TRAVELLER Digest 561

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: Plague of Duskir and the Nth Interstellar War by mhclark@iastate.edu
  2) Traveller campaigns by odysseus@inetnebr.com (Jeff Kazmierski)
  3) TNE Ship Spreadsheet problem by 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
  4) by traveller@MPGN.COM
  5) 2300: Near Stars, "Alpha Crucis" by Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@itlabs.umn.edu>
  6) by traveller@MPGN.COM
  7) by traveller@MPGN.COM
  8) by traveller@MPGN.COM
  9) by traveller@mpgn.com
 10) by traveller@MPGN.COM

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:07:29 CST
From: mhclark@iastate.edu
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Plague of Duskir and the Nth Interstellar War
Message-ID: <9601211607.AA03774@las2.iastate.edu>

> Someone mentioned that the canonical reason for Terran victory in the Nth
> Interstellar War was some sort of plague that hit the Vilani. Sorry, but
> I've never come across this one ... but will freely admit that I do not have
> a 100% complete set of Traveller/MTrav/TNE gear ... so, *where* is it
> mentioned? I have a friend who *has* as complete a set of Traveller gear
> as it is possible to have, and *he* has never heard of it.

  See Solomani & Aslan, page 22.  It's also in a Traveller's Digest
article on medicine, in issue #24 I believe (my collection of back issues
is in Delaware at the moment, so I can't be sure).  You have slightly
distorted what I said - the article states the Plague of Duskir was _one_
of a number of factors that led to Solomani victory, not the only one.
According to the article, the plague killed millions, and was eventually
brought under control.  Solomani & Aslan gives the impression that the
plague happened after the Nth War was over, but since that was written from
the point of view of the Solomani (who want to pump up their military
prowess), we can set that aside.  Of course, there is some disagreement as
to whether DGP stuff, esp. stuff in TD, is canonical.  I treat it that
way, due to the close ties between DGP and GDW - your mileage may vary.

  In my _private_ history of the Nth Interstellar War, the Plague played a
much bigger role, aided by Solomani biowar weapons that had been
genetically tailored by GenAssist.  The massive drops in population
recorded in census records were explained as errors in the record keeping
done by the incompetant Vilani bureaucracy, exposed by the more honest
Solomani who showed how the Vilani inflated numbers to get more perks from
the central government.  I worked up an adventure that involved the
discovery of records relating to GenAssists role and the player characters
being infected by a virus that required them to search for a cure on a
deadline.

> However, to be fair, "canonical" Traveller also allows Jump Missiles (2 tons),
> when "canonical" Traveller *also* notes that JDrives cannot be mounted in
> anything smaller than 100 tons! Even if such a plague *is* mentioned, then
> we can assume that it is Rule of Man/Vilani *propaganda* history to save face
> for the fact that they were outproduced and outfought by the Terrans. It seems
> so much better if they succumbed to a filthy, perfidious, Terran *disease* -
> those lousy Terrans weren't fighting fair!!!

  Well, all I'll say is that jump missles contradict other parts of the
cannon and are on balance not reasonable.  The Plague of Duskir does not
suffer from that problem.  Moreover, the section this comes from in
Solomani & Aslan is written from the Solomani point of view - why are the
cooperating in a Vilani "coverup?"

> Regardless, from what we know of the history of diseases on Terra, it seems
> unlikely in the extreme that some sort of nasty Terran-originated disease
> would have been such a killer that it would have enabled the Terrans to beat
> the Ziru Sirka simply because of it. I would suggest that anyone who wants
> to know why this is the case read "Plagues and Peoples" by William H. McNeill.

  Interesting that you mention this book - it was the basis for my
original thoughts on the Plague (and I suspect it was the source of the
Plague of Duskir being retroconned into the game).  Please note that this
book is now dated - there is more recent work out there.

> However, just consider a few facts that make the plague scenario unlikely.
> One, the biggest killer in modern times, disease wise, was the so-called
> Spanish Influenza which broke out at the end of WW1. It was, as I have been
> given to understand by several sources, far and away the most virulent
> plague of modern times ... yet it was really rather trivial in an overall
> sense. Sure, a hell of a lot of people died, perhaps as many as died in WW1,
> but that was peanuts.

