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.
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.
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.
FLUXis 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 Orbitand 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 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.
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.
After the Solomani Rim War, the Solomani Confederation spiraled into infighting and chaos. Terra had fallen to the Third Imperium in 1002 and the Confederation lacked a capital. The High Command of the Solomani Confederation was operating from the Home system in Aldebaran Sector since the Imperium pushed into the Solomani Rim sector in 998, towards the end of the war.
The Solomani Party shifted it’s leadership to Home in 1001 when the 3rd Imperium liberated the Vegan Autonomous District. The Confederation harbored few illusions that the Imperium would overrun Terra. When Terra did fall and the war ended in armistice, the Solomani Confederation suffered a political crisis that nearly fractured it into a hundred pocket empires.
The Solomani Cause also suffered a crisis of confidence in the first few years following the armistice. After all, how could the Solomani Humans be the the greatest branch of the greatest species in the galaxy if they couldn’t protect their own cradle? The Party, Movement, Confederation and Cause could only try desperately to hole itself together for the following decade or so.
SolSec Turns Inward
Solomani Security shifted it’s principal effort from enforcing the Party’s agenda outword to maintaining Party control within the Confederation itself. Because the Confederation Navy and Ground Forces had been crippled in the last year of the Rim War, using force to bring any disobedience back into line was impractical. However, even though the conventional military was rebuilding, SolSec had a well-developed and relatively lightly used resource. Propaganda.
As the Confederation and the Solomani Party recovered from the Rim War, SolSec used the news and media apparatus of the State to mend the divisions that started to develop. The Subsectors and systems which the Imperium had subdued became “the Occupation”. Terra didn’t fall, it was “Under Occupation by Imperial Invaders. Interstellar History classes in Primary and Secondary Schools and State-sponsored Universities placed an emphasis on the rise of the Rule of Man, and the Interstellar Wars period, where Terran forces overcame a technologically and territorially superior Vilani Empire. Patriotic lesiure media was supported and promoted. The Solomani Hypothosis was pushed forward in educational cirriculum. Solomani Security used the tools of influence to minimalize the effect of losing Terra to the Imperium.
“State Media” is well known and crude as the sole means of Propaganda. Instead, SolSec provided capital and material support to media corporations, local, regional, and Confederation-Wide. Simultaneously, they suppressed dissenting media outlets. SolSec stopped short of a full-blown crackdown on dissent. But a crackdown was not necessarily, the strategy of capital support was wildly successful. The Armistice was re-characterized from being a defeat, to being a story of heroic survival against an overwhelming enemy. The fractures in the Confederation was healed, and the Party was able to recover.
Attention Returned to the Occupied Region
In the years between 1014 and 1116 3i (5534 and 5636 AD) the Solomani Confederation Armed Forces were not nearly strong enough to challenge the Imperium’s occupation. However, after the Confederation’s political situation had stabilized, SolSec turned its attention to the Occupied Region. The strategies employed to indoctrinate the population of the Confederation were proven successful and revised for use in the Occupied Region.
SolSec was able to, through several shell companies and investment firms, engineer control of a sector-wide media corporation in Diaspora Sector. The corporation, Neo Londra Media (LIC), was reorganized and registered under the name Alithea (LIC). Alithea spent several years improving it’s journalistic reputation to be comparative to the Imperial Interstellar News Service (IINS) and the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society (JTAS). Though not nearly as old, nor accomplished as the IINS or JTAS, Alithea gathered a lot of popularity and social momentum as “new” media, rebellious, popular and hungry. Especially in contrast to the “stodgy conservatism” of the older media corporations.
With indirect support from SolSec, Alithea went through a rapid expansion towards the Rim over it’s first 25 years. Either by expanding it’s own network of companies, or by acquiring new assets. By the end of the 1050s 3i, Alithea was present throughout the old Solomani Sphere, covering the Solomani Rim, Old Expanses and Diabei sectors with the occupied systems in Alpha Crucis and Magyar sectors.
The Solomani Sphere
The Solomani Sphere, the region within 50 parsecs of Sol has, for centuries, been “culturally Solomani”. For centuries, the Imperium allowed a large amount of self-rule for the systems in the “Solomani Autonomous Region”. Until the Rim War, the Autonomous Region paid governmental lip service to the Emperor and the Third Imperium. Paying Imperial Taxes and permitting routine Imperial operations without hassle.
