Subj: Traveller-digest V1999 #1387
Date: 11/23/99 11:36:25 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: owner-traveller-digest@lists.imagiconline.com (Traveller-digest)
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Traveller-digest Tuesday, November 23 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 1387
(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.
The following topics are covered in this digest:
Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
Re: Slavery was Re: Ideological Warfare...
Re: OT: Dogma
Re: Ideological Warfare
Re: SEC : UNCLASSIFIED - Re: Superpowers
OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
Re: SEC : UNCLASSIFIED - Re: Superpowers
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1380
Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
Taikonauts!
Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
re: Slavery
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1380
Re: Which Traveller?
Re: Which Traveller?
RE: Totally OT but ...
Re: Mass Destruction
Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 09:52:17 +0000
From: SD Mooney
Subject: Re: Vargr (Was: Re: Weapons of mass destruction)
At 22:39 -0500 22/11/99, Jens Rydholm wrote:
>SD Mooney wrote:
> > The BITS book 'SpaceDogs' has notes on playing Vargr;
>
>I have some BITS books (the 7 available from SJgames), but I want more.
>Where can I find MORE?
>
>MUST... HAVE... BITS...
OK - there are presently 7 101 Books so you probably have them all.
The Long Way Home is now out of print, as is first edition 101
Cargos(*) and first edition copies of the Traveller Bibliography.
(*) The difference is that a new set of cargos were generated as Jo
Grant's originals were grabbed for JTAS by IG. SJG have always had
the second edition of this.
But, 'SpaceDogs' and 'The Khiidkar Incident' are both out now. These
are 101 sized (ie LBB size) adventures with stats for GT and T4 and
notes on using the system with all Traveller editions. SJG will
probably have them in for Christmas. In the mean time, Leisure Games
in London have copies and Esdevium (big UK games supplier) probably
will too (if not now, pretty soon). FWIW these adventures were
released following the TMLs cries for adventures in the LBB style. If
they sell more, we have more to release; if not, well, we tried to
give people what they asked for!
We're hoping to have the following out for Christmas:
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
At Close Quarters - Doug Berry's detailed combat rules for Traveller,
famous for Penguins.
101 Patrons - over a hundred patrons for Traveller, including
material by Andy Slack (the 36 dramatic situations) and Thad Coons
(World Seeds as originally seen on the TML). This will be almost a
sequel to 101 Plots but bigger, harder (science) and better (IMO but
I edited and wrote a chunk of it).
The Traveller Bibliography 2nd Edition - Timothy Collinson's
excellent guide to all things Traveller.
Obviously, the release dates of this will be as soon as we can get
them out - we all work for a living (and sadly not in RPGs) and have
to fit in BITS work around real life. UK release usually predates US
release as SJG have to see the BITS book before they say yes and
order it.
Dom
- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
MiB - Marines in Battledress
"Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 10:03:08 +0000
From: SD Mooney
Subject: Re: Slavery was Re: Ideological Warfare...
At 0:48 -0500 23/11/99, "The Roc" wrote:
>All of these were actually aloowed (if not welcomed) into Roman society, but
>when they worked against the Roman ways (gov't, etc.) were they repressed.
>Christianity was repressed because of it's belief that there is only one
>true god and that was heavily against Roman ways and it's belief in
>polythesionism.
ISTR that there is was also a belief amongst contemporary Romans that
Christians (1) drank human blood and flesh in their ceremonies and
(2) went into the world trying to commit the worst sins they could,
to come back at the next service and boast about them.
Dom
- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
MiB - Marines in Battledress
"Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 09:57:30 -0800
From: "Shawn Campbell"
Subject: Re: OT: Dogma
> >Go see this movie. It's wonderfully funny, and makes you think about
> >religion and God as seperate subjects. Alanis Morissette plays God and
> >pulls it off beautifully.
>
> Just what we need, a whiny Canadian singer as the Supreme Being. I'd
> rather have George Burns. :)
OBTrav: George Burns... Grandfather?