  Depends on how you define "Modern" I suppose.  The death rate when
Europeans encountered Native Americans was far higher - over 90% by some
estimates.

> More virulent diseases *do* exist, pneumonic plague, for example. However,
> in that case, the disease is *so* virulent and *so* quick acting that it
> basically kills off its human victims so quickly that it cannot spread (at
> least at medieval rates of travel). Given that every Jump takes at least a
> week, then such a disease would kill the entire crew of a starship while
> it was in Jumpspace ... and leave no infectious material that I am aware
> of that would still *be* infectious after the bodies were dead for a week
> or more. Most of the really nasty diseases of modern times, things like
> Ebola and AIDS, are so difficult to catch that you practically have to go
> out and deliberately infect oneself.

  As the article pointed out, the Plague of of Duskir was mostly viruses
and symbiotic bacteria that were harmless to Solomani.  The Solomani
themselves were the carriers, and suffered no ill effects.  If one adds
in the genetic knowledge we know the Solomani had, biowar devices that
target only Vilani are an easy step.  There is enough genetic difference,
after all - we know that the Vilani have blood types in their population
that were not present in the Solomani population.

> Anyhow, given McNeill's evidence that almost all (if not *all*) diseases
> have been crossovers from animals, and that not all such crossovers are
> successful, then it seems to me that the Vilani would have encountered this
> sort of problem on the thousands of worlds that they had explored and
> settled prior to contact with Terra.

  This is why the Vilani were so germ-free - you'll recall that they and
other minor races were genetically unrelated to other plants and animals
on their home worlds, thus limiting disease vectors.

> Also, given the situation we know of
> from Traveller sources re the development of human civilisation on Vland,
> we can assume that there would have been mutations of bacteria normally
> found on or associated with humans (and viruses, of course) that would have
> made disease at least reasonably common in Vland even before contact with
> other worlds. I have never been able to accept the blithe assumption that
> the Vilani would be disease free and would have never developed the germ
> theory of disease

  Have to agree with you here - if nothing else a Vilani veteranarian
would have noticed it in order to keep those animals alive.  I'd assume
that without animal models practice just lagged behind Solomani tech.

> ... after all, they had first hand evidence of the
> possibilities of such diseases from their long historical contacts with
> the Droyne on their homeworld ... *and* they had an awful example of the
> possibilities of germ warfare from what happened to the native Droyne in
> their system when they regained contact (which is in itself doubtful -
> the thought that the diseases that killed them off could have been so
> specific as to only affect different racial types, *and* that they remained
> unmutated for tens of thousands of years, is, frankly, garbage. Diseases
> mutate over time, and many once lethal diseases are now nothing more than
> a childhood nuisance, if that).

  The reason that they are childhood diseases is that all the folks who
could die from those diseases died - our ancestors are the folks who
lived and passed their immunity to us.  If ones ancestors were not
exposed (like Native Americans), seemingly trivial diseases kill.  As for
the Droyne dying of diseases that had no impact on Humans, well, they
aren't just a different species - they are products of a whole different
planet.  If we have a problem getting diseases from animals from our own
planet, the chance of getting one from aliens is rather remote.

  As for a disease surviving for years, viral spores can hang about in
severe environments for a long time.  Thousands of years, I don't know,
but a bioengineered weapon that's the product of tech 30+ (Grandfather to
kids: "...and STAY dead!") seems okay to me.

> Nope, you can *still* explain away the supposed effects of this plague that
> I have never heard about as a crude piece of Vilani propaganda that has
> been put forth as "truth" by the RoM and current Imperium for so long that the
> *true* story (my version) is not even recognised as "true".
>
> Like I said, between my story and the certainty of Imperial manipulation of
> the historical record, there's *nothing* that can't be adequately explained!

  Well, like most conspiracy theories that depend upon the assumption
that the conspirators have covered up all evidence of their actions, we
can't prove you wrong.  On the other hand, it seems to me that there are
far simpler ways of explaining things than your rather complex invention.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy reading your theory, but I'm not convinced.

