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Subject: Traveller-digest V1997 #1500
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Traveller-digest      Saturday, June 28 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1500



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: TrTools v0.93
Re: Re: Space Combat Probabilities
Re: PE Walkthrough Log
Re: Traveller: Beyond The Pale... Episode 3
Lurker mode . . .OFF
Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info
Where will M0 end?
Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs
Skill Stuff--A Plea
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Imperial Bulk Carrier
Dolphins, sentient?
Re: Skill Stuff--A Plea
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 02:25:44 +1000 (EST)
From: Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: TrTools v0.93

Sounds great - please save a copy for me.

Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com> & <sal@deni.net.au>

On Tue, 24 Jun 1997, Michael Bailey wrote:

> Tired of wimpy windowed front ends and icons?
> 
> Hold that any true program runs from the command line?
> 
> Man, have I got a deal for you *g*
> 
> 
> Two Short Planks software announces the next version of TRTOOLS, a set of
> command line utilities for Traveller.
> 
> Version 0.93 of TRTOOLS covers the following:
> 
> * Sector and subsector mapping
> * Hard Times effects on sector data
> * TNE Collapse effects on sector data
> * Regression of sectors from M:1100 to M:0
> 
> and comes complete with source code (in Pascal 'messycode' format)...
> 
> How much for such an ill-omened piece of software, you ask?
> 
> ABSOLUTELY BUGGER ALL...all I ask is that you send me bug reports, so I can
> fix problems as they arise...
> 
> Version 0.93 will be ready on about 14 days...email me to reserve your copy
> NOW !
> Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)
> 
> "F**k you, I'm sick!"
> 			Hunter S. Thompson
> 

- --
Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com>
Public key on servers, finger, or send me email with subject send pgp-key
PGP: 2048/69FAB015 7F 4D 55 D6 DC B8 C6 7C  71 A9 44 E1 12 42 0D 59

'Eternal Vigilance Is The Price of Liberty' used to mean we watched
the government - not the other way around. - David J. Golden

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 09:58:54 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Re: Space Combat Probabilities

At 01:41 pm 06/28/97 GMT, you wrote:
>>30000 km range bands/hexes are great. Unfortunately, when we were putting
>>together FFS2/TTA, with only vague notes on a combat system, we were pretty
>>much told to use 5000/50000/500000/5000000 km range bands; so FFS2/TTA
>>sensors are all based around that
>
>
>Gasp!  Choke!
>
>I'm not certain whether or not an order of magnitude difference between
>ranges makes sense for everything, but I _know_ that different weapons (and
>sensor and communications) systems will have different depths to their range
>bands.  OK, maybe a quick-and-dirty combat system would have these ranges (in
>fact, it might not be a bad idea), but to force the equipment designer to use
>them limits all future combat systems.  This is a Bad Thing.

	WHOA! The equipment designer is NOT forced to use them. You're told how to
rate a weapon at any given range, and then told "Table XX lists the
standard Traveller ranges." So if you want to rate your weapon's
performance at the TNE SR/2*SR/4*SR/8*SR ranges, you're free to do so, and
have the information necessary.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 02:41:18 +1000 (EST)
From: Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: PE Walkthrough Log

Hi Suz,

I would like a copy of the PE walkthrough log please

Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com>


On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Suzette C. Dollar wrote:

> Greetings!
> 
> I just mailed out the PE Walkthrough log to all the requests that I 
> had (including those sent directly to Stu). If you requested the log 
> but have not received it, or if you didn't request it but want one, 
> please email me at suzd@goodnet.com.
> 
> Suz
> 
> 
> Suzette C. Dollar
> #Traveller Channel Manager
> suzd@goodnet.com
> 

- --
Steve Lovett <sl@pobox.com>
Public key on servers, finger, or send me email with subject send pgp-key
PGP: 2048/69FAB015 7F 4D 55 D6 DC B8 C6 7C  71 A9 44 E1 12 42 0D 59

'Eternal Vigilance Is The Price of Liberty' used to mean we watched
the government - not the other way around. - David J. Golden

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 13:20:54 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Traveller: Beyond The Pale... Episode 3

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>
>Gawd, Roderick! You make me want to move to Montreal, just so I can
>kibitz! ROFLMAO!!
>
>purrBANGpurrBANGpurrBANG!!!!
>
>


	Thanks :).  However, I can't take credit for the purring bit; that
was the idea of Jason Jones, the guy who's playing Lt. Kehaaarl.  During
the second game session, after Kehaaarl started blasting away at the
Mishegaan United Worker's Anti-Suppression Front with the ship's laser, I
was describing the whine of huge capacitors charging up to fire the
laser... and then Jason interjected with "... and you hear constant purring
from inside the turret".

	That was one of those high-point-of-the-campaign, everybody cracks
up kinda comments :).

R.D. Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:11:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dengar@aol.com
Subject: Lurker mode . . .OFF

I have been a lurker on this list for over a year now.

I will no longer remain silent.

Please put my name under the "MT skill system" voting ballot.

Thanks :-)

Dennis Belanger

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 12:23:06 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

Volker A. Greimann <GREI5001@uni-trier.de> writes
>BTW: Does TD 10 contain data on Core as well? Someone once said so 
>and i don't have that either!

I don't have TD8 but I have TD10.  Yes, it includes data on Core:

1. World map of Capital.

2. The feature adventure is set on Reference/Cadion/Core 0140 D100100-B,
   formerly called Mamatava, and includes First Survey data - the above
   UWP applies directly!  It was renamed at the time of the Second Grand
   Survey, so should be Mamatava in M0.  No system info.

3. Library Data for Core sector.  Of possible interest:
   Bellham/Dunea 1838 D989620-7: "the TL of Bellham has been steadily
     decreasing since it was first catalogued".
   Bogustin/Cemplas 1323 A3105AC-F: Heavily colonised in 958; nothing
     about what was there before.
   Gandar/Ch'naar 1633 B300666-D: Moon of only gas giant, colonised by
     Salo Merchant Line of Zimmel/Dunea 1733.
   Hiilev/Ch'naar 1635 C62757B-A: colonised first "early in 1st
     Imperium", descendants fought newcomers arriving after 420.
   Okefir/Ch'naar 1035 B581666-A and Vala/Ch'naar 1034 C553762-6: owned
     by Aursis since colonisation in 57.

4. Subsector listings for Cadion and Chant subsectors (M & K).

That's enough typing for now - if you need more (like UWPs or presence
of gas giants for the subsectors) let me know.
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:54:45 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Where will M0 end?

Hi,

Just reading through the chronology of the Imperium in the MT
Encyclopedia last night, and something occured to me, that I'm not sure
has been discussed.  Where will Milieu 0 end?  That is, what time in
Imperial history will it go up to?  

The best possibiltiy, I thought was up to 420, as that is when the First
Survey was completed.  Thus, all of the systems in First Survey will
have been conquered by the Imperium.

Also, is it still a plan of IG to do the M200 next?  Personally, I don't
think this Milieu is truly needed, being still to close to M0 an I'd
rather see either the Interstellar Wars Era (M -2235, or 2283AD?) or
perhaps the M1100 setting revisited again.

Any ideas?
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 12:16:14
From: Joe Nassise <rockrat@concentric.net>
Subject: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs

I've been lurking on this list for awhile now, and have taken Bruce's
comment to heart about finally getting involved.  The Great Task System
Debate aside, I was hoping someone out there might help me out with a
particular question.

	Where (if at all)in T4 does it call out the rules for repairing spacecraft
battle damage?  (My players have just gotten into a scrape with a couple of
planetary fighters and set down/crash landed on a glacier.  They are trying
to figure out how to fix the damage to their drives and sensor arrays so
they can get the hell out of their before the locals show up again.)

I can't seem to find any reference to it, but I might simply be looking in
the wrong place. If it isn't included, is the a de facto system that
everyone seems to be using?  I have considered adopting the TNE rules into
the T4 system, but this would take a fair amount of revision.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 15:17:47 -0400
From: That Computer Guy <darkstar@UDel.Edu>
Subject: Skill Stuff--A Plea

Well, I've been lurking long enough now.  To be honest, I find a lot of
the discussion on the task system rather humorous.  Hey, if I hadn't
been so busy with other stupid stuff I would've posted earlier.  8)

Anyway, I remember sending Marc mail about this a few months ago when it
was announced that the new hardcover would be coming out.

I figured hey, include both the MT and the T4 task systems and let
players choose which one they want.  Both systems center around a
word-based task description.  Both have similar levels and can use the
same language (simple, difficult, impossible, etc...).  So hell, take up
the extra two or three pages, describe the pros and cons of each system,
describe each system and be done with it.

No, I'm not vascillating, but the simple truth is that this game has
gone through four revisions in the past 20 years.  Fact is that there
are too many factions with their own preferences.  Hell, and I remember
people saying that The Rebellion wasn't feasible because everyone would
line up behind the obvious choice.  8)

We can look to redesign or tweak the wheel one more time, but that will
still gain us nothing.  I'm sorry, but I'm getting the impression that
people don't want a breakthrough system, they want Traveller (uhm,
sorry, that didn't come out as I intended, but you all know what I
mean).

If T4 is suppossed to be the game where we're innovative and have
learned over time, then give the people what they want.  Fact is that
some of us probably were waiting for some type of rehash of CT, and some
for a rehash of MT.  Fact is that new players will choose whatever
mechanics they desire.

Don't believe me?  Remember, it only took three days after the release
of T4 until I saw MT task for T4 on this list.  And then it only took 10
minutes until I saw someone calling the poster a crack-smoker for
wanting a MT system instead of the CT/T4 system.

Is it really going to be any different this time around?

        --Jerry

*) Jerry Alexandratos             || "I'm going to try speaking some (* 
*) darkstar@.udel.edu             ||  reckless words, and I want you (*
*) alexandr@hawk.pearson.udel.edu ||  to try to listen recklessly."  (*

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 13:39:03 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 11:53:33 -0700
Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>
>Either post the relevant quotes from a Traveller product (GDW or DGP) that
>states clearly that the RoM reached higher than TL12, or give it a rest.
>
>Since you have time to respond to everyone in this thread, I find it hard
>to believe that you don't have the time to look through the few books that
>mention the RoM for this info.

I think I have been pretty clear about why I have not posted the quotes.
For one, to cross-integrate other relevant quotes, takes some time (the
proper way to do research).  But, tell you what.  Harold has opened up
only part of some relevant info, and I am going to get to that next.  See
my next post.

As for being busy with tests, etc., I am.  I aced the one last night, but
I am only through one of four more (one is the second one in a week for
the same class!)  Rather than being perturbed, you should be complimented
that I am so addicted to following this, and you all have provided some
very interesting viewpoints.


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 13:39:47 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 00:40:52 -0400
hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
>
>   In the CT Solomani Rim supplement, there's mention of a world,
>Hephaistos, where there was "one of the few completed terraforming
>projects in the Imperium".  The impression you get is that global
>terraforming is not something outside the capability of the TL 15 Third
>Imperium, it was just something that wasn't done on a regular basis.

Harold, if you are going to "quote sources", you should at least tell
everybody the _WHOLE_ story, not just what you want to see. That is the
most out of context quote I have ever seen.

FroM, CT AM6 Solomani, p.21, CT Sup10 Solomani Rim, p.38:

   "Hephaistos is one of the few terraforming projects completed
   by the Imperium. Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the
   project was alternately abandoned and resumed several times."

The lines that follow do, as you suggest, allude to the _fact_ that
is somewhat out of the Imperium's reach to do terraforming--no surprise
since they are only TL15/16!

  Further, according to the MT Referee's Companion, pg.28, the required
tech to do Terraforming (worlds less than 800 Km) is 17, (worlds to
4000 Km) is 18, and (any sized world) is 19. Complex Terraforming is
at TL 15, and Global Terraforming is at 16.  Which ever version you
want to go with, the TC (pre-RoM) was TL 15+!!!!!!!!

  I'll admit that the MT Tech Table references are a little hard to
swallow, especially if you don't want to believe this. :)


On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 01:40:51 -0400
hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
>Subject: Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)
>
>   I'm afraid not.  The essay in MT's Referee's Companion on Robotics
>was pretty clear that robotics in the RoM didn't progress beyond TL 12. 
>And as for genetic and medical technology, well you should be able to do
>some pretty advanced stuff at TL 12.  

Another case of an author having not even researched the very material
that _theirs_ was being added to. :(


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:10:00 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Imperial Bulk Carrier

	From my shelf....

	"I heard of a green naval architect who figured that mounting 
the thrusters up front would be better. I don't know how many 
mengacredits the brass spent on this idea, until someone run a holo 
simulation of what one of these beasts would look like.
	"Here's the vessel, sneaking up on some blockade runner, except that 
it's thrusters are lit up like a supernova. Passive EMS would've 
picked it up in a second..."
				(Starship Operator's Manual, p.4)

	Any relation to the freighter in question? ;)

/RFXn


On 27 Jun 97 at 21:56, John H Bogan Jr wrote:

> At 10:46 AM 6/26/97 -0400, Lewis Roberts wrote:
> 
> >The ship is a cylinder, with two engine pods mounted on small
> >outriggers, at the front of the ship.  The bridge, living quarters and
> >jump drives are all mounted on the front of the cylinder, almost all of
> >the cylinder is taken up by cargo and fuel. 
> 
> As an additional note, the "nosecone & outriggers" 
> section pictured in Rebellion Sourcebook looks
> suspiciously like a cargo carrier from CT book
> Fighting Ships. Can't @*%!-ing find FS at the 
> moment, but I think the ship in RS is too big
> to be the same one. However, if it follows the 
> same principle, the cylindrical section is a
> standardized, detatchable, and interchangeable
> fuel tank/cargo pod.

	The FS Jump Ship is a mere 5000-ton design and can haul around up to 
5000 tons of cargo, in a "jump mesh" (I'd imagine a superdense metal 
webbing with lathanum core to extend jump field over the cargo). The 
following pods are available: Cargo pod, 1000 tons; Passenger pod, 
(no mention of tonnage, holds 225 staterooms); Low pod (the same, 
1900 low berths).


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 97 19:41:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Dolphins, sentient?

>> Who says Dolphins aren't sapient? ;)
> Who says Dolphins _are_ sentient :)
    Someone want to step into the hornets nest and try to define sentience?

> Besides whether or not they are in the real world in not important
> (nad off topic) for Traveller.  Traveller states that they were
> uplifted. Therefore in Traveller they were not sentient or they
> would not have _needed_ uplifting.
    This depends on what the uplifting was for.  If you were messing around
with their brains to increase the gray/white ratio that's one thing.  If you
were fiddling around in there to allow them to use cybernetics and/or allow for
language centers more like those in humans... that's a completely different
story.

> The real world data is open to interpretaion but my (laypersons)
> interpretation is that they are very smart animals, possibly
> approaching primate levels, but are not sentient.
    Let's keep one thing in mind here, Dolphins live in a VASTLY different
environment then Humans do.  And Humans have a definate bias towards tool users
with oral languages.  Dolphins don't need tools in their environment and they
do use elements of language that we can identify.  But all lot of that signal
we don't have a clue as to what it's for and Dolphins really don't need to
worry about objectifying the world around them like Humans do.
    All this means that Dolphins could quite well have a complex and
distinctive culture we simply can not plug into because it's so radically
different we can't comprehend it.  They very well could be sentient already and
we just haven't stepped out of our very focused and narrow view point of
sentience to realize that yet.

    And to help yank this back to Traveller...  Any ideas on how to make truly
Alien aliens?  The kind that are incomprehensable because they and humans share
almost no common frames of reference?

Stephen

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:23:18 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Skill Stuff--A Plea

At 03:17 pm 06/28/97 -0400, you wrote:
>We can look to redesign or tweak the wheel one more time, but that will
>still gain us nothing.  I'm sorry, but I'm getting the impression that
>people don't want a breakthrough system, they want Traveller (uhm,
>sorry, that didn't come out as I intended, but you all know what I
>mean).
>
>If T4 is suppossed to be the game where we're innovative and have
>learned over time, then give the people what they want.  Fact is that
>some of us probably were waiting for some type of rehash of CT, and some
>for a rehash of MT.  Fact is that new players will choose whatever
>mechanics they desire.

	Just because there are a variety of mechanics already extant, or people do
things this way, or that way, is no reason NOT to strive to have the best
system possible in the new version. "Good Enough" is the enemy of excellence.

	And why do I want a good system? After all, I've got CT, MT, TNE, T4 and
my own ideas, so I can brew my own.

	Because I want help keep Traveller alive by seeing if my FLGS will let me
run a demo to attract new players. I cannot, in good conscience, run a demo
using a "house system" just because I don't like the one in the book--I've
got to use what I'm trying to push. But if I can't stomach the one in the
book, I can't in good conscience try to convince somebody ELSE it's a good
system.

	And despite the ongoing arguments I'm involved in elsewhere, the current
stat+skill system, with stats and skills on different scales, doesn't work
without a bunch of arbitrary restrictions on attempting tasks at low skills.

	That was the whole idea of a task system in the first place! Simplify
things so you can describe _anything_ and let _anybody_ roll against it. If
you've got the right skills, you've got a good chance of succeeding. If
you've got high attributes, you might be able to pull it out. If you've got
neither, there comes a point where you don't succeed.

	But a "Difficult" task should be the same for everybody. If you've got
"Difficult, min Skill A-3 or Skill B-2, or EDU+INT>9 and Int>6, or
Day=Tuesday," sure, maybe it covers special cases better. But it's a lot
less fun & easy to play.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:13:58 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

At 06:10 pm 06/27/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Fri, 27 Jun 1997 08:51:50 -0600, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>> At 12:00 am 06/27/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>         I repeat: If you give me a task system where a very bright
first-year med
>> student (Med-1, Int-12) is a better doctor than an average MD (Med-4,
>> Int-8), it reflects not at all reality.
>
>Again, you are missing a point here.  The differnce you are
>talking about is that a first year med student shouldn't
>be able to do open heart surgery _no matter his skill_.

	I disagree. There's nothing in the structure of reality or the laws of
physics that will prevent him from attempting it if the situation is right,
or if he's desperate enough. He's got a little knowledge of anatomy,
probably knows the theory of what's done in open heart surgery (crack the
rib cage, remove a section of vein from the leg, cut out the block section
of heart artery or vein, splice in the leg vein, close). Maybe he's
observed one during orientation. His got little chance of success, but I'd
grant him a tiny, teeny chance.

>The solution is not to deny that a talented person with Medical-1
>will be better at Medical-1 appropriate tasks than a less talented
>person.  It to not let _any_ Medical-1 people (regardless of
>target number) roll against Medical-3 tasts.

	So now we have to add to all tasks "Only for Skill-x and above," or we
have to go back and pull up the descriptions for each and every skill when
we use it to see what levels are and aren't allowed to do. And creating new
tasks means the referee not only has to decide how hard it is, but what
level you have to have to try at all. I'd rather have that rolled into the
task difficulty itself. Obviously, a Formidable task is going to require a
higher skill to have a chance of succeeding than a simple task.

>I don't agree.  A person with Stat-12 Med-1 will be better at many
>things that a Stat-8 Med-4.  I've seen this before.  A young

	Yes, a Stat-12 Med-1 will be better at SOME things than a Stat-8 Med-4.
But ON THE WHOLE, the Stat-8 Med-4 will be a better doctor. It's just
something that comes from trying to roll a wide body of knowledge into a
single skill. Perhaps we should throw out medical skill entirely, so we can
distinguish the fact that a thoracic surgeon will be better at open heart
surgery than a general practitioner with the same stat, and a
otolaryngologist can deal with a ruptured eardrum better than a podiatrist,
etc.

	It's just part of the abstraction you have to accept to play the game. I
cannot accept something that means a gifted beginner is better at
EVERYTHING than a skilled Joe Average, even though the beginner may be
better at a FEW things. Like it or not, Medical covers the entire gamut of
medical tasks. There are only a few of those where the Stat-12 Med-1 should
be better than the Stat-8 Med-4. But a straight addition results in the
Stat-12 being better at EVERYTHING unless you start making arbitrary
restrictions or special cases.

>understood it in the first place.  So you don't let him
>roll against things he hasn't trained yet (ie heart surgery
>is a Medical-3 proceedure) but you don't just deny that
>he _can_ be better at more basic proceedures than the 
>hack with more training.

	Again, you can come up with reams of tasks and the minimum required skill
level if you want. I find it easier to use a system that provides,
built-in, a check on beginners outperforming experts.

>>         If you really would prefer a first-year med student to treat you
when you
>> come into a hospital, that's fine. I'll go with the licensed MD...
>
>Well, I would rather have a talented nurse put an IV in me
>than untalented doctor.

	Again, you're the one who first raised the argument about trying to
shoehorn all kind of things into a single skill. Agreed, I'd rather have a
talented nurse put an IV in than an untalented doctor. But medical skill
covers quite a bit more than just putting IVs in. I refuse to let a nurse
near my chest with a scalpel, no matter how intelligent/dexterous/educated.

	I don't want a system with multiple exceptions, special rules and
arbitrary distinctions to ensure that Stat-12 Skill-1 doesn't beat Stat-8
Skill-4 over the whole range of tasks. It may sacrifice a little bit that
the Stat-12 Skill-1 would be better at a FEW SPECIFIC TASKS than the Stat-8
Skill-4, but in general it ensures better balance. And the task system
certainly should be geared towards the whole range of possibilities,
because that's what it's going to be used for. Not just the special case
where a task happens to fall into the sub-subcategory of the skill that
earned the character the Skill-1.

	We're obviously not connecting here, because the more you support a
straight stat+skill AS IT EXISTS (with stats and skills on different
scales), the more I'm convinced it doesn't work right. Now, if you bring
stats and skills onto the same scale (i.e. both 1-15, instead of 1-5/0-7)
so that a trained MD becomes around Skill-7 or -8, then I'd have no problem
with it.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 00:03:41 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)

On 28 Jun 97 at 3:17, Harold Hale wrote:

> RFXn writes:
> 
> >        Uh... just nitpicking again. Imperium did produce
> > experimental TL 17 technology. 
> >
> >       MT Rebellion Sourcebook, adventure "Nail Mission" features
> > Voroshilef-class battleships "with a highly experimental
> > Disintegrator-A spinal mount, which convenietly fit into the space
> > left by removing the particle accelerator-R" (Rebellion 
> > Sourcebook, p.92).
> >
> >       MT Ship Design sequence in MT Referee's Manual states on p.
> > 71 that Disintegrator-A spinal mount is TL 17 technology. Since the 
> > PCs are sent to retrieve spares for these crucial weapons from
> > Depot/Corridor, it must be assumed that the weapons were of Imperial
> > manufacture, not any Ancient artifacts or Vorlon imports. :P

(correction: It was Depot/Gushemege, not Depot/Corridor. My mistake.)

>       Ah yes, good call.  *But*, that could easily be explained as
> stuff they got from the weapons labs of the Darrians.  Since the
> Imperium and the Darrians were allies, it is only natural that the
> Darrians would hand over a few prototypes every so often so that
> the Imperial naval types could tinker with them.

"I have in my hand here a document of containing evidence the
Darrians do not have sufficient technology to produce
disintegrators."
                                  RFXn


	Weapons labs? unlikely. Sticking to canon again:

	"The Yorin light tank is the highest tech level vehicle currently
produced by the Darrians. When equipment of higher tech levels is
required, they procure tech level 14 equipment from the Imperium, as
well as some occassional tech 15 gear."
				101 Vehicles, p.12

	A society producing only TL 13 ground vehicles is unlikely to
produce even experimental TL 17 weapons, let alone sell such
high-tech miracles to anyone, even friendly powers. The Darrians are
not particularly militaristic, and I don't see any reason why
Darrian ground transportation tech level would lag behind.

	Besides, a world's heavy military tech level is heavily based on
its Land Transportation tech level (World Builder's Handbook, p.86).
Although the TNE Regency Sourcebook features a TL 16 Darrian ship of
recent manufacture, 101 Vehicles is a much older source.

	Not pulling any punches, "The Darrian starship construction yards 
are capable of constructing [Solomani-influenced] tech 15 starships. 
Jump-6 capability is also possible, although ships are most often 
constructed with jump-3 or less". Also remember that "Top ships of 
the line are now imported from the Imperium (under an Imperial 
military aid program), and some technicians with them to 
maintain them." (Alien Module 8: Darrians)

	While "the Darrian Navy maintains two or three squadrons of tech 
level 16 warships of pre-Maghiz manufacture" (see above), it is even 
more unlikely that Darrians would give these precious artifacts for 
Imperium to study, since those ships are reserved for delivering the 
Star Trigger.

> How would you like to be the Imperial logistics officer who had to
> explain to the admiral *and* to the tech rep from the Darrians why
> it is you sent critical components of an experimental weapon to a
> testing facility that's now in a war zone...not exactly good for
> career advancement.

	I would much rather do that, than having to explain Lucan's MoJ 
_where_ the disintegrators _really_ came from, and why didn't we know 
about them sooner.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1500
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Traveller-digest       Sunday, June 29 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1501



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Space Combat Probabilities
GrSurvey/GrCensus v WBH
MT-like task system "Incompatabilities"
MT Combat misconceptions
Arrival Vengeance
Task system defnition error
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41 
Re: TL of the Rule of Man
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1500
Re: TrTools v0.93
Re: Lighthouses and Battleships (was re: Battledress...)
Really really twisted plot idea
Its up to Marc!
Galactic v2.2 is now available
Re: High Skill Levels -- A Plea to Marc Miller
RE:Battledress & Heroism
Medical Cascade

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 22:14:06 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

More hand-waving please :-) 

How do you condense the hydrogen you scoop out of a gas giant 
atmoshpere (or electolysed from water)?

Simon

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:44:17 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

Leroy-

Please either quote your material directly giving the RoM very high tech
levels, or please give it a rest.

This is not how the TML works.  We don't play "I know something you don't
know", and belittle anyone who asks where we are getting out informaton.
We state our sources, lay out our arguements, and *discuss* these things
like adults.

This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.
I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: Earth or
anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of Traveller material.

So until proven otherwise, by your presenting evidense to support these
theories of yours, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider them without
merit.

(BTW:  Terra was at TL 13 when invaded by the Imperium at the end of the
Solomani Rim War, it only reached TL 15 under the Imperial Miltary
Government [sources: Azhanti High Lightning (game), Invasion: Earth (game)])
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 97 18:14:00 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Space Combat Probabilities

On 06/28/97 at 01:41 PM,  Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>I _hope_ it isn't too late to change this.  Even if the basic ship combat
>system is already set, at least the design system can be fixed so that
>incremental differences between weapons/sensors/communications are
>reflected. I know they were there in FFS, so they won't have to be
>reinvented.  After all, FFS2 is supposed to be the _detailed_ design
>system, isn't it?  It shouldn't have to be replaced when a more detailed
>combat system comes along.

All I can say, is that when I was playing with ship weapons, I calculated
their DV/PV's based on 30kkm hexes(10/20/40/80), not 5/50/500/5,000kkm
range bands. The numbers aren't tied to a specific scale, so you should be
able to scale them, as you please.

Might not be true for sensors, though.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:46:10 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@asylumbbs.com>
Subject: GrSurvey/GrCensus v WBH

>I have seen numerous TML references to this book, presumably by Digest
>Group Publications.

yup

> I thought I had everything from that era of
>Traveller, but I don't have the WBH.  Does anyone know how similar
>(or not) the WBH is to Grand Census and Grand Survey (both by DGP),
>which seem to have a lot of overlap with what I hear about WBH.

WBH is basically the two Grand books combined under one cover, and is
missing about two paragraphs from the predecessors.

William F. Hostman		If you were using Eudora Lite 3.0,
Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com 	<-- that would be a hot-link 

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

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:54:20 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@asylumbbs.com>
Subject: MT-like task system "Incompatabilities"

>MT is not.  For Marc to adopt the MT system, he would also have to
>rewrite the personal combat, space combat, and psionics systems as
>well.  I am not interested in buying MT2.
>
>James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
>  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"
>
Combat needs to be rewritten anyway, for at least clarity. Not from
scratch, but cleaned up. The haste of the t4.0 rulebook shows (and confuses
players).

Psionics doesn't use any task rolls anymore... and the T4 psionics are
totally portable. THey will work just as well in Mega or TNE as either
system's task mechanics will work with them: flawlessly. Matter of fact,
I'm going to run an MT/T4 hybrid in the fall... using t4 psionics, MT-like
tasks (as posted), T4 skill acquisition rules on MT tables, MT combat. Just
for reference, though, the MT combat rules are just revised striker rules...

Space combat is almost task based; it needs a clean-up, too. Not a "from
scratch", but a removal of dice codes and substitution of task descriptors.

William F. Hostman		If you were using Eudora Lite 3.0,
Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com 	<-- that would be a hot-link 

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

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:26:27 -0800
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@asylumbbs.com>
Subject: MT Combat misconceptions

>>Why? There should always be "That one lucky shot". Of course a BD can
>>be penetrated, there is no such thing as a perfect defence. Every
>>Armor has it's weak spot and MT represents that. Such is life and
>>such is MT.
>
>Yes but a 1/36 chance is a bit too high methinks.
>

Ahh, but you forget:
	If Pen is less than 1/10 AV, damage is x0
	if Pen is less than  AV (and above 1/10) damage is x0.1
	if pen is less than 2x AV, and above  AV, damage is x0.5
These were cumulative with pinpoint accuracy damage bonuses. MT Pen and DMG
were NOT linked like they are in TNE or T4

So said gauss pistol (Pen 4 out to short range, pen 2 to long, it's max,
damage 3) is going to do little damage to AV 12 Cbt Armor (BD)... 0.3 dmg x
bonus for good hit. So, to get one mt die of damage, you needed to hit by
at least 4 (x4 dmg), giving a single MT dmg point. Said 1 point, after
combat, becomes 1 CT/T4 damage die. That said, the minimum damage from such
a sepctacular hit is 2 MT points... or 2d6 in CT/T4. Not bloody much for a
weapon that, given the same rolls, would do 12 MT points aka CT/T4 dice to
the poor schmuck in a flak vest.

So that 1/36 chance seems more like soft-tissue bruising from armor being
knocked into the wearer at key points than actual "Penetration"; any SCA
fighter can tell you that a cup hit hurts EVEN WHEN it isn't dead on and
penetrating!

William F. Hostman		If you were using Eudora Lite 3.0,
Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com 	<-- that would be a hot-link 

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:32:51 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Arrival Vengeance

DonM wrote:

>"Arrival Vengeance", which I don't have, but
>as it's TNE, it probably doesn't matter anyway.

No, Av is the last MT supplement and is pre-Virus. Aside for Hard Times,
it's one of the best GDW MT releases, and has a dark streak of pathos.


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:39:46 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Task system defnition error

>(Education+Survey)+DMs < Difficult (2.5D)

This is *wrong* mathematically, as you want

Target number > Difficulty rolled on dice

to succeed, and the task definition is what a player needs to succeed, not
fail.

IMO the above task should be

(Education+Survey)+DMs > Difficult (2.5D)



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 00:01:42 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41 

Douglas Berry wrote:

>Could somebody get a copy of this from Marc and translate it into something
>that Word 6.0/Win 3.1 can read?  (With Marc's permission, of course..) I
>would really like to see a copy.

Wouldn't mind seeing a copy myself if you can get it to Word 6, my Mac can
translate it then...

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 19:34:49 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: TL of the Rule of Man

> >        Uh... just nitpicking again. Imperium did produce
> > experimental TL 17 technology. 
> >
> >       MT Rebellion Sourcebook, adventure "Nail Mission" features
> > Voroshilef-class battleships "with a highly experimental
> > Disintegrator-A spinal mount, which convenietly fit into the space
> > left by removing the particle accelerator-R" (Rebellion 
> > Sourcebook, p.92).
> >
> >       MT Ship Design sequence in MT Referee's Manual states on p.
> > 71 that Disintegrator-A spinal mount is TL 17 technology. Since the 
> > PCs are sent to retrieve spares for these crucial weapons from
> > Depot/Corridor, it must be assumed that the weapons were of Imperial
> > manufacture, not any Ancient artifacts or Vorlon imports. :P
               [.....]
>       Ah yes, good call.  *But*, that could easily be explained as
> stuff they got from the weapons labs of the Darrians.  Since the
> Imperium and the Darrians were allies, it is only natural that the
> Darrians would hand over a few prototypes every so often so that
> the Imperial naval types could tinker with them.
             [.....]
>	"The Yorin light tank is the highest tech level vehicle currently
>produced by the Darrians. When equipment of higher tech levels is
>required, they procure tech level 14 equipment from the Imperium, as
>well as some occassional tech 15 gear."
>				101 Vehicles, p.12
            [.....]
>Although the TNE Regency Sourcebook features a TL 16 Darrian ship of
>recent manufacture, 101 Vehicles is a much older source.

I am as firm a believer in keeping your background materials consistent
as anyone else, and I agree that IG has not been doing a very good job
of this; but it is really becoming clear from the postings over the last few
days that the Canon Police are going to have to come to the painful
conclusion that the writers of the Traveller products from the good old
days that we are basing our arguments on weren't really any better at
keeping TLs and such consistent than the new guys are; it may just be
our faulty memories of things we think we know so well since we have
used them so many times, combined with the Holy Glow that we seem to
imbue [almost] any Traveller product from the CT and MT period with
that is causing us to believe in "one background, under Marc, indivisible."

- --Paul Darius
[in training for next month's BUSTED Contest (Best Unending Sentence
in a Traveller Email Digest)] :)

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 17:45:07 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

At 10:14 pm 06/28/97 +0100, you wrote:
>More hand-waving please :-) 
>
>How do you condense the hydrogen you scoop out of a gas giant 
>atmoshpere (or electolysed from water)?

	Compression/cooling ... same way we get liquid
nitrogen/oxygen/hydrogen/helium/etc. now, just more efficiently.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 00:22:34 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1500

Leroy wrote ,

> hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
> >
> >   In the CT Solomani Rim supplement, there's mention of a world,
> >Hephaistos, where there was "one of the few completed terraforming
> >projects in the Imperium".  The impression you get is that global
> >terraforming is not something outside the capability of the TL 15 Third
> >Imperium, it was just something that wasn't done on a regular basis.
> 
> Harold, if you are going to "quote sources", you should at least tell
> everybody the _WHOLE_ story, not just what you want to see. That is the
> most out of context quote I have ever seen.
> 
> FroM, CT AM6 Solomani, p.21, CT Sup10 Solomani Rim, p.38:
> 
>    "Hephaistos is one of the few terraforming projects completed
>    by the Imperium. Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the
>    project was alternately abandoned and resumed several times."
> 
> The lines that follow do, as you suggest, allude to the _fact_ that
> is somewhat out of the Imperium's reach to do terraforming--no surprise
> since they are only TL15/16!
> 

Personally, I read this as "the Solomani tried to terraform Hephaistos,
but kept over-reaching themselves economically and technologically,
and it eventually got finished when some BuCol bureaucrat thought it
seemed like a good idea at the time and authorised the expenditure of
way too much money to finish it."

>   Further, according to the MT Referee's Companion, pg.28, the required
> tech to do Terraforming (worlds less than 800 Km) is 17, (worlds to
> 4000 Km) is 18, and (any sized world) is 19. Complex Terraforming is
> at TL 15, and Global Terraforming is at 16.  Which ever version you
> want to go with, the TC (pre-RoM) was TL 15+!!!!!!!!
> 
>   I'll admit that the MT Tech Table references are a little hard to
> swallow, especially if you don't want to believe this. :)
> 

Terraforming isnt *that* hard ... we have reasonable plans to terraform Mars,
basically involving "add ice asteroids+solar mirrors+algae and wait" ...
problem is, it takes 2-300 years minimum, and thats a killer when the
colony needs to return at least 3% of the investment per annum on the
terraforming investment. Far easier to take the money, build some Jump-3
colony ships and fly them and the colonists to some nice world in the
Spinward Marches. Heck, you can then fly the ships back and do it again and
again ... a fast transport does 2 parsecs/week, so in a four-year round
trip you could go 200 parsecs away. The TL12 Exploratory Traders in last month's
THUDD competition would be a good base for such Long-Range Colony Ships.

But thats an aside. Given the amount of "elbow room" in the Imperium,
terraforming research would be seen as a complete waste of time and effort.
I have no problem with long-duration terraforming being a TL9 technology,
taking a base 500 years, with a reduction of 50 years per TL advance in
terraforming. If you want to do it quick-n-dirty, with times in years,
rather than centuries, then you need TL16 plus. 

> On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 01:40:51 -0400
> hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
> >Subject: Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)
> >
> >   I'm afraid not.  The essay in MT's Referee's Companion on Robotics
> >was pretty clear that robotics in the RoM didn't progress beyond TL 12.
> >And as for genetic and medical technology, well you should be able to do
> >some pretty advanced stuff at TL 12.
> 
> Another case of an author having not even researched the very material
> that _theirs_ was being added to. :(

I dont have a problem with the Imperium having social mores against genetic
engineering that lead to social pressures on genetic research ... I have
a much bigger problem with the idea that there was major technological 
regression between the Terran Confederation and the Long Night. Sylea
was more-or-less untouched by the Long Night, it was a major center in
the RoM, so it would have subscribed to the various Terran scientific
and technical journals, so the back rooms of the library of the USylea
should be chock-a-block with useful pointers on what one should be
working on to get to the technology of the Good Old Days. 

Secondly, the best available source on the early Terran Confederation is
the venerable GDW wargame Imperium. In this (a) the Terrans and the Vilani
use similar weapon systems, although ship designs differ (the Terrans
like beam weapons, the Vilani like missiles) and (b) the Terrans cant
terraform worlds - only white box/habitable worlds can develop into
"worlds" as opposed to "outposts" (if they get 16 consecutive years of 
peace, that is). From memory, there was an optional rule that you
could terraform non-habitable worlds but ... given the normal distribution
of habitable worlds in and around the Solomani Rim, I'd say the Terrans
didnt do it.

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:10:00 +2
> From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
> Subject: Re: Imperial Bulk Carrier
> 
>         From my shelf....
> 
>         "I heard of a green naval architect who figured that mounting
> the thrusters up front would be better. I don't know how many
> mengacredits the brass spent on this idea, until someone run a holo
> simulation of what one of these beasts would look like.
>         "Here's the vessel, sneaking up on some blockade runner, except that
> it's thrusters are lit up like a supernova. Passive EMS would've
> picked it up in a second..."
>                                 (Starship Operator's Manual, p.4)
> 
>         Any relation to the freighter in question? ;)
> 

So what ? It's a bloody merchant ship ... it doesnt *matter* if it stands
out like dogs balls to passive EMS, it has absolutely no buisiness being
anywhere anyone may want to shoot at it.

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 13:17:21 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: TrTools v0.93

You said:

> Two Short Planks software announces the next version of TRTOOLS, a set of
> command line utilities for Traveller.
> 
> Version 0.93 of TRTOOLS covers the following:
> 
> * Sector and subsector mapping
> * Hard Times effects on sector data
> * TNE Collapse effects on sector data
> * Regression of sectors from M:1100 to M:0
> 
> and comes complete with source code (in Pascal 'messycode' format)...
> 
> How much for such an ill-omened piece of software, you ask?
> 
> ABSOLUTELY BUGGER ALL...all I ask is that you send me bug reports, so I can
> fix problems as they arise...
 
I would be delighted to put in such an order, so here it is:

Please send me this fine set of utilities as soon as you feel like 
it.

Thanks, 

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 01:18:24 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Lighthouses and Battleships (was re: Battledress...)

At 11:44 AM 6/28/97 +0000, Mark Clark wrote:
><snip>
>  The documentation was not complete (I decided not to spend a great deal
>of time looking), but passing references seem to indicate that the story
>may have its origins in the American Navy battlegroup that ran aground
>near a lighthouse on the California coast in the 1920s due to fog and
>navigational errors at night. One important note - the battlegroup was
>observing _radio silence_ at the time - wonderful how urban legands grow
>and are propigated. 
>
>  In any case, I think we can safely assume that the transcript is not
>authentic, and that the whole story is an urban legend.
>
>______________________________
>Dr. Mark Clark
>Oregon Institute of Technology
>
>

The original version I had heard was using signal lights. And was referenced
back to a late 40's or early 50's Humor in Uniform in Reader's Digest.
Either way, it does amply show that assumptions about authority and
precedence usually lead to disaster. There is probably an Imperial Navy
equivalent excahnge between a Tigress and some buffered planetoid defense post.

Garry

  

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 00:42:44 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Really really twisted plot idea

Given the stuff about "I'd rather explain why we left the parts in Depot/
Gushemege, than explain who we *really* got them off", I want to work
through some stuff I've been doing in real life, in the hops someone
can (a) make some sense of it so they can explain it to me, and (b)
use it in a political intrigue type campaign.

I just got a copy of a secret document. I got my copy off John, a 
lobbyist. It is basically a retyped copy of another document, which
Evan (my ally) has told me he got off Brian (a Senator, who is a traditional
enemy, but a friend on this), who got it off Amanda (the Minister ... 
our undying enemy). Evan wouldnt give me a copy. John says he got it off 
Evan. John told me not to let Evan know I got it off him.

Now, Anna (my boss) told me that Andre (a fixit man brought in by Amanda)
knows we have a copy of the original document.

The document involves a very stupid plan by Amanda that will not work,
and will result in great embarressment and expense to the poor schmuck
who will have to implement it (ie Andre). The reason the plan is needed,
is that Amanda's original plan was defeated in the Senate by a coalition
of forces, with Brian as the vital "swing vote".

The document was edited and retyped to disguise it's real source if it
needs to be passed around (always a good idea).

Now, what are the odds that Evan was lying to me when he says he got
the document off Brian, but in fact had got it off Andre (who knows
Evan quite well) in the knowledge that he would pass it onto Brian 
in an effort to make the implementation of the plan impossible ?

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 19:17:25 -0700
From: "Brad Urwiller" <ravyn@ptw.com>
Subject: Its up to Marc!

I have to agree w/ Bob Sanders.

I'm sure no one here on the list has
intended to affront Marc.  I myself have
certainly not intended to do so.  Whatever
is finally decided on will be fine with me.=20
I think its great that we even have a 'say'
in matters.  So I thank Marc for listening.=20
On another note  I would also appreciate it
if someone would make a summary of all the
proposed systems and post it to the list
(Perhaps with some official looking Subject
line.  The subject lines have suffered as
far as descriptivness lately).

Thanks
 _
 \\=20
)=3DO-8>  "Nevermore!" quoth the ravyn and
nothing more...
 //
 =AF

Brad Urwiller
ravyn@ptw.com

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 19:48:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: Galactic v2.2 is now available

Oops! Galactic has just doubled in size again (sorry folks).
The newest version is currently online at my rather unkept
homepage of increasingly rotting links:

http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv

(go to the programs section and sniff around)

        PROGRAM NAME: "GALACTIC" [v2.2] {June 1997}
        GAME SYSTEM: Traveller/MegaTraveller
        AUTHOR: Jim Vassilakos  (jimv@empirenet.com)
        FUNCTION: Sector Viewer/Generator
        SIZE: 2,854,580 Bytes
        OPERATING SYSTEM: IBM (MS-DOS)
	      (but windows will also run dos-applications)
        COMMENTS: Allows user to randomly generate sectors, displays
	      the maps in VGA, translates the UWP code to English,
	      and keeps campaign notes in text files which can be
	      accessed directly from the map. The maps all mesh
	      seemlessly. Includes lots of official and non-official
              sectors. Even includes some world mapping software.
	      Note, you must use the "-d" option when unzipping:

                  >>>>>>>>    pkunzip -d gal22.zip    <<<<<<<<

Oh, and make sure you're using pkunzip 2.04g to do the unzipping.
If you have trouble getting Galactic, unzipping it, or whatever,
let me know. I'll be happy to postal you a set of floppies.

For those who have been using version 2.1, here some of the new
stuff:

  * Charles Collin contributed several alien names files for world
    generation
  * Dakin Burdick contributed the Magyar Sector
  * Michel Boucher contributed the Beyond Sector & Vanguard Reaches
    (these two sectors originally developed by Paranoia Press)
  * Lewis Roberts updated his TNE galaxy, revising the Old Expanses and
    adding Spica & Diaspora, also contributing a Classic version of the
    Spica Sector (Spica data for both eras created by Leroy Guatney)
  * Andrew Vallance contributed his Greater Magellanic Cloud galaxy as
    well as the Ley Sector and Glimmerdrift Reaches (these two sectors
    were originally developed by Judges Guild)

Here are the software upgrades:

  * Nearly all of the UWP stats separated into user-modifiable UWP.DAT
  * Added non-world objects to map (see Variant-1:Gythios/Idhra subsector)
  * Added insertion/deletion feature on the subsector map (use Ins/Del)
  * Added world mapping feature (use F4 from the subsector map)
  * Added data-strainer for PBeM-GMs (use F5 from sector or subsector maps)

And here are a few extras:

  * Incorporated Traveller Copyright Archive v0.2 into help section
  * Incorporated information on the Galactic Mailing List
  * Included section2.exe (dgp-sector sectioner) in section2 directory

That's all for now... let me know if you run into any snags...

           _   /|       Jim Vassilakos
           \`o_O'       jimv@empirenet.com
             ( )        http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv
              U         San Bernardino, California

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 97 22:33:03 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: High Skill Levels -- A Plea to Marc Miller

On 1997-06-26 18:10 thus spake John R. Snead:

>Kenneth Bearden mentioned some type of rumor about skills going from 1-15.
>*Please* do not do this.  Such a move would remove all compatibility in
>both directions.  I would cease to buy T4.1 products because it would be
>too much trouble to adapt them to the MT task system (which is what I
>prefer and use in my own games).  Similarly, other people could no longer
>easily adapt CT & MT characters and adventures to T4.1. 

Ack! Bullocks, says I.

If Skills go from 1 to about 15 in T4.1, and if in MT & CT they range up 
to 6 or 7, then all you do is chose a conversion factor, say divide T4.1 
skills by to to get MT equivalent.

No big deal.

If a skill level range similar to characteristics would improve the 
char:skill ratio, give better task results, and if it can be worked into 
chargen easily and fairly, I say, damn the past! Do it. If it improves 
the game, of course.

Just MHO.

- -- 
===== Glenn Hoppe =====\ /--- MailTo:jumpspace@geocities.com ----
\ . . Enter Jumpspace --X-> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275 \
 ----------------------/ \========== Eschew Obfuscation ==========

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 03:08:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: RE:Battledress & Heroism

> US ship:  "This is the aircraft carrier USS Missouri.  We
> are a large warship of the US Navy.  Divert your course NOW!"
> (you can almost /feel/ the arrogance)
    Presuming someone hasn't already jumped on this...
    The USS Missouri is a Battleship.  Here in the US of A we have this strange
custom of naming capital ships after States.
    If memory serves is was the USS Nimitz and a US Lighthouse.  I believe this
example is used in US Navy Ship Handling Schools to teach prospective Captains
to NOT be arrogant. ;)

Stephen

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 03:09:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Medical Cascade

>  Medical
>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs
    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???  I'm not going to repeat
the... pungent comments with in a conversation I had with a Ladyfriend and
Nurse upon her seeing this. ;) I should make the point though that there is a
great deal more to good medical care then simply sticking the needle into
someone and walking away.  If you doubt this... read up on the origins of
nursing.
    Just one example; In the early days of the US Civil War mortality rates in
US Army Hospitals was 90%.  A year after the nurses arrived and set to work
they dropped, with variations, the mortality rate to around 10% to 15% and
redeemed the entire medical profession. ;) So shall we add to the cascade...
    Nursing - the skill of caring for a patient

Stephen

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1501
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Traveller-digest       Sunday, June 29 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1502



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re:Rule of Man TL?
Test - Is this getting through?
Re: Galactic v2.2 is now available
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Medical Cascade
Re: Space Combat Probabilities
Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)
TRTOOLS requests
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Penetrating Battledress
RE: Where will M0 end?
re: Task system defnition error
RE: penetrating battledress.
Skill and Stat levels
Re: Battledress and Heroism
Re:Rule of Man TL?
Re: Task System, Game Design, etc.
Re: Rule of Man TL
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Task System, Game Design, etc.

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 03:08:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On 27 Jun 1997 23:18:54, mlaakso@utu.fi wrote...

>> As for this uplift stuff despite it being canon I totally ignore it
>> as it smells like Solomani propaganda and is not consistent with MY
>> view of Solomani (Military inclined, clever but aggressive and
>> oppressive - kind of like the US during the 50:s)
>  Well I'll try to totally ignore that, you Vilani scum! :P
    Hey, don't throw out compliments like that! <GRIN>

> IMO, the Terrans (Solomani being a Vilani term coined during the RoM,
> for reasons Leroy explained) are military inclined, sure. And clever.
> And very, very independent, individualistic and freedom-loving. As for
> oppressiveness and SolSec, well... Americans have the FBI, don't they?
> :) Blah, so much Imperial propaganda...
    No, not the FBI, as bad as they are we have much worse here in the USA.
The FBI are equivalent to the Keystone Cops compared to the real horror, the
great evil of Modern American Society...  the true secret police of America...
    The IRS. ::SHUDDER::

Stephen

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 03:08:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Re:Rule of Man TL?

On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:03:58, anders.backman@aniware.se wrote...

>>> 1) What tech does it take to Terraform a size 8 world?
>> Counter question.  How long do I have to do it in and at what levels
>> do I start/finish at?  Another point too, the very IDEA of altering
>> a world to suit Humanity is a fairly arrogant and speculative one to
>> begin with.  Given the Vilani's conservative mindset... would they
>> have even thought of it?  And what would their reaction have been to
>> the Terrans that casually planned for it?
> You got a point there but what about the opposite?
    ::Blink::  Hmmm?

> The Vilani grew up in an alien ecosystem where most everything had to
> be carefully prepared in order to eat etc. The view that they didn't
> belong to the plant/animal kingdom must have been much stronger in them
> than in us and perhaps it was also easier to come up with the idea
> about changing the environment to suit them as well. The Vilani view of
> nature would be devoid of the animism we terrans universally embraced
> before the kings forced monotheism upon us.
    That's... an extremely good and interesting point!  You know this might
help as well to explain why the Vilani became so ordered, cooperative and
unrelentingly conservative; and remained so for millenia.  Because everywhere
they went they found the same thing, even with other Humans they discovered
when they began to travel in space.  Thinking on this the Terrans must have
appeared truely alien at first.  Perhaps there were even questions amongst the
Vilani if the Terrans were truly Human so alien would have been the mindset in
comparison.

> This might even be an interesting division in Vilani/Terran thought:
> The Vilani will easily exterminate local animals/plantlife if they
> aren't productive which we terrans find unacceptable thinking while
> we remodel ourselves with geneering which look extremely disgusting
> to the Vilani.
    I don't think the Vilani could handle the Terran's genering of themselves.
Think of it, the one constant the Vilani and the other Humans they encountered
had was themselves.  Then they discover the Terrans could change that?  This
alone probably drove the Vilani to nearly religious levels of dispair and
frenzy.  Imagine the impact on the Vilani of Terran medical science and/or
cybernetics.  Totally alien stuff to them!

    You know this is an interesting subject, perhaps we could try and figure
out some more of the major differences between the Vilani and the Terrans in
terms of society, culture and mindset.  The Solomani party and the like may
make more sense if we do so rather then just appearing to be an abberation or
game designers pretext to set up a bunch of bad guys.  Certainly it's better
then more religious debate over the Holy Task System. ;)

Stephen

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 01:33:08 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Test - Is this getting through?

Hi,

I was just wondering if this is getting through to everyone, because it
doesn't seem to be. If it does, can someone please reply.  Thanks very
much!
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 01:02:00 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: Galactic v2.2 is now available

At 07:48 PM 6/28/97 -0700, Jim Vassilakos wrote:
>snip<<
>  * Michel Boucher contributed the Beyond Sector & Vanguard Reaches
>    (these two sectors originally developed by Paranoia Press)

The Beyond and Vanguard Reaches data is not anything like the book form
that I have, it is been vastly FUBARed, not the fault of M.Boucher he just
got the data from the Parania Press web site. The data there was
slagged/changed back in 94 stars moved, planets disappearing, names
changing.missing, for those of us that have the two books this data has no
appeal.


- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 01:55:03 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

Leroy William Lu Guatney writes:

>FroM, CT AM6 Solomani, p.21, CT Sup10 Solomani Rim, p.38:
>
>   "Hephaistos is one of the few terraforming projects completed
>   by the Imperium. Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the
>   project was alternately abandoned and resumed several times."

   As there was never any reason (canon or otherwise) *why* the
terraforming projects were abandoned, or the nature of those projects,
we do not know what tech level was used or was required.

>  I'll admit that the MT Tech Table references are a little hard to
>swallow, especially if you don't want to believe this. :)

   The text in the Referee's Companion states that terraforming becomes
possible at TL 12.  The kind of 'global terraforming' you are referring
to involves transforming worlds with atmosphere type 'A', 'B', or 'C'
into worlds with atmosphere type '8', '6' or '5'.  Unless you've got a
canon source that states that such a transformation took place to a
world during the RoM, you've got a problem with your theory.

   In any event, all of this debate about whether or not C-3P0 ripoffs
and Adamsesque (as in Douglas) world terraforming is canon so much horse
crap under the bridge unless it gets the stamp of approval from The Man
Himself (that would be you Marc).  If he is so inclined, I'd love to
hear what he has to say about it (it would be a change from task
resolution talk...), or for that matter what Loren Wiseman or some of
the other GDW alumni present here have to say.  It would certainly save
everyone a lot of time.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 01:33:04 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

On 06/29/97 at 03:09 AM,  s.johnson107@genie.com said:

>>  Medical
>>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs

>    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???  

Stephen, I knew it when I wrote it.  ;-> I don't know if Nursing..the
specific skill of Nursing..does fit in there.  Nursing *should* be a listed
skill, but it probably should stand alone.  Nurses have Medical skills, the
same as EMT's and MD's, but they have skills that the other health care
professionals *don't* have and don't get.  

Maybe all heath care workers *should* be taught patient care.  And
although, I think Nursing probably should be a seperate skill, I wouldn't
object to it being a fifth skill in the Medical cascade.  I guess it would
go something like:  Nurses specialize in Patient Care; EMTs specialize in
First Aid (or Trauma Care); Pharmacists specialize in Pharmacy; MD's
specialize in Diagnosis and/or Surgery and EVERYBODY gets a little in their
non-specialites.

>I'm not going to repeat the... pungent comments with in a conversation
>I had with a Ladyfriend and Nurse upon her seeing this.  ;)

I can imagine.  ;-> 

Assure her I don't discount the role of the nurse.  I've actually got more
respect for nurses than I do doctors.  They deal with the patients "up
close and personal", working every bit as hard as doctors for a *whole* lot
less money.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:43:25 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Space Combat Probabilities

To some extent, sensors really want to be on a log range scale - it makes
realistic sensor calculations much easier to do. When I was designing
the FFS2 sensors I therefore decided to use the 5000/50000/500000km range
bands...but interpolated intervening range bands. So you can buy a 
500,000km sensor, or a 1,600,000km sensor, or a 5,000,000km sensor, etc.
The sensor rules (which I should really post to TML sometime) make it easy
to calculate actual range at which you can detect someone for a given 
target signature, background, etc. 

Using these sensor ranges with 30000km hexes isn't too bad; you'll have to
look up the range in hexes to the target on some master table that converts
it to range bands, but that's a fairly quick step, and everything else
will be addition/subtraction.

Weapons are more worrying to me becaus eall the *published* designs will end
up using the standard range bands, so converting them to hexes will be more
awkward, since the standard range bands are so coarse. Anyway, we'll see
what happens...

Bruce

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 02:49:46 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: TL of the Rule of Man (Don't call it Ramshackle!)

RFXn writes:

>        Weapons labs? unlikely. Sticking to canon again:
>
>        "The Yorin light tank is the highest tech level vehicle currently
>produced by the Darrians. When equipment of higher tech levels is
>required, they procure tech level 14 equipment from the Imperium, as
>well as some occassional tech 15 gear."
>                                101 Vehicles, p.12

   A vehicle is not a spinal mount weapon, or at least that's what I've
been told.

>        A society producing only TL 13 ground vehicles is unlikely to
>produce even experimental TL 17 weapons, let alone sell such
>high-tech miracles to anyone, even friendly powers. The Darrians are
>not particularly militaristic, and I don't see any reason why
>Darrian ground transportation tech level would lag behind.

   Darrian policy was to share technology of *all* kinds with the
Imperium.  The one bit they refuse to share is the Star Trigger (RSB
tells us why that might have been the case--up until the 1120s there was
nothing to share).  As for the ground transportation lag, maybe they
like the style of the older models better.  :-)  Given the GDW sources
on this, it kinda makes that one DGP reference look out of place.

>        Besides, a world's heavy military tech level is heavily based on
>its Land Transportation tech level (World Builder's Handbook, p.86).
>Although the TNE Regency Sourcebook features a TL 16 Darrian ship of
>recent manufacture, 101 Vehicles is a much older source.

   Since you have access to the Regency Sourcebook, you know that the
Darrians have concentrated a lot of effort into "pushing forward the
frontiers of advanced starship design" (p.85).  Spinal mount
disintegrators would be part of advanced starship design IMHO.  GDW
publications, particularly those that come after the DGP stuff, take
prescedence in all cases.

>        Not pulling any punches, "The Darrian starship construction yards 
>are capable of constructing [Solomani-influenced] tech 15 starships. 
>Jump-6 capability is also possible, although ships are most often 
>constructed with jump-3 or less". Also remember that "Top ships of 
>the line are now imported from the Imperium (under an Imperial 
>military aid program), and some technicians with them to 
>maintain them." (Alien Module 8: Darrians)

   This information is to a degree superceded by RSB, which indicates
that the reason the Darrians import starships is because their yards do
mostly R&D work (as stated above).  The vessels that are coming into
Darrian space were constructed using Darrian blueprints.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:19:05 +0800
From: Michael Bailey <mickb@opera.iinet.net.au>
Subject: TRTOOLS requests

To all those who responded to my TRTOOLS post...sorry 'bout the
delay in getting back, but shift work disarupts the most carefully planned 
schedules.

I'm working through the backlog now...

Cheers,


Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)

"You drive", he said, "I think there's something wrong with me"
			Hunter S. Thompson - 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 01:42:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

Leroy wrote:

>   Further, according to the MT Referee's Companion, pg.28, the required
> tech to do Terraforming (worlds less than 800 Km) is 17, (worlds to
> 4000 Km) is 18, and (any sized world) is 19. Complex Terraforming is
> at TL 15, and Global Terraforming is at 16.  Which ever version you
> want to go with, the TC (pre-RoM) was TL 15+!!!!!!!!
>
>   I'll admit that the MT Tech Table references are a little hard to
> swallow, especially if you don't want to believe this. :)

MT Referee's Companion, page 28 (Technology Chart 1) Major Terraforming is
TL 12.  *12*, just like the maximum RoM TL. 

Leroy, your "I've got a secret attitude is beginning to get a bit old." 
The only consensus I see evolving here is that you are being deliberately
secretive, and are beginning to get mildly annoying. 

I'm perfectly willing to go along with most other folks and agree that a
few RoM worlds were TL 13.  The TL 15 Imperium had a few TL 16 worlds like
Vincennes, the RoM would likely have had a handful of TL 13 worlds. 
Further, I'm willing to admit that maybe a few such worlds would have kept
or rebuilt their tech during the Long Night, and that by Year 0 there
might be 1 or 2 TL 14 worlds out there.  However, I feel there are too
many TL 14 worlds in First Survey, and I see no evidence that the RoM had
anything remotely equal to TL 15 or 16.  At *best* they were TL 12 with a
little bit of TL 14 genetics, and maybe, towards the end of the RoM
handful of TL 13 worlds (which might well have been the ones doing the
genetic engineering).  I'll give you that the Terrans were likely a TL or
2 up the scale in medicine, it was, after all, their specialty.  However,
even here, I'd give them TL 14 as an absolute maximum, and much of this
world was likely highly experimental. 

Finding an experimental TL 14 genetics lab would be a reasonable (if
amazingly rare and impressive) adventure.  Finding a few cases of TL 14
vacc suits or laser pistols is simply a munchkin-fest. 

TL 12 gives you fully practical, mass produced Low Autonomous robots,
major Terraforming and all the other advances the Terrans had. 

Leroy, if you have vast quantities of data proving this wrong, please show
it to us. 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 04:45:19 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: Penetrating Battledress

Just a quick note to add to this... Strictly speaking it's very possible
to articulate any point on the human body. A kilt, chain mail or
otherwise is the easiest way but hard armour can also be used. Reference
the Foot armour of Henry VIII constructed circa 1520 in the Royal
Workshop at Greenwich, every point of the body less the soles of the
feet, the palms of the hands, and the sight/breathing holes of the helm
were covered by hard articulation. It's a marvel of the armours art,
currently located in the Tower of London, with and excellent
picture/discription in the book Treasures from the Towers of London.

Mike Peters

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

Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 10:46:40 +0100
From: Simon Turner <madgamer@mistral.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Where will M0 end?

On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 Peter Miller wrote..

>Also, is it still a plan of IG to do the M200 next?  Personally, I don't
think this >Milieu is truly needed, <SNIP>

I don't know about that. Milieu 200 should include such delights as the
Aslan Border Wars - This is the era in which the growing Imperium brushes
against the Hierate. The Vargr Campaigns (220-348), Cleon The Mad ! (b201,
emp244, ass245) and so on. I say go for it...

Then can we have the first civil war please? (Byline: Your Character CAN
become the emperor but not for long...)

- ----------------------------------------------------------
Simon W. Turner     madgamer@mistral.co.uk

"Do not fear going foward slowly, fear only to stand still"

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 12:25:03 +0200
From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
Subject: re: Task system defnition error

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>>(Education+Survey)+DMs < Difficult (2.5D)
>This is *wrong* mathematically, as you want
>Target number > Difficulty rolled on dice
>to succeed, and the task definition is what a player needs to succeed, not
>fail.
>IMO the above task should be
>
>(Education+Survey)+DMs > Difficult (2.5D)

        Totally agreed by the mathematical community of the TML ;-) Please
re-state it in T4.1... Besides, if rolling exactly the target number is
succes, the sign would have to be >=, or "greater or equal" if it can be typed.
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer                          E-mail: Alos@merlin.fae.ua.es
Dpt. Fundamentos del Analisis Economico     Phn: (34) 6 5903400, Ext. 3226
Universidad de Alicante                     Fax: (34) 6 5903685
03071-Alicante (Spain)                      "Thursuth gha kvaekh?"
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:51:18 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: penetrating battledress.

	[snip]
> >Ah, but I'll render that periscope pretty useless by shattering the
> outer
> >lens.. Try driving a 60-ton tank by braille.
> 
> Ah - but driving a 60 ton tank means never having to say you're sorry
> :)
> [snip]
> >Important difference is that a BD equipped trooper is able to swivel
> his
> >head, turn around, and enhance his field of vision without
> sacrificing his
> >protection grossly.  To achieve this, the swivel points in the armor
> can't
> >be as heavily protected.  In my view, most BD comes with a
> >Kevlar-equivalant kilt to cover the hip and groin area, since you
> need to
> >flex tose areas with some freedom.  (This also lets me justify my
> Marines
> >wearing kilts as part of their dress uniforms.)
> 
> I like it.  Really like it - never occured to me and wow - really cool
> idea.  The whole thing.  Why can't I get a GM like this.  
> 

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:51:14 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: Skill and Stat levels

After many days (or is it weeks) of reading the various opinions (some
extremely forceful ones as well) I find that I really don't care
anymore.  I just want it to go away - If this was happening in a bar I
be calling the cops some of these comments are nasty.

I've been resisting wasting space on my own thoughts but I have to add
this.

Is Intelligence 12 fifty percent higher than intelligence 8?  Is Int 12
six times higher than Int 2?
I do not think that this is so!  And the same for Dex - yet this is the
effect some are arguing for with Stat + Skill Systems.

I agree with the skill "rates" higher than the Stat because good stats
can't simply replace the equivalent training/experience that a higher
skill has.
I realise and I hope that every one does as well, that skills as
presented in Traveller are abstractions to allow a gaming system to work
and any references to real life can only be broadly made.  Nobody has a
skill of 4 in anything (in real life) and modeling the actual experience
of a medically trained person with the skill medical doesn't really work
except that to try a more accurate measure would introduce far to much
complexity.  Maybe Eris would.... :)

We equate values and job types to skill levels (EMT at Skill 1, Nurse
and 2, Doctor at 3... or whatever) and this is also false but allows us
to adequately communicate the world we play in to the others playing in
it as well.

To expect that a Dex 12 person is 6 times as dexterous as a dex 2 person
is plainly wrong (IMHO) and I would hope that such a range is not
present in the real world.

To forstall some of the arguements about world class Gymnasts compared
to a couch potato such as myself I would have to say that I have a low
Dex and _NO_ Gymnastics skill (nor any desire to try getting some) and
that this World Class Gymnast would have a higher dex of course but it
is thye skill in gymnastics that would make the difference.  I may be
able to drive, or shoot, or perform card tricks better than them and I
would expect it to be because I had some skill in these field and they
do not.   Even if game-stat-wise they had double my dex score I feel
that it is plainly obvious that training in a skill provides for a much
greater component for success than the raw stat.  
I think that a dex 12, skill 1 driver would be at a massive disadvantage
against even a Dex 6, Skill 3 Driver.

In fact while a stat 12 should not equate to double a stat 6, a skill 2
should be double a skill 1, and skill 6 should be 6 times a skill 1 (and
expert at that).
I do not believe that skills should be capped at 6 but I feel that a
skill of 6 should be exceptional.

I care not what task system is used.  I hope that Marc Miller is swayed
at least a little by the level of discussion on the TML - Not much gets
everyone yacking about the same thing in such quantities and I hope that
the task system that results reflects a little bit of balance as I see
it and prevents these sad high stat good at everything little problems
that I felt existed even in TNE.

Now I suppose this is a little long but I hope you managed to wade
through it and I hope it made sense.

Brody Dunn

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 13:01 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Battledress and Heroism

In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.970627130224.29820C-100000@pill.Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>

Bruce,

> > US ship:  "This is the aircraft carrier USS Missouri.  We are a large
> > warship of the US Navy.  Divert your course NOW!" (you can almost
> > /feel/ the arrogance)
> > 
> > Canada:  This is a lighthouse.  Your call.
>  
> Suspect it's apocyphal or urban legend...the USS Missouri is a
> decomissioned battleship in 1995, AFAIK there are NO carriers named after
> states, only battlewagons.

In the version I heard, it was the Enterprise.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:08:27 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re:Rule of Man TL?

s.johnson wrote:

> On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:03:58, anders.backman@aniware.se wrote...
> > This might even be an interesting division in Vilani/Terran thought:
> > The Vilani will easily exterminate local animals/plantlife if they
> > aren't productive which we terrans find unacceptable thinking while
> > we remodel ourselves with geneering which look extremely disgusting
> > to the Vilani.
>     I don't think the Vilani could handle the Terran's genering of themselves.
> Think of it, the one constant the Vilani and the other Humans they encountered
> had was themselves.  Then they discover the Terrans could change that?  This
> alone probably drove the Vilani to nearly religious levels of dispair and
> frenzy.  Imagine the impact on the Vilani of Terran medical science and/or
> cybernetics.  Totally alien stuff to them!

This would also explain the general prejeduce and revulsion towards 
heavy use of cybernetics that the Third Imperium showed. After all 
despite its high TL it was basically Vilani in character (after the 
Solomani Rim war, anyway).

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:27 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Task System, Game Design, etc.

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970627170814.358fb5f2@mail.hooked.net>

Douglas,

> Also, I would like to see a return of the skill ceiling.. some method of
> keeping players from amassing every skill in the book at level 5.  The
> INT+EDU limit, the suggestion of making every skill point beyond a certain
> level "cost" double, all of these would work well, IMHO.

How about:

No skill level may exceed the lower of character's Int or Edu.

Won't have any effect for most people, but it'll stop average people getting 
really gross skills.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:26 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man TL

In-Reply-To: <9706271939.AA30809@carbon.cudenver.edu>

Leroy,

> Yeah, but the achievements (in MT's own definitions) strongly suggest
> that Terra was a High Common of 16.  I can see this remaining until
> the 3I takes care of the rim in prosecuting the Rim War, explaining
> why Terra, after all of that, is TL15.
>  
> So as a recap:
>  
>   Terran Robotics (AI)        16+

I'd say 13-14

>   Terran Jump                 12+

12

>   Terran Env. Sci.            17+ (19)

11-13

>   Terran Bio. Sci.            ?   (no good comparison except for Ancients)

12-15
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:26 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

In-Reply-To: <970627154807_-1495257888@emout18.mail.aol.com>

> This is a summary of the changes I have made to Chargen. The complete new set
> of WFW95 files is available if you email a request to me at
> FarFuture@aol.com.

Yes please.

> Heroism is a separate roll availabl;e if you roll 5- on Injury.

Excellent. How about a voluntary +/-1 DM for brave/cowardly characters?

> Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
> and Edu 6+.

Edu pre for University should be above average (8+).

> At Grad School, no degree is granted unless Major skill level is 4+ (6+ for
> Ph.D).
>  
> At Medical School, now 5 years, automatic Med-1 each year, plus one skill per
> year. No degree uless Medical 6+.

Sounds good.

> Cold Sleep weeks is per term; roll 2D each term for every term served. DM-
> commissioned rank for officers.

Good.

> Charcard adds Race (default is Imperial), 

Surely you mean Human? *Citizenship* is Imperial.

> Sex (default is the player's), Date
> Enlisted, Date Discharged, combines service and rank, and adds a box for Cold
> Sleep Weeks. Optional boxes for genetics are included.

Good.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:26 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Task System, Game Design, etc.

In-Reply-To: <970627184918_-2012864018@emout02.mail.aol.com>

> But the basic assumption that Characters are going to get 1 skill per year
> means that the CT level of skills truly does fall out. 

Merc & HG chars got that many, and that's CT.

> CT just didn't have
> tasks... its basic assumption was a special case for every situation, with
> definitions like Med-3 = Doctor. Now, that has to be shifted to more like
> Med-5 or Med-6, with expert doctors at Med-9 or Med-12.
>  
> I just don't see how we can keep thinking that the CT skill levels apply. The
> roots of the change were in Mercenary, which gave people so many new skills
> and in such higher proportions.
>  
> Indeed, the CharGen pieces I have posted all assume that characters get 1
> skill (or slightly more) per year. No one has said, let's go back to 1 skill
> per 4 years; they want the higher skill levels.
>  
> With that, then the task system needs to reflect skills at levels 0 to 15 or
> so.

Lets say a character gets 1.5 skills/year, and serves 4 terms. 4*4*1.5=24 
skills. Lets say he spreads them across only 4 skills, that still only gives 
him level 6. He *could* stick them all in one skill-24, or 2 skill-12s,  but as 
a Ref I'd throw it back at the Player and tell him not to be so stupid. More 
likely would be 3*skill-4, 3*skill-2, 6*skill-1. I *still* believe skills 
above, say, level 6-8, should be rare and considered exceptional.

______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1502
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Traveller-digest       Sunday, June 29 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1503



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Medical Cascade
Task systems
Re: Tech level of RoM
RE: TrTools v0.93
Re: Tech level of RoM
Rule of Man Tech Level and the Ancients (Yep; Anomalies stuff)
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Where will M0 end?
Beyond & Vanguard Reaches & Galactic
Vote for Generic task description
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1493
Re: 2d10
Re: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Dolphins, sentient?
Re: Beyond & Vanguard Reaches & Galactic
Re: Deckplan Question?
Yet another task suggestion
Re: T4 Task Rational

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 13:02:05 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

Stephen Johnson <s.johnson107@genie.com> writes,
>>  Medical
>>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs
>    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???  I'm not going to repeat
>the... pungent comments with in a conversation I had with a Ladyfriend and
>Nurse upon her seeing this. ;) I should make the point though that there is a
>great deal more to good medical care then simply sticking the needle into
>someone and walking away.  If you doubt this... read up on the origins of
>nursing.

Hear hear!  My mother was a nurse.  At times she got quite frustrated 
with newly-qualified Housemen who were convinced they knew much more 
about caring for the patients than did the senior nursing staff.  I've 
encountered the attitude that "nursing is for people too stupid to make 
it as a doctor" in my current job, too - and from people I otherwise 
respect.  Grrr...
</rant>

Having said that, the four *other* cascade skills look like a 
sensible choice.
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 15:56:03 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Task systems

Luke Silburn writes:

>I might allow *one* skill per term to be picked during chargen (so that 
>players can focus their efforts into a skill that they really want their 
>characters to have at a useful level) but that would be it. The rest get 
>rolled and if they're rolled then its an iterating probability, which 
>severely curtails the number of high skill levels that characters end up 
>with.

Back when I was still using the Traveller character generation system I
tinkered quite a bit with it. One thing I tried was to have one or more 
of the slots on the skill acquisition tables labled <specialty>. The first 
time a character rolled <specialty> the player was allowed to select any 
skill useful to his profession. Thereafter that was the skill he got 
whenever he rolled <specialty> again. It worked quite well.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:48:46 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Tech level of RoM

Rupert Boleyn writes:
>I was thinking on this instead of working today, and it occured to me that 
>there's really no way of exlaining how the RoM could make TL14 Vacc Suits, 
>and yet didn't have fusion plus - a TL12 invention. And don't tell me that 
>Vacc Suits have nothing to do with fusion reactors, because a Vacc Suit is 
>a very sophisticated piece of gear, so making a TL14 one is going to require 
>good, mature TL13 - plus all your TL14 materials, chemical and electronics 
>tech: unlikely you'll have all this and no TL12 fusion tech.

You forget that Fusion+ is supposed to be a genuine invention never before
thought of in the history of mankind. There are other such instances. Drop
tanks appear to be TL 9, but they are not invented till around 1080. There
are plenty of examples from from history of things that could have been
made with the current technology, but wasn't, simply because no one had
thought of doing it. The telescope is one such. Lenses were available long
befor that German chap made the first telescope.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 10:58:55 -0400
From: maverick@castlegate.net (Steve Brengard)
Subject: RE: TrTools v0.93

- ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC847C.66816B20
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I would love to get a copy


- -----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Bailey [SMTP:mickb@opera.iinet.net.au]
Sent:	Tuesday, June 24, 1997 7:16 AM
To:	traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject:	TrTools v0.93

Tired of wimpy windowed front ends and icons?

Hold that any true program runs from the command line?

Man, have I got a deal for you *g*


Two Short Planks software announces the next version of TRTOOLS, a set of
command line utilities for Traveller.

Version 0.93 of TRTOOLS covers the following:

* Sector and subsector mapping
* Hard Times effects on sector data
* TNE Collapse effects on sector data
* Regression of sectors from M:1100 to M:0

and comes complete with source code (in Pascal 'messycode' format)...

How much for such an ill-omened piece of software, you ask?

ABSOLUTELY BUGGER ALL...all I ask is that you send me bug reports, so I can
fix problems as they arise...

Version 0.93 will be ready on about 14 days...email me to reserve your copy
NOW !
Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)

"F**k you, I'm sick!"
			Hunter S. Thompson
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IAYAAAAAAMAAAAAAAABGAAAAABGFAAAAAAAAAwAygAggBgAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEYAAAAAGIUAAAAA
AAAeAEGACCAGAAAAAADAAAAAAAAARgAAAAA2hQAAAQAAAAEAAAAAAAAAHgBCgAggBgAAAAAAwAAA
AAAAAEYAAAAAN4UAAAEAAAABAAAAAAAAAB4AQ4AIIAYAAAAAAMAAAAAAAABGAAAAADiFAAABAAAA
AQAAAAAAAAAeAD0AAQAAAAUAAABSRTogAAAAAAMADTT9NwAA4PQ=

- ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC847C.66816B20--

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 17:32:53 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Tech level of RoM

I'm a bit busy today, so I don't have time to refute Leroy's claims in
detail, but I will take the time to restate the prime reason why RoM cannot
have had many TL 13+ technologies:

The universities of Sylea would have had records of any mature TL 13
technology available in the RoM up to, say, -1800 (propably longer; just
because trading becomes impractical there's no reason to believe that
Sylea was completely cut off from the rest of Charted Space).

The only reason Sylea would not implement a useful technology is economic 
(ie. they couldn't afford to) (Well, of course you can always come up with 
a specific technology that there may be cultural and/or political reasons
to suppress, but that would not apply to the bulk of TL 13 technologies).

The capital of a huge interstellar empire would be able to afford to
implement any technology they cared to implement.

So if Sylea didn't reach TL 13 until Year 300, they didn't have much TL 13
knowledge before that.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 11:37:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: NUELOW@aol.com
Subject: Rule of Man Tech Level and the Ancients (Yep; Anomalies stuff)

I've been writing several rather lengthy replies to this whole discussion,
but I've not been happy with any of them, so I'm just going to go ahead and
sum them up in one brief note that doesn't address anyone in particular.

First, it seems to me that some of the folks who have read the adventures in
"Anomalies have missed a key point of the theme of that adventure anthology.
It's a theme that's spelled out right there on the cover. It's actually the
title of the anthology... "Anomalies"!

There's *nothing* in that collection that indicates *anything* standard about
tech levels or the Ramshackle Empire or otherwise. The region of space where
the characters find the tech is part of a series of planets that had a higher
than average technology in some areas, just like there were probably worlds
in the Second Imperium that had *lower* than average tech in some areas. The
galaxy is large. The cultural and technological variances should be at least
as great--if not greater than what we find on our own Earth... particularly
since communications in "Traveller" is no faster than the speed of travel.
Where were these worlds located? Beats me. That's up to the referee.

Second, the discovery of higher tech doesn't neccessarily mean faster
technological advancements. Even if the PCs hand their discoveries over to
the Imperium, for all they know, their discoveries go into a "Raiders of the
Lost Ark" style warehouse where, due to a paperwork fubar they become lost
for five centuries. And finding some vacc suits and guns *does not* equal
higher jump tech, much like a space alien wouldn't be able to reverse
engineer a microwave oven and come up with an internal combustion engine. A
does not equal B in this case, folks. And if tech does take a sudden leap
forward, well, then that's the call of the individual referee.

As a designer, I think it's my job to facilitate Referee creativity, not
limit it. "Anomalies was, in part, an excersize in providing referees with
stuff to build on for their own campaigns... if you can't use any of it, my
apologies. Perhaps you need to take a step back from adherence to a mythical
"canon" and realize that your campaign is *your* campaign and that you should
choose Truth and not rely on game designers to do it for you... some of us
will bend Truth every chance we get.

But, as far as "Anomalies goes, I don't even think I bent Truth. Upon looking
at my draft of "The Ancients" [I still have yet to see the actual published
book] and T4 again, I don't think I violated the All-Holy Canon. I am guilty
of imprecise terminology--the Droyne and the Ancients aren't *quite* the
same--but the events of "The Ancients" is in total step with Canon:
Grandfather *had* all the bodies he needed. How was he to know he got
out-smarted? And as far as the unleashed Ancient goes, the way the ending
works, there is no impact on the campaign setting one way or the other...
unless the Referee chooses to make one.

Steve Miller

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 17:06:45 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

>  Compression/cooling ... same way we get liquid
> nitrogen/oxygen/hydrogen/helium/etc. now, just more efficiently.

I agree with you (I'm a chemical engineer); however, the refrigeration 
duty needed to condense the hydrogen you scoop out of the gas giant is a 
lot more than would be needed to maintain the inventory (see Bruce 
Johnson's reply above).  However my view of this sort of science is too 
closely bound to my real-life job, and I was hoping that one of the 
hand-waving gang could come up with a better solution.

As far as I know, the liquifaction of the cryogenic gases (nitrogen / 
oxygen / hydrogen / helium) is not be achieved with compression + 
cooling, but uses compression + cooling + mechanical expansion.  The 
mechanical expansion is the key stage ... the cool gas at high pressure 
is used to "do work" by driving the expander (exactly like a compressor 
in reverse).  The work removed gives the cooling effect required.

In a normal domestic refrigerator the cooling part actually condenses 
the refrigerant medium (freon or some non-CFC replacement), as the 
maximum pressure is below the critical point of the freon and the dew 
point is close to ambient conditions.  To use the same mechanism for 
nitrogen you need to be able to cool to -150 F (which is unlikley to be 
achieved with cooling water!).

<technical note (simplified): above the critcal point pressure there is 
no distinction between gas and liquid, so you can't "condense" 
the gas>


I was hoping that the unified hand-waving theorists would point out 
something such as:

(a) the ability to manipulate the weak nuclear force allows direct 
cooling of any substance, or

(b) low temperature semi-conductors allow the use of the Peltier effect 
to directly cool the hydrogen; the "hot junction" of the circuit is 
integrated with the fusion-based power plant, or

(c) although thermionic devices are first used to convert high grade 
heat directly into electic power, a similar effect can be used "in 
reverse", as it were, to produce very low temperatures.  Hydrogen is 
ideal for use in these "cryonic" devices, which are used as part of the 
fuel scoop system on startships. 

I've no idea if any of these ideas are viable, but I would much prefer a 
high-tech-sounding mechanism to a more efficient version of TL 6 
designs.


Simon

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 12:27:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: Where will M0 end?

In a message dated 97-06-29 06:31:11 EDT, you write:

<< Then can we have the first civil war please? (Byline: Your Character CAN
 become the emperor but not for long...)
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------
 Simon W. Turner     madgamer@mistral.co.uk
  >>
Wheeeee!  LOL   I like it!

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 11:54:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: Beyond & Vanguard Reaches & Galactic

Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net> writes:
> At 07:48 PM 6/28/97 -0700, Jim Vassilakos wrote:
> >  * Michel Boucher contributed the Beyond Sector & Vanguard Reaches
> >    (these two sectors originally developed by Paranoia Press)
> 
> The Beyond and Vanguard Reaches data is not anything like the book form
> that I have. It has been vastly FUBARed. Not the fault of M.Boucher, he just
> got the data from the Paranoia Press web site. The data there was
> slagged/changed back in '94: stars moved, planets disappearing, names
> changing/missing. For those of us that have the two books, this data has no
> appeal.

From what Michel Boucher (alsandor@lords.com) told me, I was
under the impression that the Beyond used the original (booklet)
data while the Vanguard reaches used the new (web site) data.

Quoting him:

> It must be noted that the information in BEYOND is from the
> first edition and that there is an update which has not been
> included here.

and...

> The Vanguard Reaches data are reproduced here with permission
> of the author, Chuck Kallenbach II <scoundrl@inlink.com>.  Chuck 
> expressed the wish that we use the data provided on the Paranoia
> Press homepage rather than what was in the actual sector book
> (copyright 1981).  These new data, Chuck feels, cover both MT
> and TNE and should be valid for T4 as well.

I don't know Chuck's reasons for wanting to revise the original
(booklet) data on these sectors. About 80% of me agrees with you
and says that once published, they shouldn't screw around and change
stuff. However, the other 20% of me says that it's their baby,
and if they want to make changes, so be it. In short, it kind of
reminds me of the minor-uproar that occurred when Marc Miller
revised the Core sector data for T4, rendering much of the Classic-
Era (mainly DGP) info obsolete. I was against that, I admit, but
then again, if he's the person doing the work, then so be it, let
him make the decisions about what goes where.

Anyway, I'm just glad we got permission from Chuck to include these
two sectors w/ Galactic, and incidentally, I think Michel did a damn
fine job with them. He did all the work, from contacting Chuck and
getting permission, to entering and/or importing the UWP data, to
attaching all the world notes, not to mention typing in and/or
importing the various essays and library data. Put it all together,
and you've got a serious time-investment, but that's one of the cool
things about this "Galactic" project... there are so many people
working different angles and really throwing themselves into it that
you're going to get a huge hodgepodge of campaign fodder. Take the
best and toss the rest... we'll make more.

We're finally getting close to the point that the published data has
been exhausted, and it's time to strike out new territory and just
develop entire sectors from scratch. What I'd really like, right now,
is for everybody who's developed a sector to send me their stuff.
I want David Burden to send me the jumproutes to his Gushemege Sector.
I want James Burdick to send me his Fornast Sector. I want Stu Dollar
to send me the sectors that he's been working on (Dark Nebula, Diaspora,
Dagudashaag, Massilia, Reavers Deep, and the TNE version of the Spinward
Marches). Leroy Guatney has also been working on a whole host of sectors.
Lots and lots. I want Grant Sinclair's Yiklerzdanzh Sector to be
converted to Galactic format, and Allen Shock's Foreven Sector, and
Jeff Zeitlin's Amdukan Sector, and Andrew Vallance is still working on
those Judges Guild sectors (he's gotten two to me already), Scott
Galliand is working on a few sectors as well, and then there's Mark
Ayers and Derek Stanley and a whole mess of other people. I mean, if
every person using Galactic developed just one sector, by the next
version we'd have a sh*tload, and who really cares how much of it is
"official" and how much isn't. The way I see it, we're the folks who
are playing Traveller. If we like it and use it, that's all that really
matters.

Oops... how did I end up on this soapbox?  :-)

jimv@empirenet.com
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 19:57:35 +0100
From: David Scott <Snail@dircon.co.uk>
Subject: Vote for Generic task description

I would like to propose a new category for the voting that is going on:

The vote for the generic task description.

This will solve many problems as already dicussed on this list. Although 
I am an MT system ref I would like to see a least this idea become part 
of T4.1. Then everyone wins.

I vote for T4.1 to have a generic task description

David

mailto:Snail@dircon.co.uk
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~snail/

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 20:13:34 +0100
From: David Scott <Snail@dircon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1493

>Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:38:27 +0100
>From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
>Subject: World Builder's Handbook
>
>I have seen numerous TML references to this book, presumably by Digest 
>Group Publications.  I thought I had everything from that era of 
>Traveller, but I don't have the WBH.  Does anyone know how similar 
>(or not) the WBH is to Grand Census and Grand Survey (both by DGP), 
>which seem to have a lot of overlap with what I hear about WBH.

I've just been looking at them this afternoon. It is basically GS & GC in 
the same book) There a small changes but nothing you wouldn't miss. The 
resources tables are slightly different in WBH eg. no gravitics and more 
generic resourses added. The heavy world core has been added (it was also 
in a TD so you might have that info). The main thing for me is that the 
tables in WBH are in the text, not stuck at the end. I'm sure there are 
other differences but nothing major. WBH is a much better laid out 
product.

David

mailto:Snail@dircon.co.uk
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~snail/

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 19:31:09 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: 2d10

On Wed, 01 Jan 1997 11:37:46 -0800, Evyn MacDude wrote:

> > From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
> 
> > This makes absolutely no sense.  No matter how skilled you are, an
> > M-16 will not penetrate the hide of an M1 Abrams (one of numerous
> > "perfect defenses" vs small arms).  
> 
> Hun, This man most likly was not in the military, 'cause "The Golden
> BB" is a common leacture when I was in. This theory is that the
> higher the volume of fire, No matter what size, the more apt you are
> to have fatal shot to any said target. BTW I can think of couple of
> ways to Mission Kill a M1 right off the bat.

I think you missed the point.  This thread took a turn when someone
stated that the MT task system allows penetrating hits on people
wearing BD with eerie frequency.  I've always viewed BD to being
impervious to at least some level of firepower, just like armoured
vehicles are immune to small arms today (the MT task system sees it
differently, however, allowing "mission kills" with body pistols if
the shooter is skilled enough).  Skill has absolutely *no* effect when
trying to penetrate a car windshield with a snowball.  What *does*
come into effect is the composition of the snowball and the design of
the device used to propel it.  There is a point where weaponry does
become effective at incapacitating BD, but we just disagreed as to
where that threshold actually lies.

> > US ship:  "This is the aircraft carrier USS Missouri.  We are a large
> > warship of the US Navy.  Divert your course NOW!" (you can almost
> > /feel/ the arrogance)
> 
> Y'all sure this was the USS Missouri? Cause last I looked she was a 
> Battlewagon, But I believe the Arrogance.

Probably a typo in the original article.

> On a seprate note, James did the canadian navy ever change their
> uniforms?
> The last ones I saw were hidious, Still din't stop me from buying drinks
> thou..

I wouldn't know.  Are they all still dressed like Popeye? :)

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: 29 Jun 1997 20:43:43 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

>>Could somebody get a copy of this from Marc and translate it into something
>>that Word 6.0/Win 3.1 can read?  (With Marc's permission, of course..) I
>>would really like to see a copy.
>
>Wouldn't mind seeing a copy myself if you can get it to Word 6, my Mac can
>translate it then...

What about translating it to RTF?  Then _any_ version of MS Word (and most
versions of Claris Works and WordPerfect) can read it.  (Seeing as MicroBloat
Word 4.0 is the only version I have anough memory to run...)

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:47:07 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Dolphins, sentient?

On 28 Jun 97 at 19:41, s.johnson107@genie.com wrote:

>     And to help yank this back to Traveller...  Any ideas on how
> to make truly Alien aliens?  The kind that are incomprehensable
> because they and humans share almost no common frames of reference?

	Heh. I think I just did that. :)

	This evenings Traveller session finished, I started thinking how
the PCs reacted to the "Lobsters". If you don't know what I'm
talking about, read some of Bruce Sterling's Mechanist-Shaper
stories; the novel Schismatrix (sp?) featured cybernetically
enhanced humans who lived in hard vacuum; they had faceless,
featureless black shells around them, filled with cutting-edge
nanotech, wide-frequency antennae for ears and PRIS systems for
eyes... No need to take acid mon, just look at dat open cluster
dazzling on IR, UV, X-ray, Radio...

	Naturally, the "Lobsters" loathed the "havenots" (=normal, 
unenhanced humans) and going into life-supported areas of the 
Arbitela asteroid belt was a taboo. And, they were not just 
stone-faced, they didn't even have a face.

	Yup, I think I'll sleep well tonight after puzzling the heck out of 
the players! *smile*

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:06:42 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: Beyond & Vanguard Reaches & Galactic

At 11:54 AM 6/29/97 -0700, you wrote:
>snip<
>
>>From what Michel Boucher (alsandor@lords.com) told me, I was
>under the impression that the Beyond used the original (booklet)
>data while the Vanguard reaches used the new (web site) data.
>
>Quoting him:
>
>> It must be noted that the information in BEYOND is from the
>> first edition and that there is an update which has not been
>> included here.
>

Hmmm well from what I saw of the map that Gal22 had and the hardcopy copy
map that I have from the Beyond is vastly different, but I will recheck it.

>and...
>
>> The Vanguard Reaches data are reproduced here with permission
>> of the author, Chuck Kallenbach II <scoundrl@inlink.com>.  Chuck 
>> expressed the wish that we use the data provided on the Paranoia
>> Press homepage rather than what was in the actual sector book
>> (copyright 1981).  These new data, Chuck feels, cover both MT
>> and TNE and should be valid for T4 as well.
>
>I don't know Chuck's reasons for wanting to revise the original
>(booklet) data on these sectors. About 80% of me agrees with you
>and says that once published, they shouldn't screw around and change
>stuff. However, the other 20% of me says that it's their baby,
>and if they want to make changes, so be it. In short, it kind of
>reminds me of the minor-uproar that occurred when Marc Miller
>revised the Core sector data for T4, rendering much of the Classic-
>Era (mainly DGP) info obsolete. I was against that, I admit, but
>then again, if he's the person doing the work, then so be it, let
>him make the decisions about what goes where.
>

I agree I think it was due to GDW "persuading" him to change it ie too many
high tech worlds, ringworlds etc. Either way it not the same a the books. I
don't like that!!!!!

>snip<

I will recheck the Beyond Data and let you know.

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 14:21:48 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

Ummm, as far as I'm aware, it's not condensed, just chilled to a liquid
state in big cryogenic fuel tanks. Undoubtedly, a great deal of what a
'fuel purification unit' is, is a hydrogen 'still', which will distill
purified hydrogen out of the stuff you've collected from the gas giant.
Electrolyzed hydrogen from waster is actually easier to deal with, because
I really doubt that fuel purification goes down to isotopic level.

The 'raw' fuel from a gas giant scooping run may well be stored under
high pressure, which begs the question:

Why go to all the trouble of liquefying H2, when storing it as
compressed gass is more efficient? Unless LH2 is compressible as well as
gaseous H2. Even then it doesn't make too much sense.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


On Sat, 28 Jun 1997, Simon Early wrote:

> More hand-waving please :-) 
> 
> How do you condense the hydrogen you scoop out of a gas giant 
> atmoshpere (or electolysed from water)?
> 
> Simon
> 
> 

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

Date: 29 Jun 1997 21:20:13 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Yet another task suggestion

One of the 'problems' that many people are having is that skill levels are
typically lower than attribute levels.

What about redefining skill specialties?

When you get a skill with specialties (such as Medical), you choose a
speciality (such as Trauma).  You then get a skill _bonus_ in this area, and
use your plain skill level in other areas.  

This would have the net affect of increasing skill levels.  



PS. I like the idea of augmenting Medical.  Obviously.  

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 12:05:33 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

Sat, 28 Jun 1997 07:32:01 GMT, jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
>> Actually, stat+skill does _not_ equal "heroic".  Gurps is one
>> of the more realistic games and it uses stat+skill.

>(Un)fortunately, GURPS is based *heavily* on play-balance.  It
>permeates both the character generation and experience point reward
>system.

Quickly, since this is off topic for this list.  For GURPS realism
is playbalance.  It's fundamental approach, at least as I read it, is
that if it does everything realistically (things like psionics
excepted), it will be balanced (after all, life is not unbalanced).

____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1503
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Traveller-digest       Sunday, June 29 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1504



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
How many skills?
Re: Test - Is this getting through?
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Yet another task suggestion
Re: Medical Cascade
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Tech level of RoM
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Reading Data!
Liquified Hydrogen
Planet3 software
Re: Medical Cascade

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 12:42:04 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:13:58 -0600, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>>Again, you are missing a point here.  The differnce you are
>>talking about is that a first year med student shouldn't
>>be able to do open heart surgery _no matter his skill_.

>	I disagree. There's nothing in the structure of reality or the laws of
>physics that will prevent him from attempting it if the situation is right,
>or if he's desperate enough. He's got a little knowledge of anatomy,
>probably knows the theory of what's done in open heart surgery (crack the
>rib cage, remove a section of vein from the leg, cut out the block section
>of heart artery or vein, splice in the leg vein, close). Maybe he's
>observed one during orientation. His got little chance of success, but I'd
>grant him a tiny, teeny chance.

Well, you can't have it both ways.  Everything you have just said
is a rationalization why the most talented med student might be able
to do the proceedure as well as a mediocre hack.  If the just hasn't
been taught some fundamental aspect he needs to know, then you should
just not allow a roll.

>	So now we have to add to all tasks "Only for Skill-x and above," or we
>have to go back and pull up the descriptions for each and every skill when
>we use it to see what levels are and aren't allowed to do. And creating new
>tasks means the referee not only has to decide how hard it is, but what
>level you have to have to try at all.  I'd rather have that rolled into the
>task difficulty itself. Obviously, a Formidable task is going to require a
>higher skill to have a chance of succeeding than a simple task.

Um, this just isn't that difficult.  The problem arose that the
Medical skill covers both prefessional and non-professional usage
regardeless of level.  This doesn't apply to most skills.

In any case, changing the relative contributions of skills and
stats doesn't change the fact that you are letting someone
with Medical-1 have a chance at open heart surgery.

>	Yes, a Stat-12 Med-1 will be better at SOME things than a Stat-8 Med-4.
>But ON THE WHOLE, the Stat-8 Med-4 will be a better doctor. It's just
>something that comes from trying to roll a wide body of knowledge into a
>single skill. Perhaps we should throw out medical skill entirely

Well, some games have a serpate First Aid and Surgery skill.

____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:04:27 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Sun, 29 Jun 97 14:26 BST-1
aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton) writes:
>
>Leroy,
>
>> Yeah, but the achievements (in MT's own definitions) strongly suggest
>> that Terra was a High Common of 16.  I can see this remaining until
>> the 3I takes care of the rim in prosecuting the Rim War, explaining
>> why Terra, after all of that, is TL15.
>>  
>> So as a recap:
>>  
>>   Terran Robotics (AI)        16+
>
>I'd say 13-14
>
>[snip]
>
>Andrew M J Boulton

Note that I am not the one advocating a change in the published rules
Technological tables.  That has impact upon everyone


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:03:32 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 00:22:34 -0700
Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au> writes:
>Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1500
>
>> The lines that follow do, as you suggest, allude to the _fact_ that
>> is somewhat out of the Imperium's reach to do terraforming--no surprise
>> since they are only TL15/16!
>
>Personally, I read this as "the Solomani tried to terraform Hephaistos,
>but kept over-reaching themselves economically and technologically,
>and it eventually got finished when some BuCol bureaucrat thought it
>seemed like a good idea at the time and authorised the expenditure of
>way too much money to finish it."

If the Terrans had taken on the _whole_ Vilani Empire, it is very easy
to see why they might get interrupted from time to time, and then, there
is that historical event a while later--the Long Night.

>regression between the Terran Confederation and the Long Night. Sylea
>was more-or-less untouched by the Long Night, it was a major center in

That's also what was said about Terra.

>Ian Whitchurch


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:04:02 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 03:05:10 +1100
Rupert Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz> writes:
>
>IIRC there was a comment by someone from GDW in a late Challenge to 
>the effect that the TL needed for AI kept rising overtime, so that it 
>was always just beyond the Imperium's reach. I note that the TL12

Funny, then, how AI went from TL17 in CT (see Trav Book Tech Tables)
to TL16 in MT (see "IIRC" Tech Tables, the _same_ book you mention).

>Terrans used robots that were called intelligent (but are now assumed 
>to be expert systems), but all the TL charts place that at TL17. I 
>get the impression that the comment about the RoMs robots was felt to

Well, except for the fact that the TC AI robots employed are _also_
in the MT "IIRC".

>be a mistake, and they were down-rated. Mind you if you use Vampire 
>Fleets even a non-virus TL12 robot brain can be quite skilled and 
>clever.

The biggest problem I see with declaring all of this extremely advanced
Terran Confederation technology at TL12, is that the Third Imperium is
then just as capable at doing all of these things, so why didn't they?
I've read of no edicts that declared AIs or terraforming anti-Imperial.

And besides, if we _did_ push all of this stuff down, all we would be
left with at TI TL15 would be anagathics that make your face all knotted
and "rot your balls off."  B-)

>R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:02:41 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:44:17 -0700
Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>
>Leroy-
>
>Please either quote your material directly giving the RoM very high tech
>levels, or please give it a rest.
>
>This is not how the TML works.  We don't play "I know something you don't
>know", and belittle anyone who asks where we are getting out informaton.
>We state our sources, lay out our arguements, and *discuss* these things
>like adults.

Like I have already said.  I _am_ busy.  I can not help the fact that I am
(like others are) enjoying this discussion.  I haven't tried to set your
agenda, so please don't do that for me.

I may _not_ know all that much about the TML since I am new here, but I
recognize basic freedoms:  we don't have to read what doesn't interest us,
and we don't have to do what others tell us to do.  As long as I am not
impuning someone's character (I have complained about characteristics of
some, but named names, especially since I don't know many), I feel that I
am not out of line on this list.

>This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
>about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
>14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.

Well, I haven't decided exactly, but without contravening published rules,
I have not seen a convincing argument to accept anything less.

>I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
>Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: Earth or
>anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of Traveller material.

Nothing obscure and hidden.  We have touched on a lot of this issues.
Dolphins first appeared as a JTAS article, and was heavily built upon in
Rat&Cats.  I'll get specific when I have the time to do so in the fashion
that I am comfortable with.  You'll just have to wait the couple of weeks
for me to do so.  I am sorry, but I want to do this well.  In the meantime,
I tune into anything that people have to say on the subject.  I also know
that two weeks is a _long_ time on the TML. :)

I didn't plan this.  When I started it, I hadn't even looked far enough
ahead at my school schedule to see that exams were coming, and fiercely so.

>So until proven otherwise, by your presenting evidense to support these
>theories of yours, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider them without
>merit.

Well, do what you want as long as you still have an open mind when I get
the rest out. Please.

>(BTW:  Terra was at TL 13 when invaded by the Imperium at the end of the
>Solomani Rim War, it only reached TL 15 under the Imperial Miltary
>Government [sources: Azhanti High Lightning (game), Invasion: Earth (game)])

Thanks.  I made a mistake by suggesting the TL16 until the Rim War.  It was
J.P.'s suggestion, off the cuff having read some of the irrational opposition
to facts here.  He (or I) had not done enough research to back that one,
though I have to admit it was an interesting enough suggestion to just
throw it out here.  Thank you for pointing out additional sources for the
Terra tech quesiton.

I am not trying to torture anyone here (except one, no that's a joke :)
so please don't attribute attitudes to me that just are not true.  I just
wanted to start and listen to a discussion on this subject.  I _know_ others
have enjoyed this, though I have yet to post the magnum opus on it.  Afterall,
this did start from people complaining about TL14 vacc suits, so in one sense,
I didn't start it. :)

>Douglas E. Berry


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 16:46:45 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: How many skills?

On 06/29/97 at 02:26 PM,  aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
said:

>Lets say a character gets 1.5 skills/year, and serves 4 terms. 4*4*1.5=24 
>skills. Lets say he spreads them across only 4 skills, that still only
>gives  him level 6. He *could* stick them all in one skill-24, or 2
>skill-12s,  but as  a Ref I'd throw it back at the Player and tell him not
>to be so stupid. More  likely would be 3*skill-4, 3*skill-2, 6*skill-1. I
>*still* believe skills  above, say, level 6-8, should be rare and
>considered exceptional.

Andrew,

Unless you've seen what Marc is actually planning *right* now, then your
*guess* is as good as mine. ;->  From what Marc has written, though, I do
think the average skill level is going up, and *exceptionally* high skill
levels up in the double digit range are going to be possible...not common,
but possible.

Trying to calculate total number of skills, right now, is guess work. With
the first guess being how many background skills the character gets
*before* his/her first turn.  I suspect there will be quite a few...*I'm*
guessing 8 to 10. Then there's the possibility that Marc might be
considering a change where the PC automatically gets 2, 3 or 4 levels in 1
or more skills for completion of certain educational programs..it sort of
looked like that from one of his posts. There's also the "1/year (or a
little more)" to consider..just how much more is a little more going to be?

Well, anyway my guess is your 34 year old will have 34 to 40 skill levels
to distribute.  From this there might be 2 or 3 skills in the 6-8 range, 3
or 4 in the 3-5 range, and 4 or 5 in the 1-2 range. Yes, I know you can add
those numbers up to get *way* above 40, but I'm just guessing here. ;-> It
could just as reasonablly be lots and lots of 1-3's and a few 4-5's, we
don't know yet..and even when we do know we'll have to decide on whether
generalists or specialists work better in gameplay.

And ,of course, if the PC stayed in for 8 terms (that's still reasonable)
he/she would have around 68 to 75 skill levels to distribute. With that
many levels I can see people having a double digit specialty skill.

Of course, we're just guessing here, but in any event I don't think we'll
see very many double digit skills. They will be rare, specialist skills, I
think. However, I do think the average is heading up to the 4 or 5 level.  

IAC, we'll just have to see how Marc works it all out.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:18:10 -0400
From: "Peter L. Berghold" <peterb@cyber-wizard.com>
Subject: Re: Test - Is this getting through?

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
- --------------8C2438F2CAF3FAD578109BBA
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Peter Miller wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I was just wondering if this is getting through to everyone, because it
> doesn't seem to be. If it does, can someone please reply.  Thanks very
> much!
> --
> 
> ________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
> TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/
> 
> "Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
> to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
> societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
> imagination being the only limit."
>                                 - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

I got it...

- -- 
PGP Fingerprint = D6 74 56 8E FB 52 4E DD  5C 3F 32 FE AE 1F 1C D0

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Hacker at Large                          %%
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%% berghold@tcg.com  (work Email) peterb@cyber-wizard.com (play Email)%%
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email;internet: peterb@cyber-wizard.com
title:          Unix Hacker at Large
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- --------------8C2438F2CAF3FAD578109BBA--

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:48:56 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 14:21:48 -0700 (MST), Bruce Johnson wrote:

> Why go to all the trouble of liquefying H2, when storing it as
> compressed gass is more efficient? Unless LH2 is compressible as well as
> gaseous H2. Even then it doesn't make too much sense.

But if you compress H2 far enough, it will transfer into a liquid,
will it not?

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:48:55 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Yet another task suggestion

On 29 Jun 1997 21:20:13 GMT, Rob Prior wrote:

> One of the 'problems' that many people are having is that skill levels are
> typically lower than attribute levels.
> 
> What about redefining skill specialties?
> 
> When you get a skill with specialties (such as Medical), you choose a
> speciality (such as Trauma).  You then get a skill _bonus_ in this area, and
> use your plain skill level in other areas.  

This is exactly how "The Babylon Project" handles this.  Since TBP is
in direct competition with T4, however, I doubt Marc will be making
any changes to T4.1 that borrow from TBP :)

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:48:58 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

On Sun, 29 Jun 97 01:33:04 -0500, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> On 06/29/97 at 03:09 AM,  s.johnson107@genie.com said:
> 
> >>  Medical
> >>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
> >>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
> >>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
> >>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs
> 
> >    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???  
> 
> Stephen, I knew it when I wrote it.  ;-> I don't know if Nursing..the
> specific skill of Nursing..does fit in there.  Nursing *should* be a listed
> skill, but it probably should stand alone.  Nurses have Medical skills, the
> same as EMT's and MD's, but they have skills that the other health care
> professionals *don't* have and don't get.  
> 
> Maybe all heath care workers *should* be taught patient care.  And
> although, I think Nursing probably should be a seperate skill, I wouldn't
> object to it being a fifth skill in the Medical cascade.  I guess it would
> go something like:  Nurses specialize in Patient Care; EMTs specialize in
> First Aid (or Trauma Care); Pharmacists specialize in Pharmacy; MD's
> specialize in Diagnosis and/or Surgery and EVERYBODY gets a little in their
> non-specialites.

Maybe Psychology, based on _SOC_ instead of INT or EDU.

I usually prefer a system that has a few too many skills over one that
has too few.  Here's my view of cascading  the "Carousing" skill:

Carousing (cascade)

  Belching The Alphabet - the skill of picking up chicks (or hunks)
  Sitting Bare-Assed On The Photocopier - the skill of being "the life
	of the party"
  Driving The Porcelain Bus - the skill of finding one's house keys
  Hangover Recovery Remedies - the skill of making the little voices
	go away



James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:48:50 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 12:05:33 -0700, David P. Summers wrote:

> Sat, 28 Jun 1997 07:32:01 GMT, jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
> >> Actually, stat+skill does _not_ equal "heroic".  Gurps is one
> >> of the more realistic games and it uses stat+skill.
> 
> >(Un)fortunately, GURPS is based *heavily* on play-balance.  It
> >permeates both the character generation and experience point reward
> >system.
> 
> Quickly, since this is off topic for this list.  For GURPS realism
> is playbalance.  It's fundamental approach, at least as I read it, is
> that if it does everything realistically (things like psionics
> excepted), it will be balanced (after all, life is not unbalanced).

You misunderstood what I meant by play-balance.  What I meant was, the
character generation system in GURPS is fully play-balanced, assigning
points for various things like stats, skills, and special abilities.
If two characters built with 75 points seem imbalanced, it is probably
due to the way the players spent their points.

Since raising stat and skill points isn't linear with regards to a
system like GURPS, it can be quite expensive to create a character
with high stats or high skills.  It is still possible to build a
character with a high IQ and 1/2 point invested in each IQ-related
skill, though.  I've played a few IQ=15 characters and the number of
skills that you can acquire with "15 or less" (on 3d6) success rates
can be a little scary.

Basically, GURPS puts a limit as to how you can build a character so
you do not have to deal with task problems like those that Dave Golden
is currently fighting against.  Any problems people might have with
"stats vs skills" with GURPS would be with the character generation
system, not the task system.  IOW, you are comparing the GURPS
character generation system with the T4.x task system.  GURPS handles
"IQ=15, Genetics 14 or less vs. IQ=12, Genetics 14 or less" no better
than Traveller handles "INT=13, Medical-1 vs INT=10 Medical-4".

Of course, the form of munchkinism that can take place in Traveller
character creation can also take place in GURPS, although in a
different way.  A person rolling up a Traveller character generates
random numbers at first, after which s/he tries to roll on the
appropriate tables to gain the skills and stats desired (although some
referees allow skills to be picked to a certain degree).  Because it
essentially costs the same to raise a stat or skill by one point,
regardless of its rating prior to the increase, stats and skills
progress linearly.  I, for one, do not believe that approaching the
pinnacle STR=15 or Med=6 (for humans) should be as easy as lesser
increases.  This is where I appreciate a play-balanced character
generation system like GURPS or Shadowrun.

But unlike Shadowrun, GURPS is so anal about assigning points and
point fractions that building characters becomes more of an exercise
in building the best character given the points allowed.

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:31:52 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Tech level of RoM

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> Rupert Boleyn writes:
> >I was thinking on this instead of working today, and it occured to me that 
> >there's really no way of exlaining how the RoM could make TL14 Vacc Suits, 
> >and yet didn't have fusion plus - a TL12 invention. And don't tell me that 
> >Vacc Suits have nothing to do with fusion reactors, because a Vacc Suit is 
> >a very sophisticated piece of gear, so making a TL14 one is going to require 
> >good, mature TL13 - plus all your TL14 materials, chemical and electronics 
> >tech: unlikely you'll have all this and no TL12 fusion tech.
> 
> You forget that Fusion+ is supposed to be a genuine invention never before
> thought of in the history of mankind. There are other such instances. Drop
> tanks appear to be TL 9, but they are not invented till around 1080. There
> are plenty of examples from from history of things that could have been
> made with the current technology, but wasn't, simply because no one had
> thought of doing it. The telescope is one such. Lenses were available long
> before that German chap made the first telescope.

The problem I see here is that if serendipitous discoveries are 
excluded from the standard TL advancement, then TL will tell us even 
less than it does now, because of the large number of new things that 
are discovered by 'accident'. If these 'special' discoveries are not 
part of the normal TL societies are going to look so at the same TL 
because of diferent 'strikes' in their histories that TL would 
totally meaningless. Besides isn't advancing in TL about finding out 
things you've never done before?
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 11:43:43 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

> Marc, I'll second Doug's request.  I'd *really* like to see Medical
> *officially* become a cascade.  I already do it like this with 4 skills
> cascading as follows:
>
>  Medical
>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs

As much as I despise "me too!" posts, I agree with this request. Medicine
is a huge field of human knowledge; lumping all of it into a single
"Medical" skill is unrealistic and undramatic in game play. Consider all
the books and TV shows which show doctors, paramedics, nurses, coroners,
health scientists, and medical administrators interacting. They are not
portrayed as clones of each other. A lot of drama can come from the
different agendas of skilled medical professionals. Doing this would also
allow more variation in non-combat personnel, which I feel would broaden
interest in Traveller without alienating the military gamers.

As for "Nursing" skill, while I agree nurses are highly trained
professionals, I dislike skills based on job descriptions rather than
capabilities. IMHO a professional nurse would probably have higher First
Aid, Administration, and Diplomacy skills than a doctor; skills all highly
useful in a medical bureaucracy.

I have already added several new skills to my campaign, and will definitely
add the suggested Medical cluster. Other skills I use in my campaign which
could fall in the medical cluster include:

	Cybernetics - designing and implanting technological augmentation
to biological structures.
	Genetics - analysing and altering organisms' genetic code
	Xenobiology - knowledge of alien biology. Any medical task on a
creature not of your own biology is against the lower of your Xenobiology
and the controlling skill.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 17:50:36 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Reading Data!

On 06/29/97 at 08:43 PM,  Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:

>What about translating it to RTF?  Then _any_ version of MS Word (and most
>versions of Claris Works and WordPerfect) can read it.  (Seeing as
>MicroBloat Word 4.0 is the only version I have anough memory to run...)

That *is* a good idea. RTF was supposed to be a cross platform standard,
after all.  

Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.

How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 97 18:08:07 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Liquified Hydrogen

On 06/29/97 at 02:21 PM,  Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
said:

>Ummm, as far as I'm aware, it's not condensed, just chilled to a liquid
>state in big cryogenic fuel tanks. Undoubtedly, a great deal of what a
>'fuel purification unit' is, is a hydrogen 'still', which will distill
>purified hydrogen out of the stuff you've collected from the gas giant.
>Electrolyzed hydrogen from waster is actually easier to deal with, because
>I really doubt that fuel purification goes down to isotopic level.

I agree, up to a point.  In my game..and Bruce that applies to AKU..the
jump fuel and fuel for the fusion power plant is, as pure as you can get,
H2 with all the other isotopes and impurities extracted as "waste." I'm
going to use the CNO cycle, and you don't want D2 or T2 in that reaction. 
The scavenged D2/T2 will be used to "kick-start" the power plant.  Jump
fuel needs to be "analyzed" before use to determine the proper settings for
the jump drive, otherwise you risk misjumps.  Extra pure H2 is the easiest
to analyze, and is called "refined jump fuel."

>Why go to all the trouble of liquefying H2, when storing it as compressed
>gass is more efficient? Unless LH2 is compressible as well as gaseous H2.
>Even then it doesn't make too much sense.

My understanding is that you can store more H2 per m3, and store it in a
more stable state if you store it as slush.  That's just what I've read,
I'm no expert, so I could be wrong.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:46:05 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Planet3 software

I just reinstalled my copy of the Traveller Navigator I got a long time ago.
This was a program produced by Planet III software as a gaming aid for
T:TNE.  Even though I don't use the character creation from TNE, I use the
technical side and the spaceship combat.  For your information, I use
MegaTraveller for the character generation and the tasks.  Anyway, the
version I have only contains the Diaspora sector but I think I heard that
other sectors are also available.  I have been searching for a few nights on
the web but I can't find anything.  I am now at the point where I must ask
the question to the mailing list.  I seem to recall somebody mentionning
this program some time ago but I might be mistaken.  Can someone help me.

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 05:36:43 +0200
From: Goran Sjoberg <NGC1201@communique.se>
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

	Isn't nursing really a service skill? It would be a fine addition for the
medical crew to actually learn how to give service to the patient. In my
opinion the nurse is a medical trained person with a service skill, nothing
more.

At 03:09 1997-06-29 GMT, you wrote:
>>  Medical
>>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs
>    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???  I'm not going to repeat
>the... pungent comments with in a conversation I had with a Ladyfriend and
>Nurse upon her seeing this. ;) I should make the point though that there is a
>great deal more to good medical care then simply sticking the needle into
>someone and walking away.  If you doubt this... read up on the origins of
>nursing.
>    Just one example; In the early days of the US Civil War mortality
rates in
>US Army Hospitals was 90%.  A year after the nurses arrived and set to work
>they dropped, with variations, the mortality rate to around 10% to 15% and
>redeemed the entire medical profession. ;) So shall we add to the cascade...
>    Nursing - the skill of caring for a patient
>
>Stephen
>

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1504
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Traveller-digest       Monday, June 30 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1505



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: How many skills?
Re: Medical Cascade
Experience
RE: penetrating battledress.
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
galactic's bug #1 is hereby squashed
Re: The MT task system was *FAR* from perfect...
ROM Tech Levels
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Planet3 software
CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)
Re: Twilights Peak
Re: World Builder's Handbook
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1504
Aliens (was Re: Dolphins, Sentient?)
Re: T4 Task Rational
The Char Gen & Task System We Use

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:47:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: How many skills?

In a message dated 97-06-29 20:09:41 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Trying to calculate total number of skills, right now, is guess work. With
 the first guess being how many background skills the character gets
 *before* his/her first turn.  I suspect there will be quite a few...*I'm*
 guessing 8 to 10. Then there's the possibility that Marc might be
 considering a change where the PC automatically gets 2, 3 or 4 levels in 1
 or more skills for completion of certain educational programs..it sort of
 looked like that from one of his posts. There's also the "1/year (or a
 little more)" to consider..just how much more is a little more going to be?
 
  >>

A typical is Med School, where people get basically 2 skills per year.

MEDICAL SCHOOL
	Medical school attendance is required for an individual to become a doctor.
Prerequisite: BA or BS.
<snip>

Academic Skills	Honors Benefits
	1	Jack of all Trades		Degree carries
	2	Medical	the suffix Lishun
	3	Medical	(meaning Health).
	4	Medical	
	5	Physical Sciences		Receive +1 Edu.
	6	Computer	
	Roll once per year.

	Declared Major: Medical.
	Education Increase: Edu increased to 9
	Academic Degree: MD. Degree is not granted unless Medical is 6+.

	Automatic Skills: Medical-1 for each year of attendance (in addition to
other skills).
	Time Served: 5 years.

(implies Doctor is Med-6+ (up from Med-3+ in CT).

More typical are the careers, where people get approximately 1.25 skills per
year (1 per year + 1 per term for people with no commissioned rank). Its much
the same for those who do have commissioned ranks, and automatic skills don't
really skew it too much.

Note that Grad School requires level 6+ for a Masters, and 9+ for a Ph.D. And
that takes some owrk/attention, rather than being easy.

My guess is a non-educated 34-year-old will have (34-18)*1.25=20 skill levels
plus homeworld skills. 

Education gets you 1 skill per year, except Med School gets you 2 per year
(for 5 years, with a lot being Medical). OTC and NOTC get 2 skills extra over
4 years of college. OCT gets 2 skills for a year; OFS ditto. Technical School
gets 2 skills per year for 2 years. That still all seems close to 1.25 skills
per year.

>>
Of course, we're just guessing here, but in any event I don't think we'll
see very many double digit skills. They will be rare, specialist skills, I
think. However, I do think the average is heading up to the 4 or 5 level.  
<<

Double digit skills are possible, but at the risk of not knowing how to drive
a car, or being real old. If Skill-9 is the equivalent of a Ph.D, and that
takes 7.2 years to get to, I don't expect to see a lot of Skill-10+'s.

Marc Miller

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:12:10 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

At 03:09 AM 6/29/97 GMT, Stephen wrote:

>    Nursing - the skill of caring for a patient

Nurses would, in my opinion, have levels in Psychcology, Medical (Trauma),
Admin, and Liason.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:54:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Experience

I was talking to Kenneth Bearden last week and we touched on Experience.

Experince: Receive 1 skill (or level) every year on your birthday (it has to
happen sometime; maybe use New year's Eve?). In each session, the game master
(at session end) notes what one skill was most used, learned, notable, etc,
and awards 1 ":point" in that skill. On your birthday, total up all session
points (if you had 10 sessions, you had 10 points (unless you were in Cold
Sleep all evening or something); if you had 30 sessions, you had 30 points.
On your birthday, you get one skill level increase in the skill you most used
in the previous year.

Note: this makes it possible to pick up real levels in default skills, or in
currently held skills. Non-default skills are harder to learn (you pobably
have to go back to school to get started in them).

This approach takes care of those who play fast (many sessions) or slowly
(few sessions) per character year. It also reflects the same eligibility that
is experienced in CharGen.

What about +1 more level every 4 years?

Marc

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 20:20:44 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: RE: penetrating battledress.

At 11:51 PM 6/29/97 +1200, you wrote:

>> I like it.  Really like it - never occured to me and wow - really cool
>> idea.  The whole thing.  Why can't I get a GM like this.  

Are you willing to move to San Francisco?  I am starting a game soon.. :)

The kilt thing came from two and a half sources.  I'm writing a history of
the Imperial Marine Force, and have the current crop of jarheads trace
their lineage to the RoM's marines, and through them to the USMC and the
Royal Marines (UK).  This allows me to give my Marines pipers!  (As an
aside, the game Dirtside II defines bagpipes as terror weapons, *snark*.)

The second reason is that I'm a costumer, and I want to do the dress
unifrom of a Marine Force Leader (0-3) for a con, and I like kilts.

The 1/2 reason is I'm taking up the bagpipes, and would love to march the
halls of GenCon playing "Scotland the Brave" in an appropriate uniform.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:11:22 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 12:02 AM 6/30/97 EST, Daniel Poulin wrote:

<Snip>
>...but I think I heard that other sectors are also available...

I've got the P3 Old Expanses program as well - were there any others published?

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:08:56 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

Richard Hough writes about:
>Medical Cluster: Cybernetics - designing and implanting technological
>augmentation to biological structures.

Here is how one player in my TNE rules/ Post 5th FW setting campain
implemented cybernetics:

Dirdinshi Dishkiinshir, a.k.a. "Doc Borg"
The March Hare's Ship's Scientist. While this full blooded Viliani has a
medical degree, he never did his residency. He is not a licensed medical
doctor.
Dispite his surgical skill, he is not a board certified surgeon. He has an
advanced degree in Robotics. Guess where the nickname "Doc Borg" comes from? 


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
It was a typical net.exercise -- a screaming mob pounding on a greasy spot 
on the pavement, where used to lie the carcass of a dead horse.
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:42:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: galactic's bug #1 is hereby squashed

Well, as some of you have recently discovered, the new version of
Galactic isn't entirely bug-free. It seems that when I modified
the way that the program grabs UWP code definitions, I also opened
the door for a big problem during new-galaxy creation (something
that I should have re-tested but didn't because I just assumed it
would work... haha... yeah, right.... It's a long boring story, so
instead of dwelling on all the insideous particulars, I'll just
point you to the fix.

Go to my homepage (http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv), goto the programs
section, go down to where you picked up gal22.zip, only this time
pick up the file called galfix1.zip. It's only about 70k, so it
should download in a snap. Unzip that, and read galfix1.txt for
further info. Basically, all you have to do is grab the new version
of gal.exe contained therein and copy it over the old version that
came with gal22.zip. G'luck... and please let me know if you find
any other bugs... i so love squashing them :-)

jimv@empirenet.com
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv

PS: Many apologies for the screw-up...

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 16:01:54 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: The MT task system was *FAR* from perfect...

>> >"Because the dice code for ranged combat tasks is dependent upon
>> >distance rather than weapon type, it is theoretically possible for a
>> >character to hit a target at 1500 meters with a pistol, though very
>> >unlikely."

[snip about man shot in Sweden]

>But was the shot intentional?  I think not.  Your confusing exactly
>how far away a pistol can lob a piece of lead (on a good day, with
>ideal circumstances) with how far away a shooter can hope to hit a
>target (without relying 100% on pure luck).

I didn't like that paragraph when I first read it, so I immediately
introduced a house rule. For every range band above the weapons effective
range (given in the rule book), increase the task difficulty by one
(instead of the totally pathetic/useless -1 or -2DM in the rulebook). An
example will make this clearer (I hope)

Staple Gun (effective range = v.short)

Target Range     Norm. Task     Final Task
- ------------     ----------     ----------
Contact          Easy           Easy
V. Short         Average        Average
Short            Difficult      Formidable (1 range band = 1 level increase)
Medium           Formidable     Impossible (2 range bands = 2 level increase)
Long             Staggering     n/a

As you can see, once you get past the effective range, it gets very
difficult very quickly to put the bullet where you want to - which is how
it should be. It is also interesting that in most cases shots become
impossible (notice the small i) at two range bands past the effective range
of the weapon, giving the same effect as EA.

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 05:09:59 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: ROM Tech Levels

> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net

> This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
> about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
> 14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.
> I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
> Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: Earth or
> anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of Traveller material.

Doug, Rats and Cats page 6, bottom of the second column, Bold Type, 
Technology Related

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=

New point in the old tech level argument.
Leroy, Harold your both right.
Leroy, if you look at evidence in MT sources it difinatly suports your
view.

Harold, TNE and to a lesser extent CT suports your view.

Hell, I researched the same question and came up with that finding. What
feels
right? I would tend to tread between the two views. Prefering TNE Tech
levels.

Sources
CT Solmani
Rats & Cats
FFS
- -- 
Buddas Palm met Rilley's Oak,
The Tibetian mugger met
the Louisville slugger.

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:25:17 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

James Lindsay writes

>You misunderstood what I meant by play-balance.  What I meant was, the
>character generation system in GURPS is fully play-balanced, assigning
>points for various things like stats, skills, and special abilities.
>If two characters built with 75 points seem imbalanced, it is probably
>due to the way the players spent their points.

This isn't completely true. There are some flaws and contraditctions in the
GURPS point system. 

First, attributes always cost the same (strength costs the same as IQ), 
regardless of how useful they are in a particular milleu; ST is more 
valuable than IQ in a non-magic low-tech world, IQ more valuable in a high-tech,
but both cost the same.

Second, GURPS rates the cost of skills based on how *difficult* they are to
learn, not how useful they are in a game setting - learning Physics costs 
many more points than combat skills. Contradictorily, it rates 
advantages/disadvantages based on how useful they are, not how rare; the result
is that you get lots of characters with (say) Eidetic Memory - because it's 
priced to be cost-effective - compared to real life.

Bruce

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:35:22 -0700
From: "Edward Swatschek" <edjs@bitslayer.net>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

> Date:          Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:11:22 -0400
> From:          Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>

> I've got the P3 Old Expanses program as well - were there any others published?

These are the ones I have:

   Deneb 
   Diaspora
   Old Expanses
   Reft
   Spinward Marches

I don't recall the site I got them off of, however.


- --
Edward Swatschek  *  edjs@bitslayer.net
                     edjs@mindlink.net

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:47:32 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

On 29 Jun 97 at 14:21, Bruce Johnson wrote:

> Ummm, as far as I'm aware, it's not condensed, just chilled to a
> liquid state in big cryogenic fuel tanks. Undoubtedly, a great deal
> of what a 'fuel purification unit' is, is a hydrogen 'still', which
> will distill purified hydrogen out of the stuff you've collected
> from the gas giant. Electrolyzed hydrogen from waster is actually
> easier to deal with, because I really doubt that fuel purification
> goes down to isotopic level.

	Carefully dodging the questions I don't have smart answers for, 
here's some ideas I've used with drawing deckplans in regard to fuel.

	Starship fuel is consumed by either a) Jump Drive or b) Maneuver 
(HEPlaR) drive. This we all know. Fusion rectors use so small amounts 
of hydrogen that the necessary deuterium may be extracted from the 
huge loads of LHyd that pass through the ship's fuel processing 
plant. The rest of main reactor fuel requirements are coolant; argon, 
nitrogen, what have you, and needs to be replenished annually.

	Jump fuel then. I had hard time imagining how damn fast fusion
reactor - no matter ho high-yield - it takes to consume five times
its volume in LHyd per jump. I reasoned 99.something% of Jump fueld
LHyd is coolant - cheap, expendable and all that.

	The rest of the fuel is reaction mass, then. The way I look at it, 
fuel processing plants do not need to refine all of the fuel into 
fusionable material. They just remove the excess methane, ammonia, 
nitrogen, water vapor, Jgd-I-Jgd pieces etc.

	Although most ships have pretty big fuel tanks, at least 20% of the
LHyd is circulated around the ship's hull to keep it at uniform
temperature (also explains the hundreds of fuel hits! :) ), to give
some extra radiation protection and to make the floor freeze the poor 
spacer's toes off in the morning.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:22:53 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Twilights Peak

>I would like to pose a question to the colletive TML brain:
>
>I am looking over Twilights Peak to modify and run in my campaign.  When
>we played it before (oh so long ago) I remember we had a question that
>now one in our group could answer well...so I would like to hear how
>some of you dealt with it.  The question is:  what is this "ancient"
>base doing at the end of some tunnels under one of the octagon
>buildings?  The base was built long before the building was even there.
>So did the builders stumble upon the "big metal door" while they were
>digging to put in the well...wouldn't it have been worth a lot more
>money to the Octagon society to sell off the location of an ancient base
>(to further their cause) rather than to just build the structure and
>move on.  Did some previous resident (without all his marble stumble
>across the door while digging near the well and brick it up and put in
>the secret doors in the octagon building.
>
>Its not that I'm knocking TP.  Its long been one of my favorite
>adventures....and not half bad just or a good read.  I just wondered
>what some of the opinions were about this.
>
>Sorry to distract you from the GTB (great task debate)....well not
>really too sorry. :->
>
>Tom

<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>
<Spoiler warning>

My (and others on the list) interpretation of these questions:
The Octagon society was supposedly formed by a marooned traveller but in
reality he found an ancient site and was using the society to search for
others. The tower was purposefully built atop the ancient site. They did
not sell off the location of the ancient site for the same reason your
players would NEVER do it. The potential of exploring it yourself is much
more interesting than the peanut money the Imperium will offer you. The
base was (in my Universe) a very secret and dormant base for one of
Yaskoydroys children: Tsiotstroy. Tsiotstroy faked his own death and went
dormant to escape grandfathers wrath but the freezers didn't wake him when
he wanted. instead he slept for 300 000 years accumulating serious
radiation damage by background radiation (his bodycells had no time fixing
the damage while being frozen).

When the PC awoke him he thanked them but didn't tell them much about the
ancients story (he wasn't shure about the humans current relations with his
father). As his cells were hard to clone, he lacked reproductive organs and
was infact strangely incapable of biological thinking (geneered by
grandfather that way to keep the children from cloning themselves) his time
was limited. He set about destroying Yaskoydroy by locating some serious
computer horsepower (the experimental but online financial AI at Pallique).
He allied with the AI who built a pseudobio robot to easier deal with
humans. Then he started searching for possible locations for entry into Ys
universe (he knew Y had fled this universe after the final war for reasons
I will tell later). With the aid of the AI (who now calls himself Carlo
Rossum, financial genius) he came across some physics research about
gravity wave anomalies from certain gasgiants that (unknown to the
scientists investigating it) seemed to indicate the locations of gates.
Tsiotstroy and Carlo Rossum banded together a group of well payed
individuals including the leading scientist in gravity anomalies and they
set forth to find the door to Yaskoydroys universe (most of the crew are
unaware of the real purpose). Tsiotstroy is kept frozen most of the time to
prevent is lethal radiation damage from continue degrading him. The PCs who
got the two teleporter disks from Twilights Peak are enrolled by a job
offer that fits the PCs perfectly (Tsiotstroy and Carlo R need the disks in
a scheme to kill Yaskoydroy).
Well they manage to capture the PCs, steal their teleporters, buy some
experimental craft from the Ansing expeditions and force the PCs to
investigate the located Gate (they have some captured friends of the PCs
kidnapped to force them do it). the PCs are instructed NOT to enter the
gate which the of course do but unknown to them behind a fake
instrumentation rack one of the teleporter disks is hanging. Thus the PCs
enter Ys universe, gets picked up by his orbital defense mechanimsm and
rudely put down on a small artificial island together with other jumk that
the gate has tranported during the illenia. Grandfathers main interest
today is homemade ecosystems with artificially created lifeforms so the
island is a perfect grassfield with sim dungheeplike lumps here and there
(large floating gasgiant animals that accidentally got teleported by the
gate). At the north end of the island there's a HUGE tower (1 km thick, 85
km high) that is acually a huge "tree" served by geneered dogs that
constantly climb it with gravthruster fruit (the gravthruster fruit is
needed to keep the tree from collapsing as no biological material is strong
enough for 85 km towers even on 0.6 G planets).
Inside the treetrunk floats Yaskoydroys small home from which he conducts
his experiments.

Sorry for the length of this and possible uninterest to most LISTOIDS but I
thought it would be at least as interesting as another "=8AKBv2.0 is worse
than Txx because mumble, rumble, religious stuff=8A"

I have maps of the island, the tree and the home of Yaskoydroy plus
rendered views from the Island as well as inside the tree. I've also got a
(pretty crappy) QuickTime movie of Ys home descending to capture the
players. Anybody interested can drop me a line and I'll mail them to you
(I'll skip the QT movie unless specifically asked for). the maps are in
MacDraw II format easily read by ClarisDraw and I can also convert them to
PICT if you like (PC guys: you'll have to find some conversion software for
this - we Mac users do it all the time so once in a while you should have
to as well ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:27:57 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: World Builder's Handbook

>I have seen numerous TML references to this book, presumably by Digest
>Group Publications.  I thought I had everything from that era of
>Traveller, but I don't have the WBH.  Does anyone know how similar
>(or not) the WBH is to Grand Census and Grand Survey (both by DGP),
>which seem to have a lot of overlap with what I hear about WBH.
>
>
>Simon

Pretty similar but better laid out, easier to use and much better graphics.
It pretty much includes everything from Book 6(+) Scouts as well. Nice
deckplans of the Donosev Survey Cruiser. the temperature calcs etc are much
easier to do than in Scouts and the geological activity stuff is less
strange (but they err in tidal effects from gasgiants and the illustration
on elliptic orbits indicate that the artist at least has no idea how
planetary orbits work)

A must have if you can find it.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:37:43 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1504

Leroy wrote (quoting me)

> >
> >Personally, I read this as "the Solomani tried to terraform Hephaistos,
> >but kept over-reaching themselves economically and technologically,
> >and it eventually got finished when some BuCol bureaucrat thought it
> >seemed like a good idea at the time and authorised the expenditure of
> >way too much money to finish it."
> 
> If the Terrans had taken on the _whole_ Vilani Empire, it is very easy
> to see why they might get interrupted from time to time, and then, there
> is that historical event a while later--the Long Night.

Nope. There were long-ish chunks of peace between the Interstellar Wars,
and the Ramshackle Empire/Rule of Man lasted a couple of hundred years -
well and truly long enough to finish the job *if* the technology was 
sufficient to allow the project to be finish in a reasonable time on a
reasonable budget.