SolSec was able to take advantage of this, promoting the Solomani Sphere as a ethnic and cultural state through the mechanism of Alithea. Of course, Alithea is careful not to cross over into treasonous rhetoric when promoting the Solomani Sphere as a region, nor endorse the Solomani Supremacy Movement in the Imperial Occupation. Still, the promise of a “Solomani Sphere” is very popular among the people in the Sectors of the former Autonomous Zone. Alithea’s support of this interpretation of history takes advantage of this popularity. In the sectors where Alithea is active, the Solomani Cause is very sympathetic among the citizens (at least the human citizens, it’s doubtful that Hivers subscribe to “Solomani Humaniti are the destined masters of the Galaxy”)
How Alithea Functions
With the speed of news limited to the speed of mail ships, it’s not possible to manage every system from the Alithea Headquarters in Iusea. Even communication between Alithea HQ and the Confederation Capital takes nearly 30 weeks. Alithea breaks down it’s editorial voice into broad strokes, allowing local stations broad control of the journalism and investigations they provide to their audience.
Alithea Headquarters
The central HQ of the megacorporation in Iusea system, Iusea Subsector, Diaspora Sector. From here, Alithea sets it’s editorial agenda from secret instructions received from SolSec on Home.
Sector Offices
Each of the Sectors that Alithea operates in have offices that manage editorial content for the sectors they cover
Diaspora – Iusea System
Solomani Rim – Jael System
The systems in Magyar Subsectors Voyage and Swan and the systems in Alpha Crucis Subsectors Orichalc and Denebola are under the direction of the Solomani Rim Sector Office
Diabei – Mgg System
The systems in Magyar Subsectors Clown and Anise are under the direction of the Diabei Sector Office
Old Expanses – Hindahl System
Subsector Stations
These offices have a more direct editorial control over the local offices, assigning reporters to stories of interest, or commissioning editorial opinions and essays.
Local Affiliates
In systems with a population of 6 or greater (millions of inhabitants) and a Tech Level of 5 Alithea maintains local affiliate stations.
Alithea supports it’s local affiliate stations to the limits of the systems ability to bear. For example, a TL 5 system can’t support a world-wide consumer computer or satellite network, but it can support AM band radio broadcasts so the Alithea affiliates enjoy the best broadcast equipment for transmission, and TL 14 infrastructure.
In systems with a Balkanized government Althea maintains a Local station in each of the balkanized states.
Stories that weren’t time sensitive are sent up the network to Headquarters and distributed out from there (after approval and possible spinning by SolSec.)
Alithea’s Editorial Voice
Alithea is active in the Occupation Region for a primary purpose. Prepare the region for “liberation” by the Solomani Confederation and thus restoring the Solomani Sphere. To this purpose, Alithea promotes stories that feature confirmation of the Solomani Hypothesis, and the Solomani Cause.
A more clandestine purpose is to foster the development and communication with sleeper cells of SolSec. This network of sleepers were preparing the civilian population to collaborate with Confederation forces in the event they take control of their system. In some cases, the network of sleepers would conduct sabotage, espionage, and guerilla operations in support of a Confederation invasion.
The propaganda spread works to normalize the Solomani Calendar (especially in historical documentaries, pre-third Imperium events are dated in A.D.). Furthermore, news stories featuring Noble decadence and corruption are enhanced and spread throughout the Occupied Region. Dates are sometimes “adjusted” or ignored to preserve the immediacy of scandals. In addition to scandals, Alithea also gives attention to a steady stream of conspiracy theories and stereotypes of non-Solomani humaniti.
Finally, Alithea affiliates advertised services and products that supported the propaganda and editorial direction. The products and services were presented to appeal to the target audiences. While still working within the boundaries of local system law levels, there was a definite “disaster preparation, personal defense, and ancestry exploration” (which almost always returned results heavily weighted toward Solomani ethnicity). Of course few of these products and services were lucrative advertisers, but the investment companies that laundered SolSec funds more than made up for any lack of operations budgets.
The Rebellion War
Emperor Strephon’s assassination in 1116 3i was the event that SolSec had been waiting for. Alithea had been very successful in it’s mission, which was evidenced by the Confederation’s rapid advances in the Solomani Rim, Old Expanses and Magyar, closing like a vice towards Diaspora. However, as the Rebellion War ground on, with multiple factions splintering off and pressing claims for territory, the early gains stagnated. By 1121 3i, the war had ground to a halt. Worse, the Confederation had exhausted nearly all of it’s resources in wars in the Occupation region.
As the Hard Times dawned in 1125, the collapse of Interstellar commerce and trade had all but bankrupted Alithea as a corporation. Without SolSec funding, Alithea was incapable of enduring the Imperial Collapse. At the same time, the media companies developed, were robust enough to reform into regional networks. However, without Alithea, or SolSec, these regional networks no longer present a coorinated propaganda message and many dissolved into the mouthpiece for warlords and pocket emperors.
Dwarves in fantasy roleplaying, especially in the modern sense, have become stereotypes. Loosely based on Gimli from Lord of the Rings, it’s a common shorthand, found in several fantasy settings beyond Middle Earth. Dwarves are short, bearded, stocky, gruff, capable of holding grudges across generations, masterful artisans and miners. Some sources describe Dwarven women as having beards, (like Xindi and Xandi on the masthead), others describe Dwarven women as lacking facial hair (like Disa from Rings of Power) and often Scottish coded. Part of this image is Dwarves living in extensive Clans.