---
Mark H Clark
mhclark@iastate.edu

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:17:50 -0500
From: odysseus@inetnebr.com (Jeff Kazmierski)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Traveller campaigns
Message-ID: <199601211620.KAA19268@falcon.inetnebr.com>

  You don't need to limit yourself to the information given by the rules
and the prehistory of the Imperium when considering a setting or starting
point for a Traveller game.  The rules (and history), after all, are only
guidelines and subject to change without notice by you, the GM.
  Traveller's greatest strength has always been its free-form style, and I
feel that this has only been enhanced by the publication of TNE and FFS.
What other SF game lets you create Bussard Ramjets and fighters carrying
Spinal Meson guns?
  I've been running a very successful TNE game for the past few months,
based on a "cold start" premise that practically wrote itself after I
bought TNE and FFS.  It concerns the survivors of the crew of a Bussard
Ramjet exploration ship, launched from Earth in 2059 and assigned to
explore neighboring star systems over the next 500 years or so.  The ship
malfunctions and is lost after leaving the system, and drifts undetected
between the stars for the next 4000 years until our heroes and heroines
finally wake up in (guess what?) the post-Collapse Era.
  This, of course, freed me from the problems of trying to convince
long-time Traveller players that the Imperium they once knew was, indeed,
dead.  Instead, the players are now busy gallivanting about the galaxy
trying to figure out what happened, who dunnit, and where the hell is
Earth.




------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 12:52:04 -0500
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
To: Traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: TNE Ship Spreadsheet problem
Message-ID: <199601211752.MAA08752@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

I downloaded a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for TNE ship construction from
MPGN.COM, and tried to open it in Microsoft Works for Windows 95 (version 4.0).
It keeps telling me that the program is password protected and that I have to
open it in it's original program, take off the password protection, save it,
and re-open it in Works. Does anyone know what might be happening here? Can
someone save an unprotected version and e-mail it to me? I got a TNE
character sheet spreadsheet from the same place and it works just fine. Any
ideas?


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 13:50:05 -0500
From: traveller@MPGN.COM
Message-ID: <199601211850.NAA01700@mail.intercon.com>

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Subject: TNE Ship Spreadsheet problem
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I downloaded a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for TNE ship construction from
MPGN.COM, and tried to open it in Microsoft Works for Windows 95 (version 4.0).
It keeps telling me that the program is password protected and that I have to
open it in it's original program, take off the password protection, save it,
and re-open it in Works. Does anyone know what might be happening here? Can
someone save an unprotected version and e-mail it to me? I got a TNE
character sheet spreadsheet from the same place and it works just fine. Any
ideas?


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 12:56:29 -0600
From: Steven Bonneville <bonnevil@itlabs.umn.edu>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: 2300: Near Stars, "Alpha Crucis"
Message-ID: <199601211856.MAA01694@boris.itlabs.umn.edu>

Since people are talking about 3D star maps, here's some information I'd
put together that someone else out there might find useful.  I know it's
mostly 2300AD, not TRAVELLER, but I've got some more TRAVELLER-related
ideas that I might post later.

I found an electronic file on the 'net that I suspect to be very similar
to the source that GDW used to prepare the Near Star List (NSL).  While
somewhat different than Gliese's Preliminary Third Catalog of Nearby
Stars (1991), it does seem useful to identify the stars which GDW left
with only fictional names in the NSL.  Here's a short list of some of the
systems which don't have the names given clearly on the NSL charts, for
anyone who might be curious:

NAME                DESIGNATION          ALT. DESIGNATION     GLIESE

Augerau             DM +44 2051                               412
Berthier            DM +49 2079                               438.1
Bessieres           DM +36 2147         [Lalande 21185]       411
Botany Bay          DM +33 2777                               638
Broward             DM -12 4523 (A)                           628
Catherine's Star    DM +38 2285 (B)     [CF UMa]              451 (B)
Clarkesstar         DM -08 4352 (A)     [Wolf 630]            644
D'Artagnon          L 205-128                                 693
Davout              DM -44 11909                              682
Ellis               AC +48 1595-89                            623
Haifeng             Wolf 922                                   83.1
Henry's Star        DM +38 2285 (A)                           451 (A)
Hochbaden           DM +27 2296                               528
Hunjiang            DM -37 15492                                1
Kimanjano           DM +34 2342                               480.2
King                DM +02 3312                               673
Neubayern           DM +50 1725                               380
New Melbourne       AC +18 1453-48                            686
Nyotekundu          Wolf 359                                  406
Qinyuan             L 726-8                                    65 (A)
Queen Alice's Star  DM +46 1797                               477.1
Red Speck           DM +45 2505 (A)                           661
Serurier            AC -24 2833-133                           729
Vogelheim           DM +33 2269                               484.1
Xiuning             DM -49 13515        [L 354-89]            832