> 
> >regression between the Terran Confederation and the Long Night. Sylea
> >was more-or-less untouched by the Long Night, it was a major center in
> 
> That's also what was said about Terra.
> 

Yup. And that is why they were both able to recover to the RoM high common
TL of twelve in a relativly short amount of time, but then took much,
much longer to get to TL13.

Leroy also wrote ..

> 
> The biggest problem I see with declaring all of this extremely advanced
> Terran Confederation technology at TL12, is that the Third Imperium is
> then just as capable at doing all of these things, so why didn't they?
> I've read of no edicts that declared AIs or terraforming anti-Imperial.

Terraforming isnt illegal, it's just uneconomic aka pointless.

I *think* AI's would be granted the same legal status as any other sentient
in the 3I, so their slavery would be illegal. So why pay gigacredits to
develop an AI if you have to pay the damn thing a salary just when it
gets smart enough to be useful ?

> 
> And besides, if we _did_ push all of this stuff down, all we would be
> left with at TI TL15 would be anagathics that make your face all knotted
> and "rot your balls off."  B-)
> 

No, you are left with a 3I that stayed at a TL of eleven to twelve for
bioengineering, cybernetics, terraforming and so on. It is something the
3I just doesnt do, and thus doesnt get better at ...

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:20:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Aliens (was Re: Dolphins, Sentient?)

  I've always had a soft spot for Dolphins as NPCs and even PCs, ever
since they were first detailed in an old JTAS.  I even bought GURPS Uplift
for the sole reason that it had a Dolphin in a spacesuit on the cover -
can't say I liked the Uplift novels, though, which I read after I bought
the gamebook.

  As for really alien aliens, that's one of the best things about 2300AD.
I always thought that game was Traveller done right, with an interesting
background and science that was just on this side of reasonable.  I'm
talking 2nd edition, by the way, and I must admit I like the background
better than the rules set.  In any case, I think the Kafer were one of the
best developed and interesting aliens in any science fiction setting - I
was especially fond of why they wanted to kill off the human race, which
in their own terms was a highly sensible response.

  In any case, the material from the game supplements and articles in
Challenge gave you a whole set of aliens for 2300AD who were more than
Star Trek style humans-in-rubber-suits.  In part it's a function of the
original design, which made the Traveller universe a human-centered one,
but aside from the Hivers, and maybe the K'kree, the aliens in Traveller
are just not that interesting. 

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:23:27 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:48:50 GMT, jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
[Stuff about GURPS deleted.  I obviously like GURPS since I wrote
and posted a GURPS Traveller article.  I'll just say, to try and
wrap this up since it's off topic for the list....]

Yes.  I do think that GURPS handles stats and uses a stat+skill
system well.  It is true that you can gain a bit with character
creation by alwasy going for optimal tradeoffs, but that is true
of any system (for example the munchkins had all established
that 40 years old was the optimal target for Classic Traveller
character generation).  Unless you give a munchkin no choice
in creation, he will be able to use every decisions to do what
is most optimal.  GURPS is about such choice and I prefer it
that way (I was hoping that traveller would go to point based
system).

>But unlike Shadowrun, GURPS is so anal about assigning points and
>point fractions that building characters becomes more of an exercise
>in building the best character given the points allowed.

GURPS isn't anal about points.  Some _people_ are (just like some
people can be anal about serving the optimal number of terms)
but I don't favor screwing up a fine system because some people
are more interesed misusing the system than roleplaying.  A lot
of people like GURPS because is allows them to roleplay the
characters they want.


____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 01:43:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: The Char Gen & Task System We Use

With all this discussion about char gen and task systems I think we have
discovered that many people are not using the published rules.  I know I'm
not...  Anyway, I thought it might be useful to share the system we use. 
Other folks can do the same, and maybe everyone can learn a new trick or
two to use in their own campaign. 

In our group we have used T4 Char gen (with additional MT professions
modified for T4 (1 skill/year...).

MT Task resolution and MT combat (combat is debugged and mildly modified).

TNE Psionics (ie no psi points).

Special Rules:

Players work out the basic character conception before the begin character 
generation.

Characters get 50 points to spend on stats.  No stat may be above 12 and 
no stat may be below 5 w/o a good reason (both are applied before any 
modifications for species are made).

Enlistment is not rolled, but the PC must have reasonable stats (GM
discretion) for the profession chosen. 

All Skills are chosen.  These choices must make sense and the player must
describe (roughly) how their PC learned these skills.  Skill choices must
make sense for the character conception.  Skills range from 1 (novice) to
6 (sector-wide champion).  No PC may have more than 1 (or if very good
reasons being given) 2 skills at level 6. 

No more than one skill choice may be used on stats in a term (However,
automatic education gains in college are still kept.  I greatly prefer the
new T4.1 Edu system, previously we simply halved all T4 education
increases from college and grad school). 

Injury, Commission, & Promotion, are all rolled as normal. Continuance is
rolled or automatic at the players discretion.  Cash and other mustering
out benefits are rolled normally. 

Personally I've never seen the appeal of rolled stats or (especially)
rolled skills.  Randomly generated PCs are little fun to any of the folks
in my group. 

Comments?

So, what do you use?


- -John Snead jsenad@netcom.com

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1505
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Traveller-digest       Monday, June 30 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1506



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info 
Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info
Generic task description.......
Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs
Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)
Re: Tech level of RoM
Re: How many skills?
Re: ROM Tech Levels
Re: Rule of Man TL *WAY* overrated
Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: RoM TL
Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: Twilights Peak
re: Task system defnition error
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1504
Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: ROM Tech Levels

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:26:38 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info 

- -> I'll have a look through mine and let you know the info you need.
Thanks in advane already, we need all the info we can get ;-) 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:29:39 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

Thanks for replying so quickly, you're a great help!
 
- -> I don't have TD8 but I have TD10.  Yes, it includes data on Core:
- -> 
- -> 1. World map of Capital.
Hmmm, any chance to get a scan of that per e-mail? Would be a great 
addition to TD9.
 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:34:06 GMT
From: "J." <Jonathan@hccm.co.uk>
Subject: Generic task description.......

Monday morning and there's 12 Digests in my inbox!
I realise people are getting sick of the task discussions, but I think we
have (finally) got somewhere.

Eris and Scott Ellsworth's both posted ideas about multiple shifts in 
difficulty. Both of these idea's I like, Scott's is easier to read (and less 
prone to typos) Eris's is probably quicker when you get used to the system.
IMHO, I think that scotts will be easier for new players and referees.

Douglas Berry and several others suggested including time in generic task
descriptions. I think the best way to do this is print the average time taken
with the task description. For most task this is all thats needed, time isn't
usually important. Referee's and players who want to use the MT 3D6 time
system 
for variable times for tasks (or some other system) can do so using this
value 
as a base.

So we now have a task description that looks like:

     To create a Traveller task system
     Formidable, Psychology, Int, 20 Years
     Referee: SS Credit in T4.1 for TML
     SF starts a flame war on the TML
     Less difficult if designer has experience with other game systems
     Much more difficult if designer is a munchkin

This will work well with the MT system, I'm sure kenneths system is either
already compatible (or can be easily modified so it is), T4.1 task system
(whatever it is) can be written so it is compatable. I think it's even 
compatable with TNE (I'm not sure though).

The only real disadvantage is that the description is a little vague when it 
comes to rules, because it is generic. To get round this the new rulebook
could
contain a 1 side "Guide to tasks" including how to interpret a generic task 
description. A nice touch would be "permission of photocopy for personal use"
in small print at the bottom of the page :)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:51:19 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

Doug Berry wrote:

>
>At 11:51 PM 6/29/97 +1200, you wrote:
>
>>> I like it.  Really like it - never occured to me and wow - really cool
>>> idea.  The whole thing.  Why can't I get a GM like this.
>
>Are you willing to move to San Francisco?  I am starting a game soon.. :)
>
>The kilt thing came from two and a half sources.  I'm writing a history of
>the Imperial Marine Force, and have the current crop of jarheads trace
>their lineage to the RoM's marines, and through them to the USMC and the
>Royal Marines (UK).  This allows me to give my Marines pipers!  (As an
>aside, the game Dirtside II defines bagpipes as terror weapons, *snark*.)


	As a real-world aside, so did the traditional hereditary mortal
enemies of the Scots, the Scots, as well as the *other* traditional
hereditary mortal enemies of the Scots, the British.  After the Brits
finally managed to conquer Scotland in the mid-18th century (after 600
years of trying and they were right next door, ha!) they banned the pipes,
as well as gaelic and the wearing of the tartan (and I'm tempted to say
something about Buchanan tartan also being a terror weapon but I'll stop
now :>).


>
>The second reason is that I'm a costumer, and I want to do the dress
>unifrom of a Marine Force Leader (0-3) for a con, and I like kilts.
>
>The 1/2 reason is I'm taking up the bagpipes, and would love to march the
>halls of GenCon playing "Scotland the Brave" in an appropriate uniform.

	Coolness.  I took a few years of lessons when I was in the Black
Watch Cadets in high school.  Still have my pipes packed up down in my
basement.  I never really got very good at it, probably because I was
approaching the pipes as a musical instrument rather than a martial art,
but I had a lot of fun.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:43:49 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs

>	Where (if at all)in T4 does it call out the rules for repairing
>spacecraft
>battle damage?  (My players have just gotten into a scrape with a couple of
>planetary fighters and set down/crash landed on a glacier.  They are trying
>to figure out how to fix the damage to their drives and sensor arrays so
>they can get the hell out of their before the locals show up again.)

The DeFacto system would be as follows;

Step 1: Determine Plot Requirements
Step 2: Establish need for either A). Quick resolution to go on to next
plot section or
B). Desire for Job-like suffering on the part of the players.
Step 3: Assign probabilities of success as appropriate.

This method has been described elsewhere on this list (See Thread about
"Being Honest")

In all seriousness, damage should be pretty much based on what hits the
ship took in the battle that preceded their crash (or landing if you
prefer).  If the components damaged are redundant, then the duplicate
components can probably (Say, with a difficult task, failure meaning they
have another chance that takes twice as long, second failure ruins the
component) be jury rigged to allow the ship to limp home.  Skill used
should be appropriate to the component (Engineering for engines,
electronics for communicaitons parts, etc.)

If components are not redundant, a determination needs to be made about the
likelyhood of carrying this partucular item as a spare, or something
similar enough to be jury rigged.  This may result in cannibalizing
something else (Well, captain, we can take out the main laser reflector
dish to use as an active EMS array...of course, then we wont have any
laser...) to get a primary component working.

This task should be formidable, with great emphasis put on enabling skills
and high skill levels;  For example, if a character repairing the drives
has Engineering-4 alone it would be a normal chance to adapt the ship's
boats parts to the parent's engines, relative to if the character has
ship's boat-3 as well, which allows her to be more aware of the relative
characteristics of the two different engine pods as they perform.

In any case, the task should be relatively uncertain so that when the craft
finally lumbers into the air (if it does) there is much trepidation,
punctuated by the fact that "ominous noises come from the direction of the
drives, the whole ship shudders a moment and seems to hang
motionless...then flies on, the engines adopting a strained, higher note."

In any case, **your plot requirements** are paramount and should be looked
at to determine whether the damage cannot be repaired here at all, or is
relatively minor and requires just a bit of reconnecting fused or destroyed
wiring.

Traveller adventures are not usually random wanderings whose plot is
determined by the success or failure of specific tasks or rules.  It is a
tapestry, whose general pattern is outlined by the GM, but whose specific
threads are stitched by the individual players.  If keeping to the general
pattern requires that the players leave their glacier without delay, they
must be able to do so.  If it requires them to explore and discover that
the glacier they landed on is, in fact, the secret base of the fighters
that shot them down, then their engines are pretty much shot, perhaps
requiring only a small, specific part which could be easily stolen from the
bad guy's base.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:59:20 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

RFXn Wrote;
>On 29 Jun 97 at 14:21, Bruce Johnson wrote:
>
>> Ummm, as far as I'm aware, it's not condensed, just chilled to a
>> liquid state in big cryogenic fuel tanks.
[snip]
>	Although most ships have pretty big fuel tanks, at least 20% of the
>LHyd is circulated around the ship's hull to keep it at uniform
>temperature (also explains the hundreds of fuel hits! :) ), to give
>some extra radiation protection and to make the floor freeze the poor
>spacer's toes off in the morning.

Ok I'll bite on this one.

Most of what you say make good sense.  The part I can't figure out is, if
you use the H^2 (or H^3 as some believe) to cool the ship, what do you use
to cool the H^2?  You've got to be running a damned good compressor to keep
the stuff liquid if you are running it through the power plant all the time
to keep the fusion containment chamber from melting.  Suppose this is part
of the fuel purification system (which leads to the question...what do
ships without purifiers do?).

Perhaps there is some way of using the cold vacuum of space to compress and
cool the H^2, but I've heard the chemists and physicists on this list
(which I cannot claim to be) talk about how difficult it is to cool things
in space before.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:56:26 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Tech level of RoM

Rupert Boleyn writes:
>>You forget that Fusion+ is supposed to be a genuine invention never before
>>thought of in the history of mankind. There are other such instances. Drop
>>tanks appear to be TL 9, but they are not invented till around 1080. There
>>are plenty of examples from from history of things that could have been
>>made with the current technology, but wasn't, simply because no one had
>>thought of doing it. The telescope is one such. Lenses were available long
>>before that German chap made the first telescope.
> 
>The problem I see here is that if serendipitous discoveries are excluded 
>from the standard TL advancement, then TL will tell us even less than it 
>does now, because of the large number of new things that are discovered by 
>'accident'. 

It's propably not a large number. Most sophonts in the Traveller Universe
seems to be perfectly happy with the knowledge their great-to-the-nth-
grandfathers invented.

>If these 'special' discoveries are not part of the normal TL, societies are 
>going to look so [different?] at the same TL because of diferent 'strikes' 
>in their histories that TL would totally meaningless. 

Surely it would be a lot worse to require all societies to fit into just
16 different molds? IMO the chance that two TL X societies happened to be
exactly alike would (and SHOULD) be very small.

>Besides isn't advancing in TL about finding out things you've never done 
>before?

Say that you arrive at a new planet. They have factories, cars, and railroads.
"Aha!" you say. "TL 4 or 5. Let's go buy a gun." "Gun? What's a gun?" your
friendly native guide asks. Do you immidiately revise your estimate of the
TL down to 1? Or do you smile and start planning the firearms company you're
going to build? And do you plant to build laser and gauss rifles, or do you
plan to build TL 4/5 rifles and pistols?

A society can easily be of TL X without having _all_ TL X technologies. I
mean, a desert planet may not even know about rafts, but that dosen't make
them TL -1.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 07:41:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: How many skills?

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> My guess is a non-educated 34-year-old will have (34-18)*1.25=20 
> skill levels plus homeworld skills. 

<snip>

> Of course, we're just guessing here, but in any event I don't think we'll
> see very many double digit skills. They will be rare, specialist 
> skills, I think. However, I do think the average is heading up to the 4 
> or 5 level.  

> Double digit skills are possible, but at the risk of not knowing how to 
> drive a car, or being real old. If Skill-9 is the equivalent of a Ph.D, 
and 
> that takes 7.2 years to get to, I don't expect to see a lot of Skill-10+'s.

OK, so a starting PC who is 34 years old will have around 22-24 points in
skills, and one 38 (5 terms) will have 27-29 points in skills.  If we are
calling 6 levels of skill professional (equivalent to 3 skill levels in
CT) then I think T4.1 characters will go back to being as vastly
underpowered as CT characters were.  An average (and I've always found 4-5
terms to be average for Traveller characters) will have (if they take
nothing else) 4 skills at professional level.  More likely, that same
character will have 2 skills at professional level and 4-5 at hobbyist
(level 2-4) level.  This looks much like CT where PCs generally had around
8-12 skill levels (except each skill level was worth twice as much).  If
the PC has any skills at expert levels (9+) they are likely to have almost
no other useful skills. 

The one thing I *really* liked about T4 was the fact that PC's finally
received a reasonable number of skills.  24 skill levels under the old CT
skill values (level 3 = professional) allows a character to have 3 skills
at professional level (level 3) one skill at expert (level 4-5) say 7
skills at level 1-2 (beginner, mildly trained).  This does not make for
any overpowered character, this makes for an interesting, competent PC.
Taking those same number of skill levels and cutting their value in half
does nothing except render characters semi-competent at best. 

If you want to play an adventurous Archeologist (ala Indiana Jones) You
could have Archeology 9, Linguistics 3 and Research 3 (likely the absolute
*bare* minimums for any practicing Archeologist), Grav Vehicle 3
(moderate, unexceptional driver) Gun Combat 3, and one other skill at 3. 
This isn't a hero, this is a barely component individual who is a fine
archeologist, and is entirely unexceptional at *everything* else. 

The new skills guidelines sound like a great way to roll up Bob the
accountant, and Martha the local cope, but leave a lot to be desired if
you want to play James Bond, or anyone else who is even slightly heroic. 

Comments?


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com     

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:04:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: ROM Tech Levels

Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net> wrote: 

>> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net
>> This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
>> about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
>> 14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.
>> I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
>> Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: 
>> Earth or anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of 
>> Traveller material.

> Doug, Rats and Cats page 6, bottom of the second column, Bold Type, 
> Technology Related

That page lists Terra as a TL 15/16 world.  *However*, that page is a
write-up of Terra in *1121*.  This in no way proves that Terra had
anything comparable to this TL during the ROM.  In fact, it rather argues
against it, since if Terra had a TL of 16 during the Rule of Man and (as
our data seems to indicate) it was not invaded, bombed, or otherwise
greatly messed up during the Long Night, then it should have been able to
recover its alleged TL 15/16 tech much easier, and would likely be at TL
17 or 18 by 1121. 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com  

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:35:22 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man TL *WAY* overrated

Leroy William Lu Guatney

>Yeah, but the achievements (in MT's own definitions) strongly suggest
>that Terra was a High Common of 16.  I can see this remaining until
>the 3I takes care of the rim in prosecuting the Rim War, explaining
>why Terra, after all of that, is TL15.
>
>So as a recap:
>
>  Terran Robotics (AI)        16+
>  Terran Jump                 12+
>  Terran Env. Sci.            17+ (19)
>  Terran Bio. Sci.            ?   (no good comparison except for Ancients)

Your TL stats are *way* overrated.

The suggestions you're making would have resulted in ridiculous advantages
for the Terrans. *No one* had reached TL 16 in any given field by the time
of the RoM.

Your statistics would cause ridiculous distortions in canonical Traveller
history.

The statement that we think of TL in terms of jump drive only carries so
far. Jump capability is part of the equation and different groups have some
variance in the levels of technology they have achieved over various
fields, but 4-5 levels higher than their jump capability?!

Preposterous. A munchkin's wet dream.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 08:54:51 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.

Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
Regency Sourcebook?

Thanks.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:11:22 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: RoM TL

Douglas E. Berry wrote:

>Leroy-
>
>Please either quote your material directly giving the RoM very high tech
>levels, or please give it a rest.
>
>This is not how the TML works.  We don't play "I know something you don't
>know", and belittle anyone who asks where we are getting out informaton.
>We state our sources, lay out our arguements, and *discuss* these things
>like adults.
>
>This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
>about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
>14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.
>I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
>Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: Earth or
>anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of Traveller material.
>
>So until proven otherwise, by your presenting evidense to support these
>theories of yours, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider them without
>merit.
>
>(BTW:  Terra was at TL 13 when invaded by the Imperium at the end of the
>Solomani Rim War, it only reached TL 15 under the Imperial Miltary
>Government [sources: Azhanti High Lightning (game), Invasion: Earth (game)])

Exactly.

I hate to waste bandwidth with a "me too" message, but I'm so annoyed by
Leroy's ridiculous assertions that the Terrans had TLs of 16-17 (in limited
fields or not) that I *have* to voice my agreement with Douglas.

Leroy, back it up. The simple fact of the matter is that you can't because
everything you've written on this subject flies in the face of what has
been written in the past in Traveller publications. Only with the most
outlandish rationalizations can you possibly assert that the Terrans had
this kind of technology.

You throw the entire balance of power into chaos if you put this into your
campaign.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:07:41 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

Chris Griffen wrote:
> 
> Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
> preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
> 
> Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
> I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
> where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
> Regency Sourcebook?

iirc, Iolanthe is Strephon's wife.

If you have access to MT Imperial Encyclopedia (i think) there's an
Imperial Family tree showing the relationships and family members.

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:04:35 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Twilights Peak

Why was the Octagon on fulacin built right on top of an ancient site?

I really hate to say this.. but the Templar Castle in Jerusalem was an
octagon also...

It was all a Templar plot.  No, I never give up. :)
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 19:49:11 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Task system defnition error

Carlos responded:

>>IMO the above task should be
>>
>>(Education+Survey)+DMs > Difficult (2.5D)
>
>        Totally agreed by the mathematical community of the TML ;-) Please
>re-state it in T4.1... Besides, if rolling exactly the target number is
>succes, the sign would have to be >=, or "greater or equal" if it can be
>typed.

I assumed that the lost '=' was a result of worries over ASCII
versions.... ;-)
It's just been one of those little irritations...



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:29:37 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:

http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm

He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
providing any support, and the software comes as is.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:01:59 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1504

At 11:37 PM 6/29/97 -0700, Ian Whitchurch wrote:

>I *think* AI's would be granted the same legal status as any other sentient
>in the 3I, so their slavery would be illegal. So why pay gigacredits to
>develop an AI if you have to pay the damn thing a salary just when it
>gets smart enough to be useful ?

Cleon declared that any "sentient lifeform" was a citizen of the 3I.  He
specifically pointed out that since computers aren't alive, this leaves AIs
right out.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:23:20 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

At 08:54 AM 6/30/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
>preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
>
>Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
>I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
>where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
>Regency Sourcebook?

Strephon's wife.  She gets a pretty good write in TD #9, and is present
along with the Grand Princess when Dulinor opens fire.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:57:37 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: ROM Tech Levels

At 05:09 AM 1/1/97 -0800, you wrote:

>Doug, Rats and Cats page 6, bottom of the second column, Bold Type, 
>Technology Related

That's for Earth in the MT Era.  The date of preperation is 009-1121,
almost 2900 years after the RoM.  Also note that in the same book, pg. 41
under World Generation it states that the absolute max for Solomani TL is
15.  Hardly the kind of restriction a people who once rivaled the Ancients
would have..

MT Referee's companion, pg 35:

"In -2389, the Terran Confederation Navy commissioned a line of
mass-produced tech level 12 robots as support staff for military personnel.
 These were not warbots as we know them today.  A few of the robots were
expert medical robots or served as administrative support, but most were
heavy duty, hard working construction robots, used to build temporary
installations for advanced bases."

We can see here that the Terrans are using TL12 robots as first line
military support soon after the start of the First Interstellar War
(-2408).  This speaks highly for an experimental TL of 12 during this period.

Ibid, pg 34: "-2210 Terrans discover Jump3"

So by -2210, the Terran Confederation is solidly TL12.  It takes the Third
Imperium 450 years to go from TL12 to TL13 (-150 to 300).  Assuming it
would take the Solomani as long, we should see TL13 coming to be common
around -1760.

Oops.

By that point, the Ramshackle Empire was faling apart at the seams.  If the
collapse into Twilight was like any other interstellar conflict we have
seen, the high TL worlds would take it on the chin.

I can accept that one or two worlds might have reached experimental levels
of TL14 before the Long Night.  But not enough to justify more than the
very rare artifact in M:0 days.

There is my evidence for a RoM tech level of 12 edging into 13.  If anyone
has any contrary evidence, please quote it by book and page.  Condescending
comments will be forwarded to dev/null.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1506
***********************************

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Traveller-digest       Monday, June 30 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1507



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Sector Info Requested
Re: TRTOOLS requests
Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: Generic task description.......
Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: How many skills?
Re: Space Combat Probabilities
Re: Reading Data!
Re: How many skills?
Computer Compatability
Sell/Trade Items
Deep Space Mine(s!)
Re: Experience
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info
Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)
Re: Planet3 software
RE:The Char Gen & Task System We Use

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:38:25 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Sector Info Requested

I am trying to find any infomation of the following Sectors, What I am
interested in is UWP's, subsector names, Stellar info, and colonization
history. I have not been able to find much searching the "net'.

Far Frontiers
Foreven
Fulani
Astron

Thanks

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:40:35 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: TRTOOLS requests

At 04:19 PM 6/29/97 +0800, you wrote:
>To all those who responded to my TRTOOLS post...sorry 'bout the
>delay in getting back, but shift work disarupts the most carefully planned 
>schedules.
>
>I'm working through the backlog now...
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)
Michael,

I would like a copy of TRTools,
I can deal the MIME attachements.

Thanks

Sinbad@dfw.net
- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:41:16 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

- -> > Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
- -> > preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
- -> > 
- -> > Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
- -> > I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
- -> > where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
- -> > Regency Sourcebook?
Iolanthe, beloved wife of Emperor Strephon, until brutally 
slaughtered by the villaineous Dulinor. May his remains never find 
peace (in pieces)!
  


Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:02:00 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Generic task description.......

Hi,

> The only real disadvantage is that the description is a little vague when it
> comes to rules, because it is generic. To get round this the new rulebook
> could
> contain a 1 side "Guide to tasks" including how to interpret a generic task
> description. A nice touch would be "permission of photocopy for personal use"
> in small print at the bottom of the page :)

Perhaps also detailing *why* there is a generic task description (ie.
that many Traveller players favour the different task systems shown in
the various editions of the Traveller game). This would let newbies know
that there are many different systems for Traveller, perhaps say that
they will be shown in JTAS articles.

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 14:51:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: MarkPeace@aol.com
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

In a message dated 30/06/97  18:41:33, you write:

> Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
>  preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
>  
>  Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
>  I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
>  where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
>  Regency Sourcebook?
>  

Quoting from MT Imperial Encyclopedia:

Iolanthe (1052 to 1079): Empress of the Imperium.  Iolanthe, the daughter of
the senior duke of Gushemege sector, and member of a prominent Vilani noble
family, married Strephon in 1079.  Her primary avocation is the preservation
of developing cultures within the Imperium.  She was murdered, along with her
husband the emperor and her daughter the grand princess, in Dulinor's
assassination attack of 1116.

(Mis-print for the date range?? - I guess it should be 1052-1116.)

Mark Peace

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:50:24 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

Hrmm, not being at home, and away from my sources, I believe that Iolanthe
was Strephon's wife (per Survival Margin).

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


On Mon, 30 Jun 1997, Chris Griffen wrote:

> Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
> preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
> 
> Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
> I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
> where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
> Regency Sourcebook?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Chris Griffen
> 
> ===================================================
> Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.
> 
> http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
> Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
> NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com
> 
> 
> 

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 97 14:11:42 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: How many skills?

On 06/30/97 at 07:41 AM,  "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com> said:

>CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

>> My guess is a non-educated 34-year-old will have (34-18)*1.25=20 
>> skill levels plus homeworld skills. 

Hum, that's a little lower than I'd like, but it's easily modified by
anyone that wants to boost the skills a little.  Instead of 1/year +
1/term, use 1/year + more/term, where more can be as "heroic" a number as
the sort of campaign you want to play.

><snip>

>> Of course, we're just guessing here, but in any event I don't think we'll
>> see very many double digit skills. They will be rare, specialist 
>> skills, I think. However, I do think the average is heading up to the 4 
>> or 5 level.  

>> Double digit skills are possible, but at the risk of not knowing how to 
>> drive a car, or being real old. If Skill-9 is the equivalent of a Ph.D, 
>> and that takes 7.2 years to get to, I don't expect to see a lot of
>> Skill-10+'s.

>OK, so a starting PC who is 34 years old will have around 22-24 points in
>skills, and one 38 (5 terms) will have 27-29 points in skills.  

John, I *hope* the PC will get more than 2 to 4 homeworld/background
skills.  I'm still thinking that ought to be 8 to 10.  If it comes in much
lower than that, I'll seriously consider boosting it in my games. 

<snip>

>The one thing I *really* liked about T4 was the fact that PC's finally
>received a reasonable number of skills.  

Same here.  I like PCs to have more skills, and with the Task System I'm
useing they need higher levels too.

>Taking those same number of skill levels and cutting their value in half
>does nothing except render characters semi-competent at best. 

I don't think it's *quite* that bad...remember Marc hasn't told us if (or
how) he's changing the Task System yet.  I'm sure he's playtesting all the
parts to make certain they work together and produce competent PCs.

>The new skills guidelines sound like a great way to roll up Bob the
>accountant, and Martha the local cope, but leave a lot to be desired if
>you want to play James Bond, or anyone else who is even slightly heroic. 

Although, the skill guidelines *seem* a little low to me, it's too soon to
say.  As for what kind of PCs you'll end up with, well I've always thought
that *official* Traveller rules gave you characters that could be described
as "ordinary people doing extraordinary things."  If you wanted your PCs to
be James Bond - Agent 007, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, or Captain
Wallop of the Space Patrol you alwyas had to juice up the Character
Generation system.  It looks like that's still going to be the case.  

Me, personally, I like games where the PCs are a cut (or two) above
ordinary in some fields, but ordinary in most.  What I have to do to get
that kind of PC will depend on what Marc decides to do.


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:48:53 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@Rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Space Combat Probabilities

 
> Weapons are more worrying to me becaus eall the *published* designs will end
> up using the standard range bands, so converting them to hexes will be more
> awkward, since the standard range bands are so coarse. Anyway, we'll see
> what happens...

I'm not quite as worried about coarseness in weapon ranges since I
think they'll drop off pretty fast after a fairly flat effective
range.

I'm back from CT, BTW---695 unread pieces of mail, argh.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 97 20:25 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

In-Reply-To: <199706300202.WAA18764@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

Eris,

> Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.
>  
> How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
> across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a* 
> standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?

By TL12, i think most computers can handle just about anything you can 
throw at them.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 97 20:25 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: How many skills?

In-Reply-To: <199706292234.SAA16186@Mithril.MPGN.COM>

Eris,

> Well, anyway my guess is your 34 year old will have 34 to 40 skill levels
> to distribute.  From this there might be 2 or 3 skills in the 6-8 range, 3
> or 4 in the 3-5 range, and 4 or 5 in the 1-2 range. Yes, I know you can add
> those numbers up to get *way* above 40, but I'm just guessing here. ;-> It
> could just as reasonablly be lots and lots of 1-3's and a few 4-5's, we
> don't know yet..and even when we do know we'll have to decide on whether
> generalists or specialists work better in gameplay.
>  
> And ,of course, if the PC stayed in for 8 terms (that's still reasonable)
> he/she would have around 68 to 75 skill levels to distribute. With that
> many levels I can see people having a double digit specialty skill.

I think I once managed to get ~50 skills out of High Guard (or it may have 
been Mercenary - ISTR it was more generous) for a 4-5 term character...

A quick look at the last version of 4.1 gives:

Homeworld skills: max=5
University w/OTC: 6
Army Officer 3 terms: 17

Total=4 terms, 28 skills (goes up to 34 skills after 5 terms)

I *think* this is the most you can get (BICBW).

Your hypothetical 8-termer would have 54.

This seems okay to me, but I wouldn't like to see it go up any more.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:09:26 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Computer Compatability

>Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.
>
>How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
>across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
>standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
>
>Eris

I figure the Imperium has a mandated open-sysetems-platform which is used
for all imperial government computing. Most stuff is distributed in
compileable source in one of the dozen or so languages.

Imperial Hardware must use the same basic op-codes for the CPU, with a
trade restriction for non-compliant processors: No Imperial unit may
purchase, use, or sell such non-standards. Independants can, but must
clearly label them, and they may be barred by the recieving world.

The solomani Confed I have taking a similar approach, but with different
standards, and higher standardization. They can cross-compile much with
little real work (Routine, Computer, Int). No cros-run binaries, tho.

Zhodani stuff I make as one smooth, plug-in based OS, good for laptops to
megaframes. Totally incompatable with imperial processing equipment, but
some software can be run using emulators with special and expensive
hardware and software plugs.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:09:31 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Sell/Trade Items

I am looking to trade for (in good or better shape):
        MTJ 2 (Mega Traveller Journal Issue 2)
        Dbl Adv 4 (GDW, CT)
        Adv 2,4,7,11,12 (GDW, CT)
        Alien Module 8: Darrians (GDW, CT)
        Dark Nebula boardgame (Everything there is a must; played is fine)
        5th Frontier War Boardgame (Ditto)
        The Adjutant #'s: 2, 7, 8, 11+

I am willing to Sell or trade any of the Following (Prices negotiable)
        MTJ 3, Very good
        Challenge 32 Good
        Imperial Encyclopedia (MT), Cover damage, highlighted
        101 vehicles (MT), Fine condition (has owner name blacked out)
        CT supp 12:Forms & Charts, Good condition (Cover Scuff, 2 pp have minor
                ink speckles)
        CT Supp 11: Library Data N-Z, Good, Highlighting.
        Ascent to Anekthor (CT, Gamelords) Fine. For use with Mountain Env.
        MT Rebellion SourceBook (GDW), Fine Cond
        MT COACC (GDW) Fine Cond

Sell:
        One boxed set MT, Like NEW CONDITION, in box, with map and errata, and
            response card! (Minimum $35). Only the Shrink Wrap is missing.
        CT Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium (min $10). New condition.

Contact me via Private E-mail ONLY on these items

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:12:35
From: Paolo Marino <marino@inrete.it>
Subject: Deep Space Mine(s!)

I'm currently playing a quasi-CT campaign in a homebrew sector located
"somewhere near the Spinward Marches". The Sector is a sort of buffer zone
between Zhodani and Imperial borders, and the two powers are currently
trying to regain influence on the sector's worlds, mostly by covert
actions and political or economical support to local factions (a lot like
USSR and USA efforts in third world countries during the seventies).
Most of the local planets were originally controlled by the Imperium, but
became indipendent after the third frontier war (current year should be
around 1073).

Anyway, here is the question.

So far the PCs didn't have access to a ship, and their adventures were
always located on some planet's surface. Now I'd like to change that: one
of their next adventures will be a mines-clearing job.
I know that mines in deep space don't do a lot of sense: I was thinking of
a mined asteroid belt. I.e, mines (or perhaps missile racks) built just under
the asteroids surface, which will release payload when a ship comes near
enough to the battery.

This would allow for placing some interesting surprises beyond the mine
fields: a small belters group which remained insulated after the war,
and/or an hidden space pirates base.
As I said, the sector is mostly free from direct Imperial control, so
Space Pirates may exist in the area, and they could have access to an
hidden cache of weapons/stuff which Navy thought to be lost during the
war.

Here is a list of ideas I'd like to see discussed/dissected/flamed over by
the TMLers:

Mapping:   How would you map a group of asteroids to allow for continued
           campaigning inside? The obvious choice is no map, and just
           detailing some of the more interesting rocks. Any other option?
           Also, not being an expert on Astonomy/Astrophysics, would someone
           please give me more details on "realistic" asteroid belts... all
           I know about asteroids comes from the _Empire Strikes Back!_
scenes.
           The most important question would probably be "how near is
near?" i.e., in
           an asteroid group, which will be the typical distance among the
asteroids?
Mechanics: I would like to use the Roleplaying System for ship actions.
           Any other stuff you would care to suggest?
PCs:       I'll probably have a couple new players for this.
           Suggestions on career/specific skills choice/party composition?
The Mines: Which kind of devices would you use to defend an asteroid belt?
           How would they work? How can they be disabled? Consider that
           they should still work (at least some of them) after decades.
Economics: How many ships besides the PC's Scout? How much should the Patron
           (probably a Megacorporation) offer for the job?	
Equipment: Any special stuff for this mission? Would Air Rafts work in this
           environment? (i.e. can you use the air-raft to move from the
           ship to the asteroids and vice-versa or would you need another
           type of vehicle?)
Other
references: Any other source on this? Novels, movies, old adventures,
            other games (i.e.  Star Wars RPG)...


Thanks for your input. As usual, I'll be a little slow to answer mostly
because I prefer the digest.



__  Paolo Marino  __          |Inrete Games Page: www.inrete.it/games/gms.html
 mc4799@mclink.it (Preferred)  | marino@inrete.it (Best for MIME/BinHex)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:23:41 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Experience

At 11:54 PM 6/29/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I was talking to Kenneth Bearden last week and we touched on Experience.
>
>Experince: Receive 1 skill (or level) every year on your birthday (it has to
>happen sometime; maybe use New year's Eve?).

Good.

<sum up skills most used in session>

Good plan.  I am using something similar, and it has worked out ok.  What I
do is, at the end of the session, allow the character to pick from the top
3 or so, and say that those were the skills that were most used.  At the
end of a three month period, they get a third of a level in skill they used
the most overall.  Particularly stressful or important experiences get them
a number of "most used" points - the skill-0 engineer who helped reboot the
jump drive got a dozen sessions equivalent, so it is pretty likely that
they will get a third of an engineering skill level in a few weeks.

I handle training in much the same way - if the character is training in a
skill, they can get level zeros pretty easily, and can push a skill that
would otherwise not have been the most used one up.

I have occasionally allowed particularly stressful experiences to produce
six such third point adds in a year, but this is not a happy person who is
living through it.

>What about +1 more level every 4 years?

I do 5 and a third every four years, and it works pretty well.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:51:35 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:25:17 -0700, bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)

>This isn't completely true. There are some flaws and contraditctions in the
>GURPS point system.

OK, I most definately didn't want to start a round of GURPS bashing
followed by defensive replies.  I'll answer some of this once and
leave it at that I think I'm not trying to tell everyone to switch
to it, but I do think it's a fine system.

>First, attributes always cost the same (strength costs the same as IQ),
>regardless of how useful they are in a particular milleu; ST is more
>valuable than IQ in a non-magic low-tech world, IQ more valuable in a
>high-tech,
>but both cost the same.

This isn't a big deal.  I run both Fantasy and SF games and
sure, players may push a few steps higher in one than the
other.  Big deal.  If it really bothers you, you can always
just institute an Unusual Background advantage or disad?

>Second, GURPS rates the cost of skills based on how *difficult* they are to
>learn, not how useful they are in a game setting - learning Physics costs
>many more points than combat skills. Contradictorily, it rates
>advantages/disadvantages based on how useful they are, not how rare; the
>result
>is that you get lots of characters with (say) Eidetic Memory - because it's
>priced to be cost-effective - compared to real life.

Um, things you are born with can't be more or less difficult.
(You just have them) and are limited in a way skills are
(they are impossible or difficult to get after character
creation).  Also, advantages are cost to be balanced.  (I
don't know what you mean by "cost-effective" or how point
costs can be compared to real life).

_______________________________________________________________
DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:37:42 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

Volker A. Greimann <GREI5001@uni-trier.de> writes
>Thanks for replying so quickly, you're a great help!

You're welcome. 8-)

>-> I don't have TD8 but I have TD10.  Yes, it includes data on Core:
>-> 
>-> 1. World map of Capital.
>Hmmm, any chance to get a scan of that per e-mail? Would be a great 
>addition to TD9.

I agree it was more suited to TD9 - there's almost nothing else 
about Capital in TD10.

What's the copyright position on this?  I'm perfectly happy to do 
it, but I don't want to step on anybody's toes, particularly now 
Roger Sanger has a chance to revive DGP's legacy.  I want an 
opportunity to get some of the DGP books I missed, like Rats & 
Cats / Flaming Eye, and would hate to do anything to lessen the 
chances of that happening.

Hoping I don't sound too paranoid,
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:57:50 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:47:32 +2, "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
>	Jump fuel then. I had hard time imagining how damn fast fusion
>reactor - no matter ho high-yield - it takes to consume five times
>its volume in LHyd per jump. I reasoned 99.something% of Jump fueld
>LHyd is coolant - cheap, expendable and all that.

The problem is the heat lost in vaporizing LHyd is not that great.
If you were going to carry around coolant I would pick water first.

>	The rest of the fuel is reaction mass, then. The way I look at it,
>fuel processing plants do not need to refine all of the fuel into
>fusionable material. They just remove the excess methane, ammonia,
>nitrogen, water vapor, Jgd-I-Jgd pieces etc.

If you have reaction mass, aren't you taling Heplar?

I always figured that what happened is that when you jumped
you needed a lot energy in a short period of time.  For
that reason Jump drives have their own reactors that are
capable of creating huge throughputs at low effeciency
(thus the reason you need all that hydrogen is inefficiency
and that you need a lot of energy to get into jump space).

_______________________________________________________________
DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 00:12:31 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

On 30 Jun 97 at 9:29, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
> 
> http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
> 
> He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses. He
> isn't providing any support, and the software comes as is.

	Argh! I dashed straight into downloading Navigator software after
reading Douglas' post. Alas...

- ----------------------------------
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL:
ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/jdavies/reft.exe 

The following FTP error was encountered: 
     pub/jdavies/reft.exe: No such file or directory. 

This means that: 
    The given URL does not exist, or is not readable.

Generated Monday, 30-Jun-97 21:09:33 GMT, by
squid-ftpget/1.1.11@www-cache.utu.fi 
- -----------------------------------

	Do others get this (or similar) error too? This occurred with 
every link on that page...


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 22:10:17 +0100
From: Simon Turner <madgamer@mistral.co.uk>
Subject: RE:The Char Gen & Task System We Use

 On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 "John R. Snead" wrote:

<SNIP>
>Personally I've never seen the appeal of rolled stats or (especially)
>rolled skills.  Randomly generated PCs are little fun to any of the folks
>in my group. 
>
>Comments?
>
>So, what do you use?

<SATIRE MODE ON AGAIN>
From the people that brought you QUASTSYS (QUick And Stupid Task SYStem)
Errata out soon!

The Secret Techniques of Character Creation

1. Create the character you as a GM want the player to be the night before
the game. Use a system which gives them all the skills you as a GM need to
get through the more contrived parts of the coming adventure!

2. Ask the player what they want to be. Spend ages discussing the pros and
cons of the character they have chosen... slowly steering them towards the
*character you want them to be*.

3. At a convenient point where the player thinks they have decided to be
*the character you want them to be*. Observe the clock and say 'Is that the
time.. We had better begin the game, what? your character .. What luck heres
one I prepared earlier'

The next 500 pages describe the subtle methods used in phase 2. to sow seeds
of doubt in a players mind, many of these techniques have come from
classified brain washing manuals...<SNIP>

<SATIRE MODE OFF>

Not that us Gamemasters ever do this ;)

 
- ----------------------------------------------------------
Simon W. Turner     madgamer@mistral.co.uk

"Do not fear going foward slowly, fear only to stand still"

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1507
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Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 1 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1508



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?
Re: Medical Cascade
Re: How many skills?
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Reading Data!
Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Reading Data!
TL of ROM
Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1506
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Reading Data!
Re: Medical Cascade
Re: Experience
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Planet3 software
Armour in CSC?
Falling damage in Traveller (T4)
3d Maximu damage?

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:58:36 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Who was Empress Iolanthe?

At 08:54 am 06/30/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Avery Aledon Alkhalikoi was said to be the offspring of Strephon and the
>preserved ova of dead Empress Iolanthe.
>
>Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so

	She was the wife of Strephon. First handy canonical reference: "Adventure
1: Kinunir"

	"Iolanthe: Empress of the Imperium. UPP 7A5BBF. Born 1058. Married
Strephon 1079. Primary interests have been in the preservation of
developing cultures within the Imperium."

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:48:38 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

At 12:48 am 06/30/97 GMT, you wrote:
>I usually prefer a system that has a few too many skills over one that
>has too few.  Here's my view of cascading  the "Carousing" skill:
>
>Carousing (cascade)
>
>  Belching The Alphabet - the skill of picking up chicks (or hunks)
>  Sitting Bare-Assed On The Photocopier - the skill of being "the life
>	of the party"
>  Driving The Porcelain Bus - the skill of finding one's house keys
>  Hangover Recovery Remedies - the skill of making the little voices
>	go away

	You can make them go away?!!?!?!?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:51:20 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: How many skills?

At 11:47 pm 06/29/97 -0400, CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
>A typical is Med School, where people get basically 2 skills per year.
>
>MEDICAL SCHOOL
>	Medical school attendance is required for an individual to become a doctor.
>Prerequisite: BA or BS.
><snip>
>
>Academic Skills	Honors Benefits
>	1	Jack of all Trades		Degree carries
>	2	Medical	the suffix Lishun
>	3	Medical	(meaning Health).
>	4	Medical	
>	5	Physical Sciences		Receive +1 Edu.
>	6	Computer	
>	Roll once per year.
>
>	Declared Major: Medical.
>	Education Increase: Edu increased to 9

	I still have a problem with fixed EDU levels. What if a character already
_has_ a high EDU? He learns nothing more than the specific skills while
he's in med school? Learning in other areas _still_ goes on.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:01:01 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

At 04:02 pm 06/29/97 -0600, you wrote:
>On Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:44:17 -0700
>Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>>
>>Leroy-
>>
>>Please either quote your material directly giving the RoM very high tech
>>levels, or please give it a rest.
>>
>>This is not how the TML works.  We don't play "I know something you don't
>>know", and belittle anyone who asks where we are getting out informaton.
>>We state our sources, lay out our arguements, and *discuss* these things
>>like adults.
>
>Like I have already said.  I _am_ busy.  I can not help the fact that I am
>(like others are) enjoying this discussion.  I haven't tried to set your
>agenda, so please don't do that for me.
>
>I may _not_ know all that much about the TML since I am new here, but I
>recognize basic freedoms:  we don't have to read what doesn't interest us,
>and we don't have to do what others tell us to do.  As long as I am not
>impuning someone's character (I have complained about characteristics of
>some, but named names, especially since I don't know many), I feel that I
>am not out of line on this list.

	PLease give us all a rest, Leroy. This "I know something you don't, but
I'm not gonna tell you, but you're wrong and I can prove it, only I don't
feel like it right now, nya nya..." is really starting to wear thin. You've
stated you've got the references, you've stated you're going to prove it
when you're ready. Fine. Meanwhile, let it lie. All we're seeing is that
you apparently can't back your assertions up.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:44:30 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

At 12:42 pm 06/29/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Sat, 28 Jun 1997 14:13:58 -0600, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>Well, you can't have it both ways.  Everything you have just said
>is a rationalization why the most talented med student might be able

	*MIGHT* is the key word. But the chance that he'll succeed is much lower.

>to do the proceedure as well as a mediocre hack.  If the just hasn't
>been taught some fundamental aspect he needs to know, then you should
>just not allow a roll.

	I didn't say "as well." I said the talented med student ought to have a
miniscule chance, while the average person (NOT a "mediocre hack") has a
higher chance of succeeding. *IF* the student succeeds, he'll have done a
good job (that's the definition of success). But odds are long against it.

>>	So now we have to add to all tasks "Only for Skill-x and above," or we
>>have to go back and pull up the descriptions for each and every skill when
>>we use it to see what levels are and aren't allowed to do. And creating new
>>tasks means the referee not only has to decide how hard it is, but what
>>level you have to have to try at all.  I'd rather have that rolled into the
>>task difficulty itself. Obviously, a Formidable task is going to require a
>>higher skill to have a chance of succeeding than a simple task.
>
>Um, this just isn't that difficult.  The problem arose that the
>Medical skill covers both prefessional and non-professional usage
>regardeless of level.  This doesn't apply to most skills.

	I'm not even addressing the professional/non-professional nature of the
skill. With ANY skill, a trained average person ought to have a better
chance at the whole range of tasks, whereas the talented newbie should only
be better at a few narrow tasks--for simplicity I'd rather skip that.

>In any case, changing the relative contributions of skills and
>stats doesn't change the fact that you are letting someone
>with Medical-1 have a chance at open heart surgery.

	No, it doesn't, and that's my point. All it does is reduce the chance of
the Med-1 succeeding, which is the whole idea. Again, anybody can try
anything. With a good reference, I can try open heart surgery. I'll wind up
charged with murder, unless a one-in-a-million miracle occurs, but I can
try. And I want my players to have those options.

	If you restrict people to only trying tasks where they have a reasonable
chance of success, you take some of the thrill out of the game.

>>	Yes, a Stat-12 Med-1 will be better at SOME things than a Stat-8 Med-4.
>>But ON THE WHOLE, the Stat-8 Med-4 will be a better doctor. It's just
>>something that comes from trying to roll a wide body of knowledge into a
>>single skill. Perhaps we should throw out medical skill entirely
>
>Well, some games have a serpate First Aid and Surgery skill.

	Again, you're focusing narrowly on the Med-n example, but this
illustration applies to ANY skill. Stat-12 Skill-1 will be better at a few
tasks than Stat-8 skill-4. But over the long run, the Stat-8 Skill-4 will
have a better chance of succeeding at the full gamut of Skill-related tasks
than Stat-12 Skill-1
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 15:20:44 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

Hrmm, I'd better be VERY careful about what ideas I give you, Eris ;-)

But, as a datahead, I can't help myself...

The answer to this question is that, very likely, the future will look
somewhat like today; (I just hope that it doesn't turn out to be Microsoft
Imperium ;-) there will be a welter of file formats, more or less
interchangeable with each other. There are ample references to 'Standard
Imperial Data Package' stuff in canon to make me think there are commonly
used data formats, which make access and utilization relatively
transparent.

Once you go beyond the Imperium, I suspect that situation will change
somewhat, but not all that much, and 'lowest common denominator' formats
will be readily shareable by all. By the time of the TL-12 Imperium,
'lowest common denominator' just MAY have moved beyond ASCII ;-)

When you get into other empires, you could well run into alternate
computing paradigms, making interfacing quite complicated. But, this is
one of the roles of the Scout Service and the Imperial Diplomatic Corps,
since formal relations with the Imperium will have to involve some large
data transfers, as will conducting business with the Imperium. 

Imperially mandated 'Standard Data Formats' to do business with the
Imperial Government will go a long way to standardizing things.

But, all of this is akin to the idle speculations of a couple of guys
sitting in ancient Babylonia, staring at some drying clay tablets, and
wondering how the people in the far future may manage to read each others
clay tablets.

My guess is that simply saying 'yes it works' will do.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> On 06/29/97 at 08:43 PM,  Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior) said:
> 
> >What about translating it to RTF?  Then _any_ version of MS Word (and most
> >versions of Claris Works and WordPerfect) can read it.  (Seeing as
> >MicroBloat Word 4.0 is the only version I have anough memory to run...)
> 
> That *is* a good idea. RTF was supposed to be a cross platform standard,
> after all.  
> 
> Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.
> 
> How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
> across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
> standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
> 
> Eris
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:14:29 GMT
From: neil@westmore.demon.co.uk (Neil McGurk)
Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

In message <l03020901afdd4c9d96c9@[198.168.183.64]> Roderick Darroch Elliott writes:
>       As a real-world aside, so did the traditional hereditary mortal
> enemies of the Scots, the Scots, as well as the *other* traditional
> hereditary mortal enemies of the Scots, the British.  After the Brits
> finally managed to conquer Scotland in the mid-18th century 

British includes Irish AKAIR and the Irish had no problem conquering
the far north of the British Isles. 

The Scots where an Irish tribe who came, saw and stayed.
Not often that I care to admit to this side of my background.
That is being half Irish, not an invader of Scotland.

British does include Scotish as well.

All in jest.

Sorry this is nothing to do with Travller.
- -- 
Neil McGurk  English 
     MagOrk  Gaelic
Syr Wyllym Gascoyns folloshyp of 
Syr Henry Percy Earl of Northumberlans array.

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:32:08 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

>How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
>across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
>standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
>
>Eris

In M1100, I assume that everyone uses the Imperial Data Package (IDP)
standards, both in the Imperium and around the borders. As my campaiagns
haven't gone that far beyond the borders, it hasn't been an issue. I assume
that the Aslan etc have different protocols (even at clan level).

In M0, it bears some thinking about - isn't there a comment in the M0 book
that talks about the Imperium imposing standards on worlds? Maybe they make
high technology or obsolete Imperial standard equipment available at a low
cost to make the new/potential Imperium members hook into the empire's
standards, and thus impart a degree of economic dependence.

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:43:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: TL of ROM

      In the Traveller's Digest #17, Joe states that the Rule of man reached
TL13 before the collapse (I found that reference while putting together an
article index for my web page. It's in the Q&A section where a GM asks why
the TL isn't more uniform in the Imperium, where the Vilani get blamed).
      Insofar as for word from Marc, well Greg did say that when he asked
Marc, Marc told him TL15 (at least that's what it said in either one of the
old email digests or on the beta list).

Bryan Borich

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 17:09:30 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

At 09:37 PM 6/30/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Volker A. Greimann <GREI5001@uni-trier.de> writes
>>Thanks for replying so quickly, you're a great help!
>
>You're welcome. 8-)
>
>>-> I don't have TD8 but I have TD10.  Yes, it includes data on Core:
>>-> 
>>-> 1. World map of Capital.
>>Hmmm, any chance to get a scan of that per e-mail? Would be a great 
>>addition to TD9.
>
>I agree it was more suited to TD9 - there's almost nothing else 
>about Capital in TD10.
>
>What's the copyright position on this?  I'm perfectly happy to do 
>it, but I don't want to step on anybody's toes, particularly now 
>Roger Sanger has a chance to revive DGP's legacy.  I want an 
>opportunity to get some of the DGP books I missed, like Rats & 
>Cats / Flaming Eye, and would hate to do anything to lessen the 
>chances of that happening.

A not unreasonable idea.

I would be very, very happy to get any of the old issues of TD/MJ that Mr.
Sanger feels like rereleasing.  I suspect that he could make a quite nice
product with minimal effort (assuming he has the source files) by stripping
out all but the data, the maps, and the (non topical) articles.  For
example, it would be worth a reasonable amount to just get the entire stack
of articles on the Grand Tour printed up in a thick stack, sans ads, and so
on.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:04:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dave Biggs <dbiggs@magicnet.net>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 09:29 AM 6/30/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
>
>http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
>
>He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
>providing any support, and the software comes as is.

This sight was unavailable when I tried.  Is there another sight I can goto
for the software?

Dave Biggs
dbiggs@magicnet.net
"Sauron" on FIBS, NOBS, GG, and IBS

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 20:13:08 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1506

John R. Snead wrote:
<snip>
> The new skills guidelines sound like a great way to roll up Bob the
> accountant, and Martha the local cope, but leave a lot to be desired if
> you want to play James Bond, or anyone else who is even slightly heroic.
> 
> Comments?

You could always just tell your players to double the number of skills
called for under the normal chargen rules and sit back with a smile at
the cheers.

Then see if anyone stops cheering and starts wondering why you're being
so generous...

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:19:38 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 07:24 PM 6/30/97 EST, Doug wrote:
>Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
>
>http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
>
>He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
>providing any support, and the software comes as is.
>--

I just tried to download Deneb, Spinward Marches, and Reft, but Netscape
could find none of the .exe files on that host.  Has anybody else
successfully downloaded the files in the last few days?

Tx!

- -Bill

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 01:35:16 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

At 10:50 PM 6/29/97 +0000, Eris wrote:
><snip>

>
>Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.
>
>How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
>across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
>standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
>
>Eris
>-- 
>

Or would the Imperium's economic impact reach far enough that everyone
around would follow suit?  IIRC, one of the reasons that Virus spread so far
and so fast, into Solomani, Aslan, K'Kree & Hiver space was that all
interstellar shipping used Imperial transponder suites, so Virus had a home
already in place on every ship around. 

An 11,000 world economic engine will have a wider impact that any military
force.

Garry

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 01:43:06 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

At 03:12 AM 6/30/97 +0000, Doug wrote:
>At 03:09 AM 6/29/97 GMT, Stephen wrote:
>
>>    Nursing - the skill of caring for a patient
>
>Nurses would, in my opinion, have levels in Psychcology, Medical (Trauma),
>Admin, and Liason.
>
>--
>+------------------------------------------------+
>|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
>| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
>|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
>|************************************************|
>|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
>|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
>|    the Imperium)...                            |
>|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
>+------------------------------------------------+
>

Nursing should be the top of a cascade of skills, just as Doctor should be,
neither is a 'one skill covers all situations'. Being a medic is not the
same as being a doctor or a nurse by a long, long, long shot.

Perhaps the whole problem with the task system is that the skills are not
sufficiently granularized to make proper application of attributes and skill
scores meaningful, as the last few exchanges about doctors, nurses & Medical
skill would imply.

Garry

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 01:13:56 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Experience

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:54:18 -0400 (EDT), CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> I was talking to Kenneth Bearden last week and we touched on Experience.
> 
> Experince: Receive 1 skill (or level) every year on your birthday (it has to
> happen sometime; maybe use New year's Eve?). In each session, the game master
> (at session end) notes what one skill was most used, learned, notable, etc,
> and awards 1 ":point" in that skill. On your birthday, total up all session
> points (if you had 10 sessions, you had 10 points (unless you were in Cold
> Sleep all evening or something); if you had 30 sessions, you had 30 points.
> On your birthday, you get one skill level increase in the skill you most used
> in the previous year.
> 
> Note: this makes it possible to pick up real levels in default skills, or in
> currently held skills. Non-default skills are harder to learn (you pobably
> have to go back to school to get started in them).
> 
> This approach takes care of those who play fast (many sessions) or slowly
> (few sessions) per character year. It also reflects the same eligibility that
> is experienced in CharGen.

I like this!  It goes a long way as to describe exactly *what* one
level in a skill really is (if it takes you one full year to gain one
level).

If you are planning to increase skill maximums above 6, though, you
might have to award two such skill levels per birthday or New Years.
This is because a single skill level would no longer be as valuable if
the ceiling on skills is raised above 6.

> What about +1 more level every 4 years?

I'd say yes.  Traveller has always awarded very few skill increases
compared to other game systems and my players sometimes complain about
how slow it takes to improve skills :)

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:10:28 -0800
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

>
>	Argh! I dashed straight into downloading Navigator software after
>reading Douglas' post. Alas...
>
>	Do others get this (or similar) error too? This occurred with
>every link on that page...

Try http://www.davtechsys.com/traveller.html I just did a little logical
searching and came up with that URL.  The old one is still there for some
reason, but it points to an invalid ftp account.  This one points to their
on FTP server.

I get a communications exception when I try to download any of the files,
but that might be because I'm trying from a Macintosh.

Glad to hear it's been turned into freeware so it doesn't pass into total
obscurity.  Now if someone could just tell me where I can get the old Apple
II software, now that I finally have an Apple II :^)

			Zane


| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh@ix.netcom.com (primary)  | Linux Enthusiast          |
| healyzh@holonet.net (alternate)  | Mac Programmer            |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne, and Traveller Role Playing   |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/                      |

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:32:22 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 00:12 01/07/97 +2, RFXn wrote:
>
>On 30 Jun 97 at 9:29, Douglas E. Berry wrote:
>
>> Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
>> 
>> http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
>> 
>> He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses. He
>> isn't providing any support, and the software comes as is.
>
>	Argh! I dashed straight into downloading Navigator software after
>reading Douglas' post. Alas...
>
>----------------------------------
>ERROR
>The requested URL could not be retrieved
>
>While trying to retrieve the URL:
>ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/jdavies/reft.exe 
>
>The following FTP error was encountered: 
>     pub/jdavies/reft.exe: No such file or directory. 
>
>This means that: 
>    The given URL does not exist, or is not readable.
>
>Generated Monday, 30-Jun-97 21:09:33 GMT, by
>squid-ftpget/1.1.11@www-cache.utu.fi 
>-----------------------------------
>
>	Do others get this (or similar) error too? This occurred with 
>every link on that page...
>
>
>
I got the same message also.  Interesting.  Does anyone know the person who
maintains that site?

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:49:05 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Armour in CSC?

Hi,

Quick question, does the Central Supply Catalog have new armours in it? 
I found the list in the main T4 rulebook lacking, and there's none in
Emperor's Arsenal to be found.

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:50:24 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Falling damage in Traveller (T4)

Hi,

In a recent adventure, I had s situation arise where a PC climbing down
a rope from a guard tower fell off, and I was left to draw a blank where
his damage was concerned.  A quick peak at the T4 rulebook didn't help
as I couldn't find any references to falling damage.  If I missed it, or
someone has a house rule that makes sense, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:48:12 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: 3d Maximu damage?

Hi,

Recently, in the first Traveler adventure I've referred with the use of
Emperor's Arsenal something came up of interest.  Many o the weapons in
Emperos' Arsenal have damage ratings above 3D, and therefore, their
extra damage is wasted.  I'm not quite sure on the point of having the
damage rating of, say a acr-12 be 5 or Gauss Sniper Rifle-12 be 8 when
this damage can only be applied up to a 3D maximum.

In the instance of more than 3 dice of damage, is the total roll made,
with the best results being kept?  

I was quite perplexed by this, and my players were as well, so any help
would be appreciated.

Thanks very much,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1508
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Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 1 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1509



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Called shots in T4
Learning new skills in T4
Cap on JOT
Re: Twilights Peak
Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)
Traveller Navigator URL
Don't Work
Re: 3d Maximu damage?
Rom
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: Where will M0 end?
Re: Medical Cascade
Re: Computer Compatability
Re: 3d Maximu damage?
Real Relativistic Railguns
Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)
Muzzle velocity
Re: Real Relativistic Railguns
Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info
Planet3 Software

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:53:29 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Called shots in T4

Hi,

Yet anothert question.  In the main T4 rulebook, on  page 58, it states
the following about called shots:

"Called Shots:  Characters may make nearly any sort of attack as a
called shot, targetting a specific body location, or attempting to
increase or decrease damage, or attempting to hit an unarmoured
location."

The following entries tell of modifiers for trying to produce minimum,
maximum, triple, etc. damage, as well as disarmament, but nothing gives
a modifier for the attempt to tagret a specific location on a person's
body.

If this was errata not included in T4, or just not included altogether,
I'd love to hear someone's house rule to cover it.

BTW, just as a related question, where can I find the latest version of
T4 errata?

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 00:06:27 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Learning new skills in T4

Hi,

I noticed that while looking through the T4 experience chapter it
mentions the learning of new skills, as split into "two categories:
zero-level skills and professional skills".

Exactly what is the definition of a professional skill?  I guess I may
have missed it, but does this apply (I believe) to scientific, and other
skilled 'skills' such as engineering, etc.  

And, as for the zero-level skill, does this mena the ability to learn
any skill at zero-level or just non-professional ones?

If I've missed something, could someone please point out a page
reference in the T4 rulebook for me?  Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 00:03:07 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Cap on JOT

Hi,

While writing up a quick adventure for my players, I had them make up
their characters, informing them that they didn't have to roll random
skills, but instead could pick and choose as they wished.  basically, I
hoped that they would pick out skills they had seen necessary in
previous adventures to provide a well-rounded character.

Unfortunately, when we came to play I didn't have time to review their
characters before play (I know, bad reffing, but we were running short
of time, and one of my players was only here for the weekend), and when
a situation came up requiring the mechanics skills, something no one
had, one of my players asked if they could use JOT.

My first reaction was that you couldn't use JOT to repair a damaged
sensor system, as that was quite a specialized job, but I decided to
show some leeway, and allow the player a roll.  Realizing that we hadn't
played all too much, I went through the procedure for JOT, asking what
his skill level was, plus half the applicable attribute to get a target
number.

What I found out was that this player had put many skill levels into JOT
during chargen, and had come out with a skill level of SIX!  Jack of all
Trades at SIX!  Not wanting to slow down game play, and make him make
mid-game changes to his character, we went along through the game, and
it became clear that this player was quitw a powerhouse.  With an
average stat of as low as seven (his are higher than that due to some
lucky rolls) it still makes his average TN with JOT a whopping 10 (9.5
rounded up) meaning that he'll suceed using his JOT roll on most avergae
and even some formidable rolls!

I decided immediately after to place a cap of JOT-3 in my campaigns,. as
well as limit the extents of what players can use the skill for to
non-professional skilsl only.  This downplays it being able to become a
powerhouse munchkin skill.

Comments?
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 00:39:39 -0400
From: Tom Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Twilights Peak

First, I want to say thanks to those of you who have responded to my
Twilights Peak question.  Thanks to Robert (Flammang) for the "why
things are the way they are" post and to Anders (Blackman) for his
inspiring "why things are the way they are and now the universe is in
big trouble unless the PC's can save us all" epic.  This is great
stuff.  I wish my "imagination" was as keenly honed.

Thanks to Daniel (Poulin) for his input.  I have some additional
questions to clarify your viewpoint:

1)Did the builders of the octagon not notice your revised room just
under the lowest floor they constructed?  If so why?  If the fusion
heater could fall through to this room it would seem that they would
have found it laying the foundation.  (BTW this is not an attack on your
idea--its just that I'm interested and I want to understand.)  Was this
room built after the octagon was complete and the builders gone by the
"Droynes that were not in the base"?  Where these Droynes still living
in the wilderness around the octagon?

2)  Who built the catacombs and the well?  These Droyne?  Others?

3) Why did they wall off the passage to "the door" and build the large
barred wood door separating the well and the door?   It seems these
Droyne would want to rejoin the others, not seal them away.

I'm merciless I know but allow me to pick your brain one more time--How
much easier this would be if I had Zho. blood!

Thanks to all for your ideas.  I hope that someday some of mine will be
of use to you.

Tom T.

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:00:35 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

On 30 Jun 97 at 13:57, David P. Summers wrote:

> The problem is the heat lost in vaporizing LHyd is not that great.
> If you were going to carry around coolant I would pick water first.

	True... Actually it's not such a bad idea. Water would be available 
from oceans, most gas giants (at least on some level of gas giants 
there's H2O rain) and comets. The down side would be it couldn't be 
used as emergency fuel for extra G-hours.
 
> If you have reaction mass, aren't you taling Heplar?

	Yup. I'm still using FFS1 with Brilliant Lances, with a twist: On 
most ships, the fusion power plant is specifically designed so that 
is can be used as a fusion rocket of equivalent size, allowing for 
longer interplanetary trips.

	However, the bright flare of a fusion rocket is a sure way to
invite every pirate in the system...

> I always figured that what happened is that when you jumped
> you needed a lot energy in a short period of time.  For
> that reason Jump drives have their own reactors that are
> capable of creating huge throughputs at low effeciency
> (thus the reason you need all that hydrogen is inefficiency
> and that you need a lot of energy to get into jump space).

	Wouldn't this inefficiency be countered by higher technology? Or 
does this happen at only at TL 17+? I'd imagine a TL 9 Jump-1 drive 
could be inefficient enough to consume five times its volume in LHyd, 
but a TL 16 Jump-1 ?

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:22:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: Traveller Navigator URL

Try ftp://ftp.davtechsys.com

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

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 17:01:56 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Don't Work

> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
> Subject: Re: Planet3 software
> 
> Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
> 
> http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
> 
> He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
> providing any support, and the software comes as is.
> - --

Doug, It don't work. It says it's there, but every time I try
to get it, the site says the directory don't exist.

Evyn
- -- 
Buddas Palm met Rilley's Oak,
The Tibetian mugger met
the Louisville slugger.

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:39:43 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: 3d Maximu damage?

>In the instance of more than 3 dice of damage, is the total roll made,
>with the best results being kept?

There was a largish discussion on this several months ago. What I tend to
do is roll the damage dice for the weapon (all of them), remove the highest
dice for armour, and then apply the next 3 highest dice as damage.

Some examples will (hopefully) make the above a bit clearer. Bob shoots
James with a cP005, which has a damage rating of 5D. James, luckily, is
wearing Diplo (armour rating of 3). The damage rolled by Bob, in order, is
6,5,4,4,2. Removing the highest three dice (for armour) leaves 4 and 2,
which is applied as normal.

If Bob now shoots James with something that does 8D damage, and rolls
6,5,5,4,4,3,2,1, the 6 and two 5's are removed (armour), and the next three
highest (4, 4, 3) are applied as damage. The 2 and the 1 are wasted.

Note that these examples ignore blunt damage (which I cant remember if is
in the rules or not). Also, some people take armour into consideration
before rolling the dice.

[eg: in the first example, because James is wearing Diplo armour, only two
dice are rolled. In the second example, "only" 5 dice are rolled, and the
highest three tallied.]

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 16:55:13 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Rom

> From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
> 
> Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net> wrote: 
> 
> >> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net
> >> This is really beginning to tick me off, since I own everything printed
> >> about the Solomani and can find *nothing that supports a high common TL of
> >> 14, let alone the ridiculous figure of 16 you claimed in an earlier post.
> >> I can't help but wonder what your source is.. It isn't Alien Module 7, or
> >> Rats & Cats, or the Traveller Digest issue on Earth, or Invasion: 
> >> Earth or anything else I have in a rather extensive collection of 
> >> Traveller material.
> 
> > Doug, Rats and Cats page 6, bottom of the second column, Bold Type, 
> > Technology Related
> 
> That page lists Terra as a TL 15/16 world.  *However*, that page is a
> write-up of Terra in *1121*.  This in no way proves that Terra had
> anything comparable to this TL during the ROM.  
 
MR. SNEAD!! (sounds great when you say in a Capt. Hook sort of way)
I was just pointing out the only place I saw a listing of such
a high Terrain TL. Forgive me it was late at night. But if you read
the rest of that post, I indicated the FFS has a lower TL threshhold
for Genering and cybernetics. This change brings major chunks of 
Rats and Cats into Cannon Tech Level wise, IMHO.

Evyn
- -- 
Buddas Palm met Rilley's Oak,
The Tibetian mugger met
the Louisville slugger.

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:37:39 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:44:30 -060o, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>>Well, you can't have it both ways.  Everything you have just said
>>is a rationalization why the most talented med student might be able

>	*MIGHT* is the key word. But the chance that he'll succeed is much
>lower.

Of course he makes the same roll as similarly talented medical-3,
at a -2.  Hardly the kind of absolut distinction that you are
talking about and not the kind of chasm that talent is unable
to gap.

>	I didn't say "as well." I said the talented med student ought to have a
>miniscule chance, while the average person (NOT a "mediocre hack") has a
>higher chance of succeeding. *IF* the student succeeds, he'll have done a
>good job (that's the definition of success). But odds are long against it.

Well, as I've said before, as far as I'm concerned someone with only
average talent is the lowest I would even consider for a doctor and
and _is_ mediocre.  Also, rolling at a -2 is hardly a miniscule
chance.  To get what you describe, one must not allow a roll
at all below skill-3.

>	I'm not even addressing the professional/non-professional nature of the
>skill. With ANY skill, a trained average person ought to have a better
>chance at the whole range of tasks, whereas the talented newbie should only
>be better at a few narrow tasks--for simplicity I'd rather skip that.

Well, as I, and others have said, there a those who simply don't
agree.

>	If you restrict people to only trying tasks where they have a
>reasonable
>chance of success, you take some of the thrill out of the game.

I don't.  I'm just pointing out that if the difference between Medical-1
and open heart surgery is as great as you describe, then it is rediculous
for anyone to try it.  But you are really just saying it's big enough
that only skill can bridge it, which is just another way of saying
that, in your opinion, skill counts for more than talent.  That's
fine.  I just don't happen to agree. But this doesn't make skill+
stat objectively absurd, it just is absurd to you.

>	Again, you're focusing narrowly on the Med-n example

You are the one who was focusing on it.  Generally, I just don't
agree that skill counts for more than talent.

____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:43:48 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

>   Have fun with Twilight's Peak; it may just be the greatest
>   RPG adventure ever made.

Only to be beaten by the Skyraiders trilogy.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:52:47 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Where will M0 end?

>Also, is it still a plan of IG to do the M200 next?  Personally, I don't
>think this Milieu is truly needed, being still to close to M0 an I'd
>rather see either the Interstellar Wars Era (M -2235, or 2283AD?) or
>perhaps the M1100 setting revisited again.
>
>Any ideas?
If they put out a M1100 supplement I'm shure most people on the list will
buy it unseen and then when they see all the gross errors (Spinward marches
completely redone, not even hexlocations the same) they'll start filling
the listservers.

I'm only halfjoking and I think that given the lack of background knowledge
posessed by the IG authors they'd better stick with items far in time from
M1100 such as Aslan border wars (that ought to be fun), Interstellar Wars
(thank god Nilsen et al didn't do that one) or my favourite The (first)
Civil war with no genocide, nuking of planets etc just snobby fleet
admirals clashing it out all over the galaxy and lots of noble derring do,
jumping from balconies, hiding under the beds of laadies etc -> Traveller
the Swashbuckler Era.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:08:14 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

>>>  Medical
>>>     First Aid - the skill of EMT's and trauma care specialists
>>>     Diagnosis - the skill of figuring out what's wrong
>>>     Surgery - the skill of cut and paste
>>>     Pharmacy - the skill of preparing and administering drugs
>
>>    And where were you planning to fit in Nursing???
>
>Stephen, I knew it when I wrote it.  ;-> I don't know if Nursing..the
>specific skill of Nursing..does fit in there.  Nursing *should* be a listed
>skill, but it probably should stand alone.  Nurses have Medical skills, the
>same as EMT's and MD's, but they have skills that the other health care
>professionals *don't* have and don't get.

These skill divisions always seem to come from some one group or other
feeling that their particular work is looked down upon. I'd say that the
usefulness of skills and the entire RPG goes DOWN when more skill types are
added.
Why doesn't somebody mention the fact that there isn't a skill for Duck
hunting or Life support maintenance or Vargr written pornography etc. If
you feel a PC/NPC shoould be very good at nursing but totally lacking in
surgery skills etc give him/her Medic-4 but note that it should be treated
as Medic-0 in pharmacy, surgery tasks.
The same note goes for Recon and Hunting: What is really the usefulness of
dividing them up? One skill type that REALLY need to be broken up long
before the medical ones above is Streetwise. It can be used to find dealers
in illegal stuff, reaction modifier when talking with bad guys, detection
of tailing, identifying controlled substances (by tasting them as all cops
in Hollywood seem to do) etc. I'd say we don't break any of them up but
instead put our energy into defining tasks for them so that as little as
possible need to be dreamt up ad hoc.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:20:06 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Computer Compatability

>I figure the Imperium has a mandated open-sysetems-platform which is used
>for all imperial government computing. Most stuff is distributed in
>compileable source in one of the dozen or so languages.
>
>Imperial Hardware must use the same basic op-codes for the CPU, with a
>trade restriction for non-compliant processors: No Imperial unit may
>purchase, use, or sell such non-standards. Independants can, but must
>clearly label them, and they may be barred by the recieving world.
>
>The solomani Confed I have taking a similar approach, but with different
>standards, and higher standardization. They can cross-compile much with
>little real work (Routine, Computer, Int). No cros-run binaries, tho.
>
>Zhodani stuff I make as one smooth, plug-in based OS, good for laptops to
>megaframes. Totally incompatable with imperial processing equipment, but
>some software can be run using emulators with special and expensive
>hardware and software plugs.
>
>

All the above holds up to about TL 9 I think. In computer development we
have seen an ongoing trend both in performance increases and in harware
abstraction. The old crude Solomani language Java which ran on an abstract
CPU made the Solomani comps totally hardware independent sometime in their
early 21:st century. Then came the abstract state machines etc. All
Solomani computers work together as does all Vilani, Zhodani etc given more
or less the same TL. The big hurdle is cross-race-compatability. One of the
main reason the idiot Solomani failed in their so called empire was their
insistence in converting to the Solomani computational model. When Vilani
were forced to adopt their smooth running (for milennia) bureocracies grind
to a halt and started to fall of the Ramshacle Empire.

Anadersii Backumanursi, Master machinethought for the Reformed Ziru zirkaa.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:27:47 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: 3d Maximu damage?

>Hi,
>
>Recently, in the first Traveler adventure I've referred with the use of
>Emperor's Arsenal something came up of interest.  Many o the weapons in
>Emperos' Arsenal have damage ratings above 3D, and therefore, their
>extra damage is wasted.  I'm not quite sure on the point of having the
>damage rating of, say a acr-12 be 5 or Gauss Sniper Rifle-12 be 8 when
>this damage can only be applied up to a 3D maximum.
>
>In the instance of more than 3 dice of damage, is the total roll made,
>with the best results being kept?
>
>I was quite perplexed by this, and my players were as well, so any help
>would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks very much,

You shoot at other things besides humans and there it would help. Vehicles
and large animals would have larger max damages right? And the 3D max
damage is after armour calculations I think. the 3D maxdamage is a very
crude fix to a problem lots of RPG suffers from (can you say Cyberpunk).


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 00:30:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Real Relativistic Railguns

Modern technology surpasses Traveller tech once again. 

Take a look at:  http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/sd03/el.html

There is lots of nifty info on railguns here.  The top speed they list for
railguns which might be usable by the military is 4-6 km/sec.  That's
pretty damn fast, but still somewhat reasonable.  However, the person I
got the URL from said that the folks building these things are making
other ones which are warehouse sized.  These ultravelocity railguns are
being made both to see how fast they can get one, and for possible use in
fusion research (to accelerate deuterium pellets...)

The test this individual saw had a small projective accelerated to _0.15
C_, [yep almost 1/6 the Speed of Light] (into vacuum, the 0.15 C was only
muzzle velocity, the vacuum was not thin enough to let it travel far at
that speed).  The goal of the project is to accelerate a small projective
to 0.5 C. 
	
This exists *now*.  Maybe lasers & Meson guns aren't the best weapons... 
A few 0.15-0.5 C gauss cannons on a ship would do wonders in a battle. 

I want my ship to have one of these things.  At 0.15 C an impact would
cause radiation damage and large clouds of plasma. 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:38:17 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

>> I always figured that what happened is that when you jumped
>> you needed a lot energy in a short period of time.  For
>> that reason Jump drives have their own reactors that are
>> capable of creating huge throughputs at low effeciency
>> (thus the reason you need all that hydrogen is inefficiency
>> and that you need a lot of energy to get into jump space).
>
>        Wouldn't this inefficiency be countered by higher technology? Or
>does this happen at only at TL 17+? I'd imagine a TL 9 Jump-1 drive
>could be inefficient enough to consume five times its volume in LHyd,
>but a TL 16 Jump-1 ?

Why the jumpfuel is a big question for Traveller and I think as sseveral
others on the list that the coolant explanation/handwave is a bit
unbelievable. AS J-fuel requirement is such a big issue in both military
and civilian ship design a lot of research must have been spent to improve
it and the fact that it stays flat until about TL 17 seem to imply that
something less tweakable than cooling has to be at work. Someone (Hans
Rancke-Madsen?) mentioned the jump mass displacement or something. A
certain mass has to be dumped at jump entry (otherwise drop tanks wouldn't
work) and the efficiency goes way diown as the atomic mass of the stuff
goes up thus the use of hydrogen. Or there might be the special properties
that the single proton nucleus has thus the bonus for purified fuel (no
Deuterium, Helium etc). The term jump displacement mass was used in early
Solomani experiments and got so common that the term displacement ton
started becoming universal for denoting hull sizes.
So displacement to refers to jumpfuel mass and the term fuel is a
laypersons name for it as it actually isn't fuel at all.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:19:24 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Muzzle velocity

Just few questions:

What is the muzzle velocity of a 357 Magnum?

What is the maximum muzzle velocity of actual weapons (pistols and rifles)?

Thanks for information


- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 
   Mailto:marben@worldnet.net (Week-end only!)

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 11:08:28 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Real Relativistic Railguns

>This exists *now*.  Maybe lasers & Meson guns aren't the best weapons...
>A few 0.15-0.5 C gauss cannons on a ship would do wonders in a battle.
>
>I want my ship to have one of these things.  At 0.15 C an impact would
>cause radiation damage and large clouds of plasma.

All hinges on efficiency. If yoy can accelerate matter with less loss than
lsers then railguns are preferrable if you get close to C and by close I
mean real close like 0.9C or something. At 0.5 C youd get 50% longer
lightlag compared to laser (radiation to sensor + beam to target). This
allows the target to evade for 50% more time which give it about twice the
uncertainty radius and thus four times tha angular area of the uncertainty
disk where to place your shots. Pretty much worse I'd say and therefore
you'll have to stick close to C.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 11:47:14 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

- -> >>-> 1. World map of Capital.
- -> >>Hmmm, any chance to get a scan of that per e-mail? Would be a great 
- -> >>addition to TD9.
- -> >
- -> >I agree it was more suited to TD9 - there's almost nothing else 
- -> >about Capital in TD10.
- -> >
- -> >What's the copyright position on this?  I'm perfectly happy to do 
- -> >it, but I don't want to step on anybody's toes, particularly now 
- -> >Roger Sanger has a chance to revive DGP's legacy.  I want an 
- -> >opportunity to get some of the DGP books I missed, like Rats & 
- -> >Cats / Flaming Eye, and would hate to do anything to lessen the 
- -> >chances of that happening.
;-} (Crooked grin)
Well, i'd think not quite legal, as it already is in violation of 
copyright and falls out of the for owners use only category, 
however it would be so minor that i think nobody would care... Nobody 
looses the copyright because one page out of a book is copied and 
nobody is goinjg to sue because of it (although in the states they 
sue about everything, don't they??? ;-)

- -> -> A not unreasonable idea. -> 
- -> I would be very, very happy to get any of the old issues of TD/MJ that Mr.
- -> Sanger feels like rereleasing.  I suspect that he could make a quite nice
- -> product with minimal effort (assuming he has the source files) by stripping
- -> out all but the data, the maps, and the (non topical) articles.  For
- -> example, it would be worth a reasonable amount to just get the entire stack
- -> of articles on the Grand Tour printed up in a thick stack, sans ads, and so
- -> on.
Who wouldn't like that. Let's all mail Roger and Courtney to sit 
together on one table again ;-) (well maybe not all of us...)
(aaaargghhhh....mailbomb coming in!)
However i'd rather see all Issues of TD bound into one book, 
hardcover maybe, sold at a reasonable price but left in the original 
version. 

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:58:16 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: Planet3 Software

Hi,
	I've noticed some poeple desparately searching for reft, diaspora etc.

I have a copy of them and can put them up on an ftp server if it would be
helpful. Mail me privately if you want them - I'll see how many people want
them and if justifies it I'll stick them there (the file are around a meg each)

Terry

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1509
***********************************

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Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
early 21:st century. Then came the abstract state machines etc. All
Solomani computers work together as does all Vilani, Zhodani etc given more
or less the same TL. The big hurdle is cross-race-compatability. One of trs.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 00:30:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Real Relativistic Railguns

Modern technology surpasses Traveller tech once again. 

Take a look at:  http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/sd03/el.html

There is lots of nifty info on railguns here.  The top speed they list for
railguns which might be usable by the military is 4-6 km/sec.  That's
pretty damn fast, but still somewhat reasonable.  However, the person I
got the URL from said that the folks building these things are making
other ones which are warehouse sized.  These ultravelocity railguns are
being made both to see how fast they can get one, and for possible use in
fusion research (to accelerate deuterium pellets...)

The test this individual saw had a small projective accelerated to _0.15
C_, [yep almost 1/6 the Speed of Light] (into vacuum, the 0.15 C was only
muzzle velocity, the vacuum was not thin enough to let it travel far at
that speed).  The goal of the project is to accelerate a small projective
to 0.5 C. 
	
This exists *now*.  Maybe lasers & Meson guns aren't the best weapons... 
A few 0.15-0.5 C gauss cannons on a ship would do wonders in a battle. 

I want my ship to have one of these things.  At 0.15 C an impact would
cause radiation damage and large clouds of plasma. 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:38:17 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question?)

>> I always figured that what happened is that when you jumped
>> you needed a lot energy in a short period of time.  For
>> that reason Jump drives have their own reactors that are
>> capable of creating huge throughputs at low effeciency
>> (thus the reason you need all that hydrogen is inefficiency
>> and that you need a lot of energy to get into jump space).
>
>        Wouldn't this inefficiency be countered by higher technology? Or
>does this happen at only at TL 17+? I'd imagine a TL 9 Jump-1 drive
>could be inefficient enough to consume five times its volume in LHyd,
>but a TL 16 Jump-1 ?

Why the jumpfuel is a big question for Traveller and I think as sseveral
others on the list that the coolant explanation/handwave is a bit
unbelievable. AS J-fuel requirement is such a big issue in both military
and civilian ship design a lot of research must have been spent to improve
it and the fact that it stays flat until about TL 17 seem to imply that
something less tweakable than cooling has to be at work. Someone (Hans
Rancke-Madsen?) mentioned the jump mass displacement or something. A
certain mass has to be dumped at jump entry (otherwise drop tanks wouldn't
work) and the efficiency goes way diown as the atomic mass of the stuff
goes up thus the use of hydrogen. Or there might be the special properties
that the single proton nucleus has thus the bonus for purified fuel (no
Deuterium, Helium etc). The term jump displacement mass was used in early
Solomani experiments and got so common that the term displacement ton
started becoming universal for denoting hull sizes.
So displacement to refers to jumpfuel mass and the term fuel is a
laypersons name for it as it actually isn't fuel at all.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:19:24 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Muzzle velocity

Just few questions:

What is the muzzle velocity of a 357 Magnum?

What is the maximum muzzle velocity of actual weapons (pistols and rifles)?

Thanks for information


- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 
   Mailto:marben@worldnet.net (Week-end only!)

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 11:08:28 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Real Relativistic Railguns

>This exists *now*.  Maybe lasers & Meson guns aren't the best weapons...
>A few 0.15-0.5 C gauss cannons on a ship would do wonders in a battle.
>
>I want my ship to have one of these things.  At 0.15 C an impact would
>cause radiation damage and large clouds of plasma.

All hinges on efficiency. If yoy can accelerate matter with less loss than
lsers then railguns are preferrable if you get close to C and by close I
mean real close like 0.9C or something. At 0.5 C youd get 50% longer
lightlag compared to laser (radiation to sensor + beam to target). This
allows the target to evade for 50% more time which give it about twice the
uncertainty radius and thus four times tha angular area of the uncertainty
disk where to place your shots. Pretty much worse I'd say and therefore
you'll have to stick close to C.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 11:47:14 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Traveller Digest 8: Core info

- -> >>-> 1. World map of Capital.
- -> >>Hmmm, any chance to get a scan of that per e-mail? Would be a great 
- -> >>addition to TD9.
- -> >
- -> >I agree it was more suited to TD9 - there's almost nothing else 
- -> >about Capital in TD10.
- -> >
- -> >What's the copyright position on this?  I'm perfectly happy to do 
- -> >it, but I don't want to step on anybody's toes, particularly now 
- -> >Roger Sanger has a chance to revive DGP's legacy.  I want an 
- -> >opportunity to get some of the DGP books I missed, like Rats & 
- -> >Cats / Flaming Eye, and would hate to do anything to lessen the 
- -> >chances of that happening.
;-} (Crooked grin)
Well, i'd think not quite legal, as it already is in violation of 
copyright and falls out of the for owners use only category, 
however it would be so minor that i think nobody would care... Nobody 
looses the copyright because one page out of a book is copied and 
nobody is goinjg to sue because of it (although in the states they 
sue about everything, don't they??? ;-)

- -> -> A not unreasonable idea. -> 
- -> I would be very, very happy to get any of the old issues of TD/MJ that Mr.
- -> Sanger feels like rereleasing.  I suspect that he could make a quite nice
- -> product with minimal effort (assuming he has the source files) by stripping
- -> out all but the data, the maps, and the (non topical) articles.  For
- -> example, it would be worth a reasonable amount to just get the entire stack
- -> of articles on the Grand Tour printed up in a thick stack, sans ads, and so
- -> on.
Who wouldn't like that. Let's all mail Roger and Courtney to sit 
together on one table again ;-) (well maybe not all of us...)
(aaaargghhhh....mailbomb coming in!)
However i'd rather see all Issues of TD bound into one book, 
hardcover maybe, sold at a reasonable price but left in the original 
version. 

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:58:16 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: Planet3 Software

Hi,
	I've noticed some poeple desparately searching for reft, diaspora etc.

I have a copy of them and can put them up on an ftp server if it would be
helpful. Mail me privately if you want them - I'll see how many people want
them and if justifies it I'll stick them there (the file are around a meg each)

Terry

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1509
***********************************

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unsubscribe traveller-digest

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Subject: Traveller-digest V1997 #1510
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Sender: owner-traveller-digest@mpgn.com
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Precedence: bulk


Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 1 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1510



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Trading.
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Cap on JOT
Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs
Re: Reading Data!
Re: Learning new skills in T4
Re: Muzzle velocity
TL9 sans gravitics
animism
Re: Reading Data!
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: 3d Maximu damage?
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL
Re: Muzzle velocity
Haggis (was Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!)
Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
Off subject - on line game stores - and, a favor...
Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:57:03 GMT
From: "J." <Jonathan@hccm.co.uk>
Subject: Trading.

I'm about to start running a campaign set in the spinward marches at the time 
of the fifth frontier war. None of the players have ever played traveller 
before, but several of them expressed an interest in running a small trading 
ship. So I started looking through the various published trading systems,
(I have copy's of CT, MT and T4.) But none of them allow for much freedom
and choice for the characters.

I'm thinking of designing a new system, one in which each planet will have 
major and minor exports, and major and minor imports. These will be specific
products because I feel this will give worlds a more unique feel, for example
one world could be well known for producing the best grav bikes in the sector,
A mining colony could be producing nothing but minerals, except once in a
while
when someone finds something more valuable (gold etc....).

Before I do lots of work on this, has anyone else done anything similar?
Or does anyone have any suggestions?

J.

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:15:23 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

In mail you write:

> On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 14:21:48 -0700 (MST), Bruce Johnson wrote:
>
>> Why go to all the trouble of liquefying H2, when storing it as
>> compressed gass is more efficient? Unless LH2 is compressible as well as
>> gaseous H2. Even then it doesn't make too much sense.
>
> But if you compress H2 far enough, it will transfer into a liquid,
> will it not?

Nope. If a gas is above its "critical temperature" *no* amount of
pressure will liquefy it. For example, it's impossible to have liquid
water at a temp above 370C. 

The critical temp for H2 is under 100K....

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 23:10:35 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

In mail you write:

> Ummm, as far as I'm aware, it's not condensed, just chilled to a liquid
> state in big cryogenic fuel tanks. Undoubtedly, a great deal of what a
> 'fuel purification unit' is, is a hydrogen 'still', which will distill
> purified hydrogen out of the stuff you've collected from the gas giant.
> Electrolyzed hydrogen from waster is actually easier to deal with, because
> I really doubt that fuel purification goes down to isotopic level.
>
> The 'raw' fuel from a gas giant scooping run may well be stored under
> high pressure, which begs the question:
>
> Why go to all the trouble of liquefying H2, when storing it as
> compressed gass is more efficient? Unless LH2 is compressible as well as
> gaseous H2. Even then it doesn't make too much sense.

Easy. Aside from the fact that LH2 *will* be denser than compressed H2,
there's the small matter of hydrogen molecules being so small that they
tend to *leak* through tiny cracks or even diffuse right through
metals. 

Also, hydrogen that diffuses into metal tends to make it brittle.

LH2 is the easiest way to store *large* amounts of hydrogen. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:35:54 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Cap on JOT

Peter Miller wrote:

>
>What I found out was that this player had put many skill levels into JOT
>during chargen, and had come out with a skill level of SIX!  Jack of all
>Trades at SIX!  Not wanting to slow down game play, and make him make
>mid-game changes to his character, we went along through the game, and
>it became clear that this player was quitw a powerhouse.  With an
>average stat of as low as seven (his are higher than that due to some
>lucky rolls) it still makes his average TN with JOT a whopping 10 (9.5
>rounded up) meaning that he'll suceed using his JOT roll on most avergae
>and even some formidable rolls!


	1) if you're a jealous and vengeful old-testament GM, have the
player impaled, drawn and quatered, burned, and shot.  Unfortunately, at
this point crucifixion, although a nice final touch, will be largely
impossible.  Then heap insults and vilification upon the bits of his
corpse.  Then take the head and use it as a table centrepiece for your
games, with the label "munchkin" securely affixed to what remains of the
forehead, so that nobody is tempted to emulate him ever again.  End of
problem.

	2) if you're feeling charitable, just have his character killed in
the next combat.  By something big and horrible and slimy with teeth and
claws and far too many eyes and a PGMP, that toys with its prey. That
stomps up and down on the corpse for an hour as a means of food
preparation.  And then dies in agony after eating him, because munchkins
are inedib... er, due to incompatible biochemistry.  End of problem.

	3) if you're a total wuss, you can just dock the extra points and
tell him that he's _not_ getting them back and to be thankful you didn't
use 1).


>
>I decided immediately after to place a cap of JOT-3 in my campaigns,. as
>well as limit the extents of what players can use the skill for to
>non-professional skilsl only.  This downplays it being able to become a
>powerhouse munchkin skill.


	Note... if you use KB v.2.0, this happens automatically; it states
that Munchkinism, er, JOT, is not given the standard 3X multiplier given to
skills.  That means that a point of JOT is worth only 1/3 of any given
skill...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 97 23:23:02 
From: jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
Subject: Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs

Hello Joe, on Jun 28 you wrote:

> 	Where (if at all)in T4 does it call out the rules for repairing spacecraft
> battle damage?  (My players have just gotten into a scrape with a couple of
> planetary fighters and set down/crash landed on a glacier.  They are trying
> to figure out how to fix the damage to their drives and sensor arrays so
> they can get the hell out of their before the locals show up again.)
>
  Hmm, from memory that is one area that isn't covered too well. I would
suggest looking at the new price for the item, and taking a percentage of that
based on how badly damaged the part is.

  So, if the drives are worth say 8MCr, and they have minor damage (say 5%),
then it might take 400,000 Cr to fix. Repair time is really guess work though,
pick a number that floats by :-). Of course depending on their engineering, 
you might let them jury rig something up so as to do it cheaper. Maybe even 
let them use second hand parts at half price. This makes it more fun because 
the bodgied part might be a bit temperamental, failing when they can least 
afford it

> I can't seem to find any reference to it, but I might simply be looking in
> the wrong place. If it isn't included, is the a de facto system that
> everyone seems to be using?  I have considered adopting the TNE rules into
> the T4 system, but this would take a fair amount of revision.
>
  Yes, TNE had a damage/maintenance level. Another source which I just
recently picked up is Star War's (gasp, sorry the opposition) Tramp Freighters
book. It has a huge amount of info on tweaking and jury rigging ships. It also
has some fun stuff on things getting temperamental when they are fiddled too
much - you know the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive not activating when the
button is punched, but then kicking in 30 seconds later sort of thing. I am
going to try and convert this over to T4 sometime. When I do, I will post it.

Bye,
James Dempsey
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 email: jamesd@spirit.com.au             | Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten!
 WWW:   http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd |   Astronomy Domine - Pink Floyd

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 08:15:29 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

>> How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
>> across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a* 
>> standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
>
>By TL12, i think most computers can handle just about anything you can 
>throw at them.

Except Virus....      (g, d, & r like hell)

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 06:31:35 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Learning new skills in T4

> I noticed that while looking through the T4 experience chapter it
> mentions the learning of new skills, as split into "two categories:
> zero-level skills and professional skills".
> 
> Exactly what is the definition of a professional skill?  I guess I may
> have missed it, but does this apply (I believe) to scientific, and other
> skilled 'skills' such as engineering, etc.  
> 
> And, as for the zero-level skill, does this mena the ability to learn
> any skill at zero-level or just non-professional ones?

Zero-level skills are those listed as default skills on page 38. 
Page 37 has a couple of paragraphs on Default (Level-0) Skills.

Hope this helps.

Suz
 

Suzette C. Dollar
#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 01:27:08 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Muzzle velocity

Nicolas LEJEUNE asks:
> What is the muzzle velocity of a 357 Magnum?
> 
> What is the maximum muzzle velocity of actual weapons (pistols and rifles)?
> 
> Thanks for information

The muzzle velocity of a .357 magnum rnages from 1400 fps with a 158 
grain bullet to 1900 fps with a 125 grain bullet - for factory loads 
in 8+ inch barrels. Handloads would go a bit higher.

For the metric users there are 3.28 feet in a metre, and approx. 15.4 
grains in a gram.

At 1900 fps the .357 is the fastest commercial pistol round, aside 
from some specialty varmint and sillouette rounds (and .308 
Winchester chambered sillouette pistols). A .44 magnum is the next 
fastest at 1625fps with a 240 grain bullet.

With riles things are a bit more ambigous, as there are some very hot 
wildcat cartirdges out there. Amoug standard commercial loads the .17 
Remington makes 4040 fps with a 25 grain bullet (very light), the 
.220 Swift 4111 fps with a 55 grain bullet (fairly heavy for this 
calibre), and the .300 Weatherby magnum 3900 fps with a 110 grain 
bullet (light for a .308 calibre weapon). Remington makes a 
discarding sabot round for some .308 calibre rounds, which fire a 
.224 (5.56 mm) 55 grain bullet (the same as the .220 Swift's) at up 
to 4080 fps (using the .30-06's stats).

Note that all these stats are from the manufacturers, and thus it's a 
good bet that you can knock off about 200 fps still be a little high. 
Also in any calibre the Weatherby Magnums almost always have the 
hottest performance (among factory loads).

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 14:34:01 +0100 (BST)
From: "mark.wilkin" <aa4mwi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk>
Subject: TL9 sans gravitics

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:27:51 -0700
> From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
> Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?
> 
> Anders writes
> 
> >While fidgeting with the design system I did some
> >TL changes as well
> 
> >9-     No gravitics tech yet
> >       This was in order to have jump-capable non grav systems
> 
> A man after my own heart! One of my favourite periods to design 
> spacecraft for is "low TL9" - societies with every aspect of TL9 except
> gravitics. (For example, I like to assume the Terrans didn't independently
> discover gravitics but copied it from the Vilani...) It's lots of fun to
> design TL9 spacecraft without grav - I had some FFS AZHRAE shuttles I was
> very proud of. My first TTA project will be a TL9 shuttle - probably 
> using a gas-core NTR since AZHRAE is gone.
> 
> Bruce
This reminds me of an idea I had for a campaign inspired by Babylon 5, 
basically because those big Earthforce destroyers with the rotating 
sections look really cool. It would even work if the technology of 
gravitics had just recently been discovered and only worked on smaller ships
i.e. scouts and small traders. Fun fun fun for all those adventure groups 
out there as this is the point when small ships really become practical 
for more than a short period of time. Well anything smaller than a Lab 
ship as this is only ship I've ever seen than operates without grav for 
long perios of time (when its in orbit to save power).

BTW does anyone know if FF&S supports alternative technologies like the 
original does as I quite like FTL comms and other such non cannon stuff.

Mark Wilkin

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 09:51:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: animism

   Hi.
   
   On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:03:58, anders.backman@aniware.se wrote...
   
> The Vilani grew up in an alien ecosystem where most everything had to
> be carefully prepared in order to eat etc. The view that they didn't
> belong to the plant/animal kingdom must have been much stronger in them
> than in us and perhaps it was also easier to come up with the idea
> about changing the environment to suit them as well. The Vilani view of
> nature would be devoid of the animism we terrans universally embraced
> before the kings forced monotheism upon us.
   
   Actually, I would imagine that the Vilani were even more animistic
   than the Terrans they first encountered.  The cause of animism has
   nothing to do with the genetic relationship between the worshipper and
   his totem; animists routinely worship rock formations, mountains,
   astronomical bodies, and waterfalls in addition to animals and plants.
   Animism is no less prevalent in harsh environments than in congenial
   ones.  One can surmise from CT sources (the short adventure "Divine
   Intervention") that the Vilani of M1100 (and, therefore, of the Ziru
   Sirka as well, given a strong conservatism) worshiped stars, which is
   a sort of animism.  One could also easily imagine that the shaman-like
   millers of Vilani society would be tempted to give animistic
   interpretations to their activities, driving the beligerent spirits
   out of the food and invoking benevolent spirits to settle into it.
   
> This might even be an interesting division in Vilani/Terran thought:
> The Vilani will easily exterminate local animals/plantlife if they
> aren't productive which we terrans find unacceptable thinking while
> we remodel ourselves with geneering which look extremely disgusting
> to the Vilani.
   
   This outlook will depend strongly on the details of how the Vilani
   managed to survive in their alien environment.  They may have only
   hung on by filling a very small and tight ecological niche on Vland.
   The delicacy of this ecological balance may have made them very much
   aware of the dangers caused by change, and may have severely inhibited
   the trait of adaptability which is so distinctive of humans on earth.
   All this could foster an inborn predilection to conservatism.
   
   -Rob
   

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:19:26 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Reading Data!

>>By TL12, i think most computers can handle just about anything you can
>>throw at them.
>
>Except Virus....      (g, d, & r like hell)
>
The computers handled the Virus VERY WELL

Borg the Virus.



/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: 01 Jul 97 10:27:52 EDT
From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

Its cool hearing all about TP again. Years ago when we played that scenario, we
all sat back in a calm glow and said " that was the best ever".  It was so good
that a few years after that I was ORDERED (!) by my group to develop a 'Return
to Twilight's Peak', which I loyally did and got to have fun with Fulacin in
the process....

Thanks for bringing me back!

- -j

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:28:05 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@Rt66.com>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

 
> >>	Yes, a Stat-12 Med-1 will be better at SOME things than a Stat-8 Med-4.
> >>But ON THE WHOLE, the Stat-8 Med-4 will be a better doctor. It's just
> >>something that comes from trying to roll a wide body of knowledge into a
> >>single skill. Perhaps we should throw out medical skill entirely
> >
> 	Again, you're focusing narrowly on the Med-n example, but this
> illustration applies to ANY skill. Stat-12 Skill-1 will be better at a few
> tasks than Stat-8 skill-4. But over the long run, the Stat-8 Skill-4 will
> have a better chance of succeeding at the full gamut of Skill-related tasks
> than Stat-12 Skill-1

The key is that the stat-12 skill-1 person will be better at things
that skill _shares_ with skill-4.  That's why I like setting task
level based on what skill level performs that task routinely.  As
far as I'm concerned many skill-1 people shouldn't have a snowballs
chance3 in hell of succeeding at a skill usually done by a skill-4
person (a small chance, though, these are PCs :-).

- -Merrick

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 07:40:40 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3d Maximu damage?

Peter Miller wrote:

> Recently, in the first Traveler adventure I've referred with the use of
> Emperor's Arsenal something came up of interest.  Many o the weapons in
> Emperos' Arsenal have damage ratings above 3D, and therefore, their
> extra damage is wasted.  I'm not quite sure on the point of having the
> damage rating of, say a acr-12 be 5 or Gauss Sniper Rifle-12 be 8 when
> this damage can only be applied up to a 3D maximum.
> 
> In the instance of more than 3 dice of damage, is the total roll made,
> with the best results being kept?  
> 

The 3D limit is only for _unarmored_ human targets hit with somple ball
ammunition, anything else takes all the damage(as does any other type of
ammunition). Why so much damage? To get through battledress, car doors,
buildings, etc. of course. 

How you count the damage is really up to you and how damaging you want
combat to be. Me, I would score it as you roll all the dice, and you keep
the high scores, unless the targets are armored, in which case you roll
all the dice, get through the armor, and add up the highest three dice of 
what's left(or whatever's left, period, if it's three or fewer dice).

Serves 'em right for getting into firefights with gauss rifles ;-)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 09:32:02 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

Three tests, a homework project and a quiz down--two exams and a quiz to go.

Since I am seeing quoting here without a _full_ accounting of what is said
(twice at least now), I am more resolved to wait until I have all of my
ducks in a row.  To my detractors, get a life and don't be so damned
"American instant gratification" oriented.  To my supporters, another week
or so isn't too long to wait to see _exactly_ what I have to say, rather
than what people are trying to make me appear to say.

BTW, J.P. has provided me with more info, and I'll admit that one (maybe
two more) sources has been brought up here that we had not yet come across.
I never said our research was complete, but there is not yet a smoking gun.
Also, thank you Bryan.

For those of you who can't find the delete keys on your mailers, try using
the help. :)


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 10:06:05 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL

On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:01:01 -0600
David J. Golden <goldendj@pcisys.net> writes:
>
>        PLease give us all a rest, Leroy. This "I know something you don't,

I've stated what I know.  Its that simple.  I fail to see how that equates
to something you don't.  Its not like I am hiding something. (?)

>but I'm not gonna tell you,

I promise, Scout's honour. (Eagle Scout, Rimward Explorer)

>but you're wrong and I can prove it, only I don't feel like it right now,

If only you could see what I've seen with _my_ eyes. :)  It's not an
issue of "feel."  I've been asked to do something--let me do it in proper
fashion.  Obviously I want to do it right, and right just takes some time
(the instant gratification theme again).

>nya nya..." is really starting to wear thin. You've

Damn.  I (used to?) respect your opinion.  Don't be so easily influenced by
hecklers.  They don't want something out, so they'll do anything to see
that it doesn't get out.

>Fine.  Meanwhile, let it lie.  All we're seeing is that
>you apparently can't back your assertions up.

Sheesh!  Doesn't anybody listen around here?  (rhetorical)

That reminds me, for those of you who have written me offline to ask
privately for my sources, I apologize.  I never meant this to be torture
for anyone.  But if you consider, for me to do what you ask, I would have
the time to get everything compiled, with the accompanying analysis, and
then I could send it to you.  Right now, everything is a compilation of
fragments.  If I _could_ get the references off to you, I would just post
them to the list.  Another week on something that _few_ of us cared about
two weeks ago is not going to hurt anyone.

Mark your calendars for July 10th (and that is being generous, but I'll
admit that it is the first draft of more work to be done), and save me
some pain.

DON'T POST THIS THREAD AND I WON'T EITHER UNTIL THEN.

Happy Independence Day!  Happy Hong Kong Day!

>- -- Dave Golden

Leroy
 (send hate mail to /dev/null)

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:28:27 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Muzzle velocity

At 10:19 AM 7/1/97 +0200, Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:

>What is the maximum muzzle velocity of actual weapons (pistols and rifles)?

About the maximum you'll be able to achieve is around 4500m/sec.  At that
point the round will begin to melt from the heat.

Most modern sniper rifles have velocities in the 750-850m/sec range.  The
RAI-500 .50cal has a MV of nearly 900m/sec.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 13:27:57 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Haggis (was Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!)

In addition to the terrifying and mighty bagpipes, the Scots (of which I
count myself one) had another terror weapon;

In the years of the beginning of the potato famine in Ireland there was a
meeting of the clans of Scotland.  They had to deal with the sudden
incursion of their Irish cousins escaping Hunger.

One intrepid Scotsman had an idea.  The Scots would send food relief in the
form of a meal so disgusting and gross that the Irish would be convinced to
stay far away from Scotland, and in fact flee to America instead.

So they took blood and intestines, guts and organs and boiled it up in a
big pot.  To this they added oatmeal, for texture, and put the whole mess
in a sheep's stomach for good measure (some thought that was a wee bit over
the top).

And that's how Haggis was invented.

Neil McGurk Writes;
>Sorry this is nothing to do with Travller.

Well, can there be any alien foodstuff more gross than Haggis? Argh!
Besides, you know Scotsmen (and women) make the best engineers! ;)

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:19:01 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL

At 09:32 AM 7/1/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Three tests, a homework project and a quiz down--two exams and a quiz to go.

Yet you still find time to post.  How damn hard is it to say "look in book
X on page Y, and you'll see my evidence."  

>Since I am seeing quoting here without a _full_ accounting of what is said
>(twice at least now), I am more resolved to wait until I have all of my
>ducks in a row.  To my detractors, get a life and don't be so damned
>"American instant gratification" oriented. 

Excuse me?  First of all, I do have a life.  Quite a full one.  I work ten
hours a day, deal with cancer recovery, and am in the process of buying a
car.  None of this prevented me from grabbing two books off my shelf,
spending ten minutes doing some very basic research and simple maths, and
finding several sources clearly pointing to a RoM tech of 12/early 13.  You
are apparently unable to something this simple without complaining about
your horrendous schedule.

I take the above as a personal attack.  I have shown my case, backed it up
with references from GDW material, and in exchange I'm told to "get a life."

How petty can you get?

 To my supporters, another week
>or so isn't too long to wait to see _exactly_ what I have to say, rather
>than what people are trying to make me appear to say.

You haven't said *anything*, except to make wild-ass claims that you refuse
to defend in the slightest.. when called on it, you whine about your
schooling and being pressured, and then sulk and bitch about your
detractors.  This is a list populated by adults who all share a love of the
game Traveller and its background.. You think that we don't disagree with
each other?  You should have seen the fighter debate, or the wars over
Virus a few years back.  

In none of the discussions or flame wars I have seen or been involved in
here has there ever been someone with your attitude.  You seem to think
that you're being oh-so-clever with this ploy of making us all wait for
your announcement.  Guess what?  All you are doing is pissing people off.

Post which books you are using for this bizarre claim.  No quotes, not even
the pages, just tell us where you have canonical evidence of the RoM
possessing TL16 as a common TL.  We can look it up.

I don't think you can do it, since I'm convinced that you are only a troll,
trying to look important by starting an arguement.

Post, or shut up.

To the rest of the list:  Sorry for my tone, but I am sick and tired of
this guy's games.

>For those of you who can't find the delete keys on your mailers, try using
>the help. :)

You have insulted all of us.  There are people on this list whom I dislike.
 I still read their posts, and even when they disagree with me I don't sink
to your level.

There is a precedent for trouble-makers being dropped from the list.. when
does Rob get back from vacation?
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 01 Jul 97 14:01:53 EDT
From: Jeff & Michelle Norton <103010.212@compuserve.com>
Subject: Off subject - on line game stores - and, a favor...

	Sorry, you all, but I'd like to interrupt the discussion.

	I have the HTTP for Round table games from the list. (you should have
seen my shock when I saw that the mail address is about 15 min from my front
door...) Does anybody have any others for game stores?

	The favor... In your travels, have any of you seen a copy of GURPS Old
West. My sister-in-law saw a copy at Dragoncon last year and thought I'd given
up on a copy. I wished I had an asteroid to orbital bombard her (just kidding).
Has any one seen a copy or can locate one? Drop me a line if you can or do
locate one. I called Crazy Igor's in NY, but is taking a bit of time.
	
	Thanks in advance,

	Regards,
	Jeff Norton (103010,212@Compuserve.com)

	Life is a minefield...

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:50:19 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL

At 10:06 AM 7/1/97 -0600, Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:
[Many things]

I was originally going to write a more detailed response, but Dave Golden,
Doug Berry, and various other people have stated all of the facts that need
to be said.  I understand that you will post something when you have time,
and that you believe you have something to say.

Let it lie, until you have time to compile your results.

Posting frequently about references you have, while not posting said
references, adds nothing to the debate, and weakens your eventual position.
 If you are ok with that, fine, but do be aware that after a certain number
of references to information not available to the rest of us, we are not
likely to believe you.  This is human nature.

If you are not ready to post, then don't bring it up regularly, even if the
debate is on that topic, since you have no facts to contribute AT THIS TIME
- - contribute when you have laid out the facts in a manner acceptable to you.

I do not know whether you care, but sprinkling your responses with snide
comments about "American instant gratification" also damages your
credibility.  I react very badly to ad hominem attacks on me and my
countrymen.  Claiming victim status also can harm credibility.  If you are
correct about the scope of the references you have found, then they will be
strong enough to stand on its own - they do not need to have you defending
them in absentia.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

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Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 1 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1511



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Trading.
Re: TL of ROM
Re: World Builder's Handbook
Scots in Space! (was Pipes ARE Terror we
Re: Off subject - on line game stores -
Re: Muzzle velocity
Empress Iolante
Re: CryoFuel 
Re: Twilights Peak
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: Medical Cascade
re: Deep Space Mine(s!)
Re: Twilight's Peak
re: Real Relativistic Railguns
re: TL9 sans gravitics

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 14:07:22 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Trading.

>I'm thinking of designing a new system, one in which each planet will have
>major and minor exports, and major and minor imports. These will be specific
>products because I feel this will give worlds a more unique feel, for example
>one world could be well known for producing the best grav bikes in the sector,
>A mining colony could be producing nothing but minerals, except once in a
>while
>when someone finds something more valuable (gold etc....).
>
>Before I do lots of work on this, has anyone else done anything similar?
>Or does anyone have any suggestions?

I have found no way to do this except the hard way;  Go over the stats of
each planet involved and make some obvious guesses and/or develop the
system's environment in an abstract manner (no need to go through the long
process of Scouts or WBH, just start making assumptions).

101 Cargos, partly reprinted in JTAS 26(?or 27?) has a trading system as
good as (or a bit better than) any of the others, plus a lot of good ideas
for cargo lots.  Most are adventures in themselves, others spin off really
good ideas for more mundane cargos.

If you have the time and are inspired, examine a cluster of planets and
determine abstractly some logical economic relationships.  An obvous
example is an Agricultural world next to an asteroid belt or otherwise
nonagricultural high pop world.  The players can always rely on getting a
small profit (since the route is so regular, prices are low) speculative
cargo on the agric world to go to the hipop world.  Similar relationships
exist betwen high and low tech worlds, water worlds and vacuum worlds, etc.

Population works well as the driving factor in cargo availability.  Worlds
with populaitons over 6 should always be able to provide cargos in my
opinion.  It is ridiculous that in some of the trade systems a Pop 3 or 4
planet provides as much available cargo as a pop 9 or A planet.

I usually determine the most likely cargos for a given world and generate
them according to the lot size and price rules for the system I'm using (Jo
Grant's from 101 cargos, specifically, or Glen Hoppe's  from his Craft MT
Hypercard Stack (for Mac) which is the MT system).  I then get a bunch of
"random" cargos to round things out, discarding any that do not fit the
planet's characteristics as I've interpreted them.  Always I turn
"Electronic Parts" into "Handheld Game LCD screens" or somesuch.
Specificity is a very important aspect, and almost impossible to automate.

Developing a cluster is truly the best modelling you can do.  One planet's
economy is dramatically effected by the ones nearest it (as far as the
import/export business is concerned) and players will look for rumors of
what imports are good for what planets. they intend to visit.  Wherever
they go the players in my campaing deal with a "friendly neighborhood
commodities dealer" who finds them cargos for a commission (based on
purchase price) and tries to sell them stuff they may or may not be able to
sell at their next stop (although grudges and loss of business keep them
mostly honest).

Do not go too deep into the planet.  you'll spend a lot of time designing a
planet the players never visit.  At the moment I have contropl over the
players such that they will not be leaving the immediate vicininty (The
Traveller Adventure sees to that), find a way to do this using the clues
and plot of the underlying plot.

Do not forget that a system has the mainworld and several other planets
which can be exploited for their resources.  Gas mining on the Gas
Giant(s), ice mining in the asteroid belts, collecting heavy metals from
the surface of mercurial planets, etc. can provide other cargos for
out-of-system shipping.

Hope this gives you some ideas.  I have a list somewhere of specific cargo
names (such as "Groats, Live" or "Yucca Root, Powdered" as examples.  It is
incomplete, but might be useful.

Pete



Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 14:14:27 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Bryan Borich writes:

>      In the Traveller's Digest #17, Joe states that the Rule of man reached
>TL13 before the collapse (I found that reference while putting together an
>article index for my web page. It's in the Q&A section where a GM asks why
>the TL isn't more uniform in the Imperium, where the Vilani get blamed).

   Well that clears up one mystery.  I vaugely recalled it being stated
somewhere in some fashion, but eventually concluded that it was one of
those bits of canon that was just sort of worked out amongst the general
populace.  Unfortunately that reference doesn't tell us how extensive TL
13 had spread (a few worlds or common high tech).  So was TD #17
published before or after 1987?  It could be that it is superceded by
MegaTraveller.

>      Insofar as for word from Marc, well Greg did say that when he asked
>Marc, Marc told him TL15 (at least that's what it said in either one of the
>old email digests or on the beta list).

   This makes two things vitally important:

1) Marc needs to get up to speed on what has been published before on
the subject.

2) Marc needs to make an official ruling as to exactly what the max TL
of the RoM was and let everyone know what his decision is and the
rationale behind it.

   Note: Now would be a good time for those who are concerned with this
issue to post what bits of evidence they have to the list so that Marc
can be better informed.  Were I in Marc's shoes, I would appreciate
bibliographic citations so that I don't have to rumage through
everything, and it would be nice to be able to interpret passages myself
rather than relying on someone's less than biased opinion.

   Note: Now is not the time for political propaganda designed to fog
the issue or nattering designed to get Marc to change canon.  Let's get
the evidence out there and let him make up his own mind.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 19:53:32 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: World Builder's Handbook

Thanks everyone for info on the WBH.

Simon

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:04:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Scots in Space! (was Pipes ARE Terror we

>Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 13:27:57 -0400
>From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
>Subject: Haggis (was Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!)

>In addition to the terrifying and mighty bagpipes, the Scots (of which I
>count myself one) had another terror weapon;

<<Details of Haggis Snipped>>

>And that's how Haggis was invented.

>Neil McGurk Writes;
>>Sorry this is nothing to do with Travller.

>Well, can there be any alien foodstuff more gross than Haggis? Argh!
>Besides, you know Scotsmen (and women) make the best engineers! ;)


>Pete

>Peter H. Brenton
>"Shiela-X where are you"

Ye lads ever hear of the Calidonian Principality? A little known pocket 
empire that settled in Reavers Deep Sector in which most of the populace is 
of Solomani/Scottish decent?  They beat back the Reavers during the night 
and still managed to be independent by 1100!  The Thisle bows not to even 
the Starburst!

IIRC Traveller Chronicle did an article on the Caledon subsector a while 
back.  And they were mentioned in Far Traveller (FASA?) #2.

Scotsmen not Traveller, indeed! :-)

Commander X

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:10:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Re: Off subject - on line game stores -

>Date: 01 Jul 97 14:01:53 EDT
>From: Jeff & Michelle Norton <103010.212@compuserve.com>
>Subject: Off subject - on line game stores - and, a favor...

>        Sorry, you all, but I'd like to interrupt the discussion.

>        I have the HTTP for Round table games from the list. (you should 
have
>seen my shock when I saw that the mail address is about 15 min from my 
front
>door...) Does anybody have any others for game stores?

Sure do.  My 15min away FLGS,  Enterprise1701, has a website at:

http//:www.enterprise1701.com

This is THE premier FLGS for the Orlando, FL, USA area.

The store rocks, and the site's pretty cool to ;-)

Commander X

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 12:16:05 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Re: Muzzle velocity

The real-life muzzle velocity of any weapon is proscribed by the length
of the barrel, the weight of the bullet, and how hot a load you are
using. (To further obfusticate matters, your most accurate load in a
given weapon is liable to be far, far below your super-max hot killer
one). As a happy medium for gaming purposes, however, a plain vanilla
158-grain bullet seems to move roughly 1200 fps out of a 6" test barrel,
according to my Speer reloading manual. 

A superhot .44 Mag load will move a 240-grain bullet about 1400 fps, but
an ordinary person will have difficulty controlling the thing even in
the beefiest of handguns. I have not yet heard of any smallbore or
magnum handgun with a muzzle veolcity of greater than 1600 fps out of a
pistol barrel, although there are long-barreled (12" or so) single-shot
pistols that fire moderate-power rifle cartridges.

The highest muzzle velocity of any PRACTICAL 20th-century firearm is the
22-250 Swift, which poops out a 40-grain bullet at 4000 fps even. The
biggest round to give you 3000 fps+ out of a rifle barrel (the de facto
'high velocity' benchmark) is the .340 Weatherby Magnum, which sends a
200-grainer at 3260 fps... but that is a superpowered magnum guaranteed
to rip your arm off. I hate Weatherbies, and consider that whole family
of cartridges to be of very little real-world value. (A sniper in
battledress might find it ideal, however).

For role-playing purposes, I can tell you that such a cartridge would
leave very little of the torso of the human being it shot; it's more
along the lines of a lightweight elephant gun. Anybody shot with a gauss
rifle on full-auto is going to simply explode (in ALL directions, not
merely away from the shot) like a big bag of Jell-O, and be dripping off
the walls and ceiling, with perhaps a few identifiable body parts and
bone chips and scraps of armor laying around. In zero-G, the mess will
be even worse (obscuring the vision until they can wipe the blood off,
and perhaps acting as an anti-laser aerosol for a bit. Gross, but
effective). 

I once shot a gallon milk jug full of tap water from 40 yards away with
a 25-06, and it blew small white pieces of plastic all over the yard and
created a perfect wet spot on the hillside 30' across like a heavy dew
had come down. And an acquaintance pf mine knows of a slob hunter who
shot a big bull elk in the chest with a .375 H&H magnum -- both front
legs were blown completely off from the impact. This is a 400-lb. animal
being hit by a 300-grain softnose slug at about 2400 fps. So if you
wanna be 'realistic', bear ALL of this firmly in mind.

Frankly, I know of no design-your-own-bullshittium wannabe-realistic
game design system that distinguishes between conventional and magnum
rounds, but if you like I can provide you with representative samples in
energy, bullet weight, and velocity in any existing cartridge, along
with cartridge dimensions. Suffice it to say I've tried to design some
of the rifles and rounds I own using an FF&S Excel spreadsheet, and all
have been grotesquely off-base.... hence my increasing disenchantment
with the hopelessly anal-retentive notion of trying to reconcile game
design and 'real-world' engineering.

My personal peccadillos aside, I hope some of this info comes in handy.

(By the way, out of morbid curiosity, does anyone know the actual
release date for the new FF&S? And does it dispense with the arcane
formulae guaranteed to reduce anyone without a scientific calculator to
screaming jelly?)

- -- Jay Stranahan

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 21:22:27 +0200
From: "Mark Seemann" <mark@dk-online.dk>
Subject: Empress Iolante

30/6-97 Chris Griffen wrote:

> Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
> I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
> where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
> Regency Sourcebook?

Chris, I see you've already gotten lots of answers to your question, but...

<WARNING! Shameless commercial to follow!>

...you could have just looked up Iolante on my Library Data web site:

http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/mark_seemann/library/

Mark Seemann
mark@dk-online.dk
http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/mark_seemann

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:26:36 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel 

> The problem is the heat lost in vaporizing LHyd is not that great.
> If you were going to carry around coolant I would pick water first.

It is of very little use however if cooling below 0C.  Ice tends to do
bad things to pumps, engine blocks, and stuff...

TT

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:30:16 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Twilights Peak

At 00:39 01/07/97 -0400, Tom Trelenberg wrote:
>First, I want to say thanks to those of you who have responded to my
>Twilights Peak question.  Thanks to Robert (Flammang) for the "why
>things are the way they are" post and to Anders (Blackman) for his
>inspiring "why things are the way they are and now the universe is in
>big trouble unless the PC's can save us all" epic.  This is great
>stuff.  I wish my "imagination" was as keenly honed.
>
>Thanks to Daniel (Poulin) for his input.  I have some additional
>questions to clarify your viewpoint:
>
>1)Did the builders of the octagon not notice your revised room just
>under the lowest floor they constructed?  If so why?  If the fusion
>heater could fall through to this room it would seem that they would
>have found it laying the foundation.  (BTW this is not an attack on your
>idea--its just that I'm interested and I want to understand.)  Was this
>room built after the octagon was complete and the builders gone by the
>"Droynes that were not in the base"?  Where these Droynes still living
>in the wilderness around the octagon?

I assume that the Saga is flawed in a few aspects (remember the story of
Troy and Shlieman's (if this is the way to write it), the fact that he used
Homer story doesn't mean that the actions described therein are all true).
I assumed that the Droynes that were not in the base rapidly lost
civilization, slowly turning to the Chirpers aspect after a few generations.
They slowly died away.  I determined that the ruins of a city could be found
somewhere else under the dirt (with multiple layers of chirper bones
everywhere).  Among these bones could be found human bones from the
servants.  These servants were disposed off when they became a nuisance.  

As to the room under the octagon, it was built a few centuries after the
base was "abandonned".  The ceiling fell because of water infiltration in
recent years that ate away at the stone, destroying the work of the original
Droynes.  The building of the Octagon was not something the original Droynes
had thought of.  In fact, the location was perfect for their ceremonies
since, even after the knoledge of the base had been lost, the area remained
somehow sacred.  The same location was perfect also for the building of a
shelter by the octagon society founders.  The building caused small fissures
(I hope this is also a word in english) or cracks in the stone that caused
water infiltration in the caves and sealed rooms below.  

>2)  Who built the catacombs and the well?  These Droyne?  Others?

I never found an answer to that question.  I hope the players I have going
through this scenario (the third group I run through it) will not attempt to
find an explanation :-))  I suggest however that the catacombs were built
through many centuries by the population of Droynes (then Chirpers).  I
suggest that a close examination of the walls will reveal that they have
been built by "hands".  If you consider the huge size of these catacombs,
your players should be sufficiently impressed by the time it took to build them.

>3) Why did they wall off the passage to "the door" and build the large
>barred wood door separating the well and the door?   It seems these
>Droyne would want to rejoin the others, not seal them away.

I don't have an answer for that one.  Think of the fact that these Droynes
must have been aware of the destruction that occured everywhere.  They must
have been awed by the sheer power of the war.  If they decided to find
refuge in the forest (because they thought they would be attacked perhaps),
then they could have been blocked from the base.  I assume that they sealed
it because they didn't know how to operate it.   I will have to think about
that one I must admit.

Thank you for your questions, you are asking questions that I should have
asked myself before (at least three times anyway!!!)
>
>
I must say that I don't feel that you are attacking my comments, I hope that
the different flame wars that seem to have occured have not made people shy
about asking questions or even offering comments.

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:36:22 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

At 08:43 01/07/97 +0100, Anders Backman wrote:
>>   Have fun with Twilight's Peak; it may just be the greatest
>>   RPG adventure ever made.
>
>Only to be beaten by the Skyraiders trilogy.
>
>
>/Anders Backman
>Aniware AB
>anders.backman@aniware.se
>
>
>
I own almost every book evey published about traveller but I must say I am
missing the second book of the Skyraider trilogy.  Could anyone give me
enough information so that I can use it for my group the next time.  The
last time I gm'ed it, I decided that the action occured in the Old Expenses
sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best traveller
adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
"Lords of Thunder".

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 97 12:15:32 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Medical Cascade

On 07/01/97 at 09:08 AM,  anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) said:

>The same note goes for Recon and Hunting: What is really the usefulness of
>dividing them up?

Anders, you do it one way I do it another. I *do* break up Recon and
Hunting...and the biggie for me Survival.

>One skill type that REALLY need to be broken up long
>before the medical ones above is Streetwise. It can be used to find
>dealers in illegal stuff, reaction modifier when talking with bad guys,
>detection of tailing, identifying controlled substances (by tasting them
>as all cops in Hollywood seem to do) etc. 

That depends on how you let it be used..and on whether you have other
"clandestine" skills available in your skill set. ;->  Personally, I use
Steetwise as the Head Skill in a cascade of, what I refer to as, shady
skills.

>I'd say we don't break any of them up but instead put our energy into defining tasks for them so that as little as possible need to be dreamt up ad hoc.

Feel free to define tasks for any and everything!  I'd love to see us all
share a ton of tasks all posted in here.  However, I'll still keep my more
detailed skill list, thank you, and I don't really like the idea of
defining *anything* so ridgedly that "as little as possible need to be
dreamt up ad hoc."  Ad hoc is good!

Warning!!  All players in my games ignore the following!! ;->

I'm a big proponent of loose guidelines and large doses of GM fiat. You
know all those "joke rules" being bandied about lately?  They describe how
I run games fairly accurately. ;->  Joe Walsh has accused me of being
"diceless", well I'm not!  I use dice as props to cover my sneaky fiat
rulings all the time! ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 13:39:08 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Deep Space Mine(s!)

One useful class of mine is the detonation laser (missiles in T4 are mostly
laser type anyway): nuclear warhead with x-ray laser rods. Effective range
of the lasers when it detonates are around 10000km, damage (in T4 terms)
is 1d6 hits by a rating 2 laser. The mines could be free-floating,
camoflaged to look like rock, with a tiny passive sensor. PCs would have to
approach in something small enough not to set off the passive sensor - maybe
a suit with a thruster pack. To power the sensor and computer for decades
the mines would need a small solar panel, which would probably be how the 
PCs could detect them - after 10 years the camoflage on the solar panel
might have worn off. The nukes might not be fully reliable after all those
years too...

>Would Air Rafts work in this environment?
Grav plates need a source of gravity to push against - so they'd be of 
little use in an asteroid belt (perhaps a milligee of acceleration.) You'd
want a air/raft modified with thruster plates, or (for the cheapskate)
chemical rockets. (In fact, the mines might have grav sensors to detect
thruster plates - PCs would have to approach using chemical rockets, which
is *very* slow. The mines might also have neutrino sensors, so they'd have
to shut down their fusion plants...the PCs would have to move their ship to
10000km or so, deccelerate with chemical rockets (strap-on solids mounted
on the hull), go accross in spacesuits...and then if they set off a mine
they'd have a minute or so (as it deploys its targeting sensors and rotates
to aim the lasers at the ship) to desperately slip away on their suit jets,
bring up the power on the ship so they can evade or fire back...the mines
would also have sensors to detect weapons fire and fire back; and would 
probably be indistinguishable from rocks at ranges greater than 10000km or so.
(Feel free to twiddle the ranges to make things exciting - the goal is to make
sure the players just don't laser the mines from well outside the mines
weapon range.) Some mines might be full-fledged missiles with working
drives that would lunge towards the PC spaceship when a first mine detects
it or detonates...

Bruce

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:46:32 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

At 10:27 01/07/97 EDT, Jeffery M. Miller wrote:
>Its cool hearing all about TP again. Years ago when we played that scenario, we
>all sat back in a calm glow and said " that was the best ever".  It was so good
>that a few years after that I was ORDERED (!) by my group to develop a 'Return
>to Twilight's Peak', which I loyally did and got to have fun with Fulacin in
>the process....
>
>Thanks for bringing me back!
>
>-j
>
I always use for new groups.  It is a very open ended adventure that allows
for a large campaign with small adventures in the middle.  It is perfect for
a group of players that has been traumatized (;-)) by AD&D and GMs that can
only create dungeon crawls...

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 13:53:37 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Real Relativistic Railguns

>The test this individual saw had a small projective accelerated to _0.15
>C_, [yep almost 1/6 the Speed of Light] (into vacuum, the 0.15 C was only
>muzzle velocity, the vacuum was not thin enough to let it travel far at
>that speed).  The goal of the project is to accelerate a small projective
>to 0.5 C. 


That's off the continuing-time list, isn't it? 

The idiot who's posting it is completely, totally, 100% wrong. THe Texas
railgun stuff is real - velocities of a few km/s - but relativistic railguns
do not currently exist and are unlikely to in the near, or far, future.

Important lesson: never trust anything you hear on the 'net. Especially if
someone posts something unbelievable (0.5 c railguns), has bad spelling and
grammar, makes obvious scientific errors (he didn't think elements could
burn, and didn't think carbon was an element) and is contradicted by
several knowledgeable-sounding people.

Bruce

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 14:06:11 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: TL9 sans gravitics

Since a couple of people asked, here are my TL9/non-grav shuttle designs
(original FFS):

- --------------------------------------------------------------------
As an exercise (and to go with some starship designs I'm working on) I 
tried to design TL 9- (TL 9 without contragrav) ground-to-orbit shuttles.
It mostly worked, without breaking the FFS rules more than slightly.
The only major difference in fact was that I used the real delta-V
formula rather than the simplified FFS one
(see http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe/traveller/thrusters.html, especially the
article from cyhiggin@usa.pipeline.com, though her transfer orbit
formula looks wrong to me.) I did use FFS engines (see below.)
Ways in which the design changes with alternative rules, or CG, are also 
discussed at the end.

TL-8 versions of these designs would look almost identical; if anyone is
really interested in the subtle differences I can post them.

The one major difference to published TNE rules is of course the delta-V
to orbit. The TNE rule-book number-of-G-hours to orbit, as has been noted,
are completely wrong. Delta V from earth's surface to a 150km orbit
is 8.00 km/s. (Not 0.64 G-hours, which is 22.5 km/s.) Getting back
from orbit requires much less delta-V, too; all you have to do is
change your orbit so it scrapes the atmosphere more, and then aerobrake
(like the Space Shuttle does.) This raises total delta-V to 8.04 km/s.
If you start near the equator delta-V goes down; 7.64 km/s is the figure
I used, appropriate for a 30-degree inclination takeoff. 
For a size 9 world of normal density delta-V is 8.52 km/s, for a size 7, 6.72
km/s.

These are delta-V in a vacuum and assuming very high instantaneous 
acceleration. Real atmosphere and gravity complicate this somewhat. 
FFS talks about non-CG spacecraft using 1-g of their thrust to negate 
gravity until they reach orbit, which is spectacularly nonsensical, even by GDW
standards. *Anything* that's moving is in an orbit; a thrown baseball is
in an orbit - just a *very* long and skinny elliptical orbit that 
happens to intersect the Earth's surface. The trick for a rocket is to
make sure your orbit never actually reaches the ground. For finite
accelerations this means some amount of delta-V is spent going upwards as the
spacecraft lifts off, which is less efficient than a pure Hohmann
transfer orbit. In addition, you lose delta-V due to atmospheric friction.
Together these add about 1.5 km/s to the delta-V requirements for a classical
rocket, and require that the takeoff acceleration be significantly higher
than 1G.