So widespread is this stereotype is that it’s common parlance. When the GM mentions a character is a Dwarf, the players will most often draw up powerful mental images of that character based on the previous description. While this “short”-hand is useful (see what I did there?), it can lead to confusion at the table as players make assumption about their Dwarven companions.
Dwarves in the Dezzyverse
In my campaigns I “reskin” dwarves just to shake up player assumptions. This is mostly just retitleing the names of dwarven things. I prefer to use the terms a people would use for themselves, as opposed to the terms that others would use for them. In the case of my campaigns, they call themselves Svakk as a people. (Indeed, calling them “Dwarf” might start a brawl) Though the Svakk refer to themselves most commonly by the name of their Klaarg (which is their word for “clan”). “Xandi of Klaarg Tordenzme” for example. The languages of the Svakk are collectively called Klaargspek, though like their cultural identities, most Svakk refer to their languages by the name of their Klaarg. “Tordenzme Klaargspek” or “Sohnrodt Klaargspek”.
Even divided among dozens of distinct Klaarg, the Svakk people are tightly bound together, Klaargspek is understood even through different dialects spoken in different Klaarg. Klaargspek also shares a single runic alphabet, the Vaalbek.
The Doom of Klaarg Tordenzme
Once, Klaarg Tordenzme stood among the strongest and most wealthy Klaarg among the Svakk. Indeed, the grasp of Klaarg Tordenzme had stretched beyond the halls and citadels of the mountain realms, Tordenzme was a force within the kingdoms and empires throughout the lands, from sea to ocean. The heart of this mighty realm was their city of Dohrgraign. Deepest of the delves beneath the mountains, in this age, Dohrgraign was was the only city to make peaceful contact with the dark realms of the Underworld.
Exotic and expensive trade passed through Dohrgraign, under the leadership of Theigns from Klaarg Tordenzme. Roads from the farthest realms stretched to the Grand Gate that led deep into the Underworld, a league-and-a-half below the surface world to the City of Dohrgraign. For centuries Klaarg Tordenzme stood among the greatest of these ancient empires.
Then came the Doom of the Tordemzme, a prophecy delviered to Klarg Tordenzme that was defied, causing catastrophe. Over nine years of what the chronicles named “The Fall of Dohrgraign”, the city suffered endless misfortunes that resulted, finally in the gates being sealed from the outside world. Few detailed records survived the Fall and in the eight centuries after the Sealing, the city itself was lost to memory, fading into myth, a distant curse and reason to shun the descendants of Klaarg Tordenzme.
Eight hundred years ago, during the reign of Theign Haaldbarg, a mysterious prophet known as the Black Vizier was recieved at court. The hooded and robed figure did not bow, nor show deference to Theign Halldbarg, speaking directly and openly their warning.
“Trespass no further into the dark below the stone on which your thy city stands. Else the greed of Klaarg Tordenzme will become Dohrgraign’s downfall.”
Insulted, Theign Haaldbarg ordered the Black Vizier thrown in chains. Yet, when the guards attempted to seize them, the Black Vizier vanished with a clap of thunder that felled all within two or three strides of the figure.
Afterwards, the Black Vizier appeared again and again, and always delivering disaster where it stood. It is difficult to tell exactly when Theign Haaldbarg sealed the city, but there was one last evacuation towards the surface. History records that a foul miasma had arisen from the Wyrmansklovt and spread throughout the city, bringing horror and death. What few citizens of Dohrgraign still remained were commanded to flee to the surface.
It was following this last escape from the Underworld that the tunnels connecting Dohrgraign to the surface collapsed. In the centuries which followed, the city that grew around the Grand Gate withered and fell into ruin and Dohrgraign was ultimately lost.
The Doom of Klaarg Tordenzme was used by the klaargs for centuries as a warning against hubris. The few Tordenzme communities that survived the Doom have been marginalized by other klaargs as “cursed” based on this myth.
The Year of Rage
In the “current” year of my D&D campaign, it has been roughly ten years since the events detailed in the published adventure Out of the Abyss. With the incursion of demons, a small struggle between the Demon Prince of Undeath and the Patron Deity of Dohrgraign, the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain has caused lost passages to open once more as demons and the holy dead battled one another.
The Year of Rage also corrupted the ambient magic of the Underworld. Mortals adventuring in the ruins of Dohrgraign risk Torment and corruption. The cursed city drew the Demon Prince to it. Dohrgraign had been a tomb for eight hundred years by the time the Year of Rage brought demons into the Underworld. The Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain was not only the God of hidden treasures and secret knowledge but he is the Keeper of the Dead. Dohrgraign is one of his holy places under the mountain, and after eight centuries, it has become a secret as well.