AC == Astronomical Catalog
DM == Durchmusterung (these designations come from three separate catalogs,
      and the DM may be replaced by BD, CD, or CP, depending on the next
      two digits of the star designation, which is its' declination in the
      sky in degrees.  DM is used to fit with the rest of the NSL.)
G  == Giclas
L  == Luyten
VB == Van Biesbrock


SOME INTERESTING UPDATES:

..or, reality and the Hubble Space Telescope intrude on our little game.

A typo has been found on the Near Star List.  The F2V star at coordinates
<-45.0, -1.2, -20.5> identified as Alpha Crucis is in fact *Alpha Corvi*.
Alpha Crucis is further away and is a binary system containing a blue-white
subgiant, while Alpha Corvi (Gliese 455.3) is a solo F2V.  It seems likely
that the person who prepared the NSL misread the star's constellation
abbreviation as Cru (Crux), not Crv (Corvus), especially considering that
the preceding catalog entry (Gliese 455.2) is Eta Crucis.  "Alpha Crucis"/
Alpha Corvi is just inside the map, placed 49.5 ly from Earth by the NSL.
This typo may have affected the sector naming scheme in TRAVELLER as well.

VB 8 was once thought to have a brown dwarf companion, VB 8 B, and while
VB 8 B is not in the NSL, it did appear in an article on the Clarkesstar
system in _Travellers' Digest_.  That magazine did a fair amount of
development in the American Arm, including two articles in #11 that opened
the Arm by placing a fictional brown dwarf, ISO 417, at <7.6, -27.2, 4.7>.

However, Hubble Space Telescope has verified the existence of Gliese 229 B,
a *real* brown dwarf.  This is equivalent to the star DM -21 1377 B, whose
system in the 2300AD world contains a Brazilian outpost on the Latin Finger
of the Chinese Arm, at the edge of human space.  Gliese 229 B has a mass of
20 to 50 Jupiters and radiates at not more than 1000 Kelvin.  The Brazilians
have something to study now!

Along similar lines, HST found another new star, Gliese 623 B, one of the
smallest stars known.  This is in the Ellis system, site of a major American
colony.  Fortunately, its' 2 AU orbit is far enough out that all of the
fictional planets established to be in the system in the game are legal
under the star system rules.  Other vital statistics of the star include an
absolute magnitude of 16.5 or so, and 0.1 solar mass.  Gliese 623 B
shouldn't appear much more than twice as bright from Ellis as the Moon is
from Earth.


  Steve Bonneville
  <bonnevil@itlabs.umn.edu>


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 13:57:38 -0500
From: traveller@MPGN.COM
Message-ID: <199601211857.NAA02698@mail.intercon.com>

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  You don't need to limit yourself to the information given by the rules
and the prehistory of the Imperium when considering a setting or starting
point for a Traveller game.  The rules (and history), after all, are only
guidelines and subject to change without notice by you, the GM.
  Traveller's greatest strength has always been its free-form style, and I
feel that this has only been enhanced by the publication of TNE and FFS.
What other SF game lets you create Bussard Ramjets and fighters carrying
Spinal Meson guns?
  I've been running a very successful TNE game for the past few months,
based on a "cold start" premise that practically wrote itself after I
bought TNE and FFS.  It concerns the survivors of the crew of a Bussard
Ramjet exploration ship, launched from Earth in 2059 and assigned to
explore neighboring star systems over the next 500 years or so.  The ship
malfunctions and is lost after leaving the system, and drifts undetected
between the stars for the next 4000 years until our heroes and heroines
finally wake up in (guess what?) the post-Collapse Era.
  This, of course, freed me from the problems of trying to convince
long-time Traveller players that the Imperium they once knew was, indeed,
dead.  Instead, the players are now busy gallivanting about the galaxy
trying to figure out what happened, who dunnit, and where the hell is
Earth.