The shuttle designs below are horizontal-takeoff designs which use their
airbreathing AZHRAE engines for takeoff and to climb to high altitudes
(and, in the case of the first design, for some extra delta-V.) This is similar
to the (now-cancelled) X-30 Aerospace Plane. This approach has been pretty
much abandoned in the real world, but FFS makes it easier to design than
most other single-stage-to-orbit designs (see below.) It also means that
the acceleration required of the engine is only 1G (or even less.) I've
allowed 0.6 km/s delta-V for remaining atmosphere drag (8.1 km/s round trip
to 150-km orbit from 30 degrees latitude), which is typical for the Pegasus
air-launched rocket. There's a huge range of operational parameter space for 
these vehicles depending on the atmosphere, density and diameter of the world 
they're operating on; I've designed for an Earthlike world.

Terminology for those who don't have FFS: AZHRAE is the acronym
for a combination turbojet/ramjet/rocket engine. HRF is hydrogen
rocket fuel. HCD is hydrocarbon distillates (petrochemical fuels.)
EAPlaC is the incredibly efficient solid-rocket-like TL-9 engine in FFS,
normally used in missiles.



TL-9 commercial single-stage-to-orbit airbreathing shuttle.

General:
Displacement: 100 tons                  Hull Armor:1 (Internals stressed to 1G)
Length: 28m                             Volume: 1400 m^3
Price: MCr 32.39                        Target Size: S
Configuration: Cyl AF                   Tech Level: 9-
Mass: Loaded/Empty: 577.32/88.02 

Engineering Data:
Power Plant: 0.34 MW fuel cell (0.34 MW/hit), 8 hour duration at full power
G-rating: 1 (AZHRAE rocket mode), 0.66 (AZHRAE ramjet), 0.4 (AZHRAE turbojet)
          (gives maximum speed 1400 km/h with turbojet,  2324 km/h ramjet)

G-turns: 7.36 km/s delta-V from rockets. 8 minutes turbojet flight
         2.2 minutes ramjet flight (0.64 km/s delta V, limited by maximum
         ramjet speed.) Total=8.0 km/s delta-V loaded, 12.5 km/s with no cargo.
Fuel:    43.44 m^3 of HCD, 1086.18 m^3 of HRF
Maint:   141


Electronics:
Computer: 2xTL-9 Mod Flt Computer (0.03 MW each)
Commo: 3000km radio (0.1 MW)
Avionics: TL-8 avionics (0.1 MW)
Sensors: Radar (3 km; 0.02 MW)
ECM/ECCM: None
Controls: 2xopen crewstations

Armament: None

Accommodations:
Life Support: Basic (0.02 MW), not covering fuel or engines

Crew: 2 (1x Maneuver, 1xElectronics)
Crew Accommodations: none other than crewstations
Passenger Accommodations: 14 adequate seats
Cargo: 140 m^3 (120 tonnes)with one large cargo hatch

Notes/operating mode:
  The shuttle takes off and lands like an aircraft. It uses 4 minutes of 
turbojet fuel to take off and climb, then fires the ramjets for 2.2 
minutes, accelerating to 0.64 km/s and punching through most of the
atmosphere, then firing the rockets for the rest of the trip to orbit.
It de-orbits with a brief rocket burn (0.05 km/s), aerobrakes like the
shuttle, glides most of the way to its landing sight, then activates
the turbojets for the last part of the landing. Enough turbojet fuel
is available for four minutes of full thrust at landing, but since it
weighs much less while landing and doesn't need to run the engines at
full thrust it can run for more than half an hour at 350km/h during 
landing, a comfortable safety margin.

  Operating costs are dominated by fuel (HRF costs Cr 1000
per m3.) Cost to orbit for commercial service would therefore be around
Cr 10,000 per tonne of cargo and 2,000 per passenger (possibly somewhat
less if there is enough traffic that shuttles always fly full both to
and from orbit.) Compare to the EAPlaC disposable discussed below - 
shuttles would probably only be used for people and fragile/urgent cargoes. 




TL-9 exploration single-stage-to-orbit shuttle

General:
Displacement: 100 tons                  Hull Armor:1 (stressed to 1.5 G)
Length: 28m                             Volume: 1400 m^3
Price: MCr 31.78                        Target Size: S
Configuration: Cyl AF/VTOL              Tech Level: 9-
Mass: Loaded/Empty: 445.94/92.17

Engineering Data:
Power Plant: 0.94 MW MHD turbine (0.34 MW/hit), 8 hour fuel including oxygen
G-rating: 1.25 (AZHRAE rocket mode), 0.83 (AZHRAE ramjet)
          0.5 (AZHRAE turbojet)
          (gives maximum speed 1750 km/h with turbojet,  2920 km/h ramjet)

G-turns: 8.17 km/s delta-V from rockets. 12.5 minutes turbojet flight.
         0 minutes ramjet flight. 8.17 km/s total delta-V fully loaded, 
         11.0 with no cargo

Fuel:    332.14 m^3 of LHyd for AZHRAE, 901.72 m^3 of HRF
Maint:   108

Electronics:
Computer: 2xTL-9 Mod Flt Computer (0.03 MW each)
Commo: 3000km radio (0.1 MW), 1000 AU maser (0.6 MW)
Avionics: TL-8 avionics (0.1 MW)
Sensors: Radar (3 km; 0.02 MW), HRT (30 km)
ECM/ECCM: None
Controls: 2xopen crewstations

Armament: None

Accommodations:
Life Support: Basic (0.02 MW), not covering fuel or engines
Crew: 2 (1x Maneuver, 1xElectronics)
Crew Accommodations: none other than crewstations
Passenger Accommodations: 6 cramped seats
Cargo: 70 m^3 (60 tonnes) with one large cargo hatch

Notes:
This version is designed for field operations on unexplored worlds.
It's VTOL-capable (Using the VTOL aircraft rules, this adds 10% to the hull 
material volume, and requires a minimum acceleration of 0.5G, which the
turbojets satisfy.) 
The AZHRAE engine burns hydrogen in its airbreathing modes rather than 
hydrocarbons. Since hydrogen is so bulky, it's no longer efficient to use 
the AZHRAE engine for any delta-V beyond that needed for takeoff and landing,
but this makes the shuttle completely field-refuellable.

The shuttle normally starts in orbit, carried by a starship. It de-orbits
(0.05 km/s delta-V) and aerobrakes, then glides towards a carefully pre-
selected landing site. It activates the turbojets for 5 minutes at
0.1 G (350 km/h) to find the landing site, then 3 minutes of hovering at
0.5 G for landing. Vertical takeoff uses another 2 minutes of 0.5 G, then 5.5 
minutes of full thrust are left to climb to altitude before firing the rockets.

For field refueling the shuttle would carry down a fission reactor
(60 tons) and then a fuel refining plant, modified to refine both 
liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and several fuel storage tanks.
Using some of its HRF tanks, and the cargo hold, for  plain liquid hydrogen 
the shuttle can carry 295 m^3 to a 150-km orbit.

Operating purely as an aircraft (with the HRF tanks full of hydrogen
for the turbojet) it has an endurance of about one hour, plus a margin for 
vertical takeoff and landing.

Since it only has one electronics operator, it can only operate a total of
two sensors or communicators at any time.


Notes:

FFS engines have low thrust-to-weight but also lower fuel consumption than
the Real World. This is actually an advantage for craft like this one which
have quite low accelerations. Using more realistic engines (see the URL
above) bites heavily into the payload; designs are available if anyone is
really interested.

One can argue that craft that aerobrake should have higher armor values
than normal craft, but one can also argue that AV=1 and especially the
internal structure is far heavier than real world craft needed, so I've
just left it at AV=1.


EAPlaC:

   These designs don't use EAPlaC for a variety of reasons:
(1) I started with the exploration shuttle, which needed to be completely
field-refuellable.
(2) I wanted them to be basically practical at TL-8
(3) I wanted the commercial shuttle to emphasize rapid turnaround, thinking
that this would decrease operations costs. (I was wrong.) 
(4) Even though the rules implicitly assume EAPlaC rockets can be turned off
and re-ignited (unlike solid rockets in the real world), they're still a
type of solid, and no-one in their right mind uses solid rockets on a 
manned vehicle. (The NASA Space Shuttle is a case in point.)
(5) EAPlaC is poorly-explained magic, not extrapolated technology.

   However, EAPlaC has an *incredible* ISP. It's very tempting. If the safety 
considerations don't apply, TL-9 shuttles would probably at least use 
expendable strap-on EAPlaC boosters. A shuttle that gets part of its delta-V
4 ton (28 m^3) strap-on EAPlaC boosters can carry 390 tonnes into orbit at a
fuel cost of MCr 1; commercial shipping charges would be about Cr 2500 per 
tonne.

   Additionally, pure EAPlaC unmanned rockets would almost certainly dominate
the bulk cargo market, where safety is irrelevant. A 100-ton unmanned 
disposable EAPlaC cargo carrier can carry 1280 tonnes into orbit, and costs
MCr 0.42! It's so cheap - dominated by fuel costs - that it's not even worth
reusing. Commercial cost to orbit would be about Cr 500 per tonne.




The Real World:

   In the real world, SSTO's are unlikely to look like this. Partially this
is because we don't know how to make an AZHRAE engine, and partially it's
because of various details like landing gear that FFS doesn't model.
Without AZHRAE engines horizontal takeoff has no advantages and in fact
is a net disadvantage, because you have to design the wings and landing
gear to lift the whole loaded weight of the spacecraft, not the empty weight.

   Current SSTO paper designs are either VTHL (vertical-takeoff/horizontal 
landing) rocket takeoff/glide-landers, kind of like the Space Shuttle with no 
external  tank or boosters, or VTVL (vertical-takeoff/vertical landing) craft
which look a lot like 1950s science fiction and hover/land using thrust from
rocket engines (the DC-X and proposed follow-ons.) See sci.space.policy
and s.s.tech for perpetual debates as to which approach is better.
Neither works well with FFS engines. Also, a VTVL doesn't work very well
for a shuttle that starts in orbit - it has to land/hover while carrying 
all the (heavy) fuel it needs to get back into orbit. Realistic rather than
FFS engines are better for these high thrust-to-weight designs, but they're
still very hard to do (I suspect because the interior structure mass in FFS is
too high for small craft.)

Bruce

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1511
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Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 2 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1512



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Allegiances
Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question
RE: penetrating battledress using only Sound :)
Re: Trading.
RoM TL
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Education and Schools
Re: Task system defnition error
Re: CryoFuel
Re: Rom
Re: TL of ROM
Personnal vehicle questions
Re: Twilight's Peak  & JOT
Back and alive
Gurps Aliens
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1511
Re: Task system defnition error
Re: Sector Info requested
Reality
Re: Education and Schools

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:03:10 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Allegiances

Hi,

Can anybody tell me in which sectors the following are located?  I know
I've seen some of them, not all:

        Bright Star Cooperate
        Delsun Comagistrant
        Dienbach Gr?pen <- and what is the spelling of this?
        Eslyat
        Gralyn Assemblage
        Third Empire of Gashikan
        Joie De Vivre
        Murian (Beyond?)
        Malorn Union
        Nakris Confederation
        Sea'ai'teluarliyh
        Steaakh Yeasaol
        Empire of Vaerroth
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 14:35:47 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel (was: Re: Deckplan Question

Tue, 1 Jul 1997 08:00:35 +2, "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
>	True... Actually it's not such a bad idea. Water would be available
>from oceans, most gas giants (at least on some level of gas giants
>there's H2O rain) and comets. The down side would be it couldn't be
>used as emergency fuel for extra G-hours.

Well, you could get some by splitting it.

>> I always figured that what happened is that when you jumped
>> you needed a lot energy in a short period of time.  For
>> that reason Jump drives have their own reactors that are
>> capable of creating huge throughputs at low effeciency
>> (thus the reason you need all that hydrogen is inefficiency
>> and that you need a lot of energy to get into jump space).
>
>	Wouldn't this inefficiency be countered by higher technology? Or
>does this happen at only at TL 17+? I'd imagine a TL 9 Jump-1 drive
>could be inefficient enough to consume five times its volume in LHyd,
>but a TL 16 Jump-1 ?

I'm comparing the effeciency with the main power plant.  The
idea that, at all TL's, a very high throughput reactor
would work at a lower efficiency seems reasonable.

_______________________________________________________________
DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 09:36:42 +1200
From: Brody Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: penetrating battledress using only Sound :)

On Monday, June 30, 1997 3:21 PM, Douglas E. Berry [SMTP:dberry@hooked.net] 
wrote:
> At 11:51 PM 6/29/97 +1200, you wrote:
>
> >> I like it.  Really like it - never occured to me and wow - really cool
> >> idea.  The whole thing.  Why can't I get a GM like this.
>
> Are you willing to move to San Francisco?  I am starting a game soon.. :)
>
Maybe I could Commute, It's only a few Time Zones Away after all - I would have 
to go back a day but I can handle that (Time Travel - wooooo) ;)

> The kilt thing came from two and a half sources.  I'm writing a history of
> the Imperial Marine Force, and have the current crop of jarheads trace
> their lineage to the RoM's marines, and through them to the USMC and the
> Royal Marines (UK).  This allows me to give my Marines pipers!  (As an
> aside, the game Dirtside II defines bagpipes as terror weapons, *snark*.)

My father comes from region of our country that was settled heavily by Scots 
and the sound of bagpipes really stirs the soul (or maybe the stomach) and 
brings tears to my eyes.  (of course, it probably does that to everyone anyway 
- - but I can pretend)

> The second reason is that I'm a costumer, and I want to do the dress
> unifrom of a Marine Force Leader (0-3) for a con, and I like kilts.
>
> The 1/2 reason is I'm taking up the bagpipes, and would love to march the
> halls of GenCon playing "Scotland the Brave" in an appropriate uniform.

That'll put it up them :)

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 23:01:13 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Trading.

The World Builders Handbook (and it's precursor Grand Survey) have 
tables for determining major and minor imports and exports.  If you 
can't get hold of these (old) books, the algorithms are available in 
various spreadsheets - I have an Excel one (downloaded from a web site 
- - I don't recall which one) that seem pretty comprehensive.

Simon

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 15:22:00 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: RoM TL

  I've flipped through the sources I can find (and I'm looking
for the one I can't) and have to conclude that the problem is
differing interpretations of tech descriptions. The -2389 AI 
from the MT Encyclopedia clearly refers to TL 12 robots (also
see Book 8, p.6), leaving the real issue the definition of
terraforming. If the listings and write-ups are compared
(MT Companion pps. 28, 31-32) it seems likely that terraforming
capabilities are listed by TL only when they can be very reliably
completed within a relatively limited time span (a few decades,
not centuries).

  Obviously, the tentative conclusion there could use further
analysis, but it appears to have the virtues of being consistent
with all major published resources, not mentioning the phrase 
"task system", and being a basis for debate on what is meant by
"terraform" (see "very reliably"; random or undesired results
don't count, unless you have bored players with lots of nukes).

  Comments?
        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:26:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

In a message dated 97-06-29 11:12:14 EDT, you write:

<< > Heroism is a separate roll availabl;e if you roll 5- on Injury.
 
 Excellent. How about a voluntary +/-1 DM for brave/cowardly characters?
 
  >>
There is a poltroonery rule... which is a little more complex than that. It
reduces the chance of injury (but not completely) and reduces the chance of
decoration (but not completely). 

	Poltroonery. Army, Navy, Marine, and Scout characters may elect the
Poltroonery DM (which reduces the chance for a heroism award).

MILITARY HEROISM AWARDS
Roll	Award
10	Meritorious Conduct Under Fire.
11	Medal for Conspicuous Gallantry.
12	Starburst for Extreme Heroism.
Army, Navy, Marine and Scout characters who roll 5 - on the Injury Roll (even
if it does not produce an Injury) can roll on the Military Heroism Awards
table for a Heroism Decoration. If Poltroonery DM +2 was used on the Injury
roll, then DM-2 on the Heroism roll.

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:27:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Education and Schools

Concept currently being discussed for Schools

WAIVERS
	Within the Education process, any character may apply for a waiver of
 	Any Pre-Requisite (which would preclude applying for a school), or 
	Any die roll (after the roll has been made and failed).
	Rolling Waivers. To receive a Waiver, roll Soc or less. (2D); DM - total
number of waivers applied rolled, whether successful or not.
		Waivers apply only to Schools and Education; they do not apply in careers
(except the Scholar career). 
	Waivers never apply to injury.

Thus, 99944B can't even apply to University because he is intellectually
impaired. He throws 2D for a Waiver of the Intelligence Pre-Requisite and has
to throw <= 11; then he throws 2D for a waiver of the Education Pre-Requisite
and has to throw <= 10 (11 DM-1). He fails the perseverance throw and has to
throw <=9 to graduate anyway.

At the end of University, his Edu will be advanced to whatever University
awards, but his Int remains 4. Now he wants to go to grad school...

Marc Miller

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:30:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

In a message dated 97-06-30 18:53:07 EDT, you write:

<< >        Totally agreed by the mathematical community of the TML ;-)
Please
 >re-state it in T4.1... Besides, if rolling exactly the target number is
 >succes, the sign would have to be >=, or "greater or equal" if it can be
 >typed.
 
I assumed that the lost '=' was a result of worries over ASCII versions....
;-)
 It's just been one of those little irritations...
>>

Much of this stems from two definitions in T4, both of which use the same
abbreviation. DM can mean Die Modifier, or Die Roll Modifier. DM +2 means
increase the THROW +2 and then compare against the dice, or it means increase
the DICE roll +2 and compare against the required outcome.

I am proposing two distinct statements:

DM: +2 means throw the dice and then increase the result by +2.

RM: +2 means increase the target number (what you're rolling to get, etc) by
+2.

Both of these statements allow for statements like DM x2 or DM /2 (or I
suppose DM ^2).

(I thought of TM for Throw Modifier, but it sounded too much like Trade
Mark).

Now the problem is that RM or DM mean (or produce) the same net result if
phrased correctly. Do we scrap one, or do we retain the potential for each?

Marc Miller

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 16:51:03 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: CryoFuel

Tue, 01 Jul 1997 16:26:36 -0400, Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
>> The problem is the heat lost in vaporizing LHyd is not that great.
>> If you were going to carry around coolant I would pick water first.

>It is of very little use however if cooling below 0C.  Ice tends to do
>bad things to pumps, engine blocks, and stuff...

Yeah, but if you are talking about carring massive amounts of
heat from a reactor you aren't talking about cooling below 0C.

_______________________________________________________________
DSummers@Mail.ARC.NASA.gov

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 18:06:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: Rom

On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Evyn MacDude wrote:

> MR. SNEAD!! (sounds great when you say in a Capt. Hook sort of way)

Just for the folks that might be doing a crossword soon I must correct. It
is Mr. Smee.

- ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 18:19:19 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

At 02:14 PM 7/1/97 -0400, Harold wrote:

>   Note: Now would be a good time for those who are concerned with this
>issue to post what bits of evidence they have to the list so that Marc
>can be better informed.  Were I in Marc's shoes, I would appreciate
>bibliographic citations so that I don't have to rumage through
>everything, and it would be nice to be able to interpret passages myself
>rather than relying on someone's less than biased opinion.

the simplest way I can put this comes off of one page in the MT Ref's
Companion (pg 34).  Under the "Other Tech Level Notes" section, it shows
the RoM achieving TL12 in -2210.  My *assumption* is that this the
approximate year that the technolgy became the standard for RoM Naval
units, high-end civilan systems, etc.

In the 3I section of the same passage, it is noted that it takes from -150
to 300 for the 3I to progress from TL12 to TL13.. a period of 450 years.

Assuming that there is no significant difference in the advancement rate
between 2nd and 3rd Imperia, the RoM will achieve a coomon TL13 society in
- -1760.  Alas, this comes almost 100 years after Rats & Cats (pg22) states
that society had fractured badly, and 16 years after the recognized start
of the Long Night (-1776).

On terrafrorming:  At TL12, "Major terraforming projects covering thousands
of square kilometers become commonplace."  (MT Ref's Companion, pg 31.)
This is akin to turning the Sahara Desert into a grain basket, or draining
the Amazon river basin.

IT IS MY OPINION that the terraforming mentioned for TL16 and above refers
to the complete rebuilding of the world from the crust up.  It is
interesting to note that the one global project mentioned (it's name
escapes me) was only finished in modern times...

>   Note: Now is not the time for political propaganda designed to fog
>the issue or nattering designed to get Marc to change canon.  Let's get
>the evidence out there and let him make up his own mind.

There you have my .02 Cr on the subject.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 10:16:24 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Personnal vehicle questions

Thanks for replying on the Muzzle velocity question. But I've another
question about FFS design

As most of you may know, FFS ground vehicle is bugged in designing
personnal vehecles
The mass is usually to high and the volume seems to be very high.
Especially for the passenger and driver seats

Rules says 
  I need a crewstation 3.5m3
  Passenger seats are Cramped 2.5 each
  Restricted (1.5m3) are for very special use

So for a regular car I would use :
  driver 3.5 + passengers (3*2.5) + middle rear passenger (1.5) = 12.5m3
  I need a truck!

So the questions are :
  Are those figures realistic 
  What is the approximative average external volume of regular personnal cars?
  What is the approximative average internal volume of regular personnal cars?


- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 
   Mailto:marben@worldnet.net (Week-end only!)

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 11:33:07 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak  & JOT

>Date: 01 Jul 97 10:27:52 EDT
>From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
>Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak
>
>Its cool hearing all about TP again. Years ago when we played that
scenario, we
>all sat back in a calm glow and said " that was the best ever".  It was
so good
>that a few years after that I was ORDERED (!) by my group to develop a
'Return
>to Twilight's Peak', which I loyally did and got to have fun with
Fulacin in
>the process....
>
>Thanks for bringing me back!
>
>- -j


Hey Jeff--how about sharing "Return to Twilights Peak" with the list.
I'm sure I would not be the only one interested in hearing your take on
"whats really going on" and "what happens next" in TP.

Also, just a tidbit for the JOT discussion.....even when I first
startred with CT way back when, JOT levels were never directly applied
as a DM.  They were use more as an indicator of how "well read" the
character was.  The higher the "skill level" the more likely the PC was
to know a bit about what he was trying to do.  It was the refs choice as
to what the final DM would be or even if the characters past experience
would even allow JOT to be applied.  If it was determined that the PC
might have come across a similar situation in the past the DM applied
was usually only the skill level divided by 3 or 4.  (by way of example:
a PC from a desert world would get significant help from JOT skill for
surviving desert conditions even if he had no survival skills--however
the benefit from the same level of JOT would be almost negligable in
underwater welding (any benefit being dirived from something the PC read
at some time in the past at the refs discretion)

TT

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 05:13:10 +0000 ()
From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
Subject: Back and alive

Moin Gurus,

	back online since half a year. Of couse we've played Traveller
	during the winter. My home page is still not running, as the
	provider moved some stuff during my offline time, I hope to
	find time to reinstall it and translate our winter scenarios.

	BTW :

Moin CardSharks@aol.com,

> In a message dated 97-06-30 18:53:07 EDT, you write:
> Marc Miller

	I think you are not THE M.M., ar'nt you ?
	Do you have the eMail of THE M.M. ?

	I'm currently writing a SciFi-Realtime-MUD in C++ and Java,
	and think about calling it Traveller (how many people would
	play Traveller, if Elite was named Traveller), this would
	have legal implications as I would use a trade mark in a
	definitivly CopyLefted program, and design implications as
	I would be free to use Traveller rules.

By Michael
- -- 
	kraehe@bakunin.north.de			www.hb.north.de
		  " ceterum censeo MSDOS esse delendam "

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 97 11:26:06 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Gurps Aliens

Well it looks like the Second Great Task War has died down, so I'll
emerge from the bunker. :)

I have heard of several people who use GURPS as the ruleset for
Traveller, but I was wondering if there was anyone out there who used
GURPS background in Traveller.  I bought GURPS: Aliens, which is a book
of write ups on Aliens. Each Alien gets four pages, with some pictures
and a sample NPC.  Some of the races aren't very Traveller like, being
more like Star Trek or pulp sci-fi aliens. 
But some of them fit very well into a Traveller campaign.  I have
adapted the An-Pharr, Pachekki and two others, which I can't remember
the names of, as members races of the Hive Federation.  

Has anyone else done something like this? If anyone has the book and is
interested I have a conversion write up of the aliens.

Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:Why does an elephant have a trunk?
A:So that it has someplace to hide when it sees a mouse.        
 
lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 09:27:27 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1511

Mark Seemann wrote:

>> Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
>> I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
>> where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
>> Regency Sourcebook?
>
>Chris, I see you've already gotten lots of answers to your question, but...
>
><WARNING! Shameless commercial to follow!>
>
>...you could have just looked up Iolante on my Library Data web site:
>
>http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/mark_seemann/library/

Thanks, Mark. Actually, before I ever even saw any responses, I looked it
up at Joe Heck's site and found what I was looking for. Then I realized
what a fool I was and reread the assassination information in Rebellion
Sourcebook.

I jumped the gun when I asked this question. I should have checked a few
more of my references. Thanks to everyone for providing answers.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 06:05:44 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

On Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:30:29 -0400 (EDT), CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> Much of this stems from two definitions in T4, both of which use the same
> abbreviation. DM can mean Die Modifier, or Die Roll Modifier. DM +2 means
> increase the THROW +2 and then compare against the dice, or it means increase
> the DICE roll +2 and compare against the required outcome.
> 
> I am proposing two distinct statements:

Hallelujah (and there was much rejoicing)!
 
> DM: +2 means throw the dice and then increase the result by +2.
> 
> RM: +2 means increase the target number (what you're rolling to get, etc) by
> +2.
> 
> Both of these statements allow for statements like DM x2 or DM /2 (or I
> suppose DM ^2).
> 
> (I thought of TM for Throw Modifier, but it sounded too much like Trade
> Mark).

I'd say stick with TM (aka: "Target Modifier").  "Trade Mark" is
hardly ever referred to in the rules text so I don't see how there can
be any confusion.  After all, DM sounds too much like "Dungeon Master"
and we still use *it*  :)

> Now the problem is that RM or DM mean (or produce) the same net result if
> phrased correctly. Do we scrap one, or do we retain the potential for each?

Hmmm... RPGs have traditionally gone with the method of modifying the
actual dice throw rather than the target number, if that is the sole
method of including modifiers (even though many roleplayers go ahead
and subtract a positive DM from the target number instead).

By modifying the DICE RESULT instead of the TARGET NUMBER, not only
can you make tasks easier or harder, but you can consult tables and
charts as well.  Tables can be referenced with DMs shifting up or down
a particular column.  This cannot be done using RMs (or TMs).

If you *do* decide to use only one definition/method, I'd use the
"modify DICE RESULT" technique over the "modify TARGET NUMBER"
technique.  I'd prefer both, however.

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 14:34:50 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Sector Info requested

Sam Thomas writes:
>I am trying to find any infomation of the following Sectors, What I am
>interested in is UWP's, subsector names, Stellar info, and colonization
>history. I have not been able to find much searching the "net'.
> 
>Far Frontiers
>Foreven

The rimward half of Far Frontiers was detailed by FASA in an issue of
_Different Worlds_ (sorry, don't have a number). It was reprinted in
several issues of _The Traveller Chronicle_. Most of FASA's adventures
took place on worlds in that area too.

A star map of Foreven was published in _Imperiallines_ #1. The sector was
laid out as a "Referee's Preserve" at the same time. The intention was
that no further official material would be published about it, so that
Referee's could feel free to do anything they liked there with no fear of
subesequent material contradicting it.

Some years ago Steve Higginbotham, Scott Kellogg, Arthur Green, Jurgen
Kirsh, and I began detailing Foreven and Beyond as a frontier area 
suitable for an exploration campaign. The work was never finished, but I
did do quite a lot of work on Foreven. The Beyond was drastically altered 
from the previously published material; for one thing we placed a nomadic 
culture that controlled six subsectors right in the middle. The plan was to 
have the area opened up by making the Weltenbund, a 90-world interstellar
empire in Foreven, defeat the massed nomad fleet decisively. Enough nomads
would escape to make life interesting, but it would enable courageous
scouts and traders to push into the former Nomad Domain and have a chance
of getting out again.

Here's a map I made of the situation:

_________________________________________________________________________
|                              |                              |
|                  Zhodani Consulate                          |
|                              |                              |
|                              |             _________________|_
|                              |          __/                 |
|                              |     ____/                    |
|         FAR FRONTIERS        |  __/     FOREVEN             | SPINWARD
|                          ____|_/                            | MARCHES
|            _____________/    | |              ___           |
|___________/   |              |/              /   \_         |
|               | Protectorate/|              /      \_       | Darrian
|               \            / |             | Welten- |      |
| Lots of small human states   |  ___        | bund __/       |
| detailed by FASA in various__|_/   \___    |     /          |
| publications.             /  |         \   |    |           |
|                           | Memosyne   /   /    |           |  Five
|                           |  |         |  /     |           | Sisters
|                    ^       \_|________/   |      \          |
|____________________|_________|_____________\______\_________|__________
|                    |         | _____       |      |   ____  |
|  VANGUARD REACHES  | Trelyn  |/Mape-\      |      |  /    \ |
|                    |         | pire |       \     |  |    | |
|       ?            |_________|\____/ BEYOND  \____| / Mal | | TROJAN
|                    __________|__________________   / G'Nar| | REACH
|                   /          |                   \ \_____/  |
|                   |          |                   |          |
|           ?       |          | Nomad             | Starless |
|                   |          | Domain            |   gap    |
|                    \___      |                __/  __       |
|  "The Other Side"      \____ |            ___/ ___/ |       |
|                             \|       ____/____/     |       |
|           ?                  |\_____/     \  Heptad |       |
|                           ?  |     __/\__  \________|       |
|                              |    /Zydar \                  |
|        ?            ?        |    \_____ /           Aslan  |
|                              |                Aslan         |
|                     Aslan?   |  Aslan  Aslan         Aslan  |
|______________________________|______________________________|__________

If you'd like, I could e-mail you copies of my files. They run to a bit over
100 K.

>Fulani
>Astron

Can't help you there, I'm afraid. As far as I know no one has ever detailed
them.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 21:05:10 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Reality

Regardless of the Holy Task Debate and various flame wars going on, I'd
like to make everybody on the TML aware of something rather interesting
in the land of Reality.

This Friday, the human race is actually landing a remote-controlled
vehicle on the planet Mars.  And we're doing it not with HEPlaR or
contra-grav but bouncing it with a bunch of balloons.

If anybody is interested in a feat of engineering that makes designing
with FF&S look like counting matches, check out the following site:

http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

And just to make Traveller more fun, download some of the art from:

http://www.Jtwinc.com/art/  

Some of it is absolutely breathtaking.

Reality can really bite but..it has its moments.

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 09:28:34 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

At 07:27 PM 7/1/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Concept currently being discussed for Schools
>
>WAIVERS

How incredibly cynical.  I love it!  The 3I has always seemed pretty fond
of RHIP, and this happens today already.

>Thus, 99944B can't even apply to University because he is intellectually
>impaired...

>At the end of University, his Edu will be advanced to whatever University
>awards, but his Int remains 4. Now he wants to go to grad school...

I have seen that happen often enough to like that it is in the system.

One minor concern - his chance to succeed at task rolls goes up, even
though he may have used waivers to get through.  I am willing to write that
off as a vagary of the task system, though, and let it lie, but it might be
worth a side bar note, titled something like "Idiots with Degrees."

Good idea, Marc.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1512
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Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 2 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1513



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

T4.1 Space combat
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Planet3 software
Biological weaponry
Imperium (boardgame)
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: Task system defnition error
Re: TL of ROM
Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Twilight's Peak  & JOT
Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)
Re: ROM Tech Levels
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Armour in CSC?
Re: Education and Schools
RE: JOT Cap
Re: Deckplan Question?
Re: Twilight's Peak
Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)
Re: Reality
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Digest #17
Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe

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

Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 22:44:09 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: T4.1 Space combat

>Space combat is almost task based; it needs a clean-up, too. Not a "from
>scratch", but a removal of dice codes and substitution of task descriptors.

Is it unreasonable for me to lobby for using the Role-Playing Space Combat
system by Joe Walsh as the standard space combat system in T4.1? If that
isn't going to happen, how about just using its sensor rules?

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 14:12:57 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Harold Hale writes:
>>      In the Traveller's Digest #17, Joe states that the Rule of man reached
>>TL13 before the collapse (I found that reference while putting together an
>>article index for my web page. It's in the Q&A section where a GM asks why
>>the TL isn't more uniform in the Imperium, where the Vilani get blamed).
>	...Unfortunately that reference doesn't tell us how extensive TL
> 13 had spread (a few worlds or common high tech).  

As I've stated before, I think that if TL 13 had been common during RoM then
the Sylean universities would have had details of these technologies, in
which case Sylea could have advanced quickly to TL 13  --  if not before,
then certainly once they had the wealth of an entire empire to draw upon.
Since it took them 450 years to go from TL 12 to TL 13, this cannot be
the case.

TL 13 developed on worlds far from Sylea after the collapse of RoM, sure,
that's perfectly possible (as long as the Imperium don't reach that far
before , say, 250). But the closer to Sylea, the more unlikely it becomes.
And experimental TL 13 that was never published (and was lost again before
the Imperium reached that far), that's perfectly possible too.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 01:09:54 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 07:24 PM 6/30/97 EST, Doug wrote:
>Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
>
>http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
>
>He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
>providing any support, and the software comes as is.
>--

A public atta-citizen to Sam Thomas!!!  After I posted the preceding to the
list, he replied to me with an offer, upon which he quickly followed up, to
email me the missing sectors (Deneb, SM, and Reft). I received them today,
installed them, and they work just fine...  Thanks!

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 01:09:54 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Biological weaponry

Not the germ kind, but the sort that an alien race with zero tech of its
own and a very high degree of evolution might have....

I'm devising a race of buggy aliens for my future T4 campaign, and I
need to know a couple of things:

1) What element or biological do-hickey would an alien require to
communicate via LF (low-frequency) radio? Can you have an LF radar? and
conversely, can this be jammed? How would this compare in size, power,
etc. with a regular radio? How do you power the thing? Some kind of
bio-chemical battery? Am I talking nonsense?

2) Assume an insectile critter about the size of a Cape buffalo. What
are its jaws going to have to be made out of, and what sort of strength
will have to be behind them, to have any hope of breaching modern armor?
(Think of a giant army ant attacking an M1 tank. OK, so the first 99 get
squished or blown into bite-size pieces. What is the hundredth going to
have to have on the ball to rip off the treads? or the hatch? or the
main gun? or even punch into the hull? Some kind of potent acid combined
with abrasive pads, used normally for tunnelling through rock, say....?
Again, is this physically possible, or am I whistling into the wind?)

3) What physical characteristics would a giant buglike critter have,
generally? I'm already presupposing it has an internal skeleton to bear
its internal weight; the exoskeleton can be pretty much armor. Can
biological material stand up to smallarms fire? The life sciences aren't
exactly my long suit; I'm really not sure, even given a billion years of
evolution for my critters, what is and ain't physically possible. Any
and all random thoughts and input freely solicited.

Oh... if anybody thinks I'm trying to come up with a Traveller analogue
to Heinlein's Bugs... you're right. I'll post the results.

- -- Jay Stranahan

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 2:53:04 CDT
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com>
Subject: Imperium (boardgame)

Ok, seems that my group is interested in unmothballing my first edition 
copy of Imperium and giving it a play...

Anyone have any info on errata, differences between first and second editions,
and any variants which improve play?


DonM.
- --
============================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist,           (217) 351-8250 x2365 = 
= Computer Sciences Corporation, Champaign, IL       dmckinne@csci.csc.com =
= Winter War XXV Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 6-8, 1998    =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org       (217) 469-9917 = 
============================================================================

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:19:50 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

- -> sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best traveller
- -> adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
- -> "Lords of Thunder".
I found it great as well, it was superbly detailed, and very 
interesting to read. Never had a chance to play it, though :-( 

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:12:43 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

- -> DM: +2 means throw the dice and then increase the result by +2.
- -> 
- -> RM: +2 means increase the target number (what you're rolling to get, etc) by
- -> +2.
So a RM is in fact a negative DM? RM makes is more difficult to 
succeed, a DM more easier?
- -> Now the problem is that RM or DM mean (or produce) the same net result if
- -> phrased correctly. Do we scrap one, or do we retain the potential for each?
I think it's more confusing to use two different codes than to use 
one code and use both positive and negative values of it!
Scrap the RM, I say!
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:17:31 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

- -> 13 had spread (a few worlds or common high tech).  So was TD #17
- -> published before or after 1987?  It could be that it is superceded by
- -> MegaTraveller.
I don't have the exact date handy, but issue 14 already has MT 
adventures, MT is first announced in TD9 (also with an adventure for 
MT!) 
- -> 1) Marc needs to get up to speed on what has been published before on
- -> the subject.
Yes, indeed he does! TL of RoM never went beyond 13, with few 
exceptions, maybe! 15 however is right out. Neither shalt he count 
down to 16, with 13 being the highest number he shalt count!
(sorry, had to do this Monty Python spoof!)
 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 23:02:01 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

Neil McGurk wrote:

>From: neil@westmore.demon.co.uk (Neil McGurk)
>In message <l03020901afdd4c9d96c9@[198.168.183.64]> Roderick Darroch
>Elliott writes:
>>       As a real-world aside, so did the traditional hereditary mortal
>> enemies of the Scots, the Scots, as well as the *other* traditional
>> hereditary mortal enemies of the Scots, the British.  After the Brits
>> finally managed to conquer Scotland in the mid-18th century
>
>British includes Irish AKAIR and the Irish had no problem conquering
>the far north of the British Isles.

Not arguing with the rest of what you say but IIRC 'British" refers to
Scotland, England and Wales.
You need "British Isles" to include Ireland. Yes this *still* has nothing
to do with Traveller! ;-)

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 16:43:34 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 FarFuture@AOL.com wrote:

> This is a summary of the changes I have made to Chargen. The complete new set
> of WFW95 files is available if you email a request to me at
> FarFuture@aol.com.
> 
> School prerequisite for Naval Acadamy has been increased to Int 9+ and Edu
> 5-.
> Int Pre-Req of 9+ added for Medical School.
> Int PreReq of A+ added for Technical school.
> Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
> and Edu 6+.

I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
a human right. I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.
In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.


Tommy Grav                  tommy.grav@astro.uio.no    
Institute of Astrophysics   http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/
University in Oslo          "If you value your lives, be somwhere 
Norway                       else!" - Ambassador Delenn B5 

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

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 21:55:01 -0400
From: Tom Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak  & JOT

>Date: 01 Jul 97 10:27:52 EDT
>From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
>Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak
>
>Its cool hearing all about TP again. Years ago when we played that
scenario, we
>all sat back in a calm glow and said " that was the best ever".  It was
so good
>that a few years after that I was ORDERED (!) by my group to develop a
'Return
>to Twilight's Peak', which I loyally did and got to have fun with
Fulacin in
>the process....
>
>Thanks for bringing me back!
>
>- -j


Hey Jeff--how about sharing "Return to Twilights Peak" with the list.
I'm sure I would not be the only one interested in hearing your take on
"whats really going on" and "what happens next" in TP.

Also, just a tidbit for the JOT discussion.....even when I first
startred with CT way back when, JOT levels were never directly applied
as a DM.  They were use more as an indicator of how "well read" the
character was.  The higher the "skill level" the more likely the PC was
to know a bit about what he was trying to do.  It was the refs choice as
to what the final DM would be or even if the characters past experience
would even allow JOT to be applied.  If it was determined that the PC
might have come across a similar situation in the past the DM applied
was usually only the skill level divided by 3 or 4.  (by way of example:
a PC from a desert world would get significant help from JOT skill for
surviving desert conditions even if he had no survival skills--however
the benefit from the same level of JOT would be almost negligable in
underwater welding (any benefit being dirived from something the PC read
at some time in the past at the refs discretion)

TT

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970630211235.353f154c@inrete.it>

Paolo,

> The Mines: Which kind of devices would you use to defend an asteroid belt?
>            How would they work? How can they be disabled? Consider that
>            they should still work (at least some of them) after decades.

I see space mines as basically det-lasers with no drives. They just sit 
there, passively scanning for a target. When they find one, *ZAP!*
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 97 18:02 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: ROM Tech Levels

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970630095737.46a76026@mail.hooked.net>

Douglas,

> >Doug, Rats and Cats page 6, bottom of the second column, Bold Type, 
> >Technology Related
>  
> That's for Earth in the MT Era.  The date of preperation is 009-1121,
> almost 2900 years after the RoM.  Also note that in the same book, pg. 41
> under World Generation it states that the absolute max for Solomani TL is
> 15.  Hardly the kind of restriction a people who once rivaled the Ancients
> would have..

And TL15 is a fairly recent gain - the original Alien Module (set ~10 years 
earlier) gave a limit of TL14.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:20:42 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

- -> >Its cool hearing all about TP again. Years ago when we played that scenario, we
- -> >all sat back in a calm glow and said " that was the best ever".  It was so good
- -> >that a few years after that I was ORDERED (!) by my group to develop a 'Return
- -> >to Twilight's Peak', which I loyally did and got to have fun with Fulacin in
- -> >the process....
Do you still have a copy lying around? Why not post it? 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

In-Reply-To: <l03020901afdd4c9d96c9@[198.168.183.64]>

Roderick,

> >The second reason is that I'm a costumer, and I want to do the dress
> >unifrom of a Marine Force Leader (0-3) for a con, and I like kilts.
> >
> >The 1/2 reason is I'm taking up the bagpipes, and would love to march the
> >halls of GenCon playing "Scotland the Brave" in an appropriate uniform.
>  
>  Coolness.  I took a few years of lessons when I was in the Black
> Watch Cadets in high school.  Still have my pipes packed up down in my
> basement.  I never really got very good at it, probably because I was
> approaching the pipes as a musical instrument rather than a martial art,
> but I had a lot of fun.

Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
get my vote. I'd give them red berets, too - that's the traditional symbol 
of paratroopers, and drop troops are really just paras who got a bit carried 
away.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 23:45:29 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Armour in CSC?

>Quick question, does the Central Supply Catalog have new armours in it?
>I found the list in the main T4 rulebook lacking, and there's none in
>Emperor's Arsenal to be found.

Did you try looking on pages 47, 69, 70, 77, 84, 91, 97, or 103 of
Emperor's Arsenal?

Ultimately, though, If you want armor for Traveller, you want Central
Supply Catalog. CSC has a variety of Flex and plate armors; low-tech
leather, chain, and plate armors, concealable "diplo" armor, and a design
system for powered battle armor at a variety of tech levels, including
sample designs for TL 11 and 12.

Buy now, and you get a large selection of Imperial Scout surplus equipment,
customizable vacc suit designs, explorations tools, computers, and robots
at no extra cost.

Now how much would you pay? But wait, there's more! A complete Vehicle
Design System, with sample designs for air, water, land, grav, and space
vehicles, all much better designed than possible with the wretched SSDS. If
only they could have got the guy who did the illustrations for EA in this
book, it would have been the best Traveller supplement ever published.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 11:29:30 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

- -> WAIVERS
- ->     Within the Education process, any character may apply for a waiver of
- ->     Any Pre-Requisite (which would preclude applying for a school), or 
- ->     Any die roll (after the roll has been made and failed).
- ->     Rolling Waivers. To receive a Waiver, roll Soc or less. (2D); DM - total
- -> number of waivers applied rolled, whether successful or not.
- ->         Waivers apply only to Schools and Education; they do not apply in careers
- -> (except the Scholar career). 
- ->     Waivers never apply to injury.
Good concept. It's a good alternative to the MT-Brownie Point system 
(which i still use!).
- -> At the end of University, his Edu will be advanced to whatever University
- -> awards, but his Int remains 4. Now he wants to go to grad school...
This is my problem with the new University Concept: 
Do you really believe that anybody has the same benefits from 
studying in university. I mean, there are people who really use their 
time and come out greatly improved (intellectually), and others who 
don't learn a thing in all the time! 
With the new education system, everyone of the same degree becomes an 
intellectual peer, all become the same...
So i rather feel that giving Edu bonuses is more appropriate than 
raising Edu to a certain level!

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:31:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dedly@aol.com
Subject: RE: JOT Cap

Multiple levels of JOT? When did this happen? In CT once a char rec'd JOT
skill during chargen he/she could not get it again. It conferred Skill Level
0 in all possible skills. It implied a rudimentary knowledge of each subject.
Non-zero levels would indicate some mastery of "every" skill. The only person
I can think of offhand that could ever come close to that was Leonardo Da
Vinci.

The definition of the term should hold true to the saying, "Jack of all
trades, master of none." Increased levels here would violate the definition
of JOT.

\_/
DED

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:40:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brett Fishburne <bfish@atlantech.net>
Subject: Re: Deckplan Question?

Just a thought.  Expose the container to space in the shadow of the ship.
That would cool it in a hurry and make it easy to compress...

At 10:14 PM 6/28/97 +0100, Simon Early wrote:
>More hand-waving please :-) 
>
>How do you condense the hydrogen you scoop out of a gas giant 
>atmoshpere (or electolysed from water)?
>
>Simon
>
>
>

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

Date: 02 Jul 97 15:46:49 EDT
From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
Subject: Re: Twilight's Peak

- --- Master Trelenberg wrote:
Hey Jeff--how about sharing "Return to Twilights Peak" with the list.
I'm sure I would not be the only one interested in hearing your take on
"whats really going on" and "what happens next" in TP.
- --- end of quote ---
aw shucks....well, I'll have a look about in my notes. Its been so long and the
formats have evolved so many times I may not have all of it available any more.
But I'll break open some of the old tomes and see what I can scratch together.
Be forwarned: I recall I took the tack of a nasty event at the Fulacin Starport
as the foil for the PCs to be in the area again, so this may not conform to
anything canon-like....

- -j

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 15:42:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brett Fishburne <bfish@atlantech.net>
Subject: Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)

Your campaign sounds like fun...wish I could participate!

At 09:12 PM 6/30/97, Paolo Marino wrote:

>PCs:       I'll probably have a couple new players for this.
>           Suggestions on career/specific skills choice/party composition?

Vacsuit skill is obvious.  Strong Navy experience would be real good as well
as they would have exposure to the type of weaponry you are talking about.
Strong gambling skills might be good to help choose one asteroid over
another or when/how to disarm an unfamiliar weapon.  I've always held that
gamblers have an inate ability to "sense" the odds on performing almost any
act....  Demolitions skills would be good for getting rid of old equipment
too dangerous to get close to.  Survey and Technical would also be valuable
in the environment you've described.  Finally, I would throw in computer as
these things have got to have some sort of computer control if they are
going to go after decades of non-use.

To handle the pirates, Infiltration and/or Intimidation would be really
valuable I think.

>The Mines: Which kind of devices would you use to defend an asteroid belt?
>           How would they work? How can they be disabled? Consider that
>           they should still work (at least some of them) after decades.

If you are going to live and work in an asteroid field it is guaranteed to
be underground with a fair amount of crust between you and the outside.
This would be true for several reasons...micrometeorites would be a serious
problem and proximity to a star would bathe the asteroids in all kinds of
stuff you don't want to have to face on a daily basis.  Given this, I would
set charges in small asteroids spread throughout the portion of the belt you
wanted to protect.  The charges would blow the small asteroid to bits
sending small kinetic weapons all over the place whenever they blow.  I
would then treat the asteroid belt as a mine field with a known in/out path
which would prevent you from getting blown up.  Stray from the path and your
gone.  The small asteroids would, ideally, be too small to land a craft on,
requiring an individual to jet over as opposed to a whole space craft.  This
would also make removing the mines really hard as they would be buried in
these small asteroids and there would be lots of small asteroids to look at.

I would set up dummy mine shafts on some asteroids, or abandoned asteroids
which have been mined out.  This would make it really hard for an attacker
to guage whether or not he has hit the home base.  Last, I would do my best
to most heavily fortify one of the dummies.  Let's face it, if a big gun has
found your home base you are dead regardless of the precautions.  On the
other hand, if he goes after a dummy which explodes at him before he is
ready you have a chance.  Thus your defenses are better used as a ploy then
as straight defenses.  This would be fun as a GM too, because your players
would be busy tracking down dummies for a while.

>Economics: How many ships besides the PC's Scout? How much should the Patron
>           (probably a Megacorporation) offer for the job?	

Depends on whether or not the PCs need to figure out where the big hauls
are.  Were the asteroid miners paranoid who told no one where their stuff
was...maybe they only met freighters at lagrange points and had some
excellent radar jamming so that no one could track them...If the PCs have to
find the big haul, the Megacorp should offer to pay very well and then do
its best to weasle once the big mine has been found.

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 13:02:36 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Reality

On Tue, 1 Jul 1997, David Smart wrote:

> Regardless of the Holy Task Debate and various flame wars going on, I'd
> like to make everybody on the TML aware of something rather interesting
> in the land of Reality.
> 
> This Friday, the human race is actually landing a remote-controlled
> vehicle on the planet Mars.  And we're doing it not with HEPlaR or
> contra-grav but bouncing it with a bunch of balloons.
> 
> If anybody is interested in a feat of engineering that makes designing
> with FF&S look like counting matches, check out the following site:
> 
> http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ 
> 
> And just to make Traveller more fun, download some of the art from:
> 
> http://www.Jtwinc.com/art/  
> 
> Some of it is absolutely breathtaking.
> 
> Reality can really bite but..it has its moments.
> 

I second that! (hell...I third, fourth and fifth that!!!)

Also, the current Air&Space magazine has an article on remote landers,
starting back with the old Ranger lunar landers (eeeeeeeooOOOOW SMACK!) 
and ending with Pathfinder, as well as neat articles on the old B-49
Flying Wing (on the cover, which is why I bought it,,I have a real soft
spot in my heart for that plane) and a collection of "The ugliest planes
ever". 

They have a web site:

http://http://airspacemag.com/
 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 13:50:36 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

At 04:43 PM 7/2/97 +0200, you wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 FarFuture@AOL.com wrote:
...
>> Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
>> and Edu 6+.
>
>I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
>way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
>a human right.

The M0 society does seem to have a fairly aggressive understanding of Rank
Has Its Privileges.  My group is now debating just how far they want to
extend this, but it is clear that 3I society is in no way egalitarian, save
that the Emperor may choose to elevate anyone, plus there are implications
that important jobs will also tend to get the holder elevated.

>I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
>in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,

I would actually be surprised.  Look at the fraction of life that many
people spend now in education of arguable merit.  I suspect instead that a
wealthy society would have a higher baseline of facts at each educational
level, but that there would still be levels, and that they would be a
limited resource.  Figure that TL12 can probably put more in grade school,
if they desire to, than we do in an entire undergraduate education.  That
still might not mean that everyone would have the same number of years.

My suspicion is that they could afford to educate everyone forever, but
that they cannot afford people not working and producing stuff for most of
their lives.  (I conclude this because of the heavy usage of people in
menial jobs, repetitive jobs, and advanced jobs.  If they need to have a
human loading cargo, then it is cheaper to use a human than to use a robot.)

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 17:08:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kagehira@aol.com
Subject: Digest #17

    Digest 17 was published in '89. The exact phrase is "In a mere two
centuries, the Terran Technology not only caught up with that of the Vilani,
but went on to achieve tech level 12, and even tech level 13."
     So on the average the Terrans were doing a tech level every 50 years
(from 9 to 13).
      The Vilani pretty much froze at tech level 11 for thousands of years.

Bryan Borich

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 97 17:06:00 -0500
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
Subject: Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe

Chris Griffen writes...

T::>Question: who was Iolanthe? She doesn't show up in the Emperor's List, so
 ::>I'm assuming she was the wife of a male emperor. Can someone point out
 ::>where Iolanthe is described in canon besides Arrival Vengeance and The
 ::>Regency Sourcebook?

 Your assumption was correct - she was the wife of the male
 Emperor, Strephon.  There were the two Princes, Varian and
 Lucan, and the Crown Princess, Iphegenia.  All of these
 individuals are mentioned in the MegaTraveller background
 material that describes the Assassination that led to the
 Rebellion and then the Collapse.  Dulinor murdered Strephon
 (really his clone; Strephon himself was on a secret mission
 [AV]), Iolanthe, and Iphegenia in the Audience Chamber; Varian
 was murdered in his apartments by an unknown individual (but
 unspoken suspicions fall on Lucan).

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com
- ---
  OLXWin 1.00b  "Spock, I thought you were dead?" "No sir I Rebooted"

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1513
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Traveller-digest       Thursday, July 3 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1514



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Imperial Anthem
Re: Reality
...THE M.M. ?...
Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Allegiances
Yet more Star Ship questions- kind of longish
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe
re: T4.1 Space combat
TRTOOLS and Galactic 2.2.. WOW!
Re: TL of ROM
...say it isn't so....
Re: Allegiances
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Gurps Aliens
Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)
Announcement Regarding Traveller Chronicle
TML etiquette? (Was Re: Rule of Man TL)

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 97 17:06:00 -0500
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
Subject: Imperial Anthem

  The Emperor of the Third Imperium Restoring the Rule of Man
  over a Grand Empire of the Stars will naturally need to
  engage in a certain amount of pomp and ceremony.  When he
  enters the Audience Chamber, or arrives on a planet (and
  disembarks from his ship), or the like, it will be \de rigeur\
  to play the _Emperor's_Processional_ or the _Imperial_Anthem_
  (may be the same, may not).  Whatever is played, it will
  necessarily be something suitable to the majesty of the
  Emperor.  Does anyone have any ideas as to _what_ the EP/IA
  should be?  This is a real opportunity for those of you who
  can actually compose symphonic music; for those who can't,
  feel free to suggest music that you feel is appropriate.
  Remember that lyrics aren't an issue; this is something that
  will generally be played by a military band or a subset of the
  local Philharmonic or Symphony Orchestra.

  I'll start off by suggesting:

        the Overture from Hndel's "Fireworks Music"

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com
- ---
  OLXWin 1.00b  Paul Harvey fans always have a good day

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 14:34:02 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Reality

At 09:05 PM 7/1/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Regardless of the Holy Task Debate and various flame wars going on, I'd
>like to make everybody on the TML aware of something rather interesting
>in the land of Reality.
>
>This Friday, the human race is actually landing a remote-controlled
>vehicle on the planet Mars.  And we're doing it not with HEPlaR or
>contra-grav but bouncing it with a bunch of balloons.

Yeah, but did NASA have to meet the expectations of the THUDD voters?  I
think not!  :)

>If anybody is interested in a feat of engineering that makes designing
>with FF&S look like counting matches, check out the following site:
>
>http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ 
>
>And just to make Traveller more fun, download some of the art from:
>
>http://www.Jtwinc.com/art/  
>
>Some of it is absolutely breathtaking.
>
>Reality can really bite but..it has its moments.

Very true, this is the best 31st Birthday present I could ask for.. other
than a 1947 Harley-Davidson.  My only fear is that the landing and the
Boston Pops will be on oppisite each other..

Thanks for the links.
>
>
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 17:34:18 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: ...THE M.M. ?...

>Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 05:13:10 +0000 ()
>From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
>Subject: Back and alive

<snip>

>I think you are not THE M.M., ar'nt you ?
>Do you have the eMail of THE M.M. ?

Yes....He is the M.M.....and on this list....lucky we are to have him
here.  Which gives this Traveller fan yet another chance to say "Thanks"
to Marc for taking the time to listen to the opinions of the TML
concerning Traveller issues.  (Now he has the task--pun intended--of
wading through all the opinions he's received and deciding which, if
any, to use.--Good luck Marc!)

I'm sure glad there was no TML when I first started way back when.  When
my players disliked jmy interpretation of a certain rule, my standard
reply was, "Well if you don't like it, you're going to have to talk to
Mr. Miller about it."  Seeing as how no one was going to do that, my
interpretation prevailed.  If I used that system now I would probably no
longer be able to retain my position as the "all-knowing, all-powerful
ref."

TT

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 14:30:59 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

At 06:03 PM 7/2/97 BST-1, you wrote:

>>  Coolness.  I took a few years of lessons when I was in the Black
>> Watch Cadets in high school.  Still have my pipes packed up down in my
>> basement.  I never really got very good at it, probably because I was
>> approaching the pipes as a musical instrument rather than a martial art,
>> but I had a lot of fun.
>
>Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
>get my vote. I'd give them red berets, too - that's the traditional symbol 
>of paratroopers, and drop troops are really just paras who got a bit carried 
>away.

That's MAROON Berets.  As opposed to the cute Girl Scout hats worn by the
Special Forces.

I was going to use kilts for all officers at least to hammer home that this
is not a US military formation that has moved into space, but an evolution
of multiple traditions.  I was going to homebrew a Marine Tartan, with a
provision for Noble Marines to wear an appropriate family tartan instead.

BTW: I meant to mention the Highland Regiment(s) (I seem to recall while
watching the Edinburgh Military Tattoo that there was only one left..) in
my original post, nut my brain slipped gears.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 16:31:44 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Allegiances

Quoth John Wood:
> Can anybody tell me in which sectors the following are located?  I know
> I've seen some of them, not all:

All these (and many, many more) appear in the allegiance maps from the DGP
publications VILANI AND VARGR and SOLOMANI AND ASLAN.  I don't recall
actual description/development of any of them, other than the Eslyat and
Murian (holdovers from Paranoia Press' decanonized sectors) and the Third
Empire of Gashikan, which figured prominently in V&V's historical writeup.

Banners / Iyiyukhtoi Sector (Rimward of Ustral Quadrant, which in turn
is rimward of Dark Nebula): 
>         Delsun Comagistrant

The Beyond, just rimward of Trojan Reach:
>         Nakris Confederation

Vanguard Reaches, two sectors spinward of Trojan Reach:
>         Eslyat
>         Murian

Fahreahluis sector, two sectors rimward and five spinward of Dark Nebula:
>         Sea'ai'teluarliyh

Hfiywitir sector, just trailing of Fahreahluis:
>         Steaakh Yeasaol

Malorn Sector, two rimward of Solomani Rim:
>         Bright Star Cooperate
>         Joie De Vivre
>         Malorn Union

Neworld Sector (which someone-or-other has done up for the web?), one
sector trailing and one rimward of Solomani Rim:
>         Dienbach Gr?pen <- and what is the spelling of this?

The "?" is a u-with-umlaut.

Gaskikan and Trenchan sectors, coreward of Mendan and Amdukan:
>         Third Empire of Gashikan

Reaver's Deep Sector:
>         Gralyn Assemblage

Sprawling over several sectors , but seemingly centered in Ngathksirz
Sector, two sectors coreward of Corridor:
>         Empire of Vaerroth

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 17:36:38 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Yet more Star Ship questions- kind of longish

These are more in the line of clarifications than out right questions,
so here goes...

As I read the books it appears that thruster plate technology confers
contra-gravity as well,  ContraGravity drives "...are included here so
that ships below tech level 11 (thruster plates) can hover and maneuver
in an atmosphere" 'The Standard Star Ship Design System', Ok.

Now, if a ship or small craft is constructed using fission, fusion,  AND
it does NOT have ContraGravity installed does this mean that the vessels
must include lifting surfaces (wings etc.) as well as streamlining in
order to land, take off or otherwise manuvuer in atmosphere or is it
limited to straight up and down flight (single stage to orbit
tecchnology)? If this is the case then how is the fuel for such a ship
figured? Has anyone addressed this for T4, or is TNE FFS the only
source?

Also if wings are used would this then include "rolling" take-off and
landings? How much tonnage should be allocated for retractable wheels or
skids. In the same vane on ContraGravity equipt vessels do most people
consider struts of other landing gear and how much room/tonnage s
usually allocated for them in the designs?

One more before I go, do Star Ships and or small craft float, typically?
Would water landings (ala Jerry Pournelle's Falkenburg novels) be an
alternative?

 I think none thruster, non-ContraGrav equipt shipd MUST use wings or
SSTO technology. In the first case then skids, or (preferably) wheels
are needed and  must be alocated for. The water landing technique is an
alternative, but could have a big effect on the design of the vessel.
Also with these limitations I would think that larger vessels (over 1 or
200 td) would never land and be restricted to small craft tenders. If
that's the case a set of rules for fuel usage, wings and landing gear
would be needed to generate the proper designs.

I'm interested to see what ideas others are using out there. I'm working
on an alternative campaign set to rimward/spinward of Terran space about
a colony placed before the conquest of the first Imperium and just
moving back into space at about the time of Millieu 0 (less chance of
breaing canon that way!) and I'd like to incorperate some alternate
technology.

Thanks for any input
Mike Peters (Letterworks@Comten.Com)

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 15:43:24 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Tommy Grav wrote:
 
> > School prerequisite for Naval Acadamy has been increased to Int 9+ and Edu
> > 5-.
> > Int Pre-Req of 9+ added for Medical School.
> > Int PreReq of A+ added for Technical school.
> > Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
> > and Edu 6+.
> 
> I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
> way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
> a human right. I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
> in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
> university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.
> In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
> but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.
> 

Not to get into a cultural flamewar here, but it's my RIGHT to go to the
Naval academy???

I suppose anyone on the street in Oslo can walk in and get admitted to the
Institute of Astrophysics with no entrance exams at all, right? Even
people who need to take their shoes off to count above ten?

(Begins to sound like the Tom Lehrer routine about "Not only has the Army
stopped discriminating on the basis of race, creed or color, but on the
basis of ability, as well")

Remember, this is a society with hereditary noble classes. I doubt there's
universal guaranteed college education.

Why except medical school? I'm sure that if you're willing to fly on a
starship astrogated by someone with a 3 INT, you won't mind at all
getting operated on by a Doctor who can't count to ten either!

The utility of higher education to any individual in any society is
directly proportional to the economic vale of that education over that of
not getting said education. This is a prolix way of saying, if you can get
a good, steady, well-paying job without having to have a college
education, then the universal access is less important. If, on the other
hand, as you see some places, you need a degree before they'll hire you to
sort the mail, then it's very necessary.

Finally, coming from a land-grant college where state law mandates that
the colleges accept any state resident who graduates in the top 75% of
their high school class, I really resent your snide implication that
Americans (Alone amongst the 'civilized' world, of course) are somehow
exclusionary about who can and cannot go to college.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 15:50:38 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, JEFF ZEITLIN wrote:

>  Varian
>  was murdered in his apartments by an unknown individual (but
>  unspoken suspicions fall on Lucan).

Actually, there _was_ a surviving witness to what happened in Varian's
chambers that day, a relatively low ranking Naval Intelligence officer.
The details are either in Rebellion Sourcebook or Survival Margin,
probably the former.

Said officer wasn't stupid...he boogied, covering his tracks, using every
trick he knew, and he didn't STOP boogieing until he was out of Imperial
space.

Being the only known witness (and the publically accused killer) to a
regicide is a verry hazardous operation.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 16:05:59 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: T4.1 Space combat

>Is it unreasonable for me to lobby for using the Role-Playing Space Combat
>system by Joe Walsh as the standard space combat system in T4.1? If that
>isn't going to happen, how about just using its sensor rules?

RPSC is certainly nice...although, from a sensor standpoint, I hope that the
improved sensor rules - based on some detailed simulations of infrared
signatures and sensitivity - that I wrote (based on Anders' stuff) for
FFS2 will make it into T4.1

Bruce

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 16:26:18 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: TRTOOLS and Galactic 2.2.. WOW!

Just a tip of the hat to the xcellent work done on TRTOOLS and Galactic.

I recieved TRTOOLS today and have yet to encounter any bugs.. I've taken
the sample sector given (Solomani Rim) and regreesed it, collapsed it, and
done everything but throw rocks at it with nary a bug.  This will save me
ages!

I've been playing with Galactic 2.2 for a few days now, and other than the
lack of M:O material (can you say v2.3?), it remains at the top of
Traveller software.  I especially like the mapping software, since I can
quickly make maps when I need them, and spacers are only going to need
basic maps anyway.

One question:  What format is Galactic saving those maps in.. I'd like to
print them/transfer them to .gifs for my web pages

It was nice to see the archieved material about the copyright/trademark
see-saw that went on last year.. rathar than a simple copyright statement
this was illustrative of what has been happening in the industry.

All in all, Michael Bailey and Jim Vassilakos deserve a standing ovation
from all of us.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 17:02:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

"Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>

> On terrafrorming:  At TL12, "Major terraforming projects covering thousands
> of square kilometers become commonplace."  (MT Ref's Companion, pg 31.)
> This is akin to turning the Sahara Desert into a grain basket, or draining
> the Amazon river basin.

> IT IS MY OPINION that the terraforming mentioned for TL16 and above 
> refers to the complete rebuilding of the world from the crust up.  It is
> interesting to note that the one global project mentioned (it's name
> escapes me) was only finished in modern times...

You are correct, but it is more than simply your opinion:

From the MT Referee's Companion Global Terraforming (TL 16) can take a
world with an insidious atmosphere and transform it into a world with a
standard atmosphere. 

Total Terraforming (TL 17+) involves taking a barren vacuum world and
turning it into a lush world with lots of water and a dense atmosphere. 

(both examples paraphrased from MT Referee's Companion page 32).

There is no evidence that the ROM ever did anything like this.  Turning a
world with 15% water into a with 40% water is a much easier process and
sounds more like the process described under TL 12 terraforming.  I'd
imagine that removing a taint from a atmosphere would also be TL 12
terrafrorming. 

As you said TL 12 terraforming is making the Sahara bloom, TL 16
Terraforming is making Venus habitable.  We have no evidence that that the
ROM ever did anything like this. 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com
  

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 20:33:32 -0400
From: Tom Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: ...say it isn't so....

Jeff Miller writes:

> Be forwarned: I recall I took the tack of a nasty event at the Fulacin Starport
> as the foil for the PCs to be in the area again, so this may not conform to
> anything canon-like....
>

eeeeekkkkk!  Not canon-like?!?!  Say it isn't so.......the horror....THE
HORROR.......

Well Jeff--I guess that we should allow you to post to the list anyway.
I only worry about arguing canon when I'm not playing and when I'm
playing I have yet to let canon stand in the way of a good idea.  I have
now become fodder for the TML canon-crusaders, but hey, if its the worst
beating I ever take I'll consider myself very lucky.

I look forward to seeing your "not entirely canon-like" ideas.

Best

TT

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:24:49 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Allegiances

Alright!!!!

I can contribute again !  Something I know !

Bright Star Corporate - Malorn
Delsun Comagistrant - Banners
Dienbach Grupen - Neworld
Eslyat- Vanguard Reaches
Gralyn Assemblage - Reavers Deep
Third Empire of Gashikan -  Gzaekfueg, Gashikan, Trenchan
Joie De Vivre - Malorn
Murian Beyond - Vanguard Reaches
Malorn Union - Canopus, Aldebaran,Hanstone, Malorn
Nakris Confederation - The Beyond
Sea'ai'teluarliyh - Fahreahluis
Steaakh Yeasaol - Hfiywitir
Empire of Vaerroth - Listanaya

These are all documented in Vilani/Vargr and Solomani/Aslan, both GREAT
books by DGP.

John

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 04:06:13 +0000 ()
From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Moin Hans Rancke-Madsen,

> As I've stated before, I think that if TL 13 had been common during RoM then
> the Sylean universities would have had details of these technologies, in
> which case Sylea could have advanced quickly to TL 13  --  if not before,
> then certainly once they had the wealth of an entire empire to draw upon.
> Since it took them 450 years to go from TL 12 to TL 13, this cannot be
> the case.

	Half a year ago I had a theory that a civilisation need a
	pop level >= tech level to sustain without trade. Even if
	you know what TL-15 is, you need the synergy to build it.

	Sustaining TL-13 on world which have mostly a pop level of 5-9,
	would need a enormous freighter fleet. Here we have the 450 years.

	So perhaps TL-13 was not uncommon in RoM because the RoM was
	a technokratic/militaristik invader who had won a war, and now
	has had the synergy to build TL-13. They where unable to rule
	the vilani, but they where able to press the production for
	their expensive TL-13 enclaves.

By Michael
- -- 
	kraehe@bakunin.north.de			www.hb.north.de
		  " ceterum censeo MSDOS esse delendam "

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 03:35:50 +0000 ()
From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
Subject: Re: Gurps Aliens

Moin Lewis Roberts,

> GURPS background in Traveller.  I bought GURPS: Aliens, which is a book
> of write ups on Aliens. Each Alien gets four pages, with some pictures
> and a sample NPC.  Some of the races aren't very Traveller like, being
> more like Star Trek or pulp sci-fi aliens. 

	I much prefer a human like galax, aliens tend to be humans
	in funny costumes. e.G in our campain history vilani are
	small and come from a heavy g world, vegans and darriens are
	tall get old and have long ears. Of couse we are playing
	Midgard (a german fantasy RPG) also, so these "races" are
	adapted from tolkien world.

	BTW has anbody seen the race generation of Masters of Orion II,
	    simple but nice idea.

> But some of them fit very well into a Traveller campaign.  I have
> adapted the An-Pharr, Pachekki and two others, which I can't remember
> the names of, as members races of the Hive Federation.  

	Stories are much more interesting than statistics, I prefer
	a "less afair the rules" game style. If I need rules I play
	on a computer ;-(

By Michael
- -- 
	kraehe@bakunin.north.de			www.hb.north.de
		  " ceterum censeo MSDOS esse delendam "

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 03:23:41 +0000 ()
From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
Subject: Re: Deep Space Mine(s!)

Moin Brett Fishburne,

> >The Mines: Which kind of devices would you use to defend an asteroid belt?
> >           How would they work? How can they be disabled? Consider that
> >           they should still work (at least some of them) after decades.

> If you are going to live and work in an asteroid field it is guaranteed to
> be underground with a fair amount of crust between you and the outside.

	Perfect ! Hiden mines. Why not thinking straight: Mines are
	lost when they detornate, and the need dedicated sensor equipment
	to decide "if this is a ship or an other fucking asteroid"

	If money and TL-13 (or above) is not the problem, I would prefer
	dedicated small sensors, interconected around the belt, and
	deep core meson guns in OTHER asteroids. Some dummy's (ladar, and
	old laser, a hot reaktor ;-) and anything attacking them will
	become blasted by meson rays.

	BTW: 2 yeas ago in my campain, the group decidet to invade into
	a large virus controlled system, where a doomslayer/battletender
	was stranded. Their idea was to start an geruilla war in the
	asteroid belt, with 12 roaches (virus controlled jump torpedos)
	40 people in stealth vac suits, and 5 automatic factories.

	As a special gag the roaches where equiped with emm masking,
	grapples and a short range meson gun. Hook on a ship destroy
	the mainframe inside, let the humans board. The main invasion
	on the orbital station was suported by about 1000 asteroids
	slowly changing course towards the moon oround the gas giant.
	Aim of these operation was to get a save smugling route to
	the regency (using a long bow calibration point in the riffs)
	for analgetics B which was developed by the gushmege vampire
	to control local TEDs. It was one of those "see you next life"
	campains, no player had the same character afterwards.

By Michael
- -- 
	kraehe@bakunin.north.de			www.hb.north.de
		  " ceterum censeo MSDOS esse delendam "

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 22:49:10 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Announcement Regarding Traveller Chronicle

Just to let every know, I have officially taken on the job of
Editor-in-Chief of Traveller Chronicle.  Kevin Knight will remain as the
magazine's publisher.

   For those of you who wish to submit items for publication (stories,
adventures, artwork, equipment descriptions, etc.), you should now send
those to me at:

Harold D. Hale
3508 Harwood St.
Kettering, OH 45429

*or*

hdhale@siscom.net

   When sending submissions, I prefer electronic format.  If you wish to
send a submission to me on computer disk, 3 1/2 inch floppies are fine
(5 1/4 inch floppies are not).

   Those of you who have already sent submissions need not resubmit your
work--Kevin has already sent me copies of items that he has received.

   Traveller Chronicle will continue to support Traveller in all its
forms, as it has from the very beginning.  I look forward to the
challenges that lay ahead and wish to thank Kevin publically for this
opportunity.

   If you have any questions about Traveller Chronicle, my editorial
policy, what the change means for the future, or anything else, please
feel free to e-mail me at the address listed above.

   First question: When will the next Traveller Chronicle come out?

   Answer: Issue number 13 should be released sometime in late August or
early September.  The plan currently is to follow it up with issue 14
sometime in November.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 00:04:55 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: TML etiquette? (Was Re: Rule of Man TL)

On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:19:01 -0700
Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>Subject: Re: Rule of Man (ROM) TL
>
>Yet you still find time to post.  How damn hard is it to say "look in book
>X on page Y, and you'll see my evidence."  

I don't know, it must be some kind of e-mail thing.  It takes about 5 min.
to scan digests.  This is the only thread I have time to follow right now.
Another few minutes for a quick reply, and all at the expense of sleep,
not putting together the big picture.

>>Since I am seeing quoting here without a _full_ accounting of what is said
>>(twice at least now), I am more resolved to wait until I have all of my
>>ducks in a row.  To my detractors, get a life and don't be so damned
>>"American instant gratification" oriented. 
>
>Excuse me?  First of all, I do have a life.  Quite a full one.  I work ten
>hours a day, deal with cancer recovery, and am in the process of buying a
>car.  None of this prevented me from grabbing two books off my shelf,
>spending ten minutes doing some very basic research and simple maths, and
>finding several sources clearly pointing to a RoM tech of 12/early 13.  You
>are apparently unable to something this simple without complaining about
>your horrendous schedule.
>
>I take the above as a personal attack.  I have shown my case, backed it up
>with references from GDW material, and in exchange I'm told to "get a life."
>
>How petty can you get?
>
>>To my supporters, another week
>>or so isn't too long to wait to see _exactly_ what I have to say, rather
>>than what people are trying to make me appear to say.

Holy Cow!  I just realized that this whole thing has got me talking Us vs.
Them.  Why does it always have to be that way?  (I asked that not too long
ago on another list, and of course got no reply.)

As for the comments further up, I must tell you that I am sorry.  I guess I
was just kind of responding to being told how to run my life, and by some
other than my own standard.  I was not trying to offend _anyone_.  My
Traveller group has known each other for a long time, and we often razz each
other.  The "instant gratification" quote comes from us all laughing at
ourselves, being the sort who can't wait for anything new in the way of
Traveller.  We want it NOW, not when some hobby shop gets it in.  When
it first came out, J.P. and I once (literally) ripped the only copy of
JTAS#3 here in Denver at Bonnie Brae Hobbies. You should have seen the
looks on our faces at that moment. :)

I guess I just confused _this_ environment with one that I have fun in.

>You haven't said *anything*, except to make wild-ass claims that you refuse
>to defend in the slightest.. when called on it, you whine about your
>schooling and being pressured, and then sulk and bitch about your
>detractors.  This is a list populated by adults who all share a love of the
>game Traveller and its background.. You think that we don't disagree with
>each other?  You should have seen the fighter debate, or the wars over
>Virus a few years back.  

Look.  I _started_ this off on the premise that I wanted opinions.  I never
promised (until later) that I would even _provide_ my sources.

As to what I _have_ said, what you judge to be relevant is only of relevance
to you.  I have been in this game since '77 also, and I have never lost
sight of the fact that I find it fun.  I am not sure from your posts that
I want to be on your TML, but I have some pleasure in knowing that I have
reached others like myself.  I am an adult too, but a kid at heart because
I can recognize that the best thing about role-playing is not being myself,
but being "someone else."  Not that being myself is all that bad, mind you.
It is just a great escape.

I may not have been around the TML before.  To tell you the truth, I read
nothing of your "etiquette and protocol" on the FAQ I ftp'd from the site.
If this is a place where hounding of the newest newbie is commonplace, you
won't be too happy with me.

I doubt that everybody here has the vast libraries that we do.  I want for
_anyone_ interested, to be able to voice opinions, not just for someone
to be dominating over any discussion, with some set of rules unilaterally
imposed.  I may have made some mistakes, but I have explained what I meant
by everything I have posted, and why I did.

>In none of the discussions or flame wars I have seen or been involved in
>here has there ever been someone with your attitude.  You seem to think
>that you're being oh-so-clever with this ploy of making us all wait for
>your announcement.  Guess what?  All you are doing is pissing people off.

J.P. attributes it to the fact that my favorite cartoon character was (is)
Bugs Bunny. :)

Anyway I doubt that everyone here is so unforgiving, but if _everybody_ is
that way, then I don't have to lose any sleep over any tumult I may have
had something to do with.

>Post which books you are using for this bizarre claim.  No quotes, not even
>the pages, just tell us where you have canonical evidence of the RoM
>possessing TL16 as a common TL.  We can look it up.

I haven't said I wouldn't.

>I don't think you can do it, since I'm convinced that you are only a troll,
>trying to look important by starting an arguement.

And you used the A-word?  I won't start one of those "Mom, he started it.
No he started it." (I had three brothers growing up.)

>Post, or shut up.
>
>To the rest of the list:  Sorry for my tone, but I am sick and tired of
>this guy's games.
>
>>For those of you who can't find the delete keys on your mailers, try using
>>the help. :)
>
>You have insulted all of us.  There are people on this list whom I dislike.
> I still read their posts, and even when they disagree with me I don't sink
>to your level.

So fractious?  Come on.  E-mail is _so_ tenuous that I can't say that anyone
except those I have met in person would I be able to sum up an opinion of
whether or not I like them.  And that even goes for Harold, the only one
here whom I've ever had a disagreement of the magnitude you suggest.

Sorry, but my philosophy is that _nobody_ insults me!  Only _I_ can do that!
:)

>There is a precedent for trouble-makers being dropped from the list.. when
>does Rob get back from vacation?

Well at least he'll be back from vacation and hopefully in good spirits.
I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Now, now, I should watch my sardonic humor.  I guess it is difficult to
tell when I am smiling on this end of the console (99.9% of the time) and
when I am not. (Ok, so this note took 14 minutes. :)


>|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |

BTW, I just got the joke in your e-mail address.  Pretty clever, eh?!

For the free flow of information (and still smiling),

I remain:


Leroy

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1514
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Traveller-digest       Thursday, July 3 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1515



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: TL of ROM
Drop Troops
Re: Personnal vehicle questions
re: Imperium (boardgame)
Re: Planet3 software
Re: Task system defnition error
Re: Biological weaponry
Re: Imperial Anthem
[off topic] Posting count, Jan-Jun 1997
Re: TL of ROM
Re: Gurps Aliens
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Planet3 software
RF and VRF weapons
Traveller Magazines
Pocket Empires
Pocket Empires Question
Traveller Chat
Re: Education and Schools
Re: TL of ROM
Lords of Thunder
Re: Drop Troops
Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe
Starship Design in T4
Re: Biological weaponry
Re:  Biological weaponry

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 22:38:06 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Douglas E. Berry wrote 
> 
> At 02:14 PM 7/1/97 -0400, Harold wrote:
> 
> >   Note: Now would be a good time for those who are concerned with this
> >issue to post what bits of evidence they have to the list so that Marc
> >can be better informed.  

> the simplest way I can put this comes off of one page in the MT Ref's
> Companion (pg 34).  Under the "Other Tech Level Notes" section, it shows
> the RoM achieving TL12 in -2210.  My *assumption* is that this the
> approximate year that the technolgy became the standard for RoM Naval
> units, high-end civilan systems, etc.
> In the 3I section of the same passage, it is noted that it takes from -150
> to 300 for the 3I to progress from TL12 to TL13.. a period of 450 years.
> 
> Assuming that there is no significant difference in the advancement > rate between 2nd and 3rd Imperia,

Why should we make this assumption ?  The 2nd Empire was more dynamic
than the 3rd Empire (which is probably part of the reason it was shorter
but that is another issue) and could have gone up TL's faster.

Look at how little time the Solomani spent at TL's 5-11 for instance.

> the RoM will achieve a common TL13 society in
> - -1760.  Alas, this comes almost 100 years after Rats & Cats (pg22) states
> that society had fractured badly, and 16 years after the recognized start
> of the Long Night (-1776).

Yes this data would tend to suggest that they did not have enough time
to have achieved TL 13 but they could have gone up faster.  I do not
believe that they _did_ but they could have if thats the way Marc wants
to do things.  If we (Solomani) can pass through some of the earlier
Tl's in as little as 30 years we could go from TL 12 to TL 13 in a _lot_
less than 450 years.

It took the Solomani influenced Darrians much less than than this for
instance.  AM8 Darrians says (pg 9)  "It took only a short time to go
from the Solomani tech level of 10 to 16." and (pg 25) that this took
from -1511 to -924 (587 years).

Now you could argue that the @nd Empire was too shaky & overextended to
advance in technology but I disagree.  It is true that the 2nd Empire
was _politically_ overextended but they did not necessarily have
problems in the scientific community.  Even if all the Vilani scientists
were totally useless (unlikely) the same home grown Solomani scientists
that they had always had could have made developments.

I am not saying they did.  I am only saying they could have.

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 23:43:50 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Drop Troops

>Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
>get my vote. I'd give them red berets, too - that's the traditional symbol 
>of paratroopers, and drop troops are really just paras who got a bit carried 
>away.

  Interestingly enough, the Terran Jump Troop units in Imperium
are numbered 2nd, 7th, 23rd, and _101st_. Coincidence?

The CT Creed - "There is no (SF) Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its'
Product"
       

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 08:45:20 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Personnal vehicle questions

>So the questions are :
>  Are those figures realistic
>  What is the approximative average external volume of regular personnal cars?
>  What is the approximative average internal volume of regular personnal cars?

I use 4 m3 to 8 m3 from small Japanese to large American car.

One design system idea I've been toying with is to more specifically choose
the form of the vehicle and then setting its base volume by
lengthxwidthxheight and thereafter reducing a certain often large
percentage of that based on the hullform. Most delta wing aircraft for
instance have the same proportions and the same can be roughly said about
cars. It is far easier to visualize the vehicle if given its dimensions
rather than some volume number. Just me blabbing my mouth off really.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 23:43:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Imperium (boardgame)

>Anyone have any info on errata, differences between first and second editions,
>and any variants which improve play?

  I believe no errata exist as such or are needed. The 1990's
re-release with hard map-boards deleted the third star w/o a
system box (near Apishal/Zaggisi) IIRC, but I can check that.

  The only variant I've seen was rewriting the combat charts
(for ships, at least) for 2d6 resolution, but still as a 9x12
factor listing. I'll see if I can present that. Apparently the
purpose was to address a tendency towards the small ships
predominating, and to bring the extremes of the CRT's to more
believable levels.

        Good luck,
                Steven Hudson,
                Vancouver, British Columbia
The CT Creed - "There is no (SF) Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its'
Product"

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 02:42:19 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

At 06:52 PM 7/2/97 EST, you wrote:
>At 07:24 PM 6/30/97 EST, Doug wrote:
>>Traveller Navigator software can be found as freeware at:
>>
>>http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
>>
>>He has Diaspora, Deneb, Spinward Marches, Reft, and Old Expanses.  He isn't
>>providing any support, and the software comes as is.
>>--
>
>A public atta-citizen to Sam Thomas!!!  After I posted the preceding...

My apologies to Doug Berry - HE actually posted the preceding, NOT me - I
brainfarted and snipped the wrong thing - I posted a comment that I
couldn't download anything from that site...

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 23:58:32 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

>Now the problem is that RM or DM mean (or produce) the same net result if
>phrased correctly. Do we scrap one, or do we retain the potential for each?

Personally, I think all modifications should be made to the target number
and the dice should be left alone. Target numbers are already calculated
values, modifiers won't change that. DMs are too ambiguous (Die modifier?
Difficulty modifier? What about opposed tasks?) and should be abolished.
Also, a positive DM on a task roll is bad and a negative one is good, which
is the opposite of what people expect. I would prefer only to have RMs (or
whatever they will be called).

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 08:58:24 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Biological weaponry

>1) What element or biological do-hickey would an alien require to
>communicate via LF (low-frequency) radio? Can you have an LF radar? and
>conversely, can this be jammed? How would this compare in size, power,
>etc. with a regular radio? How do you power the thing? Some kind of
>bio-chemical battery? Am I talking nonsense?

Low frequency means hard to pinpoint by triangulation, low resolution for
radar and pretty high minimum size of targets. In order to evolutionary
develop LF radar in a biological organism they or their prey/enemies need
to be huge. Low frequency seems to be pretty hard to jam. In my army stint
I was a short wave telegraphist (the last ditch when all other comm fail)
and during all our training whe never got jammed despite the opposition
always trying to do so. If an animal has developed radio comm with pretty
low frequency (short wave) they could use it to communicate around an
entire planet if the atmosphere/ionosphere works as our. This could be cool
for the ref with Traveller PC doing som bad stuff to the aliens and soon
after every alien on the globe knows about it despite TL-0.

I'd say biological matter can be similar to kevlar but in order to evolve
it has to have some reason why that particular feature is beneficial.
Perhaps predators who swallow small rocks and shoot them out through some
violent chemical reaction as a weapon need be countered. This could also
mean that some of the smaller animals have fast enough reflexes, muscles
etc do dofge slow bullets!


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:11:01 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

>  I'll start off by suggesting:
>
>        the Overture from H=94ndel's "Fireworks Music"

I've always used Darth Vaders march from The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack
but that might be way too easily recognizable.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 17:19:02 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: [off topic] Posting count, Jan-Jun 1997

Hi all,

Finding myself with too much spare time on my hands (well, more like lots
to do, but not motivated enough to do it), I decided to do a small count of
how many posts people have made to the TML over the last half year (since I
joined). Note that this isn't super scientific, or anything like that. It
is quite possible that some of the numbers are off slightly. People posting
with different names in the "From" field didn't help either. However, after
much calculation, countation and thoughation (hmm, didn't come out right),
I can now announce the winner of the "Most frequent poster to the TML"
award. And the winner is.......
...
...
[the envelope please]
...
...
...
Eggs
Milk
Cheese... wrong envelope you idiot!!

And the winner is...
...
...
...
Leonard Erickson, with 459 (!) posts, just nudging out Kenneth Bearden, on
450. Anders Backman comes a distant third on 346. The rest of the pack
aren't even in with a chance, coming in at the high 200's.

What do they win? Well, absolutely nothing. I just did it because it seemed
like a good idea at the time.

For those who are interested, the counts of the more frequent posters are
listed at the end of the message.

We now return you to your regulary scheduled task system flame wars.

Cheers,
Jason


Leonard Erickson	459
Kenneth Bearden		450
Anders Backman		346
Douglas E. Berry	290
Eris Reddoch		285
David J. Golden		237
James Lindsay		212
Volker A. Greimann 	210
Bruce Johnson		199
Michael Solomani	195
Craig Berry		169
Andrew Vallance		168
Roderick Darroch	152
Mike Sellers		139
SD Mooney		139
Scott Ellsworth		137
Glenn Hoppe		134
Robert Flammang		111
Rupert Boleyn		111
Joseph E. Walsh		106
Merrick Burkhardt	106
Paul D. Owensby		102
Glenn M. Goffin		96
Marc Miller		95
Harold Hale		94
Carlos Alos-Ferrer	91
David P. Summers	91
Richard Hough		90
Harry (aka Paul Harris)	40
Me!!!			25 (26 including this one)

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:53:34 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

>> the simplest way I can put this comes off of one page in the MT Ref's
>> Companion (pg 34).  Under the "Other Tech Level Notes" section, it shows
>> the RoM achieving TL12 in -2210.  My *assumption* is that this the
>> approximate year that the technolgy became the standard for RoM Naval
>> units, high-end civilan systems, etc.

I think they state that those were the maximum achievedcTL for the
respective empire but in pretty vague terms. Read the text preceeding that
dealing withn the TL table in (MT) Referees Companion.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 00:54:29 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Gurps Aliens

Wed, 02 Jul 97 11:26:06 -0400, Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
>I have heard of several people who use GURPS as the ruleset for
>Traveller, but I was wondering if there was anyone out there who used
>GURPS background in Traveller.

Yeah, I use them as minor races (of which there are clearly
a huge number).  I recently had a Cidi show up as an official
at Regina star port.  They had just started taking jobs off
their home planet and were establishing a community there because it
look like a good place to find Clerical and Technical jobs.

____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:22:03 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no> writes:

[TMM:]

> > School prerequisite for Naval Acadamy has been increased to Int 9+ and Edu
> > 5-.
> > Int Pre-Req of 9+ added for Medical School.
> > Int PreReq of A+ added for Technical school.
> > Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
> > and Edu 6+.
> 
> I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
> way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
> a human right.

The Third Imperium is not actually big on human rights... free market 
economics predominates, and local governments can do whatever they 
like on their own turf.

I'd say education was a privilege for anyone who gets it, and the 
"right" to education is balanced by a duty to take education 
seriously, which many simply don't do.  I don't believe Syleans would 
be much different.

Like it or not, a college education requires some background in 
learning (EDU) and enough INT to understand the necessary concepts.
I must admit INT A for a technical school seems a bit high -- I'm 
thinking car mechanic school, not aero engineering or MIT -- but I 
haven't seen the explanatory text.

> I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
> in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
> university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.

Two points: firstly, money will be spent only where it does good, and 
if Sylean society doesn't hold with the value of education for all, 
it won't happen.  Secondly, much education will be available in the 
home via vid-screen, rather than at college per se, and so colleges 
might become even more elitist institutions than many are at present:
many are part-time students, and few are full-time.

> In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
> but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.

Sad to say, there is a minimum intelligence required to cope with a 
certain level of schooling -- you're putting it at INT 1, I'd put it 
at rather higher levels... INT 6 or 7 for a degree in the UK, even 
given our rather devalued university system.

I disagree whole-heartedly.

Nick


Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 01:06:43 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Planet3 software

In mail you write:

> Now if someone could just tell me where I can get the old Apple
> II software, now that I finally have an Apple II :^)

I'd be interested as well, as I've come into possesion of a Franklin
Ace 1200 (Apple II clone).

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:26:53 -0500
From: "Mike McLaughlin" <mikem@en.com>
Subject: RF and VRF weapons

in the emporer's aresenal, there's mention of weapons getting a +2 bonus 
for RF and +4 bonus for VRF fire.  are there rules that directly address 
this (ammunition consumed and other considerations) that i just can't find 
or is this another update waiting to happen ?

thanks.

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 08:06:38 -0600
From: Eric Holmes <holmes_eric_t@lanl.gov>
Subject: Traveller Magazines

My friends in crime:

Is there a listing of the currently published Traveller related rags?

Are any of these on-line in either a free or pay-for format?

For you gamers that go beyond the role play gaming, try looking at

the MagWeb.  Good historical as well as some role playing info.

For approx $60, you get access to 20 or more magazines for a year.

Here's their address:    http://www.magweb.com/

Eric

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 10:20:48 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Pocket Empires

Has anyone noticed that the economic rules cannot produce anything remotely
resembling the real world?

(I recently rejoined the list and missed any major Pocket Empires
discussions.)

By PE rules, China and India both have vastly larger GNPs than the USA or
Japan

I have some ideas to correct this, but has anyone else worked on this?

Just throwin' some ideas to the wolves.....

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 16:10:33 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Pocket Empires Question

Hi,

	I have a query about Pocket Empires. It concerns the UPP of an Archon. On
page 15 it quotes the chargen example of Linest Cararialta. It says that
his Soc is based upon that of the family, but I don't think I can find
where exactly you define the type of the family or whatever it is, so that
you can determine the Soc of it.

	Any help would be great, thanks!

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 08:28:25 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Traveller Chat

Greetings!

Tonight's discussion is on Patriotism in the Imperium. How does 
patriotism manifest itself at the citizen level throughout the 
Imperium? What range of attitudes is there?

Traveller Chat officially begins at 9pm Central, but I'll be on no 
later than 8:30pm Central. We'll be on IG's server, 
www.imperiumgames.com, port 6665 or 6666. 

I look forward to seeing everyone after my two weeks of absence..... 
just have to get that second phone line ;->

Suz


#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:14 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

In-Reply-To: <970701192606_40301043@emout13.mail.aol.com>

> WAIVERS
>  Within the Education process, any character may apply for a waiver of
>   Any Pre-Requisite (which would preclude applying for a school), or 
>  Any die roll (after the roll has been made and failed).
>  Rolling Waivers. To receive a Waiver, roll Soc or less. (2D); DM - total
> number of waivers applied rolled, whether successful or not.

Nice idea, but increase the roll to 3D (ie this is something that only 
high-SOC characters will have much chance of succeeding at (on average, 
only a Noble will succeed), although Joe Average *might* get away with it). 
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:23:38 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Peter Newman wrote:

Munch, Chew, Snip

> Now you could argue that the @nd Empire was too shaky & overextended to
> advance in technology but I disagree.  It is true that the 2nd Empire
> was _politically_ overextended but they did not necessarily have
> problems in the scientific community.  Even if all the Vilani scientists
> were totally useless (unlikely) the same home grown Solomani scientists
> that they had always had could have made developments.

What Viliani scientists? :)
Last I heard even their TL11 military tech hadn't altered in hunderds 
of years, and they wern't just controlling research and tech, but 
banning anything that was new.
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 97 10:25:46 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Lords of Thunder

>- -> sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best traveller
>- -> adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
>- -> "Lords of Thunder".
>I found it great as well, it was superbly detailed, and very 
>interesting to read. Never had a chance to play it, though :-( 

I mail ordered this book, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it all
the way through, when a friend borrowed it, and I never saw it again. Arrrrrrrrrg!
 
Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:Why does an elephant have a trunk?
A:So that it has someplace to hide when it sees a mouse.        
 
lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 08:50:26 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Drop Troops

At 11:43 PM 7/2/97 -0700, you wrote:

>  Interestingly enough, the Terran Jump Troop units in Imperium
>are numbered 2nd, 7th, 23rd, and _101st_. Coincidence?

I'd forgotten that <G>  Screaming Eagles in Spaaacceeee!!!!!

>The CT Creed - "There is no (SF) Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its'
>Product"

If that's Orthodox, I must be Liberal Reform.. any system even if it isn't
Traveller..

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:23:38 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [T97#1506] Empress Iolanthe

JEFF ZEITLIN wrote:

>  Your assumption was correct - she was the wife of the male
>  Emperor, Strephon.  There were the two Princes, Varian and
>  Lucan, and the Crown Princess, Iphegenia.  All of these
>  individuals are mentioned in the MegaTraveller background
>  material that describes the Assassination that led to the
>  Rebellion and then the Collapse.  Dulinor murdered Strephon
>  (really his clone; Strephon himself was on a secret mission
>  [AV]), Iolanthe, and Iphegenia in the Audience Chamber; Varian
>  was murdered in his apartments by an unknown individual (but
>  unspoken suspicions fall on Lucan).

With traitrous sentiments like that you'd better start running too :) 
The Emporer himself saw the murder, commited by the very man who has 
the gall to accuse his rightful ruler of this horrendous act. 

And if you belive this there are a number of politicians here who'd 
love for you to become a citizen, and add to their loyal supporters.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 13:35:24 -0700
From: "Stephen Price" <steve.price@virgin.net>
Subject: Starship Design in T4

Hi

I am trying to use the design sequences in Starships for T4, but I have a
problem when it comes to adding armor. According to what i can make out
	ArmorVolume=VolumeFactor*ArmorLevel
	ArmorMass=ArmorVolume*MaterialDensity
Actual armor rating is then looked up on the USP table.

The problem with this is that as you go up tech levels, armor masses more
but gives the same protection value. Surely there should be an armor
modifier on the material table. Also, if you cross reference armor level on
the USP chart to get Armor Rating you are going to need a lot of volume to
get decent armor ratings. Is this right?

Any info gratefully received.

Steve

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 97 18:14 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Biological weaponry

In-Reply-To: <33BA0CD2.1EA8@best.com>

> 1) What element or biological do-hickey would an alien require to
> communicate via LF (low-frequency) radio? Can you have an LF radar? and
> conversely, can this be jammed? How would this compare in size, power,
> etc. with a regular radio? How do you power the thing? Some kind of
> bio-chemical battery? Am I talking nonsense?

Sonar is easier (but shorter range).

> 2) Assume an insectile critter about the size of a Cape buffalo. What

Isn't there a max size for insects? The way they're designed, I don't 
think you'd get them bigger than a cat.

> 3) What physical characteristics would a giant buglike critter have,

Pretty good, I'd say.

> generally? I'm already presupposing it has an internal skeleton to bear
> its internal weight; the exoskeleton can be pretty much armor. Can
> biological material stand up to smallarms fire? The life sciences aren't

Probably, yeah.

> exactly my long suit; I'm really not sure, even given a billion years of
> evolution for my critters, what is and ain't physically possible. Any

Cheat. Geneer them.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:54:15 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re:  Biological weaponry

>Can you have an LF radar?
Yes, but the resolution of radars is always limited by the diffraction 
limit: for a radar dish of diameter d, at a distance r, the smallest
detail that can easily be resolved is given by 

res = l*r/d

where l is the wavelength of the radar - so a 20-cm wavelength radar with a
100-cm antenna will have lousy resolution. (Alternatively, you can think of
it as the angular resolution of the radar/width of the radar "cone"
being broadcast, which will be given by

angle= 57*l/d

(angle in degrees.)

An interesting possibility if the creatures are telepathically linked is that
they could act like a big interferometer, with several bugs working together
to make one big high-resolution radar - in that case, replace d with the
distance between the furthest-appart bugs (and hence you might end up witha
biological radar that can see aircraft or spacecraft.)

Biological IR is a neat possibility - the creature might have some 
mechanism for cooling its eyes so it can see into the thermal IR.

Eating through armour is hard, but you can imagine a critter that sprays
adhesive gunk into vents, over sensors and cooling radiators (fusion power
plants don't need intake vents but do need cooling radiators to avoid
overheating and shutting down...cover the radiators with insulating gunk and
the power plant will have to shut down.)

Bruce

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1515
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Traveller-digest       Thursday, July 3 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1516



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: TL of ROM
Re: TML etiquette? (Was Re: Rule of Man TL)
101 Cargos and Trade Rules, etc.
Solomani Technology in the News
Re: Imperium (boardgame)
Re: Education and Schools
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Task system defnition error
INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X
Re: [T97#1510] Computer Compatibility
Re: Lords of Thunder
Re: [T97#1512] Allegiances
Re: Sector Info requested
re: Imperium (boardgame)

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:23:38 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

JEFF ZEITLIN wrote:
> 
>   The Emperor of the Third Imperium Restoring the Rule of Man
>   over a Grand Empire of the Stars will naturally need to
>   engage in a certain amount of pomp and ceremony.  When he
>   enters the Audience Chamber, or arrives on a planet (and
>   disembarks from his ship), or the like, it will be \de rigeur\
>   to play the _Emperor's_Processional_ or the _Imperial_Anthem_
>   (may be the same, may not).  Whatever is played, it will
>   necessarily be something suitable to the majesty of the
>   Emperor.  Does anyone have any ideas as to _what_ the EP/IA
>   should be?  This is a real opportunity for those of you who
>   can actually compose symphonic music; for those who can't,
>   feel free to suggest music that you feel is appropriate.
>   Remember that lyrics aren't an issue; this is something that
>   will generally be played by a military band or a subset of the
>   local Philharmonic or Symphony Orchestra.
> 
>   I'll start off by suggesting:
> 
>         the Overture from HSndel's "Fireworks Music"

I'll go for something by Mahler or Wagner, especially from Mahler's 
2nd Symphony. However I'll place bets that if it's any 'classical' 
piece it'll be either 'Mars' or 'Jupiter' from Holst's 'The Planets'.

Of course all this will probably go by the wayside when the 
Solomani's power at court is broken.
 
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 01:10:51 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

>Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 18:19:19 -0700
>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
>Subject: Re: TL of ROM
>
>At 02:14 PM 7/1/97 -0400, Harold wrote:

>>   Note: Now would be a good time for those who are concerned with this
>>issue to post what bits of evidence they have to the list so that Marc
>>can be better informed.  Were I in Marc's shoes, I would appreciate
>>bibliographic citations so that I don't have to rumage through
>>everything, and it would be nice to be able to interpret passages myself
>>rather than relying on someone's less than biased opinion.

>the simplest way I can put this comes off of one page in the MT Ref's
>Companion (pg 34).  Under the "Other Tech Level Notes" section, it shows
>the RoM achieving TL12 in -2210.  My *assumption* is that this the
>approximate year that the technolgy became the standard for RoM Naval
>units, high-end civilan systems, etc.

Problem is the Terran Confederation was using elements of TL 12
technology as far back as -2389 (synaptic programming in robots) and
had Jump 3 *before* the start of the Nth Interstellar War (-2235).

>In the 3I section of the same passage, it is noted that it takes from -150
>to 300 for the 3I to progress from TL12 to TL13.. a period of 450 years.

>Assuming that there is no significant difference in the advancement rate
>between 2nd and 3rd Imperia, the RoM will achieve a coomon TL13 society in
>- -1760.  Alas, this comes almost 100 years after Rats & Cats (pg22) states
>that society had fractured badly, and 16 years after the recognized start
>of the Long Night (-1776).

Possibly a bad assumption. The 3I has a significant Vilani influence, the
RoM has a much stronger Terran influence (note, not Solomani but
Terran). The Terran Confederation was TL 9 in -2431 (discover jump
drive) and was starting into TL 12 by -2389 (use of synaptic programing
in robots), definitely reached TL 12 before -2235 (Terrans had jump-3
during the 9th Interstellar War which was followed by the Nth
starting -2235).

The way I see it is that the Terrans were TL 9 when the 1st Interstellar
War started (-2431), rapidly absorbed Vilani tech (the refs companion
puts them at TL 11 in -2398) and pushed on from there. Given that they
were facing an opponent with overwhelming strength, they would have
started a crash research program, developing odds and ends of TL 12
over 150 years; only bringing it altogether at the end. With the end of
the Wars and the conquest of the Vilani much of the urgency would
have gone and many resources would have had to have been diverted
to holding the Empire together. However, they were still facing major
external and internal threats (e.g. the Vargr) and they would have built
up a fearsome momentum. The Terran portions of the RoM just didn't
have the ingrained technological inertia that the Vilani (and later 3I) did.
The Syleans took 500 years to go from TL 11 to TL 12, the Terrans did
it in about 150 (jump 3 before -2235).

So to put it altogether. I think you have to divide the RoM into two areas
in regards to TL, the former Ziru Sirka which has massive technological
inertia and probably wouldn't advance much beyond it's TL 11 (say
TL 12 is max in this area); and the former Terran Confederation which
could quite convivably have pushed to TL 13, but would have had the
technology widely spread (never developed jump 4, but pushed to
TL 13 in other fields, maybe even TL 14 in medical/biological). Taking
the figures from the Ref's companion you get 300 to 500 years for the
3I to advance a tech level, but I'd say 150 to 300 for the RoM.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 09:19:36 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: TML etiquette? (Was Re: Rule of Man TL)

At 12:04 AM 7/3/97 -0600, you wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 10:19:01 -0700
>Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:

>>Yet you still find time to post.  How damn hard is it to say "look in book
>>X on page Y, and you'll see my evidence."  
>
>I don't know, it must be some kind of e-mail thing.  It takes about 5 min.
>to scan digests.  This is the only thread I have time to follow right now.
>Another few minutes for a quick reply, and all at the expense of sleep,
>not putting together the big picture.

If you would just tell me the name of the book(s) that you are getting this
from, I would be satsified.  That's all.  Is that so impossible?

>>I take the above as a personal attack.  I have shown my case, backed it up
>>with references from GDW material, and in exchange I'm told to "get a life."

>Holy Cow!  I just realized that this whole thing has got me talking Us vs.
>Them.  Why does it always have to be that way?  (I asked that not too long
>ago on another list, and of course got no reply.)

Why am I not surprised?  Let me give you an example.  You may have seen the
end of the Great Task Debate, and heard about an alternate system called
KBv2.0.  When Kenneth proposed his system, he backed it up with pages of
detailed probability charts, expalnations for why he thought his system was
best, and invited commentary.  Another:  We have a semi-regular ship-design
contest (THUDD) run by my brother.  People who enter are expected to be
able to provide expalnations and commentary on their designs.

This list exists for the free flow of ideas.  It is one thing to ask a
theoretical question about jumpspace, quite another to announce that
everything we know is wrong and you have the truth but won't tell us until
it suits you.

>As for the comments further up, I must tell you that I am sorry.  I guess I
>was just kind of responding to being told how to run my life, and by some
>other than my own standard.

We are not telling you how to run your life, just asking that you abide by
the conventions of the TML and back up your statements.

>I guess I just confused _this_ environment with one that I have fun in.

I don't know about you, but I am more than capable of having fun without
annoying everyone around me.  Post your sources, and you'll get a lively
debate.  Right now, for all I know, you are using some Judges' Guild
product printed in 1981 as your source.

>Look.  I _started_ this off on the premise that I wanted opinions.  I never
>promised (until later) that I would even _provide_ my sources.

How magmanimous of you.

>As to what I _have_ said, what you judge to be relevant is only of relevance
>to you.  I have been in this game since '77 also, and I have never lost
>sight of the fact that I find it fun.  I am not sure from your posts that
>I want to be on your TML, but I have some pleasure in knowing that I have
>reached others like myself.  I am an adult too, but a kid at heart because
>I can recognize that the best thing about role-playing is not being myself,
>but being "someone else."  Not that being myself is all that bad, mind you.
>It is just a great escape.

If I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't role-play.  This however, isn't a game,
it is a forum for discussions of the game.  Most of us are Referees, some
of us write for the game, all of us are interested in the free and open
exchange of information.  You are not doing that.

>I may not have been around the TML before.  To tell you the truth, I read
>nothing of your "etiquette and protocol" on the FAQ I ftp'd from the site.
>If this is a place where hounding of the newest newbie is commonplace, you
>won't be too happy with me.

You are the first newcomer I can remember who immediately started making
claims and not backing them up.  This group is generaly very forgiving, and
some of the people here have become very good friends.

You are not taking part in this.  You are trying to control the debate,
lord over everyone, and set yourself up as some sort of uber-guru.  Sorry,
not a chance.

>I doubt that everybody here has the vast libraries that we do.  I want for
>_anyone_ interested, to be able to voice opinions, not just for someone
>to be dominating over any discussion, with some set of rules unilaterally
>imposed.  I may have made some mistakes, but I have explained what I meant
>by everything I have posted, and why I did.

You'd be surprised.. many of the frequent posters seem to have massive
libraries with some very rare items.  How can I give an opinion on
something when you won't give me your evidence?  *I* have presented,
several times, canonical sources showing the RoM reaching at most TL13.
You have ignored those posts utterly.

>Anyway I doubt that everyone here is so unforgiving, but if _everybody_ is
>that way, then I don't have to lose any sleep over any tumult I may have
>had something to do with.

After calling Dave Golden a sheep and insulting me, Harold Hale, and God
knows how many other people on this list, I have come to the conclusion
that you are one of those people whom I don't like to have in my games.
Self-centered, overconfident, and rather immature.

>>Post which books you are using for this bizarre claim.  No quotes, not even
>>the pages, just tell us where you have canonical evidence of the RoM
>>possessing TL16 as a common TL.  We can look it up.
>
>I haven't said I wouldn't.

But you haven't.

>>You have insulted all of us.  There are people on this list whom I dislike.
>> I still read their posts, and even when they disagree with me I don't sink
>>to your level.
>
>So fractious?  Come on.  E-mail is _so_ tenuous that I can't say that anyone
>except those I have met in person would I be able to sum up an opinion of
>whether or not I like them.  And that even goes for Harold, the only one
>here whom I've ever had a disagreement of the magnitude you suggest.

Based on my exposure to you, I don't like you.  You are insulting, rude,
and have no concept of netiquette.

>Now, now, I should watch my sardonic humor.  I guess it is difficult to
>tell when I am smiling on this end of the console (99.9% of the time) and
>when I am not. (Ok, so this note took 14 minutes. :)

In that time, you could have typed the names of the Traveller sources for
your claims.  With supporting quotes.  One handed.
>
>
>>|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
>
>BTW, I just got the joke in your e-mail address.  Pretty clever, eh?!

Huh?  Hooked.net is part of Whole Earth Networks, based in San Francisco,
Ca.  and has nearly 20k subscribers.  What joke?
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 18:49:02 +0100
From: Andy Lilly <a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk>
Subject: 101 Cargos and Trade Rules, etc.

"Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu> was advocating the wonders of the
BITS/CORE publication "101 Cargos".

>I usually determine the most likely cargos for a given world and generate
>them according to the lot size and price rules for the system I'm using (Jo
>Grant's from 101 cargos, specifically, or Glen Hoppe's  from his Craft MT
etc.

Before I get jumped on by them, I should point out that the cargo generation
stuff was written by Ace and the Dog Unpublications (Hugh & Alan - BITS
members). The 101 cargos were by Jo (although we'll be reprinting the book
soon with a different set, to avoid any copyright complications with JTAS)
and the rest of the stuff was by me (with help from Marcus Rowland).

Andy :-)

(Who's been awful quiet with too much work...)

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 10:55:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Solomani Technology in the News

  Love to read those technical and military magazines - great ideas for
Traveller stuff.

  The latest issue of Jane's Defense Weekly has a feature story on the US
Army's plans for the next generation Main Battle Tank.  Oh, excuse me,
Main Battle _System_ - since it is going to be able to fire in indirect as
well as direct mode, it is now a system rather than a tank.  The major
design constraint was, apparently, a 40 ton weight limit and some size
limits, so you could fit two at a time in the new C-17 cargo plane.

  The picture of the mock-up was interesting - similar to the current M-1
Abrams, but much smoother.  According to the article, this was because all
the defensive systems, like reactive armor and smoke grenades, were
mounted flush to the hull surface.  The smoke grenades, for example, were
distributed around the hull evenly, rather than in little racks as they
are now.  They did not say why they did it this way - maybe so when they
mount the grav plates it'll fly faster due to less drag.  The one oddity
about the appearance was that the barrel was not round, but rather diamond
shaped in cross section. 

  The reason for this was in the article, and was perhaps the most
interesting thing from a Traveller point of view - the Army is seriously
considering using a rail gun as the main armament rather than chemical
propellants (they are also considering missiles).

  Aviation Week & Space Technology served up a couple of interesting
stories.  The first was about a new, low cost launch system being
developed by an independant company.  It's two stage to orbit, and uses
cheap and simple slightly modified Russian rocket engines in a new
structure.  I thought the mission profile was interesting - the first
stage lofts the second to a great height, separates, and then does a
second short burn (about 45 seconds), turning it back around toward the
launch site.  It then lands using a parachute and big air bags on the
bottom to absorb the shock.  The second stage then proceeds to orbit,
launches the payload, and deorbits itself.  It then lands in the same way
as the first stage.  Claim is both stages will land on land within three
miles of the launch site (about 5 km, which is probably the actual
specification).

  The company claims a two week turn-around time, and from 50 to 100
flights before major rebuild.  If it all works out, the cost per launch
will be much less than other current low orbit systems.  They already have
one contract for launching that would pay about 100 million - they say
they need about 500 million to finish system development and launch in the
late 1990s.

  A second story in the same magazine concerns a new artillery projectile
with the rather unfortunate acronym BLAM, which stands for something like
Barrel-Launched Airguided Munition.  It looks like a conventional
artillery warhead, kind of cone shaped, but in two pieces - a forward cone
and a skirt.  The two are connected by piezolectric "tendons" which allow
a small computer to alter the angle between the two halves and so steer
the round.  You can launch it from a smooth bore tube, and then guide it
to the target.  The steering mechanism is apparently very shock resistant,
so you can fire it at really amazing accelerations (thousands of Gs, I
seem to recall).  The steering also extends range considerably, apparently
since the round can be oriented for minimum drag when fired in an indirect
role - something like doubling the range with the same accuracy is
claimed.  Although more expensive, it is more accurate (in theory, I
suppose), so you can either carry less and make your platform lighter, or
more lethal for the same weight. 

  Finally, the New Scientist had an article on Mars expeditions, and it
seems NASA is working on - hold on - fuel refining!  Yes, it costs too
much to send the fuel all the way to Mars, so they are developing a system
that can make a fuel on Mars from Martian materials.  I only skimmed the
article, since I was late for an appointment, but it sounded rather
complex with all sorts of design questions about operating in temperature
extremes and so on.

  Anyway, all of these sound like interesting sources from the Traveller
point of view - hope you find them intersting.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:55:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Imperium (boardgame)

In a message dated 97-07-03 13:02:35 EDT, you write:

<<   The only variant I've seen was rewriting the combat charts
 (for ships, at least) for 2d6 resolution, but still as a 9x12
 factor listing. I'll see if I can present that. Apparently the
 purpose was to address a tendency towards the small ships
 predominating, and to bring the extremes of the CRT's to more
 believable levels.
 
  >>
There were versions in Spanish, German, and Italian, all of which I found
harder to play.

Marc Miller

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:01:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

In a message dated 97-07-03 06:29:57 EDT, you write:

<< 
 One minor concern - his chance to succeed at task rolls goes up, even
 though he may have used waivers to get through.  I am willing to write that
 off as a vagary of the task system, though, and let it lie, but it might be
 worth a side bar note, titled something like "Idiots with Degrees."
 
 Good idea, Marc.
 
  >>

Right. Add the comment on the character card: Idiot with a Degree. On the
other hand, the Education he has is a form of training. What he probably
can't do is make good judgements.

Marc

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:58:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

In a message dated 97-07-03 11:31:18 EDT, you write:

<< 
 I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
 way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
 a human right. I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
 in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
 university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.
 In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
 but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.
 
  >>
What good is Education if you aren't smart enough to absorb it. What about
the kid who barely finishes High School (and learned very little)? Is he (or
she) eligible to get 4 years of college as well?

Anyway, I am adding waivers, which let anyone go to college (etc) maybe.


WAIVERS
	Within the Education process, any character may apply for a waiver. A Waiver
may apply to
 	Any Pre-Requisite (which would preclude applying for a school), or 
	Most Die Roll (after the roll has been made and failed).
	Rolling Waivers. For a Waiver, roll Soc or less (2D); DM minus number of
previous waivers rolled, whether successful or not.
	Waivers apply only to Schools and Education (and the Scholar career, but not
other careers).
	Injury: Waivers never apply to injury.

Marc

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 00:25:50 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

Marc Miller wrote:

<<Much of this stems from two definitions in T4, both of which use the same
abbreviation. DM can mean Die Modifier, or Die Roll Modifier. DM +2 means
increase the THROW +2 and then compare against the dice, or it means increase
the DICE roll +2 and compare against the required outcome.>>

I had always assumed that DM in T4 refered to modifying the THROW (Target
Number), in line with the new task system. Admittedly, I have had one
occassion were ex-MT players got confused. However, I feel that modifying
the target number and keeping the dice roll 'clean' is more elegant, and
avoids confusion.

<<I am proposing two distinct statements:

<snip on RM/DM>

Now the problem is that RM or DM mean (or produce) the same net result if
phrased correctly. Do we scrap one, or do we retain the potential for each?>>

Marc,

I'd scrap the DM - if you start to modify the dice roll, the phrase 'target
number' starts to be inappropriate. Modifying the target number felt (to
me) to be in line with the roll less a number system we have now. You
already have to calculate the target number, so why not just mod it as you
do it.

In any case, keep one or the other but not both - it avoids confusion.

Additionally, please consider dropping all the multiple of 3 DM's (in
combat) etc. and replace them with an increase task by one difficulty
level... I admit this idea comes from an explaination of the philosophy in
the MT system that was in a Traveller Digest, but it made sense.

Dom

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:54:28 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X

The largest insect ever here on good ol' 1-G Earth was a dragonfly with a 2
foot wingspan. Underwater, however, the largest IIRC is a six foot long
proto scorpion

Even geneering animals will have its limits. Evolution gives an animal
armour, it takes away reaction speed and flexibility. Even with geneering
you can't have it all. It takes too much "evolutionary energy" to get
everything. Life, like technology, involves at least some degree of
tradeoffs. Geneering can reduce this, but tech reduces the tradeoff as well.


Evolutionary energy is my abstract term for tradeoffs, it is not an actual
measure of ergs
An example, if you had an armoured (read: bulletproof) carnivore the size of
an elephant that had lightning reflexes, fantastic senses, intelligence and
could run 60 mph and fly, it would quickly drive everything it ate into
extinction because of what would be, to say the least, a tremendous
appetite. Before it even evolved to the point as listed above, it would have
specialized. Thus, you would have one or two of the above at most. The
energy requirement for high speed and high mass are easiest to take away.
Carnivores are rarely armoured. Because of its size it will be able to move
fairly quickly (larger stride), so it will stay large. Good senses are the
hallmark of the carnivore. But it will probably specialize in one or two,
based on environment. (in water smell and hearing, in arctic sight and
hearing, etc) It would then specialize (or not, some species never do) and
develop huge jaws to take down large prey. Or more likely, because it
requires less effort, scare smaller predators away from their food and/or
eat carrion. It specializes in sight and smell, to spot camouflauged prey
and smell to find carrion.
And budda-bing...you have the Tyrannosaurus Rex
In short, an ecosystem has to support this creature. Evolution is about
fitting into niches, not striving to be number one

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 97 16:54:00 -0500
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
Subject: Re: [T97#1510] Computer Compatibility

"Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net> writes...

 ::>>By TL12, i think most computers can handle just about anything you can
 ::>>throw at them.

T::>Except Virus....      (g, d, & r like hell)

 A base canard!  TL12 computers can handle Virus just fine -
 look how many got infected by it!

 (and I _still_ have a problem with the concept of a stinking
 piece of software using radio communications to rewire the damn
 hardware...)

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com
- ---
  OLXWin 1.00b  ^Cu vi parolas la lingvon internacian?

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:03:22 -0600 (MDT)
From: "P. ENGEBOS" <pengebos@NMSU.Edu>
Subject: Re: Lords of Thunder

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Lewis Roberts wrote:

> 
> >- -> sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best traveller
> >- -> adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
> >- -> "Lords of Thunder".
> >I found it great as well, it was superbly detailed, and very 
> >interesting to read. Never had a chance to play it, though :-( 
> 
> I mail ordered this book, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it all
> the way through, when a friend borrowed it, and I never saw it again. Arrrrrrrrrg!

I picked the mag up last summer from either Berkely Games or Sentry Box (I
can't remeber which).  They might still have copies.  ANd it is
defineately worth reading.  ONe of my favorite game modules of all time
(along with greg porter's Deathwind and Prime base for Morrow Project.
	
Peter Engebos				<pengebos@nmsu.edu>
T'Sarith, Lord deGaalth			<tsarith@io.com>
		http://web.nmsu.edu/~pengebos/

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 97 16:54:00 -0500
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
Subject: Re: [T97#1512] Allegiances

John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>

T::>Can anybody tell me in which sectors the following are located?  I know
 ::>I've seen some of them, not all:

 Going from memory (usually pretty reliable)

T::>        Bright Star Cooperate
 ::>        Delsun Comagistrant
 ::>        Dienbach Gr?pen <- and what is the spelling of this?

 The question mark is probably an umlauted "u" - , if you can
 handle ISO-8859-1.  My guess is that these would be on the
 rimward fringe of the Solomani Confederation.

 ::>        Eslyat
 ::>        Gralyn Assemblage

 No clue on these, although the first looks intriguingly Droyne.

 ::>        Third Empire of Gashikan

 This one is definitely coreward of the Julian Protectorate.
 The JP is Mendan, Amdukan, and Star's End sectors; 3EG is in
 the three sectors directly coreward.  Amdukan is directly
 coreward of Antares.

 ::>        Joie De Vivre
 ::>        Murian (Beyond?)

 No clue, although JdV looks Solomani enough to be in the
 rimward fringe of the Confederation.

 ::>        Malorn Union

 There's a Malorn Sector, somewhere rimward of the Solomani
 Confederation.

 ::>        Nakris Confederation
 ::>        Sea'ai'teluarliyh
 ::>        Steaakh Yeasaol

 These last two names look distinctly Aslan.  I'd look in the
 DGP _Solomani_and_Aslan_ volume for a more exact location; my
 gut feeling says that they're rimward of the Hierate proper,
 near the Sol. Confed.

 ::>        Empire of Vaerroth

 This is definitely a Vargr name; I can't close in better than
 that without digging out semi-inaccessible references.

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com
- ---
  OLXWin 1.00b  if exist \BELFRY\*.BAT echo You have .BATs in your BELFRY

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 22:10:48 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Sector Info requested

> If you'd like, I could e-mail you copies of my files. They run to a bit over
> 100 K.
>

yes please!

Simon
sre@taz.compulink.co.uk

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 22:10:50 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: re: Imperium (boardgame)

There were some errata published for the 1977 version which I have:

Sequence of play, Imperial maintenance and Production (clarification):
Income
Production & Imperial replacement
Imperial Attention
Apeals to the Emperor
Maintain Old ships
Purchase new ships

Ships that are in a Tertiary hex, with a tanker, are considered to be 
fuelled and may break off combat as long as the (friendly) tanker is 
present at the beginning of the combat phase.

Combat: immediately after range is determined termination of combat is 
determined.  the attacker first must announce if he is breaking off or 
remaining to attack.  then the defender declares.  It is possible for 
both sides to break-off, inwhich case no side fires.

Terminating Combat: break-off may be to more than one system, if 
desired.  If multiple destinations are used, all must be of equal 
priority

Terminating combat: Ships that are not able to break off (such as 
monitors and fighters not in motherships) may not fire in the round 
that their forces retreat, but may do so in subsequent rounds.

Planetary bombardment: only ships that did not use high-intensity 
missile fire may participate.

Planetray defense fire: ships that both bombard and attempt a landing 
are attacked twice by each world, outpost or planetary defence marker.

Fighters: fighters may use capital ships as a base.  Each capital ship 
counter (M, B, B1, B2, BB) can support one fighter unit.  Fighters not 
inside a mothership cannot retreat from combat, but must remain.  At 
the conclusion of space combat sub-phase, all fighters without a base 
are eliminated (they run out of fuel).

Economics (Terran):  A world is connected to Sol for income purposes 
only if the path contains no empty systems, other than tertiary hexes.

Economics (Imperial): A world is considered connect for the initial 
set-up if it can trace a path to Gashida, the path must contain no 
empty systems, other than tertiary hexes.

Recover from disruption: disrupted ships do not get a dice modifier for 
being at a friendly outpost.

Ship production: monitors may only be placed in space, never on a 
planet surface.

Imperial replacements: these appear through Ishkur, Dingir, Kinunir or 
Gashida.

Victory levels (clarification):
Turn   Win   lose
 4     9     1
 5     8     2
 6     7     3
 7     6     4
 8     -     5
 
Appeals to the emperor: these may not be attempted if they would reduce 
the glory to or below the "lose" level.  i.e glory 0 on turns 1 to 3, 
glory 1 on turn 4, etc.
 
Territorial exchange (outposts):  A tenable path may contain empty 
systems (i.e with neither world nor outpost), unlike a connected path.
 
Territaoral exchange: if a binary stellar hex is occupied by both terra 
and the Imperium, then the hex is considered tenable by both sides.  
However, players may wish to agree to a "mutual withdrawl" in which 
case both outposts are removed from play.  Note that worlds are always 
tenable. 

Starting the first war: For the initial set-up (only) all worlds and 
outposts must be connected to Gashida.

Terraforming: If there is always an outpost present, past turns of 
terrforming are not lost.  Thus it is possible for a world to be 
terraformed alternately by Imperial and Terran players, with only 50 
total turns (150 RU) required.  Each turn 3 RU is not spent will "undo" 
one D6 worth of terraforming turns.

===============
One of the nice things about the errata is that the Imperial set up is 
restricted so that all the ouposts and worlds must be connected to 
Gashida.  The Imperial set up can include Procyon (plus Ys and Sarpedon 
if you want), but at the risk of exposing the left side of the board to 
terran expansion.  This is one of may favorite "high risk" strategies 
as it takes the fight right to the Terrans while allowing them to 
expand to the rich worlds on the lower left of the board.  This set up 
gives a very different game to the usual bottlenecks of Nusku/Dushaam 
and Sirius.  The drawback for the Imperial player is that the outposts 
"beyond" Sirius do not generate income on the first turn, unless his 
reaction ships happen to place a tanker there <evil grin> during the 
Terran's first turn.

======================
> with hard map-boards deleted the third star w/o a
> system box (near Apishal/Zaggisi) IIRC, but I can check that.

Altair is still there on my hard board version.



Simon
Imperium and Traveller fan

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1516
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Traveller-digest        Friday, July 4 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1517



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X
Re: Pocket Empires
Re: RF and VRF weapons
Re: RF and VRF weapons
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Lords of Thunder
Radio organisms
Re: TL of Traveller 2300AD
Re: Gurps Aliens
Re: TML etiquette?
Re: Pocket Empires
Re:  Biological weaponry
Base Codes
Re: Reality
Weapon Design Question?(long)

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 15:35:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

> Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 09:11:01 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> 
> >  I'll start off by suggesting:
> >
> >        the Overture from H=94ndel's "Fireworks Music"
> 
> I've always used Darth Vaders march from The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack
> but that might be way too easily recognizable.

I would suggest that the Emperor and the Empire might have separate
musical 'signatures,' perhaps more than one each.  Consider as a parallel
the use of "Hail to the Chief" for the US President, as opposed to "The
Star-Spangled Banner" for the US itself.  As the 3I does not seem strongly
involved in the symbolic identity of monarch and nation, having separate
music for each seems reasonable. 

For the Emperor, I would suggest the need for an instrumental fanfare; an
ideal example would be "Fanfare for the Common Man" (Aaron Copland).  Not
only are the title (and inspiration) pleasingly ironic, it's one of the
most stirring pieces of music ever written, and the initial fanfare
segment would stand well on its own for grand entrances and exits.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 19:15:45 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

	How about the theme from the Smurfs, but played on the pipes?

	I'm deadly serious; it actually sounds kinda impressive (of course
most anything played on the pipes does).

	Way back when I was working summers at this annoying golf club in
Hudson QUebec that shall remain highly nameless, one of my piping buddies,
who was far more talented than I was, was hired to pipe the directors in to
dinner after the annual directors' meeting.  It of course occurred to me to
suggest that he pipe them in to the tune of the Smurfs' theme, and he did.

	I informed the rest of the staff, and fortunately for us we managed
to hold our laughter in as a bunch of old dudes in green jackets with club
crests got piped in to the Smurfs theme.  AND NOBODY CAUGHT ON!!!

	Sorry... that was kinda irrelevant, but I thought it was worht
sharing with you people :).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 16:34:46 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X

OK, a couple of clarifications... and a few more questions:

1) My Bugs are vegetarians.

2) My Bugs are NOT genegineered. They are, however, a race of warriors
(no workers per se; just drones to do the digging) that have a
billion-year evolutionary path behind them. (I think I already
mentioned, and will reiterate, that they do have internal cartilaginous
skeletons to support their body weight. The exoskeletons supplement
this, and serve additionally as armor).

3) They evolved in parallel with another intelligent race that lived on
the surface and grew food crops for 'em. The Bugs in turn protected
their "workers" from the native nasties, which are numerous and as
hellacious as the Bugs themselves -- hence the need to evolve all that
armament. Food supply is theoretically not a problem. They can tailor
their own population from generation to generation by only hatching
enough eggs to meet the existing food supply.

(FYI: This sort of symbiotic relationship is not unknown amongst Terran
insects. There is a species of ant in South America that feeds,
protects, and grooms these big fat grubs who in turn produce enough
nectar for the entire colony. Another, the African Amazon ant, is
comprised of 100% warriors, who have to go out and steal workers from
other species' colonies to work for them).

4) The reason I want LF radio communication is so they CAN communicate
planet-wide and not get jammed, as someone else thoughtfully pointed
out. Their intelligence is low by human standards, but they network
together to solve difficult problems (massive parallel colonization?) As
far as senses go, since they live primarily in a subterranan
environment, they usually get by on touch, smell, and rudimentary
eyesight (any body knows how well a spider can see with those little
eyespots? What if there's a half-dozen eyes each the size of grapefruit?
How far? and in what spectrum)?

5) When they charge an opponent, they have an umbrella-like cape that
flares just behind the head and sends out a burst of radar energy. It's
a fighting reflex that makes them looks bigger and lets them get an
exact fix on the location of their enemy. At least, that's the
concept... I've been told that LF radar is low-resolution. OK. How big
would you guesstimate the target has to be if the 'dish' is two meters
across? An apartment building? A Hereford steer? Can you increase power
and get greater resolution by using short, powerful bursts?

6) What would the night sky? or an approaching starship? or an enemy
army? look like to a bunch of critters who are in constant communication
with each other, and who are all born with 2m radio receivers lashed to
their heads? Can a bunch of Bugs act in concert as a composite sensor
array of some kind? Does their 'eyesight' suck less if there's more of
them? Can they see farther? or with greater resolution?

That's about all for now. I'll doubtless think of some more. I've been
working on the concept for a long time; I'm just trying to find out
whether what I've been working on is biologically possible...

- -- Jay Stranahan

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 97 19:14:04 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

On 07/03/97 at 10:20 AM,  "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com> said:

>Has anyone noticed that the economic rules cannot produce anything
>remotely resembling the real world?

My FLGS got a copy of Pocket Empires in today and I raced down there to
grab it, so I haven't had a chance to do more than do a quick scan. 

>By PE rules, China and India both have vastly larger GNPs than the USA or
>Japan

This must be because of China and India's large population..hence Labor
stat, right?  I haven't gotten into the details, but I'd expect their lower
TL and much lower infrastructure to offset their population advantage.

Rather than get into the specifics of the rules..as I said I haven't done
more than a scan yet..let me say I'm impressed by what PE is bringing to
the table!  Having stats for Resources, Labor,
Infrastructure, Culture AND all the extended world characteristics brings a
lot of economic, social, and curtural flavor to worlds we haven't had in
the design sequences before.


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 20:02:41 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: RF and VRF weapons

At 11:26 AM 7/3/97 -0500, "Mike McLaughlin" wrote:
>in the emporer's aresenal, there's mention of weapons getting a +2 bonus 
>for RF and +4 bonus for VRF fire.  are there rules that directly address 
>this (ammunition consumed and other considerations) that i just can't find 
>or is this another update waiting to happen ?

Yes, the rules are called Guns, Guns, Guns by Greg Porter of BTRC. the
section in the back with the conversions has the details of RF and VRF
bonuses. He has a web page at:
http://members.aol.com/btrc/index.html 

It is very good system also he has spreadsheets available take most of the
work out it for you. He used it for CSC and EA.



- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 01:07:46 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: RF and VRF weapons

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997 11:26:53 -0500, Mike McLaughlin wrote:

> in the emporer's aresenal, there's mention of weapons getting a +2 bonus 
> for RF and +4 bonus for VRF fire.  are there rules that directly address 
> this (ammunition consumed and other considerations) that i just can't find 
> or is this another update waiting to happen ?

These rules are available in Greg Porter's "Guns! Guns! Guns!" (or
3G3) from BTRC Games.  They are based on "rounds/second" and translate
into a DM of +2 for RF and +4 for VRF.  Greg also triples damage from
a RF attack and quadruples it for a VRF attack.

As to "where" these rules were meant to appear in T4, I couldn't tell
you.  Hopefully they will be included in T4.1, as well as some of
Greg's optional 3G3 rules (like weapon initiative modifiers).

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 21:22:38 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Michael Koehne writes:

> So perhaps TL-13 was not uncommon in RoM because the RoM was
> a technokratic/militaristik invader who had won a war, and now
> has had the synergy to build TL-13. They where unable to rule
> the vilani, but they where able to press the production for
> their expensive TL-13 enclaves.

   Actually you could argue that just the opposite was the case--that
the drag that absorbing all those Vilani placed on the Terrans slowed
them down to the point that TL 13, which may have seemed so close at
hand, kept getting pushed further and further into the future, until
finally internal strife and civil war made it impossible to achieve.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 21:56:58 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: Lords of Thunder

At 10:25 03/07/97 -0400, Lewis Roberts wrote:
>
>>- -> sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best
traveller
>>- -> adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
>>- -> "Lords of Thunder".
>>I found it great as well, it was superbly detailed, and very 
>>interesting to read. Never had a chance to play it, though :-( 
>
>I mail ordered this book, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it all
>the way through, when a friend borrowed it, and I never saw it again.
Arrrrrrrrrg!
> 
>Lewis Roberts
>
And this is not a capital crime where you live?  GEEEEE what a place... ;-)

If you want a synopsis of the story, let me know, I could do my best and
summarize it for you (not on the list though).

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:14:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
Subject: Radio organisms

The recent thread regarding biological low-frequency radar has reminded me
of a bunch of questions I've been intending to post for some time now:

In the CONTACT newsletter, worldbuilding expert Martyn Fogg wrote: "The
bones of terrestrial vertebrates...are made from calcium phosphate.
However, shellfish make their shells out of calcium carbonate and some
worms have teeth made from goethite, a hydrated iron oxide (FeOOH) which is
hard and (this is why I like it) can be magnetized." But that's all he had
to say on the subject.

This got me thinking about designing an alien sophont whose bones were made
of goethite or some similar organometallic substance. I'll outline some of
my ideas here, but my grasp of physics and biology are admittedly shaky, so
I would like to call upon the list's expertise.
 - Exactly what are the properties of goethite?
 - What advantages or disadvantages might come with a goethite skeleton?
 - What abilities might such a creature evolve?

Some of the ideas I'm considering are drawn from existing Terran organisms,
but others are highly speculative and require reality-checking. Also, I am
very probably re-inventing the wheel. If you know of any Traveller aliens,
or aliens in SF, that are similar to these, I'd be interested in hearing
about them (sadly, I don't have a vast library of Traveller material I can
consult).

The species I'm designing are fully amphibian, more at home in the ocean
but capable of breathing and crawling about above the water line. Their
surface bears electrophores which discharge electricity (under water) for
both defence and communication. Would goethite bones be able to store
electricity, and thus act as capacitors for these discharges?