The Crossroads of the Underworld
Dohrgraign was not a naturally occurring space. It was carved from the stone of the underworld by Klaarg Tordenzme over centuries. Following the seams and veins of ore, the Tordenzme miners uncovered the passages and caverns used by the civilizations below the surface. The closest of these caverns became the Gatehouse of Dohrgraign, another nearby cavern (a much larger cavern) would develop into the settlement known as Genzhymyl.
In the present day, Genzhymyl has grown into a thriving trading center. It is independent from the competing realms in this region of the Underworld, The Empire of Llolth, the Azhgov Clan, and the various Goblinoid, Kuo-Toa, and Orcish communities that have settled in this area over the past several centuries. With the newly unblocked passages, Dohrgraign is once again able to be discovered.
Using Setting Events in Life Path Character Generation
Many of my favorite Role Playing Games feature a Life Path character creation mechanic. I dig this because it creates characters with a backstory that is determined from the dice. It also results in a variety of character ages. Of course, this works best in games and settings where the adventurers experience moderate advancement over their careers. In games where experienced characters are exponentially more capable than beginning characters (like Dungeons and Dragons (as the most prominent example), having a variety of starting capabilities results in the most powerful characters pushing the least experienced characters (and their players) out of the spotlight.
Emergent Storytelling
At it’s core, Life Path character generation creates characters with personal milestones in their life. Most games also encourage players to develop connections between their characters, developing relationships before play begins. So instead of a group of strangers meeting around the table of a local tavern, it’s a crew of friends, acquaintances and allies being called together. All the characters have connections with at least one other character and can speak up for another. The characters aren’t risking their lives and fortunes for strangers, but for buddies.
This style of character gen also develops NPCs as background Allies, Enemies, Rivals and Contacts shared by more than one character. So when the Evil Ninja Clan shows up to collect on one character’s debt, a second character might have some influence with the Evil Ninjas, or a third character hates the Evil Ninja Clan for killing their childhood pet, etc. Ex-romantic partners could be shared among characters. Because this is all determined by dice rolls compared to a chart, the GM can tailor some direction of their setting by altering the Life-Path charts.
Events in the Setting
In many published campaigns, there is lore that too often fades into the background. Life Path character generation can help to give those lore events context. Maybe no one was directly involved when the Fire Nation invaded 12 years ago. But all characters were alive then, and probably remember when and where they were when that happened. Maybe the old veteran was in one of those early battles, maybe the brash young kid was only 7 years old and had to flee with their family. Point is, there is an event fixed in history, and it’s a big enough event that everyone knows where they where when they learned about it.
This helps to make the setting feel alive. Things happen and your characters experienced them. Or their families were affected by them. Incorporating history in the Life Path, gives everyone a shared touchstone and brings the players into the setting. Their characters become part of the campaign’s fabric. their histories meshing with the history of the campaign.
Counting Backwards
The nature of Life-Path character gen (at least in Traveller’s long history of editions) usually results in a twelve-to-sixteen year character background broken into four year terms. The Life-Path starts at age of majority (usually 18) and moves forward term-by-term. This forward progression builds an intuitive history for the character. Second Term follows First Term and the events of the first term affects the various die modifiers of the second. However, due to the randomized nature of the character generation process, it is not possible to predict with complete certainty how many years or terms a life-path will last before the character is mustered out and begins their career as an Adventurer.
Game Masters should establish the starting in world date of the campaign. That serves as present day, and its only during the wrap up phase that players can map their character’s life path onto the history of the setting. As explored in O God, Thy Sea is so Great, news in settings that lack direct Faster than Light travel, will take weeks and months to spread out through interstellar polities.
One of my favorite sector maps in Traveller. It graphically illustrates how news travels through the Imperium
The above map depicts how the news of Emperor Strephon’s assassination spread through the Imperium along X-Boat routes and priority Jump-6 courier routes. It is a great example of what a civilization-wide event looks like in a setting the size of Traveller’s Charted Space.
Not All Setting Events Spread This Far
Which also shows something important. Not every important event is earth-shaking like the assassination of the Emperor of the Third Imperium. There are plenty of potential events that are important regionally, but not universally. These can also, when incorporated into a campaign and character generation, help to define a character’s life-path.
Consider a localized event, say a recent supernova of a star. It could even have led to the destruction of an inhabited system. The result is hundreds of millions, or billions of refugees spreading to nearby systems and the sudden pressure of a refugee crisis in those systems. The evidence of that event, that is, the electromagnetic eruption caused by a supernova still only spreads at the speed of light. So it would still take 3.26 years for the nova to spread to the nearest parsecs. Roughly one Traveller Term.
In those four years, the stress on the surrounding subsector, would be evident, but beyond the sector, it would still take decades for the crisis to become anything more than a JoTAS story. Maybe a reclassification of Amber or Red Zones. Characters whose homeworlds are in the local region would definitely have the event featured. Characters from outside the region wouldn’t. And as a result, the scope of the setting can be enhanced.