------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 13:57:39 -0500
From: traveller@MPGN.COM
Message-ID: <199601211857.NAA02703@mail.intercon.com>

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Subject: Re: Plague of Duskir and the Nth Interstellar War
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
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> Someone mentioned that the canonical reason for Terran victory in the Nth
> Interstellar War was some sort of plague that hit the Vilani. Sorry, but
> I've never come across this one ... but will freely admit that I do not have
> a 100% complete set of Traveller/MTrav/TNE gear ... so, *where* is it
> mentioned? I have a friend who *has* as complete a set of Traveller gear
> as it is possible to have, and *he* has never heard of it.

  See Solomani & Aslan, page 22.  It's also in a Traveller's Digest
article on medicine, in issue #24 I believe (my collection of back issues
is in Delaware at the moment, so I can't be sure).  You have slightly
distorted what I said - the article states the Plague of Duskir was _one_
of a number of factors that led to Solomani victory, not the only one.
According to the article, the plague killed millions, and was eventually
brought under control.  Solomani & Aslan gives the impression that the
plague happened after the Nth War was over, but since that was written from
the point of view of the Solomani (who want to pump up their military
prowess), we can set that aside.  Of course, there is some disagreement as
to whether DGP stuff, esp. stuff in TD, is canonical.  I treat it that
way, due to the close ties between DGP and GDW - your mileage may vary.

  In my _private_ history of the Nth Interstellar War, the Plague played a
much bigger role, aided by Solomani biowar weapons that had been
genetically tailored by GenAssist.  The massive drops in population
recorded in census records were explained as errors in the record keeping
done by the incompetant Vilani bureaucracy, exposed by the more honest
Solomani who showed how the Vilani inflated numbers to get more perks from
the central government.  I worked up an adventure that involved the
discovery of records relating to GenAssists role and the player characters
being infected by a virus that required them to search for a cure on a
deadline.

> However, to be fair, "canonical" Traveller also allows Jump Missiles (2 tons),
> when "canonical" Traveller *also* notes that JDrives cannot be mounted in
> anything smaller than 100 tons! Even if such a plague *is* mentioned, then
> we can assume that it is Rule of Man/Vilani *propaganda* history to save face
> for the fact that they were outproduced and outfought by the Terrans. It seems
> so much better if they succumbed to a filthy, perfidious, Terran *disease* -
> those lousy Terrans weren't fighting fair!!!

  Well, all I'll say is that jump missles contradict other parts of the
cannon and are on balance not reasonable.  The Plague of Duskir does not
suffer from that problem.  Moreover, the section this comes from in
Solomani & Aslan is written from the Solomani point of view - why are the
cooperating in a Vilani "coverup?"

> Regardless, from what we know of the history of diseases on Terra, it seems
> unlikely in the extreme that some sort of nasty Terran-originated disease
> would have been such a killer that it would have enabled the Terrans to beat
> the Ziru Sirka simply because of it. I would suggest that anyone who wants
> to know why this is the case read "Plagues and Peoples" by William H. McNeill.

  Interesting that you mention this book - it was the basis for my
original thoughts on the Plague (and I suspect it was the source of the
Plague of Duskir being retroconned into the game).  Please note that this
book is now dated - there is more recent work out there.

> However, just consider a few facts that make the plague scenario unlikely.
> One, the biggest killer in modern times, disease wise, was the so-called
> Spanish Influenza which broke out at the end of WW1. It was, as I have been
> given to understand by several sources, far and away the most virulent
> plague of modern times ... yet it was really rather trivial in an overall
> sense. Sure, a hell of a lot of people died, perhaps as many as died in WW1,
> but that was peanuts.

  Depends on how you define "Modern" I suppose.  The death rate when
Europeans encountered Native Americans was far higher - over 90% by some
estimates.

> More virulent diseases *do* exist, pneumonic plague, for example. However,
> in that case, the disease is *so* virulent and *so* quick acting that it
> basically kills off its human victims so quickly that it cannot spread (at
> least at medieval rates of travel). Given that every Jump takes at least a
> week, then such a disease would kill the entire crew of a starship while
> it was in Jumpspace ... and leave no infectious material that I am aware
> of that would still *be* infectious after the bodies were dead for a week
> or more. Most of the really nasty diseases of modern times, things like
> Ebola and AIDS, are so difficult to catch that you practically have to go
> out and deliberately infect oneself.