These sophonts have highly evolved electromagnetic senses, used to orient
themselves to the geomagnetic field, and to detect the movements of nearby
sea creatures in the dark. Over eons of evolution, these senses have been
augmented by specialized bone structures that generate and detect
electromagnetic signals. Assuming an adult body size of about 1m, or up to
3m with forelegs and hindlegs fully extended, what frequency range would
they be sensitive to and capable of transmitting? Would they be more likely
to use amplitude modulation or frequency modulation? 

I'm assuming that their homeworld is basically Earthlike, with a higher
gravity (1.8G), rich in heavy metals and light volatiles, a strong
geomagnetic field, and an ionosphere. Given this situation, what kind of
range might the sophonts' bio-radios achieve?

Would they be particularly sensitive to interference from lightning? Solar
flare activity?

Would they be able to adapt to a high-tech environment full of electrical
and electronic gizmos, power lines, and a densely occupied radio spectrum?
I figure their technology would have to involve a lot of careful RF
shielding. I also suspect that they'd develop electronics very early in
their social development, perhaps even before inventing agriculture. Their
equipment would also have to be protected against possible damage from
their own electrophoretic discharges.

Would a group of these sophonts be able to link together to extend their
sensitivity and range? Perhaps even form distributed arrays? And maybe do
interferometry? Imagine a species that developed radioastronomy long before
they invented fire...

I rather like the social and psychological possibilities inherent in a
species who are naturally interconnected via radio networks (even if their
range were limited to a small area, a lot could be done by a repeating a
message from village to village). As Anders said recently: "This could be
cool for the ref with Traveller PC doing som bad stuff to the aliens and
soon after every alien on the globe knows about it despite TL-0." My
thinking exactly, Anders. 

Any ideas, caveats, critiques, and suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks,

 + GMG + 

    -----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------  
                         <pawn@cam.org>
    Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"Nature abhors normality. It can't go too long without a mutant."
                        --Dr Blockhead

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 01:02:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: RSpake2064@aol.com
Subject: Re: TL of Traveller 2300AD

i have seen the ongoing war over the TL of the RoM.  adn i do not watn to
restart that war, but i was just wondering...  what was the TL of the
Traveller: 2300AD RPG?

Richard

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 00:03:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Gurps Aliens

Quoth Lewis Roberts:
> Has anyone else done something like this? If anyone has the book and is
> interested I have a conversion write up of the aliens.

I have several of the species from T4's ALIENS ARCHIVE expressed as GURPS
racial packages on my web pages: see

	http://www.io.com/~jlockett/RPG/Traveller/embassy.html

I hope to finish off the book soon, and then translate some of the minor
races from old JTAS issues and so on.

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 23:23:41 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: TML etiquette?

On Thu, 03 Jul 1997 09:19:36 -0700
Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>
>At 12:04 AM 7/3/97 -0600, you wrote:
>
>If you would just tell me the name of the book(s) that you are getting this
>from, I would be satsified.  That's all.  Is that so impossible?

Sorry but the interference generated by previous posts did not allow that
simple message to get through.  The _main_ sources are not some obscure
off-the-wall product (no offense to those of you out there that like a
particular product).  Primarily, GDW Supplement 10/Alien Module 6: Solomani,
MT (DGP) S&A, MT (GDW) Ref's Companion, Imperial Encyclopedia.  That is the
_core_ basis for what I have said previously.

Unfortunately, what I have said previously has been ignored in the context
of which I originally framed this thread.  If you can't check TML Digest
#1448, I'll be happy to forward you a copy offline.

Let me say this.  I have a point in making the posts I have written, but
it would not necessarily be obvious to the casual observer.  Some people
here have enough info to possibly understand.  I have a team of people
working on this kind of stuff.  I wanted to make a comment which got lost
_way_ back there and never got out.  I do not particularly advocate any
particular Tech Level for the Rule of Man.

I do know that there are aspects to the idea that have never (except in
one place) been considered in a forum for Referee's (myself for one) and I
just wanted people to be aware of several rather obscure aspects of the
past history of the Traveller universe.  The fact is, the tech level of
the RoM just doesn't matter too much, even in Milieu:0.  We are talking
a span of time that is so far in the past, that the only _tangible_ outcome
is in capturing the imagination of Terrans "out there."

Yes, you will have *anomalies* where things are found from the past that
might be unexplainable (at least to the players).  Yes, there are (read
PE) Pocket Empires that survived through the Long Night, but they are
less likely to have anything in the way of ramifications for the present
(M0) or the future (M1100, M1200).  As I said, it is capturing the
imagination of those Terrans, out there forging a new Empire.

Yes, the TI (especially the New TI) might not want knowledge of this out
to the general population.  Yes, it may be difficult for players (playing
their characters) to sift through what is the truth and what is not.  Hmmm,
the making of an adventure. (I've had that one in mind for awhile now.)

I love this game so much, I've gotten off topic.  My point is this.  I
_do_ think that on some subjects, it is possible to find incredible latitude
in the published products for a wide range of interpretation.  Here on TML,
(for the short time I have been here), it seems that opinions get cussed,
discussed, and chewed a bit, and then everything seems to stratify, into
one, two or more "camps" and people sit around remembering that last time
they got insulted by someone.

If I am going to write T4 material for Imperium Games, I must 1)  get a
handle on how "this place" works (at least I'm a quick study), 2)  figure
out what the general reaction is to ideas my group has, and 3)  sort out
what is reasonable and what is not, given the body of evidence and
opinion.

Perhaps I should have stated that last paragraph more forcefully before,
but Marc and Tim have not yet had a chance to get back with me on the
proposal they have before them.  Seems they are busy right now. :)

>Why am I not surprised?  Let me give you an example.  You may have seen the
>end of the Great Task Debate, and heard about an alternate system called
>KBv2.0.  When Kenneth proposed his system, he backed it up with pages of
>detailed probability charts, expalnations for why he thought his system was
>best, and invited commentary.  Another:  We have a semi-regular ship-design
>contest (THUDD) run by my brother.  People who enter are expected to be
>able to provide expalnations and commentary on their designs.

I only followed that Great Task Debate somewhat.  I sallied forth an opinion
when they were sought.  I don't know the principles, nor have I looked
through digests to figure that out.  I followed things a little here and
then jumped in when I saw something I disagreed with.  I turned it into a
thread and stated (or didn't state) what my intentions were, as I knew them
at that time.  I have no idea what you mean starting with "Another: ...".

>This list exists for the free flow of ideas.  It is one thing to ask a
>theoretical question about jumpspace, quite another to announce that
>everything we know is wrong and you have the truth but won't tell us until
>it suits you.

Don't take my comments so seriously.  At the point that I weighed in, I did
so because I wanted to point out certain things.  I admit that I had always
heard exemplary comments about what goes on here (not the flaming part, but
the exchange of ideas) but I have had only an impression of what "canon" is,
which perception I admit may be flawed.

Like I said, I am trying to learn because I do want to participate.  Do not
confuse any enthusiasm on my part for insults.  I do not try to insult
anyone and more than anyone else, want to do things for this version of
Traveller that we are seeing formed before our eyes.

>We are not telling you how to run your life, just asking that you abide by
>the conventions of the TML and back up your statements.

Willing here, but you are going to have to tolerate a ramp-up on my side.
I may not have a chance to respond to everything here, but I do keep up on
the posts on this subject, and I rely upon my team to mention things that
they think I should know about.  Hopefully the info I provided above will
take care until I can get the post promised for 7/10, through the TERRA
mailing list for comments.

>I don't know about you, but I am more than capable of having fun without
>annoying everyone around me.  Post your sources, and you'll get a lively
>debate.  Right now, for all I know, you are using some Judges' Guild
>product printed in 1981 as your source.

See the above.

>>Look.  I _started_ this off on the premise that I wanted opinions.  I never
>>promised (until later) that I would even _provide_ my sources.
>
>How magmanimous of you.

There were willing participants, and others.  They may have known what they
were getting into, but anyone could always ask.  Look, this is not a Hiver
manipulation or somesuch. :)

>You are the first newcomer I can remember who immediately started making
>claims and not backing them up.  This group is generaly very forgiving, and
>some of the people here have become very good friends.

That sounds like the TML I was looking for.  I look forward to any time
that I can spare here in the future.  However, I am not sure what to make
of all of this "quoted sources" protocol.  I guess I'll just say that I
have noted the irritation it raises.  I have some perceptions that I
_know_ are valid about the Traveller universe, but I don't carry a brief-
case of annotated references.  In this case, it happens that part of the
research we are doing has provided us with a working list of sources that
one of the researchers made note of along the way.

I am being sure that we are not blamed for 'you did this to the Traveller
universe.'  I think that those who have come before me (T4 I refer to
specifically) have done a good job, and I only hope that we can rise to
the occasion.

>You are not taking part in this.  You are trying to control the debate,
>lord over everyone, and set yourself up as some sort of uber-guru.  Sorry,
>not a chance.

Definitely not a chance.  I hit an entrance ramp only to find at the end
that the right-hand lane is moving at 85, and I only entered doing 40.  I
do see what I was participating in was a "what if" exercise.  If I don't
write a RoM sourcebook, I will have had the pleasure of participating in
something that I personally am interested in from the Traveller perspective.
By the time I need to be, I'll be up to 150 in the left lane. :)

Since the sourcebook is only an idea now, I am indulging myself in some
participation on the TML now.  Nothing more.  I am more than willing to
tolerate misimpressions, but I won't stand for a continuing assault.  Keep
the temper on the low burner and take the time to figure out (or ask me)
what I mean or am up to, and I'll be happy to clear up any misunderstanding
immediately.

>After calling Dave Golden a sheep and insulting me, Harold Hale, and God
>knows how many other people on this list, I have come to the conclusion
>that you are one of those people whom I don't like to have in my games.
>Self-centered, overconfident, and rather immature.

OK, so I got a little tired of having someone "conclude" something about
me, and then hear it echoed from elsewhere.  I did say that I respected
Dave's opinion.  Insulting you?  I seem to have broken through the commo
barrier between us.  Can we get back to being civilized, no name-calling
and discuss some Trav?

As for Harold, I defer to one of his past quotes after an argument over
on the HIWG list.  Something like, "So we are opinionated bastards."
Leave Harold and I to ourselves, and it will work itself out.  The last
(recent) argument we had resulted in my deciding to "get more involved"
in the game that I have loved since 1975 (when I learned D&D and figured
out that I wanted Traveller).  I see Harold has taken a page from my
latest book (going for the TC editorship) so I am glad he influenced me
to influence him (I hope).

>>I haven't said I wouldn't.
>
>But you haven't.

Done (see above).  Any more gripes?

>Based on my exposure to you, I don't like you.  You are insulting, rude,
>and have no concept of netiquette.

Well, we are talking civil like and all.  Sometimes (in my experience),
it just takes try, try again.  I did it and I am feelin a little better
about this whole thang.  Has this exposure done anything?

As for the "insulting, rude and no concept of netiquette", that is probably
J.P. coming through in my posts. :)  (I had to say that J.P., you know
what I mean--come on smile. :)

>>Now, now, I should watch my sardonic humor.  I guess it is difficult to
>>tell when I am smiling on this end of the console (99.9% of the time) and
>>when I am not. (Ok, so this note took 14 minutes. :)
>
>In that time, you could have typed the names of the Traveller sources for
>your claims.  With supporting quotes.  One handed.

Well, at least you are persistant.  Like me! :)

All right.  This note took a little longer, but the ray of light was there. :)
I ran this note through the insult filter.  I wasn't annoyed, so nobody
else should be either. :)


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:36:27 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

>I have some ideas to correct this, but has anyone else worked on this?
>
>Just throwin' some ideas to the wolves.....

Due to the flawed nature of infrastructure cost NOT depending on population
large nations/planets will always have as much infrastructure as they want.
China and Inda IMHO have less infrastructure and cannot therefore utilize
thir people in the same way as US can.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 08:42:37 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re:  Biological weaponry

>An interesting possibility if the creatures are telepathically linked is that
>they could act like a big interferometer, with several bugs working together
>to make one big high-resolution radar - in that case, replace d with the
>distance between the furthest-appart bugs (and hence you might end up witha
>biological radar that can see aircraft or spacecraft.)

Marke up the aliens for having VERY precise biological clockas as well in
order to synthesize the image.

>Biological IR is a neat possibility - the creature might have some
>mechanism for cooling its eyes so it can see into the thermal IR.

Rattlesnakes have small pockets on their heads sensitive to IR. By scanning
with their heads they can "image" in IR in a crude sort of way.
Rattlesnakes attack warm lightbulbs entered into their cage even if they
can see them with their normal vision which to me implies that they rely on
that sense a lot.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 21:25:38 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Base Codes

Thanks to the folks who responded to my allegiance query - you don't 
have to wait long around here for an answer, do you?!

[I haven't got Solomani & Aslan, but I don't why I didn't think to look 
 in Vilani & Vargr.  Still, I'd have had to ask for most of them anyway]

My new questions are about base codes.

1. Is there a base with code V?  Every other letter of the alphabet
   seems to be covered.

2. What happens with T in the New Era (Terminus World and Tlaukhu base)?
   Is it dependent on which sector you're mapping? (yuck!)

Thanks again,
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 22:25:54 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Reality

At 04:05 AM 7/2/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Regardless of the Holy Task Debate and various flame wars going on, I'd
>like to make everybody on the TML aware of something rather interesting
>in the land of Reality.
>
>This Friday, the human race is actually landing a remote-controlled
>vehicle on the planet Mars.  And we're doing it not with HEPlaR or
>contra-grav but bouncing it with a bunch of balloons.
>
>If anybody is interested in a feat of engineering that makes designing
>with FF&S look like counting matches, check out the following site:
>
>http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/ 
>
>And just to make Traveller more fun, download some of the art from:
>
>http://www.Jtwinc.com/art/  
>
>Some of it is absolutely breathtaking.
>
>Reality can really bite but..it has its moments.
>

And the Sci Fi channel has been talking about covering the landing with
reports during the day on 7/4/97, starting about 12:00 noon EST, I think.

Garry

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

Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 23:05:16 -0500
From: "David Murray" <DRM13@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Weapon Design Question?(long)

I've been messing around looking at things in the design sequence and it
occured to me that a custom designed ship, mostly a military ship, would
want to pool their HPG resources.

You could take the total available HPG output to "overpower" some weapons
in order to get better diff mods.

The other advantage is that the HPG can be more than 50% of the volume of
the mount, which corresponds to a overly large mount when you dont want the
height to be 3 or 4 decks.  I'll explain:

A TL15 Laser 175Mj Turret has surface area of 10 m2 and a vol of 42 m3

A Modified TL15 Laser 175Mj only needs a surface area of 5 m2 and a vol of
10 m3 and HPG vol of about 31m3

The big advantage is in surface area, and on a military ship it can get
tight.  The other is the sub-location of the HPG.  Protecting it deep
within the ship instead of having it so close to the outer hull.

I agree that there should be some sort of trade off for having to route
that much power around a ship.  How about 10% of the volume that would
normally be used for HPG vol added to the mount vol and still requiring the
full amount of HPG sub-located somewhere else on the ship.


Architects please take some time to try this out.  If you have ever custom
designed a ship this would change the way you look at things.

I will not raise the subject of how many weapons are fired at one time vs
HPG capacity as that would be another can of worms.

I only raise these questions because to me it would be the logical way to
do things.

Starship Architect since the early 80s.  Specializing in high TL designs.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
David Murray  DRM13@worldnet.att.net
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1517
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Traveller-digest        Friday, July 4 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1518



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

High Guard
Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X
Re: Imperium (Boardgame)
Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller
Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!
Re: Lords of Thunder
Re: TL of RoM
Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: [T97#1510] Computer Compatibility
Re: [off topic] Posting count, Jan-Jun 1997
[Fwd: FW: NPC Conversion]
Re: Empress Iolanthe
Re: The CT Creed
Re: TL of ROM
Re: Lords of Thunder
Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X
Statement concerning Pocket Empires
software quest
Re: Weapon Design Question?(long)
Re: RoM TL

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:18:45 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: High Guard

I recently bought a Heinlein novel, "Between Two Worlds" or somesuch, 
and interestingly enough it referred to the military forces of Venus 
as being divided between Ground, Middle Guard and High Guard.

A possible origin for HG in Traveller?

Nick



Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 03:10:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Kelly St.clair" <kellys@efn.org>
Subject: Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X

JayStr <jaystr@best.com> wrote:

>1) My Bugs are vegetarians.

This part is going to give you a LOT of trouble.  The energy requirements
  for a creature (insect or otherwise) of the size you want mean that it
  either has to do NOTHING but graze (and sleep and mate, one would hope)
  or have a carnivorous, concentrated-energy diet.  Especially if it's
  broadcasting radio.

Not saying it's impossible - consider the elephant, a huge herbivore that
  manages to be fairly effective in combat against smaller predators.
  But it's something you'll need to keep in mind, along with everything
  else.


- -----------------
Kelly St.Clair
kellys@efn.org

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 03:19:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Imperium (Boardgame)

  Well, I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but one thing that
always bothered us when playing the game was the ability of the Imperial
player to make appeals to the Emperor.  Now, you might think that the
penalty of -1 on the victory index for each appeal is enough of a
disincentive, but one of the perverse things about the game is that if you
win a war, you lose the peace.  For those not familiar with the game,
Imperium simulates the series of wars (1st through 9th interstellar)
between the Terrans and the Imperium - you fight until one side loses, you
then have a period of peace, and then war starts again.  The side that
lost the last war gets a larger budget and is better prepared for the next
war.

  The problem is the Terran player has no way of manipulating the outcome
of each war, other than on the battlefield.  The Imperial player, who is
actually the local commander, not the Emperor, can manipulate the outcome
both by battlefield performance and by making appeals to the Emperor.
Thus, just by fighting the Terrans to a standstill (not an unreasonable
objective, since the game is well balanced) the Imperial player can lose
every war and eventually win the game by winning the peace periods.

  Now, one might argue that this is simply an accurate measure of reality
- - if the local authorities had called for Imperial aid the nasty Terran
upstarts would have been crushed.  However, the local authorities didn't
want to appeal to the Emperor that often, since they might lose their
jobs.  This is nowhere reflected in the rules - there is no disincentive
for the Imperial player appealing to the Emperor, and when we played
the Imperial player would routinely do it every turn of war.

  Now, we never came up with a fix for this - I had a couple of stubborn
Solomani friends who kept telling me they could win with the Terrans, if
they could just find the right strategy.  They didn't, and we moved on to
other games.  Damn, I just realized that was over fifteen years ago - my,
how time flies when you're playing Traveller.

  I'm just curious if other folks had this same problem, and if they
developed a method to deal with it.  I remembered joking we needed
something like making the Imperial player drink a shot of vodka every time
he made an appeal - we figured that would be a fair handicap, but we never
tried it.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 11:20:36 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller

I love those pretentious academic-style subjects, you know,
Supposedly Catchy Title: Some Really Dull Underlying Theme.


Despite not even getting close to 100 TML posts, I do pay attention
to what goes on, and as Leroy G. is bringing us close to another
canon dispute I thought I'd share with you some insights from another
hobby of mine: religion.  (Or do I mean hobby-horse?)

The debate on canon in Christianity centres on the Bible, and views 
may be divided into three camps: canonist, moderate and syncretist.
(These are not the usual labels but as good as any.)

Canonists take the fundamental position of the Bible as normative: 
the text defines their beliefs.  This doesn't imply an unthinking 
attitude: many canonists devote considerable time to studying the 
text in an informed way.  Apparent self-contradictions in the text 
will be explained in sophisticated ways, with roughly equal emphasis 
on retaining a belief in canon as normative and getting a plausible 
resolution, in practice.

Moderates accept the text as guidelines, to be followed as a default 
and assuming some underlying content and theme, but if they see a 
sufficient reason for assuming something else to be true, that's not 
usually a problem.  Some contradictions in the text are expected, and 
either dismissed as unimportant or resolved in favour of one or the 
other.

Syncretists accept many sources of truth -- the reader, not the text, 
is the norm.  (Yes, I know this is postmodernism.)  The text is a 
useful source of ideas, but there is no need for any two people to 
draw the same conclusions from it: all readings of a text are valid.


How is this relevant to Traveller?  Well, there's a lot of muttering
about canon on TML, so it might be a good idea to understand the
range of views: is there One Traveller Background (canonist),
A Distinct Traveller Theme (moderate) or A Whole World Of
Possibilities (syncretist)?  You get the idea, anyway.

It might be helpful if you wanted some realistic religions in 
Traveller that weren't either obvious frauds or utter weirdos to have 
some relatively rational patterns of belief, a/a.  A moderate 
religion might be one which believed sharing meals to be an 
appropriate symbol of harmony and celebration, for instance, and 
engaged in nothing more sinister than the odd pot roast.  Their holy 
writings might include recipes!  (Fish Friars? Chip Monks?)

The K'Kree are definitely canonist.

These aren't labels to beat people over the head with, but I can't 
help thinking that there's a nice ring to Eris the Syncretist 8-)


Nick






Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 22:30:32 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

>Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 14:30:59 -0700
>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
>Subject: Re: Pipes ARE Terror weapons!

>At 06:03 PM 7/2/97 BST-1, you wrote:

>>>  Coolness.  I took a few years of lessons when I was in the Black
>>> Watch Cadets in high school.  Still have my pipes packed up down in my
>>> basement.  I never really got very good at it, probably because I was
>>> approaching the pipes as a musical instrument rather than a martial art,
>>> but I had a lot of fun.

>>Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
>>get my vote. I'd give them red berets, too - that's the traditional symbol 
>>of paratroopers, and drop troops are really just paras who got a bit carried 
>>away.

>That's MAROON Berets.  As opposed to the cute Girl Scout hats worn by the
>Special Forces.

No No No. Tarten forage caps, or a tam if you must, but never berets. No
self respecting Highlander would be seen in a beret!

>I was going to use kilts for all officers at least to hammer home that this
>is not a US military formation that has moved into space, but an evolution
>of multiple traditions.  I was going to homebrew a Marine Tartan, with a
>provision for Noble Marines to wear an appropriate family tartan instead.

>BTW: I meant to mention the Highland Regiment(s) (I seem to recall while
>watching the Edinburgh Military Tattoo that there was only one left..) in
>my original post, nut my brain slipped gears.

Actually there are four Highland regiments: (In order of seniority)
     The Royal Highland Fusiliers
     The Black Watch
     The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons)
                    (formed in 1995)
     The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
  Plus two Lowland Regiments:
     The Royal Scots
                  (the senior line infantry regiment)
     The Kings Own Scottish Borderers
                  (senior to all the Highland regiments except the Royal
                   Highland Fusiliers)
The Lowland Regiments don't wear kilts, but tartan trews which are
almost as good.

This does not include the many other Highland and Lowland regiments
in other commonwealth nations, or the ones in the Gulf States (the Royal
Omani (camel) Mounted Police Pipe Band is a sight to behold).

The other kilted British Regiment (with pipes) is the Royal Irish
Regiment. The Scots Guards and The Irish Guards both have pipes
as well. That's 9 regiments out of the total of 30. Plus several other
regiments (The Light Infantry springs to mind) have some anticedants
from older Highland and Lowland Regiments.

Given the popularity of Highland regiments, I'd say there would be a
large number of 3I regiments which would trace their ancestry to
ancient Terran Scottish regiments. I wouldn't go as far as to say the Kilt
is part of all Marine No 1's, but I'd say it would be for a fair number.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 13:02:46 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Lords of Thunder

- -> >- -> sector.  What a great scenario.  I believe however that the best traveller
- -> >- -> adventure was the one found in The MegaTraveller Journal 4 and entitled
- -> >- -> "Lords of Thunder".
- -> >I found it great as well, it was superbly detailed, and very 
- -> >interesting to read. Never had a chance to play it, though :-( 
- -> 
- -> I mail ordered this book, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it all
- -> the way through, when a friend borrowed it, and I never saw it again. Arrrrrrrrrg!
Get it back, kill that "friend" (noone who takes out Traveller Books 
and doesn't return them is to be considered a friend!)
 


Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:03:42 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Leroy Guatney writes:
>Yes, you will have *anomalies* where things are found from the past that
>might be unexplainable (at least to the players).  Yes, there are (read
>PE) Pocket Empires that survived through the Long Night, but they are
>less likely to have anything in the way of ramifications for the present
>(M0) or the future (M1100, M1200).  As I said, it is capturing the
>imagination of those Terrans, out there forging a new Empire.

Leroy, there is a little invention called writing that allows one century
to affect other centuries millenia down the road of time. Information is
quite hard to lose. To paraphrase L. Sprauge de Camp, not even the most
dedicated barbarian can destroy a book when the minimum edition is 5000
copies. When information is confined to a few hundred hand-written books 
it can be done fairly easily. Once you start printing them it becomes
more difficult, but as long as it's confined to one world it can be done.
With electronic media it can be temporarily rendered unavailable. But to
lose it copletely takes a concatenation of unfortunate events. Once the 
information is spread out across a few dozen worlds it becomes even more
difficult. Of course, if _every_ world in a galaxy is thrown back into
barbary long enough for even permanent data storage media to deteriorate
then you can actually lose it. And if it is confined to a few places 
(like secret, proprietary recently developed technology) then you can
lose it. But in the present case, every _mature_ technology known to the
RoM would also be known to the Syleans. That they were temporarily down
to TL 10 during the Long Night must be down to economic factors, because
there's no way a planet-full of universities is going to lose the
information once they have it.
 
Hence the TL of the RoM cannot have been higher than TL 12 going on 13.
QED.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:15:33 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Science in the Traveller Universe

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance writes:
>The Terran portions of the RoM just didn't
>have the ingrained technological inertia that the Vilani (and later 3I) did.
>The Syleans took 500 years to go from TL 11 to TL 12, the Terrans did
>it in about 150 (jump 3 before -2235).

It didn't take the Syleans 500 years to invent TL 12, because they already
had the knowledge. It took them 500 years to advance economically to TL 12.
The problem is that you can't use the same argument to explain why it took
them 450 years to advance to TL 13, because in the meantime Sylea became
the central world of the vast economic engine we call the 3rd Imperium.

One thing we might as well resign us to once and for all is that wrt
scientific progress things don't work the same way in the Traveller
Universe as they do in the Real World. The massive scientific spurts of
the Terrans and the Darrians are freak occurences. (Or possibly the Terran
scientific progress from TL 3 to TL 8/9 is normal enough, but there's a
"wall" around TL 9/10 which we'll hit soon (the problem with that one is
that we'll have to revise it as the real world progresses). In any case,
in the Traveller Universe, independent scientific advancement above TL 10
or so is evidently horrendously difficult (and the Darrian progress was a
freak occurrence).
  

      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:27:42 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [T97#1510] Computer Compatibility

JEFF ZEITLIN wrote:
 
>  (and I _still_ have a problem with the concept of a stinking
>  piece of software using radio communications to rewire the damn
>  hardware...)

I thought that the 'burning' only occured once Virus was in the 
system.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 00:40:35 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [off topic] Posting count, Jan-Jun 1997

>Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 17:19:02 +1000
>From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
>Subject: [off topic] Posting count, Jan-Jun 1997

[and his vorpal blade went snipper snack]

>Leonard Erickson, with 459 (!) posts, just nudging out Kenneth Bearden, on
>450. Anders Backman comes a distant third on 346. The rest of the pack
>aren't even in with a chance, coming in at the high 200's.

>What do they win? Well, absolutely nothing. I just did it because it seemed
>like a good idea at the time.

>For those who are interested, the counts of the more frequent posters are
>listed at the end of the message.

>We now return you to your regulary scheduled task system flame wars.

>Cheers,
>Jason

Mon Dieu, all this noise is being generated by 30 people!!!!!

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 05:41:09 -0700
From: Dave Strebe <strebe@intergate.bc.ca>
Subject: [Fwd: FW: NPC Conversion]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

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Had to route this home and then out to the list.

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From: Dave Strebe <ENYADS@enmanyrd.city.vancouver.bc.ca>
To: "'Dave,home'" <strebe@intergate.bc.ca>
Subject: FW: NPC Conversion
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Hi just a quick question for the list. Is there a way to convert
CT NPC stats to T4 stats? I need to crew a couple of Corsair's,
a pirate base and a merc assault team. I don't have time to roll
up the NPC's but I have a couple of CT books full of NPC stats
for various useful vocations. Or should I use the stats out of the
books?
Thanks in advance
Dave


- --------------32F3336713EE--

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 00:45:27 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Empress Iolanthe

Argghhh!!!!!

Does nobody here know their Gilbert and Sullivan!

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 00:51:14 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The CT Creed

>Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 23:43:50 -0700
>From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
>Subject: Drop Troops

[snip]

>The CT Creed - "There is no (SF) Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its'
>Product"

The Traveller Trinity - CT, MT and T4, three systems but one game.

(sincere apologies to any non-uniterians, just my sick sence of humour)

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:42:31 +0000 ()
From: kraehe@bakunin.north.de (Michael Koehne)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Moin Andrew Moffatt-Vallance,

> So to put it altogether. I think you have to divide the RoM into two areas
> in regards to TL, the former Ziru Sirka which has massive technological
> inertia and probably wouldn't advance much beyond it's TL 11 (say
> TL 12 is max in this area); and the former Terran Confederation which
> could quite convivably have pushed to TL 13, but would have had the
> technology widely spread (never developed jump 4, but pushed to
> TL 13 in other fields, maybe even TL 14 in medical/biological). Taking
> the figures from the Ref's companion you get 300 to 500 years for the
> 3I to advance a tech level, but I'd say 150 to 300 for the RoM.

	IMHO TL13 production was only in small enclaves mainly for
	warships, e.g. producing X-Ray nonfocus tripple lasers turrets.

By Michael
- -- 
	kraehe@bakunin.north.de			www.hb.north.de
		  " ceterum censeo MSDOS esse delendam "

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:22:48 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Lords of Thunder

>Get it back, kill that "friend" (noone who takes out Traveller Books
>and doesn't return them is to be considered a friend!)
>
>
>
>Ad Astra,
>V.A.G.

No simply killing is much too lenient.
Have your "friend" play "Exit Visa" over and over again - that'll teach
him/her a lesson. Or perhaps even worse - one of those awfule "Group one"
offerings.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:25:25 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X

>>1) My Bugs are vegetarians.
>
>This part is going to give you a LOT of trouble.  The energy requirements
>  for a creature (insect or otherwise) of the size you want mean that it
>  either has to do NOTHING but graze (and sleep and mate, one would hope)
>  or have a carnivorous, concentrated-energy diet.  Especially if it's
>  broadcasting radio.

That might be the bugs own term. Anything non-sentient can be eaten and
being sentient is easily determined by checking if they broadcast radio: If
not then they are vegetable and might be eaten.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 09:08:55 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Statement concerning Pocket Empires

Pocket Empires is undoubtably the best Traveller supplement to come out in
a long time, if ever,
with FF&S being the only thing in the same class, IMHO.
BUT.
Whoever made the decision that the tables should be placed at the end of
the book, instead of inserted at appropriate places in the book, should be
shot.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 09:12:31 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: software quest

I maintain a archive of traveller software, spreadsheets, etc. at
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller
apparently, the only site in the world that had a downloadable copy of
galactic 2.1 for win has closed up shop.
If anyone has a copy, or knows where to get one, please get it to me
somehow; it can be e-mail attached to clarkweb@bellsouth.net.

BTW, where are all the spreadsheets, software, etc. for Pocket Empires? if
you know of something, I would be glad to host it.

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 15:10:27 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Re: Weapon Design Question?(long)

David Murray wrote:

>I've been messing around looking at things in the design sequence and it
>occured to me that a custom designed ship, mostly a military ship, would
>want to pool their HPG resources.
>
>You could take the total available HPG output to "overpower" some weapons
>in order to get better diff mods.

<snipped>
...

This is a good idea if you want to have a customized ship. Beware of the
fact that integrated HPG turret (and barbette) are designed to be standart
and to adapt any socket. The only need is to have the correct power
ressource on the ship.

Personnally I could use such special intallations, but the lasers may be
hard to find. You need turret sized lasers without HPG banks. the price
maight be severly increased if you want such items. 

I would use such device on warships (because they are more effective). But
not on regular ships.


>I agree that there should be some sort of trade off for having to route
>that much power around a ship.  How about 10% of the volume that would
>normally be used for HPG vol added to the mount vol and still requiring the
>full amount of HPG sub-located somewhere else on the ship.

I don't know, Must ask a specialist. This depends of the easyness to carry
energy peaks (MJ) through wires. 


>I only raise these questions because to me it would be the logical way to
>do things.

I agree with out that it's logical. But if you use such device you have to
decide if they are standart weapons or not. If they are does the regular
turret (with HPG) still standart?

Up to you!
- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:14:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: RoM TL

> From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
> Subject: Re: TL of ROM
> 
> Douglas E. Berry wrote 
> > the simplest way I can put this comes off of one page in the MT Ref's
> > Companion (pg 34).  Under the "Other Tech Level Notes" section, it shows
> > the RoM achieving TL12 in -2210.  My *assumption* is that this the
> > approximate year that the technolgy became the standard for RoM Naval
> > units, high-end civilan systems, etc.
> > In the 3I section of the same passage, it is noted that it takes from -150
> > to 300 for the 3I to progress from TL12 to TL13.. a period of 450 years.
> > 
> > Assuming that there is no significant difference in the advancement > rate between 2nd and 3rd Imperia,
> 
> Why should we make this assumption ?  The 2nd Empire was more dynamic
> than the 3rd Empire (which is probably part of the reason it was shorter
> but that is another issue) and could have gone up TL's faster.

Hm, well, I guess you could say that the RoM was "more dynamic" in the
same way that Canada or the US would be "more dynamic" if their
respective governments liquidated themselves and told their populaces
"well, you're on your own now...". The RoM was, for the most part,
a period of chaos, socially.

> Look at how little time the Solomani spent at TL's 5-11 for instance.

This could be attributed to Terra's rather perfect climate with
respect to humans. The Vilani had a slightly less forgiving homeworld.
Then again, the Vilani had computers when a lot of Terrans were just
getting the hang of chipping flint spearheads.

> It took the Solomani influenced Darrians much less than than this for
> instance.  AM8 Darrians says (pg 9)  "It took only a short time to go
> from the Solomani tech level of 10 to 16." and (pg 25) that this took
> from -1511 to -924 (587 years).

Ah-ha. Now, this is one of the best arguments for having a higher
RoM TL than anything else. If the Solomani brought their tech to the 
Darrians and propelled them from Tl 10 to 16 in ~600 years, then
the influx of new Terran technical information should have done
_something_ to the Vilani Empire.

> Now you could argue that the @nd Empire was too shaky & overextended to
> advance in technology but I disagree.  It is true that the 2nd Empire
> was _politically_ overextended but they did not necessarily have
> problems in the scientific community.  Even if all the Vilani scientists
> were totally useless (unlikely) the same home grown Solomani scientists
> that they had always had could have made developments.

Yes. The Vilani technology control laws were largely related to the
_commercial_ aspects of technology - i.e. who got paid for it. Now,
while no technology is going to develop much without commercial
backing, it could be possible that Vilani scientists (such as they are)
could have developed technology quite ahead of the Vilani "mainstream",
but which was never put into major commercial production.

When the Terrans arrived, the loosening of these control laws would
have cause a massive flood of new technology onto the market,
from both Vilani and Terran sources.

> I am not saying they did.  I am only saying they could have.

Uh, well, yeah, me too. :)

> From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
> Subject: Re: TL of ROM
> 
> What Viliani scientists? :)
> Last I heard even their TL11 military tech hadn't altered in hunderds 
> of years, and they wern't just controlling research and tech, but 
> banning anything that was new.

Well, the second doesn't necessarily imply the first... research into
the unknown was a social taboo (for the lack of a better word) in
Vilani culture. This manifested itself in laws which severely controlled
the deployment of new technology and who got paid for it, which was
pretty important to the mercantile Vilani. (Contrast this with Terrans,
who are currently harvesting genetic material from small gene pools,
like "lost jungle tribes" and Amish communities and using it for research
without even consulting the donors of said material, much less paying them
based on useful findings).

This doesn't imply, however, that there were no Vilani scientists
and that research wasn't being done. Obviously, the Vilani built
a strong technical base for themselves before moving out and conquering
the universe. I think that all those scientists-types, who had been
somewhat, but not completely supressed under the "old regieme" of the
1st Imperium would have not only come out and flourished, but been
welcomed by the conquering Terrans. After all, exploration and research
are much more important to the Terrans, who would likely put these
scientific types into positions where they could finally put their
research into action.

No wonder the Vilani hated the RoM so much. Without trying to sound too racist,
imagine aliens conquering pre-WW2 Germany and putting Jewish people
in charge of everything. Heck, imagine any situation where a disliked
minority population is put in a position of leadership across the board.

There'd be social unrest and upheaval, along with a lot of scientific
and technological advances. No wonder the Vilani call it the "Ramshakle
Empire".

Ethan
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1518
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Traveller-digest        Friday, July 4 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1519



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: RF and VRF weapons
Re: Solomani Technology in the News
Re: software quest
Re : TL of 2300AD
Re: TL9 sans gravitics
Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL
Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs
Re: T4 Task Rational
RoM
2300 TL
Re: Imperium (Boardgame)
Re: Re: Empress Iolanthe
Re: Task system defnition error
Sector Data
Re:  Lords of Thunder
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1508
Re: Empress Iolanthe
Re: TL of Traveller 2300AD
TL of RoM
Re: RoM
Re: Statement concerning Pocket Empires
Re: Education and Schools
Re: The CT Creed

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 11:13:50 -0500
From: "Mike McLaughlin" <mikem@en.com>
Subject: Re: RF and VRF weapons

> These rules are available in Greg Porter's "Guns! Guns! Guns!" (or
> 3G3) from BTRC Games.  They are based on "rounds/second" and translate
> into a DM of +2 for RF and +4 for VRF.  Greg also triples damage from
> a RF attack and quadruples it for a VRF attack.
> 
> As to "where" these rules were meant to appear in T4, I couldn't tell
> you.  Hopefully they will be included in T4.1, as well as some of
> Greg's optional 3G3 rules (like weapon initiative modifiers).

thanks for the info.  that'll let me kludge something together.  as a word 
to IG, can you please get some better editors ?  mentioning rules that 
don't (yet ?) appear elsewhere in the system is BAD form.  also, little 
things like leaving stats for some weapons blank and placing them under 
other entries are BAD form as well.  the books are more expensive than 
comparably sized rpg books (a larger GURPS book would run $17.95 or so).  
i'd really appreciate some of the greater expense to go into editing. 

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 10:09:20 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Re: Solomani Technology in the News

Mark Clark wrote:
> 
>   The latest issue of Jane's Defense Weekly has a feature story on the US
> Army's plans for the next generation Main Battle Tank.  Oh, excuse me,
> Main Battle _System_ - since it is going to be able to fire in indirect as
> well as direct mode, it is now a system rather than a tank.  
<snip>
>   The picture of the mock-up was interesting - similar to the current M-1
> Abrams, but much smoother.  According to the article, this was because all
> the defensive systems, like reactive armor and smoke grenades, were
> mounted flush to the hull surface.  The smoke grenades, for example, were
> distributed around the hull evenly, rather than in little racks as they
> are now.  They did not say why they did it this way - maybe so when they
> mount the grav plates it'll fly faster due to less drag.  The one oddity
> about the appearance was that the barrel was not round, but rather diamond
> shaped in cross section.
> 
>   The reason for this was in the article, and was perhaps the most
> interesting thing from a Traveller point of view - the Army is seriously
> considering using a rail gun as the main armament rather than chemical
> propellants (they are also considering missiles).
> 

Dang! Sounds almost like a Bolo Mk.5 from one of Keith Laumer's books.
If
General Motors ever gets to build this thing, it would be just too
creepy
(GM built the Bolos).

One explanation for the flush mountings would be to minimize the
possibility of damage from fragmentation and non-catastrophic direct
fire
and to provide 360 degree coverage for the defensive systems. As weapon
systems get smarter and smarter, their point of attack "window" on the
body of the target is going to increase. Case in point are tactical 
missiles which mimic the Harpoon's(?) capability of low-level flight
followed by a sharp gain in altitude and plunge to strike the top of a
target, a place lightly armored in comparison with the rest of the
target.

I'd be interested in the power source for the rail gun and the size of
its
round. IIRC, a KEAP round doesn't have to be large to be deadly. Even if
it doesn't go fast enough to turn to plasma on contact, just penetrating
a
target can kill/disable enough crew members with spall for a "mission
kill".

I've even heard that if a high velocity round goes completely _through_
a target, a vacuum effect occurs which can injure all the crew in an
affected compartment (burst eardrums, eye damage, etc). Don't know if
it's true, though.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 17:33:18 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: software quest

>I maintain a archive of traveller software, spreadsheets, etc. at
>http://www.vrhome.com/traveller
>apparently, the only site in the world that had a downloadable copy of
>galactic 2.1 for win has closed up shop.
>If anyone has a copy, or knows where to get one, please get it to me
>somehow; it can be e-mail attached to clarkweb@bellsouth.net.
>
>BTW, where are all the spreadsheets, software, etc. for Pocket Empires? if
>you know of something, I would be glad to host it.

Perhaps you should note that you only have PC software. Lots of good Mac
software exists for Traveller but to my knowledge there's no one place to
find it all.
If you're interested in hosting ALL software including Mac for Traveller
I'll gladly send you a copy of my starsystem-flesher-outer app.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:56:30 -0400
From: Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re : TL of 2300AD

Hi All,

Bit off topic, this, but -

Richard Spake wrote :-

> i have seen the ongoing war over the TL of the RoM.  adn i do not watn =
to
> restart that war, but i was just wondering...  what was the TL of the
> Traveller: 2300AD RPG?

About TL10 - TL12 with the following modifications -

* No gravitics ( hence no superdense either )
* No meson screens or nuclear dampers ( otherwise Stutterwarp decay is no=
t
a problem )
* Stutterwarp instead of J-Drive
* "Real" fusion not "cold" fusion plus =

* No ultra efficiency HePLAR or AZHRAE engines. MHD thrusters used to get=

to orbit.
* Detonation lasers rather than missiles for space based combat.

This feels about right. Remember that 2300AD is not set in the Traveller
universe, but
descended from Twilight:2000.

BTW ( although Richard already knows this ), check out the (new!) web sit=
e
below for =

my "Near Star List ][", and my "2300AD Technical Architecture" vehicle
design rules.

Andy Brick
exeus@compuserve.com
http://www.caco.demon.co.uk/

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 10:00:46 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: TL9 sans gravitics

At 02:34 pm 07/01/97 +0100, you wrote:
>BTW does anyone know if FF&S supports alternative technologies like the 
>original does as I quite like FTL comms and other such non cannon stuff.

	Nope. Marc felt it was too distracting from the core of Traveller, and we
were way over on page count as it was. Not that you're prohibited from
using stuff from the original FF&S, or even creating your own. Just that
official efforts are going to concentrate the limited available energy on
official technology.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 10:31:45 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man (RoM) TL

At 10:06 am 07/01/97 -0600, you wrote:
>On Mon, 30 Jun 1997 12:01:01 -0600
>David J. Golden <goldendj@pcisys.net> writes:
>>        PLease give us all a rest, Leroy. This "I know something you don't,

>Damn.  I (used to?) respect your opinion.  Don't be so easily influenced by
>hecklers.  They don't want something out, so they'll do anything to see

	I'm not too worried about hecklers, they usually don't bother me. If
somebody has a point, I listen. If there's no facts or logic, I ignore it.
I stand by my original post as _my_ opinion, not something influenced by
hecklers.

	The opinions I respect are those demonstrating clear thinking or solid,
verifiable facts.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 09:40:35 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs

At 11:23 pm 06/30/97, you wrote:
>Hello Joe, on Jun 28 you wrote:
>
>> 	Where (if at all)in T4 does it call out the rules for repairing spacecraft
>> battle damage?  (My players have just gotten into a scrape with a couple of
>> planetary fighters and set down/crash landed on a glacier.  They are trying
>> to figure out how to fix the damage to their drives and sensor arrays so
>> they can get the hell out of their before the locals show up again.)
>>
>  Hmm, from memory that is one area that isn't covered too well. I would
>suggest looking at the new price for the item, and taking a percentage of
that
>based on how badly damaged the part is.
>
>  So, if the drives are worth say 8MCr, and they have minor damage (say 5%),
>then it might take 400,000 Cr to fix. Repair time is really guess work
though,

	I'd use much more than the flat percentage of damage to be
repaired--fixing part of a complex system is usually more expensive than
the original cost to install that part. As long as it's still cheaper than
replacing the entire system. Thus, if it cost Cr400,000 to manufacture and
install the broken part as part of the original manufacturing process,
it'll probably cost twice that to remove the damaged part (big labor
costs), buy the replacement part (repaired any cars lately? Mucho dineros),
reinstall the part, and put everything else back together around it (labor
again).

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 09:57:12 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

At 11:37 pm 06/30/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:44:30 -060o, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>>>Well, you can't have it both ways.  Everything you have just said
>>>is a rationalization why the most talented med student might be able
>
>>	*MIGHT* is the key word. But the chance that he'll succeed is much
>>lower.
>
>Of course he makes the same roll as similarly talented medical-3,
>at a -2.  Hardly the kind of absolut distinction that you are
>talking about and not the kind of chasm that talent is unable
>to gap.

	You're assuming a specific task system here ... I'm talking in general. 

>>	I didn't say "as well." I said the talented med student ought to have a
>>miniscule chance, while the average person (NOT a "mediocre hack") has a
>>higher chance of succeeding. *IF* the student succeeds, he'll have done a
>>good job (that's the definition of success). But odds are long against it.
>
>Well, as I've said before, as far as I'm concerned someone with only
>average talent is the lowest I would even consider for a doctor and
>and _is_ mediocre.

	So you're saying most of the human population is mediocre at best? That's
a pretty low opinion.

>  Also, rolling at a -2 is hardly a miniscule
>chance.

	Again, you're assuming a specific task system where a -2 isn't a big deal.
Pull up, for example, the MT task system. Take a formidable task (roll 15+
on 2d6). Skill-1 Stat-11 has a modifier of 3--he'll succeed only on
boxcars. Skill-4 Stat-8 has a modifier of 5--he'll succeed on 10+. THAT'S
the kind of task system I'd like to see.

>  To get what you describe, one must not allow a roll
>at all below skill-3.

	Again, I don't like that. Part of the thrill of gaming is making that
"one-in-a-million" shot, because you're desperate. No, I wouldn't normally
let a Med-1 perform open heart surgery. But what if you're three parsecs
from the nearest hospital and Med-4, your jump drive is out, and the
Captain will die if you don't operate? You pull up the heart surgery
chapter on the computer, cross your fingers, and pray.


>You are the one who was focusing on it.  Generally, I just don't
>agree that skill counts for more than talent.

	Who said skill counted MORE than talent? I just want them to count more
equally. When talent ranges from 2 to 15, and skill ranges from 0 to 7,
talent counts TWICE as much as skill. I don't care how talented you are,
skill is just as important.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:57:10 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: RoM

I still do not understand how tech can be lost on the scale proposed by the
long night.

Never in our history has tech truly been lost, just not disseminated, and
even now that would be difficult because of our very superior communications
technology. The only way we could lose tech would be if the human race did
its usual stupid thing and ban it on a religious basis. (ie the pope banning
human bioengineering)

Only bigotry can destroy technology, not distance, not time

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:37:21 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: 2300 TL

	No figures were ever published but roughly (based on FF&S comparisions)

First Line Nations of Earth  TL 12 (ESA, USA, Canada, Japan)
Second Line nations TL 11 (Manchuria, South America, Ukraine, Russia etc.)
Most of Earth 9-10 
However, grav tech is TL 8 (no anti-grav)

Kafers TL 12 (some 13 from Ylii)
However, grav tech is TL 8 (no anti-grav)

Pentapods TL 11 (all biotech)
However, grav tech is TL 8 (no anti-grav)

Sung TL 8

Ebers TL 2-4

Klaxun TL 1

Xiang TL 0

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 18:11:37 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Imperium (Boardgame)

I've never lost while playing the Terrans (excluding any games I played 
in the "learning pahse" before I bought my own copy of the game).

I've lost (occasionally) as the Imperium.

I never lost as the Imperium while playing the "original" rules (before 
the errata), which we interpreted as allowing outposts to be connected 
to any world (not just Gashida) in the initial set up - some start 
possitions are very unfair to the terrans once you spot them.

Simon

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 12:26:20 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Re: Re: Empress Iolanthe

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:
>
> Argghhh!!!!!
>
> Does nobody here know their Gilbert and Sullivan!
>

Hmmm, the names are familiar...weren't they in the
Imperial Navy (or was that Scouts)?


;-)

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 97 18:21 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Task system defnition error

In-Reply-To: <l03102801afe105c10623@[207.194.197.164]>

Richard,

> Personally, I think all modifications should be made to the target number
> and the dice should be left alone. 

Agreed.

> values, modifiers won't change that. DMs are too ambiguous (Die modifier?
> Difficulty modifier? 

Calling them "DM" is traditional, and should be kept if only because it 
confuses the D&Ders :-)
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 12:32:17 -0500
From: Alex Rebsch <grazzit@flash.net>
Subject: Sector Data

I'm looking for sector dat that is inn .gni format. Or could someone
explain what this format is? It's for Core's Traveller Suite.

Alex

grazzit@flash.net

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 12:29:47 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Re:  Lords of Thunder

Anders Backman wrote:
>
> No simply killing is much too lenient.
> Have your "friend" play "Exit Visa" over and over again - that'll teach
> him/her a lesson. Or perhaps even worse - one of those awfule "Group
> one" offerings.

You are so cruel...

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 18:27:41 +0100 (BST)
From: "mark.wilkin" <aa4mwi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1508

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 01:35:16 +0000
> From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
> Subject: Re: Reading Data!
> 
> At 10:50 PM 6/29/97 +0000, Eris wrote:
> ><snip>
> 
> >
> >Ob, Traveller let's talk cross-system compatability.
> >
> >How, do all you folks handle hardware, software, and data compatability
> >across multiple star systems? OK, inside the Imperium there could be *a*
> >standard, but once outside the Imperium, what then?
> >
> >Eris
> >-- 
> >
> 
> Or would the Imperium's economic impact reach far enough that everyone
> around would follow suit?  IIRC, one of the reasons that Virus spread so far
> and so fast, into Solomani, Aslan, K'Kree & Hiver space was that all
> interstellar shipping used Imperial transponder suites, so Virus had a home
> already in place on every ship around. 
 Without wishing to open this can o' worms again, I remember reading in 
the TNE rulebook that the Aslans on the side of the rift had more time to 
prepare for the virus with their Domain of Deneb allies because the Virus 
had to cross clan boundaries on the other side of the rift. They all had 
different computer designs/software/connection protocols and this slowed 
virus propagation down through Aslan space.

Mark Wilkin

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 13:16:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Empress Iolanthe

Quoth Andrew Moffatt-Vallance:
> Argghhh!!!!!  Does nobody here know their Gilbert and Sullivan!

Hey, you!  Are you suggesting that the Imperial nobility are a bunch of
fairies?!

:-)

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 13:20:35 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: TL of Traveller 2300AD

Quoth RSpake2064@aol.com:
> i have seen the ongoing war over the TL of the RoM.  adn i do not watn to
> restart that war, but i was just wondering...  what was the TL of the
> Traveller: 2300AD RPG?

Can't really be measured on the same scale.  2300AD has no artificial
gravity (ships and stations require spun habitats), and requires reaction
drives for planetary landings, but they have the materials science to
build beanstalks and laser & plasma weapons, though binary-propellant and
gauss weapons still seem to be common.  The jump-drive scale is useless,
since 2300AD uses "stutterwarp" instead, which is much faster and less
quantized in effect.

TL9 or 10 with significant variants?

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:38:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: TL of RoM

>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
> Subject: Re: TL of RoM
<stuff snipped>

OK, before I get going on this, let me say that I'm
not holding the position that the RoM _did_ achieve
TL 13/14/15. I'm saying that they _could_ have.
Just to make sure I don't offend any canon-mongers out there
(like myself...)

> Leroy, there is a little invention called writing that allows one century
> to affect other centuries millenia down the road of time. Information is
> quite hard to lose.

We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.

> To paraphrase L. Sprauge de Camp, not even the most
> dedicated barbarian can destroy a book when the minimum edition is 5000
> copies. When information is confined to a few hundred hand-written books 
> it can be done fairly easily. Once you start printing them it becomes
> more difficult, but as long as it's confined to one world it can be done.
> With electronic media it can be temporarily rendered unavailable. But to
> lose it copletely takes a concatenation of unfortunate events. Once the 
> information is spread out across a few dozen worlds it becomes even more
> difficult. Of course, if _every_ world in a galaxy is thrown back into
> barbary long enough for even permanent data storage media to deteriorate
> then you can actually lose it. And if it is confined to a few places 
> (like secret, proprietary recently developed technology) then you can
> lose it.

OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's
easier than you imagine. There's already information that was
generated this century that's lost. The media is still good too.
It's just that there aren't any media-readers left to read the
information! Old tapes from mainframes, this sort of thing.
Now, most of this is data, not useful information, so this isn't
a big deal. However a lot of information, especially the really
high-tech cutting edge stuff isn't really "written down". If there
was to be a gigantic, global economic recession, which is essentially
what the Long Night was all about, a lot of businesses would 
fold up and the knowledge "contained" in these businesses would be
largely lost, especially the really leading edge stuff. If every 
technological device disappeared off Earth tomorrow, but every book
stayed, would our TL be affected? (More on this below).

> But in the present case, every _mature_ technology known to the
> RoM would also be known to the Syleans. That they were temporarily down
> to TL 10 during the Long Night must be down to economic factors, because
> there's no way a planet-full of universities is going to lose the
> information once they have it.

Hm, well... for example, Sylea State might have had a large vacuum
studies department during the ZS and the RoM. The RoM falls, space
travel dries up to nothing over the next few hundred years. If there's
no space travel, how are you going to justify a budget for the Vacuum 
Studies dept? Several hundred years later, when space travel is going
along again, sure, the Vacuum Studies dept. will be doing great again,
but you don't think they'll have lost a single post-it note? They'll
be lucky if they can get back to where they were 1000 years ago, much less
700.

Also, the Darrians lost TL 16, for the most part. Why can't the Syleans
lose TL 13? Or 14 even?

Also, I think there's a big economic factor inside TL (as you allude to).
It takes a lot of infrastructure and supporting industries to build
things like Vacc Suits or any high-tech piece of equipment. While it
was failing, the RoM probably had a very stable, interstellar high-tech
infrastructure that wouldn't be duplicated until the mid to late
Third Imperium. If the Syleans are still ramping up their material science
technologies to TL 12, they can't do anything about TL 13 - they haven't
got the infrastructure. (Maybe I should go buy a copy of PE...)

As I said above, if every "technological" device on Earth disappeared,
would our TL drop? You bet! We'd know how everything works, but we'd have
nothing to build it with. It takes a long time to get to the point
where you can build a semiconductor chip-fab plant, even if you know
how to.
  
> Hence the TL of the RoM cannot have been higher than TL 12 going on 13.
> QED.

Hm, well, I don't think it's QED that easily.

For example, to re-hash the Vacc Suit example:

It's the RoM. Imagine a fairly populated vacuum world. They rely
heavily on imported food, but do well, as they export a large amount
of raw and processed metal goods, as well as various things that
require fairly hard vacuum for manufacturing purposes. They have no
raw material for plastics or the like though, as it is (like I said)
a vacuum world, but they do import raw material for... making
vacc suits. As a matter of fact, they're really good at making vacc
suits, they make the best damn suits in the whole sector. 

As the RoM begins to falter, the shipments of food and other raw materials
begin to come more erratically. People begin to leave the world
as its economy slows down. Eventually interstellar shipping stops
completely, leaving the remaining inhabitants to concentrate on keeping
themselves alive (if possible). Chances are, the knowledge of vacc suit
manufacture that they had would be lost, for a long, long time. It might
be lost forever effectively, until someone re-discovers it.

Anyways, I think you're being too optimistic Hans. The Long Night was
long, cold, nasty and brutish, to paraphrase someone who'd name I've
forgotten.

Ethan
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 20:30:41 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: RoM

At 12:57 04/07/97 -0400, Glenn Crawford wrote:
>I still do not understand how tech can be lost on the scale proposed by the
>long night.
>
>Never in our history has tech truly been lost, just not disseminated, and

	Didn't human advancement get stuffed back about five hundred years when
the great library at Alexandria got destroyed in the fifth century AD, or
something like that? Historians help out here please!

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 20:30:39 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Statement concerning Pocket Empires

At 09:08 04/07/97 -0500, The Druid wrote:
>Pocket Empires is undoubtably the best Traveller supplement to come out in
>a long time, if ever, with FF&S being the only thing in the same class, IMHO.
>BUT. Whoever made the decision that the tables should be placed at the end of
>the book, instead of inserted at appropriate places in the book, should be
>shot.

	I sorta solved this by photocopying them, and as I read PE for the first
time, I make notes of the relevant DM's and the page number where these
tables are mentioned.

	I think there should also have been a full synopsis of all die rolls and
stages of planetary development etc in one section. Also some more charts
for creating all this data would have been useful too.

	But I won't take too much away from PE, I too agree that it really is an
excellent addition to the Traveller universe. Congrats etc to all that
worked on it.

	Oh, and one other thing, the subsector maps are the clearest and most well
presented ones I've ever seen in any Traveller book!

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 16:09:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

In a message dated 97-07-04 01:52:27 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Nice idea, but increase the roll to 3D (ie this is something that only 
 high-SOC characters will have much chance of succeeding at (on average, 
 only a Noble will succeed), although Joe Average *might* get away with it). 
 ______________________________________________________________________
  >>
BUT, although in the Traveller universe RHIP, it is also an egalitarian and
cosmopolitan society. Anyone can succeed, and society itself is willing to
give people that opportunity. I disagree that anyone can attend any school
(by right); I do agree that anyone has a chance of going to that school. I
strongly prefer the 2D roll.

Marc

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 12:14:06 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: The CT Creed

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote

> >From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
> >Subject: Drop Troops
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > The CT Creed - "There is no (SF) Game but Traveller, and High Guard > >is its'Product"

> The Traveller Trinity - CT, MT and T4, three systems but one game.
> 
> (sincere apologies to any non-uniterians, just my sick sence of humour)

No there is a Traveller Quaternarty - CT, MT, TNE, and T4, four systems
but one game.

This is just more evidence that the human minor race, the Darmine, as
written by me, are correct in their belief that everything that happens
in fours is significant :)

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1519
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Traveller-digest        Friday, July 4 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1520



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Low Tech Spacecraft
Re: Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: TL of RoM
Weapon Design Question?(long)
re:TL of ROM
Re: TL of RoM
Imperial Anthem
Pocket Empires
Re: T4 Task Rational
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Gilbert & Sullivan (was Re: Empress Iolanthe)

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:22:36 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Low Tech Spacecraft

>
>Also if wings are used would this then include "rolling" take-off and
>landings?

It could; Vertical takeoff is possible with external equipment from TL5
on... And, IIRC, without external (IE: not part of craft) equipment from
TL6+

> How much tonnage should be allocated for retractable wheels or
>skids. In the same vane on ContraGravity equipt vessels do most people
>consider struts of other landing gear and how much room/tonnage s
>usually allocated for them in the designs?

Count it as part of the hull design.

>One more before I go, do Star Ships and or small craft float, typically?
>Would water landings (ala Jerry Pournelle's Falkenburg novels) be an
>alternative?

If mass in Metric Tons is less than volume in cubic meters (aka
kilolitres), she'll float in most mater.

> I think none thruster, non-ContraGrav equipt shipd MUST use wings or
>SSTO technology. In the first case then skids, or (preferably) wheels
>are needed and  must be alocated for. The water landing technique is an
>alternative, but could have a big effect on the design of the vessel.
>Also with these limitations I would think that larger vessels (over 1 or
>200 td) would never land and be restricted to small craft tenders. If
>that's the case a set of rules for fuel usage, wings and landing gear
>would be needed to generate the proper designs.

I think you might be overlooking some viable other alternatives:
        Multiple fully reuseable stages
        Lifting-body designs (No wings...)
        Thruster based VTOL craft (One died recently..forgot name)
        Dirigibles to high altitude, and thrust out from there...
NASA and ESA did some early think-work on a multi-stage, fully reuseable
craft. It was a rocket-glider 1st stage, and a lifting-body second stage.
Both had pilots.


Some other interesting ideas are in Hard Times, for MegaTraveller... Low
Tech Spacecraft stuff. Based on "One Small Step", from Challenge. Some
minor corrections, a few re-wordings, but same content.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 97 12:26:13 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller

On 07/04/97 at 11:20 AM,  Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk> said:

>but I can't help thinking that there's a nice ring to Eris the Syncretist 8-)

Yeah, I figured my name would show up in there, sooner or later. ;-> 

Eris,
    grumpy old coot!
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 13:57:52 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

At 03:35 PM 7/3/97 -0700, you wrote:

>For the Emperor, I would suggest the need for an instrumental fanfare; an
>ideal example would be "Fanfare for the Common Man" (Aaron Copland).  Not
>only are the title (and inspiration) pleasingly ironic, it's one of the
>most stirring pieces of music ever written, and the initial fanfare
>segment would stand well on its own for grand entrances and exits.

My ever-knowledable wife suggests "Pictures at an Exhibition" by
Mugorssky(sp?) for the Imperial Anthem.. it goes nicely with Fanfare.

If you wany REAL Classical music.. "Terrapin Station" by Mssrs Garcia,
Hunter, & Kreutzman.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 13:55:05 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

At 07:15 PM 7/3/97 -0400, Roderick wrote:

>	How about the theme from the Smurfs, but played on the pipes?

I prefer the Love Theme from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on the pipes
myself...  'though I could see that as my Imperial Navy theme.

>	I'm deadly serious; it actually sounds kinda impressive (of course
>most anything played on the pipes does).

You're a loony, is what you is.  :)

<story about piping golfers to the smurfs theme snipped>

When I was in the 197th Inf Bde, we ran past Brigade HQs every morning for
PT.  As we ran past, the loudspeakers would be playing appropriate martial
music, one of which was "The Liberty Bell" aka The Monty Python Flying
Circus Theme.  One fine morning we were directly in front of the building,
as the music was ending and the Colonel was walking past, and on that last
note all 225 of us went "Ppppllbbttt!!"  

We got the oddest look.  A few days later there was new music.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:16:30 -0800
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Ethan Henry wrote:

>OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's
>easier than you imagine. There's already information that was
>generated this century that's lost. The media is still good too.
>It's just that there aren't any media-readers left to read the
>information! Old tapes from mainframes, this sort of thing.

A great example of this, for anyone who's interested in archaeology and its
discontents, are the "ancient Celtic megaliths" in New England, like the
"sacrificial altar" at Mystery Hill.  It's been pretty clearly demonstrated
that these are the remains of 18th-19th century farmhouse foundations, root
cellars, and heavy tools.  The "sacrifical altar," for example, is a device
for processing lye into soap, of the sort built in the 19th century.  A set
of stone rings termed a "temple" by pop archaeologists is suspiciously
similar (well, all but identical) to horse-powered bark mills (for
producing tanning chemicals) as explained and illustrated in farming
almanacs and handbooks of the early 1800s.

In this case, these basic "household industrial" technologies simply fell
out of use so quickly and thoroughly in the late 1800s-early 1900s that
their remains became explainable only as mysterious, ancient artifacts.
Probably many of them were built and used by the great-grandparents of
local residents who, in the early and middle part of this century, assumed
they were prehistoric relics.

This happened in a highly literate civilization, with a stable political
structure and economy.  No collapse of political authority, no
disintegration of the wider economy, no cutoff from the centers of
knowledge and research and all that good stuff.  A couple hours' train ride
to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, New York, Boston.  Yet, if those surveys of
college students' beliefs in Bigfoot and UFOs and a nuclear-powered
Ramayana can be extended to this, a majority of the educated classes in the
USA is more likely to believe these stone structures were built by
colonizing Celts a thousand years ago.

Given the limits of social memory on one hand, and and the guidance of
popular mythologies on the other, it seems to me to be hard *not* to lose
knowledge of technology, in the broader sense of the term.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:49:41 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Weapon Design Question?(long)

>[can multiple weapons use the same HPG]?

My inclination is not to allow this. As you've noticed, the HPG is most of
the mass of high-TL weapons (especially lasers); if you allow them to be
shared it makes all the published starship designs completely obsolete.
The rationale for not allowing it is that the peak power transferred from the
HPG to the weapon is so high that the cables carrying it have to be very,
very short, otherwise you lose too much power in transit. (I suppose as an
optional rule you could allow it - with a 50% increase in the input energy
of a weapon for each other weapon sharing it's HPG - which would negate most
(but not all) of the advantage at a cost of increasing the power requirement for
the weapon.)

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:00:03 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re:TL of ROM

>We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.
No, we do know how they were made. Pile a bunch of rocks on top of each other
and you get a pyramid. Try this in your back yard - very straightforward.

To build a *big* pyramid, you need square rocks, and tens of thousands of 
cheap labourers. Convieniently, in the off-season, such labour was indeed
available in Egypt.

Cathedrals - or buildings with open spaces in them - are hard; if the 
ancient egyptians had build cathedrals I would be willing to admit there was
some mystery. Mostly-solid pyramids are easy. To believe ET help was required
for the pyramids is (a) arrogant (only Europeans can build big buildings!),
and (b) requires you to believe that someone gave the Egyptians miraculous
anti-gravity rock technology but neglected to teach them, say, basic archi-
techture that would have allowed them to build something more intereting than
a pyramid. Sigh.

(Setting aside the question of how the original pyramids were made, we certainly
could easily build comparable ones today...)

Bruce

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 16:03:27 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Hans,

  Let me first say that I did not miss your post either of the (at least)
two times before.  I just did not have the time to do your excellent idea
justice with a response.  I should have written you offline to say so, but
hindsight is 20-20, and I am not the only that could of have responded to it.

  Also, its nice "talking" with you--something I haven't done since TNEP.

On Fri, 4 Jul 1997 14:03:42 +0200 (METDST)
Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk> writes:
>
>Leroy Guatney writes:
>>Yes, you will have *anomalies* where things are found from the past that
>>might be unexplainable (at least to the players).  Yes, there are (read
>>PE) Pocket Empires that survived through the Long Night, but they are
>>less likely to have anything in the way of ramifications for the present
>>(M0) or the future (M1100, M1200).  As I said, it is capturing the
>>imagination of those Terrans, out there forging a new Empire.
>
>Leroy, there is a little invention called writing that allows one century
>to affect other centuries millenia down the road of time. Information is
>quite hard to lose. To paraphrase L. Sprauge de Camp, not even the most
>dedicated barbarian can destroy a book when the minimum edition is 5000
>copies. When information is confined to a few hundred hand-written books 
>it can be done fairly easily. Once you start printing them it becomes
>more difficult, but as long as it's confined to one world it can be done.

A point J.P. has tried to make with me for years.  I've been considering
doing a Master's thesis on just this subject.  (I'll concede that today's
analogies may not hold into the Traveller universe.  And overall your
point is well taken.)  I still have to run down a source one of my professors
gave me.  The basic idea is that as technology changes, so do the methods
of storage, etc.  I'm not saying any of this is on purpose, but that it is
accidental.  A lot of data is used and then discarded because it becomes
too costly to keep, or transfer to the latest storage medium.  It takes a
dedicated storage plan to do what you have suggested.

You may be right, that universities accomplish this, but I don't see any
evidence today.  Look at the Internet.  Take my web page for example.  I
have a copy at home--my "development" machine.  The "production" site is
hosted on one of the numerous computer systems at CU Denver.  Backups are
taken.  There is no "coherent" system that would allow someone to look
through the backups and determine that there was this web page dedicated to
Scouts or High Guard that would be neat to recover and examine the content
of.  The whole image dump would have to be recovered and then sifted through
item by item to determine usefullness.  I'm picturing the Monks of Technology
looking file by file to see what is where.

One of the biggest problems plaguing the field of Computer Science today is
management of data, archives, and object-oriented libraries.  We have the
stuff, but nobody can use it because they don't begin to know where to look.

Don't interpret this litany to mean that I challenge the basic point you
made.  I just want to point out that it may not be that simple.  (Maybe
J.P. will see the point I have tried to make for a long, long time now.)

>With electronic media it can be temporarily rendered unavailable. But to
>lose it copletely takes a concatenation of unfortunate events. Once the 
>information is spread out across a few dozen worlds it becomes even more
>difficult. Of course, if _every_ world in a galaxy is thrown back into
>barbary long enough for even permanent data storage media to deteriorate
>then you can actually lose it. And if it is confined to a few places 
>(like secret, proprietary recently developed technology) then you can
>lose it. But in the present case, every _mature_ technology known to the
>RoM would also be known to the Syleans. That they were temporarily down
>to TL 10 during the Long Night must be down to economic factors, because
>there's no way a planet-full of universities is going to lose the
>information once they have it.

Reminds me of those pre-Collapse caches of information the the TNE folks
put throughout the Diaspora sector.  The name escapes me right now. (Bee
sounding name?)

>Hence the TL of the RoM cannot have been higher than TL 12 going on 13.
>QED.

Well, you have an excellent basic premise, but I can not immediately jump
to the conclusion that you reached.  Here's why:

  1) If our little Tech 8 (?) planetary network is the shape of things
     to come (and I am not sure why it would not be), the nature of info
     on tech will be a more distributed version of things.  Your scenario
     works if the university is in the business of archive/retrieval
     systems.  There is a _lot_ of "stuff" out there that is strictly
     proprietary as well, and would not necessarily be available to a
     university.  NASA is an exception, and it is more and more business
     like.  I was a subscriber to the NASA Tech Briefs for a while, and
     you had to have a certain background before you could receive that
     brief.  So "free flow of info" goes only so far with governments.

  2) Even if you had access to the information, you would not necessarily
     have the required infrastructure to support it.  Two cases in point:
     Hub/Ershur, on the same J-1 main as Sylea and not too far from the
     future 3I capital, is Tech Level 13.  The Syleans don't have to even
     have this RoM archive, unless it is on Hub, which was a RoM capital
     even earlier.  You could make the same case for it, only now we are
     concerned with TL14 as a limiting level.  Now, same idea, Gemid is
     in the proximity of Vland and it (in M0) is TL14, so the why doesn't
     it have TL15 RoM knowledge?  (But see three [3] below.)

  3) What this assessment really comes down to is "Do we have the tech
     knowledge?"  Then comes, "Do we have the _ability_ to do something
     with it."  You make the argument in another post that we are talking
     about the vast economic sphere of the TI.  Well not quite yet.  It
     is the vast 3I in the formation.  It wouldn't have been the 3I at all
     if not for just a few years ago, an industrialist with a name that
     starts with a "C" starts organizing things.  Why?  Because it is good
     for business.  Not because he wants to be Emperor and start ordering
     people around (or having them killed).  Take a page from Pocket Empires
     as I suggested in the piece you tagged above.  It takes dedication and
     allocation of Resources to raise your tech level.  Perhaps having a
     vast data archive helps, but the basic choice is still there.  I'm not
     so sure that it is in Cleon's best interests to be raising the tech of
     Sylea.  It may be, in the case of the early-TI, late-Sylean Federation,
     companies to do so.  It depends on a lot more complex factors.
     Remember, until Cleon came along, the SF was just a large economic
     sphere that he came to dominate enough to justifiably call himself
     Emperor.  That "long view" is just beginning to congeal around the
     time of Milieu 0.

     J.P. made the same mistake in talking about the Aslan Hierate with
     me not too long ago.  In M0, the Aslan don't even have "Hierate" in
     their vocabulary.  They have the Tlaukhu, but the Hierate we all
     know and love is the product of a thousand (or more) years of
     evolution.  The same can be said of the TI in M0.

>      Hans Rancke

As non-snobbishly as possible,


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:06:32 +0200
From: "Mark Seemann" <mark@dk-online.dk>
Subject: Imperial Anthem

3/7-97 Craig Berry wrote:

> > >        the Overture from H=94ndel's "Fireworks Music"
> > 
> > I've always used Darth Vaders march from The Empire Strikes Back
soundtrack
> > but that might be way too easily recognizable.

<snip>

> For the Emperor, I would suggest the need for an instrumental fanfare; an
> ideal example would be "Fanfare for the Common Man" (Aaron Copland).  Not
> only are the title (and inspiration) pleasingly ironic, it's one of the
> most stirring pieces of music ever written, and the initial fanfare
> segment would stand well on its own for grand entrances and exits.

Everything suggested so far has been composed within a timespan of less
than 200 years. Why would the Third Imperium ever use a 3000 year old piece
of music? More likely, they would probably have used a relatively
contemporary piece when originally choosing an Anthem. That's what happened
with most of the National Anthems on present Earth. So the Third Imperium's
or the Emperor's Anthem wouldn't probably be older than from -200 at the
max. It might even have changed several times in history (the Civil War
being a good bet).

Another point is this: Think about what has happened to (western) music in
300 years! Music in year 0 or 1100 would probably be completely
incomprehensible to us now. We might not even recognize it as music. One
wonders if J.S. Bach would recognize Front 242 (one of my favorites) as
music at all - my girlfriend has her doubts :-)

All in all, I think both Traveller and this mailing list has a tendency to
display not only ethnocentricity, but also 'chronocentricity' (just
invented the word). This is not to preach political correctness - heck, my
campaigns too are populated by dominantly white/caucasian/whatever people,
because that is my frame of reference. It's just that I sometimes catch
myself in taking such thing for granted, which is actually completely
unrealistic. It's a damn shame, because I think the game could get much
more exotic and give a much better SF feel if you could avoid this. Anyone
else feel they have this problem? What do you do about it?

Mark Seemann
mark@dk-online.dk
http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/mark_seemann

BTW, MIB was pretty funny (I can't get over the fact that it premiered here
in Copenhagen before New York, because of the time difference, nyah, nyah),
but the trailer to Alien IV looked absolutely incredible! Very promising.

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 10:26:13 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Pocket Empires

I finally bought a copy of Pocket Empires, and a like it a lot.

Howver, I disagree with some of the design decisions.

Specifically, I'm with Anders, in that I disagree with Infrastructure
being dependant on World Size rather than population.

As an example, I'd like to cite Australia, which has a population of
17 million people, resources of about 10 and infrastructure of about
three for 90% of the continent. As an example, except for the coastal
strip from Perth to Townsville, we have three sealed road links and
no railways. 90% of the outback relies on unsurfaced roads and dirt
airstrips for transport and portable generators for power. Education 
is via distance, or by one-teacher schools, except for a small 
university in Darwin and a couple of small technical schools.

The south-east corner, on the other hand, has a Infrastructure rating
of about seven (couple of steel mills, lots of power plants, sealed
roads, rail links, good ports, fibre-optic communication links, first-
world hospital systems, first-world education systems). For this part
of the country, the Outback is economically irrelevant, except for 
"islands" of development such as Mount Isa and other mining towns
(Australia's resource industries are poorly "articulated" into the rest
of the economy, except that foriegn income earned from them affects
the value of the Australian dollar, and thus affects the other import-
and export-industries of Australia).

Development of the Inland hasnt happened, essentially because of a
lack of water resources to support large populations. We have stuck
to the coast, because that is where the water is, and water for
Australia is the relevant constraint on development.

Imagine for a second Australia contacts a mob of aliens, who proceed
to uplift us from TL8 to TL10. Will this pattern of development change ?
I think not. 90% of the population will still live in the cities on
the coastal strip, and this area will develop even more infrastructure.
Islands of development will still occour in the Outback, probably
where resources are concentrated, but the spaces between the islands
will still remain undeveloped. In this, it doesnt matter how big the
gaps between the "islands" of development are, because you will put
the infrastracture where the people are.

I think this will be a fairly standard model of development. It also
fits with what I know of Alaska (another recently-colonized, high-resource
province that is still mostly undeveloped) and the development of
Siberia.

In short, infrastructure is a modifier on your labour force, so it's
cost should primarily be based on the size of the labour force, with
a modifier to reflect the tyrrany of distance.

Page 45 has the cost of infrastructure maintainence dependant on the
size of the economy (the GWP) not the size of the planet. This is correct,
but should also be more expensive for bigger worlds, to reflect the
increased costs in maintaining longer-distance transport links.

I dont like the military model - I would prefer to translate the military
budget into megacredits, and then buy and build ships and play a
"Trillion Credit Squadron" kind of game. This will better reflect the
advantages of high technology on starship combat.

As an aside, Fusion Plus is very very low on my list of 3I technological
advantages. Top of the list are the key military technologies of
Meson Screens and Nuclear Dampers. Fusion plus is merely an increase
in power-generating efficiency of 150% or so. Meson Screens and Nuke
Dampers allow what is impossible for a TL11 and below society to achieve
- - stopping Meson and Nuclear attacks.

At TL11, the size of military ships shrinks a lot, as navies build more
smaller ships to try and counter the Meson Gun super-weapon. A TL12
navy can thus get a size advantage, by building big ships again, protected
from those lethal automatic internals by having big, thick meson screens,
and sweep aside their technologically-challenged adversaries.

I have big big big problems with the idea of Resource Trade outside 
the framework of a Pocket Empire. Firstly, it is silly that a world that 
has no trade agreements with anybody for finished goods, but can still
trade raw materials for finished goods (ie extra GWP). This is the %$#@%
Long Night - there *is* no widespread interstellar trade. Resource
trade should only be possible within an economic structure, and should
have costs associated with the level of piracy and privateering in
that area, over and above the raw costs of moving the resources.

I am also surprised at the lack of rules for subsidizing the movement of
population. One of the things that moved Australia from it's pre-WW2
population of 6 million or so to it's current level of 17 million or
so was a government policy of assisted migration - the "ten pound Pom"
system. Assuming traveller standard costs of Cr8000 per parsec for
middle passengers, with 2 tons of personal goods - moving someone therefore
costs Cr10 000 per parsec. Therefore moving 1000 people 1 parsec costs
MCr10. So moving 50 000 people 10 parsecs would cost ... MCr5000. Or on or
about 1 RU, given the costings in PE page 41. Can anyone poke holes in 
this logic ?

OK, you *may* have problems when you get to the other end, with ethnic 
conflict and so on (as an aside, the postwar Immigration Minister, Arthur
Calwell, literally scoured the displaced persons camps after WW2 for
nordic-looking aryans, so that the first few boats of "displaced persons"
migrants would reassure the quite-racist Australians of the time that we
werent going to be taken over by Italians, Greeks and other such "wogs".
The Greeks, Yugoslavs and Italians who made up most of the postwar intake
were assigned to later boats), and it could be a good idea to build up
the colony's infrastructure first. But, heck, it beats waiting for the
slow growth rates on page 54, although once you have bitten the bullet
and bought that class C starport you can get pretty respectable numbers
of self-funded migrants, if you are a low-pop, high-tech, hi-resource
planet.

While speaking of colonisation, can you colonise a non-mainworld ? I am 
thinking of where you have a existing TL0-3 minor race that will take
forever to get uplifted, due to the p52 "No accelerated free uplift"
rules. So why not leave them there, and plant a colony somewhere else
in the system ? I mean, if they have an asteroid belt and a couple
of gas giants, why cant you leave the locals oblivious on their
planet, set the colony elsewhere in the system, and then say "g'day"
once they get to TL, say, 4 ? If you are worried about the ethics
of exploiting "their" system, set up a "trust fund" for 'em ...
"Hi. We're strangers from the stars. We did a bit of mining in
your system a while back, and invested your royalties for you. Your 
broker got lucky, and you now own 3.2% of a commercial enterprise called 
'The Third Imperium'. This years dividends come to 2.2 teracredits.
Do you want that in cash or should we re-invest it ?".

I'd better stop now ...

Ian Whitchurch

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 18:51:04 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@Rt66.com>
Subject: Re: T4 Task Rational

 
> >and _is_ mediocre.
> 
> So you're saying most of the human population is mediocre at best? That's
> a pretty low opinion.

Sure, I'd agree with that.  It means moderate or average, so by
definition most of the populace is mediocre (or worse, but at best
aboutr half assuming that as many people are bright as smart, for
example).
 
> >  To get what you describe, one must not allow a roll
> >at all below skill-3.
> 
> 	Again, I don't like that. Part of the thrill of gaming is making that
> "one-in-a-million" shot, because you're desperate. No, I wouldn't normally
> let a Med-1 perform open heart surgery. But what if you're three parsecs
> from the nearest hospital and Med-4, your jump drive is out, and the
> Captain will die if you don't operate? You pull up the heart surgery
> chapter on the computer, cross your fingers, and pray.

Good point.  Besides, how would you ever get to skill-3 then?  A
skill-3 (or above) person shows you, and you try even though you're
skill-1.  After a few of these with the skill-3+ as a safety net you
get to skill-2, then 3.  So base the routine roll for skill-3, and
make it harder for each skill less.

You might consider that even if the skill-1 person has some small
chance of success (say 4%) that under "normal" conditions failure
means that they needed help (closer to making the roll, the less
help they needed).  After some number of tries they'd get a
skill-increase (this is with a trainer around, obviously---though it
might be a computer...).

- -Merrick
> 
> 
> >You are the one who was focusing on it.  Generally, I just don't
> >agree that skill counts for more than talent.
> 
> 	Who said skill counted MORE than talent? I just want them to count more
> equally. When talent ranges from 2 to 15, and skill ranges from 0 to 7,
> talent counts TWICE as much as skill. I don't care how talented you are,
> skill is just as important.
> -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
>    goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
>     *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***
> 
>  "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
>   enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
>   a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine
> 
> 

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 19:15:38 -0800
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

Douglas E. Berry wrote:

>>For the Emperor, I would suggest the need for an instrumental fanfare; an
>>ideal example would be "Fanfare for the Common Man" (Aaron Copland).  Not
>>only are the title (and inspiration) pleasingly ironic, it's one of the
>>most stirring pieces of music ever written, and the initial fanfare
>>segment would stand well on its own for grand entrances and exits.
>
>My ever-knowledable wife suggests "Pictures at an Exhibition" by
>Mugorssky(sp?) for the Imperial Anthem.. it goes nicely with Fanfare.

The "Great Gate of Kiev" bit, I guess? <G>  And also presumably Ravel's
pompous orchestration, rather than the plinketty-plink (but much easier on
the ear) piano original <G>.

Me, my preference would be for something simultaneously bombastic and
fretful... i.e. old Ludwig van, as nashy droog Alex would say <G>  Not sure
what piece, though.

The Zhodani Consular anthem should be by Phillip Glass...

(The K'kree, of course -- "Home on the Range")

<duck>

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 18:14:29 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Gilbert & Sullivan (was Re: Empress Iolanthe)

Joseph "Chepe" Lockett wrote
> =

> Quoth Andrew Moffatt-Vallance:
> > Argghhh!!!!!  Does nobody here know their Gilbert and Sullivan!
> =

> Hey, you!  Are you suggesting that the Imperial nobility are a bunch of=
 fairies?!
> :-)

IIRC in Iolanthe Strephon was only half fairy, from the waist up.  This
still caused him some problems however and his mother _Iolanthe_ pleaded
for help for her son.

I shudder to think what a freudian analysis of these name choices might
imply.... :)


The Lord High Executioners Song from The Mikado

 - as sung by His Imperial Magesty Lucan I -

in a Rebellion Era adaptation popular in Daibei

and as annotated by some nameless traitor


As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, =

                            I've got a little list--I've got a little
list (1) =

                       Of regicidal murderors (2) who might well be
underground, =

                            And who never would be missed--who never
would be missed!(3) =

                       There's the pestilential nuisances who request
for Moot validation-- =

                       All people who have flabby hands and make a =

fratricidal insinuation (4) =

                       All children who are up in dates, and floor you
with 'em flat-- =

                       All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands
with you like that--

[Stage Directions - The Emperor pantomimes a Hiver shaking hands](5)
 =

                       And all third persons who on spoiling
t=EAte-=E0-t=EAtes insist--(6) =

                            They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of
'em be missed! =


                       CHORUS. =


                            He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on
the list; =

                                 And they'll none of 'em be
missed--they'll none of 'em be
                                 miss'd!

There's the Vilani Shadow Emperor (7) , and the others of his race, =

     And the wind up Emperor (8) --I've got him on the list! =

And the K'Kree who eat vegetables and puff them in your face, =

     They never would be miss'd--they never would be miss'd! =

Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, =

All centuries but this, and every Emperor but his own; =

And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy, (9)
And who "doesn't think she dances, but would rather like to try"; =

And that singular anomaly, the Delphian economist (10)-- =

     I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not he missed! =


CHORUS. =


     He's got her on the list--he's got her on the list; =

          And he don't think she'll be missed--he's sure she won't be
miss'd!

And that Antarian Vargr nuisance (11), who just now is rather rife, =

     The Judicial humorist--I've got him on the list! =

All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life-- =

     They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed. =

And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind, =

Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind, =

And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who-- =

The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you. =

But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list, =

     For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed! =


CHORUS. =


     You may put 'em on the list--you may put 'em on the list; =

          And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be
missed! =



Footnotes

(1) The little list has 4,614,892,614,807 names on it, including the
entire populations of some sectors.

(2) Archduke Dulinor

(3) Not only would none of the traitors be missed, but if the Aslan
Ambassador was standing next to them he might get shot as well.

(4) Sublieutenant Trace Windhook Imperial Navy, the only other living
witness to what happened in the Princes' appartments.

(5) At this point Lucan reveals his suspicions that the Hiver were
behind the Rebellion.

(6) Lt Windhook again

(7) Archduke Ishuugi, Archduke of Vland who was chosen by the Vilani
ruling council. the Igsiirdi, to be the Ishimkarun, or Shadow Emporer

(8) Lucan is refering to "Strephon" whom Lucan claims is merely a
robotic double of the former Emperor.

(9) Here Lucan appears to refering to the rumors in high Imperial
Society that Norris, Archduke of Deneb is actually a female to male
crossdresser...

(10) Lucan refers to Dutchess Margaret.

(11) Lucan is refering to Archduke Bzrk of Antares, who declared his
domain independant and allied with the Julian Protectorate.

As origionally written by Gilbert & Sullivan circa -2633 Imperial [1885
AD] and as referenced from

http://diamond.idbsu.edu/GaS/html/GaSopera.html


As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, =

                            I've got a little list--I've got a little
list =

                       Of society offenders who might well be
underground, =

                            And who never would be missed--who never
would be missed! =

                       There's the pestilential nuisances who write for
autographs-- =

                       All people who have flabby hands and irritating
laughs-- =

                       All children who are up in dates, and floor you
with 'em flat-- =

                       All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands
with you like that-- =

                       And all third persons who on spoiling
t=EAte-=E0-t=EAtes insist-- =

                            They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of
'em be missed! =


                       CHORUS. =


                            He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on
the list; =

                                 And they'll none of 'em be
missed--they'll none of 'em be
                                 miss'd!

There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, =

     And the piano-organist--I've got him on the list! =

And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, =

     They never would be miss'd--they never would be miss'd! =

Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, =

All centuries but this, and every country but his own; =

And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy, =

And who "doesn't think she dances, but would rather like to try"; =

And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist-- =

     I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not he missed! =


CHORUS. =


     He's got her on the list--he's got her on the list; =

          And he don't think she'll be missed--he's sure she won't be
miss'd!

And that Nisi Prius nuisance, who just now is rather rife, =

     The Judicial humorist--I've got him on the list! =

All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life-- =

     They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed. =

And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind, =

Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind, =

And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who-- =

The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you. =

But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list, =

     For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed! =


CHORUS. =


     You may put 'em on the list--you may put 'em on the list; =

          And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be
missed!

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1520
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Traveller-digest       Saturday, July 5 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1521



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: TL of ROM
Re: RoM
Pyramids
3D Max Damage
Re: RoM
Re: Radio organisms
Solomani Traveller materials
Re: TL of ROM
Re: RoM
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: TL of ROM
Re: 3D Max Damage
Re: Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller
Re: TL of ROM
Re: Pyramids
Re: 3D Max Damage
Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

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

Date: Thu, 04 Jul 1996 22:42:23 -0400
From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:
> 
> >We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.
> No, we do know how they were made. Pile a bunch of rocks on top of each other
> and you get a pyramid. Try this in your back yard - very straightforward.
> 

You're overlooking the fact that a) these things have interesting
features like corridors and rooms inside them.  b) they are composed of
hundreds of thousands, if not millions of square blocks (with a few
cyclopean rocks thrown in for good measure), and c) they were also
originally covered with a lovely layer of limestone.  Try doing _that_
in your backyard.  No, I'd say that we still don't know HOW they were
made.  We might know where to _start_ making them, though...

> To build a *big* pyramid, you need square rocks, and tens of thousands of
> cheap labourers. Convieniently, in the off-season, such labour was indeed
> available in Egypt.
> 
> Cathedrals - or buildings with open spaces in them - are hard; if the

See above.  The pyramids had rooms, secret passages, corridors and
shafts.  Some of these (we're reaching the extent of my knowledge) as I
remember, lined up with the rising of a particular planet or star.  This
takes some pretty advanced geometric development.

> 
> (Setting aside the question of how the original pyramids were made, we certainly
> could easily build comparable ones today...)

Oh, sure we could.  We have lovely gobs of TL8 earth moving technology
and all sorts of ways to get the internal architecture and construction
perfect.  But try to do it on a TL2, TL3 scale, and you begin to think
differently.  I doubt aliens had anything to do with the construction of
these monuments, but to say they were _easy_ is not an accurate
statement.  In their day, they were something awesome.  They still are. 
(Anyone seen the engravings of the hypostyle halls by Napoleon's
expeditionary forces?  Absolutely stunning (both the engraving AND the
architecture)).

.JF.
foxonetwo@geocities.com
http://pages.prodigy.com/fuller

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

Date: Thu, 04 Jul 1996 23:00:13 -0400
From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: RoM

Bruce E J Lewis wrote:
>         Didn't human advancement get stuffed back about five hundred years when
> the great library at Alexandria got destroyed in the fifth century AD, or
> something like that? Historians help out here please!

The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora, has a timeline in the front
that lists the fall of Alexandria as 31 B.C.

However, I don't think that's when the burning occured.  (a side note:
there is evidence that the library building, and its 200 000 scrolls
were not burned.  Instead, _only_ the scrolls were, and the buildings
were spared.  (the scrolls were thrown into the fires at the public
baths to heat the water.  One source in the book is quoted as saying 'it
took six months to burn all [the scrolls]'.)

Makes you queasy, when you think about it.  All that knowledge, lost. 
Carl Sagan postulates that we lost 1000 years worth of advancement in
that burning. (Cosmos, I believe).

However, there was a rival library to Alexandria at Pergamum.  So,
perhaps all was not lost at Alexandria -- just a heck of a lot.

.JF.
foxonetwo@geocities.com
http://pages.prodigy.com/fuller				Havran System

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 23:50:06 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Pyramids

I intend to have my players encounter a few of these things, can anyone tell
me where they are located in the Spinward Marches?  Thanks

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:56:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: 3D Max Damage

Hello All:   I was an original instigator of the 3D maximum damge rule a
couple of months ago, and got Marc to make a note of this gross inconsistency
in logic and game sense.  The 3D maximum damage should only apply to those
weapons that mainly rely upon kinetic energy for its main mechanism of
delivering damage, therefore, slug throwers (including gauss weapons)  This
rule should not apply to energy weapons, weapons with explosive effects
(including slug throwers firing certain explosive rounds such as High
Explosive but not Discarding Sabot), and in the future, neural weapons and
disintegrators (they ignore armor and produce precise effects).  As the new
T4 nears its completion, this would be a good time to stir things up again so
that the 3D Maximum Damage Atrocity (rule) isn't inflicted upon players.
   This needs to be clearly spelled out.
   To think that an ACR could do as much damage to an unarmored target as a
PCMP is laughable.

Charles Li, M.D.

P.S.  No way a med student should even try to perform open heart surgery,
even an impossible task classification wouldn't work, and the referree should
intervene to state one can't even try.

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:49:34 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: RoM

In mail you write:

> I still do not understand how tech can be lost on the scale proposed by the
> long night.
>
> Never in our history has tech truly been lost, just not disseminated, and
> even now that would be difficult because of our very superior communications
> technology. The only way we could lose tech would be if the human race did
> its usual stupid thing and ban it on a religious basis. (ie the pope banning
> human bioengineering)

We don't know how to make Greek Fire. There are some guesses, but the
Byzantine Empire kept the secret for centuries and it was lost when the
empire fell. There are some medieval techniques that can't be
duplicated. They were family secrets and when the family died out, the
technique was lost.

Scientific knowledge is hard to lose. But the means of implementing it
(technology) is actually not that well distributed. Every industry has
trade secrets that will take years to rediscover if the company was
destroyed. 

Sure, textbooks tell you how integrated circuits are made. But only in
*general*. It's the *details* that matter, and they aren't in the
textbooks. Recovering all the details after a major war or similar
catastrophe will take almost as long as discovering them in the first
place. Maybe longer, as the info in the textbooks may have been
"simplified" enough to be misleading.

The textbook says that you take a cylinder of properly doped silicon,
slice it into thin wafers, and etch circuits into the surface. Well,
from working in the industry, I can tell you that getting the cylinder
isn't as simple as it sounds. There are a lot of tricks to producing
the silicon and dopant that get melted. And it takes weeks for an
experienced operator to teach a new one how to produce the cylinder. It
takes several days worth of processing to go from cylinder to wafer
ready for circuit layout. All of that processing has techniques that
aren't in the books, but passed on inside the company. My experience
stops short of the circuit etching, but I bet there are a lot of
empirical tricks there too.

Science is *not* technology. And technology involves a lot of "rule of
thumb" stuff.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:26:10 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Radio organisms

In mail you write:

> In the CONTACT newsletter, worldbuilding expert Martyn Fogg wrote: "The
> bones of terrestrial vertebrates...are made from calcium phosphate.
> However, shellfish make their shells out of calcium carbonate and some
> worms have teeth made from goethite, a hydrated iron oxide (FeOOH) which is
> hard and (this is why I like it) can be magnetized." But that's all he had
> to say on the subject.
>
> This got me thinking about designing an alien sophont whose bones were made
> of goethite or some similar organometallic substance. I'll outline some of
> my ideas here, but my grasp of physics and biology are admittedly shaky, so
> I would like to call upon the list's expertise.
>  - Exactly what are the properties of goethite?

It sounds like a ferrite or magnetite. That makes it a magnetic
substance but *not* a conductor.

> The species I'm designing are fully amphibian, more at home in the ocean
> but capable of breathing and crawling about above the water line. Their
> surface bears electrophores which discharge electricity (under water) for
> both defence and communication. Would goethite bones be able to store
> electricity, and thus act as capacitors for these discharges?

See above. It's almost certainly a non-conductor. Also, electrical
organs exist in several life-forms and are uniformly *huge*. Producing
the required charges takes a *lot* of biological energy. An electric
eel's body is 90% electrical organ!

>
> These sophonts have highly evolved electromagnetic senses, used to orient
> themselves to the geomagnetic field, and to detect the movements of nearby
> sea creatures in the dark. Over eons of evolution, these senses have been
> augmented by specialized bone structures that generate and detect
> electromagnetic signals. Assuming an adult body size of about 1m, or up to
> 3m with forelegs and hindlegs fully extended, what frequency range would
> they be sensitive to and capable of transmitting? Would they be more likely
> to use amplitude modulation or frequency modulation? 

They wouldn't be using EM. They'd be using electric or magnetic
*fields*, not electromagnetic waves. So wavelength isn't a
consideration. The electrical senses of the critters on earth are not
like any sense humans have. They'd sort of "feel" an object at a
distance by its effect on the electric field they generate. Pulse rates
are a few per second up to maybe 100. That's *pulses*, not a frequency.

Best analogy with a human sense would be the way you can feel a hot
object from a distance with the thermal sensors on your skin.

Magnetic senses on earth seem restricted to navigation. 

Note that the electrical senses require a conductive medium (water) to
work. They are found mostly in creatures that live in muddy water.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 01:30:37 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Solomani Traveller materials

Hi,

I'm looking for a list (if such a thing exists) of all the Solomani
library materials that have been published, be it by GDW, JG, in
Challenge, in JTAS, in Megatraveller Journal or whatever.

If such a list exists, I'd love to get a hold of a copy.

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 01:25:27 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

Jon Fuller wrote:
> 
> Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:
> >
> > >We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.
> > No, we do know how they were made. Pile a bunch of rocks on top of each other
> > and you get a pyramid. Try this in your back yard - very straightforward.
> >

Actually, not so straightforward. If I recall from last semester's
Ancient Civilizations class, they still aren't sure how Egypt's
pyuramids were built.  Also, in a video we watched, they tried, using
TL2 technology to build a smaller version of the Great Pyramid, wwith
everything sized down accordingly.  They took the period of building the
great pyramid (which I believe took 22 years) and tried to build this
small, 3-5 metre tall replica in 4 months.  Well, they got (using TL2
tech, except to bring the rocks in) one corner finished in the alloted
time.

Factor in the ancient Egyptians having to bring the rocks, discover
methods of building, shape the stones, as well as line them up according
to all the different things (such as the Great Pyramid being on the
centre of balance of the contients or whatnot...I could get out my essay
on how they were built if need be), and I'd say we are not sure today
how they built them.

Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 
Try doing it in the middle of a scorching desert, with TL2 technology,
and the task becomes a bit harder.  Saying we know how the pyramids were
built is not entirely correct I'm afraid.

Just to make this Traveller-related, what do you think the current (ie.
M0) condition of the pyramids are?  Have the Solomani kept them nicely
preserved.  Today they face destruction from construction projects,
Cairo's expansion, acid rain, pollution, etc.  I wonder how they fare
thousands of years into the future...I wonder if they're any closer to
knowing how they were built...
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:50:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: RoM

Quoth Jon Fuller:
> The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora, has a timeline in the front
> that lists the fall of Alexandria as 31 B.C.
> However, I don't think that's when the burning occured.

The Library suffered multiple fires, IIRC.  One was when Julius Caesar
took the city (c. 45 BC?).  31 B.C. would have been the fall to Augustus
after Actium.

The fire that destroyed all the books, though, was centuries later.  I
believe it was one of the Caliphs who decreed that, if the books were
not of Allah, they should be destroyed.  If, instead, they were, it didn't
matter since the Quran contained all important knowledge anyway.  So they
torched the whole collection.  I guess Islam didn't always act to foster
knowledge through the Dark Ages....

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 22:46:57 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

At 07:15 PM 7/4/97 -0800, you wrote:

>>My ever-knowledable wife suggests "Pictures at an Exhibition" by
>>Mugorssky(sp?) for the Imperial Anthem.. it goes nicely with Fanfare.
>
>The "Great Gate of Kiev" bit, I guess? <G>  And also presumably Ravel's
>pompous orchestration, rather than the plinketty-plink (but much easier on
>the ear) piano original <G>.

Precisely the section she meant.

>(The K'kree, of course -- "Home on the Range")

No, no.. THIS is the K'Kree anthem:

Just give me land, lots of land 
Under 2000 stars above,
Don't fence me in...

<diving for cover>
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 01:02:50 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

I strongly recommend McCauley's book PYRAMID.  Very accessible, well
written, excellent pictures, widely printed and distributed, and it
addresses almost all of these points. 

Quoth Jon Fuller, regarding pyramids:
> a) these things have interesting features like corridors and rooms
>    inside them.

...which were created by piling up rocks around and then over the spaces.
What's so hard about a little pre-planning?

> b) they are composed of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of square
>    blocks (with a few cyclopean rocks thrown in for good measure)

Do cyclopean rocks require Cylopses?  I hope that's not what you're
implying: good rollers and lots of enthusiastic peasants should suffice. 

> c) they were also originally covered with a lovely layer of limestone.

You have a problem with large quarries?

> Try doing _that_ in your backyard.

Make me acknowledged god-king over a labor force of untold thousands of
peasants, with a few clever Bronze-Age astronomers and engineers on hand,
and I could make a good stab at it.  Thank goodness Houston doesn't have
zoning....  :-)

> No, I'd say that we still don't know HOW they were made.  We might know
> where to _start_ making them, though...

Sounds like a semantic argument to me.  We haven't, 'tis true, recovered
Imhotep's SEVEN STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL PYRAMID -- but McCauley and others
(including experimenters in the Egyptian desert using work gangs!) have
found perfectly practical means for doing what the Egyptians did, which
fit within our knowledge of their culture and technology.

In any case, ancient Egypt was a largely illiterate society, with poor
access to long-term media (stone carvings take longer than, say, laser
etching), and thus a poor choice of analogy for technical losses during
the Long Night.

> The pyramids had rooms, secret passages, corridors and
> shafts.  Some of these (we're reaching the extent of my knowledge) as I
> remember, lined up with the rising of a particular planet or star.  This
> takes some pretty advanced geometric development.

Nope.  It takes a wide-awake ancient astronomer who can sit up all night
in the middle of a clay-walled palisade and make marks on the floor with a
stick.  Again, see McCauley.

> I doubt aliens had anything to do with the construction of
> these monuments, but to say they were _easy_ is not an accurate
> statement.  In their day, they were something awesome.  They still are. 

Though on this we both agree.  :-)

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 97 01:09:07 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage

On 07/05/97 at 12:56 AM,  ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com said:

>  To think that an ACR could do as much damage to an unarmored target as a
>PCMP is laughable.

>Charles Li, M.D.

>P.S.  No way a med student should even try to perform open heart surgery,
>even an impossible task classification wouldn't work, and the referree
>should intervene to state one can't even try.

Charles, I agree with your first point, but as to your second...I'm not
sure. Maybe the operative phrase is "should even try", though, because I'd
argue that he "could try"..with little chance of success.

Suppose, our second year med student is a passenger on a Free Trader
travelling to some place for some reason, and another passenger collapses
with a massive heart attack shortly after the ship enters jump space. 
There is no doctor aboard, nor any crewman with even a Medical-1. What
should our medical student do?  Let the passenger die?  Or shouldn't he try
to save the passenger's life?  I suppose something like open heart surgery
wouldn't be called for in this case, but *something* over our med student's
head would be, and if we fish around I'm sure we could come up with some
procedure just as hard as open heart surgery that *would* be required in
some sort of medical emergency.  

As a GM, I would allow the med student to try the procedure, but he would
have an extremely poor chance of success. 

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 02:35:09 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Friars and Fryers: Canon and beliefs in Traveller

Nick Munn writes:

<snip>

>How is this relevant to Traveller?  Well, there's a lot of muttering
>about canon on TML, so it might be a good idea to understand the
>range of views: is there One Traveller Background (canonist),
>A Distinct Traveller Theme (moderate) or A Whole World Of
>Possibilities (syncretist)?  You get the idea, anyway.

   Hmmm...I guess that makes me a Canonist Heretic?  Actually there is a
religious parallel.  Several times in recorded history, would-be
reformers have seized control of the reigns of power within a faith,
only to have "true believers" split with the faith and go it alone ("I
didn't leave the Church, it left me").

>It might be helpful if you wanted some realistic religions in 
>Traveller that weren't either obvious frauds or utter weirdos to have 
>some relatively rational patterns of belief, a/a.

   You might want to check out my write-up on Gabreelism which appeared
in Traveller Chronicle (and will be coming to a Web site near you within
the next week or so).  Some mysticism involved (the Priestess of the
Faith is a psion who can see the past, present and future), but for the
most part it is based upon the beliefs of many religions and is
organized in a coherant manner.  The "Sayings From the Book of
Gabree-el" are particularly enlightening.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 07:34:11 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

On Sat, 05 Jul 1997 01:25:27 -0400, Peter Miller wrote:

> Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 

Building the pyramids today would be far from "easy".  There are over
2 million stone blocks in the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the ancient
Egyptian workers/slaves would have had to position the 2,300 kg blocks
at a _minimum_ rate of one block every five minutes (24 hours a day,
365 days a year) to complete the structure in the 20+ years it
reportedly took to build.

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 07:34:09 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 23:50:06 -0400, Daniel Poulin wrote:

> I intend to have my players encounter a few of these things, can anyone tell
> me where they are located in the Spinward Marches?  Thanks

Does it really matter?  I mean, if you don't own a Traveller adventure
that "officially" places pyramids somewhere in the Spinward Marches,
whose to say that you can't simply go ahead and scatter a few about
anyways.

That being said, the CT Adventure 1 booklet features an adventure
called "Shadows" that revolves around a pyramid site.  It takes place
on Yorbund (0703) in the Regina subsector and the pyramids aren't as
grandiose as those in Egypt (the largest being about 70 metres
square).

That should do you for a start :)

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 07:34:12 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage

On Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:56:59 -0400 (EDT), ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:

> Hello All:   I was an original instigator of the 3D maximum damge rule a
> couple of months ago, and got Marc to make a note of this gross inconsistency
> in logic and game sense.  The 3D maximum damage should only apply to those
> weapons that mainly rely upon kinetic energy for its main mechanism of
> delivering damage, therefore, slug throwers (including gauss weapons)  This
> rule should not apply to energy weapons, weapons with explosive effects
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I would still include lasers under this rule since they are "pulse"
weapons.  Man portable beam lasers would be a different story.

> (including slug throwers firing certain explosive rounds such as High
> Explosive but not Discarding Sabot), and in the future, neural weapons and
> disintegrators (they ignore armor and produce precise effects).  As the new
> T4 nears its completion, this would be a good time to stir things up again so
> that the 3D Maximum Damage Atrocity (rule) isn't inflicted upon players.
>    This needs to be clearly spelled out.

I thought it already was (p. 57).  Since PCMPs, etc. weren't included
in the basic T4 rulebook, no mention of a rule pertaining to them was
needed.  But since EA (with its arsenal of weaponry) is already on the
store shelves, it only makes sense to include any of the combat rules
from that volume in the new T4.1 combat section.

>    To think that an ACR could do as much damage to an unarmored target as a
> PCMP is laughable.

I thought PCMPs inflicted three kinds of damage... one for the impact
of the packet of plasma itself (max'd out a 3D), one for the high heat
effects of the resulting explosion, and one for the heat of the beam
itself?  An unarmoured opponent would take 3D (max'd) + 4D (from the
explosive) worth of damage from a TL 12 PCMP... with an additional +2D
using the optional back blast damage effects along the length of the
weapon's beam (since the target is essentially adjacent to the beam).



James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 08:59:10
From: Paolo Marino <marino@inrete.it>
Subject: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

I'd like to thank the people which answered me.
I still need some info, but first I'd like to comment a little.

Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:

>One useful class of mine is the detonation laser (missiles in T4 are
>mostly laser type anyway): nuclear warhead with x-ray laser rods.

and other interesting stuff on detecting/fooling the mines. Your
suggestion has its merits: making mines a kind of nuclear powered
laser makes easy to adopt existing rules to fit (they are akin to
missiles).


>>Would Air Rafts work in this environment?
>Grav plates need a source of gravity to push against - so they'd be of 
More interesting stuff on how to approach the minefield. See below on
my problems about this, though.
Anyway, I think this is quite interesting per se. So Belters, pirates
and people which often work in deep space environment should use
modified air raft... i.e. a "space" raft for maneuvering. I'll try my
hand at one of these with my copy of CSC, perhaps.


Brett Fishburne <bfish@atlantech.net> added:

>Your campaign sounds like fun...wish I could participate!
Thank you very much. You can... in a sense. I'm putting the finishing
touches on a web site which contains stuff from my campaign. I've
already written up a complete adventure plus conversion notes for a
shareware adventure adapted to T4. I've contacted the author of the
original stuff and he has no objections on my idea.



>>The Mines: Which kind of devices would you use to defend an asteroid belt?
>>           How would they work? How can they be disabled? Consider that
>>           they should still work (at least some of them) after decades.
>
>If you are going to live and work in an asteroid field it is guaranteed to
>be underground with a fair amount of crust between you and the outside.
>This would be true for several reasons...micrometeorites would be a serious
>problem and proximity to a star would bathe the asteroids in all kinds of
>stuff you don't want to have to face on a daily basis.  Given this, I would
>set charges in small asteroids spread throughout the portion of the belt you
>wanted to protect.  The charges would blow the small asteroid to bits
>sending small kinetic weapons all over the place whenever they blow.  I
Another interesting take on the mines. I'll have to elaborate on this.

>>Economics: How many ships besides the PC's Scout? How much should the Patron
>>           (probably a Megacorporation) offer for the job?	
>
>Depends on whether or not the PCs need to figure out where the big hauls
>are.  Were the asteroid miners paranoid who told no one where their stuff
>was...maybe they only met freighters at lagrange points and had some
>excellent radar jamming so that no one could track them...If the PCs have to
>find the big haul, the Megacorp should offer to pay very well and then do
>its best to weasle once the big mine has been found.
At the moment the idea is that Zhodani Navy mined the asteroids in
order to slow down/hamper the Imperial Navy advance. Some years after
the end of the war, a group of Belters and/or Pirates (perhaps lead
by renegade Zhodani officers) discovered a data module which contains
a map of the minefield. They will use this knowledge to build a kind
of Fortified Pirate Haven in Space (not unlike the Imhyrr (sp?) city
in the Elric novels).
They will be able to use it as a base for raiding the nearby systems,
and be far enough from Imperial borders to avoid a massive siege.
The PCs could get a copy of the same data module and start wondering
about its contents (translating it from Zhodani to Imperial standards
corrupted some of the data, so they will have some difficulties in
puzzling out the contents).

And at last, Michael Koehne added:


>> If you are going to live and work in an asteroid field it is guaranteed to
>> be underground with a fair amount of crust between you and the outside.

>Perfect ! Hiden mines. Why not thinking straight: Mines are
>lost when they detornate, and the need dedicated sensor equipment to
>decide "if this is a ship or an other fucking asteroid"

>If money and TL-13 (or above) is not the problem, I would
>prefer dedicated small sensors, interconected around the belt, and
>deep core meson guns in OTHER asteroids. Some dummy's (ladar, and old
>laser, a hot reaktor ;-) and anything attacking them will become
>blasted by meson rays.  

So, the third take on the Space Mines concept. Very well. Plus
snipped ideas on a James Bond like assault on asteroids/moons.

Now, the new questions for the gentlemen on the list:

I'd like to know more about asteroids size, placement and assorted info.
How big can an asteroid be? How small? How distant may an asteroid be
from its closer neighbors? How many asteroids in a belt? 
I keep thinking of the PCs ship slowly maneuvering among smaller
(mined) asteroids and approaching a larger rock, dotted with pirate
installations and placed deeply inside the asteroids belt, but
perhaps this is just my fantasy.

If you can give me some rough data on this, or perhaps giving me some
pertinent url...


TIA,



__  Paolo Marino  __          |Inrete Games Page: www.inrete.it/games/gms.html
 mc4799@mclink.it (Preferred)  | marino@inrete.it (Best for MIME/BinHex)

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1521
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Traveller-digest       Saturday, July 5 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1522



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: RoM
Re: Asteroids & Mines
Re: Pyramids (was Re: TL of ROM)
Re: Education and Schools
 Re: Lossing tech (was: Re: RoM)
FSA TTA Gatling shotgun design
And lest the pyramid thread distract us...
Re: TL of ROM - pyramids
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Losing technology

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 02:10:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: RoM

  Well, others have said it already, Glenn, but I'll repeat it - your
touching faith in the permanence of technology is probably unfounded.
Since several examples have already been cited, I will not add specifics,
other than to point out that there is an entire academic discipline called
"Industrial Archeology" that is devoted to figuring out just how the heck
folks did things in the past.  Again, as others point out, there is an
awful lot of crucial technical information that never gets written down,
and is essential for actually duplicating a technology.

  Oh, what the heck, here's an example, not about forgotten technology,
but one about the difficulty of duplicating a known technology.  During
WWI, German exports of synthetic dyes to the USA were cut off.  American
companies tried to duplicate many of them, but could not, despite the fact
that they had the patents the Germans had filed, samples of the dyes, and
access to all the technical papers published in the field.  Leaving aside
the fact that some of the German patents were deliberatly deceptive, it
goes to show that technology transfer is harder than you might expect.

  One thing that most historians of technology and development specialists
agree on is the crucial role of experts in the transfer of technology.
That is, you can send as many drawings, technical papers, and machines as
you like, but the crucial element of technology transfer is person to
person contact with people who know how the technology works.  For
example, during WWII a new method for flush riveting aircraft was
developed at Boeing.  Despite the fact that technical papers and the
riveting machines were sent to another plant, it was not until the
inventor of the process went to the other plant that they were able to
make the process work.

  This is one of the reasons we have seen such an explosion of
technological development in Asia.  For years students from that part of
the world have studied in American and European universities and technical
schools, and now they have taken that know-how back with them and are
putting it to use developing new technologies and new methods based on
existing ideas.

  Now, I take no position as to the tech level of the Rule of Man (though
I'm leaning towards the TL12, some prototype TL13 position based on my own
reading), but I find it perfectly reasonable that past cultures could have
had a higher tech level, and nobody can duplicate it later.  On the other
hand, I find it less likely that information about the existance of those
past technologies in the form of something like news stories in Popular
Science magazine would disapear.

  As a side note on the Darians, it is interesting to note how they have
evolved over time.  As I recall from their initial apperance in the
Spinward Marches supplement in CT days, their planet just had remnants of
TL16 stuff, and the actual TL of the rest of their culture was rather
lower.  Essentially, it was a tourist destination, where the GM could wow
the players with descriptions of cool stuff.  Their evolution to M1100
masters of high tech took place later, and as I recall was really cemented
by the Regency Sourcebook (though my memory may be off there, and I don't
have my books here to check).

  Oh, and as to the Library at Alexandria, its destruction was a loss to
world history, but to blame that one event for 500 years of stagnation is
a considerable exageration.  Much of the technological progress that was
made afterwards depended very little on books and academic science anyway
- - it's not really until the nineteenth century that one can really speak
of academic and scientific knowledge having much impact on technology.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 02:27:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Asteroids & Mines

  There was a discussion about asteroid densities on the list some months
ago, with the primary reference to our own belt.  The conclusion was that
asteroids were rather far apart, farther than I had realized.  The image
most of us have is from the Star Wars movies - that is pretty much
impossible for a long term stable belt, if I remember what more
knowledgeable list members were saying - collisions between the rocks
would have limited their numbers.

  In my own PBEM Beltwatch, I got around this by making the creation of
the belt a very recent event, so that densities are still high and
navigation very dangerous.

  Anyway, I hope some of the other list members will fill in the details
of what I've described.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 02:35:14 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Pyramids (was Re: TL of ROM)

Peter Miller wrote

> Just to make this Traveller-related, what do you think the current (ie.
> M0) condition of the pyramids are?  Have the Solomani kept them nicely
> preserved.  Today they face destruction from construction projects,
> Cairo's expansion, acid rain, pollution, etc.  I wonder how they fare
> thousands of years into the future...I wonder if they're any closer to
> knowing how they were built...
> - --

The Travellers Digest #13 (DGp 1988) features The Great Pyramid and the
Sphinx, looking much as they do today but with a much greaner
background, on its cover.

In the issues feature adventure "Terra Incognita" by Gary L. Thomas it
says "The Nile River valley on 57th century Terra is flooded by the rise
of the oceans, but a few areas with particular historical value have
been preserved by seawalls.  One of these locations is around Giza, home
of the Great Pyramid...For a small fee, visitors are led inside the
largest of the three pyramids, the historical tomb of Cheops...The
pyramid's inner depths are well understood by archeologists, thanks to
detailed maps created using densitometers.  Secret passages, hidden for
centuries, were easily discovered...The tour begins by leading the group
down into the room that served as the queens burial chamber....The
Burial chamber has been rebuilt to appear as it once looked... The
Egyptians who built the pyramids also built ... a tunnel from the
largest pyramid to the Sphinx.  ...it is unsafe because of milenia of
decay and erosion.

Spoiler Warning !!!!


Spoiler Warning !!!!


Spoiler Warning !!!!


Spoiler Warning !!!


The Terran Psionics institute circa 356-1106 is located inside of the
Sphinx.  Its leader is really a Zhodani agent.  At the end of the
adventure incompetant Dolphin construction workers/terrorists working
underwater on the other side of the nearby seawall bomb a whole in it
and the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid are flooded.

I assume that this dammage is fixed by the Imperium and the tourism
eager Terrans in the next few years but that a similar event occurs
again 11 years later during the Solomani conquest of Earth.

Therefore we know that the Great Pyramid is in good shape in Milieu 1100
but it is a referee call as to what kind of shape it is in in Milieu 0. 
You could argue that it would be in poorer due to The Long Night or you
could assume that local tourism alone would generate enough money to
make restoring the Great Pyramid financially viable.

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 97 12:50 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

In-Reply-To: <970704160943_-359961898@emout05.mail.aol.com>

> << 
>  Nice idea, but increase the roll to 3D (ie this is something that only 
>  high-SOC characters will have much chance of succeeding at (on average, 
>  only a Noble will succeed), although Joe Average *might* get away with it). 
>  ______________________________________________________________________
>   >>
> BUT, although in the Traveller universe RHIP, it is also an egalitarian and
> cosmopolitan society. Anyone can succeed, and society itself is willing to
> give people that opportunity. I disagree that anyone can attend any school
> (by right); I do agree that anyone has a chance of going to that school. I
> strongly prefer the 2D roll.

Can we compromise on 2.5D? :-)

If you make the roll too low (and at 2D, an average person will, on average, 
succeed), it makes the original requirements pointless. I have nothing against 
Joe Average going to school, I'm just saying that if Phil Subnormal wants to 
get in, he'll only stand a chance if he has powerful friends/family.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 00:31:10 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Lossing tech (was: Re: RoM)

>Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 20:49:34 PST
>From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
>Subject: Re: RoM

>In mail you write:

>> I still do not understand how tech can be lost on the scale proposed by the
>> long night.

>> Never in our history has tech truly been lost, just not disseminated, and
>> even now that would be difficult because of our very superior communications
>> technology. The only way we could lose tech would be if the human race did
>> its usual stupid thing and ban it on a religious basis. (ie the pope banning
>> human bioengineering)

>We don't know how to make Greek Fire. There are some guesses, but the
>Byzantine Empire kept the secret for centuries and it was lost when the
>empire fell. There are some medieval techniques that can't be
>duplicated. They were family secrets and when the family died out, the
>technique was lost.

>Scientific knowledge is hard to lose. But the means of implementing it
>(technology) is actually not that well distributed. Every industry has
>trade secrets that will take years to rediscover if the company was
>destroyed. 

[snip good example]

>Science is *not* technology. And technology involves a lot of "rule of
>thumb" stuff.

A good example of loss of technology is Russia after the 1917-24 civil
war. Before the 1st WW the Imperial Russian Army had the most
advanced artillery fuses in the world (a true technological marvel of
the period), the Imperial Navy designed and built some of the finest
dreadnaughts and cruisers of the era, their aircraft technology rivaled
that of France (the most advanced in the world at the time). When in
the 30's the Soviets started to rearm they had to import virtually all the
technical know how from overseas, they had in just 15 years lost the
technological infrastructure to support a sophisticated arms industry;
they could not even match the achievements of the former Imperial
period. This was not the loss of specific items or industries, this was
the loss of entire fields of engineering capability. Sure they had some
of the worlds best scientists and access to all the scientific knowledge
of the Imperial period and much of that developed after, but they just
couldn't apply that knowledge.

Another way of illustrating this is: India has some of the finest scientists
and technicians in the world, quite a lot of them actually. They have
full access to an advanced scientific knowledge base, probably equal
with that of the US. Yet India still prefers to use steam locomotives
designed in the 50's, they produce for domestic consumption British
cars designed in the 60's; why? Their population lacks the knowledge
to use and maintain more advanced technology.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 08:13:41 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: FSA TTA Gatling shotgun design

	Sent this yesterday, but it didn't get through, I think.  I
designed it using TTA/FF&S2.  I cc'ed it to the person playing Lt.
Kehaaarl, the Aslan Death Machine=81 in my campaign.  His reaction was
"PUUURRRRRR!  Can I have one?" :).



News Item, Imperial Defense Weekly 04-193

Dateline: Sylea, Famille Spofulam Orbital HQ

Title: Famille Spofulam Armaments releases new riot termination weapon


	"Yesterday, FSA launched their new OKA-SQ riot termination system,
a vehicle-mounted rotary 5-barrel 18X62E ETC VRF shotgun.  Leem Ladjen, our
police and paramilitary equipment editor, attended the launch, on board the
=46amille Spofulam Group's Orbital HQ:

	'As usual, the reception for members of the press was nothing short
of lavish; greeted at the VIP disembarkment ports by liveried FS liason
staff, the media were quickly ushered into a large and tastefully decorated
reception hall.  The wet bar and buffet were up to Famille Spofulam's usual
megalomaniacal standards, and journalists, representatives of various
governments, and [censored] were given time to mingle and chat it up with
several FSA representatives.  Although most participants were extremely
discreet, a large delegation from Mu were noted, including Baron Erghaan's
notorious Chief of Secret Police, Looeehze Bodewoyn, who was most
remarkable in her peaked cap, riding crop, and fitted leather uniform.

	Eventually, after the remains of the buffet had been cleared away,
we were ushered into a nearby theatre/shooting range.  Once all had been
seated, Hengabar Spofulam, Famille Spofulam's hereditary patriarch, walked
to the podium and began his presentation:

	"Are your peasants or indentured labourers revolting?  Yes, of
course they are, but if they're in a state of insurrection against your
justifiably draconian regime, then they're even more revolting!
<chuckles>.  Bad jokes that have been stale since autocracy was invented
aside, however, it is clear that on many worlds, the combination of high
populations, when combined with the ungrateful resentment of justly severe
law levels or rabble-rousing by outside agitators, can lead to
reprehensible rioting and other forms of criminal mob violence.

	Up until now, there has been a relative absence of relatively
inexpensive weapons systems capable of putting a complete stop to riots in
short periods of time.  This lacuna in the law enforcement arsenal of the
Imperium has finally been addressed by Famille Spofulam Armaments.  Ladies
and gentlemen, I give you the OKA-SQ-18X62E(5) Riot Termination System!"

	The curtain behind Mr. Spofulam drew open, revealing a rather large
ammunition hopper feeding a rather hefty-looking multibarreled VRF weapon,
mounted for demonstration purposes on a cutaway turret mount.  50 meters
down-range were arrayed several dozen Imperial Standard Ballistics Testing
Dummies, colloquially known as Juice Bags to industry members, in life-like
poses brandishing placards and spray cans or poised to throw rocks or
primitive incendiary devices.  I quickly scanned the front row with my
opera glasses; there in the front row was one ISBTD bearing a marked
resemblance to Sir Arameth Gridlore of Gridlore Technologies, and wearing a
jacket with the Gridlore Technologies logo.  I turned to my counterpart
from Really Big Guns! magazine, smiled, and collected my 50 credit wager.
To his credit, Higubaa paid up cheerfully.

	Mr. Spofulam strode across the stage to the display, as a press
release kit and weapons data were being uploaded to the audience's
handcomps.  Seating himself at a control panel set up by the weapon, he
donned hearing protectors, and activated the weapon.  The gun's five
barrels quickly spun up to maximum RPM.  Then he depressed the firing stud
and traversed the weapon back and forth across the simulated riot for an
extremely noisy 10 seconds; 33.3 shotgun rounds per second makes a
tremendous din.  Then he ceased fire.

	The devastation wreaked upon the ISBTD's was horrific; not one was
left standing, and those in the front row had been pretty much shredded;
ISBTD Circulatory Fluid Analogue had been spread everywhere and was
dripping down from the range ceiling.  By my calculations, the ISBTD's had
been hit by something in the neighbourhood of 330 shotgun shells; assuming
24 pellets per shell, the OKA-SQ had fired approximately 8000 pellets.  The
delegation from Mu, led by CSP Bodewoyn, leapt to their feet in a standing
ovation"


Name: 		FSA OKA-SQ-18X62E(5) RTS (Riot Termination System).
Damage: 	4 (12).
TL: 		12.
Range:		Medium.
Shots:		4000 (ROF 2000 RPM).
Mass:		76 Kg empty, 246.5 loaded.
Reloads:	243 Kg (4000-round cassette)
Cost:		27860 Cr (includes 1 full cassette; bare gun is 3450).
Reload cost:	20960 Cr.

Notes: benefits from VRF +4 to-hit DM and my house rules give shotguns +2
DM at the cost of increased damage attenuation.  Thus, under my house rules
we're looking at a +6 DM to hit.  My house rules triple the base 1-round
damage rating for VRF weapons, so the 4 damage reflects the damage from a
single round, which as per my previous post I've assumed to be identical to
the 4-damage-dice 18mm shotgun round in the T4 manual.  So, under my house
rules it would do 12 dice against an unarmoured target (splat!), or 3 dice
against a target with armour rated at 3; hence the damage rating of 12.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 08:33:54 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: And lest the pyramid thread distract us...

	...Pathfinder has landed and appears to be in good health.  Maybe
as a species, we are lungfish after all.  Hats off to JPL!


	Re the thread that belongs in alt.tabloid.staples: anyone remember
that cartoon in Omni during the '80's?  Bunch of guys in Egyptian costume
running for it, saying "Look out!  Here comes another one!" as this big
octahedron drops out of the sky..:).  Same guy also did a cartoon;
overseers and slaves lazing around on a pyramid construction site, while
one 12' tall worker lugs a block up the side of the pyramid
single-handedly.  One overseer turns to another and says "You know, we
never could have done it without him".

	Seriously though, I agree with whoever said that if he were god
king of enough slaves and peasants being motivated with whips, he could
have pyramids built too.  'Cept if I were god king of enough slaves and
peasants, I'd build something a little funkier than mere pyramids :).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 08:53:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: MarkPeace@aol.com
Subject: Re: TL of ROM - pyramids

Peter Miller wrote:

> Just to make this Traveller-related, what do you think the current (ie.
> M0) condition of the pyramids are?  Have the Solomani kept them nicely
> preserved.  Today they face destruction from construction projects,
> Cairo's expansion, acid rain, pollution, etc.  I wonder how they fare
> thousands of years into the future...I wonder if they're any closer to
> knowing how they were built...

They're actually mentioned in Travellers Digest 13.

Apparently the Nile River valley is flooded by rising sea levels but some of
the historical sites have been protected by sea walls.  The pyramids are a
major tourist site, and extra sectret passages have been discovered using
densitometers (including a hollow Sphinx).

The sea wall actually gets bombed by dolphins in this adventure and the areas
gets flooded.


Mark Peace

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 10:47:43 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

At 08:28 PM 7/2/97 EST, Jeff wrote:
>
> ...feel free to suggest music that you feel is appropriate.
>  Remember that lyrics aren't an issue; this is something that
>  will generally be played by a military band or a subset of the
>  local Philharmonic or Symphony Orchestra...

Super idea!

SOMEbody's gonna suggest this, so I'll go ahead:  The Imperial March (aka
the Darth Vader theme), from Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back, by John
Williams.  It's got power, presence, and, well, a certain finality to it,
and after all, it IS an Imperial March... ;^)

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 11:25:08 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

>Everything suggested so far has been composed within a timespan of less
>than 200 years. Why would the Third Imperium ever use a 3000 year old piece
>of music? More likely, they would probably have used a relatively
>contemporary piece when originally choosing an Anthem. That's what happened
>with most of the National Anthems on present Earth. So the Third Imperium's
>or the Emperor's Anthem wouldn't probably be older than from -200 at the
>max. It might even have changed several times in history (the Civil War
>being a good bet).

I really don't think anyone is seriously proposing that the 3I (or hell,
even the
ROM for that matter) used a piece of music from a period on a far away planet
3000 years in the past... I got the impression that suggestions being
placed out
here were for appropriate "background music" that could be used by us in
running our games. I would love to get a copy of the actual Imperial Theme,
but a) most of the products of the Sylean Philharmonic are incompatible with 
my current stereo system, and b) my local Blockbuster has a very weak
collection
of music from the Imperium, actually only a couple of pressings of "A Little 
Newt Music" and a large collection of "Marches of the Imperial Marine 
Pipers" in the remainders bin.

>Another point is this: Think about what has happened to (western) music in
>300 years! Music in year 0 or 1100 would probably be completely
>incomprehensible to us now. We might not even recognize it as music. One
>wonders if J.S. Bach would recognize Front 242 (one of my favorites) as
>music at all - my girlfriend has her doubts :-)

See my point above. Yes, using some of the more *cough* _abstract_ pieces
by Cage or Eno or the Butthole Surfers might add a type of authenticity as 
to what "classical" music might be like, but given a choice between 
realism and playability <rimshot> I'll stick with the stuff I can listen to.

>All in all, I think both Traveller and this mailing list has a tendency to
>display not only ethnocentricity, but also 'chronocentricity' (just
>invented the word). This is not to preach political correctness - heck, my
>campaigns too are populated by dominantly white/caucasian/whatever people,
>because that is my frame of reference. It's just that I sometimes catch
>myself in taking such thing for granted, which is actually completely
>unrealistic. It's a damn shame, because I think the game could get much
>more exotic and give a much better SF feel if you could avoid this. Anyone
>else feel they have this problem? What do you do about it?

This has come up several times on the list, and the standard answer (which
I more or less agree with) is that we have to keep it basically a late 20th-
Century Western culture to allow a reasonable amount of functional 
knowledge to be assumed in our players. Yes it is unrealistic, but to make
a realistic 50th century culture would not only be proven to be just as
incorrect over time as assuming that it will look just like 1990's USA, but
also it would require so much time to learn the background and basic 
ways that the world worked since they would be utterly alien to us, that
their would be no time left to play. I agree that many bits of exoticism can
be inserted, but I think that we have to have a basic background much like
our own in order to run the game with as little "jarring" between being your
character and having to think "Ok, now how does this work in the future?"
Plus, having a "modern" (ie. 20th C) culture gives the exotic bits you put
in seem that much more "wonder-full"
 
**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 17:49:30 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

>Ethan Henry wrote:
 
>>OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's
>>easier than you imagine. There's already information that was
>>generated this century that's lost. The media is still good too.
>>It's just that there aren't any media-readers left to read the
>>information! Old tapes from mainframes, this sort of thing.

I don't for a moment suggest that the storage media of Sylea in the Year 0
HAS to be the same as that of Sylea in Year -1800 (though given the history
of the Vilani I could make out a perfectly good case for just that). But I
do think that if the 3rd Imperium had had some exoteric knowledge hidden away 
on an obsolete storage device they could easily have found some way to recover
it. A simple matter of cryptography. Do you really wish to maintain that they
would have any particular difficulty doing that. IMO we're talking a few
months of research. Not 450 years.
 
Kenji Schwarz writes:
>A great example of this, for anyone who's interested in archaeology and its
>discontents, are the "ancient Celtic megaliths" in New England, like the
>"sacrificial altar" at Mystery Hill.  It's been pretty clearly demonstrated
>that these are the remains of 18th-19th century farmhouse foundations, root
>cellars, and heavy tools.  The "sacrifical altar," for example, is a device
>for processing lye into soap, of the sort built in the 19th century.  

Well, it dosen't seem that the knowledge was lost after all since you have it.
What you're talking about is willful ignoring of facts rather than loss of
them.  

>A set
>of stone rings termed a "temple" by pop archaeologists is suspiciously
>similar (well, all but identical) to horse-powered bark mills (for
>producing tanning chemicals) as explained and illustrated in farming
>almanacs and handbooks of the early 1800s.

Books that have survived to this day; knowledge that will survive for
centuries more now that a new book has been written about it. And the day
the book is transferred to a CD it will survive for millenia.
 
Leroy Guatney writes:

> Hans,
> 
>   Let me first say that I did not miss your post either of the (at least)
> two times before.  

Thanks, Leroy, it's nice to know that what you write dosen't just go up in
smoke but is actually read by someone. ;-) 

>The basic idea is that as technology changes, so do the methods of storage, 
>etc.  I'm not saying any of this is on purpose, but that it is accidental.  

>A lot of data is used and then discarded because it becomes too costly to 
>keep, or transfer to the latest storage medium.  It takes a dedicated 
>storage plan to do what you have suggested.

Leaving aside the point that dedicated storage plans is one of the things
that universities and libraries are all about, let me point out that as
technology progresses data storage becomes cheaper. The same politicians
who can't find the millions to restore deteriorating books could easily
find the thousands it takes to press a few CDs. Secondly, by TL 8 non-
volatile electronic storage devices become cheap and plentiful. I'd be a
lot more inclined to believe in the process you mention if we were talking
about a culture that has been down below TL 7 before it started back up.
But Sylea never fell below TL 10.
 
>You may be right, that universities accomplish this, but I don't see any
>evidence today.  Look at the Internet.  Take my web page for example.  I
>have a copy at home--my "development" machine.  The "production" site is
>hosted on one of the numerous computer systems at CU Denver.  Backups are
>taken.  There is no "coherent" system that would allow someone to look
>through the backups and determine that there was this web page dedicated to
>Scouts or High Guard that would be neat to recover and examine the content
>of.

No reflection of your web-page, but it's not really comparable to a technical
manual. It's more comparable to a diary. Nevertheless, you can ensure its
survival for millennia simply be having a CD with it burned. Even copying it
over to a 3.5 diskette will propably work, though the risks of deterioration
are higher.