Of Course This All Fills a Session Zero to Overflowing
Life-Path character generation’s biggest drawback is the amount of time necessary to create a character. Especially when creating a group of characters. Going through multiple terms, rolling for skill advancements and Events simply eats up time at the table. Adding another layer where the GM offers Lore details that might be at best, optional, can easily extend a Session Zero to second Session Zero point Five.
Which is a delay to playing the campaign, ya know, the point of creating all these characters in the first place. So, add campaign lore events to Session Zero only as much as is fun for everyone. What you want, as a GM and a Player, is to generate excitement and anticipation. When the exercise becomes tedious and boring, it’s time to wrap up character generation and start adventuring among the stars!
In Traveller, there are mechanics for characters to realize Psionic Abilities. As a phenomenon, Psionics are widespread in charted space. It’s pretty safe to deduce that unless psionic abilities are specifically defined as being absent with a given species, at least some portion of the population has psionic potential. Still, with the exception of the Ancients (who are not around in the setting), the Droyne (who are what the surviving Ancients became over the last 300,000 years), and the Zhodani (who the Ancients kept as “pets” the longest, do we see a pattern?), Psionics are rare.
Because Psionics are rare, they’re often misunderstood by society at large, and feared. We’ll get further into this later on, but except for the Zhodani Consulate, and a handful of minor pocket empires, Psionics are actively suppressed in most every polity in Charted space.
Mechanically, during character creation, it is very rare for a player to make a character with these abilities. In Traveller, the events necessary that gives the player an option to develop their character’s Psionic Potential are rare enough, that most often, the dice are “massaged” to make it practical to develop a psionic character. Because of this, Psionics are often ignored in most Traveller campaigns, except in instances when it is in the hands of the antagonists.
The other factor that works against the wider popularity with Psionics is how relatively weak they start, and how long it takes for them to develop into reliable, powerful abilities. As mentioned, just getting Psionics is difficult in the first place. When a player does get an opportunity to add Psionics to their character, they have to pursue their character’s training through character generation. Otherwise the character’s abilities are often not worth the resources needed to use them.
Psionic Mechanics
To use a character’s Psionic abilities, the character needs to spend time to activate an ability. This can be somewhat complicated and variable, Psionic abilities count as a Significant action so long as it takes less than six seconds to activate. If it takes more than six seconds, the ability will take multiple combat rounds, counted in multiples of six seconds (a psionic ability that takes 1d6 x 10 seconds will take 4 combat rounds if only a 2 is rolled (20 seconds / 6 seconds per round = 3 rounds + 2 seconds, activating on the 4th combat round), spend a resource (the Psionic points cost) and make a Psionic skill roll. During play, this combines to making a player commit a lot of effort into using their character’s Psionic powers without any guarantee of success. If the attempt fails, the player has essentially wasted up to several rounds, their psionic resources and added the natural disappointment of failing a skill check.
Compared to simply making a mundane attack or performing a simple skill check, Psionics are inefficient and suboptimal options. Worse, the Player is losing a lot of spotlight just to do attempt a single act while other characters enjoy multiple combat rounds of attempts to take the spotlight.
Psionics in the Traveller Universe are Secondary.
Psionic characters, even Zhodani, aren’t “Jedi Knights”, they don’t walk into firefights with a lazer sword and deflect incoming fire back into the enemy. They don’t tear capital ships out of orbit, crush armored vehicles or see the future unfold like a movie. Traveller isn’t that sort of environment and Psionics aren’t a stand-in for “spellcaster class”.
This means Psionic characters need to cultivate some non-psionic skills to function in the game as a well-rounded character. Psionics, because they use a Psionics Skill Check, often at high Difficulties, are unreliable. Most abilities are best used outside of combat situations, either as pre-combat buffs, or as out-of combat abilities. Taking 1d6 x 10 seconds out of combat to activate an ability is much less intrusive than 5 rounds in combat for a trick that will likely fail half-the-time.
Fortunately, this applies to NPCs and Antagonists as well, even the dreaded Zhodani Thought Police aren’t face-melting, teleporting bogeymen who can kill with little more than a thought. Even the most powerful psionic antagonist with a dose of Special Psi Drug on board, has a limited number of Psionic Strength Points. Even with a high Psionic skill, they still need to make an activation roll most of the time. The time requirements don’t change. Attack abilities like Assault still only affect one person at a time, and Teleportation is still limited by elevation and distance.
Even the guy in Black Zhodani Noble Battle Dress with a TL 16 Psi Blade (an elegant weapon from a more civilized age) isn’t the same as our favorite Dark Lord of the Sith (though, Citizens of the Imperium stats up a convincing facsimile of that dude). Even a Psionic Master so equipped will be in a whole world of ouch once shot with a PGHP-13 and the attacker rolls a 5 on the DD Dice (that’s 50 points of damage, enough to burn through the Armor Value of 27 and still have 23 points of damage incoming into the Dark Lord’s tender fleshy bits.
