed, rather than a player is to leave the option open for the palyer-crew to install the high-tech gear they discover over the course of the campaign.

    Type A2 Far Trader – Empress Marava Class “Magpie Harlequin”

    Hull: 200 Ton Streamlined
    M-Drive: Thrust-6
    J-Drive: Jump-3
    Power Plant: Fusion (TL-12) Power 255
    Bridge: Standard
    Computer: Model/20 bis
    Sensors: Improved Sensors
    Fuel Tanks: one Jump-3, four weeks of operation (62 Tons)
    Weapons: 2x Triple Turrets, 3x Beam Lasers each
    Docking Space: 4 Tons, Cargo Air/Raft
    Systems:
    4x Low Berth
    Fuel Processor (40t / day)
    2x Cargo Airlock
    Improved Stealth (TL-10)
    10t Concealed Compartment
    Staterooms: 5x Standard
    Gaming Space -4 Players
    Common Area -12 Tons
    Software:
    Maneuver
    Intellect
    Jump Control/ 3; Bandwidth-15
    Evade/ 1; Bandwidth -10
    Fire Control/ 2; Bandwidth -10
    Cargo: 0

    Refit Cost: 206.856 MCr
    Maintenance Cost: 28,417 Cr
    Refit Time needed: 65.25 days

    Financing Available!

    Compared to a showroom-model new Empress Marava Far Trader (54.1582 MCr), this refit is expensive! Worse, with 10 tons of cargo space and only 5 standard staterooms, there is no business plan that could possible convince a Bank to finance a ship like this. Furthermore the 40 year Mortgage monthly payments of 1.088 MCr would be about 5 times as much as a standard Empress Marava.

    Which brings us to the institutions that would build a ship like this. The first, possibly easiest, option is to just refit the ship outright on your own credits, or leverage a bank into a 200 MCr personal loan (I mean with enough Noble backing, most banks can be “convinced” to float a personal loan). More likely, an institution can pay for the refit and assign the crew to the ship. Institutions in this case are closer to governmental intelligence agencies, or corporate espionage divisions. But those are “working for the Man” and no self-respecting Traveller wants to work for a noble or a corp. Han Solo didn’t smuggle spice for Ling Standard Products.

    Crime Syndicates however, (like Jabba the Hutt) are happy to float a big ol’ refit bill, especially for a crew with a good reputation for delivering profits on time. Just pay ’em back with a bit o’ vig for their good time and trouble and you’ll have your own hot little Millenium Falcon inspired smuggling vessel. Just don’t skip out on the payments to the Syndicate, they don’t use legally-licensed skip tracers, they use bounty hunters. Folks who run on a Syndicate debt could find themselves a wall decoration in the crime lord’s palace of sin.

    Agamemnon’s Far Trader

    Refits this extensive don’t necessarily happen all at once. Normally each component is refit on it’s own, in pieces and parts, as the ship owner can afford the time and expense. (Or as the owner can negotiate a new loan from the loan sharks). the Magpie Harlequin as described above is the result of years of tinkering and refits. Just like the ship which inspired her.

    If we were to have been playing this out over the course of a campaign. It would start most likely with a used A2 Far Trader. On average (according to the Core Rulebook 2022 Update), used ships would be 26 to 50 years old and would have 4 quirks.

    Finally, a refit ship like this could be an NPC ship-for-hire. With a shady scoundrel for a captain and a loyal Aslan co-pilot/engineer. A ship like this could be hired to get a band of Travellers to a high Law Level world with “no Imperial entanglements” so to speak.

    But that’s the trick isn’t it?