How many textbooks published in the US, even about now-defunct technologies,
is no longer available in one library or another?
 

>There is a _lot_ of "stuff" out there that is strictly proprietary as well, 
>and would not necessarily be available to a university.  

But how much of that stuff is more than a few decades old? That's one of
the basic points in talking about _mature_ technologies. As I was careful
to point out, experimental TL 13 stuff is OK by me. But if it's experimental,
it's not a basic part of the fabric of RoM. You've heard about industrial
espionage, right? A company might manage to hold onto its secrets if it was
confined to a single world, but I find it hard, devilishly hard, to believe
in a product available across the width and breadth of RoM, yet still so
secret that it could disappear completely.

>Even if you had access to the information, you would not necessarily have 
>the required infrastructure to support it.  Two cases in point: Hub/Ershur, 
>on the same J-1 main as Sylea and not too far from the future 3I capital, 
>is Tech Level 13.  

No it isn't. Well, of course, I have to admit that according to the
"Newest Testament" (or "Testament 4" as it were) it is. But that's IMO
a grievious mistake and for exactly the same reason why RoM cannot have
been TL 13. The same applies to the TL 14 world you mention. Such worlds
are not compatible with the fact that the 3rd Imperium didn't reach TL 13
till 300. And if Marc insists on keeping these paradoxical worlds (as is
his right), I will begin agitating for revising the date when the Imperium
reached TL 13 to, say, 50 or at most 100.

Now, I think that would be a great pity, because one of the points of doing
different milieux is surely to make them different, if you take my meaning.
But that's by the way.

What this assessment really comes down to is "Do we have the tech knowledge?" 
>Then comes, "Do we have the _ability_ to do something with it."  You make 
>the argument in another post that we are talking about the vast economic 
>sphere of the TI.  Well not quite yet.  It is the vast 3I in the formation. 

In Milieu 0, yes. But I'm referring to the (canonical ;-) fact that the 3rd
Imperium didn't reach TL 13 till 300. I have no quarrel with Sylea being
only TL 12 in Year 0, regardless of how high a TL RoM or any neighboring
worlds may have had or have. And I don't regard it as impossible that it 
could take Sylea a few decades to upgrade to any new technology they may
dig up in their archives or "acquire" from some far-off planet. What I do 
not consider plausible (to put it mildly) is that it would take the 3rd 
Imperium 300 years (I'll repeat that: _300 YEARS!_) to implement this 
knowledge. 

(That it could take them 300 years to _discover_ it, well, that may not be 
overwhelmingly plausible either, but as I've pointed out previously, there
appear to be some horrendously difficult research obstacles to surmount
above TL 9 or 10.
 
>I'm not so sure that it is in Cleon's best interests to be raising the tech 
>of Sylea.  

In PE terms it most certainly is. In any terms I can think of, actually. But
I suppose that is the weakest part of my argument. I just can't find it in
my heart to believe that anyone could have an entire spectrum of TL 13
knowledge (not just a few things that may be too expensive, like terra-
forming, or contrary to public opinion, like gengineering, but the whole
enchilada) and not WANT to implement it. As I said before, you can always
come up with one or two technologies with specific reasons why Cleon might
not want or need them, but across the board? Not in my credo, I'm afraid.


I guess that part is an article of faith.

Leonard Erickson writes:
>There are some medieval techniques that can't be duplicated. They were 
>family secrets and when the family died out, the technique was lost.

Yeah, but that wasn't families that delivered their products to a few
thousand planets, was it?

>Scientific knowledge is hard to lose. But the means of implementing it
>(technology) is actually not that well distributed. Every industry has
>trade secrets that will take years to rediscover if the company was
>destroyed. 

I believe you. But would it take 450 years? And how many trade secrets of,
say, 50 years ago are still secret? If a "trade secret" was widespread
enough to affect the general TL of the RoM, do you really think it would
remain a secret for all that long?



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 11:14:30 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

Kenji Schwarz wrote:
>
> (The K'kree, of course -- "Home on the Range")
>
> <duck>

Nah. It's gotta be the old cowboy song, "Don't Fence Me In".

<dives for the same bunker>

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 18:34:44 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Losing technology

Ethan Henry writes:
>OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's easier than 
>you imagine. 

I never said it was impossible. Just very hard. And harder the more it has 
been disseminated.

>There's already information that was generated this century that's lost. 
>The media is still good too.

Contradiction in terms. If the media is still good, then the information isn't
truly lost. It may cost more than anyone is willing to pay today to access it,
but it isn't lost. And do you really think that someone like Zhunastu
Enterprises would hesitate to spend a few megacredits on recovering a lost
technology?

>However a lot of information, especially the really high-tech cutting edge 
>stuff isn't really "written down". 

But the really high-tech cutting edge stuff dosen't remain really high-tech
cutting edge stuff. And IMO any technology that is mature enough to affect
the general TL of the RoM is also spread out across the RoM and written
down in scores and hundreds of places.

>Hm, well... for example, Sylea State might have had a large vacuum
>studies department during the ZS and the RoM. 

No. But they would have all the papers published by every major university up
to, at least, -1800. They would propably have every paper published within a
few dozen parsecs (Like Hub, for instance).

>The RoM falls, space travel dries up to nothing over the next few hundred 
>years. 

No, space _trade_ dries up. That is, sector-wide space trade dries up.

>If there's no space travel, how are you going to justify a budget for the 
>Vacuum Studies dept? 

What budget? A few 100 credits to have the information encoded on a small
metal disc?

>Several hundred years later, when space travel is going along again, sure, 
>the Vacuum Studies dept. will be doing great again, but you don't think 
>they'll have lost a single post-it note? 

They will propably have lost a lot of private web-pages, but they won't have
lost any serious textbooks. They may have to spend a bit of effort to learn
to read the now-obsolete storage media, but it won't cost them much or take 
them very long.

>Also, the Darrians lost TL 16, for the most part. Why can't the Syleans
>lose TL 13? Or 14 even?

First of all, the Darrians lost theirs in a catastrophe. (And there are some
problems with that, actually). Sylea wasn't in a catastrophe. Secondly, Sylea 
lost a couple of TLs in capacity. That's a bit hard to swallow too, but 
that's the way the Traveller Universe works. If your economy deteriorates, 
your technology falls. What I dispute is the notion that 1) The Sylean lost 
the knowledge AND 2) everybody else lost it too.
 
>Also, I think there's a big economic factor inside TL (as you allude to).
>It takes a lot of infrastructure and supporting industries to build
>things like Vacc Suits or any high-tech piece of equipment. While it
>was failing, the RoM probably had a very stable, interstellar high-tech
>infrastructure that wouldn't be duplicated until the mid to late
>Third Imperium. 

I find it highly unlikely that the Ramshackle Empire had a very stable,
interstellar high-tech infrastructure. However, my point is precisely that
Sylea would have the resources to build up any infrastructure it cared to
once it became the center of a vast interstellar empire. So if they didn't
build up their TL to 13 until 300, then it was because they didn't have
the knowledge, not because they didn't have the resources.

>It's the RoM. Imagine a fairly populated vacuum world. 

Yes, any knowledge held only by a single world could plausibly be lost. But
in order to build TL 14 vac suits, that planet would have to draw on a vast
body of TL 13 knowledge. And where did they get that? Did they develop that
too and kept it a secret?

>Anyways, I think you're being too optimistic Hans. The Long Night was
>long, cold, nasty and brutish, to paraphrase someone who'd name I've
>forgotten.

It's not that I'm optimistic. It's that I have a small knowledge of how
propability works. Try a small experiment. Define some chance that the
whole body of common knowledge held by a planet would disappear completely
during the Long Night. Not just be forgotten, but all traces of it actually
lost beyond recovery. Say, a 2 on 2D6. Now roll the dice for every world of 
the RoM (5000?) Or perhaps just the top 10%. If you can roll 500 2s with a
set of true dice, then maybe the knowledge of the RoM could be completely
lost. Heck, say that it would take a 12 to avoid losing the knowledge and
see if that will do it.

The problem isn't only coming up with a reason why any particular planet like
Sylea lost the knowledge, it's coming up with one that wipes it out on _every_
world where it was once available.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1522
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Traveller-digest        Sunday, July 6 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1523



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
re: Tech level loss
Re: 3D Max Damage
Re: Pyramids (was Re: TL of ROM)
Misc. Stuff
re: Pyramids
Re: ROM
Re: TL of RoM
Computer Program Support?
Real Cost of Ship Board Life Support
Re: Education and Schools
Re: Computer Program Support?
Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4
New Psionics Idea
Traveller fiction - Need some info
Re: radio organisms
Re: Radio organisms

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 11:00:05 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

>One thing we might as well resign us to once and for all is that wrt
>scientific progress things don't work the same way in the Traveller
>Universe as they do in the Real World. The massive scientific spurts of
>the Terrans and the Darrians are freak occurences. (Or possibly the Terran
>scientific progress from TL 3 to TL 8/9 is normal enough, but there's a
>"wall" around TL 9/10 which we'll hit soon...

The rationalization I have always used is that technological increases
require exponentially greater investment at higher tech levels.
Lower-technology breakthroughs can be done by individuals or small nations,
but stellar-scale technologies require the combined brainpower and economic
resources of interstellar empires. If there is a hard limit on the speed at
which information can be shared, like 1 week for interstellar travel, then
there will be a point at which further improvement will simply require more
time, no matter what resources are available.

I'm not saying this is really true, but it is certainly plausible for game
purposes. The breakthroughs in optics and mechanics, for example, were
largely done by single individuals. The breakthroughs in nuclear physics
and computers were achieved by a generation of the greatest living
scientists and engineers supported through massive expenditures by the
wealthiest nations on Earth. Why not assume that jump drive and thruster
technology require centuries of effort by entire planets? I can suspend
disbelief for that and it fits Traveller canon. It makes an interesting
game, too, with vast amounts of raw data, scientific equipment, and
engineering prototypes requiring shipment across interstellar distances.
Governments and megacorporations may resort to clandestine research
stations or entire planets working on a single project, while pirates and
hostile governments will be searching for ways to enrich themselves by
stealing the hard work of others.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 97 13:16:52 -0500
From: marcus <uphhsmt@gemini.oscs.montana.edu>
Subject: re: Tech level loss

Hello all;
	There was an editorial in a recent issue of Analog discussing some of the
aspects of technology.  Stan Schmidt offered a corollary to Clark's Law:
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"; the
corollary would be "advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic by
the people who use it."  The ideas presented in the article provide some
insight into how higher tech levels could be lost.  
- --
TANSTAAFL, YCHTBE,

Marcus A. Teter
Dept. of Physics
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59715

uphhsmt@gemini.oscs.montana.edu

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 13:38:04 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage

I found a nice house rule to replace the 3 dice max.  Be warned, it
involves math (eeeekk!!)

Average the PC's STR and END.  Round up.  This is his Damage Limit.  A PC
can take up to his DL from guns and pulse (hand-held) lasers, and up to
3xDL from plasma waepons. DL does not lower with wounds.. it is a measure
of a character's bulk and toughness. Any to-hit roll made by 5 or more will
ignore DL and do full damage -OR- the wea[on does 2xdamage, DL applies.

For example, Joe the Marine has STR 9, DEX 5, and END 12.  His DL is 11.
Fred the Wimp has STR 4, DEX 7, and END 6.  Fred's DL is 5.

Fred and Joe both take hits from an ACR doing 4d damage, and both roll
14pts of damage.  Fred only takes 5, while Joe takes 11.  Since this is the
first wound either has taken, they roll randomly to see what characteristic
is affected.  Joe takes it all on STR, Fred on DEX.  Lucky Fred!

Fred shots back with his small pistol at Pierre the Pirate, and makes his
to hit roll by six (Fred may be a wimp, but he's damn good with a
pistol...)  Pierre normally has a DL of 8, and Fred decides to bypass the
DL.  He rolls a 9 on two dice for damage, putting Pierre down.

I believe this system is a nice compromise, and it it zots those
mega-characters how have "letter" stats in every category; they'll be
sucking more damage!
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 97 22:34 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Pyramids (was Re: TL of ROM)

In-Reply-To: <33BE2362.242A@alaska.net>

Peter,

> Spoiler Warning !!!!
>  
>  
> Spoiler Warning !!!!
>  
>  
> Spoiler Warning !!!!
>  
>  
> Spoiler Warning !!!
>  
>  
> The Terran Psionics institute circa 356-1106 is located inside of the
> Sphinx.  Its leader is really a Zhodani agent.  At the end of the
> adventure incompetant Dolphin construction workers/terrorists working
> underwater on the other side of the nearby seawall bomb a whole in it
> and the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid are flooded.
>  
> I assume that this dammage is fixed by the Imperium and the tourism
> eager Terrans in the next few years but that a similar event occurs
> again 11 years later during the Solomani conquest of Earth.

<in_my_universe>

The damage is repaired within a year or two, and the Institute re-opens 
shortly after. Unknown to most people, it's now under the control of 
INI, who use it to a) train their own agents, and b) monitor who else 
is getting training. In 1113, a new Director is assigned, a Captain 
Gail Knight. Unkown to INI, she was in fact a *SolSec* deep cover 
agent. She remained in this post for nearly 4 years, until her cover 
was blown (spectacularly!) when she, along with 2 other agents, 
attacked the Luna Naval Base prior to the Solomani Fleet's invasion.

</in_my_universe>
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 19:00:03 -0700
From: qwerty <qwerty@spacey.net>
Subject: Misc. Stuff

EMM off
 Hellow fellow TML'ers its time for me to delurk and toss some bombs :)

1. The tech level of the 2nd imperium...
 I can't help but think maybe some people are puting way to much thought
into this.I dont see how a couple of items in a few supplements can
cause the game to come crashing down..To tell the truth it would be very
hard to say any thing is fact and not find some quote from "canon" to
conflict with it. I would rather see good solid adventures,bug free
rules,and more cool supplements than have writers go through hundreds of
conflicting sourcebooks in order to write something that some one will
pick holes in anyway..

2. Mr. Berry
 I must congradulate you on a great Adventure in JTAS. 26. Actually I
think I will use all most everything in that issue at sometime. I like
to see a adventure like this were a pgmp and dex-F means nothing(err..
Almost
nothing).                                                            
3. Nth. InteTML flame war..
Usually 4 or 5 digests a day means the semiweekly flame war is on, I
must say that this has been  so polite that you could hardly call it A
flamewar hopefully this will become normal lord knows I don't want to
see virus part CXX...

4. X-TECH tm.
The X-tech Terran offices are a mere 30 min. away..All I need now is to
see what interest rate the Brevard bank has on starship mortgages:>

                                                 EMM. on
                                           Chris Watson

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 13:18:04 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: Pyramids

Daniel Poulin wrote:

>I intend to have my players encounter a few of these things, can anyone tell
>me where they are located in the Spinward Marches?  Thanks

There's a Pyramid like complex in the CT adventure "Shadows", set on the
planet Yorbund subsector D IIRC.  Someone has the maps online, but I can't
remember who. (Rob Prior?)

Dom

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 13:11:22 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: ROM

Leonard wrote:

>Science is *not* technology. And technology involves a lot of "rule of
>thumb" stuff.

You really have 3 distinct areas of knowledge to consider:

1) Public domain - published papers, journals, reports, books etc.

2) Protected technical documents - patents, copyright designs etc.

and

3) In-house knowledge.

Now (1) will require a careful search of a wide body of material to ensure
that you find what you want. Knowledge of the jargon in the industry will
help here. This is the kind of information you can use your university
library for.

(2) is a smaller body of knowledge, and usually confused by the patent
process, which tends to make definitions unclear through use of legalese.
However, this information is usually obtainable.

(3) is, as Leonard suggests, the killer in trying to recreate technology.
The in-house secrets that give a competitive edge. To give another example:
I work for a company that is developing a flywheel system using composite
technology. The principles of flywheels are known (indeed have been known
for years). The principles of composites are known (although IMO they are
still more of an art than a science). You could give one of our flywheels
to another composite manufacturer, but it wouldn't do much good, as reverse
engineering is nigh impossible. Yes, you could say what materials we use,
and the layout, *but* the actual process is the key to the technology. And
that is the information kept in-house, and the information most likely to
have been lost in the Long Night.

Dom

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 12:45:18 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Leroy wrote:

>Reminds me of those pre-Collapse caches of information the the TNE folks
>put throughout the Diaspora sector.  The name escapes me right now. (Bee
>sounding name?)

The "Jumpstart" programme, initiated in response to the output of Longbow I
or II(?) which ties in to the Empress Wave IIRC.

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 20:07:50 -0400
From: "Richard C.S. Kinne" <phaedrus@dreamscape.com>
Subject: Computer Program Support?

Hello Folks:	1941EDT	9707.05

	I started playing Classic Traveller back in 1980 and I have been
rather excited looking at T4 over the last couple of weeks. In trying to get
back into things (I still have my Classic rules) I've been looking for
computer program support and have been very surprised when I haven't found it.
I find it difficult to believe that Traveller's fans (especially Traveller's
fans) haven't come up with more computer programs to help them.

	I'm specifically looking for Macintosh computer programs that would
assist with generic character creation, starship, and world and star 
system creation.

	I'd also like to find forms, especially Sector Maps, Subsector Maps, 
and World Maps in GIF or JPG format.  

	I have Rob Prior's MegaTraveller Character HyperCard Stack, but I 
was hoping there might be more.  Can anyone give me any pointers?

	Thanks folks!

- --
Richard C.S. "Doc" Kinne
InterNet: phaedrus@dreamscape.com
Home Page: http://www.dreamscape.com/phaedrus/
Quote: "One headline said 'Accused Had Powerful Brain,' so it
	could have been worse, I suppose. But their use of the
	past tense rather worried me."
		-Sir Alan Mathison Turing, O.B.E., commenting 
		 on the headlines after his "gross indecency" 
		 trial, 1952.
		_Breaking the Code_

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 21:22:44 -0400
From: "Michael L. Galligan" <teflonkid@voyager.net>
Subject: Real Cost of Ship Board Life Support

Hello all
	I know I don't post much, but rest assured I keep up with the list. 
Even when it is grinding a subject into the proverbial "particle
accelerator", so bear with my ignorance on this one and help me out if
you can.

	I am running the new module "the long way home", and it occurred to me
that the standard rules for "Starship Economics" would not be of much
use.  First of all, the crew has Imperial Credits.  Very ugly
considering that they are now three subsectors from the nearest Sylean
Bank.  Second, they have a badly bruised starship, the 300 ton extended
voyage scout ship suffered immensely upon impact with the gateway
platform.  Third, they are on a tech level 2 world with no starport.  In
order for the voyage to continue Life support must be replenished. 
There are six crewmen and the ship is built for 8 so I guess
accomidations could be made to have purchased the additional food and
air needed for the voyage.
	Now the question.  Supposedly it costs 2,000 thousand credits for each
crewmember per 2 weeks.  Either they are eating very good or the air is
expensive, or I am missing something ( this is probably the answer).  
	Using my common sense, I think they could muster up some local grub and
pump in air, but what will they do when they get to a system without
breathable oxygen?  Purify what they take out of a gas giant ( if
available)?  And the million dollar game balance question, if that is so
then I see players saving a potential 12k credits per jump.  Even when
they return to the imperium.  Unless of course the answer is to make it
prohibitive in time (how much time?)  

	Ramble mode off, and thanx for any help on these matters.  TeflonKid
out.

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:22:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Education and Schools

In a message dated 97-07-05 08:45:19 EDT, you write:

<< 
 If you make the roll too low (and at 2D, an average person will, on average,

 succeed), it makes the original requirements pointless. I have nothing
against 
 Joe Average going to school, I'm just saying that if Phil Subnormal wants to

 get in, he'll only stand a chance if he has powerful friends/family.
  >>

This is re: Waivers.

On average, Joe Average (777777) will get his first waiver, and progressively
not get future waivers. I think that's fair.


Marc

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 22:24:24 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Computer Program Support?

Richard,

>         I'm specifically looking for Macintosh computer programs that would
> assist with generic character creation, starship, and world and star
> system creation.
> 
>         I'd also like to find forms, especially Sector Maps, Subsector Maps,
> and World Maps in GIF or JPG format.
> 
>         I have Rob Prior's MegaTraveller Character HyperCard Stack, but I
> was hoping there might be more.  Can anyone give me any pointers?

There's a few good sites out there, but I'm not quite sure about their
exact contents.  One you definitely should check out is the Missouri
Archive (http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe/traveller/archive/).  It's got a
tonne of Traveller stuff ranging from PDF (Acrobat) deckplans,
worldmaps, etc. to spreadsheets, programs, fiction and more.

Some of the better files (I thought) that I pulled out of the archive
recently were some wonderful deckplans in Acrobat PDF by Glenn Hoppe of
a Far Trader, and some of the smaller space-only Traveller ships
(launch, etc.).  YOu can of course get PDF versions of QSDS 1.5
(corrected and better laid otu than the T4 rulebook version) as well as
character sheets, referee's screens, and some of the best alternative
rules out there (personal favourite...RPSC!).

Also, as to star system generation, mapping, etc. you'll want to get the
absolute king of all Traveller programs....Galactic 2.2  (just released)
by Jim Vassilakos.   You can fnd the latest version, and bug-fixes at
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv/progs.html  This program ahs tonnes of
official and created Traveller sector data, an excellent way of
inputting your own universes, etc. and is just brilliant, get a hold of
it.

Lastly, another suggestion:  Surf the webring.  Seriously.  I travel
along the Traveller webring every so often an never come back
disappointed, always finding something that catches my interest enough
to be saved, and printed out for inclusion in my big binder of Traveller
stuff :)

Hope I've been of help somewhat...great to have you aboard.
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 19:25:52 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4

I've got an Excel spreadsheet for smallarms design that will spit out
stats for both T4 and TNE (along with CORPS and 'expanded' TNE). It'll
let you select different rates of fire, and even tells you what amount
of recoil they generate, but I find nothing on my old copy of FF&S to
tell me at what point a machine gun or assault rifle becomes an RF or
VRF weapon. Presumably this is in one of the TNE rulebooks, which I
never bothered to buy and are now long out of print.

Accordingly, my questions are severalfold:

1) Since ordinary automatic fire in T4 burns up 5 rounds for each target
attacked, what rate of ammunition consumption constitutes an RF or VRF
weapon?

2) What advantages are conferred by RF or VRF fire, as expressed in T4
stats? Does it do any extra damage? or merely make it easier to hit?
(I've heard to-hit bonuses of +2 and +4 bandied about, respectively).

3) Is there any increase in the weight or expense of an RF/VRF weapon?
And is it possible to create a weapon with variable rates of fire? (You
know -- single-shot, five-round burst, full-auto, Dump The Clip).

4) I presume in the original TNE rules that excessive recoil gave you
minuses to hit. So how many foot-pounds of recoil gives you what minus?
(OK, so it isn't part of the T4 rules... but I shoot and hunt on a
regular basis, and am keenly aware of the effect on your aim of a .338
WinMag....)

Thanks for your help.

- -- Jay Stranahan

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 97 22:50:00 -0500
From: jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com (JEFF ZEITLIN)
Subject: New Psionics Idea

... well, not exactly a new idea, just "new" as in I've never
seen it applied to Traveller before...

I've just been reading A. E. van Vogt's _The_Weapons_Shops_of_
_Isher_, and while psionics in the traditional sense plays no
significant part in the story (a very good one, by the way),
there _is_ an element that could be viewed as "psionic".  Below
I have included the rules for using this element in Traveller.
AEvV called it "callidetic", btw; so shall I.



- - Psionic Talent: Callidetic

Slightly less than one in two hundred people with significant
psionic potential will not show up as having this potential
when tested, and if psionic training is attempted by these
people anyway, the training will not be productive of results.
These people are nevertheless psionically active, and may in
fact be influential.

Callidetic psions are people for whom certain things always seem
to "work out" in their favor.  There is no overt evidence of
psionic activity, and a "traditional" psion will not be able to
detect any psionic involvement in these individuals'
"unbelievable luck".  Nevertheless, it's there, and it _does_
have an impact on the callidetic's life.

Note that callidetic potential _seems_ to exist even among
sentient races in which psionic potential has not been detected,
although it is significantly rarer among these races than among
psionically active races.  The level of acceptance of psionics
in a society does not appear to correlate with the likelihood of
callidetic potential; all apparent correlations have been due to
better reporting among societies with a higher level of
acceptance and integration.

- - Determining Callidetic Potential

The referee should roll the PC's psionic potential normally
(including variations for non-human sophonts - but see below
for non-psionic sophont races). If the result is 9+, it is
possible for the PC to be callidetic. Roll 3D for 18 exactly, no
DMs.  If 18 is rolled, the PC is callidetic, and any testing
will reveal a psionic strength rating of 0 or negligible.

For sophonts with no normal psionic capabilities (for example,
Hivers), roll 18 exactly on 3D, then, if this roll succeeds,
roll for a psionic strength rating as per the normal rules for
humans; if this roll is 11+, roll 3D for 18 exactly. If this
last roll succeeds, the PC is callidetic, with the indicated
psionic strength rating. Otherwise, the character is not
psionic.

- - Using Callidetic Potential

Callidetic potential influences events to favor the character's
aims and goals - but only in a narrow field.  If the character's
callidetic potential exhibits itself in gambling, it will affect
_only_ gambling.  (This prevents it from becoming unbalancing
in the game.)  The referee should secretly determine where the
callidetic potential exhibits itself.  Some suggestions are:
gambling, combat survival, personal interaction/charisma,
ambition, mechanical, computer, electronic, or almost any skill.

Callidetic potential provides a favorable DM on all tasks
related to the area in which the potential expresses itself.
This DM is equal to one-third of the character's psionic
strength rating (PSR/3).  _Don't_ round; instead, apply a
variable DM so that over time it averages out to the required DM
- - a DM of 2.5 should be treated as alternating DMs of 2 and 3.
This rule may optionally be extended (recommended, if the
referee doesn't mind a little extra bookkeeping) to integer DMs
as well, so that a DM of 2 may be played as DMs of 1, 2, 2, 0,
3, 2, 1, 3, 4, ... on successive related tasks, averaging out to
2 over time. This represents the variability of "luck" (and may
include the _very_ rare negative DM - but negative DMs should be
compensated for in reasonably short order.  The average is
everything).

Also, callidetic potential can affect activities that don't
involve specific tasks performed by the character - for example,
a Noble who is a passenger on even a badly maintained ship, who
has callidetic potential expressing itself as "personal
survival" will affect the _engineer's_ roll for a successful
jump - the jump may be successful when otherwise it "shouldn't"
have been, or the results of a misjump will place the ship in a
stellar system (though not the intended destination, perhaps),
fairly close to the mainworld (instead of disabled in the outer
system or in deep space).

Callidetic potential is NOT CONTROLLABLE.  The player has no
control over where it expresses itself.  There is no cost to
using it; it is always active.

Callidetic potential CAN change its mode of expression, under
certain circumstances.  Change is possible under the following
circumstances:

        1. The character is the target of a successful psionic
        assault. Callidetic potential will change its expression
        on a 2D roll of 6+.

        2. The character uses psychoactive drugs (other than
        fast, slow, or medical drug). If the use is under the
        direction of a medical professional, callidetic
        potential will change on a 2D roll of 8+; if it is
        recreational use, on a 2D roll of 7+.  Apply a DM of +1
        for each month in which the character has used these
        drugs (either medically or recreationally) for more than
        ten days.

        3. The character uses fast drug, slow drug, or medical
        drug.  Callidetic potential will change its expression
        on a 2D roll of 9+.

        4. The character enters cold sleep or Low Passage berth.
        Callidetic potential will change its expression on a 2D
        roll of 10+, when the character wakes up.

        5. The character is knocked unconscious by pain or
        physical assault.  Callidetic potential will change its
        mode of expression on a 2D roll of 9+ when the character
        awakens.

        6. The character is "put under", as for a medical or
        surgical procedure, using ordinary means (not fast/
        slow/medical drug, not being hit on the head).
        Callidetic potential will change its expression on a 2D
        roll of 12 when the character awakens.

Callidetic potential is _not_ affected by ordinary sleep.

The Newt character Pawa-ba (_Aliens_Archive_, p77) is an example
of a sophont who probably has callidetic potential, which in
his(?) case expresses itself in business.

Note: It is up to the referee to decide how to make life
interesting in the rare event that two callidetics whose
potentials operate at cross purposes should be involved in the
same scenario.  _All_ callidetic potentials that have a direct
bearing/interest in the scenario should be taken into account.

==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin                                      jeff.zeitlin@execnet.com
- ---
  OLXWin 1.00b  Copy protection:  just say no...

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 00:57:28 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Traveller fiction - Need some info

Hi,

Currently, I'm 3000 words into a traveller story that I hope to send off
to JTAS for possible inclusion there, and I was hoping that somebody on
the TML, with access to vast Traveller libraries could answer me some
questions that I've had come up.

1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?
3)  WHen did Sylea become known as Capital?
4)  What is the major city on Sylea?
5)  What are two spaceports on Sylea?
6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?
7)  What is the extent (ie. into what sectors) of the Imperium in 33?

That's all that came up till know, and I'd be enternally grateful if
some one could answer these blank spots.  Thanks!
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virtually anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutely anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 22:30:49 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Re: radio organisms

>> The species I'm designing are fully amphibian, more at home in the ocean
>> but capable of breathing and crawling about above the water line. Their
>> surface bears electrophores which discharge electricity (under water) for
>> both defence and communication. Would goethite bones be able to store
>> electricity, and thus act as capacitors for these discharges?

> See above. It's almost certainly a non-conductor. Also, electrical
> organs exist in several life-forms and are uniformly *huge*. Producing
> the required charges takes a *lot* of biological energy. An electric
> eel's body is 90% electrical organ!

I am watching this conversation with great interest, as I am attempting
to accomplish much the same thing -- create a believable alien (in this
case, really big buglike critters) that can use shortwave radio
communications to talk to their fellows & send out radar pulses to
detect their enemies. Which is why I am pouncing on this comment.

I just spent a fascinating 4th of July at a party with an electrical
engineer -- a friend's father-in-law -- and he thought the whole idea
was pretty neat. He explained the whole concept of frequency agility (a
LOT more than just hopping around individual frequencies), helped me to
understand the relation of length of antenna to wavelength of frequency
(thought 4 antennae as thick & long as my arm would make magnificent
broad-band transmitters; especially if you can crook them for good
transmission/reception as easily as you could wiggle your fingers), and
even posited on his own that if the Bugs could synchronize their radar
pulses so that they all went out at the same time in one big wave(a
toughie), a group of them could act as a gigantic phased-array radar!

The only stumbling block we ran into was generating the electricity to
do all this great stuff. For the radar burst, he settled on a working
guesstimate of 15,000 watts, operating anywhere from 300 to 3,000Mhz.
The question we ran afoul of was whether or not a creature of ANY size
could generate that much electricity -- even for an average of 1.65
billionths of a second.

Given your apparent knowledge of eel anatomy... what do YOU think? What
do they use? Some kind of biological battery acid? Is it enough to power
a radio... or a 15,000 watt radar dish, assuming you have an eel the
size of a Buick and can increase the EFFECTIVE power by unfurling a
(admittedly crude) radar dish about 2.5m across every time you get POed
at somebody?

- -- Jay Stranahan

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 03:46:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
Subject: Re: Radio organisms

I said:

>> This got me thinking about designing an alien sophont whose bones were made
>> of goethite or some similar organometallic substance.
[snippage]
>> surface bears electrophores which discharge electricity (under water) for
>> both defence and communication. Would goethite bones be able to store
>> electricity, and thus act as capacitors for these discharges?

Leonard replied:

>[snip] It's almost certainly a non-conductor. Also, electrical
>organs exist in several life-forms and are uniformly *huge*. Producing
>the required charges takes a *lot* of biological energy. An electric
>eel's body is 90% electrical organ!

Aha. Now this is just the kind of error-correcting feedback I need. Silly
of me to think a magnetic substance must be a conductor. My sophonts don't
need the electrophores anyway, so I'll probably just drop that idea - the
buggers were getting a little _too_ exotic, anyway.

>> These sophonts have highly evolved electromagnetic senses, used to orient
>> themselves to the geomagnetic field, and to detect the movements of nearby
>> sea creatures in the dark. Over eons of evolution, these senses have been
>> augmented by specialized bone structures that generate and detect
>> electromagnetic signals. Assuming an adult body size of about 1m, or up to
>> 3m with forelegs and hindlegs fully extended, what frequency range would
>> they be sensitive to and capable of transmitting? Would they be more likely
>> to use amplitude modulation or frequency modulation? 
>
>They wouldn't be using EM. They'd be using electric or magnetic
>*fields*, not electromagnetic waves. So wavelength isn't a
>consideration. The electrical senses of the critters on earth are not
>like any sense humans have. They'd sort of "feel" an object at a
>distance by its effect on the electric field they generate. Pulse rates
>are a few per second up to maybe 100. That's *pulses*, not a frequency.

Okay, so you're saying that the aliens' biological radio-receptors couldn't
evolve from prey-detecting electroreceptors (such as those in the bill of
the platypus). Correct? You also seem to imply that geomagnetic homing
senses couldn't evolve into radio senses either. Right? If neither of these
is possible, then do you think radio-senses could evolve naturally, and how
might they work?

Thanks for the feedback, Leonard,

 + GMG +

    -----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------  
                         <pawn@cam.org>
    Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"Nature abhors normality. It can't go too long without a mutant."
                        --Dr Blockhead

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1523
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Traveller-digest        Sunday, July 6 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1524



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

THUDDD 5: Requirements Announcement
Re: Imperium 
Re: Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4
trav chronicle submission queries
[none]
Re: Pyramids
Re: Computer Program Support?
Task System Idea (really Crazy...)
Thoughts on TLs
Re: 3D Max Damage
Galactic's world mapping format
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 00:40:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5: Requirements Announcement

THUDDD 5: July 1997 - Requirements
- ----------------------------------

(From an advertisement run in Sylean Aerospace Journal, Starship
Weekly Observer, the ISBA newsletter, and other shipbuilding
periodicals)

ISBA REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
New THUDDD Competition Announced

A syndicate of leading corporations offering goods and services to
the exceedingly wealthy, in conjunction with the Imperial Ship
Builders Association (ISBA), announces a new THUDDD ship-design
competition.  The winning entrant in this competition, and perhaps
other entrants as well, will receive lucrative contracts to produce
limited runs of their vessels over the coming decade; these vessels
will serve in *highly* visible roles, and could potentially provide
a good deal of free publicity for the firms involved.

The vessel to be produced is a yacht, 300-500 dt, atmosphere-capable,
minimum performance J2/M1, only minimal weaponry (or none at all). 
This is intended as a toy for the wealthy, or as a vessel of state
for political or corporate leaders.

Contact the ISBA THUDDD office for more information, including full
contest rules and complete RFP document.

- ---

Notes and commentary, out of character:

The distinguishing feature of this THUDDD competition is that rather
than the numeric design side, the emphasis will be on the textual
description of the craft, exterior and interior.  Create a vivid
picture in the reader's mind of opulence and luxury; describe the
spaces and how they connect to one another such that role players
will feel that they have really been on board.

The limit for this descriptive section is 2000 words.  I had considered
accepting graphical deckplans and other images, but in the end decided
this would leave out those without the tools or skill to create them.
However, you may embed links to such in the text of your entry, and I will
make the links into operational HTML hyperlinks.

Also, in the interests of fostering right-brain-oriented entries to this
THUDDD, I will provide a sample 400 dt ship design with no description,
which others are free to borrow and detail.

Timeline:

  July  6 (Sunday)   Spec released, design phase begins
  July  8 (Tuesday)  Sample yacht design available
  July 19 (Saturday) Entry deadline
  July 21 (Monday)   Ballots released
  July 26 (Saturday) Voting deadline
  July 29 (Tuesday)  Results announced

As always all entries, questions, comments, and large cash donations
should be addressed to me at <cberry@cinenet.net>.

Good luck with THUDDD 5!

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 01:00:05 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Imperium 

  That was the reason that my first copy ended up in our clubs
library. I pointed this out to some guys who had played the game
to death and they considered it to be a theoretical issue which
was actually built into the game balance. I still feel uncomfortable
about it, though.

        Steven Hudson

>  Well, I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but one thing that
>always bothered us when playing the game was the ability of the Imperial
>player to make appeals to the Emperor.  Now, you might think that the
>penalty of -1 on the victory index for each appeal is enough of a
>disincentive, but one of the perverse things about the game is that if you
>win a war, you lose the peace.  For those not familiar with the game,
>Imperium simulates the series of wars (1st through 9th interstellar)
>between the Terrans and the Imperium - you fight until one side loses, you
>then have a period of peace, and then war starts again.  The side that
>lost the last war gets a larger budget and is better prepared for the next
>war.

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 04:06:44 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4

At 07:25 PM 7/5/97 -0700, JayStr <jaystr@best.com> wrote:
>I've got an Excel spreadsheet for smallarms design that will spit out
>stats for both T4 and TNE (along with CORPS and 'expanded' TNE). It'll
>let you select different rates of fire, and even tells you what amount
>of recoil they generate, but I find nothing on my old copy of FF&S to
>tell me at what point a machine gun or assault rifle becomes an RF or
>VRF weapon. Presumably this is in one of the TNE rulebooks, which I
>never bothered to buy and are now long out of print.
>
>Accordingly, my questions are severalfold:
>
>1) Since ordinary automatic fire in T4 burns up 5 rounds for each target
>attacked, what rate of ammunition consumption constitutes an RF or VRF
>weapon?
>
>2) What advantages are conferred by RF or VRF fire, as expressed in T4
>stats? Does it do any extra damage? or merely make it easier to hit?
>(I've heard to-hit bonuses of +2 and +4 bandied about, respectively).
>
>3) Is there any increase in the weight or expense of an RF/VRF weapon?
>And is it possible to create a weapon with variable rates of fire? (You
>know -- single-shot, five-round burst, full-auto, Dump The Clip).
>
>4) I presume in the original TNE rules that excessive recoil gave you
>minuses to hit. So how many foot-pounds of recoil gives you what minus?
>(OK, so it isn't part of the T4 rules... but I shoot and hunt on a
>regular basis, and am keenly aware of the effect on your aim of a .338
>WinMag....)
>
Jay,

In Guns,Guns,Guns 3rd in the T4 conversions it talks about Autofire which
cover RF and VRF

Except: page 105

Rnds/sec   Rnds/turn  Damage  RoF DM  Weapon Type
<4         <30        1.5x    -1
5-10       30-60      2x      0       
11-20      61-120     2.5x    +1  
21-50      121-300    3x      +2      RF
51+        >300       4x      +4      VRF

ROF is for "sustained" rate of fire.
for more info on Autofire get the book Guns,Guns,Guns by Greg Porter of BTRC.



- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 02:10:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: trav chronicle submission queries

hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
> When sending submissions, I prefer electronic format.

1. Does this mean that plain ol' text files sent via email are okay?

2. If I want to include artwork or diagrams, what data format do you
prefer for these?

3. In the submission guidelines of a recent issue, it says that
unsolicited manuscripts become your property. I object to this
insofar as I may want to make a submissions that I send in
freely available over my homepage or part of some freeware that
I'm developing. What is your policy with respect to this?

4. I'd like for you folks to provide some free ad-space for some of
the traveller-related, fan-authored goodies that are available over
the net. My guess is that it would get traveller-players more net-
aware and could boost the readership of the TML. Any chance that
this will ever happen? Are you looking for an article to address
this?

jimv@empirenet.com

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:01:56 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [none]

David Smart wrote:

>Kenji Schwarz wrote:
>>
>> (The K'kree, of course -- "Home on the Range")
>>
>> <duck>
>
>Nah. It's gotta be the old cowboy song, "Don't Fence Me In".
>
><dives for the same bunker>

Nope. "Wide Open Space" (Uk Band 'Mansun').

<getting crowded in here, isn't it!> ;-)

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 10:39:53 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Pyramids

Peter Newman wrote:

>Therefore we know that the Great Pyramid is in good shape in Milieu 1100
>but it is a referee call as to what kind of shape it is in in Milieu 0.
>You could argue that it would be in poorer due to The Long Night or you
>could assume that local tourism alone would generate enough money to
>make restoring the Great Pyramid financially viable.

I would think that the state of the Pyramid wouldn't be too bad; Terra did
not suffer a collapse in interstellar trade over the Long Night, just a
contraction. The Old Earth Union maintained trade in the local stellar area
(see Solomani and Aslan for more details). I would assume that the tourism
value of the old 'wonders of the world' would be high, especially if an
anti-Vilani attitude was developing on Terra. {Arguing that the reason the
RoM collapsed was the Vilani inertia to new ideas!} Maybe the Pyramids
would be used as an example or symbol of the lasting achievements that
mankind can achieve if it tries.

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"You may not recall the moment you asked me, but your
invitation was clear. You'll pretend you never met me,
but it's far too late now I'm here." Hogarth/Helmer

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 11:24:22 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Computer Program Support?

Peter Miller wrote:

>Also, as to star system generation, mapping, etc. you'll want to get the
>absolute king of all Traveller programs....Galactic 2.2  (just released)
>by Jim Vassilakos.   You can fnd the latest version, and bug-fixes at
>http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv/progs.html  This program ahs tonnes of
>official and created Traveller sector data, an excellent way of
>inputting your own universes, etc. and is just brilliant, get a hold of
>it.

Isn't this a PC program, not a Mac one?

I'd recommend revisiting Rob Prior's site
(http://www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/software.html)
and downloading Metator and IGS (Imperial Grand Survey). The former
generates systems (either expands them or from scratch) and the latter is a
star mapping utility.

Also - try visiting David Burden's site - (http://www.ftech.net/~innocom)
and downloading Atlas V0.3. To run it you'll need to obtain the demo of
MagicMac from (http://www.emulation.net/atarist/index.html) to allow you to
emulate an Atari ST (about 10x faster than the original beast). This
program should load DGP data files without any problems (I have had
problems with the carriage return format differences on the Mac and PC/ST).
It runs fine in 256 colours. Only problem (for me) is that the emulator's
menus are in German... Atlas is a mapping/atlas program!

Later

Dom

- --------------- Dom Mooney (dom@cybergoths.u-net.com)---------------
"The realm of real space combat will be one of computers, not men. At
nanosecond speeds, no mere human mind can begin to asimilate the needed
data fast enough to match trajectories, lock on, fire, and run defenses.
Warfare in the high frontier will be a duel of wits and shifting
strategies, punctured by instantaneous destruction. The human element is
reduced to intuition, strategy, or freeze dried hamburger"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  p46/Deep Space/Cyberpunk 2020  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       The best Traveller Supplement that wasn't....

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 02:55:01 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Task System Idea (really Crazy...)

I was thinking (ooh... Scary, eh?)...

For short number of divisions, 3d6 system, only math on fly is addition or
recalc of attribute...

Att     Easy    Avg     Diff    Form    Stag    Imp
X       x2      x1      x1/2    x1/3    x1/4    x1/5

Round Down
Roll 3d6 for (att x difmod)+skill or less on 3d6.
Crit Fail is any fail by 10+ or natural 18
Crit Success is any success by 10 or natural 3
17 always fails; 4 always succeeds

Att     Easy    Avg     Diff    Form    Stag    Imp
0       0       0       0       0       0       0
1       2       1       0       0       0       0
2       4       2       1       0       0       0
3       6       3       1       1       0       0
4       8       4       2       1       1       0
5       10      5       2       1       1       1
6       12      6       3       2       1       1
7       14      7       3       2       1       1
8       16      8       4       2       2       1
9       **      9       4       3       2       1
10      **      10      5       3       2       2
11      **      11      5       3       2       2
12      **      12      6       4       3       2
13      **      13      6       4       3       2
14      **      14      7       4       3       2
15      **      15      7       5       3       2

**: Autofail on 17+, Critfail on 18+.
Unskilled: Increase 1 difficulty level.
Jack: Increase 1 difficulty level, and add JOT/2

Good Odds.... at easy tasks. Rough at high difficulties.

Just a wild idea... Would like some feedback.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Sun,  6 Jul 97 10:49:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Thoughts on TLs

On Sat, 5 Jul 1997 17:49:30, rancke@diku.dk Wrote...

	Hans, this is not a flame, but it's growing increasingly obvious that
not only are you unfamiliar with the subject at hand, but that you are also
almost clueless.  I repeat, this is not a flame, let me explain.  I'll use an
example, Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, better known from the
deliberately misinformed and willfully ignorant Press as Star Wars.

	When President Reagan first proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) there were many elements in the Scientific Community that wet their
collective pants at the idea of Self Defense Against Nuclear Weapons!!!  So
they promptly attempted to shoot it down by showing why it wouldn't work.
	More armor on the rockets - absorb more incomming energy
	Spin the rockets in flight - dissipate more incomming energy
	Disperse the launch sites - greater range of flight paths to defend
against.
	And there were more, all sounding increasingly impractical even to a
layman, never mind a Reporter. ;)

	Now all of these SOUND good... until you talk to the experts in the
field.  I only saw one Reporter for a major (US) Network do this.  I never saw
him on TV ever again, make of that what you will.  The experts agreed that the
above were good physics, but impractical given the technology in use at the
time.  And keep in mind that US balistic missile technology was at least a
decade ahead of Soviet technology so if we couldn't do they certainly could not
either. ;)

	More armor on the rockets - absorb more incomming energy
	Do you have any idea of how HARD it is to get the bloody rocket up off
the pad in the first place?!?  And you want to make it even harder?!?  I read
one aerospace engineer gave a ratio of 10 to 1 for rockets.  Ie. 10 pounds of
fuel for every pound of payload, and this was an ideal world, this gets
expensive real quick!  No engineer at NASA or in military aerospace took this
seriously.  They called it a "High School Physics" idea.

	Spin the rockets in flight - dissipate more incomming energy
	Do you have any idea of how unstable your average rocket is in the
first place?  And you want to make it even MORE unstable?!?  NASA engineers
said point blank that they couldn't do it and guarantee more then one in TWENTY
launches would be successful.  Military aerospace types laughed outloud at this
one, in fact a couple of AF types said they HOPED the Soviets would do it
because then the US wouldn't need SDI.  Another "High School Physics" idea.

	Disperse the launch sites - greater range of flight paths to defend
against.
	This one was emminently doable, problem was it would have required the
Soviets to restructure their entire Strategic Missile program and about a
decade of infrastructure investment to pull it off.  In the end this was termed
yet another "High School Physics" idea.

	See what I'm getting at here?  Your points SOUND good, and in abstract
theory are valid.  But if you have any depth in the field it becomes obvious
you're dead wrong. ;) Let me continue...

>> You may be right, that universities accomplish this, but I don't see any
>> evidence today.  Look at the Internet.  Take my web page for example.  I
>> have a copy at home--my "development" machine.  The "production" site is
>> hosted on one of the numerous computer systems at CU Denver.  Backups are
>> taken.  There is no "coherent" system that would allow someone to look
>> through the backups and determine that there was this web page dedicated
>> to Scouts or High Guard that would be neat to recover and examine the
>> content of.
> No reflection of your web-page, but it's not really comparable to a
> technical manual. It's more comparable to a diary. Nevertheless, you can
> ensure its survival for millennia simply be having a CD with it burned.
> Even copying it over to a 3.5 diskette will propably work, though the
> risks of deterioration are higher.
	<SIGH> Go back and read what the first poster said Very Carefully ;)
because what he's talking about is a technical issue of how major institution
archive their DATA.  When you're talking about Large Quantities of Data you
lose the ability to find individual bits of information in the DATA.  Let's go
with another example...

	You are in a warehouse with 4,000,000 printed pages in tens of
thousands of books.  I'll be kind, the books are on shelves but there is no
organization to them.  On one shelf you have a repair manual for tractors next
to a cookbook next to a computer manual for the Apple II next to the Kama Sutra
next to a spy novel next to a romance novel next to a... ;) You get the idea,
it's random.  Now you KNOW that somewhere in this Warehouse of books is one
book with a chapter on... Oh Making Film for exposure and thus film negatives.
	Now go find that chapter!  Little daunted by the task are we?  You are
literally going to have to go through EACH BOOK IN TURN to find that Chapter.
It's going to take you forever, there are tens of thousands of books in this
warehouse alone!  This is the problem the first poster was trying to explain
and that you missed.  Fine, you have the DATA, and a LOT of OTHER DATA too.
Finding the specific items you want, the Information in the Data, is nigh unto
impossible unless... you organize it. ;)
	HOW you do that is one of the major problems in the Information
Sciences right now and we're really not getting anywhere very fast in terms of
solving it. :(

>> There is a _lot_ of "stuff" out there that is strictly proprietary as
>> well, and would not necessarily be available to a university.
> But how much of that stuff is more than a few decades old? That's one of
> the basic points in talking about _mature_ technologies. As I was careful
> to point out, experimental TL 13 stuff is OK by me. But if it's
> experimental, it's not a basic part of the fabric of RoM. You've heard
> about industrial espionage, right? A company might manage to hold onto its
> secrets if it was confined to a single world, but I find it hard,
> devilishly hard, to believe in a product available across the width and
> breadth of RoM, yet still so secret that it could disappear completely.
	Okay, unless you've been involved in this in some way it is rather hard
to understand the impact of proprietary information and/or technologies.
Another example okay... ;)
	Few people are aware that the Coka-Cola Inc. is based entirely off a
Trade Secret, proprietary information essentially.  Only a handful of
technicians in a vault (I kid you not, Coke is very proud of that Vault) know
how to make the "recipe" the syrup that is Coka-Cola and has that Coke "taste"
95% of the world can identify blindfolded.  I'm not joking about the 95% part
BTW, this has been tested, repeatedly.
	So what happens if the technicians, well... "forget" how to make the
syrup?  Well believe it or not back in the early twenties it happened because
the chief technician dropped dead of a heart attack.  None of the other
technicians had ever seen the whole process straight through.  Well they
kludged it together, each technician had seen enough pieces to put the whole
thing together, but the "taste" of Coka-Cola _changed_ for about a year as they
struggled to figure out EXACTLY when the now dead Chief Technician had done to
get the right "taste."
	Now the Coke formula is a "Trade Secret" which means that if anyone can
figure out how to make it they can.  Coke never has had a patent on the process
because OC patents do run out and then competators move in. ;) So right after
the Iranian revolution, the new Iranian government had something like
50,000,000 empty bottles of Coke and all that nationalized bottling and
distribution infrastructure in place.  Problem was they didn't have the syrup,
the proprietary product/Trade Secret stuff.  Well they did try to duplicate the
syrup, I mean they had a plant and the ratios, formulas and all the rest of it
in hand.  Easy right?  Piece of cake??  I mean they've even got samples to
reverse engineer from for Heaven's Sake!!!
	Nope, they failed, just couldn't do it.  And they sunk quite a bit of
tallent and effort into doing it too.  So has Pepsi, which publicly admits they
STILL haven't figured out how to clone that bloody Syrup!  And Pepsi's been
trying for DECADES!!!  And if you want to talk about industrial espionage... it
doesn't get much hotter, ruthless or brutal then it does between Coke and
Pepsi. ;) These guys are out to Destroy the competition and dominate the
WORLD!!!!!  Soft Drink market that is. <grin>
	Now Coke has been around for what, just over a century at this point?
And if they can do it, and they have, then I suspect that other have and will
do so into the future.  Which kind of blows your generalization out of the
water. ;)

> In Milieu 0, yes. But I'm referring to the (canonical ;-) fact that
> the 3rd Imperium didn't reach TL 13 till 300. I have no quarrel with
> Sylea being only TL 12 in Year 0, regardless of how high a TL RoM or
> any neighboring worlds may have had or have. And I don't regard it as
> impossible that it could take Sylea a few decades to upgrade to any new
> technology they may dig up in their archives or "acquire" from some
> far-off planet. What I do not consider plausible (to put it mildly) is
> that it would take the 3rd Imperium 300 years (I'll repeat that: _300
> YEARS!_) to implement this knowledge.
	I agree with you here 1,000% since it's utterly ridiculous!  The ONLY
explaination that I can make work in my own mind that makes sense is the bloody
Vilani technophobia.  Marc has repeatedly stated that the 3I is most Vilani in
population, therefore my guess is that the inherient cultural conservatism is
what slows everything down.  Though a case could be made for sheer inertia in
the infrastructure too.
	Take the automobile of late Twentieth century Earth FoEx.  Switching to
another fuel source would have tremendously positive environmental impact.
There are a couple of really good alternative fuel systems now available too.
Hydrogen, Natural Gas, heck the Brazilians use high octane wood alcohol for
huge chunks of their economy and made it work.  We KNOW we need to change it,
but we just don't.
	Why?  Because a LOT of people are making a LOT of money off the way
things are currently.  Also switching over to a new fuel base would require an
enormous investment of re/building a new infrastructure to support it.  No one
wants to bet the company on hydrogen if natural gas is going to be the winner.
So the infrastructure remains the same and "progress" gets stalled.
	Look at what's happened in the US Telecom sector.  The
Telecommunictions Act of 95 basically turned it into a free unregulated market.
Everyone predicted a bloodbath as new technologies took over and older
companies either adapted or died!  Two year later what have we got?  Everyone's
raised their prices and they snipe at each other, but nothing's really changed.
Too much risk for anyone to make the attempt.  This MIGHT be the restraining
factor that cause TL changes to take so long.  But there are problems with it.
;)

	Please don't take any of the above as a flame Hans, I normally look
forward to your post as very well thought out and highly intelligent.  It's
just this time...  ::shrug::

Stephen

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 07:55:01 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage

Doug Berry wrote:

>
>I found a nice house rule to replace the 3 dice max.  Be warned, it
>involves math (eeeekk!!)
>
>Average the PC's STR and END.  Round up.  This is his Damage Limit.  A PC
>can take up to his DL from guns and pulse (hand-held) lasers, and up to
>3xDL from plasma waepons. DL does not lower with wounds.. it is a measure
>of a character's bulk and toughness. Any to-hit roll made by 5 or more will
>ignore DL and do full damage -OR- the wea[on does 2xdamage, DL applies.
[snip]
>I believe this system is a nice compromise, and it it zots those
>mega-characters how have "letter" stats in every category; they'll be
>sucking more damage!


	Interesting... the thing is is that I dunno how this works in real
life.  In your example, I doubt that Joe Marine is actually physically
twice Fred Wimpy's size and bulk (which is why he takes more damage) but
his DL is more  than twice Fred's.  Maybe averaging the rounded-up square
roots of their stats and adding the rounded-up square root of the average,
with a minimum of 3 dice anyhow?

	I'm visualizing something like this:

[sqrt(STR)+sqrt(DEX)+sqrt(End) all rounded up]/3=x.

x+sqrt(x) rounded up = DL(raw)

if DL(raw)<3 then DL=3
if DL(raw) is equal to or greater than 3, Dl(raw)=DL

	I haven't time to run any numbers; I'll try this PM.

	This feels just a little less extreme.  My own personal solution to
this whole question was to simply increase the 3 dice max damage to 4 dice,
and to have it as a special case only for mere vanilla non-explosive or
otherwise non-exotic slug rounds; shotguns and explosions and plasma guns
and lasers and so forth do their full damage rating.

	My rationale?  Apparently, getting shot really ruins your day ;).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 09:23:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Subject: Galactic's world mapping format

Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes on the TML:
> What format is Galactic saving those world maps in... I'd like
> to print them & transfer them to .gifs for my web pages.

Galactic uses a subsidiary program called Hexworld to do its world
mapping. You can enter Hexworld by hitting F4 on the subsector map.
Hexworld saves it's maps in a coded text format, and it puts these
maps in the <galaxy>\<sector>\hex directory, using p<hex#>.hex as
the file name. Just to show an example of one of these files,
here's var1\gythios\hex\p2638.hex:

Thorp
GGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGPGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
PGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGPGGGGGGDGGGDGGG
GGGGGGDDDGDDGGGGGGGGDJJDDDGGPGGGGGDJJDGDDDPPGGGGGDJJDDJDGDJJJJJDDDGGPP
GDJJJJJJJDGGGPGDDDJDDJBJDGGGGGGGDDGDJJDGGGGGGGGGDDDDDGGGPGGGGGGGGGGGGG
PPGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGPGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGPGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGGGP
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGPGGGGGGGGGGGGGPPGGGGGGGGGGGG
Start at hex 149 
150 Downport:thorp1.txt

The first line, "Thorp", is the name of the world. The next seven lines
each contain seventy characters, comprising a total of 490 characters
when taken all together. These 490 characters represent the colors of
each of the various hexes on the map (there being a total of 490 hexes
on the map). The colors are coded as follows:

    A  Black    E  Red       I  Dark Grey     M  Light Red
    B  Blue     F  Magenta   J  Light Blue    N  Light Magenta
    C  Green    G  Brown     K  Light Green   O  Light Yellow
    D  Cyan     H  White     L  Light Cyan    P  Bright White

The natural question, of course, is which hex is which? You can figure
this out by going into Hexworld (by using F4 from the subsector map) and
hitting the F1 key once you are there. There should be a little
"Hex:000" on the left side of the map display. The "000" part will keep
changing as you move around the map using the arrow keys. In this way,
you can get a feel for the ordering of how the hexes are numbered.

Just as a hint, it starts out as something like this:

           29
       15   30
   01   16   31
    02   17   32
     03   18   33
      04   19   34
       05   20   35
        06   21   36
         07   22   37
          08   23   38
           09   24   39
            10   25   40
             11   26   etc...
              12   27   etc...
               13   28 
                14

The next line, "Start at hex 149", tells the program where to initially
locate the circle that you use to move around the map.

"150 Downport:thorp1.txt" simply writes "Downport" at hex #150 and
attaches "thorp1.txt" to that location. You can put quite a few of these
location markers on the map, and they don't all have to have files or
menus attached.

If you're looking for an easy way to turn these Hexworld maps into gifs,
there are a couple different techniques you can try out:

Henrique Vianna (snoopy@ufpel.tche.br) has written a program called
"Capture It!", which is a screen-capturing utility that runs in the
background under DOS as a terminate-and-stay-resident program.
"Capture It!" is available at the SimTel archive:

 ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/pub/simtelnet/msdos/screen/capture22.zip

Included in the package is a program that converts the screen
captures to GIF format. From there, you can probably load your
GIFs into some paint-program and do your printing that way.

Another method is to use the grab.com and graphcnv.exe utilities,
which are part of the WordPerfect 5.1 package (they probably exist
in some other versions as well). If you have WP51, type "grab /h"
and "graphcnv /h" for more information.

Yet another method, which nearly everyone has at their disposal, is
to access Galactic via a DOS-Window from Windows, then to take a
screen capture via the Alt-PrintScreen function, and then to
Edit/Paste the map into some other Windows program. If you have an image
editing program such as Corel or Paint Show Pro, that would probably do
the job and should even let you convert the map into one of the various
standard image formats, but if you're just looking to print the map, you
could probably just paste it into "Write", which is under the
"Accessories" program group, and use the print function from there.

If you come up with any other methods which you think are pretty
straight-forward and fairly accessible for most people, please let
me know about them. Also, if you happen to know a lot about GIF-encoding
and want to write another program to handle all this (for instance, a
program that Hexworld could call to transfer the map into gif or bmp or
even jpg format) let me know. I'll be happy to assist in any way I can.

jimv@empirenet.com

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 18:49:45 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Scott Ellsworth wrote:

> At 04:43 PM 7/2/97 +0200, you wrote:
> >On Fri, 27 Jun 1997 FarFuture@AOL.com wrote:
> ...
> >> Prereq for Univerrsity, Mechant Academy and Military Academy is now Int 8+
> >> and Edu 6+.
> >
> The M0 society does seem to have a fairly aggressive understanding of Rank
> Has Its Privileges.  My group is now debating just how far they want to
> extend this, but it is clear that 3I society is in no way egalitarian, save
> that the Emperor may choose to elevate anyone, plus there are implications
> that important jobs will also tend to get the holder elevated.

I understand this, but keeping people from attending college on basis of
grade average or entrance test results is in my view not going to happend
in the 3I. The excistence of Internet colleges, low status colleges and 
so on would ensure, in my view, that everybody has the oppurtonity.

> I would actually be surprised.  Look at the fraction of life that many
> people spend now in education of arguable merit.  I suspect instead that a
> wealthy society would have a higher baseline of facts at each educational
> level, but that there would still be levels, and that they would be a
> limited resource.  Figure that TL12 can probably put more in grade school,
> if they desire to, than we do in an entire undergraduate education.  That
> still might not mean that everyone would have the same number of years.

I agree somewhat, but the way its becoming here in Norway is that
everybody gets the oppurtonity to attend university, supplimentery 
education for people that work becomes more and more common, all financed
by the state. Today here in Norway there is so many overqualified people
that getting unskilled workers is almost impossible. The only way to get a
job is to get an education, and everybody does that. You then have a
spiral that never ends.

> 
> My suspicion is that they could afford to educate everyone forever, but
> that they cannot afford people not working and producing stuff for most of
> their lives.  (I conclude this because of the heavy usage of people in
> menial jobs, repetitive jobs, and advanced jobs.  If they need to have a
> human loading cargo, then it is cheaper to use a human than to use a robot.)
> 

Ok, I follow your aguments, but I disagree. As I said above, it soon
becomes dificult to get unskilled workers, so you hire educated ones.
The ones that don't get other jobs. But since everybody wants to 
become a sucsess, and education is the only way to get it, and with 
education, again in my view, being a very easly accesable commodity,
everybody will try to finish or atleast attend college. Even do they 
get a terrible poit average, they still have the degree.

> Scott
> Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
> "When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
> results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
> "The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams
> 

Tommy Grav                  tommy.grav@astro.uio.no    
Institute of Astrophysics   http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/
University in Oslo          "If you value your lives, be somwhere 
Norway                       else!" - Ambassador Delenn B5 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1524
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Traveller-digest        Sunday, July 6 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1525



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Re: Computer Program Support?
re: loss of technology and data
Higher Education
Towards common algorithms for Traveller
re: Imperium
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Second Careers and the Draft...

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 19:00:49 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Tommy Grav wrote:
>  
> > I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
> > way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
> > a human right. I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
> > in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
> > university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.
> > In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
> > but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.
> > 
> 
> Not to get into a cultural flamewar here, but it's my RIGHT to go to the
> Naval academy???

You are possibly right.

> 
> I suppose anyone on the street in Oslo can walk in and get admitted to the
> Institute of Astrophysics with no entrance exams at all, right? Even
> people who need to take their shoes off to count above ten?

Actually all you have to do is finish our equivalent of high school. 
The state which runs the universities has insured that eveyone applying
for a matematical institute is going to get a place at one of the
universities in Norway. This is not true yet for all types of study, but
it is goin that way.

> 
> (Begins to sound like the Tom Lehrer routine about "Not only has the Army
> stopped discriminating on the basis of race, creed or color, but on the
> basis of ability, as well")
> 
> Remember, this is a society with hereditary noble classes. I doubt there's
> universal guaranteed college education.

Why not? The nobles has no interest in who gets the education, and
information is a very accesiable commodity. 

> 
> Why except medical school? I'm sure that if you're willing to fly on a
> starship astrogated by someone with a 3 INT, you won't mind at all
> getting operated on by a Doctor who can't count to ten either!

Have I said that I would fly on a starship with a INT 3 astrogator. No.
But there will certainly be astrogators in the 3I with INT3 and a really
lousy grade in Astrogation 101 at the Sylean University. Being a doctor is
in my view something different and something the state will be more keen
on controlling.

> 
> The utility of higher education to any individual in any society is
> directly proportional to the economic vale of that education over that of
> not getting said education. This is a prolix way of saying, if you can get
> a good, steady, well-paying job without having to have a college
> education, then the universal access is less important. If, on the other
> hand, as you see some places, you need a degree before they'll hire you to
> sort the mail, then it's very necessary.

Agreed, and in a high technology empire this would be the case, again in
my view.

> 
> Finally, coming from a land-grant college where state law mandates that
> the colleges accept any state resident who graduates in the top 75% of
> their high school class, I really resent your snide implication that
> Americans (Alone amongst the 'civilized' world, of course) are somehow
> exclusionary about who can and cannot go to college.

Sorry to have stepped on ypur toes, but what of the 25% that still managed 
to get through high school. In a nation, like Norway, all they have the
chance of doing is sorting mail or washing dishes. Therefore to give all
the chance to show that they are worth something, everybody gets the
chance for a higher education.

 > 
> Bruce Johnson
> University of Arizona
> College of Pharmacy
> Information Technology Group
> 
> Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs 

Tommy Grav                  tommy.grav@astro.uio.no    
Institute of Astrophysics   http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/
University in Oslo          "If you value your lives, be somwhere 
Norway                       else!" - Ambassador Delenn B5 

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 19:22:42 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Nick Munn wrote:

> Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no> writes:
> 
> [TMM:]
> 
> > I think this is a very american, "land of the free, home of the brave",
> > way of thinking. Education is not a privilege for the intelligent, but 
> > a human right.
> 
> The Third Imperium is not actually big on human rights... free market 
> economics predominates, and local governments can do whatever they 
> like on their own turf.

Just to start of. Free market economics does not in any way exclude human
rights. And as far as I have gotten understood, there is not to many 
dictators ruling in the Imperium, except for Cleon of course.

> 
> I'd say education was a privilege for anyone who gets it, and the 
> "right" to education is balanced by a duty to take education 
> seriously, which many simply don't do.  I don't believe Syleans would 
> be much different.

Why. But were do you draw the line. I think that higher education is
getting more and more accesible as the need for unskilled workers
decline and our social welfare increases. Why exclude big portions from 
college and universities, making them unhappy, when giving them the
chance to attend some classes will keep them happy. The right to education
can also be used to squeal social unrest. And in the 3I Cleon needs to
keep the social unrest down.

> Like it or not, a college education requires some background in 
> learning (EDU) and enough INT to understand the necessary concepts.
> I must admit INT A for a technical school seems a bit high -- I'm 
> thinking car mechanic school, not aero engineering or MIT -- but I 
> haven't seen the explanatory text.

I disagree and agree. Getting a good college education depends on INT,
but attending higher education shoul, in my view, be based on EDU alone.

> 
> > I would think that a soceity as wealthy as we have
> > in Milieu 0 would give everybody the oppurtonity to attend college,
> > university or other schools, with an exception of medical school.
> 
> Two points: firstly, money will be spent only where it does good, and 
> if Sylean society doesn't hold with the value of education for all, 
> it won't happen.  Secondly, much education will be available in the 
> home via vid-screen, rather than at college per se, and so colleges 
> might become even more elitist institutions than many are at present:
> many are part-time students, and few are full-time.

But still, all will have the chance to attend, which is my point. As we
have no way of knowing how college will work three thousand years from now
on an alien planet, will have to look at the qualitative prerequests for
attendance, which in my view should only be based on EDU. 

> 
> > In my humble opinion you should ditch the INT prereqeust for school
> > but characters need the degrees from lower schools to attend.
> 
> Sad to say, there is a minimum intelligence required to cope with a 
> certain level of schooling -- you're putting it at INT 1, I'd put it 
> at rather higher levels... INT 6 or 7 for a degree in the UK, even 
> given our rather devalued university system.
> 

Yes cope, but why should this affect attendance, just the students ability
to finish a degree and what grade he finishes with. But this is off course
also dependent on the time used, the whole hartedness of his/her attempt,
the quality of the teachers, luck and so on. A INT 1 student could still
get a great grade at college, if everything works in his/her favor, while
a INT 15 student could wash out of college during the first month.  

> I disagree whole-heartedly.
> 
> Nick
> 
> 
> Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
> Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk
> 

Tommy Grav                  tommy.grav@astro.uio.no    
Institute of Astrophysics   http://www.uio.no/~tommygr/
University in Oslo          "If you value your lives, be somwhere 
Norway                       else!" - Ambassador Delenn B5 

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 13:40:46 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Computer Program Support?

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Peter Miller wrote:
> 
> >Also, as to star system generation, mapping, etc. you'll want to get the
> >absolute king of all Traveller programs....Galactic 2.2  (just released)
> >by Jim Vassilakos.   You can fnd the latest version, and bug-fixes at
> >http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv/progs.html  This program ahs tonnes of
> >official and created Traveller sector data, an excellent way of
> >inputting your own universes, etc. and is just brilliant, get a hold of
> >it.
> 
> Isn't this a PC program, not a Mac one?

Oops!  My mistake.  Yes, Galactic is a PC program. Sorry,

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 13:08:44 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: loss of technology and data

>You may be right, that universities accomplish this, but I don't see any
>evidence today.  Look at the Internet.  Take my web page for example.  I
>have a copy at home--my "development" machine.  The "production" site is
>hosted on one of the numerous computer systems at CU Denver.  Backups are
>taken.  There is no "coherent" system that would allow someone to look
>through the backups and determine that there was this web page dedicated to
>Scouts or High Guard that would be neat to recover and examine the content
>of.

Actually, there are a couple of organizations working to archive the world-wide
web. Needless to say they can't keep up with daily changes, but stuff that's up
for a few weeks will in fact get permanantly stored, and with modern search
engines it would be easy to find Leroy's page.

Next example?

Bruce

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 97 15:27:32 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Higher Education

On 07/06/97 at 07:00 PM,  Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no> said:

>> Finally, coming from a land-grant college where state law mandates that
>> the colleges accept any state resident who graduates in the top 75% of
>> their high school class, I really resent your snide implication that
>> Americans (Alone amongst the 'civilized' world, of course) are somehow
>> exclusionary about who can and cannot go to college.

>Sorry to have stepped on ypur toes, but what of the 25% that still managed
> to get through high school. In a nation, like Norway, all they have the
>chance of doing is sorting mail or washing dishes. Therefore to give all
>the chance to show that they are worth something, everybody gets the
>chance for a higher education.

Tommy, everyone gets a *chance* at higher education here as well.  We have
several hundred 2 year Junior or Community Colleges scattered across the
states and most of these have an "open" admissions policy. Some states
provide this education as a state service, others charge a tuition (a
common American belief is that "anything that costs nothing is worth
nothing, or as one of our authors said TANSTAAFL), but insure that there
are grant and loan systems in place to help the students pay for their
education.  

I teach at one of these colleges, Tommy, and our mission is to provide
quality education for the *entire* community.  Like other Community
Colleges we accept any high school graduate, and in our case non-graduates
who can enter our Adult High and preparatory programs to get their high
school or equivalence degrees.  Tommy, we take it as our responsibility to
provide whatever remediation in the basic subjects the student may require
to become successful, and for some students that is very difficult.  We
provide continuing and professional development education in a large number
of subjects to the general public.  We also provide a wide variety of
technical and trade programs for students that desire a rapid path to an
employable skill.  And that's not all!

Community Colleges are not simply technical or trade schools, Tommy.
Through our academic programs, leading to an Associate of Arts degrees, we
act as extended rampways into upper level Universities for students who,
for whatever reason, failed to gain entrance into Universities as freshmen.

I've seen countless examples of people who simply weren't ready for
university on graduation from high school, some aren't academicly ready,
more aren't ready socially or psychologically.  Pushing them into that
stressful and rigorous academic environment leads to early failure and
threatens to ends many people's educational career before it really gets
started.

At a less stressful, more personalized, Community College students that
aren't yet ready have a chance to get ready.  Or, and I've seen this too
many times to count, older students come to us taking another chance by
*re-entering* school many years after suffering through unsatisfying
University experiences.  Our job is to help them develop the skills they
need to compete successfully in everything from new careers to university
environments, and our *hope* is to get them excited about learning.

Another important mission of our Community Colleges is to provide job
re-training for career changers.  With people changing careers several
times during their lives, it is important to provide opportunities to learn
new skills and knowledges.  Universities, with their emphasis on research
and publication, are usually not the most appropriate place for people to
acquire new skills.  At Community colleges we concentrate on the student
developing skills *much* more than basic research.  As an example of how we
differ from universities, my advancement is based on how well I *teach* not
how much I publish; most of my work day is in the classroom and the
teaching lab, not my office or research lab.  

The university has it's place, and it is an extremely important one, but
in the American scheme of things it isn't the only route to a higher
education.  Frankly, I think community colleges do a better job of
providing low cost/high quality skill based education for the common
man.  This allows universities to focus on what they do best, research,
developing new knowledge and skills, and training future researchers.

Different cultures will have different approaches to providing higher
education, and it's difficult to judge another culture's approach when you
only look at *part* of it, or don't completely understand it.  I don't
completely understand how the system in Norway, for instance, provides all
these services so I don't feel I should comment on it's quality.

Ob Traveller, I've never really liked the advanced education rules, because
I don't think they make good pedelogical sense. ;->  Of course, Traveller
is a game not a true model of reality so I don't look *too* hard at any
number of rule systems.  One thing I would like to see added is more
emphasis on retraining and continuing education during Character
Generation.  Current thinking seems to be that in high tech societies
people will change careers several times in their lives, requiring
considerable re-training at each change.  I don't see that directly
addressed, and it probably shouldn't be addressed as re-entering college to
acquire new skills.  Perhaps, the re-training should be address by the
acquisition of standard suites of skills each time a new career is entered.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 22:24:20 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

Intro  (this message is 194 lines long)
=====
This is an attempt to solicit opinion on standard algorithms and data 
formats that can be used to generate UWP, star system, world maps etc. 
 This will, ideally, foster greater interchange of compatible computer 
generated data between numerous TMLers.

This message starts to solicit opinion on the idea of "published" data 
formats and algorithms before we move on to documenting those formats 
and algorithms and finding a web-site home (ideally on the Traveller 
Ring) for the final information (I do not have a web site, nor am I 
likely to have one).

Background
==========
A project I have been contemplating (as have numerous other Traveller 
players/programmers I am sure) is to write a Win 95 program to assist 
with refereeing Traveller games.  

Prime examples of the sort of program I am refering to are Jo Grant's 
Win 3.1 "Dulinor" (aka The Traveller Suite from CORE) and the brilliant 
DOS Galactic 2.2 by Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>.

Dulinor and Galactic are both for the PC, as will be my own effort.  
Galactic is Public Domain, as is the source code (e-thumbs up to Jim), 
but others will doutless want to write in cgi, Java or even (gasp!) for 
the Mac.

Data Formats - UWP
==================
The UWP data format for star sytems is pretty consistent between all 
the programs I have seen, and follows the definition given by Marc 
Miller in Challenge 25.

Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na
Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na M8 D

The first line for Zenopit is from Galactic, the second line from a 
.sec file, which includes the Stellar type data.  Galactic uses the 
bytes after the Allegiance code (Na in the case of Zenopit) for some 
economic data.

The .sec file format is seen in several archives on the www and this 
format is similar to both the Dulinor .gni format and the Galactic .txt 
format galactic includes the Section2 program to chop a .sec format 
file into the various .text files for each sub-sector).

I will follow Jim's example and provide a translate option to convert 
between my format and Galactic / .gni / .sec.  There is remarkably 
little difference between my file format and the Galactic one, except 
that I plan to use a large sector file (for UWP), rather than a series 
of sub sector files a separate large sector file for more detail on any 
worlds (identical to the system-by-system .loc (location information) 
files in Galactic).  My jump route data is also easily interchanged 
with the jump route data in Galactic.

Data Formats - Extensions to UWP
================================
As mentioned briefly above, Galactic uses bytes 59 to 61 for LRX data 
(life, resorces, exports), whereas .sec and .gni files store the 
stellar data - up to three stars - in bytes 59 to 74.  Fortunately, 
Galactic is well documented so that the alternate use of bytes 59 to 61 
is clear.  I expect that some people will want to create Pocket Empires 
economic codes to add to the UWP data files.

Algorithm - Extension to UWP
============================
I think it would be a good idea to have (at the very least) an agreed 
format for the PE economic data in a UWP file.  I think it would be 
even better it there was a reproducable algorithm (based on the UWP, 
hex number and my height in cm) that means that any TMLer could 
generate the same PE data for each planet in a .sec file.  This would 
allow adventures to be set using the same "economic" data, so that an 
adventure set on grain exporting Planet X was the same grain exporting 
planet in my universe.  People who use there own universe could 
generate PE data differently, but I see an advantage in computer 
programs all aooffering "the TML way" as an alternative, even if it is 
not the only method.

Algorithm - Naming
==================
Galactic uses text files with lists of Aslan / Vargr / Vilani / etc 
words in them to choose planet names.  Dulinor uses random name 
generation using Vilani letter frequency tables (I assume these are 
from p94 of the MT Referee's Companion).  I propose to use letter 
frequency tables, like those published at: 

www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/languages.html

It would be good if we had an agreed algorithm so that, for example, we 
can generate names for the numerous un-named sub-sectors and, 
occasionally, un-named worlds in some of the .sec files available on 
the web.

Algorithm - random number generation
====================================
There are various methods available that would allow reproducible 
"random" numbers to be generated from a 32-bit seed, a UWP + hex 
number, or whatever.

Is anyone out there able to suggest suitable replacement algorithm(s) 
for the  random number generators in QuickBasic, Pascal (Delphi in my 
case), C++, etc?  

My original (1987 to 1889) attempt at a sector generator stored a 
32-bit seed with each system.  This was used to generate the same 
system data (number of orbits, UWP of all other bodies in the star 
system, WBH data, imports/exports, planetary surface maps, encounter 
tables, etc) on each visit to the system.  Planet positions were 
calculated based on the (game) date and the (seed-generated) positions 
at year 0, day 0.  This approach (would have) allowed me to 
significantly reduce the data file size, while still having consistent 
data from visit to visit by the players.  I say "would have" because I 
never finished the program, as I was stuck in the days of monochrome 
graphics and no access to the TML.

What my program will do (tentative feature list)
================================================
The brilliant Galactic 2.2 has stolen most of my thunder, but I don't 
mind :-).  All of the features of Galactic 2.2 are reproduced in my 
program, plus a few more goodies (undoubtedly planned for Galactic 2.3)

My progam will be written in Delphi 3.0 for Windows 95 (or NT) with 
lots of pointless floating toolbars and pop-up menus to show off how 
clever I am :-)

Display Universe
- - show available sectors on a map like the old "known space" map that
  GDW distributed back in the early CT days.  Users can generate new
  data to fill in unknown sectors, or import data from other sorces
  (like Dulinor, Galactic, a web site I missed, etc)
- - Zoom in to Sector level

Display existing sector data files
- - hex grid or "staggered squares" of Atlas of the Imperium
- - show X-boat routes (as Galactic)
- - show trade routes (like Imperiallines in The Traveller Adventure)
- - hex data includes GG and base symbols (as Dulinor)
- - zoom into subsector level (same feature list)
- - zoom into system (one hex) level

Edit sector data
- - easy click-and-drag method to add X-boat routes
- - generate X-boat routes (similar to Galactic "homebrew" method)
- - regress/progress UWP to another Milieu
- - <others I have in a paper file somewhere>

Display system data
- - UWP + stellar data + WBH data + PE economic profile
- - star system map (as in The Long Way Home)
- - star system map (elliptial orbits showing position of planets,
  100 diameter jump limits)
- - planet-to-planet travel times

Trade Data
- - generate prices for speculative cargoes players have to sell
- - generate speculative cargoes available for purchase
- - generate passngers and freight to next destination

Patrons and rumors
- - look in (referee written) file to see which patrons or rumours fit
  the current location (e.g. wine shipments from Ag world), remind
  referee and players of previous contacts on this world.
- - editor to enter those patron and rumor details easily

Print out (if Delphi printing is as simple as I think
- - print out one subsector + UWP on a page (CT Supplement 3)
- - print out four subsectors on a page (4 pages = large sector map)
- - print out one sector on a page (Atlas of the Imperium)

Screen and print out displays can show (or not)
Starport
GG, Water present
Hi Pop (name in uppercase)
X-boat routes
etc

This allows the referee to prepare a player hand out with missing 
information that the players will be able to write on this as they 
explore and survey the systems in detail.

Some people like the idea of using a computer while playing Traveller, 
others believe it detracts from the role playing.  I'm all in favour of 
computers during SF games (I think it adds to the "feel" and allows the 
referee to access all sorts of data he might otherwise not have 
available).  I also like the idea of a list of cargoes flashing up on 
the screen with (for the players) an annoying wait while they find out 
what is available.


I await the TML response!

Simon
(line 194 ... pretty long!)

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 14:38:54 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Imperium

Wasn't the appeal-to-the-Emporer rule something that was in fact modified
between the first and second editions, to increase the penalty for doing so?

Bruce

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 22:54:39 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> I also like the idea of a list of cargoes flashing up on 
> the screen with (for the players) an annoying wait while they find out 
> what is available.
>

oops, I meant *without* an annoying wait !!

Simon

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

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:42:26 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)

Most of the discussion about the 'anomalous' RoM tech levels has been about
whether it is plausible or whether it conforms to Traveller canon. My
concern is somewhat different; whether it makes for an enjoyable campaign.
A campaign with lots of advanced relic technology lying around for the
taking makes some kinds of adventures, like treasure hunting and skirmishes
with powerful individuals, very plausible. Certainly a campaign like this
can be interesting. I am certain of this because there has already been a
Traveller campaign like this, The New Era.

One of my hopes for Traveller was that it could be used for many different
kinds of adventures; space opera, interstellar warfare, trade and commerce,
exploration of the unknown, or intrigue in a complex interstellar
civilization. The enormous scale of the Third Imperium, in both time and
space, would seem to make this easy. Consider the enormous social,
political, and economic changes here on Earth over the last 500 or so
years. The potential for different campaign environments in Traveller
should be even greater; there could be eras of military conquest, of
peaceful economic expansion, of socal stagnation, of civil war, of
corporate dominance, or widespread balkanization. In one era the emperor
could be the embodiment of respect and loyalty, in another a mere
figurehead, a military dictator, a corrupt autocrat, an elected bureaucrat,
an alien overlord, an idealistic psionicist, a pragmatic businessperson,
the possibilities are endless.

The effects of changing tech levels could also strongly affect the campaign
environments. In one era huge battleships could rule space, while in
another squadrons of fighters dominate. Referees could run whatever kind of
campaign they prefer, all during the millenia-long history of the Third
Imperium.

Unfortunately, this is not what is happening. The society, environment, and
technology of all Traveller milieus are all very similar. The nobility,
scout service, navy, megacorporations, psionic institutes, alien
governments, Traveller's Aid society, and social infrastructure seem to
have had no significant changes in over one thousand years. The various
Imperia seem to have learned nothing about the Ancients, human prehistory,
the origins of psionics, or to have founded any completely new institutions
in many millennia

Now I have no opinions on whether this is 'realistic' or 'canon' at all, my
concern is that this tends to make Traveller very limited and
steriotypical. Many interesting adventures and campaigns just won't fit
anywhere in Traveller. Several referees have said Milieu 1100 is "the best"
setting because it incorporates every canon Traveller setting.
Unfortunately, they are right.

I agree Milieu 0 has a few new ideas; Pocket Empires has rules for new
campaign settings which have never been well described before. However
mostly it is a rehash of CT society in a TNE setting. There should be
something unique about Milieu 0 if it is to remain a viable campaign
setting after the release of later milieus. Can anyone suggest institutions
or background material that would make Milieu 0 unique? There was a thread
a while ago about a secret noble society (the "Templars") which had
campaign potential until it exploded in a burst of hyperbole. In my
campaign a major theme is accusations of corruption and disloyalty in the
Scout service. Any other ideas?

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 15:49:05 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

	All this argument about whether technology could be lost or not if the ROM
were higher than the "canonical" TL-13 is ignoring the real problem.
Regardless of whether the knowledge could be lost, knowledge OF the
knowledge would be much harder to lose.

	Even if the early Imperium couldn't pull up the knowledge, they'd know it
existed. And, more importantly, if, after 1100 years of archaeology and
research, everybody *knows* the RoM reached TL13, how the h$^$Y&*( can
players in Milieu 0 be finding evidence that the RoM had a higher TL? Did
all that information get completely swept under the rug in the intervening
1100 years? Did archaeology completely stop?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 16:38:15 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

At 10:24 pm 07/06/97 +0100, you wrote:
>What my program will do (tentative feature list)
>================================================


>Display Universe
	Yes to everything snipped!

>Display existing sector data files
	Yes to everything snipped! Also:

>- hex data includes GG and base symbols (as Dulinor)
	Options to add own types of symbols?

>- zoom into system (one hex) level

	Display a schematic of the system? Something like this:

	*--o---o---+---O--O

	where "*" is the primary, "o" are planets, "O" are gas giants, "+" are
empty orbits, and something else would be asteroid belts.

>Display system data

	Yes, plus: generate system data? Option for either the top-level
single-line mainworld generation of classic traveller or detailed a la
Scouts/WBH/etc?

>Trade Data
	Yes!

>Patrons and rumors

>Print out (if Delphi printing is as simple as I think
	Yes! Plus print out single system library entry, like DGP?
	Additional option--export/import from different formats? At least able to
read/produce some kind of formatted text--HTML might be easiest.

>Some people like the idea of using a computer while playing Traveller, 
>others believe it detracts from the role playing.  I'm all in favour of

	I don't feel a well-written program would be any more distracting than me
flipping through a notebook, or frantically searching through 12 million
loose pieces of paper and 42 supplements  ... 

>I await the TML response!

	Well, mine is "When?"
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 19:10:17 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Second Careers and the Draft...

Greetings, all;

While working on my chargen program, I've run into a question in 
the course of 2nd (and further) careers:

Can a person apply for the Draft as a second career?

(ok, make it 2 questions)

If a person rolls 12 on the enlist roll for a second career, does he/she
get automatically drafted?

I would think that having already served in a service, such an individual
would be immune to the draft, but I can't find anything in the rules that
states this specifically.

Thanks for any help/opinions!

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1525
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Traveller-digest        Monday, July 7 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1526



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: RoM
Re: RoM
TL, use it or lose it?
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Pyramids
Re: RoM
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: TL of RoM
Pyramids
Re: RoM
Re: TL of RoM
Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)
Re: Weapon Design Question?(long)
Re: Imperial Anthem
Life support
Re: Pocket Empires
Re: Pyramids

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:21:30 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: RoM

Bruce E J Lewis wrote:

> 	Didn't human advancement get stuffed back about five hundred years when
> the great library at Alexandria got destroyed in the fifth century AD, or
> something like that? Historians help out here please!

IIRC only sort of, and more because of the (then) current attitude 
towards non-approved (i.e. non-christian) writings than because of 
the autual loss of the books themselves. However the book burnings 
did set back literature a long, long way, and some works have been 
lost for ever.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:21:30 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: RoM

Joseph "Chepe" Lockett
> Quoth Jon Fuller:
> > The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora, has a timeline in the front
> > that lists the fall of Alexandria as 31 B.C.
> > However, I don't think that's when the burning occured.
> 
> The Library suffered multiple fires, IIRC.  One was when Julius Caesar
> took the city (c. 45 BC?).  31 B.C. would have been the fall to Augustus
> after Actium.
> 
> The fire that destroyed all the books, though, was centuries later.  I
> believe it was one of the Caliphs who decreed that, if the books were
> not of Allah, they should be destroyed.  If, instead, they were, it didn't
> matter since the Quran contained all important knowledge anyway.  So they
> torched the whole collection.  I guess Islam didn't always act to foster
> knowledge through the Dark Ages....
Nope, it wasn't a Caliph, or any other sort of Arab, Infidel , etc. 
but a Roman (Eastern, or Byzantine, admittedly) and very Christian 
Emperor, and it was because the books were non-christian, the authors 
having had the bad sense to be mainly pre-christian Greeks. 
Supposedly his orders were to only burn the books that were on a list 
of banned texts, but the men carring them out were over-zealous and 
set fire to the whole library, along with various students and 
librarians who objected.
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 97 20:03:33 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: TL, use it or lose it?

On 07/06/97 at 03:49 PM,  "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net> said:

>	All this argument about whether technology could be lost or not if the
>ROM were higher than the "canonical" TL-13 is ignoring the real problem.
>Regardless of whether the knowledge could be lost, knowledge OF the
>knowledge would be much harder to lose.

>	Even if the early Imperium couldn't pull up the knowledge, they'd know it
>existed. 

I'm not involved in this debate, but Dave you are making an excellent
point.  Whether or not the devices could be duplicated, knowledge of what
did and did not exist would help guide the recovery of technology.

The point that "greek fire" can't be duplicated is well taken, but not
conclusive.  We *can* produce chemicals with similar effects, even if we
can't produce the original item.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 20:53:08 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

Simon Early wrote:

> Display Universe
> Display existing sector data files
> Edit sector data
> Display system data
> Trade Data
> Patrons and rumors
> Print out (if Delphi printing is as simple as I think

All of the features listed under these headings sound great, especially
the patron rumour section.  Will this be big enough that you could
attach an entire adventure written on one planet?  

Also, in the star mapping section, could you draw lines between the star
systems as kind of a map of where the players have gone?

With the zooming feature.  It should go:

Universe --> Domain --> Sector --> Subsector --> System --> World Map

Perhaps even going furhter than that to a choice of referee prepared
maps of this planet's surface (ie. a city made for an adventure, etc.). 
Perhaps a program included to automatically generate a city or
wilderness area when you zoom in furhter than the world map.

> Some people like the idea of using a computer while playing Traveller,
> others believe it detracts from the role playing.  I'm all in favour of
> computers during SF games (I think it adds to the "feel" and allows the
> referee to access all sorts of data he might otherwise not have
> available).  I also like the idea of a list of cargoes flashing up on
> the screen with (for the players) an annoying wait while they find out
> what is available.
>
> I await the TML response!

If I had a laptop computer, I'd be using it at every game session I went
to.  The program sounds great, especially if you can get it done well
(which I'm confiden you can).  My only question, as Dave Golden said
already is when?
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 23:48:39 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

Mark Peace writes:

>> Just to make this Traveller-related, what do you think the current (ie.
>> M0) condition of the pyramids are?  Have the Solomani kept them nicely
>> preserved.  Today they face destruction from construction projects,
>> Cairo's expansion, acid rain, pollution, etc.  I wonder how they fare
>> thousands of years into the future...I wonder if they're any closer to
>> knowing how they were built...
>
>They're actually mentioned in Travellers Digest 13.

   Yes, but there are a number of problems with the assumptions in that
issue.

>Apparently the Nile River valley is flooded by rising sea levels but some of
>the historical sites have been protected by sea walls.

   Even in the wildest predictions by the most extreme (yet still sane)
ecologists, the oceans of Terra would not rise the amount indicated. 
Why?  Even at our current rate of global warming (1 degree per 200
years) cheap, affordable fusion power would cause any man-made causes to
dwindle to basically zero before the end of the next century.  Global
terraforming and ecological management would clean up any remaining
damage and bring temperatures back down to the normal 12.5 degrees
centigrade (*not* 15 as was reported in Book 6: Scouts and elsewhere).

   The Nile Valley, Florida, and a lot of other places DGP claimed were
flooded simply would not be.

>  The pyramids are a major tourist site, and extra sectret passages have 
> been discovered using densitometers (including a hollow Sphinx).

   Much as modern Italians started making pizzas because American
tourists were disappointed when they couldn't find it when they visited
Italy, a number of historical sites on Terra would be recreated so that
tourists from other worlds would not be disappointed when they visited
Earth.

   The fact is that the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx are in *mortal*
danger in the late 20th century from pollution, the ravages of tourists,
weathering, and the increased humidity levels around the site where
these great monuments are located.  The Sphinx in fact is probably only
still around today because it spent many centuries buried in the sand,
protected from the environment.  While the Egyptian government is
currently taking steps to preserve them, it is highly unlikely that the
original Pyramids and Sphinx will be around in the 57th century.

   My explanation of the cover of TD 13:

   In the background are detailed replicas of the original Sphinx and
Great Pyramids which were built in the early 23rd century.  The project
was begun by a reclusive billionarie and amateur Egyptologist Akeem
Mohamed Ali Banadar.  Banadar hoped to turn the site of the ruins of the
original structures (which were virtually destroyed by the ravages of
weathering and pollution during the 20th and early 21st centuries) and
some adjacent land into an amusement park and museum.  Half way through
the costly project (which is rumored to have cost Banadar most of his
fortune), it was abandoned, and taken over by regional authorities. 
Some 50 years later, the project was finally completed and opened to the
public.  Constructed using techniques that simulated the results
achieved by the original builders, the structures do in fact contain
some 15 percent of the original stones.  While some weathering of the
new structures has taken place over the centuries, preservation
techniques developed in the 24th century and refined since the Imperial
era will insure that the replica structures will be around for many more
centuries to come.

   Also in the background we can see the some of results of terraforming
process that was begun on Earth in the early to mid-22nd century.  Egypt
is now a green, lush land where a great deal of agricultural production
takes place.  Production in the Nile Valley frequently exceeds that of
the Mississippi Valley on an annual basis.  The Great Archology of Cairo
can be seen in the far distance--its current population is around 5
million.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 00:03:46 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: RoM

Glenn Crawford writes: 

>I still do not understand how tech can be lost on the scale proposed by the
>long night.

   It depends on how much slipage you are talking about.  From TL 12 to
10 would be possible, if the tech level of the world depended upon
imports from other worlds.  Given that the Rule of Man had a more or
less integrated economy by -1776, it is possible that such slippage
would occur.

   Larger scale collapse, from TL 16 to TL 10 or so would probably only
happen if there were some kind of collapse of the planet's society,
brought on by nuclear war or perhaps some kind of superweapon....

   Gee, maybe Leroy was right and the RoM did achieve TL 16, only to be
knocked down by Virus!  History has a way of repeating itself you know. 
:-)

>Never in our history has tech truly been lost, just not disseminated, and
>even now that would be difficult because of our very superior communications
>technology.

   More diffficult today for sure, but history is filled with examples
of peoples who knew how to construct something (the Romans, the Mayans,
the Egyptians, etc.) and later lost that knowledge.  Sometimes that
knowledge was later recovered (through the studying of copies of old
manuscripts as happened during the Renaissance), or new methods
developed that were better than the original (i.e. napalm is better than
Greek Fire).

>Only bigotry can destroy technology, not distance, not time

   Bigotry has certainly done its share of destruction, without
question.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 16:05:59 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

Richard Hough wrote:

> The rationalization I have always used is that technological increases
> require exponentially greater investment at higher tech levels.
> Lower-technology breakthroughs can be done by individuals or small nations,
> but stellar-scale technologies require the combined brainpower and economic
> resources of interstellar empires. If there is a hard limit on the speed at
> which information can be shared, like 1 week for interstellar travel, then
> there will be a point at which further improvement will simply require more
> time, no matter what resources are available.
> 
> I'm not saying this is really true, but it is certainly plausible for game
> purposes. The breakthroughs in optics and mechanics, for example, were
> largely done by single individuals. The breakthroughs in nuclear physics
> and computers were achieved by a generation of the greatest living
> scientists and engineers supported through massive expenditures by the
> wealthiest nations on Earth. Why not assume that jump drive and thruster
> technology require centuries of effort by entire planets? I can suspend
> disbelief for that and it fits Traveller canon. It makes an interesting
> game, too, with vast amounts of raw data, scientific equipment, and
> engineering prototypes requiring shipment across interstellar distances.
> Governments and megacorporations may resort to clandestine research
> stations or entire planets working on a single project, while pirates and
> hostile governments will be searching for ways to enrich themselves by
> stealing the hard work of others.

I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but 
again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never 
before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a 
stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.

 If Fusion+ is discoverable by normal means the TL12 RoM must have 
found it, after all their technological tradition descends from ours 
(or something pretty close), and we place a very high emphasis on 
mass and volume efficiency, which is even more important in a space 
vessel. So unless the Terrans developed a K'Kree style dislike of 
small ships I just can't see them missing such a vital piece of 
minaturization tech, unless it's only discoverable by a massive 
'accident', in which case the theory of massive investment for hi-TL 
advancement is flawed.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 00:40:00 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Ethan Henry writes:

>We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.

   Due to recent studies, we have pretty much figured it out.  Same for
Greek Fire, by the way.  Thing is, we could build the Great Pyramids
today using less people, *but* at significantly higher cost.  So high a
cost, it just isn't an economically viable project (though the crude
imitation of one built as a casino with modern materials in Las Vegas
does good business).

>OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's
>easier than you imagine. There's already information that was
>generated this century that's lost. The media is still good too.
>It's just that there aren't any media-readers left to read the
>information! Old tapes from mainframes, this sort of thing.
>Now, most of this is data, not useful information, so this isn't
>a big deal. However a lot of information, especially the really
>high-tech cutting edge stuff isn't really "written down". If there
>was to be a gigantic, global economic recession, which is essentially
>what the Long Night was all about, a lot of businesses would 
>fold up and the knowledge "contained" in these businesses would be
>largely lost, especially the really leading edge stuff. If every 
>technological device disappeared off Earth tomorrow, but every book
>stayed, would our TL be affected? (More on this below).

   And people wonder how Virus could be so devastating?  There's your
answer.  It's not what it does to starships, but what it does to the
infrastructures of worlds that makes it a true superweapon.

>Also, the Darrians lost TL 16, for the most part. Why can't the Syleans
>lose TL 13? Or 14 even?

   The farther a society falls, the more you have to resort to cataclysm
to explain it.  When it is the Romans going from TL 2 to 1 or the Mayans
going from TL 1 to 0 that one thing but the fall from 14 to 10 would be
hard to justify with just a simple economic depression (or even the fall
of an empire).

>It's the RoM. Imagine a fairly populated vacuum world. They rely
>heavily on imported food, but do well, as they export a large amount
>of raw and processed metal goods, as well as various things that
>require fairly hard vacuum for manufacturing purposes. They have no
>raw material for plastics or the like though, as it is (like I said)
>a vacuum world, but they do import raw material for... making
>vacc suits. As a matter of fact, they're really good at making vacc
>suits, they make the best damn suits in the whole sector. 

   Fine, but this doesn't justify TL 14 as of yet.

>As the RoM begins to falter, the shipments of food and other raw materials
>begin to come more erratically. People begin to leave the world
>as its economy slows down. Eventually interstellar shipping stops
>completely, leaving the remaining inhabitants to concentrate on keeping
>themselves alive (if possible). Chances are, the knowledge of vacc suit
>manufacture that they had would be lost, for a long, long time. It might
>be lost forever effectively, until someone re-discovers it.

   Nice try, but I see no reason why this system doesn't make the best,
highest quality TL 12 vacc suits in Known Space instead of the TL 14
models you say are possible.

>Anyways, I think you're being too optimistic Hans. The Long Night was
>long, cold, nasty and brutish, to paraphrase someone who'd name I've
>forgotten.

   True enough, but it didn't strike equally hard everywhere, and
explaining away significant drops in TL gets to be challenging in that
kind of environment.  Aside from the canon material, a drop from TL 12
to 10 or 11 is just a heck of a lot easier to rationalize.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 00:54:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Pyramids

Rambling interlude here: The easily bored should skip this

Two anecdotes regarding the Pyramids -- I have always been puzzled with
people who hold to  the notion that the Ancient Egyptians needed some kind of
supernateral assistance to build the Pyramids, but make no mention of the
Romans (a couple of thousand years later, and with the benefit of iron
tools), who had a couple of enginering feats that boggle the imaginations of
the few who know about them.

#1. In a city called Baalbek, in what is now Lebanon, there is a temple built
upon three large (1000+ short tons) stone slabs, which were moved 50 miles or
so from mountain quarries. The largest stone is something like 1200 tons, and
was moved in one chunk.

#2. In the 16th century, Italian engineers engaged in the construction of St
Peters relocated a 600-ton obelisk about a mile. They were about to attach a
plaque prclaiming it to be the engineering feat of all time until it was
pointed out to them that the obelisk had been moved from _Egypt_ 1400 years
earlier -- Taken down, put on a barge, sailed down the Nile, across the Med,
up the Tiber, and re-erected in beautiful downtown Roma, all without so much
as a crack. This was all accomplished with muscle, rope,
levers/wedges/pulleys/inclined planes and a _lot_ of ingenuity...same things
the Egyptians used.

Nobody ever says the Romans had ETs helping them (Its the sort of thing Pliny
the Elder would have mentioned, I think...ghod knows he talked about
everything else). Frank said that's because it is the sort of thing you
expect of the Romans.

Rant mode off...

Loren Wiseman
     GDW Emeritus

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 01:16:50 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: RoM

Bruce E J Lewis writes:

>        Didn't human advancement get stuffed back about five hundred years when
>the great library at Alexandria got destroyed in the fifth century AD, or
>something like that? Historians help out here please!

   The fire I believe you are talking about happened in 391 A.D. and was
the result of a mob of *Christians* storming the place, not Moslems (who
weren't even around yet) as someone else said.

   We owe a debt of gratitude to the Moslems for preserving many of the
works by the Greeks and Romans related to mathematics and the sciences. 
Of course the minarets they installed on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople
(now Istanbul) are a bit of an eye sore (not to mention what they did in
turning other Christian churches into Mosques), but then I speak from
the pro-Byzantine perspective....

   On balance we know what we know about the Greeks and Romans because
of the preservation efforts of the Moslems, the Byzantines, and the many
Roman Catholic monks who spent their lives transcribing ancient
documents.  While the loss of the Library at Alexandria was a tragic
loss, pieces of the knowledge contained there could be found elsewhere.

Regards,

Harold

P.S.  I recall that a while back, some archeologists found buried in the
basement of the Library numerous scrolls which the Christian fanatics
missed.  Not all was lost apparently.

- --h

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 01:24:45 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

David J. Golden writes:

>   All this argument about whether technology could be lost or not if the ROM
>were higher than the "canonical" TL-13 is ignoring the real problem.
>Regardless of whether the knowledge could be lost, knowledge OF the
>knowledge would be much harder to lose.
>
>   Even if the early Imperium couldn't pull up the knowledge, they'd know it
>existed. And, more importantly, if, after 1100 years of archaeology and
>research, everybody *knows* the RoM reached TL13, how the h$^$Y&*( can
>players in Milieu 0 be finding evidence that the RoM had a higher TL? Did
>all that information get completely swept under the rug in the intervening
>1100 years? Did archaeology completely stop?

   I place the whole thing in the same category as "space fighters
didn't exist until fusion plus", even though they are featured
prominently in the game Imperium.  If you examine the evidence too
closely this stuff falls apart, so those who support it would rather
resort to relativism in an attempt to fog the issue enough so that the
masses will accept it.

   We of course know better.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 01:45:26 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)

Jon Fuller writes:

>Makes you queasy, when you think about it.  All that knowledge, lost. 
>Carl Sagan postulates that we lost 1000 years worth of advancement in
>that burning. (Cosmos, I believe).

   Carl tended to exaggerate.  By the time the Library was burned, far
more knowledge had already been lost.  Compare the artwork of 150 AD to
that of 350 AD.  The later stuff is much more primitive.  Knowledge of
architecture was also being lost as well (thanks to the Roman caste
system).  Having watched Cosmos, I can tell you that Carl had the Greeks
building starships by now.  Horse crap.  The Greeks were long past their
prime by 350, and only the Byzantine revival under Justinian the Great
saved them from total collapse.  The fact that they held on until 1453
was due to a combination of luck, convenience, and the impregnable walls
of Constantinople (impregnable until a mercenary bombard maker named
Urban built canon for the Turks large enough to blast the walls down),
not Greek virtue.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:02:32 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Weapon Design Question?(long)

>My inclination is not to allow this. As you've noticed, the HPG is most of
>the mass of high-TL weapons (especially lasers); if you allow them to be
>shared it makes all the published starship designs completely obsolete.
>The rationale for not allowing it is that the peak power transferred from the
>HPG to the weapon is so high that the cables carrying it have to be very,
>very short, otherwise you lose too much power in transit. (I suppose as an
>optional rule you could allow it - with a 50% increase in the input energy
>of a weapon for each other weapon sharing it's HPG - which would negate most
>(but not all) of the advantage at a cost of increasing the power
>requirement for
>the weapon.)
>
>Bruce

No way. We have superconductors in our ships doing that (I think DGP called
them metaconductors and supposed they're developed at TL9+ as room temp
SC). the problem is that SC cannot take any amounts of current - too much
and they lose their SC ability. Add to price, volume etc but do NOT require
more power as if we're using SC either next to no loss or a cable burnout
and thus no power.
The stuff mined in "Uraqaydn of the seven pillars" was supernova created
duodecimates from the mythical isotopical island of stability thet made
manufacturing room temp SC cheap and durable. From the top of my head that
is.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:08:31 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

>Everything suggested so far has been composed within a timespan of less
>than 200 years. Why would the Third Imperium ever use a 3000 year old piece
>of music? More likely, they would probably have used a relatively
>contemporary piece when originally choosing an Anthem. That's what happened
>with most of the National Anthems on present Earth. So the Third Imperium's
>or the Emperor's Anthem wouldn't probably be older than from -200 at the
>max. It might even have changed several times in history (the Civil War
>being a good bet).
>
>Another point is this: Think about what has happened to (western) music in
>300 years! Music in year 0 or 1100 would probably be completely
>incomprehensible to us now. We might not even recognize it as music. One
>wonders if J.S. Bach would recognize Front 242 (one of my favorites) as
>music at all - my girlfriend has her doubts :-)

I think we have two separate questions here:

Q1: What music (kind) would the Imperium use as an anthem?
A1: Lots of musical theory this and that abolish the twelve tone scale,
atonal, subsonic thudding, blab blab. Could be pretty interesting perhaps -
at least for music theory buffs but to me it is as dull as those FF&S
discussions must be for natural science challenged.

Q2: What music should I play to make my players feel they're listening to
the Imperial anthem?
A2: Darth Vaders march (or is it Imperial march) from Empire soundtrack.
Brian Eno Atmospheres for serene deep space feel and Pink Floyd Set the
controls for the heart of the sun after getting clobbered in space battle.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 03:34:15 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Life support

> From: "Michael L. Galligan" <teflonkid@voyager.net>
> Subject: Real Cost of Ship Board Life Support

  	WWWWiinnnDDidd-Snip-AAAAaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn (Chain snip)

>         Now the question.  Supposedly it costs 2,000 thousand credits for each
> crewmember per 2 weeks.  Either they are eating very good or the air is
> expensive, or I am missing something ( this is probably the answer). 

	Hey guys it been at least six monuths since we flogged this one around.
Meaning the question not Mike. 
Mike, Two words Union Techs. 8-)
 
>         Using my common sense, I think they could muster up some local grub and
> pump in air, but what will they do when they get to a system without
> breathable oxygen?  Purify what they take out of a gas giant ( if
> available)?  And the million dollar game balance question, if that is so
> then I see players saving a potential 12k credits per jump.  Even when
> they return to the imperium.  Unless of course the answer is to make it
> prohibitive in time (how much time?)  

In all honesty Mike, I view the 2000cr as TL8 SPB Credits, for recharge
and
regular maitinance. So the higher tech and better port, the lower the
cost.
Liners and Merchantmen on regular routes use the 2 week recharge as
matter of
fact to keep that canned air smell to a min..
Whilest, Private ships and Explorers buy stocks ahead of time. The rate
in 
my games has 500cr and .1m^3 per week after the 1st 2 weeks. This covers
food and sudries plus common replacement parts.

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:11:40 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

>I am also surprised at the lack of rules for subsidizing the movement of
>population. One of the things that moved Australia from it's pre-WW2
>population of 6 million or so to it's current level of 17 million or
>so was a government policy of assisted migration - the "ten pound Pom"
>system. Assuming traveller standard costs of Cr8000 per parsec for
>middle passengers, with 2 tons of personal goods - moving someone therefore
>costs Cr10 000 per parsec. Therefore moving 1000 people 1 parsec costs
>MCr10. So moving 50 000 people 10 parsecs would cost ... MCr5000. Or on or
>about 1 RU, given the costings in PE page 41. Can anyone poke holes in
>this logic ?

Colonists go by low passage but with 1 ton cargo - that is the law!


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:23:43 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

>> I intend to have my players encounter a few of these things, can anyone tell
>> me where they are located in the Spinward Marches?  Thanks
>
>Does it really matter?  I mean, if you don't own a Traveller adventure
>that "officially" places pyramids somewhere in the Spinward Marches,
>whose to say that you can't simply go ahead and scatter a few about
>anyways.
>
>That being said, the CT Adventure 1 booklet features an adventure
>called "Shadows" that revolves around a pyramid site.  It takes place
>on Yorbund (0703) in the Regina subsector and the pyramids aren't as
>grandiose as those in Egypt (the largest being about 70 metres
>square).
>
>That should do you for a start :)

There is a researcher in The Traveller adventure who is searching for
pyramids. The ref may put them wherever he feels like according to the book
(in the Aramis subsector). There's a library data note about pyramids in
the earlier CT materials that state something about them being evident here
and there (I think Marc and others were toying with the idea that the earth
pyramids were built by the Ancients before deciding on the <real> truth
about the Ancients).

There was a creepy horror adventure dealing with Zhodani and researchers in
an underwater pyramid in one of the JTAS. Then of course we have the older
Imperial palaces before they took flight that were assemblies of pyramids
supposedly there for making gravassisted infantry assault harder. If I
remember correctly the ship in one of Horde/Chamax plague looked like a
pyramid at first sight but upon closer investigation resembled a 1950s They
came from beyond this or that movie saucer.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1526
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Traveller-digest        Monday, July 7 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1527



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Pyramids
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)
Re: Imperial Anthem
[none]
RE:Loss of Technology
Re: Clues to TL loss
See you next week.
Re: Chargen Revisions for T41
Alexandria
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Loren's rant
Evil thought for RoM
dividends
Pyramids
Re: 3D Max Damage

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:04:38 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

>I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but
>again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never
>before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a
>stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.

Like the atom bomb perhaps? ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:01:47 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>Data Formats - UWP
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>The UWP data format for star sytems is pretty consistent between all
>the programs I have seen, and follows the definition given by Marc
>Miller in Challenge 25.
>
>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na
>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na M8 D
>
>The first line for Zenopit is from Galactic, the second line from a
>.sec file, which includes the Stellar type data.  Galactic uses the
>bytes after the Allegiance code (Na in the case of Zenopit) for some
>economic data.

There are tabs between the fields here right. I hope to god (were I not an
atheist) we're not talking "The first 14 bytes is the system name, the
comes four bytes of hexnumber=8A". Simple tab delimated text files with a
predetermined field ordering right?


>Display Universe
Yes that's a feature I like ;)



/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:15:27 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

>   Even in the wildest predictions by the most extreme (yet still sane)
>ecologists, the oceans of Terra would not rise the amount indicated.
>Why?  Even at our current rate of global warming (1 degree per 200
>years) cheap, affordable fusion power would cause any man-made causes to
>dwindle to basically zero before the end of the next century.  Global
>terraforming and ecological management would clean up any remaining
>damage and bring temperatures back down to the normal 12.5 degrees
>centigrade (*not* 15 as was reported in Book 6: Scouts and elsewhere).

The largest problem with fusion is its availability and cheapness. When
every country on earth got fusion the waste heat (ALL produced power will
be waste heat eventually) warmed the earth much more than the puny changes
that the Co2 gasses ever did here. Another big problem is urbanization
which decreases the earths albedo by darkening the ground (asphalt and most
roof material are darker than the average earth).

I'm not saying you're wrong, just throwing some bones to the flock.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:11:21 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

> If Fusion+ is discoverable by normal means the TL12 RoM must have
>found it, after all their technological tradition descends from ours
>(or something pretty close), and we place a very high emphasis on
>mass and volume efficiency, which is even more important in a space
>vessel. So unless the Terrans developed a K'Kree style dislike of
>small ships I just can't see them missing such a vital piece of
>minaturization tech, unless it's only discoverable by a massive
>'accident', in which case the theory of massive investment for hi-TL
>advancement is flawed.
>
>R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

The reason RoM never discovered Fusion+ was that cold fusion was so heavily
discredited during the 20th century that no researcher dared try it later
on - especially when normal fusion worked so well. Most Solomani
researchers who even knew about the cold fusion thing thought of it as the
search for the ether between 19th and 20th century.
The cold fusion idea got adopted by the UFO, Ley lines, abductions, ghosts,
spoonbending community who thought the large multinational fusion
industries together with BIG science hid the wonders of cold fusion from
the people of earth lest they'd lose theor cashcows.

I'm joking a bit but as from a 3d Imperium point of view the Solomani were
mostly laughing stock militaristic idiots that won the interstellar war by
bio warfare but their propaganda machine later changed that to mesonguns
etc.



/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:20:58 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)

>   Carl tended to exaggerate.

That was the most severely gross understatement I've ever read.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:30:06 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

In Iain M. Banks' "The Player of Games" a member of a Contact team 
needed to think of a national anthem in a hurry, since some sort of 
anthem was expected.  So he hummed the first tune that came into his 
head.

Unfortunately the lyrics were so memorably obscene that future 
representatives had trouble keeping a straight face...

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:41:14 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

>Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 16:05:59 +1100
>From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
>Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

>Richard Hough wrote:

>>The rationalization I have always used is that technological increases
>>require exponentially greater investment at higher tech levels.
>>Lower-technology breakthroughs can be done by individuals or small nations,
>>but stellar-scale technologies require the combined brainpower and economic
>>resources of interstellar empires. If there is a hard limit on the speed at
>>which information can be shared, like 1 week for interstellar travel, then
>>there will be a point at which further improvement will simply require more
>>time, no matter what resources are available.

[snip]

>I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but 
>again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never 
>before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a 
>stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.

> If Fusion+ is discoverable by normal means the TL12 RoM must have 
>found it, after all their technological tradition descends from ours 
>(or something pretty close), and we place a very high emphasis on 
>mass and volume efficiency, which is even more important in a space 
>vessel. So unless the Terrans developed a K'Kree style dislike of 
>small ships I just can't see them missing such a vital piece of 
>minaturization tech, unless it's only discoverable by a massive 
>'accident', in which case the theory of massive investment for hi-TL 
>advancement is flawed.

Fusion+ is a strange beast. There are significant hints in M:0 that do
indicate that Fusion+ could be a recovered RoM technology, nothing
definite, but the history of its development allows for that possibility
(hows about that for sitting firmly on the fence). As to fighters, there
are ways other than Fusion+ to get small power plants, fission springs
to mind. The fighters in Imperium are described as "small craft
designed for tactical combat. They are incapable of either sublight
movement or hyperspace jumps...." They cost the same as scouts
to produce In combat terms they sit between destroyers and scouts.
My take on them would be a SDB type vessel. Their high screen
factor certainly would support this, basically they're a scout with
no jump drive and more weapons and screens.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:51:41 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz> writes:

> A good example of loss of technology is Russia after the 1917-24 civil
> war. Before the 1st WW the Imperial Russian Army had the most
> advanced artillery fuses in the world (a true technological marvel of
> the period), the Imperial Navy designed and built some of the finest
> dreadnaughts and cruisers of the era, their aircraft technology rivaled
> that of France (the most advanced in the world at the time). When in
> the 30's the Soviets started to rearm they had to import virtually all the
> technical know how from overseas, they had in just 15 years lost the
> technological infrastructure to support a sophisticated arms industry;
> they could not even match the achievements of the former Imperial
> period. This was not the loss of specific items or industries, this was
> the loss of entire fields of engineering capability. Sure they had some
> of the worlds best scientists and access to all the scientific knowledge
> of the Imperial period and much of that developed after, but they just
> couldn't apply that knowledge.

I'd slightly disagree; I think Russia/USSR's problem was not lack of 
technology but lack of mass production technology.  To take the 
example of aircraft, the Soviets produced arguably the best fighter 
aircraft of the '30s (a stressed-skin monoplane like WW2 fighters, 
the name of which utterly escapes me) and suffered not from lack of 
technology but lack of infrastructure and technological integration.

In other words, they could have wonderful aircraft but lousy 
electronics -- like importing radios in WW2 for their Sturmovik 
ground attack aircraft, the lack of unit-level radio gear in their 
tank squadrons, etc..  Actually, tanks are another good example: the 
T34 was a brilliant design which could be built OK.

Having said which, I think the broad thrust of your point is 
absolutely correct, and I'm open to correction on matters of detail 
8-)

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 15:04:19 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

On  7 Jul 97 at 9:08, Anders Backman wrote:

> Q2: What music should I play to make my players feel they're
> listening to the Imperial anthem? 
> A2: Darth Vaders march (or is it Imperial march) from Empire 
> soundtrack. Brian Eno Atmospheres for serene deep space feel
> and Pink Floyd Set the controls for the heart of the sun after
> getting clobbered in space battle.

	As much as I love Babylon 5, I refrain from using the theme as 
background. I don't want my players to associate Traveller with B5 or 
Star Wars or whatever. So it's no for Imperial March here.

	A2b: Deep space music? Ambient techno. The Orb (esp. U.F.Orb), 
Delerium (Spheres I & II) and Future Sound of London are fine. As for 
ground battles...

	"As the clouds broke through
	 the blazing sky, up above
	 The aura of the moment,
	 invasion from above...
	"The Conflict still lay up ahead
	 Where cowards fear to tread"
			Front Line Assembly
			"Search and Destroy"

	Can you spell Drop Troops? :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:12:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: [none]

>Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:54:28 -0400
>From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
>Subject: INSECT MONSTERS FROM PLANET X

This just leaked out from a communication from X-TEK genetics division:

From X-TEK Genering
To: Commander X
195-0020

Lt. Johnson>> "Sir, I'm afraid to report that biome #667 has hatched, and 
escaped."

Commander X>> "Is this is bughunt?"

:-)

Clairification:
Glenn, I have a character names "Commander X" and his space station is 
called "Planet X"  So if these things came from Planet X...

Mind you, you just gave me a nasty, NASTY Idea for an adventure, my players 
are going to hate you... ;->

More Insanity brought to you by X-TEK
maker of Cthulhu Chip Coookies
Insanely Delicious!

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

Date: Mon,  7 Jul 97 11:49:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: RE:Loss of Technology

> Actually, there are a couple of organizations working to archive
> the world-wide web. Needless to say they can't keep up with daily
> changes, but stuff that's up for a few weeks will in fact get
> permanantly stored, and with modern search engines it would be
> easy to find Leroy's page.
    Oh really? <evil grin> I'll give you an example.  Recently I tried to find
a simple timeline or chronology of human history on the web.  From the Early
1400's onwards would have been sufficent, and I know there must be a couple
somewhere out there on the web.  Unfortunately all your search engines couldn't
find one, and I went through ALL of them. ;)
    Remember, the web is being indexed as we go along creating it and it's not
doing all that great a job of it either.  Your search engines depend on the
information telling them they exist.  But in the situation of the Long Night
we're talking about there being just raw data in many cases.  No indexes, no
organization, just the Data surviving and sometimes that's corrupted too. ;)

> Next example?
    Sure you have 10^11 PAGES of raw data.  Everything from gardening books to
medical texts to childrens books to anti-grav test data.  There is no
organization, no index, no rhyme or reason as to how it's stored, it just is.
How Long do you think it's going to take to go through it all, identify and
organize it all?  (Hint: The National Archives of the US has over a million
pages of documents from the 1940's and onwards they STILL haven't reviewed in
the past 40 years of continuous work so be very generous in your estimates.)

Stephen

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:27:11 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

s.johnson107@genie.com writes:
>	Hans, this is not a flame, but it's growing increasingly obvious that
>not only are you unfamiliar with the subject at hand, but that you are also
>almost clueless.  

Perhaps we're not in agreement with just what the subject at hand is. But
thanks for trying to help me out.

>	<SIGH> Go back and read what the first poster said Very Carefully ;)
>because what he's talking about is a technical issue of how major institution
>archive their DATA. 

Ah. Well, you're right, I hadn't realized that that was the main point.

>	You are in a warehouse with 4,000,000 printed pages in tens of
>thousands of books.  I'll be kind, the books are on shelves but there is no
>organization to them. On one shelf you have a repair manual for tractors next
>to a cookbook next to a computer manual for the Apple II next to the Kama Sutra
>next to a spy novel next to a romance novel next to a... ;) You get the idea,
>it's random.

Yes, but I don't understand how this example relates to information stored 
electronically by a library. That wouldn't be random.

>Now you KNOW that somewhere in this Warehouse of books is one
>book with a chapter on... Oh Making Film for exposure and thus film negatives.
>	Now go find that chapter!  Little daunted by the task are we?  You are
>literally going to have to go through EACH BOOK IN TURN to find that Chapter.
>It's going to take you forever, there are tens of thousands of books in this
>warehouse alone!  This is the problem the first poster was trying to explain
>and that you missed.  Fine, you have the DATA, and a LOT of OTHER DATA too.
>Finding the specific items you want, the Information in the Data, is nigh 
>unto impossible unless... you organize it. ;)

You know, I mnust be clueless, because I fail to understand why it isn't 
possible for a culture using TL 12 computers to _mechanically_ sort through 
and discard most of this vast mass of data before any human has to search 
through the rest. And that's if the data is really as jumbled as you imply
in your example. In 'reality' we're talking about data that has already 
been organized. Take your average library (a much better example than your
warehouse) and burn the filing system. Now give me a few months to go over
the shelves and I'll provide you with an overview of how the books in that
library is organized.

So please explain to me how it can take someone 450 years to dig out "lost"
information.

>	Now Coke has been around for what, just over a century at this point?
>And if they can do it, and they have, then I suspect that other have and will
>do so into the future.  Which kind of blows your generalization out of the
>water. ;)

Well, here it is you who fail to grasp my point. I don't dispute that 
proprietary information can be lost. What I dispute is the notion that 
information can be spread across an interstellar empire the size of the RoM 
for several centuries and still remain propritary. The day Coca Cola wants
to sell colas on Dingir they _have_ to share the big secret with someone on
Dingir. Read what _I_ wrote. I don't dispute that information can be lost.
I dispute that it can be lost _everywhere_ once it has been sufficiently
disseminated. And I claim that for the RoM as a whole to be TL X, the TL X
information has to be _widely_ disseminated.

>	Please don't take any of the above as a flame Hans, I normally look
>forward to your post as very well thought out and highly intelligent.  It's
>just this time...  ::shrug::

No offense taken. But I still don't have any more clues than before ;-)



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:32:57 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: See you next week.

I'm going away for a week. When I get back I'll collate the "New Frontier"
material I've promised to Sam Thomas and some other people and get it sent
off. And maybe get the time to respond to the dozen or so of posts that I
still haven't gotten around to (Or maybe I'll just drop them; some of them
will be almost a month old :-(


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 13:42:03 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Chargen Revisions for T41

Tommy Grav <tommy.grav@astro.uio.no>:

> Just to start of. Free market economics does not in any way exclude human
> rights. And as far as I have gotten understood, there is not to many 
> dictators ruling in the Imperium, except for Cleon of course.

Free market ecomomics does not *include* human rights -- the 
political tensions in the major economic powers reflect the need to 
balance the demands of the market and human rights (in the broad 
sense, i.e. social provision on the basis of need).  They may exist 
or not.

> > I'd say education was a privilege for anyone who gets it, and the 
> > "right" to education is balanced by a duty to take education 
> > seriously, which many simply don't do.  I don't believe Syleans would 
> > be much different.
> 
> Why. But were do you draw the line. I think that higher education is
> getting more and more accesible as the need for unskilled workers
> decline and our social welfare increases. Why exclude big portions from 
> college and universities, making them unhappy, when giving them the
> chance to attend some classes will keep them happy. The right to education
> can also be used to squeal social unrest. And in the 3I Cleon needs to
> keep the social unrest down.

I'm not saying that people need to be excluded from a college 
education -- I'm saying that they will exclude themselves.  There is 
a difference between a college education and learning skills as a 
worker, too (trust me, I'm a doctor 8-) and in fact a problem here in 
the UK is there are too many people with degrees and too few skilled 
workers.  A technophilic society like the 3I will need a lot of 
skilled technicians.

I repeat: I believe that the majority of such training (whether by 
day relaease to college, structured learning by computer, company 
seminars or tranked DeepTeach) is best reflected as skills gained 
during character generation rather than a formal period of college 
education in the traditional degree sense of the word.

Even if it is possible for a low INT, low EDU character to attend 
school, who pays?  Not the government -- they'd rather subsidise the 
education of the average skilled worker "in partnership with 
industry" which is a lot cheaper per capita and brings greater 
economic benefit.  Often not the family -- low EDU is partly a factor 
of not being able to afford a good education -- unless the nobility 
are involved.  And loan companies would only do it if they saw a 
decent return on their investment, which is unlikely: the jobs will 
go preferentially to the higher-EDU/INT candidates, and the 20% of 
unskilled jobs will go to the least able fraction of the population.

> I disagree and agree. Getting a good college education depends on INT,
> but attending higher education shoul, in my view, be based on EDU alone.

I think high INT should certainly be an alternative route in.  Low 
INT really ought to be a massive penalty tho': how many colleges will 
take INT 2 candidates for astrophysics?  How many INT 2 18 year olds 
will apply?


> > Two points: firstly, money will be spent only where it does good, and 
> > if Sylean society doesn't hold with the value of education for all, 
> > it won't happen.  Secondly, much education will be available in the 
> > home via vid-screen, rather than at college per se, and so colleges 
> > might become even more elitist institutions than many are at present:
> > many are part-time students, and few are full-time.
> 
> But still, all will have the chance to attend, which is my point.

My point is that part-time skills classes are not the same as 
attending college (in RL or in the Traveller systems), and will be 
far more common -- and usually sponsored by industry.  The student as 
seeker after knowledge will be limited to bright scholarship kids 
and the well-off, and only they will have the opportunity to learn 
in comparative freedom.

One reason for this in T4 would be the Vilani influences on Sylea: 
the apprenticeship/caste system would probably have survived in some 
form, which would weight things towards a skill training by employers 
model.

> As we
> have no way of knowing how college will work three thousand years from now
> on an alien planet, will have to look at the qualitative prerequests for
> attendance, which in my view should only be based on EDU. 

We do have some cultural details -- there's a nobility, high 
technology, autonomous local (world) governments, and a rule of 
market forces.


> > Sad to say, there is a minimum intelligence required to cope with a 
> > certain level of schooling -- you're putting it at INT 1, I'd put it 
> > at rather higher levels... INT 6 or 7 for a degree in the UK, even 
> > given our rather devalued university system.
> > 
> 
> Yes cope, but why should this affect attendance, just the students ability
> to finish a degree and what grade he finishes with. But this is off course
> also dependent on the time used, the whole hartedness of his/her attempt,
> the quality of the teachers, luck and so on. A INT 1 student could still
> get a great grade at college, if everything works in his/her favor, while
> a INT 15 student could wash out of college during the first month.  

There are some knowledge-based subjects where this might be true, 
although even there a certain amount of sophisticated thought is 
required -- historical argument does have its subtleties, for 
instance.  Astrophysics and molecular quantum mechanics require a 
certain amount of INT to understand the basic concepts, full stop.  
(I think it was Asimov who wrote that he breezed through maths up to 
tensor calculus and then couldn't do any more.  Higher maths may just 
be INT F material.)  Some of this is training, but not all IMO.

You could send an INT 1 individual to college for 4 years, and they 
could spend the time very profitably, learning some facts here and 
there (+1 Edu), some basic skills (Writing-1, Admin-1, Mechanic-1) or 
whatever, but they're not going to learn the abstract reasoning that 
a degree in whatever subject implies, IMO.


Nick


 
Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:50:42 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Alexandria

IIRC, when the God (and ancient knowledge) -fearing christians whacked the
Library for the last time, they hacked the Librarian Hypatia to death with
broken seashells. 

Yet, this knowledge was never lost, just severely restricted in
dissemination. That is why the greatest tech invention is the printing
press: It makes it harder to prevent knowledge from getting out and makes it
easier to transfer that know-how to another location. This encourages
dissemination, which produces more ideas because more people will see it.

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 00:57:28 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

I wrote:

> I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but 
> again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never 
> before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a 
> stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.

I hope you all like my typo :)
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:57:24 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Loren's rant

Loren ranted (his words, not mine)
Nobody ever says the Romans had ETs helping them (Its the sort of thing
Pliny
the Elder would have mentioned, I think...ghod knows he talked about
everything else). Frank said that's because it is the sort of thing you
expect of the Romans.

The whole idea that the human race, in civilization's infancy, needed BEMs
or greys to help us is, IMNSHO, insulting.

Our ancestors were as clever as we are. We stand on the shoulders of those
who came before us, we can reach higher because they started the foundation.

Give the human race some credit!
We are, despite the idiocy of some Earth Firsters, still and always have
been the most intelligent animal this planet has ever produced

Be proud of what we have done. 

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:05:44 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Evil thought for RoM

If the RoM were TL13 in any useful sense(s), I think the 3I would be 
able to adopt that technology fairly quickly, *if* it became public 
knowledge.

Zhunastu Industries is perfectly capable of holding up the release of 
technology -- like fusion plus, originally released at TL10 levels 
rather than TL12.  Zhunastu is owned by the Imperial family, who 
coincidentally control the Scout service and the Navy, and has a keen 
interest in all high technology.  They might be able to achieve a 
fairly good cover-up.

Is it inconceivable that Zhunastu is actively seeking out all RoM 
technology and records not only for their own corporate advantage nut 
also so the Emperor can control the development of technology?  It's 
much easier to plan for the long term when you can predict what 
technology will be like in 100 years?

"No, sire, we won't be releasing gravitically-focussed lasers for 
several decades, so this is as good a battleship as we can build.  
But you will notice these turret designs, which won't require too 
much modification to take the new lasers..."

This policy by the Imperium also extends to Ancient sites, of course, 
as per CT/MT.

Now, your PCs' TL13 vacc suits seem to be attracting some unusual 
attention from that naval officer in the corner...


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:22:41 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: dividends

"Hi. We're strangers from the stars. We did a bit of mining in
your system a while back, and invested your royalties for you. Your 
broker got lucky, and you now own 3.2% of a commercial enterprise called 
'The Third Imperium'. This years dividends come to 2.2 teracredits.
Do you want that in cash or should we re-invest it ?".

Can you imagine if this happened to us?
A lot of fingers and blame would be pointed, and the result would probably
be the most vicious war in human history. Every country would claim that one
of their citizens was the first to discover a given planet and therefore
should get all royalties.
The UN would try to claim all funds to support development in the Third
World )read: line leaders' pockets), the USA would claim it on the basis of
being the economic engine of the planet, China on the basis that outer space
has always belonged to "free socialist peoples" (read: them)

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:27:58 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Pyramids

Quote:
Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 
Try doing it in the middle of a scorching desert, with TL2 technology,
and the task becomes a bit harder.  Saying we know how the pyramids were
built is not entirely correct I'm afraid.

The Nile valley and environs is only a desert now because of the efforts of
the human race there (like wasting resources building tombs for dead kings)

I have seen several films regarding how the pyramids were built: a lot of
head work, followed by a lot of elbow grease, with a liberal dash of human
ingenuity

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:57:24 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage

I wrote:

>
>Doug Berry wrote:
>
>>
>>I found a nice house rule to replace the 3 dice max.  Be warned, it
>>involves math (eeeekk!!)
>>
>>Average the PC's STR and END.  Round up.  This is his Damage Limit.  A PC
>>can take up to his DL from guns and pulse (hand-held) lasers, and up to
>>3xDL from plasma waepons. DL does not lower with wounds.. it is a measure
>>of a character's bulk and toughness. Any to-hit roll made by 5 or more will
>>ignore DL and do full damage -OR- the wea[on does 2xdamage, DL applies.
>[snip]
>>I believe this system is a nice compromise, and it it zots those
>>mega-characters how have "letter" stats in every category; they'll be
>>sucking more damage!
>
>
>	Interesting... the thing is is that I dunno how this works in real
>life.  In your example, I doubt that Joe Marine is actually physically
>twice Fred Wimpy's size and bulk (which is why he takes more damage) but
>his DL is more  than twice Fred's.  Maybe averaging the rounded-up square
>roots of their stats and adding the rounded-up square root of the average,
>with a minimum of 3 dice anyhow?
>
>	I'm visualizing something like this:
>
>[sqrt(STR)+sqrt(DEX)+sqrt(End) all rounded up]/3=x.
>
>x+sqrt(x) rounded up = DL(raw)
>
>if DL(raw)<3 then DL=3
>if DL(raw) is equal to or greater than 3, Dl(raw)=DL
>
>	I haven't time to run any numbers; I'll try this PM.


	Well, time to run the numbers:

Bertha Bedridden: 223777

x: 2+2+2=6.  6/3=2.
DL(raw): 2+2=4
Therefore Bertha's max number of damage dice is 4.

Bob Subormal: 456777

x: 2+3+3=8. 8/3= 2.666.  Therefore x=3.
DL(raw): 3+2=5
Therefore Bob's max number of damage dice is 5.

Joe Blow: 777777

x: 3+3+3=9.  9/3=3.
DL(raw): 3+2=5
Therefore Joe's max number of damage dice is 5.

Edna Exceptional: A9A777

x: 4+3+4=11.  11/3=3.666.
DL(raw): 3.666+1.914=5.58
Therefore Edna's max number of damage dice is 6.

Steve Steroidcase: DBC777

x: 4+4+4=12.  12/3=4.
DL(raw): 4+2=6
Therefore Steve's max number of damage dice is 6.

	This strikes me as a little high, so perhaps if the final max
damage dice were DL-1 this would normalize.  This would give Bertha a max
DD of 3, Bob and Joe max DDs of 4, and Edna and Steve max DDs of 5.