Psionics Institutes and the Hard Times
Ever since the Psionics Suppressions of 800 – 820 3i, the Psionics Institutes of the Third Imperium had been forced underground, hiding in the High Population worlds where the volume and speed of life served to mask the Institutes’ various cells. The biggest threat to the Institutes during the period following the Psionics Suppressions have been the Third, Fourth and Fifth Frontier Wars against the Zhodani Consulate.
The inevitable propaganda that comes with war, even war at the edge of Empire vilifies “the enemy” and their strengths. In the case of the Zhodani, this strength was Psionics. The same strategies to defend against insurrection and espionage from the Zhodani Consulate proved effective against uncovering the cells of the Psionics Institutes. Worse, for the Institutes, war propaganda spreads much further than the theater of conflict and a century of wars against the Zhodani rooted anti-psionic worries deep in the Imperial bureaucracy.
At the outbreak of the Rebellion War, only six years after the armistice that ended the Fifth Frontier War, many of the earliest conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of Emperor Strephon orbited around “mind control”. Zhodani plots, secret societies of telepaths, Dulinor himself being a secret psionic master, the “psionic illuminati”, and the list goes on. All of these theories enflame paranoia and fear against anyone who demonstrates, or are accused of demonstrating psionic abilities. Only the relative chaos of the Rebellion War prevented a second Psionics Suppression under Emperor Lucan (though, in the core of Lucan’s faction, the paranoid Emperor pursued endless programs of oppression of any number of perceived enemies and traitors).
By the beginning of the Hard Times in 1125 3i, The Black War period had both created swathes of territory beyond the reach of a faction’s core, and decimated the High Population worlds where the Psionics Institutes had endured for so long. The Institutes and the communities they educated were caught between witch-hunts by majority populations traumatized by war and the sudden freedom to operate more openly than they were allowed to for centuries. The result was a patchwork of disconnected psionic communities isolated on islands of civilization.
Some of these communities enjoyed a mutually beneficial arrangement with the non-psionic population, a symbiotic relationship where the gifts of the mind often meant the difference between which side of the survival margin the world would fall. Other communities succumbed to paranoia and fear, driving out anyone suspected of psionic ability or training like witches from antiquity, complete with inquisitions and executions. Yet other communities found themselves vulnerable to the predations of psionically empowered tyrants who used their gifts to elevate themselves into a psionic dictatorship. Like most of the worlds suffering through the Hard Times, each new system presented new problems and opportunities for Travellers.
Electric Head, Cannibal Core, the Television Said..
Most Tabletop Roleplaying Games feature humans as the dominant species in the setting. The reasoning is straightforward, Players, being humans themselves, can most easily identify with their characters when they are human as well. It also saves on lore-overload. With humans, whether they’re from Earth, Corellia, Rigel IV, or Vland do not require an essay explaining what they are. Roll up a character, and get playing, no need to wonder about why your Vulcan has green blood, or your Wookie looks suspiciously like Bigfoot. Also, with a human-centric setting, all the gear is easily designed and described. No trying to explain the kinesthetics of a laser rifle made for Hivers when your lasgun looks pretty much like the rifles and carbines that exist today on the real world.
A group of Hivers suited up and packin’ Hiver-heat!
Impact of a Human Universe
Human centered universes are scaled and designed to be convenient for humans. If Humans are the default species, the habitats and furnishings are familiar. Even if it’s a “space-chair” that floats it’s a chair that is designed for bipedal mammals with arms, legs, feet and hands. No need to slow the game down describing it and making the player describe how their character takes a seat. Buildings and vehicles are scaled for 1.75 meter tall 68 kg operators and passengers. Computers are designed with keyboards for manipulative digits and the ability to communicate through voice. Doorknobs are made for people with opposable thumbs.
It’s why most of the aliens in Star Trek and Star Wars are near-human. Even Wookies, at 2.2 meters tall are human enough to pilot a YT-1300 Stock Light Freighter. All of the bumpy headed aliens of the Star Trek Universe are compatible enough that a member of one species can be disguised as a member of one of the other species. Of course, the practical reason for this is that the actors are themselves humans and it’s cheaper and more practical to throw a rubber mask on and spirit-gum some extra hair and be an alien on screen. Just look at what was needed in Return of the Jedi to operate and act Jabba the Hutt. Poor guy only got to leave his couch of perpetual indulgence after the Special Editions were released and computer graphics could be used to let the big ‘ol slug slither around Mos Eisley.
It’s fun to speculate what a Hutt civilization, or a Tholian civilization would be like. It’s a nice place to visit as a role-player. Stepping out of the familiar into the alien, is a fun exercise, but not something many players would want to deal with week in and week out for the length of a long campaign. Being unable to pass through a door because it’s scaled for a Jawa is a challenge, Not being able to pass through ALL the doors in the city because it’s all scaled for Jawas is just tedious.