  As the article pointed out, the Plague of of Duskir was mostly viruses
and symbiotic bacteria that were harmless to Solomani.  The Solomani
themselves were the carriers, and suffered no ill effects.  If one adds
in the genetic knowledge we know the Solomani had, biowar devices that
target only Vilani are an easy step.  There is enough genetic difference,
after all - we know that the Vilani have blood types in their population
that were not present in the Solomani population.

> Anyhow, given McNeill's evidence that almost all (if not *all*) diseases
> have been crossovers from animals, and that not all such crossovers are
> successful, then it seems to me that the Vilani would have encountered this
> sort of problem on the thousands of worlds that they had explored and
> settled prior to contact with Terra.

  This is why the Vilani were so germ-free - you'll recall that they and
other minor races were genetically unrelated to other plants and animals
on their home worlds, thus limiting disease vectors.

> Also, given the situation we know of
> from Traveller sources re the development of human civilisation on Vland,
> we can assume that there would have been mutations of bacteria normally
> found on or associated with humans (and viruses, of course) that would have
> made disease at least reasonably common in Vland even before contact with
> other worlds. I have never been able to accept the blithe assumption that
> the Vilani would be disease free and would have never developed the germ
> theory of disease

  Have to agree with you here - if nothing else a Vilani veteranarian
would have noticed it in order to keep those animals alive.  I'd assume
that without animal models practice just lagged behind Solomani tech.

> ... after all, they had first hand evidence of the
> possibilities of such diseases from their long historical contacts with
> the Droyne on their homeworld ... *and* they had an awful example of the
> possibilities of germ warfare from what happened to the native Droyne in
> their system when they regained contact (which is in itself doubtful -
> the thought that the diseases that killed them off could have been so
> specific as to only affect different racial types, *and* that they remained
> unmutated for tens of thousands of years, is, frankly, garbage. Diseases
> mutate over time, and many once lethal diseases are now nothing more than
> a childhood nuisance, if that).

  The reason that they are childhood diseases is that all the folks who
could die from those diseases died - our ancestors are the folks who
lived and passed their immunity to us.  If ones ancestors were not
exposed (like Native Americans), seemingly trivial diseases kill.  As for
the Droyne dying of diseases that had no impact on Humans, well, they
aren't just a different species - they are products of a whole different
planet.  If we have a problem getting diseases from animals from our own
planet, the chance of getting one from aliens is rather remote.

  As for a disease surviving for years, viral spores can hang about in
severe environments for a long time.  Thousands of years, I don't know,
but a bioengineered weapon that's the product of tech 30+ (Grandfather to
kids: "...and STAY dead!") seems okay to me.

> Nope, you can *still* explain away the supposed effects of this plague that
> I have never heard about as a crude piece of Vilani propaganda that has
> been put forth as "truth" by the RoM and current Imperium for so long that the
> *true* story (my version) is not even recognised as "true".
>
> Like I said, between my story and the certainty of Imperial manipulation of
> the historical record, there's *nothing* that can't be adequately explained!

  Well, like most conspiracy theories that depend upon the assumption
that the conspirators have covered up all evidence of their actions, we
can't prove you wrong.  On the other hand, it seems to me that there are
far simpler ways of explaining things than your rather complex invention.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy reading your theory, but I'm not convinced.

---
Mark H Clark
mhclark@iastate.edu


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 14:03:46 -0500
From: traveller@MPGN.COM
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From: Phillip McGregor <aspqrz@sydney.DIALix.oz.au>
To: Multiple recipients of list <traveller@mpgn.com>
Subject: Plague of ???? and Nth Interstellar War
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Someone mentioned that the canonical reason for Terran victory in the Nth
Interstellar War was some sort of plague that hit the Vilani. Sorry, but
I've never come across this one ... but will freely admit that I do not have
a 100% complete set of Traveller/MTrav/TNE gear ... so, *where* is it
mentioned? I have a friend who *has* as complete a set of Traveller gear
as it is possible to have, and *he* has never heard of it.