	This seems to be a little more in line.  3 DD strikes me as being a
bare minimum, really.  Let's examine the case of each of these being shot
by a 5 damage dice ACR:

It strikes me that someone as feeble as Bertha shouldn't really be able to
stay on their feet after getting shot by a 5 DD ACR regardless (let alone a
10 DD FS 6.66 GME :>).   Assuming minimal damage rolls (snakeyes), Bertha
is guaranteed to be dropped and assuming average rolls (working out to 3
points per die) will die on the spot.  Try shooting some senior citizens
with an M-16 sometime to test this.  This seems realistic to me.

	Bob and Joe will probably be felled by an ACR round too, assuming
average rolls.  Bob stands a good chance of getting severely wounded, and
will probably die a lot of the time.  Even snakeyes on a damage roll will
badly cramp their style and might drop Bob. A max damage roll (6 points per
die) will kill both of them dead, which is as it should be.  I honestly
don't think that average or below-average physical specimens should be able
to shrug off getting shot by an assault weapon.

	Looking at the two high-end characters, under the revised numbers
Edna will likely go down after an average ACR hit, but a minimal hit won't
slow her down too badly.  A max damage hit will just barely kill her.
Steve OTOH can almost shrug off a minimal damage hit, has a 1 in 3 chance
of staying on his feet after an average hit, but is guaranteed to be felled
(but not killed on the spot) by a max damage roll.  This sounds good to me.

	If you're using something like Glenn's hit location table, as I am,
which models the post-injury effects of getting shot, I think that this
modification to the rules would produce realistic results.  Using double
and triple damage called shots (such as called shots to the head say) will
also add a significant amount of lethality to the process :).  Getting shot
in the heart or head with, say, an ACR round ought to seriously mess
someone up, and I think that this would be the result using this rule.

	So, to restate my modified maximum damage dice house rule:

*******

In order to determine the maximum number of damage dice from a
non-explosive slug hit applicable to a given character, perform the
following calculation:

1) [sqrt(STR)+sqrt(DEX)+sqrt(End) all rounded up]/3=x.

2) x+sqrt(x) rounded up = DL(raw)

3) if DL(raw)<3 then DL=3

4) if DL(raw) is equal to or greater than 3, Dl(raw)=DL

5) DL-1= the maximum number of damage dice that can be rolled against that
character.

Use in conjunction with the called shots rule and Glenn Grant's hit
location table to model effects of shots hitting vital organs and
post-impact injury effects.

*******

	Comments?

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1527
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Traveller-digest        Monday, July 7 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1528



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Pyramids
Re: Pyramids
Pocket Empires: Real life
Imperial Anthem
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Alexandria
re: Pyramids
Pocket empires
Re: Mars and fuel refining
Re: Pyramids
Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs (long : Contains rules)
Re: Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Pyramids
TravWeb Central
Pocket Empires Query
Need......Help.......(HD crash)
Glad to help
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
RE:Loss of Technology

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:41:55 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@Rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Pyramids

 
>>>I intend to have my players encounter a few of these things, can anyone tell
> >> me where they are located in the Spinward Marches?  Thanks

I would hazard a guess of "wherever a race first started building
permanent structures." (I mean first as in when they first do so on
their homeworld, not interstellar colonies).  A pyramid is the
easiest way to make something tall if you don't have advanced
materials (as any kid making a sand castle knows).  The first ones would 8
be earthen mounds, then, later stone.

- -Merrick

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:47:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Merrick Burkhardt <merrick@Rt66.com>
Subject: Re: Pyramids

 
> Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 
> Try doing it in the middle of a scorching desert, with TL2 technology,
> and the task becomes a bit harder.  Saying we know how the pyramids were
> built is not entirely correct I'm afraid.

I don't know about _easy_, but the fact is that they were built by
people with simpler materials than we now have, so it wasn't all
that hard (though I'm sure it was quite challenging).

They were built in mesoamerica, too, BTW (in jungle, no less (not a
"dry heat")).  :-)

The bottom line is that we know that they were built, and we know
what limitations they had on materials---so we could redo it if we
chose to (though it might really end up an issue of how willing
modern people would be to kill off workers doing it by hand).

- -Merrick
 

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 10:52:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Pocket Empires: Real life

   Hi.

   Re: The relatively high GNP's of China and India compared to the US.

   Remember that in PE, GNP is defined in terms of manufacturing
   capability, not the ability to make money.  PE excludes `cultural
   costs' like news and entertainment media, beauty solons, video
   arcades, RPG companies and high finance from the `productive'
   economy.  The US Government includes all such economic activity in
   the GNP's it measures for the countries of the world.

   Classic example: The baskets that a Somali woman weaves for her
   village without recompense are not counted in Somalia's GNP, but the
   salary of an air force officer manning a missile silo waiting for
   WWIII not to start is counted in the US's GNP.  Which individual is
   more economically productive?

   If you subtract out the US's consumerism (ie divide by the `culture'
   factor, which would be quite high for the US), I would not be
   surprised to learn that China and the US really do outproduce us, not
   in dollars, obviously, but in `RU's'.

   -Rob

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 10:58:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Imperial Anthem

   Hi.

   A while back (6-8 months) somebody on this list wrote a really cool
   Imperial anthem, which was then revised by someone else with a music
   degree.  It was set to the tune of Holst's `Jupiter', and was alot of
   fun.  Would the original posters please send it in again?  I have
   lost my copy of it.

   As I recall, the rights to the verses were given to Marc Miller, and
   he may have a copy of them.

   -Rob

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 10:59:48 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Working through the rules on 2nd careers, another question has
popped up

3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a 
Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?

Thanks!

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 11:25:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Alexandria

   Hi.

> Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:50:42 -0400
> From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>

> IIRC, when the God (and ancient knowledge) -fearing christians whacked the
> Library for the last time, they hacked the Librarian Hypatia to death with
> broken seashells. 

   I had always thought that the Christian mob attacked Hypatia because
   she backed the Jews in a power struggle/riot which had torn the city
   apart at that time, not because they feared ancient knowlege.  In
   fact, many of the most influential orthodox bishops at that time had
   studied under Hypatia at Alexandria; her death was a great blow to
   the church in the view of its leaders.

   Also, I seem to recall that the Library was wacked for the /last/
   time by the Mongols, much later than the 5th century,  though perhaps
   I'm confusing Alexandria with some other place on this point.

   -Rob

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:44:02 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Pyramids

Harold writes

>>  Even in the wildest predictions by the most extreme (yet still sane)
>ecologists, the oceans of Terra would not rise the amount indicated.
>Why?  Even at our current rate of global warming (1 degree per 200
>years)

Not to get into a debate about global warming...but there are certainly
predictions by sane atmospheric scientists/climate modellers (not
ecologists!) that predict warming higher than 1 degree per 200 years -
1 degree C per 50 years is probably about the median of the high
predictions. (Balanced by the no-warming-at-all predictions, of 
course.)

>cheap, affordable fusion power

Aha! Now we have an explanation! In T4, although the Terrans get
fusion power early in the 21st century, they don't get fusion reactors
small enough to power individual vehicles until TL12 - so there's a
couple more centuries of burning fossil fuels in vehicles of all
sorts. (Electric vehicles will also be popular - but it's surprisingly
hard to design a battery-powered grav vehicle with CSC or FFS.) 
That'll help a little. Also note that global climate change temperature
estimates are just that, global - you can have much higher (or lower)
local climate changes; possibly enough to change rainfall patterns
enough to raise the Nile, for example.

Bruce

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:58:58 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Pocket empires

I've added a new section at http://www.vrhome.com/traveller dedicated to
Pocket Empires.
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in it yet aside from a really lame spreadsheet,
but I'm hoping some of you will help me fill it up.
We need some software tools for this!
Write 'em. please. I'll give them a home.

The Druid
clarkweb@bellsouth.net

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:41:51 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Mars and fuel refining

Mark Clark wrote:

>  Finally, the New Scientist had an article on Mars expeditions, and it
>seems NASA is working on - hold on - fuel refining!  Yes, it costs too
>much to send the fuel all the way to Mars, so they are developing a system
>that can make a fuel on Mars from Martian materials.  I only skimmed the
>article, since I was late for an appointment, but it sounded rather
>complex with all sorts of design questions about operating in temperature
>extremes and so on.

Newsweek had a great article on this idea about two or three years ago. I
don't recall the specifics, but it involved the eventual manned mission to
Mars.

It's extremely expensive to send a team of people to Mars with enough fuel
for a round trip, so someone devised a plan by which an unmanned craft
would be sent first. This craft would land on Mars and immediately begin
extracting methane from Mars' atmosphere to build up a fuel supply in a
large tank of some sort.

The manned mission would then take off for Mars with just enough fuel for a
one-way trip. They would arrive at Mars, take "one small step," do whatever
experiments they wanted to do, and refuel their craft with the fuel that
the first craft extracted from the Martian atmosphere. Then they'd return
home.

I forget what the savings were but I do recall they were significant. I
like the fact that NASA's being much more cost-conscious these days. Not
only does it save taxpayers' money, but being efficiency minded can only
help to develop better spacecraft.

I recall that the article estimated the first manned mission to Mars
occurring some time in the 2020s, but last night I heard that the first
manned mission could be as soon as 2011!

And yes, Mark, your synopses were appreciated!

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml




- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 10:59:09 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Pyramids

Merrick Burkhardt wrote:
> 
> 
> The bottom line is that we know that they were built, and we know
> what limitations they had on materials---so we could redo it if we
> chose to (though it might really end up an issue of how willing
> modern people would be to kill off workers doing it by hand).

I saw a show on TV a few years ago where a bunch of people got 
together to do exactly that: using nothing but their own sweat and
some ropes and logs, they were able to move huge blocks of rock
far enough to prove that the pyramids could have been built that way.

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:08:40 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Battle Damage and Breakdown Repairs (long : Contains rules)

Dave Golden was last, but,
>At 11:23 pm 06/30/97, you wrote:
>>Hello Joe, on Jun 28 you wrote:
>>
>>> 	Where (if at all)in T4 does it call out the rules for repairing
>>>spacecraft
>>> battle damage?
[snip]
>>  Hmm, from memory that is one area that isn't covered too well. I would
>>suggest looking at the new price for the item, and taking a percentage of
>that
>>based on how badly damaged the part is.

[snip]
Now Dave;
>	I'd use much more than the flat percentage of damage to be
>repaired--fixing part of a complex system is usually more expensive than
>the original cost to install that part. As long as it's still cheaper than
>replacing the entire system. Thus, if it cost Cr400,000 to manufacture and
>install the broken part as part of the original manufacturing process,
>it'll probably cost twice that to remove the damaged part (big labor
>costs), buy the replacement part (repaired any cars lately? Mucho dineros),
>reinstall the part, and put everything else back together around it (labor
>again).

I disagree to some extent.  Perhaps there is a more detailed way of looking
at this question.  I am willing to bet for example that many Naval and
Military vessels are built with swift repair in mind.   Electronics will
all be in prepackaged "modular" form similar to the way modern PCs are
usually made.  Also, SSDS and other construction "sets" do not include any
cost of actually assembling the ships, so we must assume that the cost of
assembly is part of the cost of the components.

Now, that's not to say that the particular ship that is being repaired is
going to be compatible with the parts the starport or spaceport has in
stock.  Also, some parts (hull plates, twisted bulkheads, etc.) may need to
be fabricated or repaired in place.

Making it up as I go along, how's this for a guesstimate;

Basic Chance that the starport has a specific replacement part for the ship
being repaired (Radios, sensors, laser focussing elements, fusion plant
heating antenna, etc.) To be used when there is a reason to doubt;

Roll 2D, on 7+ it has the part.

Modifiers (negative = lesser chance);
Per 5 years of ship age since manufacture;  -1 (Including 1st 5 years)
A class starport +1
B class starport  no modifier
C class starport -3
D class starport -6
Location of repair is location of manufacturer +4
Within 5 parsecs of mfgr +3
Within 10 parsecs of mfgr +2
Within 20 "   "    "    "    "  +1
Further than 40 Parsecs of mfgr -1
Mfgr is not from the Imperium (assumes reparis happen within Imperial
borders) -3
(add to distance modifier, if applicable)
Same part has been reparied or replaced since vehicle mfgr: Use age of part
rather than age of ship to determine die modifier.

So, A 40 year old ship has lost its Radio to battle damage.  Age gives a -8.
They go to an A class starport within 10 Pc. of the ships builder. +1 for A
Stp, +2 for range to builder.
The Radio is original and Imperial, so the Roll of a 9 has 8 subtracted and
three added for a final result of 4:  The part is unavailable.

Let's assume they rolled an 12 (final result of 7, but a 12 would always
succeed anyway).

Price uses the same roll with the following additional modifiers;
(Ex-)Military Vessel; +2

Result is % of new "cost" to be paid for the part (Exclusive of
insallation) Per the construction rules of your choice.
Modified Roll          Result
- -----                     ---------
2-                      300%
3                       200%
4                       175%
5                       150%
6                       130%
7                       120%
8                       110%
9                       105%
10                     100%
11                      95%
12                      90%
13+                    80%

You could easily end up with a +6 on a new ship (even a new one gets a -1
for being 0-5 years old) at an A class starport within 5 pc of the
manufacturer.  At 80% you are paying for a part currently being
manufactured in quantity somewhere nearby.  The "cost" in the construction
rules includes the cost of assembling the ship, so this is relatively
consistent.

If the ship was made by a Megacorp like Ling Standard, I would say you were
never more than 5 Pc away from the Manufacturer unless you were well off
the Xboat route.

Of course, even in the first example an A class starport is going to have
radios, but in this case the ship will need it's communications 'net
replaced, the ancient EMS array modified to suit or replaced, and any
components affected by such a replacement either modified or replaced.
Alternatively, a source for used parts may be sought, or a jury-rigged
solution using the skill level of one of the players (The starport
technician can't do something like that for liability reasons...without a
suitabe bribe anyway).

As always, These things have to fit well with the plot.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 14:42:34 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Library at Alexandria (was: Re: RoM)

Anders Backman writes:

>   Carl tended to exaggerate.
>
>>That was the most severely gross understatement I've ever read.

   How about this one: the original edition of MegaTraveller had only a
few minor bits of errata.

   God bless Carl, but he wasn't called 'BHA' for nothing.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 14:42:12 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

Anders Backman writes:

>>I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but
>>again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never
>>before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a
>>stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.
>
>Like the atom bomb perhaps? ;)

   In all seriousness, both the Germans and Soviets had nuclear programs
prior to the Americans.  The Soviet effort had the plug pulled on it by
Stalin, who wanted to use the resources elsewhere.  The German effort
was hampered by Allied commando raids, lack of resources, and a bit of
hard luck.  Had things happened differently, it was not out of the
question that the Germans could have had the Bomb a year before the
Allies--I won't even go into what would have happened next....

   No knock on the people working on the Bomb for the Americans--they
went from third place to first starting with a bunch of theory in 1942
and finishing the project with low level mass production three years
later.  It's just that atomic weapons were a natural development as
Terra transitioned from TL 5 to TL 6.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 14:42:56 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

Anders Backman writes:

>>   Even in the wildest predictions by the most extreme (yet still sane)
>>ecologists, the oceans of Terra would not rise the amount indicated.
>>Why?  Even at our current rate of global warming (1 degree per 200
>>years) cheap, affordable fusion power would cause any man-made causes to
>>dwindle to basically zero before the end of the next century.  Global
>>terraforming and ecological management would clean up any remaining
>>damage and bring temperatures back down to the normal 12.5 degrees
>>centigrade (*not* 15 as was reported in Book 6: Scouts and elsewhere).
>
>The largest problem with fusion is its availability and cheapness. When
>every country on earth got fusion the waste heat (ALL produced power will
>be waste heat eventually) warmed the earth much more than the puny changes
>that the Co2 gasses ever did here. 

   That's where ecological management would come in.  With a world
government, global management of the environment is no longer a
political football that is played with but never fully implemented. 
Besides, I think you may not be taking into account just how much more
power fusion produces.  While there would be proportionately more waste
heat, you need much smaller plants to produce the same amount of
energy--in fact, there may even be a *reduction* in the total amount of
waste heat versus hydrocarbon plants.
 
>Another big problem is urbanization which decreases the earths albedo by 
>darkening the ground (asphalt and most roof material are darker than the 
>average earth).

   Roof top gardens, simple changes in the color of roofing materials,
and greater population densities made possible by archologies would take
care of all that.

>I'm not saying you're wrong, just throwing some bones to the flock.

   Thanks for the softballs.  :-)

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 14:50:11 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: TravWeb Central

Hi,

As some of you know, I maintain a Traveller site named TravWeb Central
which has served as a repository for many Traveller materials.  It's
just undergone a major facelift, and changed to support mainly T4 only.

<plug>
TravWeb Central is a fantastic web site where you can find many things
to help you along the way in your Traveller adventures.  From starships,
to fully written epic quests, TravWeb has it all.

In our Milieu Zero Adventures section you'll find fully written
adventures that can be plugged into any Traveller campaign and provide
sessions of gaming fun.

Other sections of the page include Milieu Zero Starships, House Rules,
and Other Eras (detailing things from CT, MT, TNE, etc.).

Lastly, as always, TravWeb Central is the official home of the Imperium
Games FAQ by Joe Walsh.  Check it out for the latest information on
Imperium Games!
</plug>

You can find TravWeb Central at http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virtually anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutely anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 19:44:28 +0000
From: "Stuart C. Squibb" <scs@vectis.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Pocket Empires Query

I've seen variants of this question asked on the list before, but not 
an answer, so I'll try again and see what happens.

In Pocket Empires the Social Standing of a Family:

"..is determined by their overall empire, its size, profitability and 
general prestige"  (p.13)

I can't find any way of actually calculating this. Could someone 
please qive me a hint?

Thanks,
Stuart.

- --------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart C. Squibb       | Home: scs@vectis.demon.co.uk
Isle of Wight, England | Work: Stuart.Squibb@iwha.swest.nhs.uk
- --------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:55:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: nrunner@ix.netcom.com (Archie T.)
Subject: Need......Help.......(HD crash)

either the old xboat or the TML mailing list.
    I was a program that dealt with coalitions, and the number of times 
they can control their own coalition, given a number of members, and 
the number of votes of each member. The faction that 'leads' the 
combined coalition is simply the one with the greatest number of votes 
in that coalition, whether its only coalition on the planet, or it is 
the largest city (a type of coalition), in the largest state, in the 
largest nation. I wish some GREAT soal can help. THANK YOU, in advance.

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 16:10:24 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Glad to help

Quote the Poster:
Clairification:
Glenn, I have a character names "Commander X" and his space station is 
called "Planet X"  So if these things came from Planet X...

Mind you, you just gave me a nasty, NASTY Idea for an adventure, my players 
are going to hate you... ;->

Wouldn't be the first. Someday you will hear the tale of Ignatious Cruddhe

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:32:07 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk> wrote:
>The UWP data format for star sytems is pretty consistent between all 
>the programs I have seen, and follows the definition given by Marc 
>Miller in Challenge 25.
>
>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na
>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na M8 D

The main problem I have with this format is that it doesn't allow for
long world names.  This is solved in comma- or tab-delimited formats,
but they are of course harder for a person to read.  An example from the
net 1st Survey data (with single spaces replacing tabs for transmission
purposes):

ant 1006 Shiplishkair. E586000-5 Ba S 004  G9 VI

[Note the blank column before the stars, presumably for allegiance.]

The algorithm I came up with when reading files - which should be able
to cope with a variety of these formats - is:

1.  Try and get past comments and other material at the start, one line
    at a time:

    a.  If it's empty except for whitespace ignore it.
    b.  If it starts with #, $, @ ignore it (or attempt to parse it for
        (sub)sector name/trade route/personal code/etc).

2.  Try and recognise format (if this fails, ignore this line and go
    back to 1):

    a. Look for 4 digits in a row (hopefully this is the hex location).
    b. If this has a tab either side of it, take a guess that it's 1st
       Survey-style data; if it's at the start of the line but has a tab
       after it, guess it's like 1st Survey without sector codes.
    b. Otherwise, guess it's standard name/loc/uwp/base/etc format, but
       don't assume column widths.  Check location is not at the start
       and is followed by some sort of whitespace - hopefully a tab or n
       spaces (likely n=1).
    c. Check uwp field matches 7 alphanumerics (an's), '-', then another
       an; then (optionally) another '-' and four more an's for EE; then
       the delimiter.  If we guessed 1st Survey and this fails, try
       instead as name/loc/uwp/etc but tab-delimited.
    d. [Abbreviating to save typing]  Check Base has 0 or 1 chars; PBG 3
       digits; allegiance 0, 1 or 2 chars.  If space-delimited, note
       column position for each field.
    e. [NEW] Check "stars" field for valid stars or LRX data.  This is
       easy provided 'I' and 'V' aren't valid X codes.

3.  Assume all following lines match this pattern, unless they are empty
    or begin with a #.  Do whatever you want with this information...

I know this looks yucky, but it should handle the output from all
existing programs I know of - or rather, all the ones that produce text
files.

> Algorithm - Extension to UWP
> ============================
> I think it would be a good idea to have (at the very least) an agreed 
> format for the PE economic data in a UWP file.

I think it should match the published material, and be tacked onto the
end of the UWP.  In the case of column-based formats, simply move all
later columns up five spaces.

> I think it would be even better it there was a reproducable algorithm
> (based on the UWP, hex number and my height in cm) that means that any
> TMLer could generate the same PE data for each planet in a .sec file.

This is a particular instance of the RNG query (below), combined with a
ruling on the exact rules followed...such as the Infrastructure /
Population Question.

> Algorithm - Naming
> ==================
> I propose to use letter frequency tables, like those published at: 
>
> www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/languages.html
>
> It would be good if we had an agreed algorithm so that, for example,
> we can generate names for the numerous un-named sub-sectors and, 
> occasionally, un-named worlds in some of the .sec files available on 
> the web.

Apart from good ol' RNG, this poses the question of how you decide which
language to use?  Allegiance is often a good indicator, but not always.

Sysgen had quite a complicated way of modifying languages slightly based
on location, to (sort-of) generate dialects.

> Algorithm - random number generation
> ====================================
> There are various methods available that would allow reproducible 
> "random" numbers to be generated from a 32-bit seed, a UWP + hex 
> number, or whatever.
>
> Is anyone out there able to suggest suitable replacement algorithm(s) 
> for the  random number generators in QuickBasic, Pascal (Delphi in my 
> case), C++, etc?  

As far as basic mechanism goes, what's wrong with the Sysgen algorithm?
to get a (16-bit) random number with a 32-bit seed:

        seed = seed * 1103515245L + 12345L

and read the top 16 bits.

I haven't done any analysis of the results this produces, but even if
it's not good statistically something similar will do the job in all
those languages (assuming they can handle 32-bit arithmetic).

As for seeding it:  in sysgen this was based on the X & Y coords of the
world (eleven bits each), plus the Z-coord added to a magic number (ten
bits), coded as XXXXXXXXXXXYYYYYYYYYYYZZZZZZZZZZ.  This could thus cope
with just over 2000 * 2000 * 1000 systems.  For the "default" traveller
universe, you just need to decide on the co-ordinates of Reference and
you're away, adding the "local" x and y to the base; variants could be
given different z-coords.

Since sectors and subsectors have different needs to systems, you can
use the top-left hex of the (sub)sector as the location, assign a
different magic number, and you're away.

The problem, of course, when reading a .sec file (for instance) is
deciding what coords to assign to it.  I don't have an answer to that.

This is getting too long, and my lunchbreak should have been over quite
some time ago, so I'll leave it there for now.
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:05:20 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: RE:Loss of Technology

S. Johnson writes

>    Oh really? <evil grin> I'll give you an example.  Recently I tried to find
>a simple timeline or chronology of human history on the web.  From the Early
>1400's onwards would have been sufficent, and I know there must be a couple
>somewhere out there on the web.  Unfortunately all your search engines couldn't
>find one, and I went through ALL of them. ;)

Oh, really? <evil grin back> An infoseek search on
	timeline chronology "15th century"
found me
http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/projects/pack/rom-chrono/others.htm
(as well as a million other things...but that's what came up first)
which quickly lead to 
http://www.canisius.edu/~emeryg/time.html
(an index of timelines)
which lead to the *wonderful*
http://mediahistory.com/time/timeline.html
Which has a very nice timeline from Prehistoric to modern. 1400s start on
http://mediahistory.com/time/1400s.html

This took me less than 2 minutes. What search engines were you using? 

Next example? 

Bruce

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1528
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Traveller-digest        Monday, July 7 1997        Volume 1997 : Number 1529



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial Anthem
Character generation step-by-step (long)
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Support for the Development of Space
RE:Loss of technology (slight apology to johnson)
Re: Starship Design in T4
Re: TL of RoM
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
RE: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Imperial Anthem (long) [Repost]

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:15:39 +0100
From: Simon Turner <madgamer@mistral.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

Just done a straw poll round the gaming table and the winner is:

Anything by Christopher Franke
(B5 back for a fifth season!   YES!)

Other nominations included 
Thus Spake Zarathusta
(You know the one out of 2001 - Forget the bagpipes, marines with grav
assisted kettledrums!)

Kill the Wabbit!
(Started off as Ride of the Valkries (Still the best starship combat music
IMHO) then we remembered one of the best Bugs Bunny cartoons ever made. The
one with him and Elmer Fudd
in a send up of Wagner - "Oh Brunhilda you're so wuvverly" "Don't I know
it, I can't help it.")

Anyway Back to your regulary scheduled program......

BTW. Congratulations to the very fine men and women who made the Pathfinder
mission such a success. The *REAL* interstellar scout service.

Also, any other Brits watch the very fine 'Natural History of an Alien',
shown as part of BBC2's Mars weekend. Scientists and Writers came up with
ideas for what real alien ecologies might be like. If anyones interested
and feels its on topic, I'll post a synopsis on the list.


- ----------------------------------------------------------
Simon W. Turner     madgamer@mistral.co.uk
Visit the Madgamers Asylum at http://www3.mistral.co.uk/alkhemi

"Do not fear going foward slowly, fear only to stand still" - Ancient
Chinese Proverb

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:44:00 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Character generation step-by-step (long)

As an inexperienced T4 character generator, I thought I'd run through my
first attempt with the revised process - and have a go using Glenn
Grant's life events at the same time.  I'm going to follow the summary
chart exactly (but with optional extras), rather than use any
alternative rules (such as for allocating stats).  Unfortunately, I
didn't write down the actual dice rolls, so can't include them.

1.  Basic Characteristics:
    586939 (genetic 4635)
    Not what I would have chosen, but we'll see where it leads.

3.  Birthworld:
    HiTech (AB) - starport B, Na Ni Ast Va
    Looking in M0, I selected Erani (2501 B000699-B Na Ni Ast Va 100) as
    the only suitable world.  Because I like to flesh out worlds and it
    often sparks ideas, I then expanded this a bit - see separate post.

    At this point, I decided to roll for childhood life events:
     0-2:  [Parent] lose your position
     3-5:  [Parent] become celibate for a long period
     6-8:  [Parent] get into trouble with the law
     9-11: are caught up in political upheaval or revolution
     12:   start or end an affair
     13:   get pregnant, or get someone pregnant
     14:   move in together with someone, or move out
     15:   are affected by a new law or crackdown
     16:   a relative dies (and perhaps leaves an inheritance)
     17:   find yourself deeply in debt

    Oof!  A bit of a rough ride, there.  For some reason I now decided
    that I wanted the character to be female.

4.  Homeworld:
    Looking at the life events, I decided to keep her on her birthworld.

5.  Homeworld Skills:
    Craftsman-1, Navigation-2, Vac Suit-1

6.  Education:
    With that UPP, she's not ideally suited to any particular career, so
    I decided to try out the waiver rules to get her into university
    despite her low Edu (which I rationalise by saying her family
    problems meant she didn't concentrate at school).
    She is admitted, majoring in Linguistics.  Unfortunately, she
    doesn't persevere, and drops out after only one year - I decided she
    didn't concentrate, so roll on the table and get Art-1.  Life event:
     18:   encounter discrimination or intolerance [neat...]

    Determined to make something of herself, she successfully enrolls in
    NOTC.  She graduates with Admin-1 and Ship Tactics-1.  Life events:
     19:   have a major failure [what, another one?]
     20:   question your sexual lifestyle, role, or orientation

7.  Service:
    Automatic enrollment in Navy as O1.

    Term 1: Injured, End-3 (eek!), recovered fully (phew!).  No award.
    I decide to give her the nickname "Lucky"...
    Promoted to O2.  5 rolls, plus Ship Tactics - I don't know what she
    wants to do yet, so I roll once on each table except Physical,
    gaining Carousing, Communications, Cryptography, Pistol and Ship's
    Guns.  Life events:
     21:   try a new sport or recreational activity
     22:   become a volunteer for charity, development, or community
     23:   are caught up in political upheaval or revolution
     24:   encounter an important person from your past

    Term 2: *Just* continued.  Injured, Dex-1, recovered (heh, good
    nickname).  No award; no promotion.  Gravitics, Pistol, Recruiting,
    and Ship's Boat, plus Ship Tactics.  Life events:
     25:   become celibate for a long period
     26:   get a new job or assigment
     27:   try a new drug
     28:   change your home

    Term 3: Continued.  No injury; promoted O3.  Gravitics, Hunting,
    Instruction, Medical, Recruiting, plus Ship Tactics.  Life events:
     29:   become a victim of crime or conspiracy
     30:   perform a major rite of passage
     31:   are caught up in a feud or other factional conflict
     32:   are publicly accused of a crime

    Term 4:  Failed to continue (fits with those last life events!) -
    mustered out.  Cr50,000, +1 Int, +1 Edu, 10 High Passages.

10. Cold Sleep Weeks.
    Couldn't find the table!  Assume none.

11. Determine Birthdate.
    Assume for the sake of argument the (first) political upheaval was
    joining the new Imperium.  When does Erani join?  Birthday is 229.

I'll give a complete write-up (including my interpretation of her life
history) of the final character in a separate message, when I can fit in
typing it up.
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:37:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In a message dated 97-07-07 15:55:59 EDT, you write:

<< 
 3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
 3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
 minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a 
 Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
 
  >>
In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.

Marc

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:28:41 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> A while back there was the CAT list that was all about doing pretty much 
> the same thing you are proposing.

<snippage>

> %% "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it"  %%

I'm not familiar with CAT, perhaps you could e-mail me some details :-)


Simon

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:28:43 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> Display a schematic of the system? Something like this:
>  
>  *--o---o---+---O--O
>

That's the style.  I was goint to use a more conventional display of 
circular orbits with oversized markers for planets, but when I saw the
 *--o---o---+---O--O format in "The Long Way Home", I knew I had to use 
it ... it reminds me so much of Elite II's system data, which I had 
forgotten about.

Simon

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:28:54 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

The 32-bit random number generation in Turbo Pascal (and still in 
Delphi, I belive) uses:

 New := (8088405H * Old + 1) mod 2^32

The implementation of this is done in assembler with lots of "shl" to 
reproduce multiplication without worrying that the number produced is 
bigger than 32-bits can hold ... only the "remainder" is kept.

The 32-bit number is divided by 2^32 to give a number from 0 to 1, 
which can then be converted to any old number you want (a D6, perhaps).

I was wondering if any TMLers are wise in the ways of pseudo-random 
numbers and can suggest some alternate algorithms or know what is used 
in QuickBasic (Galactic 2.2) or other languages.


Simon

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:28:36 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> There are tabs between the fields here right.

The .gni and .sec files are fixed position formats, just has you 
feared.  There is no reason why I could not adopt a tab delimited 
format, but I am loath to move away from the work done in collating the 
.sec files used in Galactic and others.

Apart from computer-purist reasons, why do you object to fixed position 
formats?  You may be interested to know that my old (1988) program used 
a proper database file format with import and export to Miller-spec 
fixed position files.  Over the intervening years, the superior 
accessibility of Miller-spec data has convinced me to abandon a 
separate database format, as the only advantages are for the 
programmer, not the user.

Simon

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:28:38 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> Perhaps even going furhter than that to a choice of referee prepared
> maps of this planet's surface (ie. a city made for an adventure, etc.). 

This is one of the options I am considering.  It is a lot easier to do 
this when a .loc (location information) file is based on one star system 
(as in Galactic) rather than one file per Sector (as I currently propose). 
 The programming is not too difficult, but the file format starts to get 
more fussy and thus subject to error.

My current prefered choice is to have a file called, say, patrons.txt that 
contains a list of adventures and their locations.  Here are some example 
to explain what I mean:

SM1811="Across the Bright Face",<filename>,<map file>
Ag+HiPop="Harvest Run",<filename>,<map file>

In the first entry SM is the short code for Spinward Marches, and this is 
obviously CT Double Adventure 1 set on Dinom (Hex 1811 = Lanth 0201).  A 
little flag will pop up near the world to indicate "I know of an adventure 
set here", and the referee/user can then look at the list.  there may be 
only one enty, or there may be several (depending on how many entries in 
patrons.txt match the current location).  Usually the Referee will 
recognise the patron or adventure from the short name (in "" marks) and 
may decide that none are realy suitable at the moment.  Or he may say 
"excellent, I remember expanding that from 76 patrons".  He can then 
quickly look in the referenced <filename> to see if there are any rumours 
he can use to start laying the foundations of the adventure.

In the second entry, the referee had a bright idea about high value "first 
fruits" from the harvest of an Ag world.  As she fleshed out the adventure 
she realised that the world should have a HiPop to make things work.  The 
adventure did not fit in immediately, and not wanting to loose this in the 
future, she created a brief description of the adventure in a file and 
made an entry in patrons.txt.  When the players are on (or possibly just 
near) a Ag+HiPop world the referee is reminded of that bright idea from so 
long ago, and this time it fits in perfectly with some other part of the 
overall plot ...


This is one of the areas where I have not finished my thinking, as this 
concept can relatively easily be extended to assist PBEM referees and 
"solo" games, where the PC user can follow numerous adventures and 
sub-plots written by eager TMLers (those who have played the 
MegaTraveller computer games can probably see how a trading and 
astrogation program can become a solo RPG).  Although these features are 
very unlikely to be in the first version of my program, I like to plan 
ahead, as it often saves effort to leave various hooks in the code or data 
file to easily allow the feature to be added later.


Simon

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 97 16:22:24 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Support for the Development of Space

Hi folks,

I was having an email conversation with some gaming friends over the
weekend.  We were talking about the Mars Pathfinder mission and I mentioned
the National Space Society and the Space Studies Institute. "Are you
serious, or did you make them up?, one asked and from others I got the
email equivalent of a blank stare.  It surprised me that these intelligent
people, very interested in space, science, and science fiction had never
heard of these important organizations.

The following is off subject..a little..for this list, but just in case
some of you have never heard about NSS or SSI, I thought I'd post short
blurbs about each.  

The National Space Society (http://www.nss.org) has a membership of over
25,000 worldwide.  It is an independent educational, grassroots nonprofit
organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. 
NSS's vision is people living and working in thriving communities beyond
Earth.  It's mission statement is, to promote change in social, technical,
economic, and political conditions to advance the day when people will live
and work in space.  Membership is $25 per year and includes a subscription
to _Ad Astra_, the leading magazine promoting space exploration.  Call
1-800-376-ORBIT or visit the internet homepage at www.nss.org or more
information.

My Opinion:  EVERYBODY interested in space should be a member of NSS. For
citizens of the United States, it's an absolute *must!  NSS is the
organization that represents *our* interests before Congress and has enough
standing to be who NASA calls on when they need "grassroots" efforts.  The
officers of NSS have been called before Congress to testify on behalf of
space development and science projects.  NSS has been the leading
organization providing grassroots political support to keep the space
station and Mars missions in the budget.  The latest efforts have been to
support for Lunar Exploration Mission and for the "Commercialization of
Space Act" before Congress.  Through their political action committee,
SpacePAC, they support candidates friendly to our goals, and "educate"
those who aren't.  I've been a member since 1977, going all the way back to
one of the precursor organizations the L-5 Society.  I *heartily* recommend
them to anyone interested in expanding mankind's presence in space.

The Space Studies Institute is a non-profit, international, research and
educational organization founded in 1977.  It is dedicated to opening the
high frontier of space.  SSI was founded by Doctor Gerald O'Neill, noted
Princeton physicist and author of _The High Frontier_.  SSI's goals include
using the material wealth and solar energy of space to improve the human
condition both of those who live on Earth and those who live in space, and
to expand the ecological range of humanity throughout the solar system and
ultimately, perhaps, throughout the galaxy.  To this end SSI has conducted
and is conducting pioneering research into advanced space propulsion, the
extraction and processing of nonterrestrial materials for engineering
purposes, and the identification and location of lunar and asteroidal
resources.  Since Dr O'Neill's untimely death a couple of years ago, Dr
Freeman Dyson has become SSI's Board Chairman.  Membership is offered at
four levels: Corporate Membership, Senior Associate Membership (dues range
from $500 to 100 annually), Regular Membership (dues are $25 annually), and
Senior Citizen/Student Membership (dues are $15 annually).  If you are
interested in the future in space, contact SSI by letter, phone, FAX or
Email:

       Space Studies Institute 
       PO Box 82 
       Princeton, NJ 08542 
       Phone:  609-921-0377 
       FAX:    609-921-0389 
       Email:  ssi@ssi.org
           
My Opinion:  If you have read O'Neill's _High Frontier_ then you know what
vision guides this organization, and if you haven't read _High Frontier_ go
get a copy TODAY!  SSI isn't a political or grassroots oriented group like
NSS, it's dedicated to research, research, research!  Examples of SSI
research over the years include building working mass drivers, lab-level
demonstrations of mineral extraction from lunar soils. conceptual studies
of solar sails, laser launch and propulsion systems, "beanstalks", "walking
sticks", solar power satellites, and mission concepts including the basis
for what became the successful Clementine Mission to the moon and the
proposed Lunar Prospector Mission.  My membership in SSI is my way of
directing a little money to the basic research that needs to be done in
order to develop the technologies that we need to live in space.  It isn't
glamorous, but it is important.

Do we have any other NSS or SSI members on the list that would care to
testify?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 14:55:12 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: RE:Loss of technology (slight apology to johnson)

Looking more closely at the URLs I posted, the particular one I 
ended up with was just a history of media/communication rather than a 
general-purpose historical timeline. I must admit it's much easier to find
Star Trek timelines on the web than real-world ones - which reflects much
more the biases of web creators rather than failings of the search engines.
I'm actually inclined to suspect that there isn't in fact a general history
timeline on the web (at least for free), although

http://www.hyperhistory.com/

has charts that come close (but low-resolution in time.)

There's a nice pre-1500 timeline at 
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/Directory.html

Anyway, my main point is that the apparent lack of what s.johnson was 
looking for is a failing of the web, not the search tools.

Bruce

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

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 97 23:40:05 
From: jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
Subject: Re: Starship Design in T4

Hello Stephen, on Jul 3 you wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I am trying to use the design sequences in Starships for T4, but I have a
> problem when it comes to adding armor. According to what i can make out
> 	ArmorVolume=VolumeFactor*ArmorLevel
> 	ArmorMass=ArmorVolume*MaterialDensity
> Actual armor rating is then looked up on the USP table.
>
  This is true, however...

> The problem with this is that as you go up tech levels, armor masses more
> but gives the same protection value. Surely there should be an armor
> modifier on the material table.

  Well, there is. If you look at the Volume Factor entries, there are 4
values for each hull config and size. These match the different materials. 
The increasing strength of the higher tech materials is 'factored' (sorry 
couldn't resist) into the Volume Factor value.

> Also, if you cross reference armor level on
> the USP chart to get Armor Rating you are going to need a lot of volume to
> get decent armor ratings. Is this right?
>
  The one step left out is to multiply the armour USP by 10 to get the final 
value. This makes it a bit less costly.

> Any info gratefully received.
>
  Also, have a look at my SSDS Errata page
http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/Errata.html for a full list of 
fixes for SSDS.

Enjoy,
James Dempsey
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 email: jamesd@spirit.com.au             | Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten!
 WWW:   http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd |   Astronomy Domine - Pink Floyd

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:01:49 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

On Mon, 07 Jul 1997 01:24:45 -0400
hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) writes:
>
>closely this stuff falls apart, so those who support it would rather
>resort to relativism in an attempt to fog the issue enough so that the
>masses will accept it.

Probably why there is so much confusion too!  I wouldn't be too "high-on"
pulpity though, Harold.

>   We of course know better.

Agreed.

>Harold


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 17:07:17 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

On Sat, 5 Jul 1997 17:49:30 +0200 (METDST)
Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk> writes:
>
>No it isn't. Well, of course, I have to admit that according to the
>"Newest Testament" (or "Testament 4" as it were) it is. But that's IMO
>
>I guess that part is an article of faith.
>
>      Hans Rancke

Hans,

   I don't see any point in attempting to discuss a point where you are
complaining about a system you won't let me include for reference of the
discussion.  You can attack it--but you won't even accept its basic
precepts.  Seems your basic complaint is that you're version isn't what
is being published.  But then, that's always been the case for a lot of
us. :)

Willing to discuss on the facts, not one particular variant,


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:16:40 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

At 09:01 AM 7/7/97 +0000, Anders wrote:
>>Data Formats - UWP
>>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>>The UWP data format for star sytems is pretty consistent between all
>>the programs I have seen, and follows the definition given by Marc
>>Miller in Challenge 25.
>>
>>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na
>>Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na M8 D
>>
>>The first line for Zenopit is from Galactic, the second line from a
>>.sec file, which includes the Stellar type data.  Galactic uses the
>>bytes after the Allegiance code (Na in the case of Zenopit) for some
>>economic data.
>
>There are tabs between the fields here right. I hope to god (were I not an
>atheist) we're not talking "The first 14 bytes is the system name, the
>comes four bytes of hexnumber=8A". Simple tab delimated text files with a
>predetermined field ordering right?
>
>
>>Display Universe
>Yes that's a feature I like ;)
>
>
>
>/Anders Backman
>Aniware AB
>anders.backman@aniware.se
>
>
>

We could use a 'named' storage method, one of the older ones, where each
field is preceed by a standard name: "name"=3D"zenopit";"hexloc"=3D"1010";=
 ...
This would be extracted by a parser routine and loaded as needed. Tabs would
not be mandatory; description would be embedded in data so that you could
tell what you have; local or private reader code could be built as
individuals desired. We could also use the older .DIF format where the
record descriptor preceeded the data in the files. I have to go digging in
my shed; somewhere is an ancient Visicalc manual with the sections on .DIF
and how it was organized. I think most spreadsheets, buried deeply in them,
can still read .DIF files.

Garry

  =20

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 16:33:32 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

> << 
>  3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
>  3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
>  minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a 
>  Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
>  
>   >>
> In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
> 
> Marc

What!?!  This is the first thing you've posted that I don't like 
better than T4.... Being able to change careers was *awesome*. I 
loved my entertainer turned agent. She was able to use her 
entertainer career to cover her agent status.  Made for a great 
background for her. And I am currently playing a Naval character 
whose roots were in crime. She did a couple of terms as a Rogue 
before being scared straight...

There are some possibilities in the expanse of human existence this 
will limit. I can see, perhaps, not being able to switch between 
*military* careers, but between civilian careers? or from military to 
civilian? I'd like to see those sorts of options be available to me 
as a player, and to  the players in my games. 

Suz

#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 19:34:24 -0400
From: maverick@castlegate.net (Steve Brengard)
Subject: RE: Second Careers and the Draft...

- ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC8B0C.EE0366C0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

WHAT!!!! .....=20

Let me see if I got this correctly, before I decide to completely stop =
supporting IG and T4. Are you saying that in CharGen 4.1 characters can =
not change careers, that once they choose a career that they are stuck =
with it until mustering out and game play starts?

- -----Original Message-----
From:	CardSharks@aol.com [SMTP:CardSharks@aol.com]
Sent:	Monday, July 07, 1997 5:37 PM
To:	traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject:	Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In a message dated 97-07-07 15:55:59 EDT, you write:

<<=20
 3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
 3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
 minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a=20
 Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
=20
  >>
In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.

Marc


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Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:47:55 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem (long) [Repost]

Quoth Robert Flammang:
>    A while back (6-8 months) somebody on this list wrote a really cool
>    Imperial anthem, which was then revised by someone else with a music
>    degree.  It was set to the tune of Holst's `Jupiter', and was alot of
>    fun.  Would the original posters please send it in again?  I have
>    lost my copy of it.

That would be me -- except it was intended to be the anthem for the
Imperial Interstellar Scout Service, rather than for the Imperium at
large.  I suppose you could dragoon it into wider usage, though.  :-)

I include below my original, completely untutored version of the anthem,
and then Tim Peter's excellent review of it in more formal terms.  I
haven't had time to integrate any of his suggestions or changes: some of
those listed are impossible, to my ear, using "Jupiter's" existing metrics.


SERVICE ANTHEM OF

THE IMPERIAL INTERSTELLAR SCOUT SERVICE

(Music by Gustav Holst, Terran, -2648 to -2588)
(Lyric by Aram Synof, Sylean, -37 to present)



CHORUS:  Though the stars be dim and winsome wan
         And ever off so far,
         We shall bear Sylea's flame e'er on
         Rekindle every star.

Fro-om Delphi unto Windhorn,
Terra's outskirts unto Vland,
We will bear Civ'lization
To every being's hand.

[CHORUS]

To each human, to each other,
To each planet, to each race,
Shall Sylea be mother,
And show her shining face.

[CHORUS]

********

From: TPeterAZ@aol.com
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 13:29:31 -0500
Subject: Re: IISS Anthem? (long)

In a message dated 96-12-18 20:50:31 EST, "Chepe" wrote:

Before I begin, let me say that this is intended as a purely constructive
criticism.  I may be the only person on this list who holds a BM (which is a
Bachelor of Music degree, rather than something scatalogical), minored in
Vocal Performance (Bass/Baritone, thank you) and makes at least a
discretionary portion of his income as a musician, songwriter, singer, and
recording engineer (despite laboring by day in technical support).

That out of the way, let's dive in, shall we?

> THE IMPERIAL INTERSTELLAR SCOUT SERVICE
>  
>  (Music by Gustav Holst, Terran, -2648 to -2588)
>  (Lyric by Aram Synof, Sylean, -37 to present)

Very common throughout musical literature for melodies to be borrowed from
older works.  Holst's music is both memorable (just ask John Williams, who
"borrows" freely from the Planets throughout the Star Wars score) and
singable.  A good choice, overall. (Unfortunately, I am remembering "Jupiter"
a tad unclearly, and I no longer possess a copy of "The Planets" to which I
can refer.  Oh well, that's never stopped me in the past).

>  CHORUS:  Though the stars be dim and winsome wan
>           And ever off so far,
>           We shall bear Sylea's flame e'er on
>           Rekindle every star.

So far, so good.  Each cadence (wan, on, far, star) has a good vowel sound on
which to sustain.  You should try to avoid ending lines on hard consonants,
or, even worse, schwa sounds.  A pox upon all lyricists who do not sing.

>  Fro-om Delphi unto Windhorn,
>  Terra's outskirts unto Vland,
>  We will bear Civ'lization
>  To every being's hand.

Minor troubles here.  Horn, Vland/hand require very flat vowel sounds, which
are generally OK, though not preferred.  The 'shun of civilization uses the
abominable schwa, and places an unstressed syllable on the cadence.  A couple
of minor changes make it more singable.  You might try this instead,

Fro-om Windhorn on to Delphi,
To Terra and to Vland,
We will carry hope through the Night,
To every far off land.

This ends on more open vowel sounds, and is somewhat more singable.  I like
the reference to the Long Night, myself.  It also does away with unto
(another of those friggin' schwas) but maintains the feel of your lyrics.

>  [CHORUS]
>  
>  To each human, to each other,
>  To each planet, to each race,
>  Shall Sylea be mother,
>  And show her shining face.

Race and face are fine; mother and other are unaccented syllables on cadences
and end on schwas again, and we all know how Timmy feels about them.  However
the lyrical motive is stirring, and rather effectively constructed.  Since
they are on weak cadences, and aren't high notes, which I believe is the
case, they can probably be left alone.  

Actually, not a bad first attempt.  There are many famous (i.e., dead)
"great" composers whose sense of prosody (the art and craft of marrying
lyrics to music) isn't as strong. (See "banner" in The Star-Spangled Banner,
where the second highest, and most heavily accented note of the song, is on a
goddamned schwa!)  BTW, there isn't a book written on this subject of which I
know, and these comments are purely my opinion, degrees and experience
notwithstanding.  Besides, nobody listens to the singers opinions, anyway.

Hope this helps.  I offer my input purely as a sounding board (hideous pun
intended).  You may use, or ignore, it as you see fit.

Tim Peter
<TPeterAZ@aol.com>
"How many singers does it take to screw in a light bulb?  One; they hold the
bulb and wait for the entire world to revolve around them."

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1529
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Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 8 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1530



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives
RE: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4
Re: Character generation step-by-step (long)
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))
Re: TL of the RoM
re: Pyramids
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 18:30:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives

I was looking over the MT supplement Hard Times.

Chapter 15 "One Small Step" has a section on non-gravitic maneuver drives. 

They list ion drives and MPD (Magnetoplasmadynamic) drives.  I worked out
the ISPs and exhaust velocities for these drives and am wondering if I
made a mistake.  I had heard that this table in HT was actually fairly
accurate, but the figure I get for the exhaust velocity for the ion drives
listed here is 125,000 km/sec (0.4 C) and for MPD drives it's around
200,000 km/sec (0.67 C).  This is clearly silly for TL 7 and 8 drives. 
Did I make a mistake here?  If so, what are the correct figures? 

The relevant section of the table is:

TL Type   TT       Mass  Vol.  Fuel       Fuel Type    Pow Required 
7  Ion    0.05     15     15     0.0001   Ionizates     0.5 MW
8  MPD    0.2      10     10     0.005     Hydrogen     0.5 MW

TT= Total Thrust (1 ton of thrust = 9800 Newtons [ie it can support 1 ton
against 1 G]). 

Mass = Mass of the drive in Tons

Vol. = Volume of the drive in KiloLiters

Fuel = Fuel consumption in Kiloliters/hour

Hydrogen has a density of 0.07 Tons/KL
Ionizates have a density of 1.5 Tons/KL

Power Required = The power (in Megawatts) required to run the drive. 

Comments?


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:49:01 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: Second Careers and the Draft...

On Tuesday, July 08, 1997 4:34 AM, Suzette C. Dollar
[SMTP:suzd@goodnet.com] wrote:
[snip example about changing careers]
> > In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
> > 
> > Marc
> 
> What!?!  This is the first thing you've posted that I don't like 
> better than T4.... Being able to change careers was *awesome*. I 
> loved my entertainer turned agent.
[snip]

I hate doing this but here goes

Me Too!

Being able to play a more rounded multi career character is quite
important to me.  Quite aside from any skill advantages that be gained
there is the background advantage to being an Ex-marine merchant.  I
would also tend to think that Nobles with experience in the Navy would
be very common.

> There are some possibilities in the expanse of human existence this 
> will limit. I can see, perhaps, not being able to switch between 
> *military* careers, but between civilian careers? or from military to 
> civilian? I'd like to see those sorts of options be available to me 
> as a player, and to  the players in my games. 
> 
> Suz

These thoughts are good.  Many players have a varied background with
many career's in them especially on the TML(thats part of what makes the
TML such a dangerous place to post an uninformed opinion) and I think
that it's not particularly real to limit characters to one career of
experience - especially when rogues are able to cross careers with
impunity.

Brody Dunn

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 01:48:10 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Rapid Fire & Very-Rapid Fire weapons in T4

On Sat, 05 Jul 1997 19:25:52 -0700, JayStr wrote:

> I've got an Excel spreadsheet for smallarms design that will spit out
> stats for both T4 and TNE (along with CORPS and 'expanded' TNE). It'll
> let you select different rates of fire, and even tells you what amount
> of recoil they generate, but I find nothing on my old copy of FF&S to
> tell me at what point a machine gun or assault rifle becomes an RF or
> VRF weapon. Presumably this is in one of the TNE rulebooks, which I
> never bothered to buy and are now long out of print.

Take a look at Greg Porter's "Guns! Guns! Guns!" 3rd Edition (or 3G3).
IMHO, it uses slightly better rules for firearms design.  There are
also many examples to help clarify things, unlike FF&S.

> Accordingly, my questions are severalfold:
> 
> 1) Since ordinary automatic fire in T4 burns up 5 rounds for each target
> attacked, what rate of ammunition consumption constitutes an RF or VRF
> weapon?

According to the T4 conversion rules in 3G3, RF consumes 21-50
rounds/second while VRF uses 51+ rounds/second.  Since T4 uses six
second combat turns, this translates into 121-300 rounds/turn for RF
and 300+ rounds/turn for VRF.

Note that this is based on a /sustained/ fire over the /entire/ turn.
The following quote is from 3G3: "If a weapon runs out of ammunition
during a six second combat turn, it is not reloaded to get a higher
rate of fire."  For example, an SMG with a capability of emptying its
30 round magazine in 2 seconds would have an effective ROF of 5
rounds/second, not 90 rounds/turn.

> 2) What advantages are conferred by RF or VRF fire, as expressed in T4
> stats? Does it do any extra damage? or merely make it easier to hit?
> (I've heard to-hit bonuses of +2 and +4 bandied about, respectively).

Again, according to Greg Porter's 3G3 T4 conversion rules, RF grants a
+2 DM and triples the damage done.  VRF grants a +4 DM and quadruples
damage.

> 3) Is there any increase in the weight or expense of an RF/VRF weapon?
> And is it possible to create a weapon with variable rates of fire? (You
> know -- single-shot, five-round burst, full-auto, Dump The Clip).

3G3 and FF&S list receiver mass multipliers for different action types
(with the option of using a lighter receiver at the expense of
reliability in 3G3).

> 4) I presume in the original TNE rules that excessive recoil gave you
> minuses to hit. So how many foot-pounds of recoil gives you what minus?
> (OK, so it isn't part of the T4 rules... but I shoot and hunt on a
> regular basis, and am keenly aware of the effect on your aim of a .338
> WinMag....)

This one I can't answer, except to say that I believe I remember
seeing a rule that applied penalties to projectile weapons with a
Damage/Penitration rating in excess of 6.  3G3 makes a recommendation
that characters should use STR instead of DEX for high-recoil weapons.
I'd add "whichever is _lower_" to that rule.

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:16:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Character generation step-by-step (long)

In a message dated 97-07-07 19:46:27 EDT, you write:

<< John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom
  >>
nice first try. But, NOTC doesn't give its benefits unless you graduate from
University.

Cold Sleep Weeks is on the Dates page.

I like your fleshing out. It's somewhat along the lines of what I want to do
with the Enhanced Chargen to come later in T41.

Marc

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 20:07:49 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

At 10:28 pm 07/07/97 +0100, you wrote:
>> Display a schematic of the system? Something like this:
>>  
>>  *--o---o---+---O--O
>>
>
>That's the style.  I was goint to use a more conventional display of 
>circular orbits with oversized markers for planets, but when I saw the
> *--o---o---+---O--O format in "The Long Way Home", I knew I had to use 

	Durn. I guess I'm going to have to get a copy of that adventure... that's
actually the format I'd dreamed up for a system generation program of my
own (which went nowhere).

	Other enhancements I'd planned on using: different colors for the planets
to indicate atmosphere/hydrographics, indicating mainworld, circle size
scaled to planet size, orbital distance properly scaled, etc.

	Another thing that'd be really cool, in a more detailed system
schematic--actual positions. Each planet could have its position in the
orbit specified at a given reference time, and then the program would
advance them according to the time the user/referee puts in. You'd have the
ability to calculate travel time or comm lag between planets in their
actual positions, etc.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:11:39 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))

Richard Hough wrote these words of wisdom:

> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 22:42:26 -0800
> From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
> Subject: Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)
>
> Most of the discussion about the 'anomalous' RoM tech levels has been
> about
> whether it is plausible or whether it conforms to Traveller canon. My
> concern is somewhat different; whether it makes for an enjoyable
> campaign.
> A campaign with lots of advanced relic technology lying around for the
>
> taking makes some kinds of adventures, like treasure hunting and
> skirmishes
> with powerful individuals, very plausible. Certainly a campaign like
> this
> can be interesting. I am certain of this because there has already
> been a
> Traveller campaign like this, The New Era.
>
> One of my hopes for Traveller was that it could be used for many
> different
> kinds of adventures; space opera, interstellar warfare, trade and
> commerce,
> exploration of the unknown, or intrigue in a complex interstellar
> civilization. The enormous scale of the Third Imperium, in both time
> and
> space, would seem to make this easy. Consider the enormous social,
> political, and economic changes here on Earth over the last 500 or so
> years. The potential for different campaign environments in Traveller
> should be even greater; there could be eras of military conquest, of
> peaceful economic expansion, of socal stagnation, of civil war, of
> corporate dominance, or widespread balkanization. In one era the
> emperor
> could be the embodiment of respect and loyalty, in another a mere
> figurehead, a military dictator, a corrupt autocrat, an elected
> bureaucrat,
> an alien overlord, an idealistic psionicist, a pragmatic
> businessperson,
> the possibilities are endless.
>
> The effects of changing tech levels could also strongly affect the
> campaign
> environments. In one era huge battleships could rule space, while in
> another squadrons of fighters dominate. Referees could run whatever
> kind of
> campaign they prefer, all during the millenia-long history of the
> Third
> Imperium.
>
> Unfortunately, this is not what is happening. The society,
> environment, and
> technology of all Traveller milieus are all very similar. The
> nobility,
> scout service, navy, megacorporations, psionic institutes, alien
> governments, Traveller's Aid society, and social infrastructure seem
> to
> have had no significant changes in over one thousand years. The
> various
> Imperia seem to have learned nothing about the Ancients, human
> prehistory,
> the origins of psionics, or to have founded any completely new
> institutions
> in many millennia
>
> Now I have no opinions on whether this is 'realistic' or 'canon' at
> all, my
> concern is that this tends to make Traveller very limited and
> steriotypical. Many interesting adventures and campaigns just won't
> fit
> anywhere in Traveller. Several referees have said Milieu 1100 is "the
> best"
> setting because it incorporates every canon Traveller setting.
> Unfortunately, they are right.
>
> I agree Milieu 0 has a few new ideas; Pocket Empires has rules for new
>
> campaign settings which have never been well described before. However
>
> mostly it is a rehash of CT society in a TNE setting. There should be
> something unique about Milieu 0 if it is to remain a viable campaign
> setting after the release of later milieus. Can anyone suggest
> institutions
> or background material that would make Milieu 0 unique? There was a
> thread
> a while ago about a secret noble society (the "Templars") which had
> campaign potential until it exploded in a burst of hyperbole. In my
> campaign a major theme is accusations of corruption and disloyalty in
> the
> Scout service. Any other ideas?
>
> ------------------------------

   Hear, hear Richard!! I too would like to see some other's slant on
the Milieu 0 Imperium. I feel that it's a bit more freewheeling than
later milieu's. In the T4 rule book it says that "There is no 'Prime
Directive'." This leads me to believe that not only do civilians not
fear to interfere with likely "marks"  ..err markets, but the Imperium
itself would hesitate to seize a country, continent or world if they had
something that would benefit the Imperium!
Graft? Sure it's there and in spades. Scouts probably make a little cash
on the side by selling information to Corporations if they find a
likely  (exploitable) market. Then there will be privately funded
explorers, out scouting for markets and suppliers beyond the Imperial
boarders. I'm sure they wouldn't be above "disappearing" rivals, There
being no 'law' to stop them. Corporate Wars are a distinct possibility,
along with Corporate "Security" beyond the boarders shouldn't be
unknown, if only talked about in closed board rooms, within those
boarders, (a profitable, if dangerous time to be a mercenary).
Rivalry between wildcatters (independent exploration teams) and
Corporate sponsored explores has to be, literally, cut throat!
Humm, years ago they advertised Deep Space 9 as the "Grittier side of
the Star Trek universe", well that never really happened. But, maybe we
should be looking into the grittier side of the Traveller Universe.
Empires aren't formed by boy scouts, and if a few eggs have to get broke
to make that omelet, hand me the FGMP ..er, eggbeater!

Mike Peters

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jul 1997 23:05:52 -0400
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: TL of the RoM

Wow. Talk about a lot of responses. This beats task systems. 

Anyways, I'm going to clip from a lot of posts, as there's 3 days worth
of them to go through...

BTW, I'm doing this in Netscape mail, so pleas excuse any excessively 
long lines. I just hate this thing.

> From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: RoM
> 
>   One thing that most historians of technology and development specialists
> agree on is the crucial role of experts in the transfer of technology.
> That is, you can send as many drawings, technical papers, and machines as
> you like, but the crucial element of technology transfer is person to
> person contact with people who know how the technology works.  For
> example, during WWII a new method for flush riveting aircraft was
> developed at Boeing.  Despite the fact that technical papers and the
> riveting machines were sent to another plant, it was not until the
> inventor of the process went to the other plant that they were able to
> make the process work.

I have heard some other (ancedotal) similar stories. I worked
as a co-op student at Bell Northern Research (BNR). The group 
I worked it was developing an automated test system for laser diodes.
Upper management decided one day that the BNR "Center of Excellence"
for this type of thing was to be located somewhere in England
(as opposed to its current location, Ottawa). No one in England 
could run the machinery and they couldn't even get skilled workers
to do it by hand, as there was no high-tech semiconductor manufacturing
in that part of England. I never figured out the rationale behind moving
everything. Anyways, moving technology is a lot harder than packing
up a bunch of machines and shipping them.

>   Now, I take no position as to the tech level of the Rule of Man (though
> I'm leaning towards the TL12, some prototype TL13 position based on my own
> reading), but I find it perfectly reasonable that past cultures could have
> had a higher tech level, and nobody can duplicate it later.  On the other
> hand, I find it less likely that information about the existance of those
> past technologies in the form of something like news stories in Popular
> Science magazine would disapear.

I agree. You might see recorded evidence of the TL-x Vacc suit (where
x = 13 or 14 or whatever), but that certainly doesn't help you build
one.

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
> Subject: Re: TL of RoM

First of all, thanks for the good points, Hans.
Not that I agree with all of them. :)

> I don't for a moment suggest that the storage media of Sylea in the Year 0
> HAS to be the same as that of Sylea in Year -1800 (though given the history
> of the Vilani I could make out a perfectly good case for just that). But I
> do think that if the 3rd Imperium had had some exoteric knowledge hidden away 
> on an obsolete storage device they could easily have found some way to recover
> it. A simple matter of cryptography. Do you really wish to maintain that they
> would have any particular difficulty doing that. IMO we're talking a few
> months of research. Not 450 years.

Well, my example of lost information on tapes wasn't meant to be a
killer argument-winning example, more like a semi-related example.
Like I said, the stuff on tapes is mostly data, like a decade's worth
of air pressure readings for Denver, not really useful information.
Knowledge of how to build high-tech equipment does not on magnetic
tapes reside - it's usually stored "upstairs" (taps head).

> Leaving aside the point that dedicated storage plans is one of the things
> that universities and libraries are all about, let me point out that as
> technology progresses data storage becomes cheaper.

As has been said elsewhere in this thread, a lot of things never get
written down or never get written down and put in publically accessable
"information banks", like universities.

> >There is a _lot_ of "stuff" out there that is strictly proprietary as well, 
> >and would not necessarily be available to a university.  
> 
> But how much of that stuff is more than a few decades old? That's one of
> the basic points in talking about _mature_ technologies. As I was careful
> to point out, experimental TL 13 stuff is OK by me. But if it's experimental,
> it's not a basic part of the fabric of RoM. You've heard about industrial
> espionage, right? A company might manage to hold onto its secrets if it was
> confined to a single world, but I find it hard, devilishly hard, to believe
> in a product available across the width and breadth of RoM, yet still so
> secret that it could disappear completely.

Hm... that's an intersting point. Infrastructure is an amazing thing,
in that it works both ways - it means you can bring stuff from all over
the place to your little ol' world _and_ that stuff from your modes
tlittle 
ball of rock can be distributed all over the place in return...

For example, look at Intel. How many facilities do they have to
manufacture
Pentium chips? One, maybe two? Not many at any rate. Where do these
chips get distributed? Everywhere. Now, I'm not sure whether you'd
classify
Pentium chips (or Pentium Pro, Pentium II, whatever) as "mature"
technology, but my point is that even though you can find an Intel chip
in just about every country in the world, only an tiny number of 
manufacturing plants and R&D labs would have to disappear in order
to lose all knowledge of how to make those chips.

Perhaps we are arguing different points - I'm saying that the RoM could
have had TL-13 (or maybe even higher in small spots) technology, but
that:

 - it was pretty new, appearing only briefly before the Long Night hit.
 - it was probably the first "production" models of new, formerly
    experimental technology.
 - said technology would have been manufactured in one location, or
    a few fairly close locations.
 - but in spite of these points, it could have been spread around
    quite a bit, enough so that you might find well-preserved samples
    later on, far away from their location of manufacture.

If you're saying that it's silly to think that any wide-spread, mature
technology could have been lost over the long night, I'd agree. But have
a look - how many things that make the world go around these days would
you classify as "mature" versus "new" technology?

> Now, I think that would be a great pity, because one of the points of doing
> different milieux is surely to make them different, if you take my meaning.
> But that's by the way.

I agree. However, I think that this was spoiled long ago, by the
introduction of things like Cold Fusion/Fusion+, so that we have the
same
Air/Rafts in Year 0 as we have in 1100. I would have liked a Traveller 
universe that seems primitive by 1100 standards.

> In Milieu 0, yes. But I'm referring to the (canonical ;-) fact that the 3rd
> Imperium didn't reach TL 13 till 300. I have no quarrel with Sylea being
> only TL 12 in Year 0, regardless of how high a TL RoM or any neighboring
> worlds may have had or have. And I don't regard it as impossible that it 
> could take Sylea a few decades to upgrade to any new technology they may
> dig up in their archives or "acquire" from some far-off planet. What I do 
> not consider plausible (to put it mildly) is that it would take the 3rd 
> Imperium 300 years (I'll repeat that: _300 YEARS!_) to implement this 
> knowledge. 

Well, Tl-13 (14, whatever) Vacc Suits do not TL-13 make. I suppose that
part of my argument is that it happened in isolated pockets of industry,
not across the board. Thus it was more easily lost.

> I believe you. But would it take 450 years? And how many trade secrets of,
> say, 50 years ago are still secret? If a "trade secret" was widespread
> enough to affect the general TL of the RoM, do you really think it would
> remain a secret for all that long?

Well... trade secrets persist in their own way. Why are all the US auto
manufacturers located in Detroit? Tradition? Why are all the
semiconductor
manufacturers on the west coast? Do they all like surfing that much?
It has to do with knowledge that accumulates in the people that live
and work in those industries. You lose those people and you've lost a
lot
of knowledge, a lot of which isn't written down. If there was an
economic depression serious enough to make Intel close its doors,
it would be a looong time before you saw someone reach their level
of expertise again. That's the Long Night.

Later, Hans wrote:

> >The RoM falls, space travel dries up to nothing over the next few hundred 
> >years. 
> 
> No, space _trade_ dries up. That is, sector-wide space trade dries up.

Hm, well, maybe we have a difference of opinion on what exactly the
Long Night was all about. I say it was a large-scale stoppage of
space travel and a total stoppage of space trade, except for small
pockets, which are what kept the TL of the Long Night period as
high as it was.

> >If there's no space travel, how are you going to justify a budget for the 
> >Vacuum Studies dept? 
> 
> What budget? A few 100 credits to have the information encoded on a small
> metal disc?

Information storage != knowledge. Putting a few German dictionaries,
Learn-To-
Speak-German tapes and a copy of "Heimat" into a time capsule will not
guarantee
good German speakers in the year 3000. Even more so for advanced
technical
disciplines which are a lot more abstract, like Vacc Suit engineering.

> >Several hundred years later, when space travel is going along again, sure, 
> >the Vacuum Studies dept. will be doing great again, but you don't think 
> >they'll have lost a single post-it note? 
> 
> They will propably have lost a lot of private web-pages, but they won't have
> lost any serious textbooks. They may have to spend a bit of effort to learn
> to read the now-obsolete storage media, but it won't cost them much or take 
> them very long.

Hm, well, again, I just don't agree 100%. They'll probably have a lot of
the
same textbooks, yes, but as I think I said before, technology doesn't
just miraculously re-appear once you know about it. Vacc Suit textbooks
may
be missing seemingly insignifigant yet very important details on seam
manufacture. Also, there has to be an economic base ready to support
the industry. Our Vacc Suits are really bulky and ugly because if
there's
only 1 person wearing one (out of what, 8 billion?) at a time, it
doesn't
matter. If you know how to makea really advanced vacc suit, but one of
the key components is too expensive to manufacture because there isn't 
a mass market for it yet, then again, you're stuck. You can know
everything,
that doesn't make things cost effective to manufacture.

> >Also, the Darrians lost TL 16, for the most part. Why can't the Syleans
> >lose TL 13? Or 14 even?
> 
> First of all, the Darrians lost theirs in a catastrophe. (And there are some
> problems with that, actually). Sylea wasn't in a catastrophe. Secondly, Sylea 
> lost a couple of TLs in capacity. That's a bit hard to swallow too, but 
> that's the way the Traveller Universe works. If your economy deteriorates, 
> your technology falls. What I dispute is the notion that 1) The Sylean lost 
> the knowledge AND 2) everybody else lost it too.

Part of what I'm saying is that the Syleans never had technology that 
other people did have, thus never got a chance to preserve it. Not every 
planet in the universe is going to have a big university. "Everybody"
doesn't have to lose it either - sometimes all it takes is for one
person/
place/company to have the information and if they lose it, it's gone.
(No more Coke!)

Besides, during the RoM, knowledge travelled slowly. No Xboats, J-1 or 2
limit for non-military travel made for long waits for information. Like
some of the examples given of trouble transporting knowledge from one
place
to another, it would probably be easier to ship finished goods than the
information needed to make them.

> Yes, any knowledge held only by a single world could plausibly be lost. But
> in order to build TL 14 vac suits, that planet would have to draw on a vast
> body of TL 13 knowledge. And where did they get that? Did they develop that
> too and kept it a secret?

Hm, well, the Vacc Suit example I keep harping on is a pretty narrow
one. What differentiates TL 12/13/14 vacc suits from one another?
According to the MT 'Imperial Encyclopedia' (for lack of a better
reference), the basic suit drops from 2kg at TL 12 to 1 kg at TL 13
and 0.5kg at TL 14. TL 13 suits can be made self-sealing. TL 14 Vacc
Suits can be made 'tailored', which is of little value, unless you have
to look good for a photo or something. In related technology, PLSS
durations increase while volume&weight decrease and at TL 14 heads-up
displays become available in the helmets. (Actually, the text says it
becomes
standard at TL 10, the table says TL 14. Yay MegaTraveller!)

There are certain technology niches, like vacc suits, where an otherwise
TL 12 society could produce, I think a TL 13 or TL 14 item, without
drawing on a "vast body of TL 13 knowledge". It would not be unlikely
that
these advanced items would be manufactured at a single location, as it
would likely be leading-edge knowledge in its field and not yet common,
widespread knowledge. Vacc suits also are not the kind of thing
typically
studied at university - jump drives and grav plates sure, but vacc suits
probably seem to "common" to merit study. For instance, I think that a 
lot of the knowledge and equipment that scuba divers use currently came
from Navy studies. The Navy is easily a TL ahead of the public in terms
of diving suit technology. Naval information is by no means (to my
knowledge)
public. If the Navy feels like it, they can bury the knowledge forever.

These are the sorts of items I'm saying could exist - specialize items
which are useful enough in their niche to warrant someone spending a 
lot of time & trouble to advance, but not really so useful in a
widespread
manner that the knowledge couldn't be lost. (For a native english
speaker,
I have a lot of long sentences and double-negatives. Apologies)

> The problem isn't only coming up with a reason why any particular planet like
> Sylea lost the knowledge, it's coming up with one that wipes it out on _every_
> world where it was once available.

OK Hans, I think I disagree with you because we're not arguing the same
point.
So, I agree with you. :) I'm saying there could exist technology for
which
"_every_ world where it was once available" (ie. manufactured, not
imported)
was one, single world. And they _could_ lose it.

> From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
> Subject: Re: TL of RoM
> 
> Even if the early Imperium couldn't pull up the knowledge, they'd know it
> existed. And, more importantly, if, after 1100 years of archaeology and
> research, everybody *knows* the RoM reached TL13, how the h$^$Y&*( can
> players in Milieu 0 be finding evidence that the RoM had a higher TL? Did
> all that information get completely swept under the rug in the intervening
> 1100 years? Did archaeology completely stop?

Having TL 13 items available != "reaching TL 13", depending on how you 
define it. If the Terrans had TL 13 vacc suits and TL 12 everything
else,
how would you label them? TL seems largely to be defined by what level
of Jump drive a culture has discovered - everything else is just
"noise".

Finally, from Glenn Crawford and Harold Hale:

> >Only bigotry can destroy technology, not distance, not time
> 
>    Bigotry has certainly done its share of destruction, without
> question.

I'm sure the Long Night has all of them in spades. :)

Ethan

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 00:02:23 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: re: Pyramids

Bruce Alan Macintosh writes:

>Not to get into a debate about global warming...but there are certainly
>predictions by sane atmospheric scientists/climate modellers (not
>ecologists!) that predict warming higher than 1 degree per 200 years -
>1 degree C per 50 years is probably about the median of the high
>predictions. (Balanced by the no-warming-at-all predictions, of 
>course.)

   Assuming the situation has been brought under control by the time of
first contact (c. 2085), that still only means an increase in
temperature to about 13.5 degrees C, still not enough to melt the polar
ice caps (though the penguin populations in Antarctica will suffer
terribly).  That also assumes that there are no major technological
innovations during that time period that result in reductions in green
house gases and other contributors to global warming.  If Traveller is
correct, we get fusion power in 2010, and room temperature
superconductors about that same time (I'd say a bit later, but...), thus
we know that such innovation does take place.

>>cheap, affordable fusion power
>
>Aha! Now we have an explanation! In T4, although the Terrans get
>fusion power early in the 21st century, they don't get fusion reactors
>small enough to power individual vehicles until TL12 - so there's a
>couple more centuries of burning fossil fuels in vehicles of all
>sorts. (Electric vehicles will also be popular - but it's surprisingly
>hard to design a battery-powered grav vehicle with CSC or FFS.) 

   There are already plans on the boards for vehicles that use
non-fusion technologies yet are virtually pollution free (at least the
kinds of gases that would contribute to global warming.  Given that the
Terrans probably don't have grav vehicles until TL 10 (much later in the
21st century), the typical four passenger vehicle in 2050 isn't a grav
one either.  Try designing a TL 9 battery powered or fuel cell powered
ground car and see what you come up with.

>That'll help a little. Also note that global climate change temperature
>estimates are just that, global - you can have much higher (or lower)
>local climate changes; possibly enough to change rainfall patterns
>enough to raise the Nile, for example.

   Without question there will be ecological problems in the early to
mid-21st century that have to be dealt with because they aren't being
dealt with sufficently now.  We dump toxic waste on a regular basis
around the world in places it should not be.  There is a good chance
that another Chernobyl will take place.  Somebody needs to stop the
deforestation of the rain forests and it is not happening.  I won't even
address the Japanese rape of the Pacific Ocean, or the dozens of other
problems.  While global warming is a "maybe it will, then again it
probably won't" kind of thing, there are situations looming out there
that have a much higher probability of doing damage that could be just
as significant.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 00:13:14 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-07-07 15:55:59 EDT, you write:
> 
> <<
>  3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
>  3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
>  minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a
>  Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
> 
>   >>
> In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
> 
> Marc

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

Why not?  In my school these days they tell us that in our lifetimes
we're liable to undergo several career changes, so why change this? 
Personally, I like the idea of career change.  

Especially true wit military careers (ie. Drafted) as the war you were
drafted for may be over, and now it's time to go back to civilian life.

Marc, I implore you to try and fit in career changes to T4.1

Thanks,

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1530
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Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 8 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1531



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

RE: Alexandria
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Sector Files Formats
The Loss-Tech
Re: Mars and fuel refining
Re: Pyramids
Dogs in space...
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
RE: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: TL of the RoM
Traveller Algorhythms
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
RE:Loss of technology
RE: Dogs in space...
Re: TL of ROM
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))
Re: radio organisms
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Radio organisms

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:33:20 +0400
From: Andy Long <andyl@icluae.co.ae>
Subject: RE: Alexandria

>>>>
> IIRC, when the God (and ancient knowledge) -fearing christians whacked
> the
> Library for the last time, 
> [andy long]  <<<<
> 
> As I recall, it was the Moslems who sacked the library for the last
> time (the justification was something like "If the books contained in
> the library agree with the Koran, they are unnecessary, and thus will
> be no loss. If they disagree, they are dangerous and should be
> destroyed"
> 
> ================================================================
> smtp Email:		andyl@icluae.co.ae OR
> 			andylong@x400.icl.co.uk OR
> 			A.G.Long@abu0101.wins.icl.co.uk OR
> 			andylong@emirates.net.ae
> x400 Email:		c=ae;a=emdan;p=icl;ou1=abu0101;
> 			s=Long;i=AG;
> 			o=International Computers Ltd;
> A.G. Long, c/o ICL	Phone:	+971 (2) 335200/338066
> PO Box 7237		Fax:	+971 (2) 338724
> Abu Dhabi
> United Arab Emirates
> ================================================================
> 
> 

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:36:02 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

On  7 Jul 97 at 14:42, Harold Hale wrote:


>    In all seriousness, both the Germans and Soviets had nuclear
> programs prior to the Americans.  The Soviet effort had the plug
> pulled on it by Stalin, who wanted to use the resources elsewhere. 
> The German effort was hampered by Allied commando raids, lack of
> resources, and a bit of hard luck.  Had things happened
> differently, it was not out of the question that the Germans could
> have had the Bomb a year before the Allies--I won't even go into
> what would have happened next....

	Actually, it wasn't bad luck, even - just a misplaced decimal. The 
Germans took over the only factory in the world that produced 
deuterium (the Norwegian thing, a legend in the history of guerrilla 
warfare), but overestimated hundred-fold of how much nuclear material 
was needed for an atomic bomb. That is the main reason why they quit 
reseach and started designing other superweapons (and came up with 
some, like Me109s with an 80mm cannon. Try FFSing that and see what 
happens :) ).

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 02:19:41 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>> Display a schematic of the system? Something like this:
>>  
>>  *--o---o---+---O--O
>>

>That's the style.  I was goint to use a more conventional display of 
>circular orbits with oversized markers for planets, but when I saw the
> *--o---o---+---O--O format in "The Long Way Home", I knew I had to use 
>it ... it reminds me so much of Elite II's system data, which I had 
>forgotten about.

Forgotten about Elite II? You DON'T STILL PLAY IT? 

No more Right Ons! for you, Commander....   :)

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 02:16:30 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

>> 3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
>> 3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
>> minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a 
>> Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
> 
>
>In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
>
>Marc

Well, I'm torn here. The part of me coding the program wishes I'd
asked earlier as I've almost got that part finished and working, but
I guess I won't have to repeat myself when Milieu 200(is that the
right one?) comes out and we get to be Vargr.

The part of me that plays doesn't like this much, as it seems to 
severely limit what characters do. I thought this was one of the 
good things that T4 chargen introduced. I don't think that the 
characters should be able to (usually) be able to switch between
military careers, or later reapply to the same career, but I think
that switching amongst the others should be OK, just a bit more
difficult. Running through that part of the program, I've found 
most can have 2 careers, and 3 aren't uncommon.

Besides, what are all my half-Vargr Rogue/Scholar/Merchantmen
gonna do for a living? :)

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:14:15 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Sector Files Formats

>
>There are tabs between the fields here right. I hope to god (were I not an
>atheist) we're not talking "The first 14 bytes is the system name, the
>comes four bytes of hexnumber=8A". Simple tab delimated text files with a
>predetermined field ordering right?
>

All the traveller file formats I have seen (.SEC, .TXT, two others) are
space delimited: NO TABS.




William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:14:19 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: The Loss-Tech

Hans (et al):

the problems with the loss of data are that the data is spread out over
quite a distance, covered by 100's of separate indexes, and not well
indexed to begin with.

Those lost TL12 sites have three fights:
        (1) Fight to retain knowledge (the easy one!)
        (2) Fight to retain infrastructure
        (3) Fight to retain maximum local sustainable TL

The archival problem is huge, but the easiest.

I work at a branch of the US National Archives (I'm at the Anchorage Alaska
offices, 1 of 13 sites). The Archives does not use massive duplication of
knowledge; Nuke the main offices in DC & College Park MD, and *P*O*O*F*---
all the US patents, most of the records there, and all archived film/video
outside the smithsonian are gone... and the smithsonian will get hit,
too...

The other offices will have only regionally specific records, and copies of
the censuses and millitary records (on hard to retain microfilm rolls).

We use folder title indexes, without computer search capability.
We are text based. We can't even keep our E-mail working smoothly.
ANd this is a "State of the Art [TL 7.5] Archival Facility". The National
Archives and Records Administration's GRS-20 (Electronic Records) says to
Print them out, and store as paper.

Start to see the problems? By decentralization, sure, you never lose it
all; you may loose the key to understanding what is left, though....

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:38:17 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Mars and fuel refining

>The manned mission would then take off for Mars with just enough fuel for a
>one-way trip. They would arrive at Mars, take "one small step," do whatever
>experiments they wanted to do, and refuel their craft with the fuel that
>the first craft extracted from the Martian atmosphere. Then they'd return
>home.
>
>I forget what the savings were but I do recall they were significant. I
>like the fact that NASA's being much more cost-conscious these days. Not
>only does it save taxpayers' money, but being efficiency minded can only
>help to develop better spacecraft.

The savings are huge especcially if we're going with chemical rocketry. The
naive thinking would be that not having to lug the fuel for the return trip
would mean half as much fuel but that is not the case - the savings are
much better.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:48:19 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

>>The largest problem with fusion is its availability and cheapness. When
>>every country on earth got fusion the waste heat (ALL produced power will
>>be waste heat eventually) warmed the earth much more than the puny changes
>>that the Co2 gasses ever did here.

>While there would be proportionately more waste
>heat, you need much smaller plants to produce the same amount of
>energy--in fact, there may even be a *reduction* in the total amount of
>waste heat versus hydrocarbon plants.

No no, read my post: "ALL produced power will be waste heat eventually"
If the fusion reactors (who in the beginning will have really louzy
efficiencies) are 100% efficient the energy produced will still be ALL
converted to waste heat. Where do you think the powercompanies power end
up? Your girlfriend hairdryer, the TV, my computer, the crystaliron plant,
the refridgerator etc. All end up as heat - period.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 09:46:23 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Dogs in space...

One of my players want to have a dog

I was wondering how much I could cost the life support for this animal. 
Further more, how do you think a dog could support 10 days confinment in a
small ship (but still relatively big carg (650m3))?

Any opinions?
- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:08:48 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>The main problem I have with this format is that it doesn't allow for
>long world names.  This is solved in comma- or tab-delimited formats,
>but they are of course harder for a person to read.  An example from the
>net 1st Survey data (with single spaces replacing tabs for transmission
>purposes):

How hard is it to open a file in Excel and set your column widths accordingly?
Or a database program or a word processor.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:18:00 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>Apart from computer-purist reasons, why do you object to fixed position
>formats?  You may be interested to know that my old (1988) program used
>a proper database file format with import and export to Miller-spec
>fixed position files.  Over the intervening years, the superior
>accessibility of Miller-spec data has convinced me to abandon a
>separate database format, as the only advantages are for the
>programmer, not the user.
>
>Simon

Long world names, lack of extensibility (VERY important for just about any
referee), waste of diskspace (can be reduced with compression of course).
The main problem with it is WHY doing it the olf FORTRAN way today. Anybody
reading them will read them on a computer (in order to print them out etc)
and today even PC heads will use a proper word processor for that.

This isn't all that important to me as I will simply convert the data into
useable and be done with it but why use an old fashioned way with no real
advantages save that it has been proposed by MM and can thus be considered
canon ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:32:11 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: RE: Second Careers and the Draft...

>WHAT!!!! .....
>
>Let me see if I got this correctly, before I decide to completely stop
>supporting IG and T4. Are you saying that in CharGen 4.1 characters can
>not change careers, that once they choose a career that they are stuck
>with it until mustering out and game play starts?

You're the boss - let them!


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:54:34 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: TL of the RoM

>Pentium chips (or Pentium Pro, Pentium II, whatever) as "mature"
>technology, but my point is that even though you can find an Intel chip
>in just about every country in the world, only an tiny number of
>manufacturing plants and R&D labs would have to disappear in order
>to lose all knowledge of how to make those chips.

If we imply that the Pentiums are mature (they're kinda hodgepodgy to me
but=8A) then if some astronomical event wiped out all Intel plants in the
world (hurray) then I bet it wouldn't be too hard for them to knock up a
new factory and start building them again, or Cyrix, AMD could take up the
slack. What I'm saying is that any mature technology will be built by
several companies (there are other CPU manufacturers you know some are even
far better than the pentiums) and all these companies will store the
knowledge somewhere. Your analogy with earth today also falls down on the
fact that the reason Intel has few production plants on earth doesn't work
that well in interstellar space. The comm times and transport times would
make it rather impractical for SpaceIntel to work this way. If they come up
with PentiumXXVI (with an FPU that can actually access RAM) and the
transport times out to Tatooine-IV is a year its competitors (SpaceCyrix
etc) could set up a plant and sell their CPUs locally thus getting a 1 year
time to market advatage there.

All remarks in parenthesis are mostly swipes at PC heads etc and should be
considered as jokes despite them being true but totally lacking in humorous
qualities.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 10:02:22 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: Traveller Algorhythms

Hi,

>We could use a 'named' storage method, one of the older ones, where each
>field is preceed by a standard name: "name"=3D"zenopit";"hexloc"=3D"1010";=
> ...
>This would be extracted by a parser routine and loaded as needed. Tabs would
>not be mandatory; description would be embedded in data so that you could
>tell what you have; local or private reader code could be built as
>individuals desired. We could also use the older .DIF format where the

I'm currently involved in writing a Pocket Empires GM aid and I ran into this
problem fairly early on, as it was suggested to me that there are quite a few
formats in which the data is stored, so I wrote a ParseUPW routine that finds &
interprets the data. This is the way to go as its fairly easy to write special
case modules like ParseTabDelimetedUPW & ParseGal2dataUPW etc (oh BTW its
written as a C++ class UPW - that makes it nice & easy to change when I need
it do something else as well).

Terry

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 02:18:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

How about if Fusion+ was actually based on the discovery of an Ancient
(or other extinct, advanced, aliens) artifact.  The Solomani never found 
such an artifact and so never discovered Fusion+


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

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

Date: Tue,  8 Jul 97 09:24:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: RE:Loss of technology

On  Mon Jul  7 21:05:35 1997, bmac@astro.ucla.edu wrote...

> Oh, really? <evil grin back> An infoseek search on timeline
> chronology "15th century" found me
	<SNIP>
	What keywords were you using???

> This took me less than 2 minutes. What search engines were you using?
	ALL of them, ran round the ring of them one after the other. :(

> Next example?
	Okay, do that without a search engine. ;)


> Anyway, my main point is that the apparent lack of what s.johnson was
> looking for is a failing of the web, not the search tools.
	::chuckle:: I will admit that after two hours of frustratingly
fruitless searching I wasn't above letting someone else find it for me! ;) But
I suspect what's happening here is two radically different POVs and experience
bases clashing here.

	I suspect many on this list, while being quite competent in using a
library, have never had to ORGANIZE or MAINTAIN one. ;) I have, I used my
example of a warehouse of books specifically because one summer I spent an
entire summer in exactly that situation.  Someone had bought, sight unseen,
about two dozen differing types of various Library collections and I had four
other people had to go through well over a quarter of a million books and try
and create order out of the chaos.  We still hadn't finished three months into
the project, we had managed to sort and catalog about 100,000 books out of the
mess.  I fact it took us the better part of the rest of the year to do it and
when we had to pack it for shipment to it's destination, a private school start
up.  We were tempted to kill the packers when they tried to ignore the way we'd
set up the sequence of shipment.  Until you've actually had to try and sort and
index raw data of any kind by hand, you'll just never understand.

	The real problem here is that I think all of you are expecting old data
to be neatly labelled and archived.  Rather like someone picked up your local
Library, building and all with the current layout intact, and then tucked it
away somewhere and left it undisturbed for a while.  Thus you expect to be able
to walk in, fire up the card catalog computers and just go find what you want.
It just doesn't work that way! :( Heaven knows Librarians wish and pray that it
did.  What actually happens is that the books, or data files, get scrambled up
and packed away.  The Indexes, the vital thing which make accessing INFORMATION
out of all those MOUNTAINS of RAW DATA possible get corrupted or lost.
	So when it it comes time to finally break open the boxes and start
reorganizing the book collection, or decompressing the Archives to access the
Data.  You've got TONS of data and very little understanding of what's in all
of it.  Which means that someone who has a clue as to what it all means has to
go through all of it, book by book, data file by data file and start organizing
it all from scratch.  That is such an intensive and extensive proccess that you
would not believe what it takes unless you've actually done it.
	And I'm talking about doing it with physical books or massive lists of
data files.  Imagine how much worse this is going to get as the tech level goes
up and the ammount of raw data a society has rises exponentially.  Imagine
having to go through raw data byte by byte because it has to be recovered and
the file markers have been corrupted?  Even now the software tools we have are
inadequate to the task, and the size of the task increases daily. :\

	This is why I can calmly state that the RoM could indeed have gotten to
TL 14 or even TL 15 on a a couple of worlds and even IF the Sylean University
system had the data files!  They might not ever realize what they had or be
able to use it.  There is a Reason why it's call Library SCIENCE these days.

Stephen

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:39:20 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: Dogs in space...

On Tuesday, July 08, 1997 7:46 PM, Nicolas LEJEUNE
[SMTP:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr] wrote:
> One of my players want to have a dog
> 
> I was wondering how much I could cost the life support for this
animal. 
> Further more, how do you think a dog could support 10 days confinment
in a
> small ship (but still relatively big carg (650m3))?
> 
> Any opinions?
He'd need a little doggy vaccsuit :) and you could walk him on the hull.

I would imagine that the variety of human size and capacities (fitness
and life support wise) will make it easy to fit a little doggy on board.

By the way - make sure people are careful where they step (at least
until he's ship trained).

Brody Dunn

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:59:43 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

In mail you write:

> On Sat, 05 Jul 1997 01:25:27 -0400, Peter Miller wrote:
>
>> Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 
>
> Building the pyramids today would be far from "easy".  There are over
> 2 million stone blocks in the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the ancient
> Egyptian workers/slaves would have had to position the 2,300 kg blocks
> at a _minimum_ rate of one block every five minutes (24 hours a day,
> 365 days a year) to complete the structure in the 20+ years it
> reportedly took to build.

Don't forget that the higher you go the *fewer* block you need to move.
For the bottom layer you can move them in from almost any side. As you
go up you need the ramp and to haul them across the "work area" formed
by the lower layers.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:14:15 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

In mail you write:

>    In all seriousness, both the Germans and Soviets had nuclear programs
> prior to the Americans.  The Soviet effort had the plug pulled on it by
> Stalin, who wanted to use the resources elsewhere.  The German effort
> was hampered by Allied commando raids, lack of resources, and a bit of
> hard luck.  Had things happened differently, it was not out of the
> question that the Germans could have had the Bomb a year before the
> Allies--I won't even go into what would have happened next....

We were *very* lucky. It seems that an early experiment by the Germans
was botched. The (wrong) result they got told them that nuclear bombs
weren't possible, but slower reactions such as powerplants might be.
Since that wasn't high on Hitler's list of items needed, they got lower
priority. Which meant that by the end of the war they hadn't quite
accumulated enough uranium to build a test reactor. Which is very good,
because the first test would have uncovered the error!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:57:52 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

In mail you write:

> I'd like to know more about asteroids size, placement and assorted info.
> How big can an asteroid be?

Ceres in our asteroid belt is 1000 km in diameter. Anything much bigger
is likely to either scatter the rest of the belt or attract it forming
a normal planet instead of a belt.

> How small?

Grains of dust. :-)

> How distant may an asteroid be from its closer neighbors?

Very. By the nature of the laws of orbital mechanics and other things,
asteroids tens to be *very* far apart. Like thousands of km.

> How many asteroids in a belt? 

Say a million or so that are big enough to be worthwhile (most of a km
across). Divide that by the area of the belt and you'll see why they
are so far apart.

> I keep thinking of the PCs ship slowly maneuvering among smaller
> (mined) asteroids and approaching a larger rock, dotted with pirate
> installations and placed deeply inside the asteroids belt, but
> perhaps this is just my fantasy.

Pretty much. Except in very special circumstances, you'll be lucky to
be able to see one asteroid from another.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:29:22 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: radio organisms

In mail you write:

> The only stumbling block we ran into was generating the electricity to
> do all this great stuff. For the radar burst, he settled on a working
> guesstimate of 15,000 watts, operating anywhere from 300 to 3,000Mhz.
> The question we ran afoul of was whether or not a creature of ANY size
> could generate that much electricity -- even for an average of 1.65
> billionths of a second.

What you need to look at is *energy*, not power (though power is a factor).
The *energy* involved in your 15,000 watts for 1.65e-9 seconds is about
25 *micro*joules. So the energy isn't a problem. It's the discharge
rate. I don't see any practical way for a lifeform based on carbon to
get that short a discharge rate.

> Given your apparent knowledge of eel anatomy... what do YOU think? What
> do they use? Some kind of biological battery acid?

What they use are a lot of semipermeable menbranes. Each develops a
potential difference of a fraction of a volt as biological processes
"pump" ions across them (using energy in the process). But since they
are "stacked" you get several hundred volts and enough current to stun
a horse.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 23:53:27 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

In mail you write:

> Data Formats - UWP
> ==================
> The UWP data format for star sytems is pretty consistent between all 
> the programs I have seen, and follows the definition given by Marc 
> Miller in Challenge 25.
>
> Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na
> Zenopit       1010 D130546-7    Ni Po De           622 Na M8 D

Well, to start with, I think we need to expand the location info. 1010
is a hex, but it could have a lot of stuff in it. Here's what I'm
working on:

xx--nnnn-a-b-c-d
xxy-nnnn-a-b-c-d
^ ^ ^    ^ ^ ^ ^
| | |    | | | |
| | |    | | | +-- 4th star or satellites thereof
| | |    | | +---- 3rd star or satellites thereof
| | |    | +------ secondary star or satellites thereof
| | |    +-------- primary star or satellites thereof
| | +------------- hex number
| +--------------- subsector
+----------------- sector

Subsector is optional, but if present indicates that hex number is
subsector based.

The coding for the stars/planets/moons is actually fairly simple:
xxy-nnnn-*	primary star
xxy-nnnn-0	object in orbit 0 of primary
xxy-nnnn-n	object in orbit n of primary
xxy-nnnn-2-*	secondary star (in orbit 2 of primary)
xxy-nnnn-8-1	moon of planet in orbit 8

I *think* that this or a variant of it can unambigously locate any body
in a system. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:38:00 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Radio organisms

In mail you write:

>>> These sophonts have highly evolved electromagnetic senses, used to orient
>>> themselves to the geomagnetic field, and to detect the movements of nearby
>>> sea creatures in the dark. Over eons of evolution, these senses have been
>>> augmented by specialized bone structures that generate and detect
>>> electromagnetic signals. Assuming an adult body size of about 1m, or up to
>>> 3m with forelegs and hindlegs fully extended, what frequency range would
>>> they be sensitive to and capable of transmitting? Would they be more 
> likely
>>> to use amplitude modulation or frequency modulation? 
>>
>>They wouldn't be using EM. They'd be using electric or magnetic
>>*fields*, not electromagnetic waves. So wavelength isn't a
>>consideration. The electrical senses of the critters on earth are not
>>like any sense humans have. They'd sort of "feel" an object at a
>>distance by its effect on the electric field they generate. Pulse rates
>>are a few per second up to maybe 100. That's *pulses*, not a frequency.
>
> Okay, so you're saying that the aliens' biological radio-receptors couldn't
> evolve from prey-detecting electroreceptors (such as those in the bill of
> the platypus). Correct? You also seem to imply that geomagnetic homing
> senses couldn't evolve into radio senses either. Right? If neither of these
> is possible, then do you think radio-senses could evolve naturally, and how
> might they work?

The two hard parts are that biological activities tend to produce low
frequency waves. So low that the wavelength is far too long to be sent
or received efficiently. To get wavelengths down to the size of (say) a
whale) you need frequencies in the megahertz, which are, shall we say,
"biologically infeasiable". 

Required power levels are a problem as well. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1531
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 8 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1532



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: TL of ROM
Re: TL of ROM
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Clues to TL loss
RE: Dogs in space...
MOngols at Alexandria
PE non-realistic
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))
Re: Clues to TL loss
My only comment on RoM TL
Sector file formats....
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: PE non-realistic
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Trading
Marine Uniforms
Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:52:17 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

In mail you write:

> Actually, not so straightforward. If I recall from last semester's
> Ancient Civilizations class, they still aren't sure how Egypt's
> pyuramids were built.  Also, in a video we watched, they tried, using
> TL2 technology to build a smaller version of the Great Pyramid, wwith
> everything sized down accordingly.  They took the period of building the
> great pyramid (which I believe took 22 years) and tried to build this
> small, 3-5 metre tall replica in 4 months.  Well, they got (using TL2
> tech, except to bring the rocks in) one corner finished in the alloted
> time.

That was the group in "this old pryamid" and they did it in less than a
month. And they never intended to finish more than the two sides they
did. 

> Factor in the ancient Egyptians having to bring the rocks, discover
> methods of building, shape the stones, as well as line them up according
> to all the different things (such as the Great Pyramid being on the
> centre of balance of the contients or whatnot...I could get out my essay
> on how they were built if need be), and I'd say we are not sure today
> how they built them.

The stones for the interior were quarried right next to the pryamids.
the quarries are there, complete with partially finishied stones. The
limestone facing was quarried across the river. And they'd been working
stone for *centuries* before they built the pryamids, so it's not like
they had to learn from scratch how to shape stone or how to build things.

> Like you said, building a pyramid is easy, with our current technology. 
> Try doing it in the middle of a scorching desert, with TL2 technology,
> and the task becomes a bit harder.  Saying we know how the pyramids were
> built is not entirely correct I'm afraid.

That "scorching desert" was *home*. It was also right next to the
breadbasket of the country. There was lots of food and water.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 21:40:45 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: TL of ROM

In mail you write:

> Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:
>> 
>> >We still have the pyramids, but we don't know how they were made.
>> No, we do know how they were made. Pile a bunch of rocks on top of each 
> other
>> and you get a pyramid. Try this in your back yard - very straightforward.
>> 
>
> You're overlooking the fact that a) these things have interesting
> features like corridors and rooms inside them.  b) they are composed of
> hundreds of thousands, if not millions of square blocks (with a few
> cyclopean rocks thrown in for good measure), and c) they were also
> originally covered with a lovely layer of limestone.  Try doing _that_
> in your backyard.  No, I'd say that we still don't know HOW they were
> made.  We might know where to _start_ making them, though...

Actually, there was a PBS special on exactly how the pyramids were
made. "This Old Pyramid". They used only tools and techniques available
at the time the pryramids were built. And they but and finished two
sides of a 12-15 foot pyramid. Among other interesting details, they
discovered that wooden sledges over wetted wooden "ties" actually
*works* for moving large stones. It's not as easy as wheeled carts but
it's easy enough to be quite workable. 

> See above.  The pyramids had rooms, secret passages, corridors and
> shafts.  Some of these (we're reaching the extent of my knowledge) as I
> remember, lined up with the rising of a particular planet or star.  This
> takes some pretty advanced geometric development.

Not really. The rooms are partly *exacavated*from the pile of rocks. As
for lining things up, that take *elementary surveying, the sort of
thing the Egyptians had developed *long* before just to be able to
determine who owned which bit of land after the annual floods receded.

The Pyramids were quite a bit of work, but they weren't anywhere *near*
impossible at the existing tech level (TL 0?).

ps. I recommend watching "This Old Pyramid" as well as the more recent
programs where a Stonehenge style trilithon was transported and erected
and an obelisk quarried and erected. They give good insight into just
what those low TL societies could do to help (or hurt) your players.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 22:18:22 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

In mail you write:

>>Ethan Henry wrote:
>  
>>>OK. Yes, information is hard to lose. Impossible? I think it's
>>>easier than you imagine. There's already information that was
>>>generated this century that's lost. The media is still good too.
>>>It's just that there aren't any media-readers left to read the
>>>information! Old tapes from mainframes, this sort of thing.
>
> I don't for a moment suggest that the storage media of Sylea in the Year 0
> HAS to be the same as that of Sylea in Year -1800 (though given the history
> of the Vilani I could make out a perfectly good case for just that). But I
> do think that if the 3rd Imperium had had some exoteric knowledge hidden 
> away 
> on an obsolete storage device they could easily have found some way to 
> recover
> it. A simple matter of cryptography. Do you really wish to maintain that they
> would have any particular difficulty doing that. IMO we're talking a few
> months of research. Not 450 years.

Don't forget that a lot of storage media don't do well for long term
storage. Magnetic media fade and have bit spread (tapes also have
"print-through") So in even 50 years the media isn't readable even with
the correct reader. CD-ROMs are only as good as the bonding between the
plastic and the aliminum substrate. Microfilm and microfiche are better
as they are *designed* to last for 100+ years. 

But media do have to be stored properly. And the cryptography project
is a lot harder than you think. It's not *possible* to recover an
unknown text in an unknown encoding. You have to know *something* about
the encoding, the contents or both. 

> Leonard Erickson writes:
>>There are some medieval techniques that can't be duplicated. They were 
>>family secrets and when the family died out, the technique was lost.
>
> Yeah, but that wasn't families that delivered their products to a few
> thousand planets, was it?

Where it is *delivered* doesn't matter. What matters is how big the
group that knows the "technique" is. If they all die, it's gone until
re-invented. 

>>Scientific knowledge is hard to lose. But the means of implementing it
>>(technology) is actually not that well distributed. Every industry has
>>trade secrets that will take years to rediscover if the company was
>>destroyed. 
>
> I believe you. But would it take 450 years? And how many trade secrets of,
> say, 50 years ago are still secret? If a "trade secret" was widespread
> enough to affect the general TL of the RoM, do you really think it would
> remain a secret for all that long?

Probably *most* of the trade secrets of 50 years ago are still secret.
If someone else figured it out, they may have set up in competition
with the original company. Otherwise, the company keeps on producing
the material via the secret process, and nobody outside is the wiser.
Heck, the CocaCola formula is *still* secret after close to 100 years.

As for trade secrets that affect TL strongly, the "details" I mentioned
that get left out of textbook accounts of semiconductor manufacturing
*do* affect our current TL. And the companies aren't exactly spreading
the knowledge around.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 00:20:16 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

In mail you write:

>>       You are in a warehouse with 4,000,000 printed pages in tens of
>>thousands of books.  I'll be kind, the books are on shelves but there is no
>>organization to them. On one shelf you have a repair manual for tractors 
> next
>>to a cookbook next to a computer manual for the Apple II next to the Kama 
> Sutra
>>next to a spy novel next to a romance novel next to a... ;) You get the 
> idea,
>>it's random.
>
> Yes, but I don't understand how this example relates to information stored 
> electronically by a library. That wouldn't be random.

Depends on the storage media *and* on the indexing method. Check out
what sort of topics the Dewey Decimal system files next to each other.
Then compare the Library of Congress indexing. Now look at more modern
"hypertext" type indexing. How to "structure" storage is one of the big
unsolved questions of library science.

Now consider that a lot of storage will be filled "linearly" (things
like periodicals) and you'll have to find and understand the indexing
to get the data you want.

Heck, the whole reason for progress being so in the Imperium may simply
be that it takes forever to jutapose the disparate pieces of data
required for a breakthrough. It might have been possible long before,
but nobody had all the pieces...

> You know, I mnust be clueless, because I fail to understand why it isn't 
> possible for a culture using TL 12 computers to _mechanically_ sort through 
> and discard most of this vast mass of data before any human has to search 
> through the rest. And that's if the data is really as jumbled as you imply
> in your example.

This requires high level AI. The computers would have to be able to
*understand* the books. Keyword analysis won't get you very far. And
the terminology may have changed. Computers can *assist* the humans who
will have to read all this, but they can't substitute for them.

> In 'reality' we're talking about data that has already 
> been organized. Take your average library (a much better example than your
> warehouse) and burn the filing system. Now give me a few months to go over
> the shelves and I'll provide you with an overview of how the books in that
> library is organized.

See my comments about Dewey Decimal vs Library of Congress as different
methods of organizing knowledge. Different *cultures* are likely to
have different ideas as to what areas knowledge breaks down into, and
how they relate to each other.

> So please explain to me how it can take someone 450 years to dig out "lost"
> information.

How do you tell the difference between "real" data and articles that
were written as a joke? Consider some of the stuff that appears in the
April issues of a lot of technical and even scientific magazines. 

You have to check out anything that is beyond your current tech level.
And that takes time, as you have to dig out the data on how to
build/run the equipment. Which, likely *isn't* indexed into the same
section of the database.

>>       Now Coke has been around for what, just over a century at this point?
>>And if they can do it, and they have, then I suspect that other have and 
> will
>>do so into the future.  Which kind of blows your generalization out of the
>>water. ;)
>
> Well, here it is you who fail to grasp my point. I don't dispute that 
> proprietary information can be lost. What I dispute is the notion that 
> information can be spread across an interstellar empire the size of the RoM 
> for several centuries and still remain propritary. The day Coca Cola wants
> to sell colas on Dingir they _have_ to share the big secret with someone on
> Dingir.

No, they can do the same thing they do in foreign countries. They can
ship in the syrup. Or they can build a sealed module with a
"self-destruct" to mix up the syrup. Chemical companies go that far
currently! 

> Read what _I_ wrote. I don't dispute that information can be lost.
> I dispute that it can be lost _everywhere_ once it has been sufficiently
> disseminated. And I claim that for the RoM as a whole to be TL X, the TL X
> information has to be _widely_ disseminated.

Don't confuse spread of TL X *goods* with spread of the knowhow
required to build the critical components. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 13:35:56 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: RE: Dogs in space...

>He'd need a little doggy vaccsuit :) and you could walk him on the hull.
>
>I would imagine that the variety of human size and capacities (fitness
>and life support wise) will make it easy to fit a little doggy on board.
>
>By the way - make sure people are careful where they step (at least
>until he's ship trained).
>
>Brody Dunn

My players a Vargr with his Anola family and a human with her Seedspitter
living in a modified Scout with an NPC actually bought a Rashush (1 MCr+)
to do that (removing unwanted eh, stuff) for them.
Oh, it also makes excellent coffee so the price wasn't that high.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:44:06 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: MOngols at Alexandria

They never made it to Alexandria (in Egypt). They were stopped by the
Mamelukes in the Levantine area.
The Mongols wrecked more than their fair share of civilization treasures,
though

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:42:19 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: PE non-realistic

Robert Flammang wrote:
   Re: The relatively high GNP's of China and India compared to the US.

   If you subtract out the US's consumerism (ie divide by the `culture'
   factor, which would be quite high for the US), I would not be
   surprised to learn that China and the US really do outproduce us, not
   in dollars, obviously, but in `RU's'.

Pardon my straightforwardness, but bullpucks!

So by the logic of PE, the Chinese can produce 13 aircraft carriers, project
their army anywhere on earth and go to the moon?
The Chinese have more money available for research?

These rules do not mesh with reality. And realistic is what I want

BTW, all those useless microwaves, salons and such do produce wealth.
Hewers of wood and drawers of water produce chump change

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:39:29 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Peter Miller wrote:

>
>CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
>>
>> In a message dated 97-07-07 15:55:59 EDT, you write:
>>
>> <<
>>  3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
>>  3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
>>  minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a
>>  Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
>>
>>   >>
>> In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
>>
>> Marc
>
>WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!
>
>Why not?  In my school these days they tell us that in our lifetimes
>we're liable to undergo several career changes, so why change this?
>Personally, I like the idea of career change.
>
>Especially true wit military careers (ie. Drafted) as the war you were
>drafted for may be over, and now it's time to go back to civilian life.
>
>Marc, I implore you to try and fit in career changes to T4.1
>


	Marc: count me in as being for career changes.  Personally, whether
or not you actually implement the "no career change rule" in T4.1, I'm
still going to allow characters to change careers.  People can change
careers.  I've done it.  Letting characters change careers can add depth
and flavour to them.  Saying they can't is going to damage T4.1's
credibility.  I think that that would be the same sort of pointless,
artificial, constricting rule that really turned me off D&D years ago.



Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 08:32:11 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))

Mike Peters wrote:

>
>   Hear, hear Richard!! I too would like to see some other's slant on
>the Milieu 0 Imperium. I feel that it's a bit more freewheeling than
>later milieu's.
[snip]
> But, maybe we
>should be looking into the grittier side of the Traveller Universe.
>Empires aren't formed by boy scouts, and if a few eggs have to get broke
>to make that omelet, hand me the FGMP ..er, eggbeater!


	The slant I'm trying to give the M0 3I in my current campaign
(expect a game summary Friday AM, people) is somewhat akin to the Victorian
colonial period.  Greed and power are prime motivators; youngest sons,
fortune seekers, those who straddle the line between entrepreneur and
criminal, and the occasional decent bloke are all out there on the frontier
trying to strike it rich.  Out on the fringes human life doesn't quite
count for as much as it does back on Sylea (where it doesn't count for as
much as it does here).  The Megacorps are large and ruthless and
exploitative, and Famille Spofualm Armaments are doing great business.  The
ideology of "Empire" and the political entity nourishing it have such great
momentum that very few of its subscribers stop to question the many abuses
that occur.  Stuffy, unquestioning, jingoistic, greedy, self-righteous
conviction of rightness is the general moral tone.

	Imperial administrators tend to be decent, honest, and loyal to the
Imperium and by Imperial standards, which doesn't mean that they would
hesitate a second to ruthlessly crush anything that stands in their way.
The Scouts tend to be decent types, and try and minimize the effect of
getting overrun by a hegemonical steamroller on contacted cultures, but
they're still not Margaret Mead.

	So basically, M0 in my campaign is not a nice time in a rather
Victorian (in the political and economic sense), stuffy, sometimes quite
violent, and self-righteous way.  It'll eventually develop into a society
that is much more harmonious, once much of the dissent and diversity has
been eradicated, but in the meantime it's a situation where an economic and
military powerhouse is busily expanding and absorbing everything in its
path.

	I think that when it encounters the Hierate in M200 might be a
mellowing psychological cusp for the 3I; after that little shock they might
begin to realize that they're not the only game in town...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 15:39:39 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

>How do you tell the difference between "real" data and articles that
>were written as a joke? Consider some of the stuff that appears in the
>April issues of a lot of technical and even scientific magazines.
>
>You have to check out anything that is beyond your current tech level.
>And that takes time, as you have to dig out the data on how to
>build/run the equipment. Which, likely *isn't* indexed into the same
>section of the database.

The big problem is that you know that it can be done. You don't need to
know how to do it in order to speedily duplicate some science feat. The 3I
guys shure knew a lot about what the RoM was capable of and thus if they
needed they could crash research the subject given that they more or less
know where to look and what to avoid. The truly hard part of science is
trying something that really shouldn't be possible - this is why so many
new discoveries are made by coincidence or unintentionally: One example
that comes to mind is the Michelsen Morley experiments to measure the
ether. The failure of their experiment which was totally perplexing for
scientists at the time forced them to either abandon the ether theories or
coming up with some serious fudges that made the ether fool the M & M
measurement apparatus (the fudge formulae BTW looked exactly like the
special relativity ones).

What I long windedly am saying is that it's pretty easy to regain lost TL
if you know that it was possible and hopefully nobody is saying that all
knowledge at Sylea University as to what was possible for RoM was lost as
well. If that is supposedly the case then they also have to restart
evolution to regain their lost brains ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 21:55:10 +0800
From: Michael Bailey <mickb@opera.iinet.net.au>
Subject: My only comment on RoM TL

...and I'll keep it short!


...my own play on the question is, if the Rule of Man had reached
TL 14+, even if only around Terra, surely it's successors in the area 
(Old Earth Union, Dingir League, Easter Concord etc.) would have 
regained this level shortly after the end of the Long Night (which
didn't heavily affect the Solomani Rim anyway...at least not to the 
extent that it did elsewhere).

Now go forward, say, to 588...the Imperium approaches Terra with an 
invitation to join....the (speculation) TL 16 Terrans laugh at the 
primitive Imperials and tell them to get knotted...hell, by the time
of theh Rim War, the Solomani _would_ be the most advanced, most
superior race in the galaxy *g*......


...only an opinion...


Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)

"You drive", he said, "I think there's something wrong with me"
			Hunter S. Thompson - 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 21:50:59 +0800
From: Michael Bailey <mickb@opera.iinet.net.au>
Subject: Sector file formats....

Having worked with the vagaries of the Second Survey data files while 
writing TRTOOLS, I can understand a desire to change the format of sector
files.
The main (only) reason that I left the file format alone was because that
was the format the publicly available sector data was in.

Comma-delimited data would work quite well, and would probably cut the size
of the TRTOOLS code by a third if I ever decided to convert *g*...it may
even be 
worth the effort to convert all the Second Survey files over anyway.

I'm toying with the idea of using supplementary files to hold data not
contained
in the UWP files, for example, SOLOMANI.RTE might contain trade route/xboat
route
data for the Solomani Rim, SOLOMANI.PE for Pocket Empire data (when it
finally 
reaches the far shores of Western Australia).  It complicates things a bit, 
but does have the bonus of having great extensibility.  (Horrible thought
about having 
to add a SOLOMANI.IDX file to keep track of it all *g*)

Then again, maybe I'll just convert the lot into DBF format, and grab a
freeware
code library to access the bugger...

...open to suggestions...


Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)

"You drive", he said, "I think there's something wrong with me"
			Hunter S. Thompson - 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:10:55 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

 >----
>From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>

>One of my players want to have a dog

>I was wondering how much I could cost the life support for this animal.
>Further more, how do you think a dog could support 10 days confinment in
a
>small ship (but still relatively big carg (650m3))?
I would treat the life support requirements as that for a Vargr, with a
simple reduction due to comparitive bodymass....
(dog/Vargr)*LifeSupportCost
Also, there is a long tradition of Bulldogs serving aboard ship with the US
Marines; I cannot see it as a problem (maybe kinda messy, though)

The Druid
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller
clarkweb@bellsouth.net

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:15:30 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Re: PE non-realistic

>From: Glenn Crawford <glennc@nelvana.com>

>Robert Flammang wrote:
>   Re: The relatively high GNP's of China and India compared to the US.

>   If you subtract out the US's consumerism (ie divide by the `culture'
>   factor, which would be quite high for the US), I would not be
>   surprised to learn that China and the US really do outproduce us, not
>   in dollars, obviously, but in `RU's'.
>
>Pardon my straightforwardness, but bullpucks!
>
>So by the logic of PE, the Chinese can produce 13 aircraft carriers,
project
>their army anywhere on earth and go to the moon?
>The Chinese have more money available for research?

>These rules do not mesh with reality. And realistic is what I want

>BTW, all those useless microwaves, salons and such do produce wealth.
>Hewers of wood and drawers of water produce chump change

It's simple, actually;
the chinese have a lower average tech level than we do (commonly
available)

The Druid
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 16:25:20 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Leroy William Lu Guatney writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk> writes:
>>
>>No it isn't. Well, of course, I have to admit that according to the
>>"Newest Testament" (or "Testament 4" as it were) it is. But that's IMO
>>
>>I guess that part is an article of faith.
>
>Hans,
> 
>   I don't see any point in attempting to discuss a point where you are
>complaining about a system you won't let me include for reference of the
>discussion.  You can attack it--but you won't even accept its basic
>precepts.  

The problem is rather that we disagree with just what is the basic precepts.

I presented an argument that a particular concatenation of facts is 
inconsistent. You counter with another, analogous, set of facts. But what
good is that when the second set of facts is also inconsistent? Wouldn't it
be more to the point to prove to me that I'm wrong and that the original
set of facts are not, in fact, inconsistent? That is, if you think you can.

Let me give you an analogy. Say I was claiming that a particular planet
couldn't be in orbit so-and-so around this sun because it is described as
Earth-like, yet the planet would have daytime temperatures above the boiling
point of water. Would you then consider it a good counter-argument to point
out that according to canonical sources Darrian also have daytime temperatures
above the boiling point of water? (Yes, it's true. According to _Darrians_
and _Grand Survey_ taken together, Darrian has a basic temperature of 90 
degrees Celcius! (Unless I've miscalculated three times) I just noticed that 
a few days ago...)
 
>Seems your basic complaint is that your version isn't what is being 
>published. 

In a sense that is true. But as you point out, in that sense it is true of 
all of us.

>Willing to discuss on the facts, not one particular variant,

If it was only one particular variant the problems would be much less. If
all we had was T4 then there would be no problems. Sylea's TL of 12 is
perfectly consistent with having TL 13 and 14 planets dotting Charted 
Space and with RoM reaching TL 15 or 16. The problem comes when we add
all the rest of the tidbits we know from other versions of Traveller. In
particular the fact that the Imperium dosen't reach TL 13 till Year 300
and the fact that in 1100 "everybody knows" that RoM didn't reach more
than TL 12.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

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

Date: 08 Jul 1997 14:44:23 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Trading

>Before I do lots of work on this, has anyone else done anything similar?
>Or does anyone have any suggestions?

I've expanded the CT system into something more detailed.  Every world has
trade tables listing common exports, which are related to resources (using
WBH).  MegaTraveller tasks govern how players search for trade goods. 
Guidelines for using and creating the tables are given.

Check out <http://www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/trade.html>
for a full explanation.

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

Date: 08 Jul 1997 15:08:34 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Marine Uniforms

>Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
>get my vote.

I'd give at least one regiment Scots traditions.

Back when I was running a CT game and Azhanti High Lightning had just been
published, my group noticed that battle axes and two-handed swords were
better than guns against armour (check the game rules if you don't believe
me) -- and you don't get collateral damage, either.

Thus was born our standard boarding party: battle dress, claymores, and wild
bagpipe music blasting out!

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

Date: 08 Jul 1997 15:35:40 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>>That's the style.  I was goint to use a more conventional display of 
>>circular orbits with oversized markers for planets, but when I saw the
>> *--o---o---+---O--O format in "The Long Way Home", I knew I had to use 
>
>that's actually the format I'd dreamed up for a system generation program of
my own 
>
>	Other enhancements I'd planned on using: different colors for the planets
>to indicate atmosphere/hydrographics, indicating mainworld, circle size
>scaled to planet size, orbital distance properly scaled, etc.
>
>	Another thing that'd be really cool, in a more detailed system
>schematic--actual positions. Each planet could have its position in the
>orbit specified at a given reference time, and then the program would
>advance them according to the time the user/referee puts in. You'd have the
>ability to calculate travel time or comm lag between planets in their
>actual positions, etc.

Ah, David, don't you wish you had a Mac?  :-)

Metator does almost all of that (everything except the travel times and com
lag, which is such a good idea I'll be including it shortly).  My schematic
has orbits down the left side of the page, with satellites branching out to
the right.  My system map shows actual orbit position.  Both use colour icons
for the worlds, with general world type (earth-like, mars-like, moon-like,
gas giant...) shown by icon, and different sized indicated by scaling the
icons.  Asteroid belts have their major settlements shown as a space habitat
(which also moves with time).

Those with Macs, you can find alpha versions at
http://www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/software.html

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1532
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 8 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1533



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: PE non-realistic
Re: Starship Design in T4
Anthem
Re: My only comment on RoM TL
re: Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives
Pocket Empires
Re: Marine Uniforms
T4.1 career changes
Erani World Details
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))
Re: Sector file formats....
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Galactic's world mapping format
Re: Traveller Algorhythms
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 18:06:41 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: PE non-realistic

>Robert Flammang wrote:
>   Re: The relatively high GNP's of China and India compared to the US.
>
>   If you subtract out the US's consumerism (ie divide by the `culture'
>   factor, which would be quite high for the US), I would not be
>   surprised to learn that China and the US really do outproduce us, not
>   in dollars, obviously, but in `RU's'.
>
>Pardon my straightforwardness, but bullpucks!
>
>So by the logic of PE, the Chinese can produce 13 aircraft carriers, project
>their army anywhere on earth and go to the moon?
>The Chinese have more money available for research?
>
>These rules do not mesh with reality. And realistic is what I want
>
>BTW, all those useless microwaves, salons and such do produce wealth.
>Hewers of wood and drawers of water produce chump change

Knee jerk american patriotism response?
What Robert Flammang wrote was that ACCORDING to PE wealth is measured in
the amount of RU's produced. As GNP is a pretty crappy measurement of
economies which is good mainly for taxational reasons. What GNP measures is
the amount of monetary transactions taking place thus the amount of
taxeable money there is. All transactions taking place inside the state (ie
transfers from one part of the government to another) are disallowed in GNP
calculations because a government could in principle move any amount of
cash inside itself without cost and thus a noncapitalist country could
choose to produce an arbitrarily large GNP.

Why couldn't China build large aircraft carriers? Lack of TL perhaps but
I'd say lack of will and the same goes for projecting their force anywhere
on the globe. I'm not shure as to wether Chinas economy is larger than US
but I'd certainly think so. The Chinese can probably field more infantry,
armour and aircraft than the US but would probably get clobbered because
the US military stuff was BETTER ie higher TL.

As Chinas population is so  much bigger than US they have to pay
considerably more to upkeep their infrastructure (in the real world that is
- - in PE they'd have to pay IS in proportion to their land area or
something) and thus they have less left for research etc but this is also a
choice in preferences.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:02:45 -0700
From: "Stephen Price" <steve.price@virgin.net>
Subject: Re: Starship Design in T4

Thanks for the info and the link. Makes much more sense now.

Steve

- ----------
> From: James Dempsey <jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au>
> To: traveller@MPGN.COM
> Subject: Re: Starship Design in T4
> Date: 06 July 1997 16:40
> 
> Hello Stephen, on Jul 3 you wrote:
> 
> > Hi
> > 
> > I am trying to use the design sequences in Starships for T4, but I have
a
> > problem when it comes to adding armor. According to what i can make out
> > 	ArmorVolume=VolumeFactor*ArmorLevel
> > 	ArmorMass=ArmorVolume*MaterialDensity
> > Actual armor rating is then looked up on the USP table.
> >
>   This is true, however...
> 
> > The problem with this is that as you go up tech levels, armor masses
more
> > but gives the same protection value. Surely there should be an armor
> > modifier on the material table.
> 
>   Well, there is. If you look at the Volume Factor entries, there are 4
> values for each hull config and size. These match the different
materials. 
> The increasing strength of the higher tech materials is 'factored' (sorry

> couldn't resist) into the Volume Factor value.
> 
> > Also, if you cross reference armor level on
> > the USP chart to get Armor Rating you are going to need a lot of volume
to
> > get decent armor ratings. Is this right?
> >
>   The one step left out is to multiply the armour USP by 10 to get the
final 
> value. This makes it a bit less costly.
> 
> > Any info gratefully received.
> >
>   Also, have a look at my SSDS Errata page
> http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/Errata.html for a full list of

> fixes for SSDS.
> 
> Enjoy,
> James Dempsey
>
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- --
>  email: jamesd@spirit.com.au             | Neptune, Titan, stars can
frighten!
>  WWW:   http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd |   Astronomy Domine - Pink
Floyd
> 

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 12:09:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Anthem

   Hi.

   Thank you Joseph "Chepe" Lockett for reposting your anthem.  I'll try
   to teach it to my players next week 8^).

   -Rob

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 12:15:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: My only comment on RoM TL

> From: Michael Bailey <mickb@opera.iinet.net.au>
> Subject: My only comment on RoM TL
> 
> ...and I'll keep it short!

Eh, why bother?

> ...my own play on the question is, if the Rule of Man had reached
> TL 14+, even if only around Terra, surely it's successors in the area 
> (Old Earth Union, Dingir League, Easter Concord etc.) would have 
> regained this level shortly after the end of the Long Night (which
> didn't heavily affect the Solomani Rim anyway...at least not to the 
> extent that it did elsewhere).

OK, again...

The RoM didn't have to reach TL 14 to have some TL 14 items
available. Or TL 13, or whatever. The major factor in determining
TL rating seems to be Jump drive. Just like Jump drive separates
the major races from the minor races. If you've got Jump-3, you're
TL 12, regardless of what kind of vacc suits, walkie-talkies
and plastic wrap you produce. This effect is less noticeable as
you start moving to smaller and smaller scales, but for entire
empires in a historical context, TL is probably not that descriptive.

> Now go forward, say, to 588...the Imperium approaches Terra with an 
> invitation to join....the (speculation) TL 16 Terrans laugh at the 
> primitive Imperials and tell them to get knotted...hell, by the time
> of theh Rim War, the Solomani _would_ be the most advanced, most
> superior race in the galaxy *g*......

Well, we can chalk it up to social reasons: while they're excellent
innovators, the Solomani can't run an interstellar empire like the
Vilani can. TL 15 is accomplished as much by shipping parts on time as
it is by inventing new cool stuff. Besides, there's probably a lot
of "party politics" in Solomani space that ends up dragging them
down, as opposed to the very top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-
around Vilani power structure.

All, "it could be", IMO, of course.

- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:27:56 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives

>but the figure I get for the exhaust velocity for the ion drives
>listed here is 125,000 km/sec (0.4 C) and for MPD drives it's around
>200,000 km/sec (0.67 C).

it's not actually completely silly for the ion drive; the whole point of ion
drives is that they accelerate extremely low-mass fuels to extremely high
velocities, with an electric field rather than by heating the fuel. 
125,000km/s does seem high, but only by a factor of 2 or so...
I'm not sure quite what an MPD is, so I can't comment on that.

I do remember that the ion drive fuel consumption in FFS seemed pretty reasonable.

Bruce Macintosh
bmac@astro.ucla.edu

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 12:59:47 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Pocket Empires

Here are a few of my PE ideas. And a rant. (you have been warned)

in the economic formula (C+1) replaced by 
Plurality + (2 x Law Level) + Culture + Population =3D % of GWP unavailable
Why?
Plurality:For all complaints otherwise, democracies have a lot less of a
corruption problem than dictatorships
Law Level:represents pocket padding, and general bureaucratic nightmare
levels
Culture:represents wastage in terms of advertising and such
Population:High population makes it easier to hide any minor pilfering. If
there are 10 people with access to the bank accounts, it is easier to narro=
w
down the suspects. If the bank employs 10 million, it gets REALLY difficult

GWP =3D 
(Infrastructure x Resources x Tech Level x 5 x Actual Population)/one
billion

Mods
Infrastructure: actual infrastructure-(plurality/3) round down
Less accountable governments claim great feats, but the actual useful part
is lower. Compare Three Mile Island Disaster to Chernobyl
Tech Level: actual tech level-(plurality/3) round down
Less accountable governments restrict technology to the ruling class

Time for Soapbox....
There is, IMNSHO, a strong favour for dictatorships amongst the Traveller
rules
This does not mesh with reality. The USA is the richest nation on Earth
because it is a democracy, Japan without democracy would be nothing but
another petty asian dictatorship, with desperately poor people and wealthy
leaders. Democracies encourage individuals to build wealth while protecting
individuals from capitalism=B9s rapaciousness. In short, dissemination. Of
wealth, technology and ideas. 
A dictatorship by any means (includes restricted oligarchies and especially
religious governments) tend to cause wealth to go into leaders=B9 pockets
rather than driving an economy. Same for tech. Germany would have had a
massive advantage without a wingnut like the insane Austrian. Germans are,
on the industrious individuals (like P.J. O=B9Rourke says, only Communism
could make a country full of Germans lose money, referring to East Germany)
and if people (this means the whole human race, which has a knee defect.
That is, a tendency to fall to them to worship their leaders) weren=B9t such
idiots they would have realized that the Weimar Republic had actually
resolved most of the problems plaguing Germany, for which the Nazis took
credit

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 10:23:07 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Marine Uniforms

On 8 Jul 1997, Rob Prior wrote:
 
> Thus was born our standard boarding party: battle dress, claymores, and wild
> bagpipe music blasting out!
> 

I know you're talking about giant two handed swords, here, but I got a
different image when you mentioned claymores and battledress:

Ooooohhhh shudder...reactive armor from hell

Can you imagine the terror weapon this would be...even TRYING to hurt them
could slaughter your side.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 18:56:47 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: T4.1 career changes

Hate to 'me too' but 'me too'.

Career changes were one of the T2300 things I liked in T4, lots. However, I
can just improvise id you don't put them in. I mean, that's what I did in
MT.

Off list query:
___________

Anyone know the details of the Ars magica list, or useful sites? Please
reply to me off TML. Thanks - Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 18:52:10 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Erani World Details

[This post accompanies my character generation example.  It details
 Erani at the time it joined the Third Imperium; help in deciding the
 date this occurred would be appreciated.  I have left off stellar-
 related information, as I'm not convinced about M6 IV but don't want to
 change it randomly.   This is my first world write-up for M0; let me 
 know what you think.]


Erani         2501 B000699-B-2587    Ast Na Ni Va       100

History:
    Erani was colonised during the Ziru Sirka primarily because of it's
    metal-rich asteroids, and prospered.  By the time of the Nth
    Interstellar War the easily-extractible metal stocks were beginning
    to run low, but the war effort kept profits high.  Reconstruction
    work meant that this continued into the early years of the Rule of
    Man, but the effect gradually faded and Erani entered a severe
    economic decline.  Imaginative (for Vilani) initiatives by
    government and corporations masked the extent of the problem, but by
    -1850 the truth was self-evident.  The more keen-sighted also saw
    the problems of interstellar society in general, and the effect it
    would have on Erani; the government collapsed.

    The next thousand years was, at least from a Vilani viewpoint, a
    time of anarchy and chaos.  Different factions with conflicting
    ideas of how to restore prosperity fought for control with each
    other.  Tragedies happened; whole communities died because vital
    equipment wasn't being maintained.

    The first of the large communities to return to stable government
    was Khamma.  By -900 the Khammans had adopted a bureaucratic
    government structure not so distant from their Vilani roots.  Their
    example gradually spread this government across the belt, and within
    150 years all the major communities were unified.

    Even during the Chaos Time, Erani had been involved in limited trade
    with it's neighbours Arunde and Derku, 3 parsecs distant.  These had
    formed a coalition for the purposes of trade and colonisation, and
    in -688, Erani was invited to join.  The increased trade and support
    helped Erani out of the doldrums, and it had become a prosperous
    member of the coalition by the time it was absorbed into the Third
    Imperium.

Belt Profile:       50m/100km, n-30 m-58 c-12, 0.1 AU
    Predominant body diameter...50m
    Maximum body diameter.......100km
    Nickel-iron zone............30%
    Mixed zone..................58%
    Carbonaceous/icy zone.......12%
    Belt width..................0.1 AU

Population:
    Total Population............1,150,000
    Primary Communities:
    Khamma......................272,000 (starport B)
    Idarmi......................382,000 (starport C)
    Aagimir.....................169,000 (starport D)
    Shenuda..................... 75,200 (starport C)
    Niriidizu................... 67,100 (starport C)
    Mala........................ 38,100 (starport C)
    Dashimudlasar............... 24,600 (starport C)
    Milekusi.................... 63,200 (spaceport F)
    Zimii....................... 40,900 (spaceport F)

    The vast majority of Erani's population live in clusters of orbital
    habitats centred on the largest asteroids in the belt, or in tunnels
    and chambers within those bodies.  Possession of the only B-class
    starport helps Khamma maintain it's historical preeminence, but
    Idarmi is a strong challenger; the friendly rivalry between
    communities is frowned on by the Guides, but stimulates local
    development.  There is also an intra-community division between the
    "Uppers" in the space habitats and the "Downers" within the asteroid
    bodies; this is mostly evident in the jokes they tell.

World Character:    5794571
    Progression.................5 (progressive)
    Planning....................7 (medium-term)
    Advancement.................9 (advancing)
    Growth......................4 (competitive)
    Militancy...................5 (neutral)
    Unity.......................7 (harmonious)
    Tolerance...................1 (xenophilic)

Unusual Customs:
    On their first (local) birthday, every citizen is tattooed at the
    base of the spine with a "bar code" detailing their name, citizen
    number, birthplace, parents and other information.  Until their
    eighth birthday they are not allowed to speak with offworlders, a
    custom that has built up a mystique around people from other
    systems.  To mark this change, a second tattoo is added above the
    first.

Government:         9 (Impersonal Bureaucracy)
    Government is completely undifferentiated; all aspects are run by
    councils of "Guides", initially appointed based on expertise in a
    wide variety of fields, but once on a council present for life.
    Guides are effectively a class above normal citizens, receiving many
    benefits available only to them.  This includes free education for
    them and their children, which means that about 75% of new Guides
    come from "Guide families".  Nevertheless, the Guides have so far
    governed well.  Discontent is limited, and mostly directed at the
    "life membership" aspect of Guidehood rather than the general form
    of government.
    [Note: Erani had developed into a Feudal Technocracy by 1100.]