There is Infinite Diversity in the Human Condition
The danger of the default-human setting is that everyone starts to look, sound and act like the culture the players and game masters live in. Even a setting that presents itself as highly diverse, like Star Trek is mostly causation, especially in The Original Series. If the game master isn’t careful, the distant world of Efate can start to feel like Los Angeles, or Dallas or Tampa Bay.
The contrasting issue is also a danger. It’s all to easy to lean on stereotypes of “exotic” human cultures. Every desert planet starts to feel like Algeria or Egypt. The primitive worlds start to look a lot like aboriginal and tribal cultures as portrayed in the pulps. As GMs I’m not saying that every world needs to have a unique culture with roots going back centuries. But if you’re designing the next world the PCs are visiting, recognize when you’re shortcutting the humans that live there as someone else’s real culture. If you spend the time to look at your setting elements, you’ll also find it really easy to change the people of the place enough to make them unique without diving into worn out stereotypes.
Humans are highly adaptable, and as a species, we can make tools to survive in every climate imaginable, including space. Over the course of generations, populations of humans living in different climates will evolve physical characteristics that help them survive in the climate where they live. Furthermore, the humans that have evolved in one climate are able to have children with other humans from other climates and the genetic mix gives humanity a near infinite variety. You can use this for your player characters and your npcs in a campaign. It’s easy for a band of eight characters to be visually and culturally unique from one character to the next.
More Human Than Human
with apologies to Rob Zombie
There has been an unfortunate standard set in tabletop role playing games over the decades of making humans the “default” species, and as such not giving them bonus or disadvantageous abilities or modifiers. Humans are characters that were played as rolled. Which, while balanced, didn’t excite players. Especially when other species could see in low light, or have superhuman agility or strength or inherent weapons like claws or fangs.
But this really doesn’t need to be true. Humans have adapted several exceptional abilities based on their environments. People from high altitudes have developed expanded lung capacities and efficient oxygen consumption, people from cold climates have evolved heavy bodily hair, people from climates that experience excessive exposure to sunlight develop elevated melanin deposits in their skin. The list goes on and on.
Game balance is a bit over-rated. Character abilities do not need to be a zero-sum balance. Depending on a character’s origins, it could be justifiable for human characters to have resistance to environmental toxins, or radiation, or prehensile lower extremities. Even tails. Just look at science fiction. Humans have a broad variety of almost superhuman abilities and crippling vulnerabilities. A people who evolve in orbital freefall might have exceptionally long limbs, flexibility and dexterity, but suffer incredibly under 1G pressures. People who evolve on distant dark worlds may develop the ability to see deeper into the infrared spectrum but become colorblind.
Cat-Girls and Dog-Faced Boys
Body modification is commonplace in several science fiction settings, for that matter, body modification is pretty common in the modern world. Human characters can begin game play modified to present as aliens, anthropomorphic animals, or any other unique combination. With enough cyberware, aesthetic surgeries, or biochemical therapies, a character’s identity can have infinite diversity.
Again, most of this is cosmetic, but in some cases, being a modified human character can come with some abilities or modifiers, as mentioned above. Players and GMs can use some of the alien species from published settings. Aslan and Vargr from Traveller, Lyrans, Kzinti and Gorn from Star Trek, and the Lepi from Star Wars as guidance for what benefits or modifiers a character might employ on their character sheet.
Jaxxon, the Green Space Bunny and acquaintance of Han Solo
Humaniti in Traveller
In the 3rd Imperium of Traveller, humans are the majority species. Humaniti is so widespread in Traveller that there are 3 branches of humans that would be conisdered “Major Species”. Two of these species, the Vilani and the Zhodani are humans originally from Earth. 300,000 years earlier an advanced alien empire, the Ancients abducted groups of humans from Earth and brought those humans with them as they traveled among the stars. They seeded two human colonies in systems favorable to human development, Vland (where the Vilani evolved) and Zhodane (where the Zhodani evolved). The Ancients had also taken other species from Earth (and other planets, the Ancients were not shy about seeding forms of life on different planets just to see what happens) which in the case of Terran wolves, is where the Vargr originated). The humans who were left on Earth, evolved into the Solomani.
In the current era of My Traveller Universe (3i 1125, the beginning of the Hard Times) the 3rd Imperium has Solomani populations towards the rimward sectors, Vilani populations towards the coreward sectors, and the majority of the Imperium is populated by people of mixed Vilani-Solomani ancestry. The Zhodani, being the people of a rival Empire are rare as Imperial Citizens, but in the spinward and coreward sectors (“behind the claw”) Vilani-Solomani-Zhodani ancestries are uncommon, but not unheard of.