However, to be fair, "canonical" Traveller also allows Jump Missiles (2 tons),
when "canonical" Traveller *also* notes that JDrives cannot be mounted in
anything smaller than 100 tons! Even if such a plague *is* mentioned, then
we can assume that it is Rule of Man/Vilani *propaganda* history to save face
for the fact that they were outproduced and outfought by the Terrans. It seems
so much better if they succumbed to a filthy, perfidious, Terran *disease* -
those lousy Terrans weren't fighting fair!!!

Regardless, from what we know of the history of diseases on Terra, it seems
unlikely in the extreme that some sort of nasty Terran-originated disease
would have been such a killer that it would have enabled the Terrans to beat
the Ziru Sirka simply because of it. I would suggest that anyone who wants
to know why this is the case read "Plagues and Peoples" by William H. McNeill.

However, just consider a few facts that make the plague scenario unlikely.
One, the biggest killer in modern times, disease wise, was the so-called
Spanish Influenza which broke out at the end of WW1. It was, as I have been
given to understand by several sources, far and away the most virulent
plague of modern times ... yet it was really rather trivial in an overall
sense. Sure, a hell of a lot of people died, perhaps as many as died in WW1,
but that was peanuts.

More virulent diseases *do* exist, pneumonic plague, for example. However,
in that case, the disease is *so* virulent and *so* quick acting that it
basically kills off its human victims so quickly that it cannot spread (at
least at medieval rates of travel). Given that every Jump takes at least a
week, then such a disease would kill the entire crew of a starship while
it was in Jumpspace ... and leave no infectious material that I am aware
of that would still *be* infectious after the bodies were dead for a week
or more. Most of the really nasty diseases of modern times, things like
Ebola and AIDS, are so difficult to catch that you practically have to go
out and deliberately infect oneself.

Thus, even with something as virulent as Spanish 'Flu, the effects would
*not* be enough to win the war for the Terrans *unless* they were already
winning. (Did you know that the US Government actually continued to ship
soldiers to Europe in crowded troopships in 1917, at the height of the 'flu
outbreak, even though they *knew* that they were condemning hundreds, if
not thousands, to death as a result of putting them in the sort of enclosed
environment that guaranteed a high rate of exposure? The US provided the
troops that materially shortened the war ... and morale was evidently not
a problem despite this.)

Anyhow, given McNeill's evidence that almost all (if not *all*) diseases
have been crossovers from animals, and that not all such crossovers are
successful, then it seems to me that the Vilani would have encountered this
sort of problem on the thousands of worlds that they had explored and
settled prior to contact with Terra. Also, given the situation we know of
from Traveller sources re the development of human civilisation on Vland,
we can assume that there would have been mutations of bacteria normally
found on or associated with humans (and viruses, of course) that would have
made disease at least reasonably common in Vland even before contact with
other worlds. I have never been able to accept the blithe assumption that
the Vilani would be disease free and would have never developed the germ
theory of disease ... after all, they had first hand evidence of the
possibilities of such diseases from their long historical contacts with
the Droyne on their homeworld ... *and* they had an awful example of the
possibilities of germ warfare from what happened to the native Droyne in
their system when they regained contact (which is in itself doubtful -
the thought that the diseases that killed them off could have been so
specific as to only affect different racial types, *and* that they remained
unmutated for tens of thousands of years, is, frankly, garbage. Diseases
mutate over time, and many once lethal diseases are now nothing more than
a childhood nuisance, if that).

Nope, you can *still* explain away the supposed effects of this plague that
I have never heard about as a crude piece of Vilani propaganda that has
been put forth as "truth" by the RoM and current Imperium for so long that the
*true* story (my version) is not even recognised as "true".

Like I said, between my story and the certainty of Imperial manipulation of
the historical record, there's *nothing* that can't be adequately explained!

Still, I'd like to see what the reference too this plague is!

Oh, and the damn listserver is *still* sending multiple copies of both
individual articles in the list *and* of the whole list. Is it possible that
someone could do something about it?

Phil McGregor






------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 14:03:32 -0500
From: traveller@mpgn.com
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From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
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Subject: technology and war
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htp@dove.mtx.net.au (Henry Penninkilampi) writes:

>Example...
>There was a movie made quite a few years ago which had a US aircraft
>carrier sent back in time into World War II.  I think it was called the
>Philadelphia Experiment.