Shawn Campbell
shawn@electricstitch.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 17:59:42 +0000
From: SD Mooney
Subject: Re: Ideological Warfare
At 4:45 -0500 23/11/99, "Eris Reddoch" wrote:
>Let's say the young Third Imperium had a competing state that was
>almost as large and powerful. This competing state was actively
>courting systems to join it, and succeeding more often than the
>Imperium likes. The Imperium and this state go to war time and
>again, but neither side can really defeat the other. It's not
>racial, it's not ethnic, it's not religious, but both sides are
>going to grow to hate and despise each other. Finally, the Imperium
>finds a way to capture their opponent's capital, and they make "an
>example" of it. Then they offer "terms" to the rest of their
>opposition..."accept our terms or suffer the fate of Carthage."
>
>Is this how the Julian Wars would have ended *if* the Imperium had
>won?
Welcome to Keshi, the former capital of the Chanestin Kingdom, now a
TL7 Low Population world.
It's how the M0 Chanestin War ended...
Dom
- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
MiB - Marines in Battledress
"Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 18:10:16 +0000
From: SD Mooney
Subject: Re: SEC : UNCLASSIFIED - Re: Superpowers
At 12:39 -0500 23/11/99, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
>Depending on the force mix, it could have been launched from the US (B-1,
>B-2, B-52) or by Naval Aviation off of carriers in the Adriatic. Not quite
>as practical, but doable.
Operating in the Adriatic needs the co-operation of the bordering
states, and the airborne attack would need to be based on stand off
weapons from outside any other counties airspace, which you would
violate by firing through it. Bear in mind NATO's air operations in
Kosovo had a serious impact on civilian flights in the regions...
Dom
- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
MiB - Marines in Battledress
"Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 10:23:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Kiri Aradia Morgan
Subject: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
On Tue, 23 Nov 1999, SD Mooney wrote:
> At 0:48 -0500 23/11/99, "The Roc" wrote:
> >All of these were actually aloowed (if not welcomed) into Roman society, but
> >when they worked against the Roman ways (gov't, etc.) were they repressed.
> >Christianity was repressed because of it's belief that there is only one
> >true god and that was heavily against Roman ways and it's belief in
> >polythesionism.
>
> ISTR that there is was also a belief amongst contemporary Romans that
> Christians (1) drank human blood and flesh in their ceremonies and
This has been said about every oppressed religious or ethnic group since
time began, and shouldn't really be taken seriously... Christians used to
say this about the Jews, too.
> (2) went into the world trying to commit the worst sins they could,
> to come back at the next service and boast about them.
>
Well, there were some Gnostics (the Carpocratians come to mind) that I
wouldn't have put that past.
There were lots of flavors of Christianity in existence before the Council
of Nicaea declared all of the others heretics and produced an "official
version" that was strangely amenable to being used as a tool of
imperialist conquest by Constantine, who sponsored the Council. Then the
official Christians went out and stamped out all the other versions and
did their best to destroy the holy books that all the other versions had.
This is one of the reasons that I can't personally accept Christianity
based on Scripture. There was a hell of a lot of Scripture that got
thrown out; the Bible Christians have today was heavily edited and revised
by many committees hundreds of years after the death of Jesus and none of
the Gospels were actually written down sooner than 100-200 years after his
death, though they may have been transmitted orally. And as these were
not primarily oral cultures, I don't particularly trust oral transmission
from the Jews, Greeks and Romans of that era.
We have not recovered anything close to all of the Gnostic Gospels. While
I'm sure some of them were bogus I'm sure that the official ones, which
were heavily edited and revised, are not pure either. It's difficult to
say, without all the evidence, what Jesus really was all about-- but one
thing that is historically clear is that there was a lot of uncertainty
even then, if you look at all the different varieties of Christianity that
existed prior to Constantine and all the different things they did.
Of course, people who have had personal experiences with Jesus are a
different matter-- I don't question the personal experiences of others,
lest they should question what happened to me in Gokokuji Temple (when all
I originally intended to do there was find the grave of Ozaki Yutaka,
LOL!) Religion and beliefs are intensely personal. I did, however, lose
my last attachments to Christianity, which were incredibly tenuous to
begin with, in graduate school.