What does this mean? In this case this is an clear indication that humans are one species with several sub-species. The distinctions of Vilani, Solomani, Zhodani, and any of the hundreds of minor sub-species of humaniti are cultural and ethnic at best. For most characters, “human imperial citizen” commonly refers to the Solomani-Vilani ancestry, but there is nothing stopping a player from describing their human character having an ancestry that is regionally distinctive.
As mentioned, several ancestries of the human species have developed interstellar empires, and have distinctive cultures and subcultures. The Traveller source material, especially the Alien Modules can provide deep dives into the three major cultures, Solomani, Vilani, and Zhodani. Vilani and Solomani cultures have blended over centuries into the society that is described in the 3rd Imperium. At the Rimward border of the Imperium, the Solomani have carved out what could be described as a Solomani ethno-state.
The Solomani Sphere
In the long history of Traveller, one of the pivotal events was the Solomani Rim War (3i 990 – 1002). In this conflict, the 3rd Imperium attempted to reassert authority over the worlds of the “Solomani Autonomous Region”. The war resulted in a contested victory for the 3rd Imperium when the Sol system was conquered. The Solomani Confederaion was unable to retake the homeworld of humaniti, and the 3rd Imperium was eager to bring an end to the war by 3i 1002. For the next 114 years, the occupied worlds of Diabei, Diaspora, the Old Expanses and the Solomani Rim were a powder-keg of ethnic conflict.
The Solomani Confederation, previously the Solomani Sphere is distinct from the 3rd Imperium. Like most interstellar empires, the Solomani Confederation does not have a single cultural expression, but it does have a common, shared mythology. The Solomani Hypothesis, that theorises (with strong evidence in support) humaniti developed and evolved on Terra (Earth) first, and was spread into the stars first by the Ancients and then by their own technology.
The term”Solomani” gets overused in the Confederation. One major reason stems from the Solomani Hypothesis; because humaniti originated on Earth, the Solomani are the original humans and are thus superior to all other branched species of humaniti. The Solomani Party is the political organization that governs the Confederation. The Solomani Cause is the political strategy that promotes Solomani humans outside of the Confederation. The Solomani Cause has also been the rallying point surrounding the “liberation” of Terra from the 3rd Imperium and further restoring the Solomani Sphere to it’s pre-3i 990 extents. The Solomani Movement is the Cause as a factor in politics outside the Confederation.
Aren’t the Solomani the Bad Guys?
It’s somewhat of a debate in the Traveller community as to whether or not the Solomani Confederation are the “bad guys” of the Rim. The veneration of the Solomani Hypothesis and the Solomani Cause gives some “supremacist” overtones, or at the very least a classist society with Solomani Humans in the position of privilege. The Solomani Party being the dominant political faction (indeed, the only legal faction) within the Solomani Confederation leans hard towards authoritarian govenrments with some really bad associations throughout history.
It’s been pointed out that the Solomani Confederation isn’t monolithic, in the same way as the Emperor isn’t a monolith in the Third Imperium, the Hive Federation, or the 29 Clans in the Aslan Hierate are monolithic for those empire. The Solomani Confederation covers about six sectors, and contains about 2,000 inhabited systems. If you think about the current diversity of cultures, ethnicities and governmental bodies in our one star system, the idea that the Solomani Party holds and iron-fisted grip on society throughout the Solomani Confederation is farcical. Even if a given Traveller campaign portrays the Solomani Party as oppressive, it’s not the Empire from Star Wars, or the Mirror Universe Terran Empire of Star Trek. Remember the distances involved and times to send communications from one system to another that we explored in this blog.
The Solomani of the Confederation aren’t jackbooted thugs checking for “genetic purity” at ubiquitous checkpoints. The Solomani Confederation, like all the major empires of Traveller is best described as a “tribe”. It’s a nationalistic tribe that promotes the Solomani Cause, but that’s not much different than the 3rd Imperium promotion the Emperor, or the Zhodani Consulate promoting Zhodani Psionic Society. They’re not “supremacist” but their cultures promote their own Empires.
In My Traveller Universe, the Solomani Confederation are antagonists, at least in the rimward areas of Diaspora sector. In the Rebellion War, the Solomani Confederation launched the “Second War of Solomani Liberation” to liberate the Sol system, and reclaim the systems of the Solomani Sphere. The Imperial Occupied Region covers the four rimward subsectors of Diaspora sector, ,as well as the majority of the Solomani Rim sector. The further rimward in Diaspora one goes, the more Solomani Confederation operations one will encounter.
During the Hard Times, in Diaspora, the Occupied Subsectors are aligning much closer to the Solomani Confederation. The vision of a re-established Solomani Sphere is clearer than it’s been in a century. The Solomani Confederation has not suffered nearly as badly as Lucan’s 3rd Imperium and the stability offered by the Confederation Navy has helped these systems weather the Black War and the Imperial Decline. It’s not an example of the Evil Empire winning, it’s an example of how a portion of the vast 3rd Imperium is keeping back a second Long Night.
Lore and Legends of the Dezzyverse 