Nope. "The Final Countdown".

>I forget how it ended, but had the TL6 (1950s) US
>military acquired unrestricted use of a single TL8 (1990s) military asset,
>then the entire outcome of the war, and the history of mankind, would have
>changed.  Why?  Not because the AXIS powers would have been slowly and
>surely beaten into submission, but because, in quite short order, they
>would have realised that they had fallen so far behind in a single,
>crucial, technological field that they had virtually no chance of catching
>up berfore biting the big one.  Rather than suffer any more military,
>economic and political damage pursuing a lost cause - they would have
>capitulated.
>
>Take the above example and give the Germans an TL8 aircraft carrier and the
>AXIS powers would have won.  Now we have victory by way of technological
>superiority - not economic superiority.

Which is pretty much what happened in the Gulf War.

But as to the "1990s carrier in 1941", this has been a frequent
discussion topic, with numerous variations, in various online groups.

My favorite method of using it (if you get there early enough) is to
simply send out a flight of aircraft with nuke capability, and *remove*
the Japanese attack force just as they are starting to launch the
planes for the attack. And don't say *anything* to Japan about it.

Even the Japanese would get rattled when a task force disappears
without a trace.

Then, as soon as you can get in range, you repeat this sort of
"disappeared without a trace" attack on the other thrusts of the war in
the Pacific. *Then* it is suggested in an understated sort of way, that
just *possibly* the Japanese might wish to reconsider their expansion.

Now consider the Traveller equivalent. It doesn't take all that many
tech levels for things to be "magic" as far as the folks at the lower
tech level are concerned.

Leonard Erickson           leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
(aka Shadow)    shadow@krypton.rain.com (preferred)
FIDO:   1:105/51  Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 14:05:04 -0500
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From: "Brendan O'Donovan" <Brendan@odonovan.demon.co.uk>
To: Multiple recipients of list <traveller@mpgn.com>
Subject: Re: Modular FFS
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David C. Broussard wrote :

> We can use the basics of FF&S to design components that fit into vehicles,
> starships, etc.  For example.  You want to build a starship.  It will be a
> custom built hull (most ships are anyway).  However, you decide you want to
> get Jump 3 performance.  So the contractor building it plops in a basic
> component that gives your rated 50 or 100 ton hull increment.  It may waste

I don't think anyone would argue with a modular approach, but it can be taken
too far. After all, say I wanted a jump 4 1000t ship, I need to install 10 of
the 100t designed modules. Does this approach really give any benefit over a
module designed for a 1t ship, which could then have mass/price/volume
multiplied by the displacement?

> Instead of custom
> building a powerplant for the exact MW req for your ship, you purchase
> plants in 10, 25, 50, 100 MW increments.  Gee this does sound a bit liek old

Likewise here, say I need 1050MW, I have to install 10 100MW modules and a
50MW. This has got to be more complicated than a table where the
vol/mass/price/vol of 90 days fuel are all listed per Megawatt of power for
each power plant. This way you find your power requirement, multiply all the
values for the chosen type of plant by it, and you have an easy custom
powerplant. I don't think the problem here is the rules as much as the way GDW
presents them (HEPlaR is probably the worst).

One major simplification which I would like to see is any subsystem where price
/mass/volume/power requirement is less than, for example 0.01
MCr/tonnes/kl/MW, to have that attribute officially listed as 'negligable'.
On a lot of my electronics heavy designs I end up adding up columns of devices
with a total volume of a few kl, in a ship with a volume of thousands, and I am
always left thinking _why?_
These small values would add up in a probe, or a fighter, but for a streamlined
FFS optimised for Spacecraft, I think we could dispense with some of these
little details.

> Hope this helps!
> David C. Broussard (broussa@connecti.com)
> Home page: http://www.connecti.com/~broussa/
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The opinions represented herein are the sole responsibility of
> the proclaimer, and should not be interpreted as dogma, doctrine
> philosophy, or anything else other than blabber.  However, if you
> REALLY like it, then gimme a dollar!
> -----------------------------------------------------------------

--
Brendan


------------------------------

End of TRAVELLER Digest 561
***************************