Kiri
******************************************************************************
Kiri Aradia Morgan 93! Thou Art God
tiamat@tsoft.com
"If time passes, everything turns into beauty
If the rains stop, tears clean the scars of memory away
Everything starts wearing fresh colors
Every sound begins playing a heartfelt melody
Jealousy embellishes a page of the epic
Desire is embraced in a dream..." -- X-JAPAN
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:19:33 -0500
From: Kurt Feltenberger
Subject: Re: SEC : UNCLASSIFIED - Re: Superpowers
At 06:10 PM 11/23/1999 +0000, you wrote:
>At 12:39 -0500 23/11/99, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
>>Depending on the force mix, it could have been launched from the US (B-1,
>>B-2, B-52) or by Naval Aviation off of carriers in the Adriatic. Not quite
>>as practical, but doable.
>
>Operating in the Adriatic needs the co-operation of the bordering states,
>and the airborne attack would need to be based on stand off weapons from
>outside any other counties airspace, which you would violate by firing
>through it. Bear in mind NATO's air operations in Kosovo had a serious
>impact on civilian flights in the regions...
Unless the waters are restricted, they should be international and cleared
for free movement of shipping, and the carriers and their battle
group. I'm not saying it is how it should have been done, only that it
_can_ be done. The US based air power if it were to be used would have to
fly quite a roundabout route, and the only pinch point would be at the
entrance to the Med, at Gibraltar.
Regarding the local air traffic, IIRC, our carriers operate with a declared
exclusion zone most of the time. You start getting warnings some distance
away, then get an interception by the CAP, and if you approach within a
certain distance, other steps might be taken depending on the current
threat level.
Again, it would not be the ideal way to do it, but it could be done. I
know that were _I_ in charge, I would not force three to six CVBGs into the
Adriatic.
Kurt Feltenberger
"To our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations,
may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong!"
~Stephen Decatur
mailto:kurt@blazenet.net
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:26:39 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans"
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1380
From: DaveShayne
It really seems like we've gotten to a point where I have to assume that
we'll need to agree to disagree. While I don't like taking that road, it's
apparent that your view of the way societies work and my view of the way
societies work simply have no common ground.
In your view of the way human societies operate, there are free-floating
individualists, not cultures. In my view, cultures are, at least for the
most part, coherent, if not internally consistent. By your line, many things
that would have happened in the real world simply could not have happened,
and to be fair, by my line many things that would have happened in the world
also wouldn't have happened.
It shows in those things that you wish to focus on, such as finding and
nailing individual Nazis in order to de-Nazify Germany, while in response to
that, I would point out that certain concepts and ideas were specifically
introduced into German culture after the war and were necessary to
de-Nazification process.
On most points though, it seems like a continued discussion would simply be
a matter of us going through the motions, with me pushing the culturalist
line and you pushing the utilitarian individualist line.
I'd be lying if I said the discussion wasn't fun though. ;)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:40:40 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans"
Subject: Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
From: Kiri Aradia Morgan
>> ISTR that there is was also a belief amongst contemporary Romans that
>> Christians (1) drank human blood and flesh in their ceremonies and
>
>This has been said about every oppressed religious or ethnic group since
>time began, and shouldn't really be taken seriously... Christians used to
>say this about the Jews, too.
You beat me to pointing out that this has been said about every oppressed
religious or ethnic group. There *is* one important distinction though:
One of the things that has been central to Christianity since its earliest
days has been the sacrament of Communion. Tied in with that sacrament is the
concept of trans-substantion, in which the bread and wine are said to
*actually* become the body and blood of Christ.
So, while the same rumors have floated about other oppressed religious
groups, had you walked up to your average Christian throughout most of the
history of Christianity and asked him or her if he partook of the flesh of
Christ, the answer would be yes.
something I've dealt with way too much in the last few months ;) >
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:29:40 -0500
From: dennis.f.belanger@bellatlantic.com
Subject: Taikonauts!
- ---------------------- Forwarded by Dennis Belanger on 11/23/99 01:25 PM
- ---------------------------
Dennis Belanger
11/23/99 09:55 AM
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
cc:
Subject: OFF TOPIC (OT): Taikonauts!
Jeesshhhh!!!
Where do I begin to defend what I said here?
The USA was founded on an individuals right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. These basic elements are what is needed to sustain a free
democratic and CAPITALISTIC society. Without a doubt, the most successful one
yet. By what measurement? The only yardstick that matters . . . . . . LIFE.