Law:                9-7EBBA, undivided.
    Due primarily to caution on the part of the Guides, laws are fairly
    extreme across the board, especially trade laws.  However, because
    of necessary compromise as the Guide system spread across the belt,
    personal weapons are much less restricted.

Technology:         BA-BBBBC-CCCB-BC
    Erani enjoys a fairly uniform TL B, but because of the need to
    survive a harsh environment alone their environmental TL has been
    pushed to C.  Personal grav belts are available for Guides, though
    not for normal citizens.  Experimental TL C heavy weapons are being
    produced in small numbers for testing, but are not yet generally
    available to the military forces.
 
John

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

Date: 08 Jul 1997 18:27:53 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Arguments for not allowing second careers IN CHARACTER GENERATION:

1) A second career is a break with the past, a good start to an adventure.

2) Vargr are changable, so allowing them to switch is a good game mechanic
for differentiating species psychology.


No, being in favour of the multi-careered background, some counter-arguments:

1) Possibly, but not necessarily.  Going from 'crook' to 'prisoner' or 'naval
officer' to 'bureaucrat' ar common, but not adventurous.  I'm on my second or
third career (depending on whether you count high school teacher and college
lecturer as different careers), and while I like my job I don't consider it
an adventure.

2) It _is_ a good game mechanic, but rather than penalize humans let's give
the vargr another advantage.  What about letting a Vargr roll half their
skills on tables from a different career?  What about several careers inside
a single term?

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 97 20:53 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970617153948.007d7950@mail.deltanet.com>

Scott,

> I noted that in Anomalies, though, a major plot point was some recovered
> TL14 gear, plus the hints that there were a lot more examples of it.  This
> is not the occasional millennia old battered prototype, this was working
> gear, and implications of even more of it.
>  
> I just hate that.

Having just finished reading Anomalies, can I just say that I *really* hate 
it?

What really made me laugh was the idea that someone would "test drive" a 
*2000 year old* vac suit!
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 22:55:59 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

On  7 Jul 97 at 22:57, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> > I keep thinking of the PCs ship slowly maneuvering among smaller
> > (mined) asteroids and approaching a larger rock, dotted with pirate
> > installations and placed deeply inside the asteroids belt, but
> > perhaps this is just my fantasy.
> 
> Pretty much. Except in very special circumstances, you'll be lucky
> to be able to see one asteroid from another.

	About mines: Remember that detonation laser warheads are _deadly_
out to 10Kkm or more, and that's just for the smaller ones: Take a
1Mt detonation laser, add a 3Kkm PEMS array and a simple computer
and you have a cute little mine that'll kill or cripple just about
anything but a capital ship. Shouldn't be too expensive, even;
pirates might be able to jury-rig some from looted warheads.

	As for seeing asteroids from another... IMO, starships have windows 
because of tradition. TL 12+ sensors might be a wee bit more accurate 
than human eyes.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:04:03 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Sector file formats....

> The main (only) reason that I left the file format alone was because that
> was the format the publicly available sector data was in.

My reasoning exactly :-)


Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:03:57 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> Forgotten about Elite II? You DON'T STILL PLAY IT? 
>  
> No more Right Ons! for you, Commander....   :)

You must have had a different version to mine ... my copy crashed 
regularly, claimed I had entered the copy protection codes incorrectly and 
generally made my life a misery.  Plus, I never could get to like the 
combat system.

Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:04:10 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Galactic's world mapping format

This is the sort of information I was after in my "towards a common 
algoritm" message thread.

Jim gets another e-thumbs up for explaining the file format.  This 
makes it easy for me to use the same format, or write "convert" 
routines to use Hexworld data.

I must admit that Jo Grant's World Mapper (in the Dulinor suite) 
creates excellent-looking maps, but saving or loading the files seems 
to crash the program on my PC.  

Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:04:01 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Traveller Algorhythms

> I'm currently involved in writing a Pocket Empires GM aid

You are just the sort of person I'm trying to agree "standards" with.  
Rather than roll some random numbers and convert them into PE data, I 
think it would be great if there was a TML-standard way of generating PE 
data from the UWP so that my PE data was the same as your PE data.

As you have not finished the program, surely you and I (at the very least) 
could agree a method to use ... it may become a de facto standard!


Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:04:08 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> The algorithm  should be able
> to cope with a variety of these formats

Writing a smart parser is possible, as is having a number of import 
filters (as used in Word, Excel etc for file formats from competing 
products).  It is even possible (by use of dll's) to add additional 
import filters to the program without changing the main executable.

To make these filters work well there needs to be an easy way to 
identify the format quickly:
file extension: .gni, .sec, .gal, .MM, whatever)
first line of file: Galactic2.2, TrTools, Metator, whatever


Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:04:06 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

> The coding for the stars/planets/moons is actually fairly simple:
> xxy-nnnn-* primary star
> xxy-nnnn-0 object in orbit 0 of primary
> xxy-nnnn-n object in orbit n of primary
> xxy-nnnn-2-* secondary star (in orbit 2 of primary)
> xxy-nnnn-8-1 moon of planet in orbit 8
>  
> I *think* that this or a variant of it can unambigously locate any body
> in a system.

This method should indeed allow unambiguous location, but I want to 
avoid having huge great data files that store all of the information 
about a system, and instead have a consistent method of generating all of 
this data from a "standard" UWP file.  Making things internally 
consistent within my own program is no problem, but it would be nice to 
spread the consistency to include other programs that generate the same 
data. 


Simon

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 22:03:59 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>  Another thing that'd be really cool, in a more detailed system
> schematic--actual positions. 

That feature was in my original message - always been a hobby-horse of mine. 
 As you say, this will allow you to calculate travel times com lags and so 
on (part of my paper-based feature list).

One option I am toying with is including residual velocity from the start of 
a jump to the end - consider the simplified case of jumping from earth to 
Mars when the two planets are on (nearly) opposite sides of the sun.  The 
difference in orbital velocity would be large, requiring a few more g-turns 
to sort out.  If I ever sort out my understanding of the Orbital Mechanics 
textbook i have, i'll include refuelling at gas giants, "sling shots" and 
other neat stuff.  The program will essentially calculate a series of 
orbital manoeuvres and list minimum time, minimum reaction mass and so on 
(I'm not a fan of Thruster Plates).  Normally these will be completely 
irrelivant, until a mishap occurs ....

I'm only planning to include it because
(a) I love math and this sort of calculation
(b) it is my program :-)


Simon

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 14:00:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas <douglas@*teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:

> One of my players want to have a dog
> 
> I was wondering how much I could cost the life support for this animal. 
> Further more, how do you think a dog could support 10 days confinment in a
> small ship (but still relatively big carg (650m3))?
> 
> Any opinions?
> -----------
> Nicolas LEJEUNE
>    Engineer, Paris, France
>    Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
>    Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 
> 

I don't think space is a problem, I knew a guy who used to keep his dog in
his car, went out during break and lunch to play with him.  Also, there
are many, many people who keep animals in apartments that would not have
much more space than a medium sized starship.

The lifesupport costs tho...

Canon does not differentiate on size for lifesupport.  If you are talking
about modules being plugged in to support x number of beings for one jump,
then the cost would be the same...the partially used module would be
pulled and replaced with a new one.  (I know a GM who used that to explain
the fixed cost per week for life support)

I tend to be more forgiving, if the players want to keep track of the
costs that closely, I'm willing to fluctuate to prices to reflect usage.
I think the dog would tend to use less, how much less will depend on the
size and disposition of the animal.  (50% to 75%)

- --------------------------------------------
Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology
                                              -Merlin

douglas@teleport.com
http:\\www.teleport.com\~douglas\

MCSE: Windows95, Windows NT 3.51 Server, Windows NT 3.51 Workstation, 
      Exchange Server, Basic Networking, TCP/IP
- --------------------------------------------

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 18:22:31 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

>>How distant may an asteroid be from its closer neighbors?
>
>Very. By the nature of the laws of orbital mechanics and other things,
>asteroids tens to be *very* far apart. Like thousands of km.

<snip>

>>I keep thinking of the PCs ship slowly maneuvering among smaller
>>(mined) asteroids and approaching a larger rock, dotted with pirate
>>installations and placed deeply inside the asteroids belt, but
>>perhaps this is just my fantasy.
>
>Pretty much. Except in very special circumstances, you'll be lucky to
>be able to see one asteroid from another.

If you were looking for the more "Empire Strikes Back" feel to your belt
perhaps your mined "rocks" could be in the planetary ring of a large gas
giant.  I'm no expert on this but IIRC the material is much denser nin a
ring (however also quite a bit smaller).  So to the experts out there
are ring materials baseball sized? smaller?  Can chunks of rock (or ice)
be of the order of tens of meters?  If tens of meters is possible some
of the "mining" methods mentioned might work.  Is ring material so
densly packed that maneuver though it is impossible?  Are rocks of
hundreds of meters possible?  IF tens to hundreds are possible and
manuever is possible, your base could be on one of the larger rocks.

Again, I am speaking about an area of which I am ignorant--but I thought
I would put out the ideas anyway for what they are worth (most likely
nothing).

If any of this is possible it might however be closer to the
navigational mayhem effect that (at least as I understood it) you were
originally looking for.  Of coarse the idea of having to cover vast
distances to get to the next mine to disable it while its shooting at
you has its merits...especially if you make the wholesale destruction of
the mine more damaging on average than taking a few hits and disabling
it (perhaps blowing up a particularly nasty power source from long range
is not the BEST idea)

anyway, I think I'm just rambling now....Tom be shutting up now.

Tom T.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1533
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 9 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1534



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Clues to TL loss
Oops!
Planet 3 Software
GNPs R Us
Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)
Re: Traveller Algorithms
Pyramids
Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: PE non-realistic
Program Support - Thanks!
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Program Support - Thanks!
3D Max Damage Atrocity

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 18:53:57 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

>guys shure knew a lot about what the RoM was capable of and thus if they
>needed they could crash research the subject given that they more or less
>know where to look and what to avoid. The truly hard part of science is
>trying something that really shouldn't be possible 

As a grad student working to "get that one piece of reproducable data"
that will be your thesis (and will fulfill your perspectus) is not as
easy as knowing it must be there...so whaala...there it is.  Knowing
where something should be, what it should look like, what dynamics it
should undergo is a completely different beast from demonstrating the
same--even when (after the experiment is complete and you have that
piece of data you needed) the THEORY you were working from is 100%
correct.

TT

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 18:59:49 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Oops!

>As a grad student working to "get that one piece of reproducable data"
>that will be your thesis (and will fulfill your perspectus) is not as
>easy as knowing it must be there...so whaala...there it is. 

What an aweful sentence....I'm glad I'm not an English grad student.  I
believe I meant to insert an "I can assure you" right after reproducable
data.....MUST....REMEMBER......TO..........PROOFREAD...........

Sorry

TT

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 19:12:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: DadEDragon@aol.com
Subject: Planet 3 Software

Has anyone been able to download the Traveller software from 
http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
I have been trying everyday since I found out about it, but to no avail.  If
someone already has it downloaded, would you mind sending it my way?

Larry Stanton
DadEDragon@aol.com
"Places to Go, People to Rule, Worlds to Conquer!"

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 16:41:44 -0700
From: scharlto@ifsna.com
Subject: GNPs R Us

anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) wrote:
>>Robert Flammang wrote:
>>
>>Pardon my straightforwardness, but bullpucks!
>>
>>So by the logic of PE, the Chinese can produce 13 aircraft carriers,
project
>>their army anywhere on earth and go to >the moon?
>>The Chinese have more money available for research?
>>
>>These rules do not mesh with reality. And realistic is what I want
>>
>>BTW, all those useless microwaves, salons and such do produce wealth.
>>Hewers of wood and drawers of water produce chump change
>
>Knee jerk american patriotism response?
>


Well, I hope this one doesn't devolve into a flame war.  However, when I
saw the original statement about China and India GNP compared to the US, I
was forced to laugh, remembering a threat-potential seminar I participated
in back in my Army days.  Specifically, this was a sort of global wargame
used for training purposes (no cool classified stuff here!), which involved
a fictional set of countries in Europe and Asia, who closely resembled some
real-world (1988 real world) counterparts.  At the end of the session, the
officers ruling "Sind" (China) and "Hind" (India) complained that even with
their massive populations, they could not accomplish anything in terms of
R&D or creating large field armies.  The instructor listened politely, and
assigned both of the guys a couple of nasty reading assignments, with the
goal of answering their own questions.  The answer they presented to the
class the next week was that both countries had great potential with their
huge populations, but were unable to use that potential because of a lack
of infrastructure.  Their report noted that both nations actually had a
good amount of cash that could be used for infrastructure development, but
the size of each nation's population meant that the cost of moving either
nation to a 1960 US/Western Europe infrastructure would be several orders
of magnitude greater than the available cash.  The nations could (and are)
build infrastructure incrementally, but doing so in an incremental manner
would lose the synergistic benefits of the overall infrastructure increase
which the US and Europe received throughout the 19th century, and which was
renewed after WWII.

Since I was just a poor soldier with little macroeconomic understanding, it
took a while for this to sink in.  What I finally determined was that it is
easier to build infrastructure and population simultaneously, and harder to
build infrastructure after the population is already there, because you
have to pay for the infrastructure AND pay for the population.  So poor
"Sind" could not connect every town of 20,000 or more people with 4-lane
concrete highways in ten years, or wire and plumb 80% of the nation's
houses in 20 years, feats which the US and Western Europe were more able to
accomplish.  And without this basic infrastructure, it was far far more
difficult to build up the higher levels of infrastructure (the factories,
schools, hospitals, etc).  Not impossible, just harder.  The citizenry of
"Sind" are no smarter or dumber, they are just restricted by economic
reality.  In addition, the infrastructure also had a similar effect on the
GNP; less infrastructure meant that economic activity was more often
localized nad low-level, hence produced little tax revenue compared to an
interstate or international transaction.  The "hewers of wood" comment is
true in that regard; not as much value add for the economy, but still
necessary work.

That is the one big weak point about the PE economic rules, or trying to
use raw GNP numbers to determine technological or military ability.  I
suspect China could build those 13 carriers, but they would be more like
1950s carriers than 1980s carriers, and doing so would put a halt to the
Chinese merchant marine program, and probably put a halt to any
infrastructure projects requiring elaborate electronics or even advanced
metals.  Deploying this fleet would probably require major cutbacks in
civilian oil use, unless the ships were coal-fired (which is not out of the
question for a coastal force, but not too good for a global
force-projection fleet).   China has a large army, largely non-mechanized.
Mechanizing this army to US levels would not be something China could
accomplish in a reasonable amount of time without crippling their national
economy.  I'm not talking Reagan-era deficits; I mean literally shutting
down all manufacturing tool production, or building of new farm machinery.

Infrastructure acts as a "Force Multiplier", just like artillery, armor or
air support acts as a force multiplier for infantry.  You can do a lot of
work with 10000 infantry, but you can accomplish an order of magnitude more
if that infantry has some artillery.  In PE, this gets masked by the IS
support costs being based on world size instead of population size, I
suppose.  Even so, I've been having a lot of fun using PE solo, as
background info for a future campaign.

I wish I still had those reports; they were pretty interesting.  However,
the seminar was given by a private contractor, so all materials were
returned to them.

Steve Charlton

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:01:31 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

Those of you who are computer whizzes can probably skip this message. The
rest of us...
I have found a way of converting hexadecimal numbers into decimal and vice
versa, using functions within the Quattro Pro spreadsheet. I don't know
about the others (Excel etc.) but they should probably have something
similar. 

The functions are: 
@HEXTONUM(n) - gives the decimal value of hexadecimal n
@NUMTOHEX(m) - gives the hexadecimal value of decimal m. 

I have been manipulating scads of FS and M:1100 sector data, for nefarious
purposes known only to myself, and I have found these two functions very
useful, especially in comparing values between the two different Milieux. 

The only problem is values that exceed F - these of course give an error
message. But I've found that they are so rare that you can just go in an
manually process these numbers with little trouble. 

Now I can convert all those TL 15+ RoM worlds...
<<Flame retardant foam deployed>>>

Now returning to your regular programming. 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 14:25:16 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

At 10:28 PM 7/7/97 +0100, Simon Early wrote:
>> There are tabs between the fields here right.
>
>The .gni and .sec files are fixed position formats, just has you 
>feared.  There is no reason why I could not adopt a tab delimited 
>format, but I am loath to move away from the work done in collating the 
>.sec files used in Galactic and others.

I usually convert them to tab delimited as quickly as possible.  It makes
it easier to read into a database program, and it makes it much easier to
read in data from random files.  My current mapping program is much more
reliable with tabs, at least.

>Apart from computer-purist reasons, why do you object to fixed position 
>formats?

Different people have different fixed position files.  I have a big stack
of sector data files on my drive, some of which use 15 characters for the
name, some of which use 14, and so on.

Clearly, this is just as much of a problem as getting fields out of order,
but it seems to be a more common error to have a longer planet name than
the fixed width field will take than to have a field misplaced.

I find them about the same difficulty to edit, as far as that goes.  YMMV.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 16:31:00 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Losing tech (was: Re: RoM)

At 10:42 PM 7/5/97 -0800, rdhough wrote:
...
>I agree Milieu 0 has a few new ideas; Pocket Empires has rules for new
>campaign settings which have never been well described before. However
>mostly it is a rehash of CT society in a TNE setting. There should be
>something unique about Milieu 0 if it is to remain a viable campaign
>setting after the release of later milieus. Can anyone suggest institutions
>or background material that would make Milieu 0 unique?...

In my M0 campaign, the primary guiding principle is individual drive.  It
is expected that there is a lot of good stuff out there, and if people work
their tails off, they can get some of it.  In a rather bizarre way, they
have a very meritocratic aristocracy.  On the other hand, many of the
systems and institutions have not yet worked out their exact function.

By 1100, nobles were nobles, and commoners were commoners, yet very few
people were considered truly inferior, just not noble.  While it was
possible that a nobody could become a noble, and likewise, a noble could be
stripped of power and wealth and become a nobody, these were both unlikely.
 The nobles that "ran things" were a year from the borders, and were career
politicians, while the megacorps were the economic powerhouses closely
entwined with the nobles.

In Y0, on the other hand, promotion to the nobility was fairly common, and
often for bizarre reasons.  At the least, though, those who were nobles
were considered doers, not talkers.  Imperials were fairly status
conscious, because many of them aspired to that status, yet they considered
their least to be better than anyone outside the Imperium.

My quick list of differences:

1.  Nobility has been created.  As a rough guideline, over the long haul,
approximately one person in a thousand is in some way noble and wields some
kind of direct power.  Perhaps ten times that many would have some kind of
relationship to a noble title such that they get honors at parties, but
would not be "important." themselves.  This puts even the poorest noble or
intendant at something like ten times the average income, or better, which
seems to be needed, given the basic setup of the game.

FWIW, I give people a social standing of one less than their parents until
the death of a parent, and the passage of the title.  Thus, siblings of a
current, aging, noble become very interested in whether the title will pass
to them, or to the children of the one dying.  Further, nobles and nobility
are a strata of society that are well known to the average person, and they
have even met a number of them, but it is till quite a momentous occasion,
positive or negative, to meet a real one in the flesh.

This has one final corollary - Sylea will eventually have some 30 million
holders of noble titles, which will mostly be knighthoods.  Of those,
perhaps a million of them will be recognized personally by the Emperor,
while the rest will be recognized either by the grand master of the order
of knighthood, or as an associated family title.  The Emperor desperately
wants to have all of the movers and shakers personally bound to him, and is
doing his best to recognize everyone he can that seems to be important.  As
a result, this is a society that is turning quite status conscious, but the
people where this manifests the strongest, the nobles, are not an everyday
group.

2.  The Imperium has started to expand at an insane rate.  The way I see
things, a world can really only dominate a few worlds near it without the
influence of Naval bases.  I also feel that it takes at least a few decades
to absorb a world that is anywhere near your own in population or
technology.  As a result, Sylea has taken on the policy of treading lightly
near anything that is near Sylean power, but quite freely grabbing anything
lesser which is not nailed down.  Anyone who helps this process along is
idolized.

2a.  To encourage this, they have a rather strange kind of doublethink.  A
world which is not a member world is inherently inferior to an Imperial
world.  You will likely never get knighted for discovering and
administering a world outside the borders.  On the other hand, you have a
pretty free reign, and can make a lot of cash.  The Scout service is quite
busy making the initial surveys for worlds like this, which is why few
Scouts get knighted.  Many merchants are making the money on worlds like
this that will support them when they do get knighted.

2b.  Bringing a world, even an uninhabited dust ball, into the Imperium is
a matter of great import.  This will make a career or a fortune.  The
Imperial Foreign Office is nominally in charge of all such contacts, yet
they are stretched so thin that they are willing to ignore a lot if the
world is en route to membership.  Note that they do have a move it or lose
it policy - if you are in the process of negotiating a request for
admission, and the Foreign Office takes a dislike to you, you may well find
your claim supplanted by another group on the same world.

2c.  Once a world is in the Imperium, it becomes the responsibility of the
people who brought it in and the ruling powers, as recognized by the
Imperium, to keep everything on it under control.  On the other hand, while
you have lost many of the options you had when it was outside the borders,
you have greater resources to call upon, like much better trade provisions.
 This is where much of the future power of the Megacorporations comes from
- - they can administer almost anything with their personal resources, and
thus do not bother the Imperium often.

3.  Unlike 1100, internal competition is not considered a good thing if it
interferes with Imperial progress.  While there can still be the cutthroat
and often violent disagreements that take place in 1100, they will almost
all take place beyond the Imperial borders.

It is a lot easier to have accomplishments recognized when one is first
coming into the Imperium, rather than later.  Worlds, therefore, spend a
fair amount of time as a friendly state outside the borders before asking
admission.  It is during this time, when the world is in essentially its
final form, but before it has the full protection of the Imperial Navy,
that military/mercenary actions common in 1100 can take place.

4a.  Honor is becoming more important, as Cleon feels that is the only
thing that can keep him on his throne.  The Code Duello is back, but they
have not yet worked out all of the details.  In general, this will die out
by the time 1100 rolls around, but it is quite strong in year 0.

4b.  The word of a Noble is considered good, and the clear intent of Sylean
law is that if a noble promised it, but the lawyers did not put it in the
contract, then the lawyers lose.  Non nobles are not expected to keep to
this standard, and the nobility is allowed to take that into account.
While they are not yet completely callous about human life, nobles do have
more ability to avoid bad consequences.

5a.  Hand craftsmanship is a big thing.  The economic reason is simple -
Zhunastu wants to be able to make a profit off of all of the TL1-TLA
planets they are contacting and bringing in.  As a result, they have made
all sorts of ad campaigns designed to convince Y0 citizens that they want
hand rubbed oak in their grav car, and burl knobs on laser controls.

5b.  It is considered a good thing to have find native handicrafts adorning
your possessions, and to have human servants from other planets doing
things for you.  In many cases, a robot would be better at it, but robots
are limited to doing various manufacturing tasks.

6.  It is an era where everything is in flux, thus the megacorporations
that control Sylea so thoroughly are not going to be a big factor outside
the borders.  They are ruthless, and powerful, but the Navy is more so.

7.  The Navy has a problem of divided loyalty.  The Navy was carried over
from the SF virtually intact, and is now expected to be completely loyal to
Clean.  They are not, and Clean knows it.  He also does not want to risk
civil war by bringing it up until his grasp of it is stronger.

8.  The Scouts have a fair amount of corruption and inefficiency.  They
have been given an impossible job, insufficient resources, and new people
from a diverse cultural background.  Unlike the Navy, which was primarily
Sylean, and primarily upper caste, the Scouts will take anyone who is
clever, and who can survive on a rough planet.  Over time, they will purge
themselves of the elements who do not fit in, but they have not yet had the
time to do so.

For the record, here is the time line I am using.  Note that the roughly
650 worlds in core should include something like 20 pop A, and 35 pop 9
planets.  I am going to make these between TL7 and TL C.  These are the
important worlds, as most of the population in the sector is on these worlds.

I am assuming that the Imperium can handle a doubling in size every two or
three decades, as long as none of them are TL11-12 hi pop worlds.  There
had best not be more of those being absorbed than there are currently high
tech, high pop worlds presently in the Imperium.

- -30: 19 worlds of Sylean Federation, a half dozen worlds in an independent
client state to rimward, and Shudusham as a friendly power.

0: ~30 worlds, having absorbed everything within jump three of Sylea.  In
addition, they have started to seduce the 30 some odd worlds of the
Interstellar Confederacy.  This would go better if they were not in the
middle of a shooting match with the Chanestin Kingdom.  Vland has
recognized Cleon as Emperor, but a clever lawyer might note that they have
not actually joined the Third Imperium.  This gives the 3I a lot of
information about the Vland sector from Vilani scouts, and potentially
gives them another dozen worlds, including a high pop, high tech world.

25: 100 worlds or so, scattered throughout Core.  Shudusham, the
Interstellar Confederacy, and the Chanestin Kingdom are now members,
allowing the Empire to digest up to four high pop worlds at a time.  Scouts
are scurrying everywhere in the sector, and widely outside of it.  Vland is
an actual member of the 3I, but is not aggressive about expanding through
the Vland sector.

50: 200 worlds of the Core sector are members, including 10 high tech, high
pop worlds.  The Core sector is essentially tied up, if not entirely loyal.
 25 worlds in Vland, including three HT/HP worlds are members.  Many worlds
outside Core are being aggressively courted.

75: The Vland Effort becomes aggressive, leading to 75 member worlds in
Vland, and 8 HTHP worlds.  The Lishun Main is colonized aggressively,
leading to an HTHP world, and several dozen small colonies.  450 worlds, 25
HTHP, in Core now recognize the 3I and are members.

100: Aside from a few HTHP worlds in Core, Core is entirely Imperial.
Vland has grown explosively, such that nearly all HTHP worlds in the sector
have become members, with the lesser worlds the responsibility of the
Vilani Bureaux.  (This is unusual, in that all other sectors show many more
low tech/low pop worlds becoming members before the high tech worlds.)
Lishun, Dagadushag, and Massilia will grow quickly over the next few
centuries, leading to various nasty border wars.  The Imperium will suffer
from the Marshmallow problem (crunchy outside, but soft center) for at
least the next several hundred years.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 17:07:40 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Traveller Algorithms

At 10:04 PM 7/8/97 +0100, you wrote:
>> I'm currently involved in writing a Pocket Empires GM aid
>
>You are just the sort of person I'm trying to agree "standards" with.  
>Rather than roll some random numbers and convert them into PE data, I 
>think it would be great if there was a TML-standard way of generating PE 
>data from the UWP so that my PE data was the same as your PE data.

Perhaps, but I would think that the PE data is not going to derive from the
current UWP data, just like the various social factors in the UWP do not.

It does seem doable, though, to decide very carefully the exact algorithm
to generate the PE/social UPW data, and to then use an agreed upon seed and
generator to make the numbers.

Can we use a better generator than a simple LC 2^32 generator.  Most of
them seem a bit flaky to me.  Python uses a somewhat better critter with
three overlapping stacks of pseudo random numbers, and it seems to work a
bit better than the usual one I find implemented.  See below for references:

#	WICHMANN-HILL RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR
#
#	Wichmann, B. A. & Hill, I. D. (1982)
#	Algorithm AS 183: 
#	An efficient and portable pseudo-random number generator
#	Applied Statistics 31 (1982) 188-190
#
#	see also: 
#		Correction to Algorithm AS 183
#		Applied Statistics 33 (1984) 123  
#
#		McLeod, A. I. (1985)
#		A remark on Algorithm AS 183 
#		Applied Statistics 34 (1985),198-200

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:22:05 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Pyramids

I recall a theory that the pyramid builders may have *buried* each
layer of the structure as they built it. That meant that they wouldn't
have to stuff about with ramps etc, they just rolled each new block along
the *ground* to its new position. 
After that, they dug the structure out again. It would need a hell of a
lot of earthmoving but hey, that's what those TL1 robots (slaves) were
really good at. 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

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

Date: 09 Jul 1997 01:04:26 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>To make these filters work well there needs to be an easy way to 
>identify the format quickly:
>file extension: .gni, .sec, .gal, .MM, whatever)
>first line of file: Galactic2.2, TrTools, Metator, whatever

Use the first line, not an extension.  Macintosh and UNIX don't use
extensions (Macs have a file type in the file header, UNIX looks at the first
hundred or so bytes and applies some rules).

Could we have an extensible system?  One that defined the fields in the first
part of the file?  That way, if your software added a field that mine didn't
understand, mine would know enough to ignore it.

Another compatibility issue: accents and diacritical marks.  Many of my
worlds use the full range of pronunciation symbols, not just ASCII letters. 
For example: "Gense" (Gen-e accent grave-se).  How do we encode these?  My
Mac manages fine, but I suspect that it uses a modified ASCII for those
letters.  I could send you the codes, but is there an international standard
for this?

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

Date: 09 Jul 1997 01:11:07 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

>I want to 
>avoid having huge great data files that store all of the information 
>about a system, and instead have a consistent method of generating all of 
>this data from a "standard" UWP file.

You may not have much choice.  I've noticed with Metator that I spend a lot
of time fiddling with a system to make it interesting/useful/feel right.  The
first expanded system is rarely the one I finish with (let's hear it for the
"Expand" command!).

While it might be nice to have a standard way of generating a 'default'
expanded system/PE, I think that we must still leave room for hand-coded
systems - which are more likely to be interesting as well.


Some Metator features we should include:

- - transport routes (start, finish, colour/meaning code)
- - labels (just a text label for an otherwise empty hex, but useful for
labelling areas)
- - anomalies (my catchall term for stuff like 'calibration points' that isn't
a system but should be on the map, like black holes, x-ray pulsars,
Grandfather's Secret Cache...)

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 18:35:37 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: PE non-realistic

At 08:42 AM 7/8/97 -0400, you wrote:

>So by the logic of PE, the Chinese can produce 13 aircraft carriers, project
>their army anywhere on earth and go to the moon?
>The Chinese have more money available for research?

If they had need to, they could have.  Remember, the Chinese share a very
long border with the Russians, and have spent thousands of years keeping
barbarians out.  The US is focussed on power projection, the Chinese aren't.

I read a study of the PLA done in 1988.. Compared to the US Army's 12
divisions at the time, the PLA had 280, about half of which were armored or
mechanized.  

As for going to the moon, if Chairman Mao had declared a "goal of the
people", it would have happened.  He was too busy investing in
infrastructure and pacifying his neighbors to get involved. 

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:04:27 -0400
From: "Richard C.S. Kinne" <phaedrus@dreamscape.com>
Subject: Program Support - Thanks!

Gentlefolk:	2235EDT	9707.08

	A few days ago I posted a request for pointers for Mac based software.
I got back several very nice replies and wish to thank those people who did
reply.  It also seems that I may have started (or fanned up, perhaps) a
discussion of common data formats between programs.  Might I request, in
so far as it is possible, that the Macintosh users not be left behind in a
project such as this.

	Who are our Macintosh-based programmers here?  Is Rob Prior still
among us (sorry, I'm bad on names.  I just know that he is the author of
some of the best utilities I've collected so far)?

	In looking about I found it facinating that someone was actually
working on solutions in Java at what seemed to be an application rather than
an applet level. Might this be an interesting road to explore since more and
more it's looking like cross platform stuff will be done in this language?
As a Novell administrator I'm learning that Java will be the basis for most
of their future adminstration utilities for example.  I have a soft spot for
mixed environments both at work and at home (we have two Macintosh systems and
two Linux systems here at the house. One of the Linux systems is monolithic
and the other is mach based).

	Just a thought and a email of thanks.

- --
Richard C.S. "Doc" Kinne
InterNet: phaedrus@dreamscape.com
Home Page: http://www.dreamscape.com/phaedrus/
Quote: "One headline said 'Accused Had Powerful Brain,' so it
	could have been worse, I suppose. But their use of the
	past tense rather worried me."
		-Sir Alan Mathison Turing, O.B.E., commenting 
		 on the headlines after his "gross indecency" 
		 trial, 1952.
		_Breaking the Code_

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 23:37:00 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Marc Miller writes:

>> 3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
>> 3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
>> minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a
>> Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
>
>
>In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
>
>Marc

   Eh?  Well now there's a *big* step back from reality.  Why not just
insert rules limiting players on the number of career changes they can
make.  One before age 30, two before age 38, etc.  That would seem to
make more sense.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 23:38:59 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

Matti Laakso writes:

>    Actually, it wasn't bad luck, even - just a misplaced decimal. The
> Germans took over the only factory in the world that produced
> deuterium (the Norwegian thing, a legend in the history of guerrilla
> warfare), but overestimated hundred-fold of how much nuclear material
> was needed for an atomic bomb. That is the main reason why they quit
> reseach and started designing other superweapons (and came up with
> some, like Me109s with an 80mm cannon. Try FFSing that and see what
> happens :) ).

   Probably the same problem they had designing the A-10 here in
America--the recoil from the 30mm canon could have potentially caused
the plane to be forced backwards at low airspeeds (fortunately they were
able to solve the problem).

   A misplaced decimal (I had not heard that aspect of the story) would
not have stopped the Germans had circumstances been different--my point
still stands, nuclear weapons are a natural development during the early
stages of TL 6, rather than the product of one man's (or a small
group's) genius.  

   So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more deuterium
would kick some serious tail....

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 14:39:57 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: Program Support - Thanks!

>	Who are our Macintosh-based programmers here?  Is Rob Prior still
>among us (sorry, I'm bad on names.  I just know that he is the author of
>some of the best utilities I've collected so far)?

I'm a Macintosh-based programmer, although so far I haven't done much in
the way of Traveller software (just a small utility which I threw together
when I was regenerating some FS data so that it was semi-reasonable). I
have been thinking about writing something for Pocket Empires (I can draw a
window full of hexes =) ), but I don't really have the time.


>	In looking about I found it facinating that someone was actually
>working on solutions in Java at what seemed to be an application rather than
>an applet level. Might this be an interesting road to explore since more and
>more it's looking like cross platform stuff will be done in this language?

This was an idea that has crossed my mind too - an easy way to write one
program and have people from both Wintel and Mac sides run it (and Unix I
believe). Of course this all depends on Micro$oft not stuffing up Java so
that it will only run "their" version of the language.

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:55:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: 3D Max Damage Atrocity

Hope everyone had a good Independnece Day Holiday.  I'm gratified that
everyone agrees that the 3D max damage rule is in general, nonsensical, for
those higher-end type weapons.  I hope the T4.1 version will rectify and
clarify this point that has been beaten to death on the TML here... I found
it hard to believe that it was the intention of the Powers-That-Be that
damage from a PCMP, such as James indicated, would have to combine the silly
3D max rule, plus explosive damage effect, plus blackblast.
Seems like quite a bit of work for a system which is supposedly clean and
refined.
   As for the medical matter adn open heart surgery, I guess any qualified
individual could try, despite the apparent futitlity of the circumstances,
and still have the most minimal amount of chance of success.
   Let's do it right..   Charles

"And remember, let's be careful out there!" 
quote from unknown 20th century Terran actor playing a role as a law
enforcement officer

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1534
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 9 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1535



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: The Rule of man
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: My only comment on RoM TL
Re: Pocket Empires
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: Clues to TL loss
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity + a true story
Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity
Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]
Re:  TL of RoM
Heroes of Telemarken
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1534

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 15:01:26 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

>   Eh?  Well now there's a *big* step back from reality.  Why not just
>insert rules limiting players on the number of career changes they can
>make.  One before age 30, two before age 38, etc.  That would seem to
>make more sense.

Actually, I quite like that idea (without giving it any deep thought that
is). Vargr could simply have that restriction removed.

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 01:07:59 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: The Rule of man

>The RoM didn't have to reach TL 14 to have some TL 14 items
>available. Or TL 13, or whatever. The major factor in determining
>TL rating seems to be Jump drive. Just like Jump drive separates
>the major races from the minor races. If you've got Jump-3, you're
>TL 12, regardless of what kind of vacc suits, walkie-talkies
>and plastic wrap you produce. This effect is less noticeable as
>you start moving to smaller and smaller scales, but for entire
>empires in a historical context, TL is probably not that descriptive.

A truer notion of the important technological schism of the Jump Drive in
Traveller has never been uttered.
I couldn't agree more with this rationale for what distinguishes
interstellar societies.

>Well, we can chalk it up to social reasons: while they're excellent
>innovators, the Solomani can't run an interstellar empire like the
>Vilani can. TL 15 is accomplished as much by shipping parts on time as
>it is by inventing new cool stuff. Besides, there's probably a lot
>of "party politics" in Solomani space that ends up dragging them
>down, as opposed to the very top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-
>around Vilani power structure.

This assumption, on the other hand, could be argued directly in reverse.
That "top-down" Vilani power structure could be seen as a detriment in
running so vast a corporate entity. Ritualistic, hierarchical, some might
even say stagnant, the Vilani are not perfect, and do their own kind of job
of mismanagement. With thier dynamic and inquisitive spirit, the Solomani
are far more likely to keep pushing the edge of any empitre they run,
instead of playing at-home power politics and letting the edges of one's
empire stagnate and sometimes even deteriorate. At least that's how I read
Traveller's very storied historical past. It is the Solomani who are
aggresive and a constant source of concern. Consider the first CT setting
of the Spinward Marches, a frontier exploited in part as a defense
perimeter against the dreaded telepahic Zhodani, but also arguably in
response to constant agressive Solomani pressures in the other direction.
The Vilani are a source of trmendous conservatism in Traveller, but that
doesn't neccesarily make them best suited for "long-term TL 15 interstellar
empire management" (a theoretical course they hopefully teach first year
Imperial Naval Officer Cadets!) :).

Wow. My first post.

Neat.

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

Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 21:33:57 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

In mail you write:

>    In all seriousness, both the Germans and Soviets had nuclear > programs prior to the Americans. 

The Japanese nuclear program was a _lot_ farther along then most people
realize.  If my source is correct, they were within 1 year of having a
bomb, and were also working on the Hydrogen bomb.  Much of the Japanese
work was done at a sight in what is now North Korea.  After the war the
Soviets supposedly took every single item from the site, packed it up,
and took it home.  Naturally neither the post war Japanes (who were
antinuclear), the Soviets (who weren't about to admit how much of the
technology they borrowed) or the Americans (if other countries realized
how easy making nukes is there would be more nuclear proliferation) were
very eager to let this news out.

As far as we know everyone who has tried to build an atomic bomb (more
countrys then most people realize) has gotten it right the first time. 
Atomic weapons are an early TL 6 development.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 16:31:09 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

>>   Eh?  Well now there's a *big* step back from reality.  Why not just
>>insert rules limiting players on the number of career changes they can
>>make.  One before age 30, two before age 38, etc.  That would seem to
>>make more sense.
>
>Actually, I quite like that idea (without giving it any deep thought that
>is). Vargr could simply have that restriction removed.


On a second reading I didn't really make it clear which idea I liked! I
like the idea that the number of career changes a character can have is
limited by age. Not the idea that characters can only have one idea (which
I think is totally silly, my players wouldn't stand for, and I would end up
changing anyway). Please let me play T4.1 as close to the written version
as possible - allow characters to have *some* form of multiple careers,
whether it is limited by age (the suggestion above), or limited by what
career changes you can make (suggested earlier).

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 02:43:09 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

Andrew Boulton writes:

>> I noted that in Anomalies, though, a major plot point was some recovered
>> TL14 gear, plus the hints that there were a lot more examples of it.  This
>> is not the occasional millennia old battered prototype, this was working
>> gear, and implications of even more of it.
>>  
>> I just hate that.
>
>Having just finished reading Anomalies, can I just say that I *really* hate 
>it?
>
>What really made me laugh was the idea that someone would "test drive" a 
>*2000 year old* vac suit!

   <Ding!>  We have a winner!  Someone finally pointed out the silliest
aspect of the whole TL 14 vacc suit debacle.  People actually trusting
their lives to these things!  I don't care *how* well the seals are
made, or how well packed everything is, it isn't going to last that
long!

   Of course I'm sure there will be *somebody* who will do some
handwaving trying to justify it. <sigh>

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 02:56:33 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: My only comment on RoM TL

Ethan Henry writes:

>The RoM didn't have to reach TL 14 to have some TL 14 items
>available. Or TL 13, or whatever. The major factor in determining
>TL rating seems to be Jump drive. Just like Jump drive separates
>the major races from the minor races. If you've got Jump-3, you're
>TL 12, regardless of what kind of vacc suits, walkie-talkies
>and plastic wrap you produce. This effect is less noticeable as
>you start moving to smaller and smaller scales, but for entire
>empires in a historical context, TL is probably not that descriptive.

<snip>
   
>Well, we can chalk it up to social reasons: while they're excellent
>innovators, the Solomani can't run an interstellar empire like the
>Vilani can. TL 15 is accomplished as much by shipping parts on time as
>it is by inventing new cool stuff. Besides, there's probably a lot
>of "party politics" in Solomani space that ends up dragging them
>down, as opposed to the very top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-
>around Vilani power structure.

   As I'm reading this stuff, Pam Tillis' song "Queen of Denial" came on
the radio.  Somewhat appropriate I thought...

   Will someone please explain to me what the attraction is of all the
handwaving, performing of bad magic tricks, rationalization and in
general suffering the slings and arrows of those who recognize all this
for what it is, when it would be much easier just to say that the vacc
suits were experimental TL 13 items and not have put up with all the
crap?  Not to pick on you Ethan, but I just don't get it.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:06:02 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

Some interesting formulae snipped

>Time for Soapbox....
>There is, IMNSHO, a strong favour for dictatorships amongst the Traveller
>rules
>This does not mesh with reality. The USA is the richest nation on Earth
>because it is a democracy, Japan without democracy would be nothing but
>another petty asian dictatorship, with desperately poor people and wealthy
>leaders. Democracies encourage individuals to build wealth while protecting
>individuals from capitalism's rapaciousness. In short, dissemination. Of
>wealth, technology and ideas.
>A dictatorship by any means (includes restricted oligarchies and especially
>religious governments) tend to cause wealth to go into leaders' pockets
>rather than driving an economy. Same for tech. Germany would have had a
>massive advantage without a wingnut like the insane Austrian. Germans are,
>on the industrious individuals (like P.J. O'Rourke says, only Communism
>could make a country full of Germans lose money, referring to East Germany)
>and if people (this means the whole human race, which has a knee defect.
>That is, a tendency to fall to them to worship their leaders) weren't such
>idiots they would have realized that the Weimar Republic had actually
>resolved most of the problems plaguing Germany, for which the Nazis took
>credit

I agree with your arguments but cannot see what this has to do with PE.
The most powerful nations on earth has generally been dictatorships save
for the last 100 years or so. Democracies empower their people to innovate
and alter their society to fit the situation in ways dictatorships have a
hard time doing. With modern communications I'd say democracy wins hands
down but when communication times (and cost) get prohibitive I think
feudalism and dictatorships could be better for the economy (not
neccessarily the same as good for the citizens).

The major thing here though is that PE are not pretending to be realistic
simulators of real world economies but rather simulations of pocket
empires. Traveller (the rpg you know) says feudalism is the most effective
way of controlling interstellar empires due to comm lag etc and if PE
didn't simulate that fact then it would be a crappy product (which it
DEFINATELY isn't).
Some of the complaints about PE that are valid (IMHO of course) are that it
doesn't as the TLs go up the transport costs etc don't follow and it seems
that it would be impossible to create the 3I from PE rules. Anything much
bigger than a subsector gets prohibitively expensive but I might be wrong
here.

Bitching about PE favouring dictatorships is like bitching about FF&S for
allowing me to build gravthrusters despite the fact that they break some
natural laws.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:13:42 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

>I don't think space is a problem, I knew a guy who used to keep his dog in
>his car, went out during break and lunch to play with him.  Also, there
>are many, many people who keep animals in apartments that would not have
>much more space than a medium sized starship.

Yes and when they come home from work they take their little puppy for a
walk. What do you do in starship? Don the hyperspace suit for you and your
puppy?
You could of course put the dog on a treadmill with suitable moving imagery
of running rabbits or dogs of the opposite sex.

I think the TAS spokesperson Jeremiah Boden had a dog (or doglike dogoid or
something).


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:18:25 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

>As a grad student working to "get that one piece of reproducable data"
>that will be your thesis (and will fulfill your perspectus) is not as
>easy as knowing it must be there...so whaala...there it is.  Knowing
>where something should be, what it should look like, what dynamics it
>should undergo is a completely different beast from demonstrating the
>same--even when (after the experiment is complete and you have that
>piece of data you needed) the THEORY you were working from is 100%
>correct.
>
>TT

Yeah yeah i didn't say it would be easy only that it would be a hell of a
lot easier to reproduce TL that you know will work. If a theory is 100%
correct you do NOT need to verify it.
(The only reason for doing verification is to corroborate a theory but then
a theory cannot be 100% correct - not with a finite amount of experiments
done on it.)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:20:03 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

On  8 Jul 97 at 23:38, Harold Hale wrote:

>    Probably the same problem they had designing the A-10 here in
> America--the recoil from the 30mm canon could have potentially
> caused the plane to be forced backwards at low airspeeds
> (fortunately they were able to solve the problem).

	Yes, I heard about that one - a gun the size of a Volkswagen Beetle
generates enough recoil to stall an A-10. It's still a popular joke 
in gaming circles around here. :) I heard they "solved" the problem 
by limiting the 30mm's RoF down to 8-round bursts.

>    A misplaced decimal (I had not heard that aspect of the story)
> would not have stopped the Germans had circumstances been
> different--my point still stands, nuclear weapons are a natural
> development during the early stages of TL 6, rather than the
> product of one man's (or a small group's) genius.  

	Agreed. Nuclear technology is pretty crucial to developing a 
spacefaring culture, nukes are just a side product. Unfortunately, 
they're the first applications of the new technology on many gov. 7 
worlds.

>    So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
> bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more
> deuterium would kick some serious tail....

	No idea. I saw a story about the Norwegian guerrilla warfare on NBC 
Europe some time back, it was just mentioned in the passing as 
background to the story. Time to dig in the library again.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:43:34 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity + a true story

On  9 Jul 97 at 0:55, ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:

> I found it hard to believe that it was the intention of the
> Powers-That-Be that damage from a PCMP, such as James indicated,
> would have to combine the silly 3D max rule, plus explosive damage
> effect, plus blackblast. Seems like quite a bit of work for a
> system which is supposedly clean and refined.

	In GURPS, the maximum damage depends on the hit location. A
characters hit points depend on his HT (or ST, as an optional rule;
bigger and stronger things are harder to kill). The maximum damage
for torso is HTx2, arms/legs HT/2, and hands and feet HT/3; anything 
over that, and you risk losing the limb permanently. There is no max. 
damage for head.

	Weapons which do more than 12 dice of damage (.50 BMG, Laser 
Rifle-13, PGMPs, FGMPs, meson guns etc.) are an exception: the impact 
is so powerful pressure effects from a, say, Barrett M-85 are enough 
to kill a person even if the bullet hits the leg. Also, explosive 
rounds are excluded.

> As for the medical matter adn open heart surgery, I guess any
> qualified individual could try, despite the apparent futitlity of
> the circumstances, and still have the most minimal amount of chance
> of success. Let's do it right..

	There is a legend of a bunch of guys playing T:2000 1st ed.. A PC 
was shot in the head and lived, and another PC had had first aid 
training. Player 2 is out for a smoke, certain that his character is 
going to die.

GM: There's nothing much you can do, you're in middle of combat and
you friend needs a full ER. 

Player 1: Well.. I'll try brain surgery anyway, to remove the bullet.
I'll use my Ka-Bar. 

GM: Madness, but if you roll 00 three times in a row you'll make it.

<Player 1 rolls snake eyes three times in a row> 

GM: *sigh* okay, so you dig into this guy's skull with your
Ka-Bar... by the way, roll against your perception. 

<Player 1 rolls against hid perception and fails miserably> 

<Player 2 comes in> 

GM: Player 2, you regain consciousness, just to see a Marauder, armed 
with an AKSU, step from behind a tree 5 meters away and take aim at 
you. Nobody else seems to notice him.

Player 2: Oh, okay, uh... I still have my M-16 in at hand?

GM: Yeah, sure, but...

Player 2, enthusiatically: So I'll nail the guy!

GM: Uh, your limbs aren't quite responding, roll d100 a couple of 
times, you see your medic friend...

Player 1: I saved your life, just using my knife to... 

<Player 2 rolls snake eyes 3 times in a row>

GM: *mouth hanging open*

Player 2: can I shoot the damn polack now?

GM: Uh, go ahead...

Naturally, he scored a critical hit. Only later Player 2 was told his 
character was under the knife at the time.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 07:48:25 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:55:12 -0400 (EDT), ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:

> Hope everyone had a good Independnece Day Holiday.  I'm gratified that
> everyone agrees that the 3D max damage rule is in general, nonsensical, for
> those higher-end type weapons.  I hope the T4.1 version will rectify and
> clarify this point that has been beaten to death on the TML here... I found
> it hard to believe that it was the intention of the Powers-That-Be that
> damage from a PCMP, such as James indicated, would have to combine the silly
> 3D max rule, plus explosive damage effect, plus blackblast.
> Seems like quite a bit of work for a system which is supposedly clean and
> refined.

Silly, maybe, but it works.  Unarmored opponents take the full brunt
of *all* the weapon's effects, while troopers wearing battle dress
really only have to worry about penetrating shots.  While the plasma
"projectile" from a PCMP may indeed be very hot, it is also travelling
at over 4km/sec.  Temperature would be irrelevant since it is in
contact with the target for only a microsecond.

All is not lost, however.  I still agree that the max 3D damage rule
doesn't work in some instances.  Sure, PCMP "projectiles" will pass
through an unarmoured target as if he wasn't there (just like a
Browning .50 would).  When that target is wearing sufficient armour,
however, the "projectile" will punch through the front to attack the
target inside... but may not be able to punch through the back of the
armour to carry on down range.  What we now have is an effect greatly
feared by today's armoured tank crews-- hot, high velocity matter that
can't punch its way out and resorts to ricocheting around inside until
it's kinetic energy is spent.  Ouch!

Perhaps an optional rule such as:

a) subtract armour's armour rating from weapon damage,
b) apply remaining damage to target character, with a max of 3D,

...and...

c) if remaining damage is _not_ enough to penetrate armour's armour
   rating a second time, apply all remaining damage dice to target
   character.

You can even throw in some continuing damage to represent the effect
of the plasma as it slowly cools inside the armour... double Ouch!

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:37:15 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]

Another clarification needed: are automatic skills one level per term
(unless otherwise stated), or just once for joining?  I've assumed the
former.

Marc wrote,
> nice first try. But, NOTC doesn't give its benefits unless you
> graduate from University.

Oops...is a non-graduate allowed to go to [N]OTC at all?
If not, perhaps the phrase "attendees at University..." in checklist
6.A.4 should be replaced with "graduates of University..."?
Could a waiver be used to get in?

For now, I'll use "GM fiat" to allow it (rather than reroll most of the
character), but say the skill benefits of NOTC don't apply because she
spent all the time catching up and avoiding getting caught out (her
later career wasn't exactly high-flying, so I think I can get away with
it).

> Cold Sleep Weeks is on the Dates page.

OK, got it now - thanks.

> I like your fleshing out. It's somewhat along the lines of what I want
> to do with the Enhanced Chargen to come later in T41.

Hey, don't thank me, thank Glenn Grant <pawn@CAM.ORG> - he came up with
the tables.  Those were just the raw rolls, BTW - I've tried to
incorporate them into a proper life story below.


Name:           "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda
UPP:            586A49 (genetic 4635)
Citizenship:    Imperial
Species:        Human; 90% Vilani
Gender:         Female
Age:            33 (birthdate: ?-229)
Height:         158cm
Weight          66kg
Skin:           dark brown
Hair:           black, straight, shoulder-length
Eyes:           grey

Homeworld:      Erani/Core (2501) B000699-B Ast Na Ni Va PBG:100
                [See separate post]

Education:      University (Linguistics - failed), NOTC
Career:         Navy (three terms)

Skills:
  Art-1                         Carousing-1
  Communications-1              Craftsman-1
  Cryptography-1                Gravitics-2
  Gun Combat: Pistol-2          Gunnery: Ship's Guns-1
  Hunting-1                     Instruction-1
  Medical-1                     Navigation-2
  Recruiting-2                  Ship's Boat-1
  Ship Tactics-3                Vac Suit-1


Currency:       Cr 50,000
Possessions:    10 High Passages
                [plus the usual]

Personal history:

Kiduram was born a Downer Guidechild in Idarmi, the largest and most
important community in the Erani belt.  Her mother Imdi was an
administrative City-Guide and therefore very important; her father
Kamgagarii was a somewhat lower status technical Guide.  When Kiduram
was only two, her father was convicted of gross negligence and his Guide
status was revoked.  Naturally, he had to move out; it was many years
before the child saw him again.

Imdi never recovered from the shock and shame of that event.  Betrayed,
she determined never again to put herself into such a vulnerable
position, and remained celibate for the rest of her life.  Her
determination was strengthened a few years later when Kamgagarii was
arrested for protesting against the government's "apathy" in the face
of Sylean expansion.  Ironically, despite his counter-productive
methods, his fears proved well-grounded.  The Derku Confederation
surrendered its independence to the Third Imperium when Kiduram was just
ten.

All this naturally took its toll on the child.  Distracted and isolated
at school, her studies suffered.  When she was twelve she started a wild
affair with a twenty-year-old Upper maintenance worker called Mugepa.
Within a year she was pregnant; her mother was furious, and insisted on
a termination, but Kiduram refused.  She moved in with Mugepa shortly
before the baby was born.  Kiduram was fourteen when the baby was born -
a boy, whom they named Akiga.

Things did not improve.  With three mouths to feed and cut off from
Guide resources, The couple struggled to make ends meet.  When Akiga was
eighteen months old, a new law was introduced to safeguard the welfare
of children whose parents "couldn't cope", and the baby was taken into
care.  Kiduram suspected her mother's influence, though this proved
unfounded.  The couple took to arguing most of the time, and it was
almost a relief when Mugepa decided to leave.

Relief was short-lived, when news reached Kiduram that her son had died
of a childhood illness aggravated by poor early nutrition.  Grief-
stricken and deeply in debt, Kiduram decided it was past time to take
better control of her life.  She accepted her mother's offer of
reconciliation, but not of financial support.  She was determined to
make it on her own...with just a little boost from her Guidechild status
to get her into University.

Unfortunately, her determination was not enough to overcome her lack of
practice at academic work.  Unable to concentrate, and outcast from
student society because of her father, she was dropped after the first
year.  Desperate, she used her position to gain a place in the Imperial
Naval OTC in Khamma, where her family problems would be less widely
known.

Kiduram scraped through NOTC, and at 21 entered the Navy as an Ensign.
Heading outsystem was an immense relief, and despite problems was the
happiest period of her life so far.  [I'm not very up on military stuff,
and this is getting far too long anyway, so the next bit is vague.]

Her first time out, her crew was caught in an ambush and she suffered a
fairly major injury.  Despite making a complete recovery thanks to the
prompt action of IN medical personnel and being promoted to
SubLieutenant at least partly due to her bravery, she earned the ironic
nickname "Lucky" from her companions.  This trend continued, with her
receiving another serious injury when she was 26.  At 29, she ran
headlong into her old enemy - politics.  She ended up at cross-purposes
with a senior officer, and was caught up in a mess of conspiracy and
accusations.  Although her record was unblemished, she felt she could no
longer stay in the service, and at 33 headed out into the expanding
reaches of Imperial space as a free agent.
 
John

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:24:50 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re:  TL of RoM

Leonard Erickson writes:

> As for trade secrets that affect TL strongly, the "details" I mentioned
> that get left out of textbook accounts of semiconductor manufacturing
> *do* affect our current TL. And the companies aren't exactly spreading
> the knowledge around.

To take semiconductor manufacture as an example, as long as you 
retain basic awareness of physical chemistry -- including examples 
from textbooks -- you can go a long way towards refining silicon 
properly.  Zone refining (which "sweeps" impurities towards the end 
of a rod of impure Si) is the careful application of basic 
thermodynamics.  Special atmospheres might be indicated by the 
reactivity of Si.  Basic physical data will certainly be available, 
as will theoretical models of what goes on.

All the special recipes will be lost, and (more seriously) all the 
'circuit diagrams' for ICs will be gone too... you'll have to build 
up a whole new electronics industry from scratch, armed with only the 
knowledge that it is possible, some physical examples (relics) and 
the expectation of enormous profit.

It took maybe 40 years to reach current levels of technology from 
valves to chips.  Rediscovering the technology would almost certainly 
be quicker -- and might be better, too.

You'll never reproduce Coca-Cola, but you can reproduce a cola drink 
fairly easily, and that could become the new coke.  Might even taste 
better... Soylent Green, anyone?


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:26:36 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Heroes of Telemarken

>>    So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
>> bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more
>> deuterium would kick some serious tail....
>
>        No idea. I saw a story about the Norwegian guerrilla warfare on NBC
>Europe some time back, it was just mentioned in the passing as
>background to the story. Time to dig in the library again.

There was a pretty interesting one-shot Traveller adventure in White Dwarf
(way back when it was still a gaming magazine instead of a zine for plastic
toy collectors). The players were small aliens on a scoutship that
misjumped into a backwater TL 5-6 planet engulfed in a world war. The PCs
badly needed deuterium to get out of there (so the story went) and the
engineer aboard located a deuterium factory in a rocky northern country
(Norway). The aliens were to steal some of the stuff but them unknowing
they decided to do it at the time of the resistance attacks, allied
bombings etc. Great fun to read but I didn't have the chance to play it and
someone borrowed it and never returned it.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 19:50:35 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1534

Steve Charlton wrote (among other good stuff):

> Infrastructure acts as a "Force Multiplier", just like artillery, armor or
> air support acts as a force multiplier for infantry.  You can do a lot of
> work with 10000 infantry, but you can accomplish an order of magnitude more
> if that infantry has some artillery.  In PE, this gets masked by the IS
> support costs being based on world size instead of population size, I
> suppose.  Even so, I've been having a lot of fun using PE solo, as
> background info for a future campaign.

Agreed, but technically Infrastructure maintainence is based on economy size
(see p45 ... essentially each infrastructure point costs 1% of manufacturing
GWP, multiplied by the "inefficiency factors"). It is building infrastructure
that is (wrongly IMHO) based on world size rather than population size.

And yes, even the (IMO unrealistic) vanilla PE is great as a background
generator.

Scott Ellsworth also wrote (among other good stuff):


> My quick list of differences:
> 
> 1.  Nobility has been created.  As a rough guideline, over the long haul,
> approximately one person in a thousand is in some way noble and wields some
> kind of direct power.  Perhaps ten times that many would have some kind of
> relationship to a noble title such that they get honors at parties, but
> would not be "important." themselves.  This puts even the poorest noble or
> intendant at something like ten times the average income, or better, which
> seems to be needed, given the basic setup of the game.
> 
> FWIW, I give people a social standing of one less than their parents until
> the death of a parent, and the passage of the title.  Thus, siblings of a
> current, aging, noble become very interested in whether the title will pass
> to them, or to the children of the one dying.  Further, nobles and nobility
> are a strata of society that are well known to the average person, and they
> have even met a number of them, but it is till quite a momentous occasion,
> positive or negative, to meet a real one in the flesh.
> 
> This has one final corollary - Sylea will eventually have some 30 million
> holders of noble titles, which will mostly be knighthoods.  Of those,
> perhaps a million of them will be recognized personally by the Emperor,
> while the rest will be recognized either by the grand master of the order
> of knighthood, or as an associated family title.  The Emperor desperately
> wants to have all of the movers and shakers personally bound to him, and is
> doing his best to recognize everyone he can that seems to be important.  As
> a result, this is a society that is turning quite status conscious, but the
> people where this manifests the strongest, the nobles, are not an everyday
> group.

I think one in a thousand is out by a factor of about twenty. IMO every 
noble on a planet, no matter how big, should at least know of each other.

> 
> 2.  The Imperium has started to expand at an insane rate.  The way I see
> things, a world can really only dominate a few worlds near it without the
> influence of Naval bases.  I also feel that it takes at least a few decades
> to absorb a world that is anywhere near your own in population or
> technology.  As a result, Sylea has taken on the policy of treading lightly
> near anything that is near Sylean power, but quite freely grabbing anything
> lesser which is not nailed down.  Anyone who helps this process along is
> idolized.

Yes, although IMO the 3I is trying to slow down this process to a parsec
a year, thus keeping the expansion under control. This is aided by the
"Imperial zone" extending well beyond the actual border - I'd guess that
the area within 20 parsecs is "imperialized" to one degree or another.

> 
> 2a.  To encourage this, they have a rather strange kind of doublethink.  A
> world which is not a member world is inherently inferior to an Imperial
> world.  You will likely never get knighted for discovering and
> administering a world outside the borders.  On the other hand, you have a
> pretty free reign, and can make a lot of cash.  The Scout service is quite
> busy making the initial surveys for worlds like this, which is why few
> Scouts get knighted.  Many merchants are making the money on worlds like
> this that will support them when they do get knighted.

At my guess, all worlds within the Imperial borders are going to be colonised
to some degree. Using vailla PE you can make a 25+% profit a year from a 
low-effort colonisation (assume resources 3 ... so you export 1 of these
points, because you get infra 2 from a lo-effort colonisation. Therefore
you average 0.5 RU a turn in raw materials export income).
> 
> 2b.  Bringing a world, even an uninhabited dust ball, into the Imperium is
> a matter of great import.  This will make a career or a fortune.  The
> Imperial Foreign Office is nominally in charge of all such contacts, yet
> they are stretched so thin that they are willing to ignore a lot if the
> world is en route to membership.  Note that they do have a move it or lose
> it policy - if you are in the process of negotiating a request for
> admission, and the Foreign Office takes a dislike to you, you may well find
> your claim supplanted by another group on the same world.

This is only an issue when the world is balkanised ... if you are indisputably
in control of a world, you are the person the Imperium deals with. Possibly
literally, if the Imperium or a faction therein sees you as a problem.

> 4a.  Honor is becoming more important, as Cleon feels that is the only
> thing that can keep him on his throne.  The Code Duello is back, but they
> have not yet worked out all of the details.  In general, this will die out
> by the time 1100 rolls around, but it is quite strong in year 0.
> 
> 4b.  The word of a Noble is considered good, and the clear intent of Sylean
> law is that if a noble promised it, but the lawyers did not put it in the
> contract, then the lawyers lose.  Non nobles are not expected to keep to
> this standard, and the nobility is allowed to take that into account.
> While they are not yet completely callous about human life, nobles do have
> more ability to avoid bad consequences.
> 

What happens if a noble promised it to a commoner, and the noble's lawyers
are arguing that s/he should not have to pay up ?

> 5a.  Hand craftsmanship is a big thing.  The economic reason is simple -
> Zhunastu wants to be able to make a profit off of all of the TL1-TLA
> planets they are contacting and bringing in.  As a result, they have made
> all sorts of ad campaigns designed to convince Y0 citizens that they want
> hand rubbed oak in their grav car, and burl knobs on laser controls.
> 

Yup. Gotta have some way that lo-tech worlds can earn the currency to
buy the Zhunatsu Corp goods :)

(oh, and btw, I consider the Zhunatsu School of Contact to be a relic of
the desperate early days of the Sylean Confederation, rather than of
an Imperium that can *always* negotiate from a position of strength).

> 6.  It is an era where everything is in flux, thus the megacorporations
> that control Sylea so thoroughly are not going to be a big factor outside
> the borders.  They are ruthless, and powerful, but the Navy is more so.

Yup. Agree in spades.

> 
> 7.  The Navy has a problem of divided loyalty.  The Navy was carried over
> from the SF virtually intact, and is now expected to be completely loyal to
> Clean.  They are not, and Clean knows it.  He also does not want to risk
> civil war by bringing it up until his grasp of it is stronger.

This is also an issue with the Nobility and the Megacorps, which are the
three legs of the Imperial Triad. Cleon trod very carefully to make sure
everybody won out of the rise of the Imperium.

Mind you, it's easier to do when you have massive "peace dividends" from
the de-militarization of space as compared to the armed camps of worlds
of the Long Night.

> 
> 8.  The Scouts have a fair amount of corruption and inefficiency.  They
> have been given an impossible job, insufficient resources, and new people
> from a diverse cultural background.  Unlike the Navy, which was primarily
> Sylean, and primarily upper caste, the Scouts will take anyone who is
> clever, and who can survive on a rough planet.  Over time, they will purge
> themselves of the elements who do not fit in, but they have not yet had the
> time to do so.

Yup. Although I think corruption is a problem with all parts of the Imperium.

> 

Ian Whitchurch

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1535
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Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 9 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1536



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Pyramids
Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))
Re: Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives
Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
PE out to lunch
Traveller in Java
Career Changes
Re: Uh, yeah

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:47:29 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

In mail you write:

>> The coding for the stars/planets/moons is actually fairly simple:
>> xxy-nnnn-* primary star
>> xxy-nnnn-0 object in orbit 0 of primary
>> xxy-nnnn-n object in orbit n of primary
>> xxy-nnnn-2-* secondary star (in orbit 2 of primary)
>> xxy-nnnn-8-1 moon of planet in orbit 8
>>  
>> I *think* that this or a variant of it can unambigously locate any body
>> in a system.
>
> This method should indeed allow unambiguous location, but I want to 
> avoid having huge great data files that store all of the information 
> about a system, and instead have a consistent method of generating all of 
> this data from a "standard" UWP file.  Making things internally 
> consistent within my own program is no problem, but it would be nice to 
> spread the consistency to include other programs that generate the same 
> data. 

Well, I'm thinking of this more as a database "key" field. 

I want to be able to enter the data about planets and moons that are
scattered throughout the various sources. And it may be mostly used in
a database that has nothing but name and location.

My problem is that I need data files that cover everthing from sectors
on down.... right now I'm using dBase files:

Field  Field Name  Type       Width
    1  NAME        Character     30
    2  TYPE        Character     20
    3  LOCATION    Character     15
    4  SOURCE      Character     30
    5  SOURCE_LOC  Character     20
    6  DETAILS     Character     37
** Total **                     153

Name is the name.
Type is SECTOR, SUBSECTOR, STAR, WORLD, MOON
Location is as in my example above.
Source is the book or article
Source_Loc is the pages or other location in the source item
Details depend on the type of item.

It's not perfect, but it's letting me compile all the available data
without too much trouble, and I can always convert it into other file
types. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:35:56 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Pyramids

In mail you write:

> I recall a theory that the pyramid builders may have *buried* each
> layer of the structure as they built it. That meant that they wouldn't
> have to stuff about with ramps etc, they just rolled each new block along
> the *ground* to its new position. 
> After that, they dug the structure out again. It would need a hell of a
> lot of earthmoving but hey, that's what those TL1 robots (slaves) were
> really good at. 

Simple analysis shows that this is *far* too much dirt to move. In
fact, one of the key items in the building of the small "test pyramid"
in the show I mentioned was that they showed that it *would* work to
wrap the earthern ramp around the pyramid, having it supported on the
lower layers of the pryamid instead of having to have this *huge* ramp.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:20:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Asteroids & Mines (was:Deep Space Mine(s!))

In mail you write:

> On  7 Jul 97 at 22:57, Leonard Erickson wrote:
>
>> > I keep thinking of the PCs ship slowly maneuvering among smaller
>> > (mined) asteroids and approaching a larger rock, dotted with pirate
>> > installations and placed deeply inside the asteroids belt, but
>> > perhaps this is just my fantasy.
>> 
>> Pretty much. Except in very special circumstances, you'll be lucky
>> to be able to see one asteroid from another.
>
>         About mines: Remember that detonation laser warheads are _deadly_
> out to 10Kkm or more, and that's just for the smaller ones: Take a
> 1Mt detonation laser, add a 3Kkm PEMS array and a simple computer
> and you have a cute little mine that'll kill or cripple just about
> anything but a capital ship. Shouldn't be too expensive, even;
> pirates might be able to jury-rig some from looted warheads.
>
>         As for seeing asteroids from another... IMO, starships have windows 
> because of tradition. TL 12+ sensors might be a wee bit more accurate 
> than human eyes.

Sure, but consider a belt 5 AU in radius with a million "large" bodies.
This is much like our asteroid belt. 

5 AU means that it is 15.7 AU in circumference. or about 2.4 *billion* km.
Divide that by a million and you get a seperation of 2400 km. And
that's ignoring the fact that the asteroids will be varying distances
from that 5 AU radius circle!

So 10k km is an average seperation....

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:14:22 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Hard Times Non-gravitic Maneuver Drives

In mail you write:

> I was looking over the MT supplement Hard Times.
>
> Chapter 15 "One Small Step" has a section on non-gravitic maneuver drives. 
>
> They list ion drives and MPD (Magnetoplasmadynamic) drives.  I worked out
> the ISPs and exhaust velocities for these drives and am wondering if I
> made a mistake.  I had heard that this table in HT was actually fairly
> accurate, but the figure I get for the exhaust velocity for the ion drives
> listed here is 125,000 km/sec (0.4 C) and for MPD drives it's around
> 200,000 km/sec (0.67 C).  This is clearly silly for TL 7 and 8 drives. 
> Did I make a mistake here?  If so, what are the correct figures? 
>
> The relevant section of the table is:
>
> TL Type   TT       Mass  Vol.  Fuel       Fuel Type    Pow Required 
> 7  Ion    0.05     15     15     0.0001   Ionizates     0.5 MW
> 8  MPD    0.2      10     10     0.005     Hydrogen     0.5 MW
>
> TT= Total Thrust (1 ton of thrust = 9800 Newtons [ie it can support 1 ton
> against 1 G]). 
>
> Mass = Mass of the drive in Tons
>
> Vol. = Volume of the drive in KiloLiters
>
> Fuel = Fuel consumption in Kiloliters/hour
>
> Hydrogen has a density of 0.07 Tons/KL
> Ionizates have a density of 1.5 Tons/KL
>
> Power Required = The power (in Megawatts) required to run the drive. 
>
> Comments?

Doesn't look that far off. Ion drives *do* have huge Isps. The trick is
that the thrust is so low. Look at the table. A 15 ton ion drive only
produces a thrust of 1/20th of a ton. Which means that with *just* the
engine, no fuel, you get a max accel of 1/300th of a g. With MPD you
get 1/50th of a g as the limit. 

So neither is going to be a "super drive".

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:06:47 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller

In mail you write:

> Another compatibility issue: accents and diacritical marks.  Many of my
> worlds use the full range of pronunciation symbols, not just ASCII letters. 
> For example: "Gense" (Gen-e accent grave-se).  How do we encode these?  My
> Mac manages fine, but I suspect that it uses a modified ASCII for those
> letters.  I could send you the codes, but is there an international standard
> for this?

The problem is that there are *several* standards. If we stick to
8-bit, then we are "limited" to only some of the possible symbols. ISO
Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) is the "standard" for things like Windoze. Here it
is:

19. Table of ISO 8859-1 Characters
This section gives an overview of the ISO 8859-1 character set.  The
ISO 8859-1 character set consists of the following four blocks:

00	19	CONTROL CHARACTERS
20	7E	BASIC LATIN
80	9F	EXTENDED CONTROL CHARACTERS
A0	FF	LATIN-1 SUPPLEMENT

The control characters and basic latin blocks are similar do those
used in the US national variant of ISO 646 (US-ASCII), so they are not
listed here.  Nor is the second block of control characters listed,
for which not functions have yet been defined.  

+----+-----+---+------------------------------------------------------
|Hex | Dec |Car| Description ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993(E)
+----+-----+---+------------------------------------------------------
|    |     |   |
| A0 | 160 |  | NO-BREAK SPACE
| A1 | 161 |  | INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK
| A2 | 162 |  | CENT SIGN
| A3 | 163 |  | POUND SIGN
| A4 | 164 |  | CURRENCY SIGN
| A5 | 165 |  | YEN SIGN
| A6 | 166 |  | BROKEN BAR
| A7 | 167 |  | SECTION SIGN
| A8 | 168 |  | DIAERESIS
| A9 | 169 |  | COPYRIGHT SIGN
| AA | 170 |  | FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR
| AB | 171 |  | LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
| AC | 172 |  | NOT SIGN
| AD | 173 |  | SOFT HYPHEN
| AE | 174 |  | REGISTERED SIGN
| AF | 175 |  | MACRON
|    |     |   |
| B0 | 176 |  | DEGREE SIGN
| B1 | 177 |  | PLUS-MINUS SIGN
| B2 | 178 |  | SUPERSCRIPT TWO
| B3 | 179 |  | SUPERSCRIPT THREE
| B4 | 180 |  | ACUTE ACCENT
| B5 | 181 |  | MICRO SIGN
| B6 | 182 |  | PILCROW SIGN
| B7 | 183 |  | MIDDLE DOT
| B8 | 184 |  | CEDILLA
| B9 | 185 |  | SUPERSCRIPT ONE
| BA | 186 |  | MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR
| BB | 187 |  | RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
| BC | 188 |  | VULGAR FRACTION ONE QUARTER
| BD | 189 |  | VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF
| BE | 190 |  | VULGAR FRACTION THREE QUARTERS
| BF | 191 |  | INVERTED QUESTION MARK
|    |     |   |
| C0 | 192 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| C1 | 193 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| C2 | 194 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| C3 | 195 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE
| C4 | 196 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
| C5 | 197 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
| C6 | 198 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LIGATURE AE
| C7 | 199 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
| C8 | 200 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| C9 | 201 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| CA | 202 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| CB | 203 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
| CC | 204 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| CD | 205 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| CE | 206 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| CF | 207 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
|    |     |   |
| D0 | 208 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH
| D1 | 209 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE
| D2 | 210 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| D3 | 211 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| D4 | 212 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| D5 | 213 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH TILDE
| D6 | 214 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
| D7 | 215 |  | MULTIPLICATION SIGN
| D8 | 216 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH STROKE
| D9 | 217 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| DA | 218 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| DB | 219 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| DC | 220 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
| DD | 221 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| DE | 222 |  | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER THORN
| DF | 223 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
|    |     |   |
| E0 | 224 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| E1 | 225 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| E2 | 226 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| E3 | 227 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH TILDE
| E4 | 228 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
| E5 | 229 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
| E6 | 230 |  | LATIN SMALL LIGATURE AE
| E7 | 231 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
| E8 | 232 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| E9 | 233 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| EA | 234 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| EB | 235 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
| EC | 236 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| ED | 237 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| EE | 238 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| EF | 239 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
|    |     |   |
| F0 | 240 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH
| F1 | 241 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE
| F2 | 242 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| F3 | 243 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| F4 | 244 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| F5 | 245 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH TILDE
| F6 | 246 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
| F7 | 247 |  | DIVISION SIGN
| F8 | 248 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH OBLIQUE BAR
| F9 | 249 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH GRAVE ACCENT
| FA | 250 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| FB | 251 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
| FC | 252 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
| FD | 253 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE ACCENT
| FE | 254 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER THORN
| FF | 255 |  | LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS
+----+-----+---+------------------------------------------------------

Footnote: ISO 10646 calls  a `ligature', but this is supposedly a
          letter in Scandinavian languages.  Thus, it is not in the 
          same, merely typographic `ligature' class as `oe' ({\oe} in
          {\LaTeX} convention) which was not included in the ISO
          8859-1 standard. 


- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:36:02 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

Harold Hale wrote:

> Andrew Boulton writes:
> >What really made me laugh was the idea that someone would "test drive" a 
> >*2000 year old* vac suit!
> 
>    <Ding!>  We have a winner!  Someone finally pointed out the silliest
> aspect of the whole TL 14 vacc suit debacle.  People actually trusting
> their lives to these things!  I don't care *how* well the seals are
> made, or how well packed everything is, it isn't going to last that
> long!
> 
>    Of course I'm sure there will be *somebody* who will do some
> handwaving trying to justify it. <sigh>
I vote for the old "Grandfather Timewarp", as this allows the Ref to 
neatly avoid fending off Players armed with canons made of Referee's 
Companions and 2000 year old Vacc Suit patches firing tiny Fusion+ 
reactors :)

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:36:57 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: PE out to lunch

> Knee jerk american patriotism response?
Knee jerk _CANADIAN_  patriotism response, if you don't mind

> What Robert Flammang wrote was that ACCORDING to PE wealth is measured in
> the amount of RU's produced. As GNP is a pretty crappy measurement of
> economies which is good mainly for taxational reasons. 

GNP is a fair (though far from perfect measure, I will admit) measure of
economic strength


> Why couldn't China build large aircraft carriers? Lack of TL perhaps but
> I'd say lack of will and the same goes for projecting their force anywhere
> on the globe.

Ask their neighbours if China has no desire to project its power. It is
because the Chinese government is so rife with corruption that it completely
drains any strength they have other than incredibly large numbers of
expendable human lives

> As Chinas population is so  much bigger than US they have to pay
> considerably more to upkeep their infrastructure (in the real world that
is
> - - in PE they'd have to pay IS in proportion to their land area or
> something) and thus they have less left for research etc but this is also
a
> choice in preferences.
Perhaps you have something there, maybe multiply Infrastructure cost by the
size of the world

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:43:03 -0600
From: Joseph Heck <ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu>
Subject: Traveller in Java

>Gentlefolk:	2235EDT	9707.08
>
>	A few days ago I posted a request for pointers for Mac based software.
>I got back several very nice replies and wish to thank those people who did
>reply.  It also seems that I may have started (or fanned up, perhaps) a
>discussion of common data formats between programs.  Might I request, in
>so far as it is possible, that the Macintosh users not be left behind in a
>project such as this.
>
>	Who are our Macintosh-based programmers here?  Is Rob Prior still
>among us (sorry, I'm bad on names.  I just know that he is the author of
>some of the best utilities I've collected so far)?

I wouldn't call myself a macintosh programmer, but I program on a Macintosh
- - in Java. There was a similiar thread asking about "who's interested in
Java coding" - I know of Paul Dale (You're lurking out there somewhere I'll
bet) who _is_ a Macintosh programmer down under, and Ethan Henry who had
out that initial subsector browser. I don't know what happened to Khoene,
but he made some nice modification's to Ethan's code - he went by "Killer"
on the TML.

I've half a pile of Java code, which I'm willing to share as folks are
interested or like, and will to be a repository for the code snippets that
people are interested in using. Some of it's pretty complete, some of it's
work in progress. A great deal of the good stuff was given to me from Paul
Dale.

http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe/traveller/java/

 joe                          (573) 882-2000
 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu    http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe
 PGP Fingerprint: E3 3F DF 08 BE 3E 44 A0  EE A9 80 7E 22 99 CD DF
 "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and
 impenetrable fog!" -- Calvin

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:33:57 -0400
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: Career Changes

I admit to not following this too closely, but I've picked up what seems to
be the idea that career changes will not be allowed in T4.1? This is a major
step backwards if it does occur, and I do not care for it. I noticed Rob
Prior's comments about this, and I have to say I disagree. Why should a
character be limited to one career? These characters are adventurers; they
should be a cut above the average person. Allowing multiple careers allows
interesting skill assortments that you just cannot get any other way. If it
is decided that mutliple careers will not be allowed, I'll just continue
using the old rule anyway.

Allen

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:17:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: Uh, yeah

Harold Hale wrote:
>    As I'm reading this stuff, Pam Tillis' song "Queen of Denial" came on
> the radio.  Somewhat appropriate I thought...

As we used to say in school - "Looks like Cleopatra wasn't the only
Queen of 'de Nile'".

>    Will someone please explain to me what the attraction is of all the
> handwaving, performing of bad magic tricks, rationalization and in
> general suffering the slings and arrows of those who recognize all this
> for what it is, when it would be much easier just to say that the vacc
> suits were experimental TL 13 items and not have put up with all the
> crap?  Not to pick on you Ethan, but I just don't get it.

Ah, well, um, ah...

You could do that, sure. I guess I got carried away a bit.

Still, what separates an experimental TL-12 vacc suit from a TL-13
one and what separates an experimental TL-13 vacc suit from a TL-14
one? Not much. It is a big wig of split hairs.

Anyways, the other poster (I forget who) who said that intact or not,
it would be stupid to trust your life to a 1,000 year old vacc suit,
I'd have to agree. :) Throwing high-TL items into adventures is like
throwing in magic items - it's just a gimmick. If I wanted my players
to find TL-14 vacc suits and rods of resurrection, I wouldn't play
Traveller.

Which brings me to another point - Marc, I don't like the 'only Vargr
can change careers' rule. Makes Traveller seem more like D&D again.
Although, I am quite fond of that half-Vargr fighter/cleric/Naval Officer
I rolled up...

Ethan

> 
> Regards,
> 
> Harold
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:06:02 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Re: Pocket Empires
> 
> Some interesting formulae snipped
> 
> >Time for Soapbox....
> >There is, IMNSHO, a strong favour for dictatorships amongst the Traveller
> >rules
> >This does not mesh with reality. The USA is the richest nation on Earth
> >because it is a democracy, Japan without democracy would be nothing but
> >another petty asian dictatorship, with desperately poor people and wealthy
> >leaders. Democracies encourage individuals to build wealth while protecting
> >individuals from capitalism's rapaciousness. In short, dissemination. Of
> >wealth, technology and ideas.
> >A dictatorship by any means (includes restricted oligarchies and especially
> >religious governments) tend to cause wealth to go into leaders' pockets
> >rather than driving an economy. Same for tech. Germany would have had a
> >massive advantage without a wingnut like the insane Austrian. Germans are,
> >on the industrious individuals (like P.J. O'Rourke says, only Communism
> >could make a country full of Germans lose money, referring to East Germany)
> >and if people (this means the whole human race, which has a knee defect.
> >That is, a tendency to fall to them to worship their leaders) weren't such
> >idiots they would have realized that the Weimar Republic had actually
> >resolved most of the problems plaguing Germany, for which the Nazis took
> >credit
> 
> I agree with your arguments but cannot see what this has to do with PE.
> The most powerful nations on earth has generally been dictatorships save
> for the last 100 years or so. Democracies empower their people to innovate
> and alter their society to fit the situation in ways dictatorships have a
> hard time doing. With modern communications I'd say democracy wins hands
> down but when communication times (and cost) get prohibitive I think
> feudalism and dictatorships could be better for the economy (not
> neccessarily the same as good for the citizens).
> 
> The major thing here though is that PE are not pretending to be realistic
> simulators of real world economies but rather simulations of pocket
> empires. Traveller (the rpg you know) says feudalism is the most effective
> way of controlling interstellar empires due to comm lag etc and if PE
> didn't simulate that fact then it would be a crappy product (which it
> DEFINATELY isn't).
> Some of the complaints about PE that are valid (IMHO of course) are that it
> doesn't as the TLs go up the transport costs etc don't follow and it seems
> that it would be impossible to create the 3I from PE rules. Anything much
> bigger than a subsector gets prohibitively expensive but I might be wrong
> here.
> 
> Bitching about PE favouring dictatorships is like bitching about FF&S for
> allowing me to build gravthrusters despite the fact that they break some
> natural laws.
> 
> 
> /Anders Backman
> Aniware AB
> anders.backman@aniware.se
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:13:42 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Re: Dogs in space...
> 
> >I don't think space is a problem, I knew a guy who used to keep his dog in
> >his car, went out during break and lunch to play with him.  Also, there
> >are many, many people who keep animals in apartments that would not have
> >much more space than a medium sized starship.
> 
> Yes and when they come home from work they take their little puppy for a
> walk. What do you do in starship? Don the hyperspace suit for you and your
> puppy?
> You could of course put the dog on a treadmill with suitable moving imagery
> of running rabbits or dogs of the opposite sex.
> 
> I think the TAS spokesperson Jeremiah Boden had a dog (or doglike dogoid or
> something).
> 
> 
> /Anders Backman
> Aniware AB
> anders.backman@aniware.se
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 09:18:25 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss
> 
> >As a grad student working to "get that one piece of reproducable data"
> >that will be your thesis (and will fulfill your perspectus) is not as
> >easy as knowing it must be there...so whaala...there it is.  Knowing
> >where something should be, what it should look like, what dynamics it
> >should undergo is a completely different beast from demonstrating the
> >same--even when (after the experiment is complete and you have that
> >piece of data you needed) the THEORY you were working from is 100%
> >correct.
> >
> >TT
> 
> Yeah yeah i didn't say it would be easy only that it would be a hell of a
> lot easier to reproduce TL that you know will work. If a theory is 100%
> correct you do NOT need to verify it.
> (The only reason for doing verification is to corroborate a theory but then
> a theory cannot be 100% correct - not with a finite amount of experiments
> done on it.)
> 
> 
> /Anders Backman
> Aniware AB
> anders.backman@aniware.se
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:20:03 +2
> From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
> Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
> 
> On  8 Jul 97 at 23:38, Harold Hale wrote:
> 
> >    Probably the same problem they had designing the A-10 here in
> > America--the recoil from the 30mm canon could have potentially
> > caused the plane to be forced backwards at low airspeeds
> > (fortunately they were able to solve the problem).
> 
> 	Yes, I heard about that one - a gun the size of a Volkswagen Beetle
> generates enough recoil to stall an A-10. It's still a popular joke 
> in gaming circles around here. :) I heard they "solved" the problem 
> by limiting the 30mm's RoF down to 8-round bursts.
> 
> >    A misplaced decimal (I had not heard that aspect of the story)
> > would not have stopped the Germans had circumstances been
> > different--my point still stands, nuclear weapons are a natural
> > development during the early stages of TL 6, rather than the
> > product of one man's (or a small group's) genius.  
> 
> 	Agreed. Nuclear technology is pretty crucial to developing a 
> spacefaring culture, nukes are just a side product. Unfortunately, 
> they're the first applications of the new technology on many gov. 7 
> worlds.
> 
> >    So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
> > bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more
> > deuterium would kick some serious tail....
> 
> 	No idea. I saw a story about the Norwegian guerrilla warfare on NBC 
> Europe some time back, it was just mentioned in the passing as 
> background to the story. Time to dig in the library again.
> 
> /RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
>  -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
>  -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
>  -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:43:34 +2
> From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
> Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity + a true story
> 
> On  9 Jul 97 at 0:55, ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:
> 
> > I found it hard to believe that it was the intention of the
> > Powers-That-Be that damage from a PCMP, such as James indicated,
> > would have to combine the silly 3D max rule, plus explosive damage
> > effect, plus blackblast. Seems like quite a bit of work for a
> > system which is supposedly clean and refined.
> 
> 	In GURPS, the maximum damage depends on the hit location. A
> characters hit points depend on his HT (or ST, as an optional rule;
> bigger and stronger things are harder to kill). The maximum damage
> for torso is HTx2, arms/legs HT/2, and hands and feet HT/3; anything 
> over that, and you risk losing the limb permanently. There is no max. 
> damage for head.
> 
> 	Weapons which do more than 12 dice of damage (.50 BMG, Laser 
> Rifle-13, PGMPs, FGMPs, meson guns etc.) are an exception: the impact 
> is so powerful pressure effects from a, say, Barrett M-85 are enough 
> to kill a person even if the bullet hits the leg. Also, explosive 
> rounds are excluded.
> 
> > As for the medical matter adn open heart surgery, I guess any
> > qualified individual could try, despite the apparent futitlity of
> > the circumstances, and still have the most minimal amount of chance
> > of success. Let's do it right..
> 
> 	There is a legend of a bunch of guys playing T:2000 1st ed.. A PC 
> was shot in the head and lived, and another PC had had first aid 
> training. Player 2 is out for a smoke, certain that his character is 
> going to die.
> 
> GM: There's nothing much you can do, you're in middle of combat and
> you friend needs a full ER. 
> 
> Player 1: Well.. I'll try brain surgery anyway, to remove the bullet.
> I'll use my Ka-Bar. 
> 
> GM: Madness, but if you roll 00 three times in a row you'll make it.
> 
> <Player 1 rolls snake eyes three times in a row> 
> 
> GM: *sigh* okay, so you dig into this guy's skull with your
> Ka-Bar... by the way, roll against your perception. 
> 
> <Player 1 rolls against hid perception and fails miserably> 
> 
> <Player 2 comes in> 
> 
> GM: Player 2, you regain consciousness, just to see a Marauder, armed 
> with an AKSU, step from behind a tree 5 meters away and take aim at 
> you. Nobody else seems to notice him.
> 
> Player 2: Oh, okay, uh... I still have my M-16 in at hand?
> 
> GM: Yeah, sure, but...
> 
> Player 2, enthusiatically: So I'll nail the guy!
> 
> GM: Uh, your limbs aren't quite responding, roll d100 a couple of 
> times, you see your medic friend...
> 
> Player 1: I saved your life, just using my knife to... 
> 
> <Player 2 rolls snake eyes 3 times in a row>
> 
> GM: *mouth hanging open*
> 
> Player 2: can I shoot the damn polack now?
> 
> GM: Uh, go ahead...
> 
> Naturally, he scored a critical hit. Only later Player 2 was told his 
> character was under the knife at the time.
> 
> 
> /RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
>  -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
>  -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
>  -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 07:48:25 GMT
> From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
> Subject: Re: 3D Max Damage Atrocity
> 
> On Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:55:12 -0400 (EDT), ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Hope everyone had a good Independnece Day Holiday.  I'm gratified that
> > everyone agrees that the 3D max damage rule is in general, nonsensical, for
> > those higher-end type weapons.  I hope the T4.1 version will rectify and
> > clarify this point that has been beaten to death on the TML here... I found
> > it hard to believe that it was the intention of the Powers-That-Be that
> > damage from a PCMP, such as James indicated, would have to combine the silly
> > 3D max rule, plus explosive damage effect, plus blackblast.
> > Seems like quite a bit of work for a system which is supposedly clean and
> > refined.
> 
> Silly, maybe, but it works.  Unarmored opponents take the full brunt
> of *all* the weapon's effects, while troopers wearing battle dress
> really only have to worry about penetrating shots.  While the plasma
> "projectile" from a PCMP may indeed be very hot, it is also travelling
> at over 4km/sec.  Temperature would be irrelevant since it is in
> contact with the target for only a microsecond.
> 
> All is not lost, however.  I still agree that the max 3D damage rule
> doesn't work in some instances.  Sure, PCMP "projectiles" will pass
> through an unarmoured target as if he wasn't there (just like a
> Browning .50 would).  When that target is wearing sufficient armour,
> however, the "projectile" will punch through the front to attack the
> target inside... but may not be able to punch through the back of the
> armour to carry on down range.  What we now have is an effect greatly
> feared by today's armoured tank crews-- hot, high velocity matter that
> can't punch its way out and resorts to ricocheting around inside until
> it's kinetic energy is spent.  Ouch!
> 
> Perhaps an optional rule such as:
> 
> a) subtract armour's armour rating from weapon damage,
> b) apply remaining damage to target character, with a max of 3D,
> 
> ...and...
> 
> c) if remaining damage is _not_ enough to penetrate armour's armour
>    rating a second time, apply all remaining damage dice to target
>    character.
> 
> You can even throw in some continuing damage to represent the effect
> of the plasma as it slowly cools inside the armour... double Ouch!
> 
> James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
>   "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"
> 
> "Give me the strength to change the things I can,
>     the grace to accept the things I cannot,
>          and a great big bag of money."
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:37:15 +0100
> From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
> Subject: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]
> 
> Another clarification needed: are automatic skills one level per term
> (unless otherwise stated), or just once for joining?  I've assumed the
> former.
> 
> Marc wrote,
> > nice first try. But, NOTC doesn't give its benefits unless you
> > graduate from University.
> 
> Oops...is a non-graduate allowed to go to [N]OTC at all?
> If not, perhaps the phrase "attendees at University..." in checklist
> 6.A.4 should be replaced with "graduates of University..."?
> Could a waiver be used to get in?
> 
> For now, I'll use "GM fiat" to allow it (rather than reroll most of the
> character), but say the skill benefits of NOTC don't apply because she
> spent all the time catching up and avoiding getting caught out (her
> later career wasn't exactly high-flying, so I think I can get away with
> it).
> 
> > Cold Sleep Weeks is on the Dates page.
> 
> OK, got it now - thanks.
> 
> > I like your fleshing out. It's somewhat along the lines of what I want
> > to do with the Enhanced Chargen to come later in T41.
> 
> Hey, don't thank me, thank Glenn Grant <pawn@CAM.ORG> - he came up with
> the tables.  Those were just the raw rolls, BTW - I've tried to
> incorporate them into a proper life story below.
> 
> 
> Name:           "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda
> UPP:            586A49 (genetic 4635)
> Citizenship:    Imperial
> Species:        Human; 90% Vilani
> Gender:         Female
> Age:            33 (birthdate: ?-229)
> Height:         158cm
> Weight          66kg
> Skin:           dark brown
> Hair:           black, straight, shoulder-length
> Eyes:           grey
> 
> Homeworld:      Erani/Core (2501) B000699-B Ast Na Ni Va PBG:100
>                 [See separate post]
> 
> Education:      University (Linguistics - failed), NOTC
> Career:         Navy (three terms)
> 
> Skills:
>   Art-1                         Carousing-1
>   Communications-1              Craftsman-1
>   Cryptography-1                Gravitics-2
>   Gun Combat: Pistol-2          Gunnery: Ship's Guns-1
>   Hunting-1                     Instruction-1
>   Medical-1                     Navigation-2
>   Recruiting-2                  Ship's Boat-1
>   Ship Tactics-3                Vac Suit-1
> 
> 
> Currency:       Cr 50,000
> Possessions:    10 High Passages
>                 [plus the usual]
> 
> Personal history:
> 
> Kiduram was born a Downer Guidechild in Idarmi, the largest and most
> important community in the Erani belt.  Her mother Imdi was an
> administrative City-Guide and therefore very important; her father
> Kamgagarii was a somewhat lower status technical Guide.  When Kiduram
> was only two, her father was convicted of gross negligence and his Guide
> status was revoked.  Naturally, he had to move out; it was many years
> before the child saw him again.
> 
> Imdi never recovered from the shock and shame of that event.  Betrayed,
> she determined never again to put herself into such a vulnerable
> position, and remained celibate for the rest of her life.  Her
> determination was strengthened a few years later when Kamgagarii was
> arrested for protesting against the government's "apathy" in the face
> of Sylean expansion.  Ironically, despite his counter-productive
> methods, his fears proved well-grounded.  The Derku Confederation
> surrendered its independence to the Third Imperium when Kiduram was just
> ten.
> 
> All this naturally took its toll on the child.  Distracted and isolated
> at school, her studies suffered.  When she was twelve she started a wild
> affair with a twenty-year-old Upper maintenance worker called Mugepa.
> Within a year she was pregnant; her mother was furious, and insisted on
> a termination, but Kiduram refused.  She moved in with Mugepa shortly
> before the baby was born.  Kiduram was fourteen when the baby was born -
> a boy, whom they named Akiga.
> 
> Things did not improve.  With three mouths to feed and cut off from
> Guide resources, The couple struggled to make ends meet.  When Akiga was
> eighteen months old, a new law was introduced to safeguard the welfare
> of children whose parents "couldn't cope", and the baby was taken into
> care.  Kiduram suspected her mother's influence, though this proved
> unfounded.  The couple took to arguing most of the time, and it was
> almost a relief when Mugepa decided to leave.
> 
> Relief was short-lived, when news reached Kiduram that her son had died
> of a childhood illness aggravated by poor early nutrition.  Grief-
> stricken and deeply in debt, Kiduram decided it was past time to take
> better control of her life.  She accepted her mother's offer of
> reconciliation, but not of financial support.  She was determined to
> make it on her own...with just a little boost from her Guidechild status
> to get her into University.
> 
> Unfortunately, her determination was not enough to overcome her lack of
> practice at academic work.  Unable to concentrate, and outcast from
> student society because of her father, she was dropped after the first
> year.  Desperate, she used her position to gain a place in the Imperial
> Naval OTC in Khamma, where her family problems would be less widely
> known.
> 
> Kiduram scraped through NOTC, and at 21 entered the Navy as an Ensign.
> Heading outsystem was an immense relief, and despite problems was the
> happiest period of her life so far.  [I'm not very up on military stuff,
> and this is getting far too long anyway, so the next bit is vague.]
> 
> Her first time out, her crew was caught in an ambush and she suffered a
> fairly major injury.  Despite making a complete recovery thanks to the
> prompt action of IN medical personnel and being promoted to
> SubLieutenant at least partly due to her bravery, she earned the ironic
> nickname "Lucky" from her companions.  This trend continued, with her
> receiving another serious injury when she was 26.  At 29, she ran
> headlong into her old enemy - politics.  She ended up at cross-purposes
> with a senior officer, and was caught up in a mess of conspiracy and
> accusations.  Although her record was unblemished, she felt she could no
> longer stay in the service, and at 33 headed out into the expanding
> reaches of Imperial space as a free agent.
>  
> John
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:24:50 +0100
> From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re:  TL of RoM
> 
> Leonard Erickson writes:
> 
> > As for trade secrets that affect TL strongly, the "details" I mentioned
> > that get left out of textbook accounts of semiconductor manufacturing
> > *do* affect our current TL. And the companies aren't exactly spreading
> > the knowledge around.
> 
> To take semiconductor manufacture as an example, as long as you 
> retain basic awareness of physical chemistry -- including examples 
> from textbooks -- you can go a long way towards refining silicon 
> properly.  Zone refining (which "sweeps" impurities towards the end 
> of a rod of impure Si) is the careful application of basic 
> thermodynamics.  Special atmospheres might be indicated by the 
> reactivity of Si.  Basic physical data will certainly be available, 
> as will theoretical models of what goes on.
> 
> All the special recipes will be lost, and (more seriously) all the 
> 'circuit diagrams' for ICs will be gone too... you'll have to build 
> up a whole new electronics industry from scratch, armed with only the 
> knowledge that it is possible, some physical examples (relics) and 
> the expectation of enormous profit.
> 
> It took maybe 40 years to reach current levels of technology from 
> valves to chips.  Rediscovering the technology would almost certainly 
> be quicker -- and might be better, too.
> 
> You'll never reproduce Coca-Cola, but you can reproduce a cola drink 
> fairly easily, and that could become the new coke.  Might even taste 
> better... Soylent Green, anyone?
> 
> 
> Nick
> 
> Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
> Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 11:26:36 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Heroes of Telemarken
> 
> >>    So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
> >> bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more
> >> deuterium would kick some serious tail....
> >
> >        No idea. I saw a story about the Norwegian guerrilla warfare on NBC
> >Europe some time back, it was just mentioned in the passing as
> >background to the story. Time to dig in the library again.
> 
> There was a pretty interesting one-shot Traveller adventure in White Dwarf
> (way back when it was still a gaming magazine instead of a zine for plastic
> toy collectors). The players were small aliens on a scoutship that
> misjumped into a backwater TL 5-6 planet engulfed in a world war. The PCs
> badly needed deuterium to get out of there (so the story went) and the
> engineer aboard located a deuterium factory in a rocky northern country
> (Norway). The aliens were to steal some of the stuff but them unknowing
> they decided to do it at the time of the resistance attacks, allied
> bombings etc. Great fun to read but I didn't have the chance to play it and
> someone borrowed it and never returned it.
> 
> 
> /Anders Backman
> Aniware AB
> anders.backman@aniware.se
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 19:50:35 -0700
> From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
> Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1534
> 
> Steve Charlton wrote (among other good stuff):
> 
> > Infrastructure acts as a "Force Multiplier", just like artillery, armor or
> > air support acts as a force multiplier for infantry.  You can do a lot of
> > work with 10000 infantry, but you can accomplish an order of magnitude more
> > if that infantry has some artillery.  In PE, this gets masked by the IS
> > support costs being based on world size instead of population size, I
> > suppose.  Even so, I've been having a lot of fun using PE solo, as
> > background info for a future campaign.
> 
> Agreed, but technically Infrastructure maintainence is based on economy size
> (see p45 ... essentially each infrastructure point costs 1% of manufacturing
> GWP, multiplied by the "inefficiency factors"). It is building infrastructure
> that is (wrongly IMHO) based on world size rather than population size.
> 
> And yes, even the (IMO unrealistic) vanilla PE is great as a background
> generator.
> 
> Scott Ellsworth also wrote (among other good stuff):
> 
> 
> > My quick list of differences:
> > 
> > 1.  Nobility has been created.  As a rough guideline, over the long haul,
> > approximately one person in a thousand is in some way noble and wields some
> > kind of direct power.  Perhaps ten times that many would have some kind of
> > relationship to a noble title such that they get honors at parties, but
> > would not be "important." themselves.  This puts even the poorest noble or
> > intendant at something like ten times the average income, or better, which
> > seems to be needed, given the basic setup of the game.
> > 
> > FWIW, I give people a social standing of one less than their parents until
> > the death of a parent, and the passage of the title.  Thus, siblings of a
> > current, aging, noble become very interested in whether the title will pass
> > to them, or to the children of the one dying.  Further, nobles and nobility
> > are a strata of society that are well known to the average person, and they
> > have even met a number of them, but it is till quite a momentous occasion,
> > positive or negative, to meet a real one in the flesh.
> > 
> > This has one final corollary - Sylea will eventually have some 30 million
> > holders of noble titles, which will mostly be knighthoods.  Of those,
> > perhaps a million of them will be recognized personally by the Emperor,
> > while the rest will be recognized either by the grand master of the order
> > of knighthood, or as an associated family title.  The Emperor desperately
> > wants to have all of the movers and shakers personally bound to him, and is
> > doing his best to recognize everyone he can that seems to be important.  As
> > a result, this is a society that is turning quite status conscious, but the
> > people where this manifests the strongest, the nobles, are not an everyday
> > group.
> 
> I think one in a thousand is out by a factor of about twenty. IMO every 
> noble on a planet, no matter how big, should at least know of each other.
> 
> > 
> > 2.  The Imperium has started to expand at an insane rate.  The way I see
> > things, a world can really only dominate a few worlds near it without the
> > influence of Naval bases.  I also feel that it takes at least a few decades
> > to absorb a world that is anywhere near your own in population or
> > technology.  As a result, Sylea has taken on the policy of treading lightly
> > near anything that is near Sylean power, but quite freely grabbing anything
> > lesser which is not nailed down.  Anyone who helps this process along is
> > idolized.
> 
> Yes, although IMO the 3I is trying to slow down this process to a parsec
> a year, thus keeping the expansion under control. This is aided by the
> "Imperial zone" extending well beyond the actual border - I'd guess that
> the area within 20 parsecs is "imperialized" to one degree or another.
> 
> > 
> > 2a.  To encourage this, they have a rather strange kind of doublethink.  A
> > world which is not a member world is inherently inferior to an Imperial
> > world.  You will likely never get knighted for discovering and
> > administering a world outside the borders.  On the other hand, you have a
> > pretty free reign, and can make a lot of cash.  The Scout service is quite
> > busy making the initial surveys for worlds like this, which is why few
> > Scouts get knighted.  Many merchants are making the money on worlds like
> > this that will support them when they do get knighted.
> 
> At my guess, all worlds within the Imperial borders are going to be colonised
> to some degree. Using vailla PE you can make a 25+% profit a year from a 
> low-effort colonisation (assume resources 3 ... so you export 1 of these
> points, because you get infra 2 from a lo-effort colonisation. Therefore
> you average 0.5 RU a turn in raw materials export income).
> > 
> > 2b.  Bringing a world, even an uninhabited dust ball, into the Imperium is
> > a matter of great import.  This will make a career or a fortune.  The
> > Imperial Foreign Office is nominally in charge of all such contacts, yet
> > they are stretched so thin that they are willing to ignore a lot if the
> > world is en route to membership.  Note that they do have a move it or lose
> > it policy - if you are in the process of negotiating a request for
> > admission, and the Foreign Office takes a dislike to you, you may well find
> > your claim supplanted by another group on the same world.
> 
> This is only an issue when the world is balkanised ... if you are indisputably
> in control of a world, you are the person the Imperium deals with. Possibly
> literally, if the Imperium or a faction therein sees you as a problem.
> 
> > 4a.  Honor is becoming more important, as Cleon feels that is the only
> > thing that can keep him on his throne.  The Code Duello is back, but they
> > have not yet worked out all of the details.  In general, this will die out
> > by the time 1100 rolls around, but it is quite strong in year 0.
> > 
> > 4b.  The word of a Noble is considered good, and the clear intent of Sylean
> > law is that if a noble promised it, but the lawyers did not put it in the
> > contract, then the lawyers lose.  Non nobles are not expected to keep to
> > this standard, and the nobility is allowed to take that into account.
> > While they are not yet completely callous about human life, nobles do have
> > more ability to avoid bad consequences.
> > 
> 
> What happens if a noble promised it to a commoner, and the noble's lawyers
> are arguing that s/he should not have to pay up ?
> 
> > 5a.  Hand craftsmanship is a big thing.  The economic reason is simple -
> > Zhunastu wants to be able to make a profit off of all of the TL1-TLA
> > planets they are contacting and bringing in.  As a result, they have made
> > all sorts of ad campaigns designed to convince Y0 citizens that they want
> > hand rubbed oak in their grav car, and burl knobs on laser controls.
> > 
> 
> Yup. Gotta have some way that lo-tech worlds can earn the currency to
> buy the Zhunatsu Corp goods :)
> 
> (oh, and btw, I consider the Zhunatsu School of Contact to be a relic of
> the desperate early days of the Sylean Confederation, rather than of
> an Imperium that can *always* negotiate from a position of strength).
> 
> > 6.  It is an era where everything is in flux, thus the megacorporations
> > that control Sylea so thoroughly are not going to be a big factor outside
> > the borders.  They are ruthless, and powerful, but the Navy is more so.
> 
> Yup. Agree in spades.
> 
> > 
> > 7.  The Navy has a problem of divided loyalty.  The Navy was carried over
> > from the SF virtually intact, and is now expected to be completely loyal to
> > Clean.  They are not, and Clean knows it.  He also does not want to risk
> > civil war by bringing it up until his grasp of it is stronger.
> 
> This is also an issue with the Nobility and the Megacorps, which are the
> three legs of the Imperial Triad. Cleon trod very carefully to make sure
> everybody won out of the rise of the Imperium.
> 
> Mind you, it's easier to do when you have massive "peace dividends" from
> the de-militarization of space as compared to the armed camps of worlds
> of the Long Night.
> 
> > 
> > 8.  The Scouts have a fair amount of corruption and inefficiency.  They
> > have been given an impossible job, insufficient resources, and new people
> > from a diverse cultural background.  Unlike the Navy, which was primarily
> > Sylean, and primarily upper caste, the Scouts will take anyone who is
> > clever, and who can survive on a rough planet.  Over time, they will purge
> > themselves of the elements who do not fit in, but they have not yet had the
> > time to do so.
> 
> Yup. Although I think corruption is a problem with all parts of the Imperium.
> 
> > 
> 
> Ian Whitchurch
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1535
> ***********************************
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- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1536
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Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 9 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1537



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

WTB: Classic Traveller Alien Modules
WTB: Classic Traveller Alien Modules
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Program Support Continued
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]
Re: Java Traveller
RE: Dogs in space...
Re: T4.1 career changes
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Marine Uniforms
Re: Heroes of Telemarken
Damn!
Re: Program Support - Thanks!
Re: Planet 3 Software
Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)
Re: Career Changes
Updated Software
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1534

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:34:22 -0400
From: "Scott Spieker" <scspieker@ncweb.com>
Subject: WTB: Classic Traveller Alien Modules

	I am looking to purchase Classic Traveller Alien Modules of all sorts.  If
anyone has one for sale or is interested in selling one, please contact me
at: scspieker@ncweb.com  I am willing to pay ant REASONABLE price for them.
 I am especially interested in Zhodani, Darrian, Solomani, K'Kree.  Any
others will also be acceptable.

	Thanks,
	Scott Spieker
	scspieker@ncweb.com

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:34:22 -0400
From: "Scott Spieker" <scspieker@ncweb.com>
Subject: WTB: Classic Traveller Alien Modules

	I am looking to purchase Classic Traveller Alien Modules of all sorts.  If
anyone has one for sale or is interested in selling one, please contact me
at: scspieker@ncweb.com  I am willing to pay ant REASONABLE price for them.
 I am especially interested in Zhodani, Darrian, Solomani, K'Kree.  Any
others will also be acceptable.

	Thanks,
	Scott Spieker
	scspieker@ncweb.com

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:28:49 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, Peter Newman wrote:
 
> The Japanese nuclear program was a _lot_ farther along then most people
> realize.  If my source is correct, they were within 1 year of having a
> bomb, and were also working on the Hydrogen bomb.  Much of the Japanese
> work was done at a sight in what is now North Korea.  After the war the
> Soviets supposedly took every single item from the site, packed it up,
> and took it home

You have a reference for that source?

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 10:27:06 -0400
From: "Richard C.S. Kinne" <phaedrus@dreamscape.com>
Subject: Program Support Continued

Jason:	1023EDT	9707.09

>I'm a Macintosh-based programmer, although so far I haven't done much in
>the way of Traveller software. I
>have been thinking about writing something for Pocket Empires 

	I have Pocket Empires on order here in Ithaca.  I've been looking
forward to it, and now due to all the discussion on the list I'm REALLY
looking forward to it.  8-)

>but I don't really have the time.

	I know the feeling...  8-/

>[Using Java] was an idea that has crossed my mind too - an easy way 
>to write one program and have people from both Wintel and Mac sides 
>run it (and Unix I believe). 

	Yep.

>Of course this all depends on Micro$oft not stuffing up Java so
>that it will only run "their" version of the language.

	I'm hoping that Sun is able to retain enough control to prevent that.
I can hope...

- --
Richard C.S. "Doc" Kinne
InterNet: phaedrus@dreamscape.com
Home Page: http://www.dreamscape.com/phaedrus/
Quote: "One headline said 'Accused Had Powerful Brain,' so it
	could have been worse, I suppose. But their use of the
	past tense rather worried me."
		-Sir Alan Mathison Turing, O.B.E., commenting 
		 on the headlines after his "gross indecency" 
		 trial, 1952.
		_Breaking the Code_

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 07:37:08 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Anders Backman wrote:

> >I don't think space is a problem, I knew a guy who used to keep his dog in
> >his car, went out during break and lunch to play with him.  Also, there
> >are many, many people who keep animals in apartments that would not have
> >much more space than a medium sized starship.
> 
> Yes and when they come home from work they take their little puppy for a
> walk. What do you do in starship? Don the hyperspace suit for you and your
> puppy?
> You could of course put the dog on a treadmill with suitable moving imagery
> of running rabbits or dogs of the opposite sex.

same thing that the humans do...there HAS to be excersise space and room
aboard starships, else people in the far future are going to be the
flabbiest couch potatoes you've ever seen. A longish treadmill would do
just fine ("meet George Jetson!"). Or you could design your ship so as to
have the staterooms interior, with a long corridor encircling
them...instant jogging tracks. 

Of course there's far more precedence for cats on board ships of any
kind, but that's a flamewar of another stripe ALLtogether (which I avoid, 
by having four cats AND two dogs)


Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 08:27:58 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]

> Another clarification needed: are automatic skills one level per term
> (unless otherwise stated), or just once for joining?  I've assumed the
> former.

I've always thought it was just once for being in that career. Some 
skills are dependent upon reaching a certain rank, or being 
commissioned. Those, too, would only be received once.


Suz

 

Suzette C. Dollar
#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 17:30:44 +0100
From: Jo_Grant/DUB/Lotus@lotus.com
Subject: Re: Java Traveller

I've ported all the Traveller Tools Group classes to java and put them up
on: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~jaymin/ttgjava.zip. Basically world generation
details down to WBH level of detail.

Jo

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 97 18:02 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: RE: Dogs in space...

In-Reply-To: <v02140b00afe7e3eb97d3@[192.121.125.201]>

Anders,

> My players a Vargr

Your *Player* is a Vargr?! Hey, I wanna join your group!
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 97 18:02 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

In-Reply-To: <l03020903afe82f3b3d48@[194.119.133.205]>

SD,

> Career changes were one of the T2300 things I liked in T4, lots. However, I
> can just improvise id you don't put them in. I mean, that's what I did in
> MT.

Apply a -DM (=no. terms served?) to the enlistment roll of the new career if 
you want to change jobs (why would the Navy want an ex-insurance salesman?). 
If you fail, spend a year (or maybe just 2d months?) unemployed, then try 
again (a waiver can be used to avoid this).
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 97 18:02 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

In-Reply-To: <199706180759.JAA09140@merlin.fae.ua.es>

Carlos,

> TWO adventures in Anomalies use TL 14-15 from the RoM. The two are
> from Steve Miller. In another adventure of Steve Miller, he confuses the
> Droyne with the Draysaskin, seeming to imply that there are no Droyne in the
> universe... moreover, he postulates a surviving Draysaskin, but ***canon***
> (flame retardant suit on) state that Grandfather killed them all (he kept
> careful count). The confsion makes me think he is new to Traveller...

Worse, so are the editors, proof-readers, and play-testers. 
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 12:28:06 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

>>What really made me laugh was the idea that someone would "test drive" a 
>>*2000 year old* vac suit!
>
>   <Ding!>  We have a winner!  Someone finally pointed out the silliest
>aspect of the whole TL 14 vacc suit debacle.  People actually trusting
>their lives to these things!  I don't care *how* well the seals are
>made, or how well packed everything is, it isn't going to last that
>long!
>
>   Of course I'm sure there will be *somebody* who will do some
>handwaving trying to justify it. <sigh>

No one expects the Solomani Empire!

Our chief advantage is our TL 14 vacc suits, and our TL 14 storage lockers.
Wait, that's our TWO, two chief advantages are our TL 14 vacc suits and
storage lockers. And our TL 14 storage locker sealant. Our THREE, 
three main advantages are....       :)

"I'll handwave anything for just $99.95, that's $99.95!"


**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 12:54:03 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Marine Uniforms

Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)writes:
>>Bagpipes (and kilts if you must, but only for the pipers) for the Marines 
>>get my vote.
>I'd give at least one regiment Scots traditions.
>Back when I was running a CT game and Azhanti High Lightning had just been
>published, my group noticed that battle axes and two-handed swords were
>better than guns against armour (check the game rules if you don't believe
>me) -- and you don't get collateral damage, either.
>Thus was born our standard boarding party: battle dress, claymores, and wild
>bagpipe music blasting out!

  ...and to think of all that time I spent on the beta list calling for a
good space axe to go with the combat armor, only to be told to go out and
play in traffic. :-)
  I would have been happy with a good retractable spike in the forearm.
Ok, I would have held out for the chest mounted claymore mine too. 


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. The town was 
burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need those sheep anyway. 
That's our story and we're sticking to it.  
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 12:58:40 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Heroes of Telemarken

>There was a pretty interesting one-shot Traveller adventure in White Dwarf

"Green Horizon"

>(way back when it was still a gaming magazine instead of a zine for plastic
>toy collectors). The players were small aliens on a scoutship that
>misjumped into a backwater TL 5-6 planet engulfed in a world war. The PCs
>badly needed deuterium to get out of there (so the story went) and the
>engineer aboard located a deuterium factory in a rocky northern country
>(Norway). 

As a further twist, the alien's appearance closely resembled that of Trolls of
Scandinavian legend, with the expected reactions from the local populace.

>The aliens were to steal some of the stuff but them unknowing
>they decided to do it at the time of the resistance attacks, allied
>bombings etc. Great fun to read but I didn't have the chance to play it and
>someone borrowed it and never returned it.

I've recently been combing through all my back issues of Dwarf and Dragon
magazines and reusing a BUNCH of stuff on my latest group that hasn't seen
the light of day in 10+ years. Man, what a good magazine! Every issue 
jammed with great stuff for Traveller, D&D, Cthulhu, Runequest, Judge
Dredd, what have you. I've got them all from #32 up to #115, when they 
finally admitted that they would no longer have any articles on any game
except Warhammer and Warhammer40K. A great magazine until GW
decided they wanted to be the T$R of the east side of the pond.

I wonder who I'd need to contact about getting permission to post some of
that stuff up on a web page? Too much wonderful stuff to let it just fade 
away...


Paul Darius Owensby
pauld@athens.net
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 13:42:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Damn!

Oh, fie foul elm and vi!

I've commited the most henious sin on TML without
using Exchange... I copied an entire TMl digest 
into my last reply!

I beg forgiveness! May God have mercy on my soul!

Ethan

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 10:22:25 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Program Support - Thanks!

At 11:04 PM 7/8/97 -0400, Richard Kinne wrote:

>	A few days ago I posted a request for pointers for Mac based software.
>I got back several very nice replies and wish to thank those people who did
>reply.  It also seems that I may have started (or fanned up, perhaps) a
>discussion of common data formats between programs.  Might I request, in
>so far as it is possible, that the Macintosh users not be left behind in a
>project such as this.

I must approve of this.

>	Who are our Macintosh-based programmers here?  Is Rob Prior still
>among us (sorry, I'm bad on names.  I just know that he is the author of
>some of the best utilities I've collected so far)?

I am in.  My stuff is currently being written in pretty much straight ANSI
C++, which also lets it work on the PC, and may let it work on the Linux
box as soon as I can find a version of gcc that handles exceptions.

>	In looking about I found it facinating that someone was actually
>working on solutions in Java at what seemed to be an application rather than
>an applet level.

I have considered Java, but I have not yet had time to learn it.  I
understand that Java Beans will alleviate many of the UI gripes that people
had with Java, and so am rather intrigued by the idea.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 13:04:57 -0500
From: Alex Rebsch <grazzit@flash.net>
Subject: Re: Planet 3 Software

- --------------5B035E4D7219B47A3804537A
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

DadEDragon@aol.com wrote:

> Has anyone been able to download the Traveller software from
> http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm
> I have been trying everyday since I found out about it, but to no
> avail.  If
> someone already has it downloaded, would you mind sending it my way?
>
> Larry Stanton
> DadEDragon@aol.com
> "Places to Go, People to Rule, Worlds to Conquer!"

   Just go to ftp.davtechsys.com .  They are all here and are
downloadable. It's easier and quicker than sending via e-mail.  But if
for some strange reason it doesn't work, email me privately and i'll
send them to you.

seeya

Alex
grazzit@flash.net
http:\\www.flash.net\~grazzit\traveller.html

- --------------5B035E4D7219B47A3804537A
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML>
DadEDragon@aol.com wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Has anyone been able to download the Traveller software
from
<BR><A HREF="http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm">http://www.davtechsys.com/ftp.htm</A>
<BR>I have been trying everyday since I found out about it, but to no avail.&nbsp;
If
<BR>someone already has it downloaded, would you mind sending it my way?

<P>Larry Stanton
<BR>DadEDragon@aol.com
<BR>"Places to Go, People to Rule, Worlds to Conquer!"</BLOCKQUOTE>
&nbsp;&nbsp; Just go to <U><FONT COLOR="#000099">ftp.davtechsys.com</FONT></U>
.&nbsp; They are all here and are downloadable. It's easier and quicker
than sending via e-mail.&nbsp; But if for some strange reason it doesn't
work, email me privately and i'll send them to you.

<P>seeya

<P>Alex
<BR><U><FONT COLOR="#000099">grazzit@flash.net</FONT></U>
<BR><U><FONT COLOR="#000099"><A HREF="http:\\www.flash.net\~grazzit\traveller.html">http:\\www.flash.net\~grazzit\traveller.html</A></FONT></U></HTML>

- --------------5B035E4D7219B47A3804537A--

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 14:15:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: pawn@CAM.ORG (Glenn Grant)
Subject: Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda

John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Hey, don't thank me, thank Glenn Grant <pawn@CAM.ORG> - he came up with
>the tables.  Those were just the raw rolls, BTW - I've tried to
>incorporate them into a proper life story below.
>
>Name:           "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda
>UPP:            586A49 (genetic 4635)
[snip]

Cool character, John. Talk about a tough life! I wonder if I shouldn't try
to balance the Life Events tables a little, to make for fewer 'hard knocks'
and more beneficial results. Or maybe "Lucky" just happened to have a
string of bad rolls. Also, a lot depends on how the results are
interpreted; being caught up in political turmoil, for instance, can be as
much a chance for positive change as negative.

Anyway, it's cool to see how the system worked for you.

 + GMG + 

    -----------------------Glenn Grant-----------------------  
                         <pawn@cam.org>
    Web: <http://helios.physics.utoronto.ca:8080/ggrant.html>
"Nature abhors normality. It can't go too long without a mutant."
                        --Dr Blockhead

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 11:41:19 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Harold Hale wrote:
> 
> Marc Miller writes:
> 
> >> 3) When re-enlisting with a service for a second time (as a 2nd or
> >> 3rd career) a commissioned character gets to keep his commission
> >> minus one rank level. What about an enlisted character? Does a
> >> Sergeant become a Corporal, or does he start back as a Private?
> >
> >
> >In chargen 4.1 this doesn't happen. Only Vargr can change careers.
> >
> >Marc
> 
>    Eh?  Well now there's a *big* step back from reality.  Why not just
> insert rules limiting players on the number of career changes they can
> make.  One before age 30, two before age 38, etc.  That would seem to
> make more sense.

I, too, am in favour of career changes. It doesn't necessarily have to
be easy, just *possible*.

I think a career limit is too arbitrary. I would favour modifiers to the
enlistment roll, cumulative for each career change. Vargr characters
would not get the modifier, characters in Vilani culture would receive
more severe modifiers.

I agree with another poster (Suz?) who stated that it could be
impossible (or at least, more difficult) for Imperials to switch
*military* careers. Switching from Army to Navy to whatever encourages
munchkinism.

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 11:41:36 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)

Sebastien Normandin wrote:

> >Well, we can chalk it up to social reasons: while they're excellent
> >innovators, the Solomani can't run an interstellar empire like the
> >Vilani can. TL 15 is accomplished as much by shipping parts on time as
> >it is by inventing new cool stuff. Besides, there's probably a lot
> >of "party politics" in Solomani space that ends up dragging them
> >down, as opposed to the very top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-
> >around Vilani power structure.
> 
> This assumption, on the other hand, could be argued directly in reverse.
> That "top-down" Vilani power structure could be seen as a detriment in
> running so vast a corporate entity. Ritualistic, hierarchical, some might
> even say stagnant, the Vilani are not perfect, and do their own kind of job
> of mismanagement. With thier dynamic and inquisitive spirit, the Solomani
> are far more likely to keep pushing the edge of any empitre they run,
> instead of playing at-home power politics and letting the edges of one's
> empire stagnate and sometimes even deteriorate. At least that's how I read
> Traveller's very storied historical past. It is the Solomani who are
> aggresive and a constant source of concern. Consider the first CT setting
> of the Spinward Marches, a frontier exploited in part as a defense
> perimeter against the dreaded telepahic Zhodani, but also arguably in
> response to constant agressive Solomani pressures in the other direction.
> The Vilani are a source of trmendous conservatism in Traveller, but that
> doesn't neccesarily make them best suited for "long-term TL 15 interstellar
> empire management" (a theoretical course they hopefully teach first year
> Imperial Naval Officer Cadets!) :).

May I introduce a friend of mine, who has been listening intently to
this discussion, and wishes to clear up some Terran misconceptions.
Without further adieu, Mr. Eneri Laparkikumiin:


I have been listening to comments on the Tech Level of the Ramshackle
Empire with some interest. Although I have the greatest of respect for
my Solomani colleagues, I must point out some of the growing
misconceptions offered in recent email, regarding the power structure
and decision making protocols of the Vilani people.

It is the Solomani bias which labels Vilani management "stagnant" and
"top-down" in authority. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
opinion of each member of a Vilani corporate entity carries equal
weight, regardless of seniority. The viewpoints and opinions of the
lowliest apprentice are heard, and that opinion is judged on its own
merit. The Vilani management style is consensus-driven, not mandated
from "on-high".

In matters of day-to-day management, decisions are decidedly
"bottom-up". Managers are given great leeway to solve problems that may
arise. The only caveat is that all decisions are reviewed by central
planning authorities -- decisions not in the best interests of the long
term goals of the corporation or Vilani Tradition may require a
reprimand, but only the severest of transgressions result in the
dismissal of the offending manager.

I must take offence at the first poster's generalization of the Vilani
as having a "top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-around" power
structure. It is the pervasive Solomani bias towards individual power
and authority which colours this poster's perception. Each person is
encouraged to submit his or her own opinions regarding the
implementation of corporate goals. No Vilani would ever say "do it my
way!"

I grow weary of the continuing misrepresentation of the Vilani culture
as "stagnant", and this characterization being offered as the reason for
the collapse of the First Imperium and rise of Terran control. Vilani
Tradition continues to evolve, and new methods are continually
introduced after rigorous simulation of long-term effects and
discussion. The Vilani believe in the long-term management of resources,
we never lose sight of what Terrans call "the big picture". "Missing the
forest for the trees" is an alien concept to all Vilani. It is only
Solomani bigotry which labels Vilani culture as being "Stagnant".

It most certainly wasn't the Vilani management style which caused the
collapse of the 
Ziru Sirka. There were many factors, but as a gross oversimplification,
much can be attributed to the unexpected discovery of the Terrans, their
rapid and unprecidented technological advancement and ascendancy, and
the unrelenting disruption of our infrastructure and lines of
communication.

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss our culture and management
style. I hope that dialogue continues in future, with the goal of a more
intimate understanding of each of our people's culture.

I am yours sincerely,

Eneri Laparkikumiin
Vilani Cultural Liason to Sylea


> Wow. My first post.

I welcome more discourse in the future.

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

Date: 09 Jul 1997 18:25:36 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Career Changes

>I noticed Rob Prior's comments about this, and I have to say I disagree. 

Just thought I'd mention that I _support_ being able to change careers before
the character is played.  I was reiterating some arguments I'd heard in
favour of _not_ allowing changes.  (Guess I should have been clearer.)

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

Date: 09 Jul 1997 18:38:54 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Updated Software

I've uploaded an updated version (0.5.1d) of Metator to the Macintosh
Traveller software page
<http://www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/software.html>

Changes in this version:

1) New about dialog (looks cooler, works the same)

2) High population and GWP numbers used to show up as negative on the
Sociological Report.  I fixed this by displaying the really high numbers in
millions/billions/trillions, which also eliminated superfluous significant
digits.

3) Some memory bugs were fixed, and a couple more now fail better (ie. you
get told that you've run out of memory).

4) A zooming bug has been fixed.


Unfixed bugs/unimplemented features:

1) System charts and maps _still_ don't print properly, mainly because I
haven't figured out how to print colour icons yet.  Any advice from Mac
programmers here appreciated.  (I've got the Inside Mac books, but their
examples don't work with my THINK Pascal 4.0 compiler.)

2) Military forces are just displayed as battalion and SDB factors, rather
than being expanded into units.  If anyone can come up with a decent
algorithm (I'm not really a military bloke) I can implement it.

3) World mapping is still rather incomplete.  I'm been partly waiting until I
get the icon problem fixed, because if I have to rewrite the display code
then I'll also have to rewrite this code, and I have rewriting stuff.

4) I haven't implemented T4 animal encounter tables yet.  If someone wants to
email me _official correct_ rules (no errata for this in the IG site, in
spite of my mailing them corrections last year) I can implement it.  

5) Mountains not yet implemented.  I plan on doing mountains based on "The
Mountain Environment" with some tinkering.  Is there actually any demand for
this?

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 12:07:05 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1534

At 07:50 PM 7/9/97 -0700, Ian or Katts wrote:
[good stuff]

>Scott Ellsworth also wrote (among other good stuff):
>
>> My quick list of differences:
>> 
>> 1.  Nobility has been created.  As a rough guideline, over the long haul,
>> approximately one person in a thousand is in some way noble and wields some
>> kind of direct power.  Perhaps ten times that many would have some kind of
>> relationship to a noble title such that they get honors at parties, but
>> would not be "important." themselves.

>I think one in a thousand is out by a factor of about twenty. IMO every 
>noble on a planet, no matter how big, should at least know of each other.

I got that number by looking at the number of nobles in the present day UK,
plus an estimate that through most of the medieval period, roughly 99% of
the population was peasantry, while 1% was noble.  This changed
dramatically when the middle class became more important, and the
percentage dropped by a tenth.

I do agree that this is likely more nobles than there really should be, but
I got a strong feeling from the M0 materials that virtually everyone of
major importance and administrative heft had been knighted.

Given further that Social Standing determines cost of living, we again have
the problem that to be at the high side of the income curve, you have to be
a knight  We could fix this easily enough - allow people of high social
standing to be equivalent to nobility, but not titled themselves.  Perhaps
in the same family, or heirs to the same fortunes, or intendants?

>> 2.  The Imperium has started to expand at an insane rate...  Anyone who
>> helps this process along is idolized.
>
>Yes, although IMO the 3I is trying to slow down this process to a parsec
>a year, thus keeping the expansion under control. This is aided by the
>"Imperial zone" extending well beyond the actual border - I'd guess that
>the area within 20 parsecs is "imperialized" to one degree or another.

I could buy this.

>> 2a.  To encourage this, they have a rather strange kind of doublethink.  A
>> world which is not a member world is inherently inferior to an Imperial
>> world....

>At my guess, all worlds within the Imperial borders are going to be colonised
>to some degree....

Eventually, yes, but I suspect that you get more reward for colonizing a
world just outside the border and moving it in, than colonizing a world
inside the borders.

>>...Note that they do have a move it or lose
>> it policy - if you are in the process of negotiating a request for
>> admission, and the Foreign Office takes a dislike to you, you may well find
>> your claim supplanted by another group on the same world.
>
>This is only an issue when the world is balkanised ... if you are
indisputably
>in control of a world, you are the person the Imperium deals with. Possibly
>literally, if the Imperium or a faction therein sees you as a problem.

I was a bit unclear.  The way I am playing it is:

The Imperium tries to recognize the single competent government of the
planet.  Once it has been recognized and offered membership in the
Imperium, then it can do very little to change the form of government.  In
fact, major wars can be considered internal matters, as long as they do not
view it as undue offworld interference.

If the planet is balkanized, then they can weasel a bit.

If the planet is "too low tech to be aware of the full implications of
membership", the Imperium will recognize a trading company as a partner
with the world's current government up through membership, and often past
it.  (This allows for colonialism.)  Note that it is considered quite
popular to pick a particular tribe or group on a TL1 planet, teach them
enough to make a good showing, and then to make them a partner with a big,
powerful company that can run pretty freely over the natives, as long as
they do not exert undue influence in the eyes of the Moot and the foreign
office.

If the world is not yet a member, they have a lot more freedom to fiddle
with internal matters.  Another Imperial group can ask to be recognized as
the official trading partner, and if the Foreign Office chooses to not
recognize your own prior claim, or chooses to say that you did not act with
due diligence, then someone else might get recognized as the appropriate
partnering company with the world government.

...
>> 4b.  The word of a Noble is considered good, and the clear intent of Sylean
>> law is that if a noble promised it, but the lawyers did not put it in the
>> contract, then the lawyers lose.  Non nobles are not expected to keep to
>> this standard, and the nobility is allowed to take that into account.
>> While they are not yet completely callous about human life, nobles do have
>> more ability to avoid bad consequences.
>> 
>
>What happens if a noble promised it to a commoner, and the noble's lawyers
>are arguing that s/he should not have to pay up ?

This is not allowed usually.  If the Noble promises it to another noble,
there are very few circumstances where they can check up, or refuse to
deliver.  It is a point of pride to deliver even if the other noble does
not, and then to make it clear to other nobles that the one who reneged is
a cad and a blaggard.

The noble is allowed, on the other hand, after promising something to a
commoner, to check up that the commoner did actually perform their side of
the bargain, and to refuse to pay up if the commoner reneged significantly.
 They must carry through, though, if the commoner makes a good faith
effort.  They even have to put a good face on it.  This balances the
ability to control damn near everything - they have to be careful what they
promise, as they have to carry through in almost every case, even if the
person they promise it to cannot force them to.

This is why a noble representative is so important - they can commit to
things to other nobles that cannot be backed out of.  They can also make a
promise to a commoner that will be interpreted fairly liberally in favor of
the commoner, as long as a good faith effort by the commoner happens.

>> 5a.  Hand craftsmanship is a big thing.  The economic reason is simple -
>> Zhunastu wants to be able to make a profit off of all of the TL1-TLA
>> planets they are contacting and bringing in.  As a result, they have made
>> all sorts of ad campaigns designed to convince Y0 citizens that they want
>> and rubbed oak in their grav car, and burl knobs on laser controls.

>Yup. Gotta have some way that lo-tech worlds can earn the currency to
>buy the Zhunatsu Corp goods :)
>
>(oh, and btw, I consider the Zhunatsu School of Contact to be a relic of
>the desperate early days of the Sylean Confederation, rather than of
>an Imperium that can *always* negotiate from a position of strength).

It is also just plain unworkable in many cases.  I like it better if it is
a bad plan circulated to Shunatsu enemies by spies. :)

>> 6.  It is an era where everything is in flux, thus the megacorporations
>> that control Sylea so thoroughly are not going to be a big factor outside
>> the borders.  They are ruthless, and powerful, but the Navy is more so.
>
>Yup. Agree in spades.
>
>> 7.  The Navy has a problem of divided loyalty.  The Navy was carried over
>> from the SF virtually intact, and is now expected to be completely loyal to
>> Clean.  They are not, and Clean knows it.  He also does not want to risk
>> civil war by bringing it up until his grasp of it is stronger.
>
>This is also an issue with the Nobility and the Megacorps, which are the
>three legs of the Imperial Triad. Cleon trod very carefully to make sure
>everybody won out of the rise of the Imperium.