Over the past 200+ years, the USA has drawn to it people who cared for
their own welfare first and the fruits of their mind and body a close second.
The net result of this freedom of mind and body is the most technologically
advanced, educated and well fed nation in the world. If the will of these free
producing people is to explore space, then that will happen in spades. While
some oppressive nations are trying to figure out how to keep it's populace from
fighting over the scraps it "gives" them, the free producing nation will be
spreading it's seeds to the stars. Human life will continue because individuals
chose it, not because a government demanded it.
I do not deny the contributions of non-US citizens to space exploration.
Remember where most of those individuals go to do their work and get fairly
compensated for it. I do refuse to celebrate the successes of dictatorships or
socialists. They will plant a flag on alien soil and exalt the sacrifices of
those who got them there.
I want to plant a flag on alien soil exalt the accomplishments of free will
and enterprise.
I will speak no further about this on the list . . . . . I am warmly welcomed as
a gammer and for that I am thankful. You folks are the most scientifically
stimulating group I know.
I will keep my ideology to myself from now on.
Dennis
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 11:58:49 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson
Subject: Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
Chris Seamans wrote:
>
> One of the things that has been central to Christianity since its earliest
> days has been the sacrament of Communion. Tied in with that sacrament is the
> concept of trans-substantion, in which the bread and wine are said to
> *actually* become the body and blood of Christ.
>
> So, while the same rumors have floated about other oppressed religious
> groups, had you walked up to your average Christian throughout most of the
> history of Christianity and asked him or her if he partook of the flesh of
> Christ, the answer would be yes.
oh my.
Tieing _this_ in with the oft discussed Vilani Cannibalism Hypothesis,
one is led to the conclusion that perhaps Jesus was a lost or rogue
Vilani...perhaps with a supply of slow drug and a nifty autodoc in a
cave near his headquarters...
Naaahhh...
- --
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:58:50 -0500
From: Walter Smith
Subject: re: Slavery
Bruce Johnson wrote:
>>>>>>>>
Heck, I can even NOT pay the mortgage, and all that will happen is that
the bank will take back the house _they_ paid for. I will not be hunted
down, arrested, and forced back to my job paying the mortgage.
A loan isn't indenture by any stretch of the imagination.
If the bank said I had to keep working at Eneri's Widget Works until the
mortgage was paid off, and directly attached my earnings, _then_ I'd be
indentured.
>>>>>>>>
Yup. For that, in the USA, you need a Family Court or Divorce Proceeding.
In many states, you can be jailed for not making your alimony payments.
Even if you've lost the high-paying job the alimony payments were
based on.
I've heard of a case where the divorce settlement was a sizeable
percentage of a professional american football player's salary for his entire
career. After a year or two, he began to talk retirement...it's a tough
game, many people's bodies wear out, he said he'd made enough
money and wanted to get out while his body still worked.
His ex-wife slapped a court order on him to keep playing.
Walt Smith
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 17:32:22 +0000
From: Mark Watson
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1380
On Tue, 23 Nov 1999, DaveShayne wrote:
>>From: "Chris Seamans"
>
>The peace was severely bungled after the great war. Germany was not occupied
>and onerous conditions were imposed on the germans by the alies. Which
>probably wouldn't have led to the next war if the depression hadn't
>destroyed the worlds economy and the french hadn't insisted that the germans continue
>to repay reparations. IMTU the 3I has learned this lesson well, "Don't kick
>somebody when they're down."
>
I think modern research on German post-WWI reparations is along the lines of:
- - Germany refused to pay reparations *and* repudiated the loans they had used to
pay reparations up to that point, *and* added to the problem by a massive
currency devaluation, and if you add up the numbers then in fact they
didn't pay much reparations at all to the victorious powers
- - Reparations still had to be made, in the sense that someone had
to pay for the infrastructural damage of WWI, final result being that the
countries which had suffered war damage paid for it themselves
- - Germany was never occupied during WWI, and for all the loss in manpower had
suffered very little damage on the home front, so effectively it ended paying
far less reparations than most of the other European belligerents, in the sense
that its own recovery was cheaper.
The end result of the supposed enfeeblement of Germany was that by the 1930s
it was once again a superpower, capable of massive rearmament programs,
intervention in Spain and elsewhere, and ultimately the initiation of a series
of conflicts culminating in global war.
And the second result is that Germany was able to engage in these adventures in
part because it was surrounded, in the West, by those countries which were
genuinely enfeebled by the cost of the previous war, and in the East by a
subdivision of Austria Hungary into a series of statelets which could
individually offer neither threat nor resistance to a revitalised Germany, but
which on the other hand acted as an protective buffer zone for Germany against
the Soviet Union as Germany recovered.
Lesson being, "once they're down, make sure they stay down" (NB that doesn't
necessarily mean repression - for example one of the things not countenanced in
Wilson's redrawing of the European map in 1919 was substantive division of
Germany, other than anomalies such as Danzig and East Prussia).
- --
Mark Watson, markw@antares.demon.co.uk
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 14:00:01 -0500
From: "Micheal D. Peters"
Subject: Re: Which Traveller?
Subject: Which Traveller?
> I am looking to pick up a starter set of Traveller. I used to have
Traveller
> Classic ...yeeeears ago. Now there is all kinds of editions. I don't have
a
> group ...so if I did play it would most likely be by PBEM. CT? GURPS?
T:NE?
> T4?
>
> Help a newbie (sorta)
>
> Tim MacPherson
Well Tim, you've opened a can o' worms here! ;^)
You'll surely here as many different answers as there are people on the TML!
Here's mine.
I really believe that if your playing by email then , if your running a game
yourself, I'd concider buying the reprints of the CT version that Marc has
coming out, ot GURPS:Traveller, since both of these offer (or will offer in
the immediate future) large, and reasonably complete data bases to work
from.
Most email games are combines of several versions, but since all but G:T and
TNE are basically updates of Classic Traveller, the reprints would be a good
start. So if your planing to be a player in someone elses game, I'd start
there then let your GM guide you if more specific information is required.
Saying all this you might think I'm a CT fan, but really, since I got back
into the game a few years ago, I've been building a collection of
MegaTraveller stuff. For the most part I find that MT took the better parts
of CT and added some real time and effort saving features (task system,
integrated large scale combat, etc.), T4, dispite it's best efforts never
reached this stage of integration, in my opinion. G:T, since the base system
is so large, has these opertunities as well, however GURPS, as I've learned
from several gamse I've run, can get complicated, and IMHO doesn't lend well
to PEM (too many die rolls involved in combat, etc.). MT has the draw back
of being mostly expensive and hard to find.
Humm, Hope some of this helps,
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 11:12:57 -0800
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Which Traveller?
>From: Mark Watson
>Subject: Re: Which Traveller?
...
>www.levalet.com is also in Canada. And MT is the one true version, heathen.
MT? Speaking of things that collapse under the weight of their own
internal contradictions! :)
Oh, and Montreal is about as far from Lotusland as Birmingham is
from trans-Urals' Russia, and not much more pleasant to visit :)
The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its Product"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:11:31 -0600
From: "Moody, Danny M."
Subject: RE: Totally OT but ...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kurt Feltenberger [mailto:kurt@blazenet.net]
>
> IMO, this is yet another net legend. When shipping a
> handgun, it must
> leave and arrive at an FFL holder's address so that it can be
> logged into
> their bound book, and then logged out when you take possession of the
> weapon.
Only on a transfer of ownership.
> Unless the person in question held an FFL, I highly
> doubt Smith &
> Wesson would even consider shipping it.
It happened. You can ship your own firearm to/from the manufacturer since
no transfer of ownership happens. You cannot use the USMail for handguns,
only longguns.
From http://www.atf.treas.gov/core/firearms/information/faq/faq.htm
(B8) May a nonlicensee ship a firearm through the mails?
A nonlicensee may mail a shotgun or rifle to a resident of his own State or
to a licensee in any State. Handguns are not mailable. A common or contract
carrier must be used to ship a handgun. A nonlicensee may not transfer a
handgun to a non licensed resident of another State.
The Postal Service recommends that longguns be sent by registered mail and
that no marking of any kind which would indicate the nature of the contents
be placed on the outside of any parcel containing firearms.
A carrier must be notified that the shipment contains a firearm.
In addition, Federal law prohibits common or contract carriers from
requiring or causing any label to be placed on any package indicating that
it contains a firearm.
[18 U.S.C. 922(a)(2)(A) and 922(e), 27 CFR 178.31]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 14:19:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Collin
Subject: Re: Mass Destruction
Hey, don't destroy the planet, destroy the star! Use a star trigger
(AM:8, Darrians), big disintegrator weapon (various MT sources) or fusion
catalyst (recent Nuke Damper discussion) to cause an instability there and
BOOM, a bad day for everything in the system!
Planets, as others have pointed out, are largely stable. You can wipe out
all life on the planet easily enough, but actually blasting it into peices
is damn tough. Accepting the previously given figure of 10^32 Joules (was
that Anthony Jackson? Where did you get that?), you could smack a .1 C
rock into the world, but it would require a mass of around 10^17 kg.
That's on the order of 10^14 m^3! Hmm, actually, a cube 50 km on a side
would almost do it.
My math, feel free to correct:
(5E4 m)^3 = 1.25E14 m^3 (rock's volume)
1.25E14 m^3 * 5 tons/m^3 = 6.25E14 tons (rock's mass)
.5 * (6.24E14) * (3E7)^2 = 2.81E29 Joules (rock's KE at .1 C)
Which is a little low for obliteration, but good enough for a terror
effect, I think :-). Of course, the mass gets much lower with higher
velocities. How does the destruction energy change with planetary
diameter?
Hmm, a thought just occurred to me. What about peaceful use of near-c
rocks? What if you had a world-sized object whose orbit was decaying such
that it posed a threat to another, inhabitted world? Total obliteration
wouldn't be necessary, of course, but a spectacular "nudge" with a near-c
rock would be one way of dealing with it. Wait, nope, if you can generate
that much thrust, why not just apply it to the world itself? Or would you
get additional benefits from the impact...? Just thinking out loud...
Charles C.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 14:33:27 -0500
From: "Chris Seamans"
Subject: Re: OT Origins of Christianity and Roman Rumors
From: Bruce Johnson
>Tieing _this_ in with the oft discussed Vilani Cannibalism Hypothesis,
>one is led to the conclusion that perhaps Jesus was a lost or rogue
>Vilani...perhaps with a supply of slow drug and a nifty autodoc in a
>cave near his headquarters...
>
>Naaahhh...
Back in the good ol' days of EC Comics, there was a story in Weird Science,
I believe, and it concerned a similar scenario.
The Galactic Exploration Authority was doing its survey work. They
discovered one world in the early iron age and one of the scouts was dropped
off to learn about their culture, customs and language. On the way back
home, the rocket ship that had carried him was destroyed in an accident (I'm
pretty sure it got whacked by a rock). All records that this scout had been
assigned to this job were destroyed.
The GEA scout was a nice enough chap, and he was disgusted by the conditions
on the world. He started doing the little things he could do to help. He
healed the sick with his advanced medicines, he fed the hungry with his
advanced survival rations. Word of his deeds eventually reached the upper
echelons of society. They had him captured and brought before them. They
demanded he feed and heal them instead of the wretched and the poor. He
refused.
So, many years later, the GEA detects atomic bomb explosions on this planet.
They send out a group of scouts to make contact with this world they had
apparently missed the first time around. Once they get there, they discover
an advanced civilization, in the midst of 1950s style progress. They see
important looking buildings with stylized funny-looking symbols adorning
them, and they see folks with these same little symbols around their necks.
Finally, one of the scouts asks his guide what the symbol means. The guide
responds by telling them it represents the torture rack their saviour was
killed upon.
Interestingly enough, although that story never came under fire, another
story did during the days of the first "Comics Code", another one did. This
concerned a scout visiting a planet in a full-body space suit. He contacted
the planet's civilization and found that a dominant group of aliens with one
skin color were oppressing another group with another skin color. They wish
to become part of the interstellar community, but he tells them that unless
they start acting like civilized beings they can't be allowed to enter. He
gets back on his ship and flies away. When he gets a moment to relax he
takes off his space helmet and it turns out that he's black, and that he's
crying.
The first Comics Code authorities demanded that the character in the story
be changed to a white man. The folks at EC realized that the Comics Code
fellows had clearly missed the whole point of the story and they dropped out
of the organization.
------------------------------
End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1387
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