Yep, though I view the navy as the area where Cleon's control is weakest.
They had the most patriotism, and the least ability to be bought, in my
opinion.

>Mind you, it's easier to do when you have massive "peace dividends" from
>the de-militarization of space as compared to the armed camps of worlds
>of the Long Night.

>> 8.  The Scouts have a fair amount of corruption and inefficiency.  They
>> have been given an impossible job, insufficient resources, and new people
>> from a diverse cultural background.  Unlike the Navy, which was primarily
>> Sylean, and primarily upper caste, the Scouts will take anyone who is
>> clever, and who can survive on a rough planet.  Over time, they will purge
>> themselves of the elements who do not fit in, but they have not yet had the
>> time to do so.
>
>Yup. Although I think corruption is a problem with all parts of the Imperium.

Agreed.  I think it will be the biggest problem with the brand new agencies
that do not yet have good watchdogs, but I can see other arguments.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1537
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1538



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Aslan Education (Character Generation)
...in answer to Harold's question...
Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
China Boys
Re: Non-gravitic manuver drives
Support Costs
Re: Traveller Algorhythms
Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)
Re: Marine Uniforms
Re: Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))
Re: Traveller in Java
Re: China Boys
Heisenberg's War
Re: Support Costs
Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]
Switching Careers for T4.1
T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
JoT suggestion

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 16:14:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Aslan Education (Character Generation)

How do Aslan get educated? Are there schools? Does their family train the=
m? Their clan?

Within the universe of all Aslan, how do they do it.

Family isn=92t large enough to do much educating. Clan can probably do
something. I suppose corporations can too.

If they don=92t have Universities, Institutes, and Academies, then there =
has to be something that will provide education.

I propose the following elements=85

Family or home based schooling.
Clan based training.
On The Job Training
Special Training.

Family (provides the basic education that a character begins with). Reading
writing, basic skills. There may be some sharing of training between
families. Roll half die for Family Education.

Clan based Education. Consolidated much like High School. Segregated between
boys and girls. Roll half die for education increase.

On The Job Training (Skill). Join a career. After joining and serving 1 term
to prove your worth, then apply for OJT (this being significant OJT rather
than how to clean pots). If accepted, then resolve the next term, and each
year ALSO roll 7- to get +1 Edu. At the end of the term, if you got +3 or
more Edu, you get a Ya-N (where N is the current level of Edu) which PROVES
you have an Education at that level. You also get a skill with level equal to
the Edu increase.

Which skill? OJT specifies a skill (any skill) available in the career. OJT
is in addition to, and simultaneous with the ordinary chargen career
resolution.

OJT is allowed ONCE.

Effects. It means we get relatively well qualified people early, but they are
at least committed to the career.

Success at OJT (getting a Ya-N) requires serving the next term, and gives a +
on promotion.

Special Training (Skill Name). Anyone with Ya-6+ (that=92s a degree, not the
Edu itself) can apply (some sort of roll) for Special Training (Skill Name).
This can be in any skill, and its a form of Learning By Doing, but with
greater support from knowledgeable tutors. It starts at the beginning of a
term, and the character rolls Int or less- each year (DM -1 each year of
study) to continue (if failed, then the character reverts to normal chargen
within the career for the rest of the term. For each successful year, the
character receives 1 level of the skill being studied, and +1 Edu. At the end
of the term, Special Training Ends automatically. At the end of Special
Training, the character also receives Ya-N (where N is the current Edu
level). Again, this is certification that the character has a certain Edu.

Special Training is possible any number of times, but Edu increases have to
be tempered somehow.

Success at Special Training=20
The maximum Ya-N awarded is Ya-10, even if Edu is higher.

Notice=85 an Aslan can have several Ya-Ns at various levels (Ya-5, Ya-7,
Ya-11). Ya-5 is the lowest of certificates=85 (based on family Edu 1 and Clan
Edu 1, then OJT +3 Edu).

Family Learning at Mother=92s knee can get you Edu-3; Clan learning can get you
up to about Edu-6. Thereafter, Education is available ONLY through careers.
In addition, Special Training is all in one skill. This clearly reflects the
focussed nature of Aslan education, rather than the liberal education nature
of human Edu systems.

Special Training is administered by a Kteai Reaauakh (translates as "Training
Organizations") which provides the tutors, curriculum, and testing for the
specific training (many scholars make a living as employees of a KR).

Vargr Education should probably be based on Mentors, which is why it doesn't
appear here.

Marc Miller

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 17:33:51 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: ...in answer to Harold's question...

Twas written;


***************************

   Will someone please explain to me what the attraction is of all the
handwaving, performing of bad magic tricks, rationalization and in
general suffering the slings and arrows of those who recognize all this
for what it is, when it would be much easier just to say that the vacc
suits were experimental TL 13 items and not have put up with all the
crap?  Not to pick on you Ethan, but I just don't get it.

Regards,

Harold

***************************

Because....the TML is a forum where EVERYONE can share their ideas. 
Reguardless of who will win "The Great RoM TL Debate", "TaskWars", or
"Olympic fractional c rock throwing" issues, people are going to play
and modify as they see fit.  If you desire a firm decision in the
rules...thats fine....but as for handwaving and rationalizations on the
TML, such things are often the springboard for possible adventure ideas.
If only two people on the entire TML want to have a universe where Cleon
is actually Grandfather they should be able to disscuss the idea amongst
themselves on the TML and they should be welcome to do it.  While they
should expect to hear other ideas to the contrary, they should not be
asked to just "give it up".

Take Eris' posts.  He may be a canon heretic, and I may not swallow all
he says, but by golly he comes up with some good ideas sometimes.

This if not a flame on Harold's post (though he may have some "arrows"
for me now) but it smells faintly of the "if it ain't the mainstream TML
idea at the time...don't post it" metality that seems to be rearing its
ugly head quite often these days.  Harold, I would guess that you really
didn't expect an answer to that question...but...you did ask.

Keep those wide and varied perspectives coming in....

TT

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 15:11:21 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

Michael Barry wrote:
> 
> Those of you who are computer whizzes can probably skip this message. The
> rest of us...

I never skip messages that give me ideas...

> I have found a way of converting hexadecimal numbers into decimal and vice
> versa, using functions within the Quattro Pro spreadsheet. I don't know
> about the others (Excel etc.) but they should probably have something
> similar.
> 
> The functions are:
> @HEXTONUM(n) - gives the decimal value of hexadecimal n
> @NUMTOHEX(m) - gives the hexadecimal value of decimal m.

I've been stretching my legs a bit in MS Excel (as users of my Vehicle
Design Spreadsheet can attest). I just had a thought -- How many people
would find an Excel add-in of Traveller Functions useful?

As an example, I whipped up equivalent functions that handle the entire
traveller spectrum of "extended" Hexadecimal Digits. 0123..ABC..XYZ

These are the functions:

Dig2Num(Digit) - Converts a single Traveller digit to a number.
Num2Dig(Num)   - Converts a number to Traveller digit.

To use, select Insert-->Macro-->Module in Excel 5.0, and copy-and-paste
in the following:

' --- Cut Here ---
'
' Converting Traveller pseudo-Hexadecimal Digits
' ==============================================
' Copyright 1997 by Glenn Hoppe
'
' Dig2Num - Converts a Traveller digit to a number.
'
' Num2Dig - Converts a number to pseudo-Hex digit.
'
' Illegal values give #VALUE! error
'
' Hex Digits: 0123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ
'
' Note: I and O by convention are skipped to avoid confusion
'       with the digits 1 and 0.
'
' Traveller is (tm) FarFuture Enterprises

Function Dig2Num(Digit As String) As Integer
    digits = "0123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ"
    If Digit = "" Then
        Dig2Num = [isvalue()]
    Else
        Dig2Num = InStr(digits, Digit) - 1
        If Dig2Num = -1 Then Dig2Num = [isvalue()]
    End If
End Function

Function Num2Dig(Num As Integer) As String
    digits = "0123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ"
    If Num < 0 Or Num > 33 Then
        Num2Dig = [isvalue()]
    Else
        Num2Dig = Mid(digits, Num + 1, 1)
    End If
End Function
'
' --- Cut Here ---

Now in your worksheet, you can use those functions! What other functions
could be devised? Some obvious ones:

GenWorld()          - Returns a UPP
GenSystem(UPP)      - Returns a system
GenWord(Language)   - Returns a Random word using language table
GenAnimal(UPP,Type) - Returns an animal
D(6)                - Roll d6
D(3)                - Roll d3
D(2,6)              - Roll 2d6

An add-in could be made out of the Macro sheet, so that every new
spreadsheet can access these Traveller functions. That'd be neat, eh?

Shoot, I wish I had time to do Pocket Empires ...
(If only I could be paid to do fun stuff like this...)

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 15:17:41 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: China Boys

>barbarians out.  The US is focussed on power projection, the Chinese aren't.

  The Chinese aren't focussed on global power projection - regionally, they
have great hopes, as someone else pointed out. Both posts are correct.

>I read a study of the PLA done in 1988.. Compared to the US Army's 12
>divisions at the time, the PLA had 280, about half of which were armored or
>mechanized.  

  Almost certainly just motorized. Their mechanized formations are few
and barely up to old War-Pac second rate standards. Burp.

        Steven Hudson,
                Vancouver, British Columbia

The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 17:39:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: nrunner@ix.netcom.com (Archie T.)
Subject: Re: Non-gravitic manuver drives

run for such a long time. Its true that x=.5at^2.... the t is the main 
factor. if we run it for a month, x=(30*24*60*60)^2, so these things 
are garbage for military uses, but decent for freight haul, or, in our 
case, robotic probes. The low power usage allows for smallish 
radioisotope heat generators for trips to the outer places of the solar 
system, where the sun don't shine too well.
    Abstractly, think of the mercury ions as having a low mass for the 
thrust provided. The amount of thrust comes mainly for the solar 
power/heat generator, and the mass of THAT is low enough to keep the 
ship small. I like it for highly stable, developed regions of space. 
Travel is even more efficient along paths where the gravity from two 
planets are equal (a line or a curve.)

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 19:32:56 -0400
From: "Michael L. Galligan" <teflonkid@voyager.net>
Subject: Support Costs

So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:47:24 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller Algorhythms

At 09:04 PM 7/8/97 +0000, Simon wrote:
>> I'm currently involved in writing a Pocket Empires GM aid
>
>You are just the sort of person I'm trying to agree "standards" with.  
>Rather than roll some random numbers and convert them into PE data, I 
>think it would be great if there was a TML-standard way of generating PE 
>data from the UWP so that my PE data was the same as your PE data.
>
>As you have not finished the program, surely you and I (at the very least) 
>could agree a method to use ... it may become a de facto standard!
>
>
>Simon
>
>

Yep; a common, agreed to structure is what we need to make it possible for
each Ref's pet creation to be interchangable with other Refs. The American
National Standards Institute has never written one line of compiler code,
but all vendors of Cobol or Fortran compilers MUST meet the ANSI minimums to
call their products Cobol or Fortran. That's how DEC came up with Dibol some
years back; didn't meet the ANSI minimums, so couldn't call it Cobol.

Perhaps Traveller be one of those leading the way from paper publishing to
electronic with a base rules processor code and player / ref extensible
'modules' to plug in, for any setting, Imperium or not.

Garry

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 20:11:38 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)

To:

>Eneri Laparkikumiin
>Vilani Cultural Liason to Sylea

Excerpt from "_Spinward Struggles: A History of the Five Frontier Wars_
by Brig. Gen. Mack M. McTaggert, IMC (Ret.), Military Historian from the
University of Trin."

...One of the main reasons that the frontier conflicts were so unusual was
due primarily to the existing lines of communication. While Naval Couriers
made the information trail Coreward far faster than the X-Boat routes, this
still left a significant time gap between current fleet movements and the
orders arriving from the Core. This resulted in some unusual situations. In
the case of the Third Frontier War, for example, an armistice was signed
with the Zhodani before news of the outbreak reached the Core. At the very
least, ground commanders were free from the inevitable second guessing that
would result from such a dramatic time lag. Many a fleet commander has been
paralysed by doubt and the pressure of having to make serious strategic
decisions on the fly. It is this author's opinion that certain officers are
more prone to feel the pressure of this kind of situation than others. Safe
to say that the need for a clear line of command was a cultural effect that
not only resulted in slow reaction time on the part of some Naval
commanders during the Frontier Wars, but may also have been a factor in the
downfall of the First Imperium. It is perhaps fortunate for us as
decendants of a stable, thriving Imperial structure that these lessons were
learned on Earth thousands of years ago by the Romans, who understood the
need to integrate themselves with cultures on the fringe of their Empire.
While this may have led to their eventual downfall, it kept their empire
running for a long time with a minimum need for orders from on high. They
had at their disposal a most sophisticated communication network for the
time, supported by an equally sophisticated infrastructure, but they did
not need to rely on it as heavily as others have with more recent
organizational frameworks on a stellar scale. History can teach us many
lessons, and it is hoped that those in a position to do something about it
can learn from the events of the Frontier Wars that independant minded
commanders are worth their weight in gold on the edges of an Imperial
entity such as ours. Leave the bureaucracy to those suited for it, and keep
them out of the field of battle...*


*Author's Note: My opinions are solely my own, and the publisher of this
book  (a Terran company) takes no responsibility for any of the above
statements.

SN		luckyj@odyssee.net



Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:21:01 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Marine Uniforms

At 03:08 PM 7/8/97 +0000, Rob wrote:
><snip>
>
>Back when I was running a CT game and Azhanti High Lightning had just been
>published, my group noticed that battle axes and two-handed swords were
>better than guns against armour (check the game rules if you don't believe
>me) -- and you don't get collateral damage, either.
>
>Thus was born our standard boarding party: battle dress, claymores, and wild
>bagpipe music blasting out!
>

A double bladed battle ax in Bonded Super Dense ....  A race along the lines
of Tolkien's Dwarves .... Maybe there is a use for those Warhammer 40K
minitures after all.

Garry

  

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:13:26 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Losing Tech or Losing Sight (was: Re:Losing tech (was: Re: RoM))

At 12:32 PM 7/8/97 +0000, Roderick wrote:
>
>
><snip>
>	The slant I'm trying to give the M0 3I in my current campaign
>(expect a game summary Friday AM, people) is somewhat akin to the Victorian
>colonial period.  Greed and power are prime motivators; youngest sons,
>fortune seekers, those who straddle the line between entrepreneur and
>criminal, and the occasional decent bloke are all out there on the frontier
>trying to strike it rich.  Out on the fringes human life doesn't quite
>count for as much as it does back on Sylea (where it doesn't count for as
>much as it does here).
><snip>
>
>	Imperial administrators tend to be decent, honest, and loyal to the
>Imperium and by Imperial standards, which doesn't mean that they would
>hesitate a second to ruthlessly crush anything that stands in their way.
>The Scouts tend to be decent types, and try and minimize the effect of
>getting overrun by a hegemonical steamroller on contacted cultures, but
>they're still not Margaret Mead.
>
><snip>
>
>Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
>
>
>

Victorian...no one is as dangerous as someone who absolutely convinced that
they are right. Just as the natives of any spot on Earth visited by European
colonialism

Garry

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 11:22:48 +1000
From: Paul Dale <paul@auscert.org.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller in Java

hi,

Joe Heck writes:

>>Gentlefolk:   2235EDT 9707.08
[...]
>>      Who are our Macintosh-based programmers here?  Is Rob Prior still
>>among us (sorry, I'm bad on names.  I just know that he is the author of
>>some of the best utilities I've collected so far)?

>I wouldn't call myself a macintosh programmer, but I program on a Macintosh
>- in Java. There was a similiar thread asking about "who's interested in
>Java coding" - I know of Paul Dale (You're lurking out there somewhere I'll
>bet) who _is_ a Macintosh programmer down under

Yes, I'm still here after eight (or is it nine?) years.  I'm also not a Mac
programmer anymore - I'm working in computer security these days.  But, I do
think I could restart mac programming again with a *very* short warm up period.
However, for the kind of stuff we'll be doing, java is probably better because
it is reasonably portable and ends up looking okay on most platforms.

I don't post much these days because of the traumas required: I've got to
subscribe to the list, post and unsubscribe again.  Our local sys admin has
setup a feed from the mailing list into a (private) local news group.
Unfortunately, there isn't a reverse feed for replies :-(


>I've half a pile of Java code, which I'm willing to share as folks are
>interested or like, and will to be a repository for the code snippets that
>people are interested in using. Some of it's pretty complete, some of it's
>work in progress. A great deal of the good stuff was given to me from Paul
>Dale.

I don't remember doing much good stuff.  The Traveller program which I feel is
the best I've written (TNE Utilities) wasn't written in java :-)

I am also willing to provide some help with programming projects, either java
or mac.  However, I am rather short of time at the moment so I don't know how
much I'll be able to do - what with my wife and daughter and another child on
the way and a recent change of jobs things are pretty hectic.



Pauli
- --
Dr Paul Dale                    | paul@auscert.org.au
AUSCERT                         | http://www.uq.edu.au/~ccpdale/
c/o Prentice Centre             | 
Queensland  4072                | Did you know that there are 42 two letter
AUSTRALIA                       |     words containing the letter 'a'?

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 18:09:40 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: China Boys

At 03:17 PM 7/9/97 -0700, Steven Hudson wrote:

I wrote:
>>barbarians out.  The US is focussed on power projection, the Chinese aren't.

>  The Chinese aren't focussed on global power projection - regionally, they
>have great hopes, as someone else pointed out. Both posts are correct.

Other than Tibet, and border clashes with Vietnam and India, the Chinese
have shown no interest in doing much outside their traditional borders.
The discovery of oil in the Spratly Islands may change that, and is
probably behind the PRC's recent blue-water navy development program.

Remember that the PRC has tolerated a British enclave until very recently,
and still shows no sign of doing more about the existence of Taiwan (aka
Nationalist China) than insisting that it is part of China, and protesting
its recognition by the UN.
>
>>I read a study of the PLA done in 1988.. Compared to the US Army's 12
>>divisions at the time, the PLA had 280, about half of which were armored or
>>mechanized.  

>  Almost certainly just motorized. Their mechanized formations are few
>and barely up to old War-Pac second rate standards. Burp.

Hope you are ready for a big meal...  Chinese mechanized forces are
equipped with Type-50 APCs, a nice little battlefield taxi, similar to the
US M-113.  Standard armor is the Chinese built variant of the T-62/64
series tank.  While hardly modern, outnumbering you opponent 25-1 can and
will make a difference on the battlefield.  The PLA has a very large
artillery component, and has stockpiled ammo.  Most of the artillery is
truck-drawn.

The PLA (with it's naval and air components) is perfectly suited for the
role China has asked of its warriors for thousands of years.. keep the
barbarians out of the Middle Kingdom.

To bring this back to Traveller, I can see where the vast majority of
planetary defence forces would have a similar goal and organization.. since
you are always going to be on the defensive, you might build more tanks by
substituting tracks for grav, hordes of troops for a few power-armor elite.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 21:56:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Heisenberg's War

>>    In all seriousness, both the Germans and Soviets had nuclear
>> programs prior to the Americans.  The Soviet effort had the plug
>> pulled on it by Stalin, who wanted to use the resources elsewhere. 
>> The German effort was hampered by Allied commando raids, lack of
>> resources, and a bit of hard luck.  Had things happened
>> differently, it was not out of the question that the Germans could
>> have had the Bomb a year before the Allies--I won't even go into
>> what would have happened next....

>Actually, it wasn't bad luck, even - just a misplaced decimal. 

There's an interesting book called _Heisenberg's War_ the thesis of which is
that the scientists in charge of the German A-bomb research (Heisenberg et
al...and yes, it was _that_ Heisenberg) deliberately fudged their work to
screw up the program in order to prevent the Nazis from getting the bomb, and
preventing such interesting historical what ifs as V-2s with nuke warheads...

Loren Wiseman
      GDW Emeritus

 

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 11:59:04 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: Support Costs

>So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
>support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
>life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
>an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.

If I remember right, you were posting about the cost of life support in
"The Long Way Home". In that case, it doesn't matter, since the
introduction says the ship has been set up for several months away from
Imperial space (I don't have my Traveller stuff here at work, so I can't
give a direct quote). In the general case though, I have no idea. I'm just
glad my PCs haven't thought of that one yet!

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:10:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]

In a message dated 97-07-09 18:57:28 EDT, you write:

<< 
 I've always thought it was just once for being in that career. Some 
 skills are dependent upon reaching a certain rank, or being 
 commissioned. Those, too, would only be received once.
 
  >>
Automatic skills are once when joining. Otherwise, we would be saying a
9-term soldier ends up with Rifle-9 or so. 

Marc

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:29:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: fcain@st6000.sct.edu (Franklin W. Cain)
Subject: Switching Careers for T4.1

Mr. Miller, 

I have a suggestion.  Please consider the following as a possible
replacement for your ruling on "no career changes for non-Vargr."  

Vargr are the only race that can change careers *without* *penalty*.  
All others suffer a cumulative DM -2 on Continuation/Continuance rolls for 
each career change.  (Example: A Rogue becomes a Merchant.  When rolling to 
continue as a Merchant, he has a penalty of DM -2.  Later on, he switches 
(again) to Noble.  His penalty to continue as a Noble is DM -4.)  

This option, should you decide to adopt it, allows Vargr characters to
retain their racial characteristic of "career hopping" (which is, I
presume, your rationale for your ruling), while *also* giving other
characters the *option* of small-scale "career hopping" (and as a player, I
like having options).  

Thank you.  

Franklin W. Cain

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 23:58:56 -0400
From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@mail.geocities.com>
Subject: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

I'm working on a story for T:TNE, and I'd like get some opinions on a few
questions that have been bothering me today:

1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
partly?  

2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

3) Suggest a good approximate toughness value for asteroid 'rock' material
(using the T:TNE system).

4) (Again, trying not to restart a flame war (though pre-emptively donning
the 'didn't you read the !@%#%$ FAQ?!?'-proof suit)) Does anyone think
'Virus' would be more workable if it were really a plague of highly
virulent nanites that hop from ship to ship and to stations and planetary
surfaces in a kind of 'grey goo' scenario?  (As opposed to this silly bit
of sentient software that just takes over everything magically. : P)

Well, I suppose that's it for now.  

Cheers,
.JF.

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:09:12 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: JoT suggestion

Hi all,

Just a thought that has been smouldering in my mind for the last week or
so. In many cases JoT as written can be very powerfull. Indeed, there was a
story about a week or so ago of a GM who had a player who had put every
skill increase he could in to JoT, and so could do almost anything. Someone
else replied that in CT a player could only have a skill level of 1 in JoT
(or that skill levels above 1 didn't make any difference - I can't remember
which), and that JoT allowed you the chance to do the task as an unskilled
roll.

In T4, the method used in CT wont work, since there is now the default
skills list. What I suggest is a mixture of the two - for every increase in
JoT in chargen, the player picks _TWO_ skills from the default skill list
which he or she has some familiarity in. These skills are treated as 0
level skills, which means that the player doesn't have a penalty for their
task roll for not having the skill, but they don't get any bonus either. If
a character later improves the skill (either in chargen or by using
experience), they don't pick another skill - this just means that the
character has had enough use of the skill to know more than the bare
minimum.

Optionally a character could be able to choose _any_ two skills (but I
don't really like that idea).

I haven't tried this out [since it would have to be implemented in chargen]
but at face value it seems like a good idea. It means that a character with
JoT-8 is no longer a super munchk... I mean character =) able to do
everything - they just know a bit about a lot of things. Anyone who has had
any training in the skill (ie: skill level 1) should still perform better
than the character with JoT (ignoring differences in characteristics).

What do people think?

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1538
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1539



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
Re: Dogs in space...
Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Pocket Empires
Re: Marine Uniforms
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Uh, yeah
Re: ...in answer to Harold's question...
Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
Re: Science in the Traveller Universe
RE: Support Costs
Re: Clues to TL loss
[none]
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Nazi Bombs, Jap Nukes, and Heisenberg's War

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:14:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

Mlaaksa@utu.fi wrote in response to the topic of the "3D Maximum Damage Rule
Atrocity".... "Weapons which do more than 12 dice of damage... are an
exception", where the heck is that ever stated in the T4 rules or its
supplements??
     Then James Lindsay restates his penchant to make damage determination
somewhat more cumbersome than what the designers for T4 wished (at least in
spirit).  Also, let me point out to James that while lasers do pass at the
speed of light by their very nature (light amplication at varying wavelengths
from UV ones at TL9 to the Xray spectrum lasers at TL14) and thus their
kinetic energy element of damage is greater than their thermal component
(since Kinetic Energy is the product of one half the mass multiplied by the
SQUARE of the velocity), the fusion and plasma based reactions fire a bolt of
superheated plasma energy, which, though may move quite quickly, will NOT in
anyway approach the speed of light as James suggests (c is actually 3
km/sec).  The superheated energy is what counts (thermal) and not really a
time dependent thing.  
    But all this is superfluous nitpicking and a grand example of what
happens when a poor rule is established (and it in itself is not wholly
clear, as everyone seems to have their own interpretation) in the name of
game balance, when it doesn't make sens, and requires great mental gymnastics
to justify.  All the more reason to scrap this abomination for good in T4.1

CCL

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

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 23:27:49 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

>> The rationalization I have always used is that technological increases
>> require exponentially greater investment at higher tech levels.
>> Lower-technology breakthroughs can be done by individuals or small nations,
>> but stellar-scale technologies require the combined brainpower and economic
>> resources of interstellar empires. If there is a hard limit on the speed at
>> which information can be shared, like 1 week for interstellar travel, then
>> there will be a point at which further improvement will simply require more
>> time, no matter what resources are available.
>>
[snip]
>
>I quite like this as a way to model the Traveller conan universe, but
>again Fusion+ rears its (exceedingly) ugly head. As a unique never
>before discovered invention it pretty much has to be the result of a
>stroke of genius by one (or a few) individuals.

Not necessarily, we could say the product of scientists * years * CR to
discover Fusion plus was in the trillions, and that the Vilani Imperium and
RoM simply never made the required investment. Why? Perhaps there were
other discoveries, like Meson weaponry or alternate technologies that never
panned out, which took priority.

It is not true that a never before discovered invention must be the work of
one (or a few) individuals; both the atomic bomb and the supersonic
transport were invented for the first time by a huge team of professionals.

Nor does Fusion plus need to be a unique invention. Other planets or
civilizations (like the Hive Federation) may have discovered it
independently or it could have been based on earlier research which was
never fully developed. Note that page 86 of Milieu 0 says most of Zhunastu
Industial Laboratories' discoveries were actually based on recovered
technologies. There are all kinds of possibilities.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

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

Date: Wed, 09 Jul 97 23:18:10 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

On 07/09/97 at 07:37 AM,  Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
said:

>> You could of course put the dog on a treadmill with suitable moving imagery
>> of running rabbits or dogs of the opposite sex.

>same thing that the humans do...there HAS to be excersise space and room
>aboard starships, else people in the far future are going to be the
>flabbiest couch potatoes you've ever seen. A longish treadmill would do
>just fine ("meet George Jetson!"). 

With Traveller's gravity control you can run on the walls and ceiling too.
;->

>Or you could design your ship so as to have the staterooms interior,
>with a long corridor encircling them...instant jogging tracks.

Add a few portholes/viewscreens along the bulkheads and you've got a nice
pomminaude!  

I'm sure a ship of *any* size is going to have an exercise area/room with
treadmills and stationary exercise equipment.  

>Of course there's far more precedence for cats on board ships of any kind,

Cats are traditional for ships of all kinds, and would handle a starship as
well as they do living 24 hours a day in a house.  ;-> Small dogs should be
able to adjust too.  Big dogs would have more of a problem.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:52:00 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Hi,

I sent this to the list earlier this week, but received no replies.  I
hate to repost, but I really need to get these answers, in order to
complete a story I'm working on, and would be eternally grateful if
someone could find them for me....thanks :-)

Currently, I'm 3000 words into a traveller story that I hope to send off
to JTAS for possible inclusion there, and I was hoping that somebody on
the TML, with access to vast Traveller libraries could answer me some
questions that I've had come up.

1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?
3)  WHen did Sylea become known as Capital?
4)  What is the major city on Sylea?
5)  What are two spaceports on Sylea?
6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?
7)  What is the extent (ie. into what sectors) of the Imperium in 33?

That's all that came up till know, and I'd be enternally grateful if
some one could answer these blank spots.  Thanks!
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:20:00 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Pocket Empires

Somebody said from the soapbox...

> There is, IMNSHO, a strong favour for dictatorships amongst the
> Traveller rules. This does not mesh with reality. The USA is the
> richest nation on Earth because it is a democracy, Japan without
> democracy would be nothing but another petty asian dictatorship,
> with desperately poor people and wealthy leaders. Democracies
> encourage individuals to build wealth while protecting individuals
> from capitalism's rapaciousness. In short, dissemination. Of
> wealth, technology and ideas.

	Sad as it is, dictatorships give a head start for when you're 
building national economy from the scratch. Look at South Korea: In 
the early 50's it was just another developing nation, until people 
put a dictator (govt. A) to rule the country. Today, it's competing 
with Japan. The same development seems to be going on in most of the 
Pacific Rim countries, like Malesia (where you can get a 15-year 
prison sentence for illegal possession of a modem), and Singapore 
(where you're fined for chewing gum in public areas).

	It would seem like dictatorships send the economy soaring, human 
rights and democracy come later when Big Money is talking.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 22:28:37 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Re: Marine Uniforms

>>Back when I was running a CT game and Azhanti High Lightning had just
been
>>published, my group noticed that battle axes and two-handed swords were
>>better than guns against armour (check the game rules if you don't
believe
>>me) -- and you don't get collateral damage, either.
>>
>>Thus was born our standard boarding party: battle dress, claymores, and
wild
>>bagpipe music blasting out!
>>
>
>A double bladed battle ax in Bonded Super Dense ....  A race along the
lines
>of Tolkien's Dwarves .... Maybe there is a use for those Warhammer 40K
>minitures after all.

I've got a old dragon magazine which had in the back...."Dwarves in space"
It was a treatment of the classic DnD Dwarf as a Traveller Character race.

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:35:51 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

On 10 Jul 97 at 0:14, ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:

> Mlaakso@utu.fi wrote in response to the topic of the "3D Maximum
> Damage Rule Atrocity".... "Weapons which do more than 12 dice of
> damage... are an exception", where the heck is that ever stated in
> the T4 rules or its supplements??

	I was merely demonstrating how maximum damage is handled in other 
games. The 12d thing is from GURPS by Steve Jackson Games 
(http://www.io.com/sjgames), which I use instead of any GDW/IG 
Traveller rules. Sorry if this caused some confusion.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 01:37:45 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Uh, yeah

Ethan Henry writes:

>Still, what separates an experimental TL-12 vacc suit from a TL-13
>one and what separates an experimental TL-13 vacc suit from a TL-14
>one? Not much. It is a big wig of split hairs.

   Not really.  Because if you can produce experimental TL-12, that
implies that your current tech level is at least tech level late TL-11. 
An experimental TL-13 suit could be produced by a society late in TL-12,
which fits perfectly with the generally accepted canon (yes, I know what
Leroy et al think, including that mysterious "silent majority" that are
suppose to agree with them, but they are a minority none the less). 
Mass produced (even at low levels) TL-14 vacc suits imply that the RoM
had achieved at least low level TL-14, since we are now moving beyond
the realm of the experimental and into the realm of more mature
technology.

   I prefer to think of all this as being like the struggle to save a
historic neighborhood.  To someone who doesn't know the story behind all
these old buildings, they have no problem with somebody tearing down a
few (or as some people would like to do, rip out the whole thing and put
up some condos and a strip mall).  They can't understand why others
would care about house 'X' or store 'Y'.  But those of us who have lived
in the Traveller neighborhood all these years (and lived through all the
changes in game mechanics) see the T4 bulldozers and we get upset.  This
is not a matter of how many dice to use for task resolution, or whether
or not to use thruster plates.  The storyline is what holds everything,
everybody, in the Traveller community together.  The last thing we need
is yet one more reason to be driven apart.

>Anyways, the other poster (I forget who) who said that intact or not,
>it would be stupid to trust your life to a 1,000 year old vacc suit,
>I'd have to agree. :) Throwing high-TL items into adventures is like
>throwing in magic items - it's just a gimmick. If I wanted my players
>to find TL-14 vacc suits and rods of resurrection, I wouldn't play
>Traveller.

   I agree to an extent.  Sometimes a good red herring chase after
"magical" items gives the players some perspective. 

   In a TNE session a while back, I allowed my players to have TL 15
battledress and TL 15 fusion rifles.  They thought they had hit the
jackpot, until they remembered where they were--an amusement park. 
Fortunately they didn't get too seriously engaged into their next
firefight when they realized what they were wearing and carrying were
props and beat a hasty retreat.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 02:14:28 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: ...in answer to Harold's question...

Thomas Walter Trelenberg writes:

>Because....the TML is a forum where EVERYONE can share their ideas. 
>Reguardless of who will win "The Great RoM TL Debate", "TaskWars", or
>"Olympic fractional c rock throwing" issues, people are going to play
>and modify as they see fit.  If you desire a firm decision in the
>rules...thats fine....but as for handwaving and rationalizations on the
>TML, such things are often the springboard for possible adventure ideas.
>If only two people on the entire TML want to have a universe where Cleon
>is actually Grandfather they should be able to disscuss the idea amongst
>themselves on the TML and they should be welcome to do it.  While they
>should expect to hear other ideas to the contrary, they should not be
>asked to just "give it up".

   I have no problem with people discussing variants.  You may not have
been here for it, but I was was of those a while back who was
enthusiastically posting to a topic concerning alternative endings to
the Rebellion had Virus not been released.  This despite the fact that
I've also been one of the strongest supporters of the TNE setting.

   When an official publication starts making statements that don't jibe
with previous canon material, that's another thing altogether. 
Traveller did not make its reputation by contradicting background
material.  That's why when people go out of their way in an attempt to
present a fig leaf to cover for the apparent error, I'm left scratching
my head.

>Take Eris' posts.  He may be a canon heretic, and I may not swallow all
>he says, but by golly he comes up with some good ideas sometimes.

   That he does, but he doesn't claim to be the official voice of canon
material either.  Those that claim to be publishing official material
have the dual responsibility of making it fit with everything else and
making it entertaining.  That's why a lot of people would rather base
their own homegrown material loosely on the canon Traveller universe, or
pick an out of the way corner of the Imperium where they can develop
material that is canon but involves fewer cross checks with existing
stuff.

>This if not a flame on Harold's post (though he may have some "arrows"
>for me now) but it smells faintly of the "if it ain't the mainstream TML
>idea at the time...don't post it" metality that seems to be rearing its
>ugly head quite often these days.

   I am anything these days but mainstream.

Regards,

Harold
(aka the Canonist Heretic)

P.S. If I appear in the subject line of too many more posts, I may
develop a swelled head (hey! I heard that!).  Out 'til Saturday, I'll
catch up when I get back.

- --h

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 02:27:11 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

Jon Fuller writes:

>I'm working on a story for T:TNE, and I'd like get some opinions on a few
>questions that have been bothering me today:
>
>1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
>is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
>other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
>ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
>partly?  

   Being the target of a tractor beam lock should prevent a ship from
jumping, or at least may make a misjump more likely, IMHO.

>2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
>for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
>question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
>acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
>could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

   There should be a handful of worlds that are early TL 16.

>3) Suggest a good approximate toughness value for asteroid 'rock' material
>(using the T:TNE system).

   A question best answered by others, i.e. Dave Golden.

>4) (Again, trying not to restart a flame war (though pre-emptively donning
>the 'didn't you read the !@%#%$ FAQ?!?'-proof suit)) Does anyone think
>'Virus' would be more workable if it were really a plague of highly
>virulent nanites that hop from ship to ship and to stations and planetary
>surfaces in a kind of 'grey goo' scenario?  (As opposed to this silly bit
>of sentient software that just takes over everything magically. : P)

   As a variant, no problem, though explaining how they died out could
present a *big* problem.  Actually Virus works like a nanite in a lot of
ways (physically reconfiguring hardware), but isn't restricted to a
particular physical form.  Virus may start off as silicon but can also
be gallium arsenide, or whatever they will make computer circuits out of
in the far future.

Regards,

Harold

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 21:43:03 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear

In mail you write:

>>>What really made me laugh was the idea that someone would "test drive" a 
>>>*2000 year old* vac suit!
>>
>>   <Ding!>  We have a winner!  Someone finally pointed out the silliest
>>aspect of the whole TL 14 vacc suit debacle.  People actually trusting
>>their lives to these things!  I don't care *how* well the seals are
>>made, or how well packed everything is, it isn't going to last that
>>long!

2000 years is long enough for any semiconductor based electronics to be
worthless because the dopant atoms will have migrated across the PN
junctions. Also, any metal on metal contacts will have welded through
molecular diffusion as well. In effect *any* materials in contact for
2000 years and with a vacuum tight fit *will* "weld" into a solid piece.

And all known (and likely) flexible plastics contain volatiles. They'll
have evaporated over the centuries leaving the plastics rather brittle.

But even if the flexible parts have stayed flexible, the problems with
self-welding ought to make things interesting.

People *really* under-estimate the difficulties with long term storage
of items. Especially high tech ones.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 21:24:06 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Science in the Traveller Universe

In mail you write:

>    A misplaced decimal (I had not heard that aspect of the story) would
> not have stopped the Germans had circumstances been different--my point
> still stands, nuclear weapons are a natural development during the early
> stages of TL 6, rather than the product of one man's (or a small
> group's) genius.  
>
>    So how many kilotons (or perhaps megatons) yield would the German
> bomb have produced had it been completed?  A hundred-fold more deuterium
> would kick some serious tail....

You don't use deuterium in a fission bomb, and they wouldn't have tried
for a fusion bomb. The dueterium was for moderating a reactor. The most
popular (and safest) design for reactors uses heavy water as a
moderator. 

Building a bomb with a hundred times too much uranium wouldn't work.
You don't get that much extra "boom", and besides, the *pieces* would
be big enough to "catastrophically disassemble" on their own. 

About the time they got a "squib" explosion after getting a few kilos
of uranium too close, they'd have realized they'd goffed and gone back
and rechecked everything.

BTW, this is likely why the Germans in Turtledove's "World War" books
had their nuke project do a "China syndrome" on them. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:36:42 -0700
From: Douglas <douglas@teleport.com>
Subject: RE: Support Costs

I've always envisioned the Life Support costs to cover the consumables that 
a ship uses in the course of a trip, and as such can be pre-paid in 
advance, or stretched out to cover contingencies.  O2, the most obvious, 
can be recycled - but the scrubber chemicals and filters...ahhh!  Food can 
be bought, trapped, or recycled - but the spices, additives, purifiers and 
the like...  The costs cover minor incidental things from Band-Aids in 
sickbay to the air lock gasket preservative needed for normal maintenance.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
- -------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas R Glatz
PDG Computer Services

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
HTTP://www.teleport.com/~douglas/

Never anger a dragon, for they have found we are crunchy and go well with 
Brie...
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
- ---------------------------------------------------------

- ----------
From: 	Michael L. Galligan[SMTP:teflonkid@voyager.net]
Sent: 	Wednesday, July 09, 1997 4:32 PM
To: 	traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: 	Support Costs

So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 21:59:28 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

In mail you write:

>>As a grad student working to "get that one piece of reproducable data"
>>that will be your thesis (and will fulfill your perspectus) is not as
>>easy as knowing it must be there...so whaala...there it is.  Knowing
>>where something should be, what it should look like, what dynamics it
>>should undergo is a completely different beast from demonstrating the
>>same--even when (after the experiment is complete and you have that
>>piece of data you needed) the THEORY you were working from is 100%
>>correct.
>>
>>TT
>
> Yeah yeah i didn't say it would be easy only that it would be a hell of a
> lot easier to reproduce TL that you know will work. If a theory is 100%
> correct you do NOT need to verify it.

Except that you can't be certain what stuff worked and what was just
"We'll have this real soon now" (like the stuff about nuclear powered
cars in the 50s).

That was my point. You *aren't* going to know FOR CERTAIN what the "old
timers" could and couldn't do. You'll have fact mixed with legend
(after a few generations).

I'm assuming that the typical "fall" of civilization is a case of slow
decline. First the starships come less often, then they quit. Various
industries that depend on offworld components fail, or drop back to
something that can be supported with local tech. Exporters fail too.
This worsens the depression. By time things level out, a lot of
infrastructure has decayed beyond local capabilities of repair. 

So its not unlikely that it could be decades before they have a stable
economy, and it's likely to be several TLs lower. And when they start
working their way back up it could be a couple generations later. And
the folks that knew the "trick" to some of the "lost" tech are all dead.

And don't forget that anything depending on imported resources will go
away. Remember, if they imported balonium, then either the local
deposits were too poor to work, or they were "exhausted". That means
that the locals will have a real hard time replacing the imported
material. It could take decades to come up with a replacement or an
economical method of extraction.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:26:35 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: [none]

>From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>Subject: Re: Re: Towards common algorithms for Traveller
>Another compatibility issue: accents and diacritical marks.  Many of my
>worlds use the full range of pronunciation symbols, not just ASCII letters.
>For example: "Gen=E8se" (Gen-e accent grave-se).  How do we encode these?  =
My
>Mac manages fine, but I suspect that it uses a modified ASCII for those
>letters.  I could send you the codes, but is there an international standar=
d
>for this?

Rob:
        There is ISO-latin. There is a way to make the mac code/decode
ISO-latin... I just wish I could remember it. It is very close to the
standard "apple" fonts.

William F. Hostman	=09
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:25:03 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

Just a rebuttal (so I can save a little face):

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:14:53 -0400 (EDT), ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com wrote:

>      Then James Lindsay restates his penchant to make damage determination
> somewhat more cumbersome than what the designers for T4 wished (at least in
> spirit).

Although it would make things /slightly/ more complicated, the system
I mentioned is only necessary for PCMPs.  LAAWs already include rules
for backblasts and flamethrowers have there own special rules in EA.

> Also, let me point out to James that while lasers do pass at the
> speed of light by their very nature (light amplication at varying wavelengths
> from UV ones at TL9 to the Xray spectrum lasers at TL14) and thus their
> kinetic energy element of damage is greater than their thermal component
> (since Kinetic Energy is the product of one half the mass multiplied by the
> SQUARE of the velocity),

Wrong.  While lasers may generate detectible levels of kinetic energy,
most of the damage caused by a laser is thermal in nature.

I only agreed that lasers should be limited to a maximum of 3D of
damage because the beam focuses its damage on a small area of the
target for a *very* brief moment.  A powerful enough beam will burn a
finger-sized hole through the unfortunate victim and continue on down
range (to transmit its remaining thermal energy to other targets), all
in a blink of the eye.  Moving the weapon back and forth in an attempt
to play the beam over the target will have essentially no effect,
considering the short lifespan of the beam itself.

> the fusion and plasma based reactions fire a bolt of
> superheated plasma energy, which, though may move quite quickly, will NOT in
> anyway approach the speed of light as James suggests (c is actually 3
> km/sec).  The superheated energy is what counts (thermal) and not really a
> time dependent thing.  

Wrong again.  The speed of light is 300,000 km/sec, not 3 km/sec.  A
PCMP operates at velocities much higher than conventional firearms
(FF&S states 8,000 metres per second, or 8 km/sec).  Anything moving
that fast is not going to remain within the target long enough for the
superheated plasma to cause any significant burning-- just like paper
doesn't instantaneously ignite (454 degrees Fahrenheit) when quickly
passed over an open flame.  As a comparison, an M-16 has a muzzle
velocity approaching 1 km/sec.

>     But all this is superfluous nitpicking and a grand example of what
> happens when a poor rule is established (and it in itself is not wholly
> clear, as everyone seems to have their own interpretation) in the name of
> game balance, when it doesn't make sens, and requires great mental gymnastics
> to justify.  All the more reason to scrap this abomination for good in T4.1

Actually, T4 handles "weapon damage" a bit better than most games.  T4
describes weapons as "having X amount of penetration" and not "causing
X amount of damage".  Conventional weapons are normally judged by how
much of a particular substance that they can penetrate.  Exactly *how*
the substance handles being penetrated is specific to that substance
(ballistic gelatin goes "Glorp!", glass goes "Smash!", and bull
elephants go "Hee Hee... that tickles!").  Greg Porter's 3G3 explains
this even better.

A 7.62 NATO round focuses its kinetic energy over a relatively small
area.  Whatever it strikes is forced apart to allow the bullet to pass
through, robbing the projectile of its kinetic energy in doing so.  A
human target can only offer so much resistance to such a projectile,
hence the 3D damage limit.  Obviously, there are exceptions to this
rule, like high calibre weapons.

Lasers deliver thermal energy instead of kinetic energy, but this
energy is still focused over a relatively small area.  The beam
strikes the target and begins to vapourize matter in its path.  The
harder that material is to vapourize, the more energy is drawn out of
the laser beam.  Humans are made up of mostly water, which has a
relatively low vapourization point.  A 5,000J 5mm beam will pass right
through a human being (vapourizing tissue directly in the beam's path
while causing additional thermal damage to the surrounding tissue) and
continue on down range.

PCMPs fire very small packets of superheated plasma at extremely high
velocities.  Each plasma packet is self-containing in nature (insert
more high energy physics stuff here) and does not spread out like shot
from a shotgun would.  Since I am not a physics major by any means, I
concede that it is possible that high enough velocities might cause
the "projectile" to literally explode on contact instead of punching a
neat little hole (I believe 5,000 m/s is the threshold for this type
of ballistic behaviour, although I could be wrong).

IMHO, damaging effects that should _not_ be subject to the max 3D
damage rule are projectile weapons whose warheads rely on something
other that raw kinetic energy (high explosives, white phosphorus,
etc.) and continuing effects like acid, fire, and the like.  Beam
lasers, if they existed, would be included also, since a computerized
weapon could dice up a target pretty easily in a 6 second combat turn.

I still prefer to handle PCMPs in the way I previously described since
it doesn't involve special rules for specific circumstances.  If you
don't want to roll for three different damage types versus an
unprotected target, feel free to simply say "yer dead" (you can also
simply add up all of the dice of damage from the three damage types
and roll them all at once).  Each PCMP in EA is already listed with
penetrating damage and explosive damage.  It doesn't take much math to
halve (rounding down) the explosive value to get the "backblast"
damage (you can even write it in using a pencil).

One final thought about the point I raised earlier regarding a PCMP
plasma projectile penetrating battle dress but not being able to
penetrate it a second time (in order to pass through the target):

"PCMPs could include a variable setting that allow them to effectively
adjust the final damage rating of the weapon.  This would be done by
slowing down the escaping plasma so that it did not possess as much
kinetic energy.  An intelligent soldier, aware of the class of armour
his enemy was wearing, could adjust the muzzle velocity of the plasma
so that the amount of kinetic energy falls short of the amount needed
to penetrate the target's armour /twice/.  In this way, the soldier
could make sure that after his target's armour was initially
penetrated, all of the remaining kinetic energy was passed on to the
wearer (and not out the back of the armour and down range)."

James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 01:41:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Nazi Bombs, Jap Nukes, and Heisenberg's War

  Ah, a historical topic - what fun.  Despite what has been said on the
list, there was essentially no German nuclear program of any real size.
Regardless of calculations of the amount of fissile material needed, the
real killer for the Germans was the effort needed to separate the isotopes
of Uranium - that's a tough job, and even for the United States with lots
of money and nobody bombing the manufacturing plants, very little fissile
material was manufactured.  For example, it now appears that the entire US
stock of atomic weapons in the late 40s and early 50s was measured in the
dozens at most - hardly a big punch.

  Now, this is not to say that the threat of German atomic weapons didn't
scare the hell out of the Allies - they spent an enormous amount of time
and resources trying to find out what the Germans were up to.  During and
immediatly after the way, anybody who had worked in physics and spent the
war under Nazi control was questioned intensely.  What surprised the
Americans most was how limited the German program was and how little the
German government had done - the Germans were nowhere near designing a
bomb, let alone making one.

  As for Heisenberg and his fellow German scientists hampering the effort
to build a bomb, this is a very controversial topic.  I am not a
specialist in this field, but I do read the journals that do book reviews
on this area, and I must say there are good arguements on both sides. 
There is enough evidence to construct a case for Heisenberg, but it is not
totally convincing.  In particular, those who see Heisenburg as a commited
German patriot argue that much of what he and others say about resisting
is just talk, stuff made up after the war to defend his reputation.
Frankly, I don't know who is right.

  As for the Japanese having the atomic bomb, well, I have never seen
anything in the mainstream historical literature supporting this.  Now,
there was a rather sensational book published in the late 60s or early 70s
(I think) that claimed that not only did the Japanese have an atomic
research program in what is now North Korea (then a Japanese colony), but
that they even detonated a bomb in 1945.  According to the book, the whole
complex was shipped off by the Soviets when they occupied Korea after the
defeat of Japan.

  Frankly, I found the book very hard to believe.  Given the shape of the
Japanese economy in 1944-45, it's hard to see where the resources would
come from.  Moreover, given the extreme interest in anything related to
atomic weapons in the last 50 years by historians and popular journalists,
I find it hard to believe nobody else would have mentioned this.  I'm sure
the Japanese would have had at least a few scientists working in the area,
but a bomb program?  Probably not.  However, I am no expert in this area,
and I would be happy to learn more, so bring on the references. 

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1539
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1540



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Support Costs
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
RE: T4.1 career changes
Re: Heroes of Telemarken
Re: Aslan Education (Character Generation)
Re: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Support Costs
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
MT Interrupts: clarification?
Re: Clues to TL loss
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Updated Software

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 05:20:56 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Support Costs

>So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
>support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
>life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
>an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.

A few possibilities:

1)A ship "in the wild" is dependent upon its fuel resupply for the raw
materials that life support equipment needs. Just as the great majority
of "Jump Fuel" is not actually fuel, a "fuel purifier" does far more than
crack a little H out of H2O. The various gases, inerts, organics, etc. 
are separated out and shunted into the appropriate stores in the life-
support system. Most of the organics go into the recyclers as glop, 
or "space pudding" as it's often known. People relying upon 
wilderness "refuelling" are usually much happier w/ ocean refuelling
over gas giant skimming for that reason; the amount and quality of
organics are much higher, and often a planet w/ water oceans will
have an atmosphere much closer to human norms than that of a 
gas giant, allowing for quicker and easier LS replenishment. Why,
with this capability, do most people pay for LS  rather than just 
scoop it out of the wild? Refined "food" is like refined fuel, it's more
reliable, easier on your system than "glop", and much less hazardous
to have delivered by truck than by skimming. In addition:

(my personal favorite:)
2) A large part of the cost of LS is covered by the requirement for
Jump Drug, the generic term for those medicines and supplements 
that are necessary for life in space and particularly Jump Space.
The opening and closing of "bubbles" into J-Space, along with 
what appears to be the psionically active nature of J-Space itself, 
cause instabilities in susceptible individuals that the use of Jump
Drug blunt and negate. This is the cause of "Spacer Sickness" that
is only really seen these days in the occasional Scout who has 
spent a lot of time in the deep frontier, or in the stereotypical 
Belter one usually only sees in TriVid dramas such as BeltWatch
with its occasional "Old Prospector" who has gone looney from
years out in the belt away from Jump Drug. Recent studies by the
Ase Technology Institute (ATI) in its continuing search for the
Unified Handwave Theory have shown promising possible links
between J-Space, and the Inertialess Thrusters and Ultra Heat Sinks
used in many of today's craft; helping to explain why "Spacer
Sickness" can occur in individuals who rarely if ever actually
travel in Jump Space. (Sources at the Institute would not comment
on theories common in the popular press that the possible psionic-
active nature of J Space is evidence of it's use as a communications
device by the Ancients. "Those theories," one source stated, "are
often put forth by believers in 'Ghost Ships' run by renegade
computers who roam the space between the stars.")

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 03:29:00 -0700
From: Jeff <nblade@extremezone.com>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Here is a couple of answers that I think (key word) are correct. If there
are any correction please tell me.

>1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?

There is none that I have found in any offical or unoffical way.

>2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?

The IISS starburst I believe is yellow, as red and marroon are used for the
army and marines. I may be wrong. I do know that the IISS Service Emblem is
combination of the Starburst and the symbol for the Communications office,
which is more common site to see because the reliance on X-boat
communications.

>6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?

There is no mention of any anywhere I looked but , I would think that they
would have something like the SEH (Starburst for/of Extreme Heroism) or the
MCUF (Meritorious Conduct Under Fire). I would think that they would have
some sort of purple heart. 

>7)  What is the extent (ie. into what sectors) of the Imperium in 33?

good question. I am afraid that I have data on this question. 

I hope this has been helpful in some small way



Jeff Brissette
nblade@firstinter.net
http://www.firstinter.net/nblade/
 

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 03:30:18 -0700
From: Eric Nolan <ericno@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: RE: T4.1 career changes

I also am in favour of allowing career changes in T4.1, it does seem an
integral part of Traveller character generation.  I would however like
to know Marc's reasoning for removing it.  Perhaps if we knew what
effect he was trying to create or prevent we could come up with a good
solution.

My personal guess is that this new development is to stop people
generating characters who have had three or four completely different
careers.  It makes the characters seem unstable and flighty (only IMHO
of course), if everyone engages in career hopping it makes the system
seems a bit unlike reality, if only the occasional character does it
everything is fine.  Furthermore it is not in character for Vilani to be
so flighty and it even make Solomani seem unreliable.

It is probably not necessary to prevent people from changing career, but
merely to discourage them.  There are two ways to do this.  Make staying
in your current career more attractive and make changing career less
attractive/more difficult.

Suggestions -

To encourage characters to remain in career.  Mustering out benefits do
not apply for the first full term, only second and subsequent terms.
This means that to get any benefits you have to stay at least two terms.
For an eight term character who has had three different careers, this
would mean they lose almost half their mustering out benefits.
This is obviously quite a flexible mechanism, if you want greater
encouragement to stay 'in career', increase the effect to no benefits
for the first two terms, perhaps in combination with an improvement in
the results on the benefits table.  Perhaps you want to accumulate
positive DM to the benefits roll for the number of terms in service (+1
for the first roll, +2 for the second roll).

As a small aside, I'm uncertain if the rules indicate that you have to
quit your current job before trying to enlist in the next, but a lot of
people seem to think you do.  This does not seem realistic to me.  If I
want to blow off my job pushing a stylus on the merchantman Extreme
Boredom and take up the life of adventure that the Imperial Navy offers
I might just wait until I get accepted before giving my ex-boss the
finger.
Assuming this then one way to make career hopping less likely is to only
allow one enlistment attempt per term for characters currently in
employment. The unemployed (either because they actually quit or because
of injury) can try every six months.


Anbody got any other suggestions?

Eric.


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk [SMTP:aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk]
> Sent:	Wednesday, July 09, 1997 7:02 PM
> To:	traveller@MPGN.COM
> Subject:	Re: T4.1 career changes
> 
> In-Reply-To: <l03020903afe82f3b3d48@[194.119.133.205]>
> 
> SD,
> 
> > Career changes were one of the T2300 things I liked in T4, lots.
> However, I
> > can just improvise id you don't put them in. I mean, that's what I
> did in
> > MT.
> 
> Apply a -DM (=no. terms served?) to the enlistment roll of the new
> career if 
> you want to change jobs (why would the Navy want an ex-insurance
> salesman?). 
> If you fail, spend a year (or maybe just 2d months?) unemployed, then
> try 
> again (a waiver can be used to avoid this).
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
>  "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 12:21:35 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Heroes of Telemarken

At 12:58 09/07/97 -0400, Paul D. Owensby wrote:
>I've recently been combing through all my back issues of Dwarf and Dragon
>magazines and reusing a BUNCH of stuff on my latest group that hasn't seen
>the light of day in 10+ years. Man, what a good magazine! Every issue 
>jammed with great stuff for Traveller, D&D, Cthulhu, Runequest, Judge
>Dredd, what have you. I've got them all from #32 up to #115, when they 
>finally admitted that they would no longer have any articles on any game
>except Warhammer and Warhammer40K. A great magazine until GW
>decided they wanted to be the T$R of the east side of the pond.
>
>I wonder who I'd need to contact about getting permission to post some of
>that stuff up on a web page? Too much wonderful stuff to let it just fade 
>away...
>
	Yeah, me too with this. I've got the first 24 issues of White Dwarf, and
they have lots of good Traveller stuff too. Things like the Light Sabre for
Nobles and the adventure "An Alien Werewolf in London" would be well worth
giving a new lease of life to.

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 15:13:47 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Aslan Education (Character Generation)

- -> How do Aslan get educated? Are there schools? Does their family train them?
- -> Their clan?
- -> 
- -> Within the universe of all Aslan, how do they do it.
Have a look at Solomani and Aslan by DGP (soon to be 
reprinted???withering hope). It details the life of a regular Vargr 
very well. Don't have it here or i would give more details, but it's 
all in there. Don't forget Male and Female Aslan have entirely 
differnet ways to be educated and learn things the other gender WILL 
NOT learn!


Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

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

Date: 10 Jul 1997 13:29:18 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

Before you spend a lot of time writing spreadsheets, I should mention that I
have three of the sheets that you were thinking of writing:

1) generates systems (as per CT Book 6 Scouts)

2) expands systems (as per MT World Builders Handbook)

3) generates animal encounter tables (as per MT rulebook)

All are written for Excel 4.0, but will probably work in 3.0 as well (at
least, a HIWGer retrofitted them once, but I don't know how much work it took
him).

I would be happy to upload them to an accessible site.  (My school's site is
getting a bit too full for these files.)  Any takers?

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:23:38 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

James Lindsay wrote:

> Lasers deliver thermal energy instead of kinetic energy, but this
> energy is still focused over a relatively small area.  The beam
> strikes the target and begins to vapourize matter in its path.  The
> harder that material is to vapourize, the more energy is drawn out of
> the laser beam.  Humans are made up of mostly water, which has a
> relatively low vapourization point.  A 5,000J 5mm beam will pass right
> through a human being (vapourizing tissue directly in the beam's path
> while causing additional thermal damage to the surrounding tissue) and
> continue on down range.

There is a problem here - vapourised human is mostly steam, which is 
relatively opaque to most wavelengths, so the laser pulse would be 
adsorbed and dispersed by the steam it had just created. Making a 
hole is also make harder by the velocity of a laser pulse, which is 
over long before the vapourised piece of the poor target has any 
chance to move aside.

 I suspect that laser induced wounds would 
consist of deep pocks blown out of the target, and surrounded by 
burnt and pulversed flesh. High energy lasers would also cause 
explosive tissue damage from the expansion of superheated steam.

X-Ray lasers would do damage in a beam right through the target, and 
I wouldn't want to be behind the target, because a lot of the 
energy's just going to keep going... 
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 07:42:28 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Support Costs

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Michael L. Galligan wrote:

> So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
> support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
> life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
> an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.
> 

That may be because we haven't yet figured out how to break it to you and
your players that they are now probably starring in the far future version
of 'Galligan's Island'. 

Life support mechanisms in Traveller for starships aren't simply a matter
of loading a bunch of fresh food into the fridge, topping off thei air
tanks and taking off. Starships have things like adsorption cartriges for
waste products, which are going to be really hard to deal with. I suspect
they're disposable, and thus very hard, or impossible to regenerate.

Imagine an activated charcoal canister made of plastic. Regenerating
activated charcoal is relatively simple...you heat it and purge it with
something inert like nitrogen for a time to flush out adsorbed materials.
But if heating it melts the casing, which is critical to a good seal in
the life support system, you start to see the problem.

Basically for life support you need to provide air, water, temperature
control and, to a lesser extent, food for a minimum of two weeks.

Temperature's easy, as is water (in fact water won't be a problem that
way...it'll be a problem in the other way...there'll be too much of it!).
Air is another thing entirely. It's not enough to simply provide oxygen;
you have to dispose of the CO2 (mainly) that humans generate. In normal
space this is easy...you simply vent atmosphere continuously, provided you
gan generate enough oxygen. That part is simple given electric power and
water. In jump space you can't vent it.

Humans also generate water as a byproduct of metabolism. This cranks the
humidity. This plays hob with the electronics aboard a starship, not a
good thing. More than likely, a dehumidifier is a permanent built in part
of the ship's ventilation system, so that's not a big problem, as long as
you have power.

What I would do in this situation is see if we can rig up, or use a
respirator that feeds O2 and regulates how much of the 'outside' air you
breathe for each person on board ship. The regulator is the tricky part,
because as CO2 levels rise in the ship, less outside air can be allowed
in.

This will be a good thing...because after two weeks of this the air is
going to stink, really bad. 

For a good example of what this will be like for the PC's, read up on
running deep in WWI and WWII submarines.

Finaly, a wild card...There are probably toxic gases and other products
given off by starship machinery under the best of conditions that need
adsorbtion. Under conditions where they're not being adsorbed, and neither
are the various trace organics that humans give off, there will be ample
opportunity for all sorts of compunds to be sysnthesized in the atmosphere
of the ship. Energy sources abound: lights, hot surfaces, electric arcs.
You could end up with an interesting 'soup' for an atmosphere.

All this organic matter floating around, coupled with bad or missing air
filters means molds. They can bring an even more interesting bit to the
party...what if your players start inhaling molds related to, ohhh, say,
rye musts. You know, the ones that produce ergotamine. heh heh heh. To
coin a phrase...what a long strange trip it'll be.

And whatever you do, don't let the PC's eat beans!! ;-)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:45:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

We seem to have gone from a discussion, to a discussion
about the discussion, but that's OK...

Harold Hale writes:
> Ethan Henry writes:
> >Still, what separates an experimental TL-12 vacc suit from a TL-13
> >one and what separates an experimental TL-13 vacc suit from a TL-14
> >one? Not much. It is a big wig of split hairs.
> 
>    Not really.  Because if you can produce experimental TL-12, that
> implies that your current tech level is at least tech level late TL-11. 
> An experimental TL-13 suit could be produced by a society late in TL-12,
> which fits perfectly with the generally accepted canon

Why? I'm talking specifically about vacc suits. Why does having
a TL-14 vacc suit depend on having Jump-4? My point is that TL is largely
defined by what level of Jump a given society/culture/empire has reached,
which really makes no comment whatsoever on how advanced their vacc suits
are.

I don't remember seeing anywhere in the "Traveller Canon", of which I consider
myself a student, that says "a planet/empire/whatever may not have 
any items more than one level above their current TL". As a matter of fact,
the MT WBH states the exact opposite. According to the WBH, a planet may
have a specific niche where the niche TL is up to two (maybe more, I don't have
my WBH handy) levels higher than the planet's "overall" TL.

This is my basic argument - The RoM was, overall, TL-12. I don't debate
that. it is possible, however, even if it didn't necessarily happen,
that some planets/systems/mega-corps/naval research labs/etc could
have gotten up to TL-13 or 14 in very narrow fields, like the vacc suit.

You asked before why I'm trying so hard to justify what's generally considered
an error or simply sloppy writing in that the adventure in Anomolies
contains a TL-14 vacc suit, which disrupts "canon". I'm not really
trying to justify or defend that. I think that it was a bad idea
to put that sort of thing in a published adventure, not to mention
unrealistic, as nothing would be likely to be workable after all that
time (but who knows).

I do think, however, that in general it's conceivable that the RoM
could have built a few Tl-13 or 14 vacc suits in its day. I think a
more realistic adventure hook would be for the players to track down
semi-functional or broken artifacts, to be sold to people who could
analyze them (and hey, maybe they'd work a little bit, kinda, sometimes...)
and turn a profit. Apparently somewhere in T4 (I don't know where,
but someone else here mentioned it) it states that a number of 
Zunhastu "new inventions" are based on recovered technology. Who's to say
that there isn't a plan for a TL-22 vacc suit, sitting on a desk in a
blow-out lab on some tiny vacuum world, finished only moments before
the airlock blew out when a ship full of nasty ol' pirates came
crashing in, looking for loot?

Besides, worse things have happened in "canon". The adventure in the Droyne
module featured a psionic disentegrator gun. "Nail Mission" had 
TL-16 spinal mount disentegrators. If anything, the adventure in Anomolies
suffers from being unoriginal (sorry, Steve) more than being canon-breaking.

> (yes, I know what
> Leroy et al think, including that mysterious "silent majority" that are
> suppose to agree with them, but they are a minority none the less). 

I don't understand what this means.

> Mass produced (even at low levels) TL-14 vacc suits imply that the RoM
> had achieved at least low level TL-14, since we are now moving beyond
> the realm of the experimental and into the realm of more mature
> technology.

Well, sure. I never said they were "mass-produced" though. And again,
I don't see how having even mass-produced TL-14 vacc suits is dependent
on having Jump-5 and other TL-14 technologies.

>    I prefer to think of all this as being like the struggle to save a
> historic neighborhood.  To someone who doesn't know the story behind all
> these old buildings, they have no problem with somebody tearing down a
> few (or as some people would like to do, rip out the whole thing and put
> up some condos and a strip mall).  They can't understand why others
> would care about house 'X' or store 'Y'.  But those of us who have lived
> in the Traveller neighborhood all these years (and lived through all the
> changes in game mechanics) see the T4 bulldozers and we get upset.  This
> is not a matter of how many dice to use for task resolution, or whether
> or not to use thruster plates.  The storyline is what holds everything,
> everybody, in the Traveller community together.  The last thing we need
> is yet one more reason to be driven apart.

Harold, I understand your feelings. I too have been playing Traveller
for a long time. I have no desire to drive anyone apart. I do think
that the Traveller universe is a big place, with a lot of possibilities
to justify a lot of seemingly strange things. As much as I lament it,
over time more and more conflicts are going to creep into the "canon".
FF&S has no provision for solar-powered jump drives, jump torpedoes
or any of the other strange things that have popped up in adventures
over the years. It's not the end of the world.

I look at the whole TL-14 vacc suit thing as a point-of-view thing
more than anything. Remember when Rats&Cats appeared (well, actually, I don't,
but I own a copy now) and it changed the Aslan from a major race to a
minor race? Well, it did kind of. It depends on who you ask. Do the
vacc suits in Anomolies have "TL-14" stitched on the left shoulder?
Who says they're TL-14? What exactly separates a TL-14 vacc suit
from a TL-12 or 13 one, specifically?? (Please, don't just repeat that
it needs a TL-whatever manufacturing base - what are the physical
differences between two suits of different TLs?) Do you actually have 
the players, in character, walk around saying that this hand blender
is TL-6 versus that TL-8 one? I doubt that anything less than a 
long inspection by some with Vacc Suit-3+ would be able to even
tell that a vacc suit is really TL 14 as opposed to TL 12.

Personally, while I don't like disturbing "canon", that's what's
kept Traveller fresh and new over its long life, when it's been
done well. (Not all "canon bashing" is good by any means).

Like it or not Harold, the neighbourhood has to get re-paved and get
new sidewalks once in a while. Shops come and go. Change doesn't
only mean bad change, there's a lot of good change too.

> >Anyways, the other poster (I forget who) who said that intact or not,
> >it would be stupid to trust your life to a 1,000 year old vacc suit,
> >I'd have to agree. :) Throwing high-TL items into adventures is like
> >throwing in magic items - it's just a gimmick. If I wanted my players
> >to find TL-14 vacc suits and rods of resurrection, I wouldn't play
> >Traveller.
> 
>    I agree to an extent.  Sometimes a good red herring chase after
> "magical" items gives the players some perspective. 
> 
>    In a TNE session a while back, I allowed my players to have TL 15
> battledress and TL 15 fusion rifles.  They thought they had hit the
> jackpot, until they remembered where they were--an amusement park. 
> Fortunately they didn't get too seriously engaged into their next
> firefight when they realized what they were wearing and carrying were
> props and beat a hasty retreat.

Heh. I think you and I are on the same wavelenght in some spots at
least. Eeeeeeeee-vil.

In another message, Harold wrote:
>    When an official publication starts making statements that don't jibe
> with previous canon material, that's another thing altogether. 
> Traveller did not make its reputation by contradicting background
> material.  That's why when people go out of their way in an attempt to
> present a fig leaf to cover for the apparent error, I'm left scratching
> my head.

I don't see my position as attempting to "present a fig leaf to cover
for the apparent error". I see the "apparent error" as a springboard
to look further into the structure of the RoM and to toy with player's
minds when they discover the TL-14 vacc suit isn't quite so self-sealing
as it was a few thousand years ago...

>    I am anything these days but mainstream.

Harold Hale, "In a Metal Mood", coming to finer record shops everywhere.
(Or maybe "In a Canon Mood" would be better...) ;)

> P.S. If I appear in the subject line of too many more posts, I may
> develop a swelled head (hey! I heard that!).  Out 'til Saturday, I'll
> catch up when I get back.

Heh, swell away, head-boy.

> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
> Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
> 
> 2000 years is long enough for any semiconductor based electronics to be
> worthless because the dopant atoms will have migrated across the PN
> junctions. Also, any metal on metal contacts will have welded through
> molecular diffusion as well. In effect *any* materials in contact for
> 2000 years and with a vacuum tight fit *will* "weld" into a solid piece.
> etc, etc

Didn't someone write an article on how Traveller technology must
be semi-self repairing in order for bizzare "canon" statements like
having ancient machinery in nearly perfect working order to be true?

Anyways, maybe that's the miracle of TL-12+, Though, I should be
quick to say, it is by no means canon, nor is it very "hard" science.


Ethan, clipping the whole digest this time

- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:55:02 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: MT Interrupts: clarification?

One of my MT players asked me a very good question, which I couldn't 
answer. In the MT combat rules, one of the restrictions on interrupts
is:

7 only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
  enemy movement

Now, since each "side" in a combat is permitted only one interrupt
per combat round, isn't the above restriction redundant? How can a 
person be interrupted twice in a round, moving or not?

Can some kind soul out there explain the reasoning behind this
restriction to me?

Thanks
Erwin

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:06:48 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> 
> And don't forget that anything depending on imported resources will go
> away. Remember, if they imported balonium, then either the local
> deposits were too poor to work, or they were "exhausted". That means
> that the locals will have a real hard time replacing the imported
> material. It could take decades to come up with a replacement or an
> economical method of extraction.

Also, most of the planets in question have been high tech for _millenia_
by now. Easily worked deposits of ores and metals are flat out _gone_.
Probably as 'early' as the end of the Ziru Sirrka, most medium to large
population planets in Vilani space had been mined out long ago. Without a
source of metals, you ain't gonna rebuild squat, folks, not if your TL
ever goes below 5 or 6 or so, the raw materials of that high tech society
are simply not available.

I'm including recovering and recycling old waste piles in mining, as well.
Any metals left on these planets are in extremely low grade ores or deep
in the core.  

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 01:17:14 +1000 (EST)
From: David Jaques-Watson <davidjw@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Dear Folks -

In digest 1539, Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net> asked:

>1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
My "little black books" don't mention a motto. Make one up, in accordance
with the prime mission of the IISS: the expansion of the empire.

>2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?
a. Red. b. Presumably at the Imperium's foundation. The original banner was
"golden yellow sunburst against a black background, representing Capital's
type G star against dark space". This was changed to have "no official
colour" when the Eliyoh (a nonhuman minor race) joined the Imperium, but the
services retained their variant colours. [MT-PLAYERS, 1120]

>3)  WHen did Sylea become known as Capital?
"Capital was originally called Sylea, but its name was changed upon the
founding of the Third Imperium".[ADV-2, 1106; ADV-3, 1106; SUPP-8, 1107]

>4)  What is the major city on Sylea?
In 1104, the major cities are:
        Benca   c. 6 billion, class A starport
        Cleon   c. 4 billion, class A starport (Cleon Starport)
        Mifa Lanco      c 3 billion, class A starport
        Turthu  c. 9 billion, class B starport
        Ton Vorn        c. 5 billion, class A starport (orbital complex)
I would assume that Cleon was originally called something else.
Interestingly, it may not ever have been the biggest city. Maybe the
nobility lived here, and their larger dwellings made the city less populated.
The Imperial Palace and Moot Spire are located in Cleon. The original palace
"was begun in -7 and completed in -5 under the direction of Cleon I, the
founder of the Third Imperium. Like many similar structures of the time it
served not only as a home for the Imperial Family, but also as a military
fortress. Like a young mountain range, the palace was a collection of slopes
and angled surfaces jutting sharply into the sky. The complex had few
entrances, all of which were very low to the ground and, like much of the
building, covered with upward-pointing spikes. This shocking architecture
served the very basic purpose of making it difficult for attacking
grav-troopers to obtain entrance or even to find a safe perch." It still
stands in the Imperial Park as a tourist monument.[DIGEST-9, 1116]

>5)  What are two spaceports on Sylea?
See question 4, then make it up. The text accompanying the pic of Sylea's
orbital port indicates that only one starport exists in Mileau 0. Maybe one
or two spaceports exist as noble's playthings or private 'ports.

>6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?
_Scouts and Assassins_ suggests the following:
The "official" uniform of the Scouts is a dull black coverall made from
finely-woven ballistic cloth, black knee-high leather boots, a black cap,
and the insignia. The insignia is a stylised, silver, winged serpent on a
circular background. The colour of the circle denotes the pay grade. It is
worn as a patch on the left shoulder and as a belt buckle, which serves as
an ID using micro-circuitry. The insignia is also worn by "retired" Scouts.

_S&A_ also suggests that wounded Scouts receive the Silver Asteroid (SA),
that carries a monthly stipend of Cr200 - but you must pick up the money
from a Scout base each month, or lose it... causing the award to become
known as the "Tin Hemmorrhoid".

Then again, _S&A_ Scouts receive awards: the Citation for Meritorious
Conduct (CMC, Silver Comet for Gallantry (SCG), and Silver Starburst for
Exemplary Service (SSES) as well. These are equivalent to the MCUF, MCG, and
SEH.

>7)  What is the extent (ie. into what sectors) of the Imperium in 33?

21      Cleon II born
33      ?
50      Zho contact with Imperial traders
53      Cleon I dies, Cleon II ascends throne
54      Cleon II abdicates in favour of Artemsus Lentuli
60      Spinward Marches colonised
76      Pacification Campaigns
175     Julian War
c.200   Imperium expands towards Aslan territory in Reaver's Deep
220     Vargr Campaigns
380     Peace of Ftahalr ends Aslan Border Wars, establishes Imperial-Aslan
border
[MT-ENCYC, 1116]

Based on this and the hints in Mileau 0, make an educated guess.
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)                         davidjw@pcug.org.au
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 11:34:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Updated Software

In a message dated 97-07-10 09:59:43 EDT, you write:

<< 
 4) I haven't implemented T4 animal encounter tables yet.  If someone wants
to
 email me _official correct_ rules (no errata for this in the IG site, in
 spite of my mailing them corrections last year) I can implement it.  
 
  >>
don't until you see my rules.

Marc

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1540
***********************************

Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1541



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Terrain (was Software)
Re: T:TNE questions
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Japanese Nukes
Re: T:TNE questions
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)
Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 11:32:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Terrain (was Software)

In a message dated 97-07-10 09:59:43 EDT, you write:

<< 
 3) World mapping is still rather incomplete.  I'm been partly waiting until
I
 get the icon problem fixed, because if I have to rewrite the display code
 then I'll also have to rewrite this code, and I have rewriting stuff.
 
  >>
Next on my list (we ll, maybe not absolutely next) is defining terrain hex
icons and what they mean for world mapping. I'd love to have a conversation /
thread about this.

Marc

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 09:41:35 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions

Jon Fuller wrote:

>I'm working on a story for T:TNE, and I'd like get some opinions on a few
>questions that have been bothering me today:
>
>1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
>is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
>other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
>ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
>partly?

That's an interesting question. That depends on what you subscribe to as
"canon."

Pre-TNE canon indicates that starships had a lanthanum grid over their
entire hulls that enabled ships to enter jump space. The material contained
within the grid was the material that was placed into jump space.

Though IIRC, TNE never printed anything that indicated as much, I once had
a phone conversation with Dave Nilsen at GDW in which he described some
changes to the theories of jump drive that are worth discussion:

1) That instead of the grid dictating what gets taken into jump, the
astrogator dictates what is included in the jump envelope. Therefore, if
say, a 600-ton ship tractors in a 200-ton ship and latches onto it, the
600-ton ship can then program a jump envelope that includes *both* ships.
The jump must be calculated based on the combined volume of the two ships,
however. Therefore, using the 600-ton ship's jump drive, the maximum
allowable jump would be based on the idea that the two conjoined starships
comprised an "800-ton ship."

Now, this was never printed, so for all intensive purposes, it ain't canon.
Therefore, if you want to stick with canon, lanthanum grids are still in
existence. By extrapolation of these ideas, however, you could have the
600-ton ship sync up with the computers of the 200-ton ship after the two
have been physically attached and make the 600-ton ship activate *both*
ships' jump drives simultaneously, thereby activating both lanthanum grids
at the same time and then jumping together.

Basically, the "jump envelope" theory gives you more freedom since you jump
a selected volume of material that includes your starship. In any event, it
seems you have to be quite close to the captured ship or other object
(meteorite, satellite, or whatever) that you want to take with you.

2) While Dave's other theory is less germaine to this discussion, it's
worth mentioning. He also said that based on the facing of the jumping
ship, another ship either in visual range or with a sensor lock on the
jumping ship, could determine approximately *where* the jumping ship is
going. For example, my ship has a sensor lock on a ship in Usani system
that is making a jump to Deneb system. Based on the facing and other
characteristics of that ship, I can determine that the ship is jumping to
Deneb. I would suggest that a difficult Astrogation roll is made or some
other method is used to make this determination, however.

>2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
>for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
>question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
>acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
>could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

Having roleplayed MegaTraveller in Massilia and Diaspora sectors, I can say
that there were a *lot* of TL-16 worlds out there. TL-15 would have been
more the norm for top-of-the-line Imperial Navy ships, but yes, there would
have been a fair number of TL-16 ships out there, many of which could have
tractor beams or manipulators.

>3) Suggest a good approximate toughness value for asteroid 'rock' material
>(using the T:TNE system).

This hasn't come up for me, but I would take out my old CT "Fighting Ships"
supplement, take a look at the relative toughness of the asteroid hull
described therein compared with a typical navy ship in the same book and
determine the toughness from comparing the two.

>4) (Again, trying not to restart a flame war (though pre-emptively donning
>the 'didn't you read the !@%#%$ FAQ?!?'-proof suit)) Does anyone think
>'Virus' would be more workable if it were really a plague of highly
>virulent nanites that hop from ship to ship and to stations and planetary
>surfaces in a kind of 'grey goo' scenario?  (As opposed to this silly bit
>of sentient software that just takes over everything magically. : P)

Not a bad idea, but I'm content with Virus the way it is, so I'm probably
not the one to ask.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:05:52 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

At 03:29 AM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:

>>2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?
>
>The IISS starburst I believe is yellow, as red and marroon are used for the
>army and marines. I may be wrong. I do know that the IISS Service Emblem is
>combination of the Starburst and the symbol for the Communications office,
>which is more common site to see because the reliance on X-boat
>communications.

The Navy uses a yellow sunburst.  The IISS sunburst is red, and the Army is
black on a red field.  The different colors for branch sunbursts came in
after 247, when it was declared that the symbol, not the color, mattered.

The "poni express" symbol wasn't adopted until the X-boat network was
started in 624.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:05:09 -0700
From: scharlto@ifsna.com
Subject: Japanese Nukes

Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> wrote:
As for the Japanese having the atomic bomb, well, I have never seen
anything in the mainstream historical literature supporting this.  Now,
there was a rather sensational book published in the late 60s or early 70s
(I think) that claimed that not only did the Japanese have an atomic
research program in what is now North Korea (then a Japanese colony), but
that they even detonated a bomb in 1945.  According to the book, the whole
complex was shipped off by the Soviets when they occupied Korea after the
defeat of Japan.
- -----------------------------------------------------------

  About three years ago there was an article in Military History magazine
which discussed the Japanese atomic program.  As I recall, the article
stated that the Japanese scientists had a fairly solid theoretical
background for the bomb, but the program was badly underequipped,
understaffed and underfunded, and was unable to produce much in terms of
solid nuclear material or prototypes.  The program was more or less halted
in early 1945; one of the scientists interviewed talked about his reaction
upon hearing about Hiroshima.  He was apparently one of the few people in
Japan who actually understood what had happened.  I recall the article had
a small sidebar about the German nuclear program, which mentioned the
Heisenberg sabotage claim; the Germans got a bit further with producing
nuclear material, but they were also effectively out of resources by late
1944.

  I'l  root around in my magazine collection, but I don't think I have the
issue any more.  I'm fairly sure it was from 1994 or 1995 (maybe on the
50th anniversary of Hiroshima?).

Steven Charlton

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:34:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions

> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 23:58:56 -0400
> From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@mail.geocities.com>
> 
> I'm working on a story for T:TNE, and I'd like get some opinions on a few
> questions that have been bothering me today:
> 
> 1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
> is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
> other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
> ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
> partly?  

No, it won't get dragged at all, unless they're almost (or actually) in
physical contact with one another; in that case, the jumping ship will
almost certainly misjump (being within 10 diameters of the other ship),
and the 'towed' ship might very convceivably lose a chunk of its hull and
perhaps some internal fittings, sliced away into jump by the first ship's
jump bubble.

Note that if the towed ship is both in contact with the towing ship, *and*
very, very much smaller than the towing ship, this might conceivably work
OK as a sort of impromptu 'carried craft in a grapple' trick.

> 2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
> for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
> question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
> acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
> could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

There were several TL 16 worlds in and near the late 3I.  No TL 16
equipment had become a standard part of Imperial government-operated
starships, however, so the towing ship would have to be a prototype, or of
private manufacture. 

> 3) Suggest a good approximate toughness value for asteroid 'rock' material
> (using the T:TNE system).

My copy of FFS is at home, so I can't give you a number, but I'd suggest
that a nickel-iron asteroid would have toughness rougly 1/5 to 1/2 that of
steel.

> 4) (Again, trying not to restart a flame war (though pre-emptively donning
> the 'didn't you read the !@%#%$ FAQ?!?'-proof suit)) Does anyone think
> 'Virus' would be more workable if it were really a plague of highly
> virulent nanites that hop from ship to ship and to stations and planetary
> surfaces in a kind of 'grey goo' scenario?  (As opposed to this silly bit
> of sentient software that just takes over everything magically. : P)

*WARNING, DANGER, HIGH FLAMEWAR HAZARD*

This would make more sense from a raw plausibility perspective, certainly;
however, it would violate TNE canon history as to documented Virus
propagation methods.  Whether you're willing to toss some canon to gain
credibility is a question for you and your campaign.

There, was that value-neutral enough? :)

BTW, different topic, would anyone on the list be interested in an M:1200
world writeup, or is everyone focussed on M:0? 

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:56:18 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, David Jaques-Watson wrote:

> Dear Folks -
> 
> In digest 1539, Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net> asked:
> 
> >1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
> My "little black books" don't mention a motto. Make one up, in accordance
> with the prime mission of the IISS: the expansion of the empire.

My personal nomination is:

<send> illigitimi ad astra per apsera

Sorry, my latin sucks, but the feeling I want to get is "Sending the poor
bastards to the stars the hard way"; an apt way to describe most Scout
characters I've known and played.

Ok, Ok, it's probably not the OFFICIAL motto, but it probably IS the most
printable of the UNofficial ones ;-)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:52:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:14:53 -0400 (EDT)
> From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
>
>      Then James Lindsay restates his penchant to make damage determination
> somewhat more cumbersome than what the designers for T4 wished (at least in
> spirit).  Also, let me point out to James that while lasers do pass at the
> speed of light by their very nature (light amplication at varying wavelengths
> from UV ones at TL9 to the Xray spectrum lasers at TL14) and thus their
> kinetic energy element of damage is greater than their thermal component
> (since Kinetic Energy is the product of one half the mass multiplied by the
> SQUARE of the velocity),

KE = 0.5mv^2 does not work for photons; the m in that equation is rest
mass, which is zero for photons.  A photon's energy is given by E = h nu,
where h is Planck's constant and nu is the photon's frequency.

If you're claiming that lasers do damage by directly apply kinetic energy
to the target (in the way bullets do), you're *very* wrong.  The KE
transfer from laser energy itself is miniscule for any reasonably sized
weapon laser.  Lasers do damage by superheating their target point, which
flashes explosively to vapor, damaging surrounding armor, tissue, or
whatever.  This explosion may in turn have a noticeable rocket effect,
blowing the target backward, but that's an indirect rather than a direct
effect of the laser.

> the fusion and plasma based reactions fire a bolt of
> superheated plasma energy, which, though may move quite quickly, will NOT in
> anyway approach the speed of light as James suggests (c is actually 3
> km/sec).

Wow, and I thought *I* was slowing down lately. :)  That figure is low by
a factor of 100,000 -- c = 3e8 m/s = 3e5 km/s.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 11:02:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

> Date: Wed, 09 Jul 97 23:18:10 -0500
> From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
> 
> I'm sure a ship of *any* size is going to have an exercise area/room with
> treadmills and stationary exercise equipment.  

Absolutely.  And it's surprising how much such equipment you can fit into
a tiny space, with ingenuity.  One of those multi-exercise Nautilus
machines gives a good example of how many different ways you can use one
smallish steel frame with a few pads, levers, weights, and pulleys.

> >Of course there's far more precedence for cats on board ships of any kind,
> 
> Cats are traditional for ships of all kinds, and would handle a starship as
> well as they do living 24 hours a day in a house.  ;-> Small dogs should be
> able to adjust too.  Big dogs would have more of a problem.

Cats became traditional aboard ship partly in order to keep rat and mouse
populations under control -- a role which they (or a small dog, say a
terrier or the like) could also be valuable performing aboard a starship.
You'd have to worry about their dying from eating a poisonous alien pest,
though.

BTW, the movie _Crimson Tide_ (which I recommend, btw) features a small
(and highly obnoxious) dog aboard a US missile submarine; while boomers
are bigger by far than the typical PC group's ship, it does provide a nice
illustration of what having a dog aboard ship would be like.

There's also a 1950s (or maybe 60s?) SF story called "Allamagoosa" which
prominently features a dog aboard a naval starship, used specifically for
pest control.  I *think* Frederic Brown wrote it, but that's a bit hazy in
my memory.  In any case, it's a great story, and a good humorous adventure
idea for in-service navy campaigns. 

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:26:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)

Mr. Eneri Laparkikumiin wrote:
> I have been listening to comments on the Tech Level of the Ramshackle
> Empire with some interest. Although I have the greatest of respect for
> my Solomani colleagues, I must point out some of the growing
> misconceptions offered in recent email, regarding the power structure
> and decision making protocols of the Vilani people.

Well, Eneri, if I may use your first name, I'd like to thank you 
for the intelligent and very reasoned response to some of my
previous statements. (Rob, who let a Vilani on this list!!! Don't
you screen subscribe requests??? Sheesh.)

> It is the Solomani bias which labels Vilani management "stagnant" and
> "top-down" in authority. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
> opinion of each member of a Vilani corporate entity carries equal
> weight, regardless of seniority. The viewpoints and opinions of the
> lowliest apprentice are heard, and that opinion is judged on its own
> merit. The Vilani management style is consensus-driven, not mandated
> from "on-high".

I will discuss this at the end of this post.

> I must take offence at the first poster's generalization of the Vilani
> as having a "top-down, do-it-my-way-and-don't-screw-around" power
> structure. It is the pervasive Solomani bias towards individual power
> and authority which colours this poster's perception. Each person is
> encouraged to submit his or her own opinions regarding the
> implementation of corporate goals. No Vilani would ever say "do it my
> way!"

Apologies, as I had no desire to offen you or any other of the
members of this list.
 
> Thank you for this opportunity to discuss our culture and management
> style. I hope that dialogue continues in future, with the goal of a more
> intimate understanding of each of our people's culture.

Well, I am not much of a student of Vilani culture, but I have read
a few works that most Solomani consider seminal in the field. To
better describe the exact type of mentality seen among the Vilani that
I am attempting to describe, let me quote from "A Lieutenant's Diary 
- - a Journal by Lajos Henry", a somewhat distant (future) relative 
of mine.

I will sum up some of the beginning of the book to bring readers
who aren't familiar with this work up to speed, then I will quote
what I feel are relevant passages.

Lajos Henry was an ambitious lieutenant with the Terran Navy during
the period of the Nth Interstellar Wars. He turned 24 within days
of the Vilani High Command's formal surrender to Admiral Hiroshi
Estigarribia.

After the Vilani surrender, Terran officers were dispatched to every 
corner of the Ziru Sirka, to administer the hand-over of power to
the Terrans. Please, keep in mind that at this point, the Vilani
have ruled their interstellar empire for thousands of years, while
the Terrans have only had jump drive for 400 years. Many mistakes
were made...

from p.95:
"As we came out of jump, I was edgy and nervous. I could hardly
even sit still. I paced the ship, wondering how I had arrived
in this system, to take command of the system's mainworld  starport 
and, by extension, the whole of the system."

Lieutenant Henry is put in charge of a large, busy system, with a 
massive highport, through which hundreds of vessels move every day,
shifting cargoes, fueling and conducting day to day business. 
Though it is likely that a mistake has been made, putting a 24-year 
old Lieutenant in charge of a port bigger than anything that Terra has
ever built, the distance from Terran High Command makes it impossible
to correct.

Several months after assuming command of the highport, a POW ship 
arrives in-system, from p.212:
'When the POW ship docked at one of the security rings,
I had no idea what to expect. I knew the ship was commanded by
an Admiral Singh, but I did not know the purpose of unloading the
prisoners here. As the iris opened, a pair of armed, but rather
relaxed looking marines stepped out, followed by a line of
twenty men, two abreast. They were wearing plain, unmarked blue
jumpers. But they weren't behaving like prisoners - they smiled, 
looked well-fed and even talked amonst themselves as they were
brought into the security atrium. The Admiral followed the group
and approached me. "Have twenty stateroom prepared for these
man. Put two Terran guards on each door. Assign a junior officer
to each prisoner to look after his needs". Admiral Singh turned to 
walk back to the ship. I was stunned - staterooms for prisoners?
Officers to attend to their needs? "Admiral?" It was all I could
bring myself to say. The Admiral turned and looked at me. "You don't
know who these men are, do you?" I shook my head dumbly. The men
chuckled amongst themselves. The Admiral pointed at one of them -
"You, Vilisharuui", he said, actually managing to pronounce the
twisted Vilani name, "How many men like Lieutenant Henry did you
command?" The man looked thoughtful for a moment. "None. I had
twelve thousand, 6 hundred Lieutenants under my command, but 
none like this man. Not one of them would question an order I gave".
The Admiral approached me again, "These men are twenty of the 
highest commanders of the Ziru Sirka, each one of whome commanded
more men than Terra has ever sent into space. You will given them 
the respect the deserve. Follow my orders, Lieutenant." He turned
and marched briskly back to his ship. It was several minutes
before I could move again to follow his orders.

....

That night, the Admiral came to visit me in my room, to brief me on
how to handle situations that he had seen occuring on other worlds,
where the new Terran rule was causing problems. I asked him how
I was to command these strange people, who looked like us, but were
so alien and unpredictable. "The Vilani, unpredictable?" He scoffed.
"No, the Vilani are many things, but never unpredictable." With that,
he took a piece of paper from my desk, wrote on it, then sealed it
in an envelope. He put the envelope on the table that sat between us.
"I have a job for you. A ship has come into orbit with a leaky
fission pile. It is on a course that will bring it right into the
station. You can't destroy it, because the radiation would seriously
harm the planet below. Don't even try to think of a solution.
Go ask each of the Vilani Admirals, in turn, what they would do.
Do not make it seem a game." He looked serious suddenly - "Make it
seem as if it were life or death. For even though there is no ship,
for you, that is what it spells. I will be sick for the rest of 
the evening. I will see you at breakfast". With that he left me
and I set to my task.

....

I went to the quarters of the first Vilani, the man Vilisharuui
Admiral Singh had talked to in the security atrium. He greeted me
politely and as I told him of my story, he listened intently and
with great gravity. He pondered the problem for a few moments
and then laid out a plan for me, talking all the while about
priorities, "the people" and using other such broad terms. I had no
doubt in my mind that the plan would work, without any undue risk.
I left his room and went to the next Vilani and the next... as I
left the room of the fifth man, I was growing tired, but that was
nothing next to my confusion. Each man had, in turn, listened to my
problem, thought and given me his solution. Each time, the 
solution had been exactly the same. There were no differences,
in strategy, tactics, or in the "priorities" each one gave.

....

By the next morning, I had gotten no sleep. I had talked to twenty
men and received the same solution twenty times. I showered, put
on my best dress uniform and went to join them and the Admiral 
for breakfast. I entered the room and without saying anything else,
I stood at the end of the long mess table and accused them all -
"You have had your sport of me. I thought that I was to learn,
but to you, it's just a big joke. And you, Admiral, going along
with it." They all looked at me with confusion on their faces. 
They had no idea what I was talking about. "Did you open the 
envelope?" asked the Admiral. I had, it contained the exact 
same plan that had been laid out by each of the Vilani. I 
thought that it was surely a trick played on me, for being 
so arrogant as to assume I could command this whole station. 
"We have been talking with the Admiral this very morning of 
his lesson for you". It was Vilisharuui. "But it was no 
trick. We knew nothing of it." "What else could it be? 
You all gave the same answer?" I asked, my face 
feeling as if it was growing as confused as theirs. 
"How do you think?" he replied. "We are trained men. We 
understand what is important. We know what we would 
want the Admirals to do if we were labourers working
on the ground. We know what must be done to assure the saftey
of not only the station, but of every Vilani -", he paused, "
and Terran in the highport." But they had all given the same
answer, how could this be, I asked. "How could it not be?" he 
countered. How could you run an empire if you had no idea how 
your subordinates act? How can you be an Lieutenant 
if you did not know what your Admiral needs of you? 
How can the Admiral make decisions of he does not know 
what your decisions will be? We train ourselves.
We know what to do. The Vilani are people of the Stars, not of
the earth and travel between the stars is slow. We must know,
there is no other way."

I droped into the seat beneath me, uable to hold myself up
any longer. The lack of sleep now began to eat into me. After
a minute, I stood up and left the room, without a word, or even
a salute to the Admiral. I had entered into a room that was,
I though, full of men like myself. I left, leaving behind me
strange aliens."


Well, although it is a long excerpt, I hope it makes a bit
clearer what I was getting at. The Vilani do not have a 
dictatorial power structure, yet the very nature of their 
society makes them act in a way that seems "forced" to most
Solomani. It has enabled them to efficiently rule a large
interstellar empire, but the notions of priorities are slow
to change in the Vilani. Combining these strong social
drives with the Ziru Sirka's "Shadow Emperors", Terrans
have a tendancy to describe the Vilani power structure as 
one that is very top-down, when yes, I agree, it is in fact,
quite the opposite. I am glad we've been able to clear things
up somewhat.

> I am yours sincerely,
> 
> Eneri Laparkikumiin
> Vilani Cultural Liason to Sylea

Ethan Henry, distant forebearer of someone in the future.

PS. I always feel a bit awkward posting these long
bits, because I'm not exactly Hemmingway. Please forgive any
"turgid prose". I suppose it could be worse. :)

- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 12:43:18 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

On Thu, 19 Jun 1997 22:59:33 -0600
lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney) wrote:
>Subject: Rule of Man TL (was Re: Anomalies...)
>
>My friends on TML.  I am sorry that I was not here before to "weigh-in"
>on the issue of the RoM tech level.  Here are some comments I have from
>the perspective of researching "just what exactly is in print" on the
>subject at hand.
>
>These came from the Anomalies thread, but I wanted to post under the topic
>of "Rule of Man TL" to catch any specific comments from you all about this
>very specific subject, in which I have a great deal of interest. _Anomalies_
>is not the only place in the record of T4 where this arises, and I don't
>think it will be the last.
>
>
>Leroy
>- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                                                        Science Adventure
>                                                        in the Far Future
>
>On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:44:21 +1200
>Andrew Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz> writes:
>>Subject: Re: Anomalies Annoyance - an end to Starbases and TL14 gear
>>
>>[snips throughout]
>>
>>This adventure is a major revision of history. I can live with a
>>TL 13 RoM, hey I even like the idea; but I just can't live with a TL 14
>>one. It just violates too much previous history. For 'Lock and Loot' to
>>work, a major portion of the RoM would have had to achieved a
>>consistant TL 14. This just doesn't fit with previously published
>>material.
>
>I'm sorry, but "previously published material" has _numerous_ references
>to rather _extreme_ tech for the Rule of Man.  Now mind you, I am not
>advocating a uniformly high tech, but I could accept a rather high one
>on the Rimward end (mainly limited to the area of the old TC), and
>occasional disemenation into the coreward areas.  Tech 14 anywhere
>coreward of the line between the "thumb" of the Great Rift and the Delphi
>Rift, in the form of relics/artifacts/what-have-you, does not strike me
>as unreasonable.
>
>References are scattered throughout CT and MT (of which I have everything
>major that was ever printed) and having them in T4 _is_ consistent, and
>IMO shows just how well these guys are doing their homework.
>
>[snippish largish]

The above is what I wanted to establish as having been on record for
"saying" at the start.

Now that we have compiled this info, I want to be on record for a few
things.

   While we have done our best to properly quote and document the
   sources we used, our quoting should be in NO WAY a challenge to
   the copyright of the companies and individuals who may hold the
   copyright on these materials.

   This aspect of the research came from the start of a discussion over
   a year ago on the manipulator mailing list (a mailing list I started
   to discuss HIWG Quadrant IV issues due to the announcement of Milieu
   Zero (O) being the "new direction" of things to come in the game).

   The conversations were cut short due to one participant's insistence
   on the Rule of Man having been unequivocly TL 12.  Now the whole story
   can be told.

   It was suggested here that I am stirring up a "canon" debate on
   TML again--that is the farthest from what I wanted to do, but then
   that is not always in my control.  On that subject, what I do want
   to still say is that fragmentary quoting of sources can lead to
   very myopic views of what is in print.  That is why I avoided a
   trickling of quoting sources and discussing them one at a time,
   without any high level view.

   We have excluded T4 references, not for any dislike of the product,
   but because we felt it necessary to defend T4 not on what T4 says,
   but what the past has "said".  In fact, we are _very_ pleased that
   T4 has stayed as true to the game as they have.

   Nor would we want any "canon" debate to restrict what those writing
   for T4 are doing.  It is a little difficult to revise Traveller in
   light of twenty years experience if your hands are tied that way.
   We have included one quote below as the exception that proves the
   rule.

   Reading over the Robots history allows one to conclude that there
   was a misfire on the publication of sources with essays, but as I
   recall, one of the complaints the "early" Digest Group had was not
   having all of the sources we do.

   Our research was not to prove finally, once and for all what the
   Tech Level of the Rule of Man was, but to thoroughly document the
   sources that reinforced some ideas.  It will be the job of the
   writer of (future) Traveller materials to synthesize this into
   material that we all know and love.

   Finally, we stand resolved to not always in the future, provide
   this form of complete documentation.  It just so happened that
   enough of a trail had been prepared, that it only took us a few
   hours to put this all together.  I've learned that some on TML
   want you to put your quotes where your mouth is.  I guess I'll
   have to say, that in the future (if I post here), you'll just have
   to trust me, because I won't always have the luxury of time to
   "prove" what I said was the truth.  At the same time, I'll try
   to coin any posts carefully enough so as to not spark the emotional
   response I first received to my statements.

   A few references have been pointed out (not yet confirmed) that
   suggest a lower tech level for the Rule of Man or Terra.  The
   purpose of _this_ post is to point out the _volume_ of evidence
   that says the contrary.  We have not even touched on the Darrians
   or Sword Worlds, as they are not in our current rimward focus,
   though at my suggestion, many references were found supporting a
   basic hypothesis:  Terra was beyond TL12!  Reading these facts in
   that context may be enlightening if you are willing to consider.
   Any final work will have to reconcile all of the evidence.

   I am _not_ out to offend.  I do enjoy discussing this game, something
   I've done with Marc and other friends over the years.  What I have
   to get used to, is doing it on TML, which compares with no other
   mailing list I have ever belonged.


THE "UPLIFT"

  MT Referee's Companion, pg.32 - Medical Technology

    TL14 "Genetic Engineering techniques culminate in the creation of
    altered, 'improved' life forms, including sentients.

  CT Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #6, - Dolphins

    "When humanity left the cradle of Terra, numerous other forms went
    along.  ...  Scientists settled on using the Atlantic bottle-nosed
    dolphin, enhanced by genetic engineering (or "geneering") to create
    a new and hardier species (T. galactis) as a partner to human
    settlers of these worlds."

  MT Travellers' Digest #13, pg. 15 - Dolphins
  
    "The Solomani in turn have brought the sciences of genetic
    manipulation and engineering (often called simply 'geneering')
    to levels undreamt of in the Third Imperium or Zhodani Consulate.
    In addition, no other known major or minor race can match the
    achievements of Terran scientists in such matters.  (The Ancients,
    while no longer extant, were at their heyday an obvious exception
    to this claim.)

    "The first wide scale use of these technologies occured early in
    the Terran 22nd century (roughly -2400 by the Imperial calendar).
    ... In order to promote their colonization, the Solomani government
    established a semi-autonomous foundation known as GenAssist which
    was charged with the adaptation of native Terran lifeforms to 
    alien climates.  ...  Over the next several decades, under the
    guidance of Dr. Craig Carbone and, later, Dr. Victor Haerinck,
    modifications were made to the brains of several Terran lifeforms.
    By far the most sucessful of these were the improvements made to
    various cetacean races.  ...  With the full attention of the
    GenAssist sophontology program focused upon them, the Dolphins
    achieved true intelligence, and in -1988, just prior too the
    collapse of the Rule of Man, a handful of dolphin colonies were
    seeded along the rimward frontiers of what is now the Solomani
    Sphere."

  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg.17 - The Politics of Race [c.1120 Imperial date]

    "Geneered Solomani are the result of DNA manipulation or eugenic 
    breeding.  In some cases, colonists were modified for life in
    hostile environments; in others attempts were made to breed
    'improved' humans.  Even today, the Ministry of Genetics experiments
    with human geneering, but most geneered Solomani are the result of
    programs instituted centuries ago.  ...  Our scientists have raised
    over twenty species to sentience through genetic manipulation and
    controlled breeding."

    On pg. 20, there is a lengthy piece about Terran Confederation
    era " 'tuber' colonies" and the aspects required to colonize hostile
    worlds.  Too much to quote here, but it clearly sets the tone that
    the above stated TL14 was clearly UNSCA (pre-Terran Confederation) 
    era available technology.  The intro to the Dolphins article in the
    JTAS issues (in fewer words) parallels the S&A reference to 'tuber'
    colonies and hints at the same timeframe for Dolphins (and others)
    joining man into space.


TERRAFORMING

  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 31-32 - Environmental Engineering Technology

    TL12 "Major terraforming projects covering thousands of square
    kilometers become commonplace.  Significant advances in global weather
    control help make such terraforming projects possible."

      [Note that typical planets measure surface area in the millions,
       tens of millions, and hundreds of millions of square kilometers.
       At best this is one one thousandth of the surface, and is rooted
       in the basics of weather control. To claim that TL12 terraforming
       can accomplish TL16 terraforming feats, is like saying that cloud-
       seeding (TL8) weather control can do the job of global weather
       control (i.e. storm dissapation/prevention) at TL12.]

    TL13-14 - no terraforming mentioned

    TL15 "Complex terraforming involving an entire hemisphere becomes
    commonplace."

    TL16 "Global terraforming becomes commonplace, allowing substantial
    improvements in a world with an unfavorable global environment.  For
    example, transforming a world with an insidious atmosphere to a world
    with a standard atmosphere is globabl terraforming."

    TL17 "Total terraforming appears at Tech level 17 and beyond.  Total
    terraforming involves complete transformation of a world's basic
    environment to a radically different basic environment of one's
    choosing.  For example, transforming a barren vacuum world to a lush,
    rich world with a dense atmosphere is total terraforming."

  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 28 - Technology Chart 1

    TL12 - "Major Terraforming"
    TL15 - "Complex Terraforming"
    TL16 - "Globabl Terraforming"
    TL17 - "Terraforming of worlds to 800 Km." [Size code less than 1]
    TL18 - "Terraforming of worlds to 4000 Km." [Size code 2 or less]
    TL19 - "Terraforming of worlds to Any size"

  MT World Builder's Handbook, pg. 55 - Atmospheric Terraforming
  
    "Atmospheric terraforming refers to significant improvements in the
    world's original composition by its inhabitants.  This type of
    terraforming is the most difficult and requires the highest tech
    level; it is not surprising, then, that it is also the least common.

    If atmospheric terraforming has been conducted on the world, the old
    original atmosphere can be determined if desired.  The atmospheric
    terraforming progression, from the best atmospheric conditions to
    the worst, is untainted, tainted, exotic, corrosive, and insidious."

      [Atmospheric Terraforming is consistent with TL16 Global
       terraforming, MT RC.]
  
  MT World Builder's Handbook, pg. 90 - Terraforming
  
    "If a world has conducted terrain terraforming, one or more hexes
    have had their terrain type modified.  The most common type of terrain
    terraforming is to improve desert terrain into arable land (clear or
    settled) for agricultural use.  The types of terrain terraforming
    include:  from desert to prarie; from prarie to clear; from clear to
    wooded; from wooded to forest; from forest to rainforest; from rain-
    forest to forest; from forest to wooded; from wooded to clear; from
    clear to prarie (accidental); and from prairie to desert (accidental).

    "Given sufficient time, the terraforming can include more than one
    level of transformation.  An extreme (and rare) example of this would
    be to terraform desert into rainforest over a period of time.

    "The extent of the terraforming (how many hexes it includes) is up to
    the one mapping the world.  Higher tech level terraforming (tech level
    12+) tends to be more extensive."

      [It should be noted that the above examples clearly state that while
       the level of terraforming is a function of time and desire, the
       area effected is a function of tech level, thus TL12 is clearly
       able to effect only a few hexes (1-2) at best, and greater areas 
       require greater tech levels.  Note that the four examples that
       we provide here are all cases of the more extreme atmospheric
       terraforming, which is still higher yet.  The Sahara could have
       been accomplished somewhere in the range of TL13-15, but Terra,
       Mars, Hephaistos, and Ishimshulgi all required the TL16+ to
       succeed (or not succeed).]

  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - Terra

    "Visitors to humaniti's homeworld leave with the impression that no
    other world could ever compare with the homeworld of our race.  The
    scars of past disasters have healed, and today, Terra is one, great
    garden.  We have made Africa's great northern desert, the Sahara,
    into a multi-million-hectare farmland, tended by skilled robotic care.
    Our Reforestation projects have restored the rain forests and jungles
    of South America, Africa, and southern Asia.  We have even made the
    cool Siberian plains greener than at any other time in history.

    "Terra's current status as a global park belies its sore shape during
    the early days of star travel.  Atmospheric pollution threatened to
    ruin our world's climate.  Industrial smog became such a problem
    that we built domes to enclose several cities in North America and
    Europe.  Thoughtless methods of agriculture turned once-fertile lands
    to barren flats.  Extinctions reached a peak unseen in millions of
    years.

    "Yet, we accepted our responsibility, just in time to save the tottering
    ecology.  Only the ocean level--standing 15 meters above its pre-jump
    height--and coastal outlines survive as reminders of the damage we once
    wrought by our own hands."

      [Removing taints count as global atmospheric terraforming.]

  CT Supplement 10: The Solomani Rim, pg. 38

    "Hephaistos is one of the few completed terraforming projects in the
    Imperium.  Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the project was
    abandoned and resumed several times.  The project was completed by
    the Hephaistos Company, chartered by the [Third, LG] Imperium in 632.
    The planet was opened in 835, and sections were sold to several
    colonizing groups.  Although the project is officially complete, the
    company is still engaged in work to reduce the ocean and atmosphere."

      [Note that Hephaistos is a size 9, atm 8 (dense), waterworld.]

  CT Alien Module 6: Solomani, pg. 21 [slighty different]

    "Hephaistos is one of the few terraforming projects completed by the
    Imperium.  Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the project was
    alternately abandoned and resumed several times.  The project was
    finally completed by the Hephaistos Company, chartered by the
    [Third, LG] Imperium in 632, and the planet was opened in 835 and
    sections were sold off to several colonial groups.  Although the
    project is officially complete, work still proceeds to reduce and
    fine-tune the ocean and atmosphere."

  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - The Outer System [of Sol]
  
    "Terraforming began to change the red face of arid Mars 700 years
    ago.  The planet's thickening atmosphere now sports a much higher
    ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide, and we hope to see actual rain
    within the next century.  With the return of our Solomani citizens,
    GenAssist has promised to speed completion of the terraforming
    effort."
    
      [Note that by Traveller atmospheric pressure tables (TNE) that
       Mars in 1997 AD has a trace atmosphere (UWP = 1), primarily
       Carbon Dioxide.  Scouts and S&A say that the atmosphere is
       UWP =3.  The size code for Mars is 4.]


  MT Travellers' Digest #13, pg. 31 - Library Data of the Solomani Rim

    "This world used to have a thin atmosphere and a few oceans, before
    the Terran corporation GenAssist attempted improvements.

    "Several centuries ago, the corporation attempted to 'encourage' a
    native lifeform which fixed nitrogen into the soil for use by the
    local plants.  The lifeform was not widespread or prolific, and
    corporate personnel were hoping to encourage it in order to expand
    the local agricultural regions.  GenAssist genetically altered the
    bacteria for prolificity.  The alterations worked, and in a few
    short years, the entire soil surface was fixing nitrogen at a 
    prodigious rate--an alarming rate.  GenAssist tried desperately to
    create an 'antidote' lifeform, but to no avail.  In a bizzare twist
    of events, on of the 'antidote' attempts mutated into a strain
    capable of storing oxygen in the soil.  Within a century, the entire
    atmosphere of Ishimshulgi was locked in the world's crust."

      [Note that the result of using a lower tech (TL12 biotech) attempt
       to convert a planet's atmosphere without the required TL to handle
       global (atmospheric) terraforming.  Also, Ishimshulgi is c.1110, a
       size 2 vacc world.]

ROBOTICS

  CT Book 8: Robots, pp. 19-20 - The Robot Brain

    "Tech Level 12: More reliable synaptic processors allow true self-
    programming (heuristic or self-teaching) AI software to be developed,
    but cost and size continue to be limiting factors. 'Low Autonomous'
    computer brains appear, making possible the first self-actuating,
    learning machine with a reasonable intelligence.

    "At TL 12 then, the self-mobile computer brain with developed
    manipulative appendages (i.e., a robot) finally becomes an economic
    and commercial reality. ...

    "Tech Level 13: The first 'high autonomous' software appears.  At
    last, robot brains possess a crude form of artificial intelligence:
    these machines are not only self-actuating and self-teaching, but they
    are able to make better use of these capabilities with their moderate
    intelligence.

    [TL14-15 - no mention of AI in robot software/brains]

    "Tech Level 16: Computers become still faster, cheaper, smaller, and
    more reliable, in no small part, thanks to the increased capabilities
    of synaptic processing.  Reliable synaptic processing crosses the
    50% boundary and makes 'low artificial intelligence' software a reality.
    True creativity and unprogrammed inspiration spring from these
    fantastic machines.

    "Tech Level 17: Computers with synaptic 'brains' can program themselves
    through their hardware, with no outside software influence.  It is
    literally possible to set up one of these computers, with the proper
    sensory peripherals and an almost empty memory bank, and after a few
    years of 'eavesdropping' it can understand simple commands.  Computers
    at this level are 'self-aware'.

    "Tech 17 computers are possessed of exceptional intelligence, guided by
    what is, in every sense of the word, an artificial mind. This 'high
    artificial intelligence' programming, as well as the earlier 'low
    artificial intelligence' programming, is possible only by using
    massively synaptic processors."

  CT Book 8: Robots, pg. 29 - Fundamental Logic Programs

    "URP 2 Low Autonomous        TL 12"
    "URP 3 High Autonomous       TL 13"
    "URP 4 Low Atificial Intel   TL 17"
    "URP 5 High Atificial Intel  TL 18+"

  MT Imperial Encyclopedia, pg. 6 - A Chronology of the Imperium

    [-2400  Imperial date    GenAssist geneering/uplift starts]

    "-2408 [Imperial date]   First Interstellar War ends"

    "-2398 [Imperial date]   Terran Confederation established"

    "-2389 [Imperial date]   Terran Navy uses artificially intelligent
			     robots."
  
  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 28 - Technology Chart 1

    TL16 - "Artificial Intelligence Robots common"

  CT Book 8: Robots, pg. 6 - A history of robots in Imperial space
	      -and-
  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 35 - Robots in the Imperium

    "The age of modern robots was thrust upon the First Imperium by the
    events of the First Interstellar War.  In -2389 [Imperial], the Terran
    Confederation Navy commisioned a line of mass-produced tech level 12
    robots as support staff for military personnel."

      [Since the piece in Ref's Companion is just a cut and paste from
       CT Book 8 (the first DGP published Traveller rules book), this
       little noticed error propagated into MT, and was never corrected,
       though I recall someone talking about the problems DGP had in
       the early days.  Marc's chronology/timeline stands by itself.]


DIRECT QUOTE

  T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15

    "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."

      [c.59 Imperial date]


Leroy and J.P.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 Long Night moments
  -1700  No more fusion technology on Sylea (TL 7)
  -1526  Long Night not noticeable on Terra (TL ?)


For the those who have believed, and waited, and were silent.
Capturing the imagination and minds of Terrans.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1541
***********************************

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Multi-Player Games Network http://www.mpgn.com
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1542



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: T4.1 career changes
Stars in Traveller
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
Re: Heroes of Telemarken
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
[none]
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
"Turgid prose"???
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:30:46 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

>>1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
>My "little black books" don't mention a motto. Make one up, in accordance
>with the prime mission of the IISS: the expansion of the empire.

How about something like:

"One Service to rule them all, One Service to find them,
One Service to bring them all and in the Empire bind them."

Or is that being a little too cynical about ol' Cleon and the gang's 
intentions? ;)

(with apologies to J.R.R.)

Paul Darius Owensby
pauld@athens.net
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:41:00 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

>My personal guess is that this new development is to stop people
>generating characters who have had three or four completely different
>careers.  It makes the characters seem unstable and flighty (only IMHO
>of course), if everyone engages in career hopping it makes the system
>seems a bit unlike reality, if only the occasional character does it
>everything is fine.  Furthermore it is not in character for Vilani to be
>so flighty and it even make Solomani seem unreliable.

Agree that this seems likely, it is WAY too easy to have 3 or 4 totally
dissimilar careers under T4.0.

>To encourage characters to remain in career.  Mustering out benefits do
>not apply for the first full term, only second and subsequent terms.
>This means that to get any benefits you have to stay at least two terms.

I like this a lot; the hospital I work at does not give you full vesting in
the retirement/pension program until you've served 2-1/2 terms with
them. (10 years in RL[tm]).

>As a small aside, I'm uncertain if the rules indicate that you have to
>quit your current job before trying to enlist in the next, but a lot of
>people seem to think you do.  This does not seem realistic to me.  If I
>want to blow off my job pushing a stylus on the merchantman Extreme
>Boredom and take up the life of adventure that the Imperial Navy offers
>I might just wait until I get accepted before giving my ex-boss the
>finger.

Don't the T4.0 rules state that one end to character generation is to quit
at a certain age, and thus if not finished with the current term to be 
considered still in the service?

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 13:07:33 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Stars in Traveller

Harold Hale and I first "met" each other on-line via the History of
the Imperium Working Group.  We were almost instant friends because
we shared one very intense interest--Stars in Traveller.  The subject
has also been the source of some disagreement between us, but for the
most part we agree.  He spent a long time applying fixes to stars in
the Solomani Rim, while I did for the stars of Spica sector.

We had attempted to get Dave Nilsen to put some fixes into to T:TNE,
but he only made minor changes, and didn't really address the problems.
In fact, he added new ones, but I digress.

From the first Book 6: Scouts, by GDW, we and others were encouraged
to add more detail to our campaigns using the Expanded Generation System
and the detailing of Stars and their systems.  As data was made available
on the Internet, and through the publishing of sectors from GDW and then
DGP, it became understood that the generation system produced companion
stars that were not too realistic.

The problem is fixable, but there is a lot of sector data "out there"
that has the original generated statistics for those stars.

I just got off the phone with Marc and he is interested in seeing whay
kind of response the posters of this mailing list have to say on the
subject.  If there is no interest, then you can be assured of no change.

If there is sufficient interest to warrant "fixing" that part of the
rules, then it will be up to how "you" make known your desire for change.

Some of you may be familiar with the Book 6: Scouts update web page I
maintain.  It is by no means complete, and I have a very rough draft
of a page for dealing with the rather frequent White Dwarf star system.
I also have some additional material to put up on the pages, but have
not done so at this time.

  EGS  http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~lwlguatn/SF/egs.html
  WDS  http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~lwlguatn/SF/wds.html

Let Marc know how you feel about:

  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

      (BTW, I personally advocate not including the stellar data
       into listings, ala First Survey, if this issue is not going
       to be dealt with, as was done in the earliest days of CT,
       and T4 with the Core Subsector listing the rules book.)

  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

       enough to do the entries in UWP files?
       enough to do the whole system as has been done in the past?

  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?


Marc and I plan to do our best to follow this thread if it takes off.
Feel free to send any response privately if that is your style.


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:28:23 GMT
From: jlindsay@direct.ca (James Lindsay)
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:23:38 +1100, Rupert Boleyn wrote:

> James Lindsay wrote:
> 
> > Lasers deliver thermal energy instead of kinetic energy, but this
> > energy is still focused over a relatively small area.  The beam
> > strikes the target and begins to vapourize matter in its path.  The
> > harder that material is to vapourize, the more energy is drawn out of
> > the laser beam.  Humans are made up of mostly water, which has a
> > relatively low vapourization point.  A 5,000J 5mm beam will pass right
> > through a human being (vapourizing tissue directly in the beam's path
> > while causing additional thermal damage to the surrounding tissue) and
> > continue on down range.
> 
> There is a problem here - vapourised human is mostly steam, which is 
> relatively opaque to most wavelengths, so the laser pulse would be 
> adsorbed and dispersed by the steam it had just created. Making a 
> hole is also make harder by the velocity of a laser pulse, which is 
> over long before the vapourised piece of the poor target has any 
> chance to move aside.

True.  I knew lasers had dramatic explosive effects to surrounding
tissue (because of its high water content) but I forgot to take into
account the fact that the material in the beam's path could not get
out of the way in time before the laser pulse shut off.  Ok... so
lasers _shouldn't_ be included in the 3D max damage rule :)


James W. Lindsay     Vancouver, British Columbia
  "http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero"

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
    the grace to accept the things I cannot,
         and a great big bag of money."

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 97 20:38 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

In-Reply-To: <33C480BF.6CD4@siscom.net>

Harold,

> >1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
> >is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
> >other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
> >ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
> >partly?  

Not at all.

>    Being the target of a tractor beam lock should prevent a ship from
> jumping, or at least may make a misjump more likely, IMHO.

I'd say the latter - treat as if ship were within 100 (10?) diameters.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 97 20:38 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Heroes of Telemarken

In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970710103905.0079338c@mailgate.ftech.net>

Bruce,

> >I wonder who I'd need to contact about getting permission to post some of
> >that stuff up on a web page? Too much wonderful stuff to let it just fade 
> >away...
> >
>  Yeah, me too with this. I've got the first 24 issues of White Dwarf, and
> they have lots of good Traveller stuff too. Things like the Light Sabre for
> Nobles and the adventure "An Alien Werewolf in London" would be well worth
> giving a new lease of life to.

Most of the best stuff was by Marcus L Rowland, who can be contacted at 
mrowland@cix.co.uk. Sadly, he seems to have drifted away from Traveller.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 97 20:38 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19970711011635.263796a8@pcug.org.au>

> >1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
> My "little black books" don't mention a motto. Make one up, in accordance
> with the prime mission of the IISS: the expansion of the empire.

IMHO they should inherit the motto of the RAF: Per Ardua Ad Astra (Through 
Difficulties To The Stars)

> >3)  WHen did Sylea become known as Capital?
> "Capital was originally called Sylea, but its name was changed upon the
> founding of the Third Imperium".[ADV-2, 1106; ADV-3, 1106; SUPP-8, 1107]

In which case, we should (in M0) start calling it Capital.

> >4)  What is the major city on Sylea?
> In 1104, the major cities are:
>         Benca   c. 6 billion, class A starport
>         Cleon   c. 4 billion, class A starport (Cleon Starport)
>         Mifa Lanco      c 3 billion, class A starport
>         Turthu  c. 9 billion, class B starport
>         Ton Vorn        c. 5 billion, class A starport (orbital complex)
> I would assume that Cleon was originally called something else.

> >6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?
> _Scouts and Assassins_ suggests the following:
> The "official" uniform of the Scouts is a dull black coverall made from
> finely-woven ballistic cloth, black knee-high leather boots, a black cap,
> and the insignia. The insignia is a stylised, silver, winged serpent on a
> circular background. The colour of the circle denotes the pay grade. It is
> worn as a patch on the left shoulder and as a belt buckle, which serves as
> an ID using micro-circuitry. The insignia is also worn by "retired" Scouts.
>  
> _S&A_ also suggests that wounded Scouts receive the Silver Asteroid (SA),
> that carries a monthly stipend of Cr200 - but you must pick up the money
> from a Scout base each month, or lose it... causing the award to become
> known as the "Tin Hemmorrhoid".
>  
> Then again, _S&A_ Scouts receive awards: the Citation for Meritorious
> Conduct (CMC, Silver Comet for Gallantry (SCG), and Silver Starburst for
> Exemplary Service (SSES) as well. These are equivalent to the MCUF, MCG, and
> SEH.

I now consider S&A (not to be confused with S&A) to be non-canon. According to 
MT, the Scout uniform is blue, not black, and the insignia are different. 
Neither CT or MT gave Scouts medals (although it looks like T4.1 might change 
that).

> >7)  What is the extent (ie. into what sectors) of the Imperium in 33?
>  
> 21      Cleon II born
> 33      ?
> 50      Zho contact with Imperial traders
> 53      Cleon I dies, Cleon II ascends throne
> 54      Cleon II abdicates in favour of Artemsus Lentuli

This might be an appropriate point to rename the planet and city.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 16:06:42 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: [none]

 Craig Berry said:
>BTW, different topic, would anyone on the list be interested in an M:1200
>world writeup, or is everyone focussed on M:0? 

I am still playing in my 1202 campaign. I'd love to see your world write up.

Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 16:41:17 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

Twas said:
*******************************

    Then James Lindsay restates his penchant to make damage
determination
somewhat more cumbersome than what the designers for T4 wished (at least
in
spirit).  Also, let me point out to James that while lasers do pass at
the
speed of light by their very nature (light amplication at varying
wavelengths
from UV ones at TL9 to the Xray spectrum lasers at TL14) and thus their
kinetic energy element of damage is greater than their thermal component
(since Kinetic Energy is the product of one half the mass multiplied by
the
SQUARE of the velocity), the fusion and plasma based reactions fire a
bolt of
superheated plasma energy, which, though may move quite quickly, will
NOT in
anyway approach the speed of light as James suggests (c is actually 3
km/sec).  The superheated energy is what counts (thermal) and not really
a
time dependent thing

******************************

Just some quick FYI that may (or may not) affect your ideas:

1)	

c = 3x10^8 m/s  or 300,000 km/sec

2)	

While c^2 is in fact a very large number, m(photon) = 0 (or at least
immeasurabley small using todays techniques.  So you get:

E = .5mv^2 = .5*0(or very small)*(very large) = 0 (or undefined).

The classical KE equation does not work for photons and relativity must
be resorted to where

E^2 = (pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2  ; p = momentum

if m(photon) = 0 exactly

E = pc 

now also E = hf   (where h is Planck's constant: 4.136x10^(-15) eV-sec)

and c = f*wavelenth.    so......

p = h/wavelenth

The momentum transfered to your target by photons is dependent on the
photons wavelength (or the Energy deposited into you target depends on
frequency if you prefer it that way)

Just thought you might be interested....

TT

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 12:59:43 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

At 02:30 PM 7/10/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>>1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?

>How about something like:
>
>"One Service to rule them all, One Service to find them,
>One Service to bring them all and in the Empire bind them."

"Going forth in our dinky lttle 100-ton Scout Ships to make sure it's safe
for the Navy in their 90,000-ton Battleships."
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 13:52:08 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

At 12:43 PM 7/10/97 -0600, you wrote:

>THE "UPLIFT"
>
>  MT Referee's Companion, pg.32 - Medical Technology

>  CT Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #6, - Dolphins

>  MT Travellers' Digest #13, pg. 15 - Dolphins

There is nothing here suggesting that the Solomani actually made the
Dolphins sentient.  Indeed, I find it hard to see what was done to the
Dolphins.

>  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg.17 - The Politics of Race [c.1120 Imperial date]

Note that the MT Referee's Companion has genetic manipulation starting at
TL9 (pg 32)

>TERRAFORMING
>
>  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 31-32 - Environmental Engineering Technology
>
>    TL12 "Major terraforming projects covering thousands of square
>    kilometers become commonplace.  Significant advances in global weather
>    control help make such terraforming projects possible."
>
>      [Note that typical planets measure surface area in the millions,
>       tens of millions, and hundreds of millions of square kilometers.
>       At best this is one one thousandth of the surface, and is rooted
>       in the basics of weather control. To claim that TL12 terraforming
>       can accomplish TL16 terraforming feats, is like saying that cloud-
>       seeding (TL8) weather control can do the job of global weather
>       control (i.e. storm dissapation/prevention) at TL12.]

Nowhere in your sources does it state that the Solomani terraformed entire
worlds on a regular basis.

>  MT World Builder's Handbook, pg. 55 - Atmospheric Terraforming
>  
>    "Atmospheric terraforming refers to significant improvements in the
>    world's original composition by its inhabitants.  This type of
>    terraforming is the most difficult and requires the highest tech
>    level; it is not surprising, then, that it is also the least common.
>
>    If atmospheric terraforming has been conducted on the world, the old
>    original atmosphere can be determined if desired.  The atmospheric
>    terraforming progression, from the best atmospheric conditions to
>    the worst, is untainted, tainted, exotic, corrosive, and insidious."
>
>      [Atmospheric Terraforming is consistent with TL16 Global
>       terraforming, MT RC.]

>  
>  MT World Builder's Handbook, pg. 90 - Terraforming

>      [It should be noted that the above examples clearly state that while
>       the level of terraforming is a function of time and desire, the
>       area effected is a function of tech level, thus TL12 is clearly
>       able to effect only a few hexes (1-2) at best, and greater areas 
>       require greater tech levels.  Note that the four examples that
>       we provide here are all cases of the more extreme atmospheric
>       terraforming, which is still higher yet.  The Sahara could have
>       been accomplished somewhere in the range of TL13-15, but Terra,
>       Mars, Hephaistos, and Ishimshulgi all required the TL16+ to
>       succeed (or not succeed).]

You are reading more into the rules than are there.  According to the WBH,
ALL forms of Terraforming recive a substantial bonus for TL12+ (WBH pgs
68-69.)  

You have yet to show in Scots, WBH, or World Tamers' a hard rule declaring
what forms of Terraforming are prohibited until TL 16.
>
>  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - Terra
>
>    "Visitors to humaniti's homeworld leave with the impression that no
>    other world could ever compare with the homeworld of our race.  The
>    scars of past disasters have healed, and today, Terra is one, great
>    garden.  We have made Africa's great northern desert, the Sahara,
>    into a multi-million-hectare farmland, tended by skilled robotic care.
>    Our Reforestation projects have restored the rain forests and jungles
>    of South America, Africa, and southern Asia.  We have even made the
>    cool Siberian plains greener than at any other time in history.

The Sahara desert makes up about 1.7% of the Earth's surface area, or about
9 hexes on a standard 500-hex world map.  This is not an "entire
hemisphere" or larger, and fits with the TL-12 description.

>    "Terra's current status as a global park belies its sore shape during
>    the early days of star travel.  Atmospheric pollution threatened to
>    ruin our world's climate.  Industrial smog became such a problem
>    that we built domes to enclose several cities in North America and
>    Europe.  Thoughtless methods of agriculture turned once-fertile lands
>    to barren flats.  Extinctions reached a peak unseen in millions of
>    years.
>
>    "Yet, we accepted our responsibility, just in time to save the tottering
>    ecology.  Only the ocean level--standing 15 meters above its pre-jump
>    height--and coastal outlines survive as reminders of the damage we once
>    wrought by our own hands."
>
>      [Removing taints count as global atmospheric terraforming.]

If you leave a natural system alone, it will repair itself.  Also, the roll
for terraforming Earth's atmosphere would be -2.. impossible at *any* TL.
I don't think it has ever been canon that Earth's atmosphere ever changed
from 6 to 7.  It got very unpleasant, yes, but not to the "filter masks
required" point.

>  CT Supplement 10: The Solomani Rim, pg. 38
>
>    "Hephaistos is one of the few completed terraforming projects in the
>    Imperium.  Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the project was
>    abandoned and resumed several times.  The project was completed by
>    the Hephaistos Company, chartered by the [Third, LG] Imperium in 632.
>    The planet was opened in 835, and sections were sold to several
>    colonizing groups.  Although the project is officially complete, the
>    company is still engaged in work to reduce the ocean and atmosphere."
>
>      [Note that Hephaistos is a size 9, atm 8 (dense), waterworld.]

In 832 the Imperium is TL 14.. or are you now saying that the Imperium was
actually TL 16, or 17..

The fact that it took over 2000 years to complete the project should tell
you something.. the Solomani overeached themselves, and started something
that couldn't be done at their tech level.  If they had been TL16/17, the
project would have been completed before the Long Night.

>  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - The Outer System [of Sol]
>  
>    "Terraforming began to change the red face of arid Mars 700 years
>    ago.  The planet's thickening atmosphere now sports a much higher
>    ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide, and we hope to see actual rain
>    within the next century.  With the return of our Solomani citizens,
>    GenAssist has promised to speed completion of the terraforming
>    effort."
>    
>      [Note that by Traveller atmospheric pressure tables (TNE) that
>       Mars in 1997 AD has a trace atmosphere (UWP = 1), primarily
>       Carbon Dioxide.  Scouts and S&A say that the atmosphere is
>       UWP =3.  The size code for Mars is 4.]

The roll for changing Mars' atmosphere at TL12: Size=4, +1; Hyd=0, -1;
Since no pop data is given I will give it a zero effect. Tech=12, +2;
Life=No, +2.

To change Mars' atmosphere at TL12:  4- on 2D6.  This is very doable.

>  MT Travellers' Digest #13, pg. 31 - Library Data of the Solomani Rim
>
>    "This world used to have a thin atmosphere and a few oceans, before
>    the Terran corporation GenAssist attempted improvements.
>
>    "Several centuries ago, the corporation attempted to 'encourage' a
>    native lifeform which fixed nitrogen into the soil for use by the
>    local plants.  The lifeform was not widespread or prolific, and
>    corporate personnel were hoping to encourage it in order to expand
>    the local agricultural regions.  GenAssist genetically altered the
>    bacteria for prolificity.  The alterations worked, and in a few
>    short years, the entire soil surface was fixing nitrogen at a 
>    prodigious rate--an alarming rate.  GenAssist tried desperately to
>    create an 'antidote' lifeform, but to no avail.  In a bizzare twist
>    of events, on of the 'antidote' attempts mutated into a strain
>    capable of storing oxygen in the soil.  Within a century, the entire
>    atmosphere of Ishimshulgi was locked in the world's crust."
>
>      [Note that the result of using a lower tech (TL12 biotech) attempt
>       to convert a planet's atmosphere without the required TL to handle
>       global (atmospheric) terraforming.  Also, Ishimshulgi is c.1110, a
>       size 2 vacc world.]

Please note that we are modifying bacteria today (at TL8.)  Also, they were
using native lifeforms.

>ROBOTICS

>  CT Book 8: Robots, pg. 29 - Fundamental Logic Programs
>
>    "URP 2 Low Autonomous        TL 12"
>    "URP 3 High Autonomous       TL 13"
>    "URP 4 Low Atificial Intel   TL 17"
>    "URP 5 High Atificial Intel  TL 18+"
>
>  MT Imperial Encyclopedia, pg. 6 - A Chronology of the Imperium

>    "-2389 [Imperial date]   Terran Navy uses artificially intelligent
>			     robots."

>    TL16 - "Artificial Intelligence Robots common"
>
>  CT Book 8: Robots, pg. 6 - A history of robots in Imperial space
>	      -and-
>  MT Referee's Companion, pg. 35 - Robots in the Imperium
>
>    "The age of modern robots was thrust upon the First Imperium by the
>    events of the First Interstellar War.  In -2389 [Imperial], the Terran
>    Confederation Navy commisioned a line of mass-produced tech level 12
>    robots as support staff for military personnel."
>
>      [Since the piece in Ref's Companion is just a cut and paste from
>       CT Book 8 (the first DGP published Traveller rules book), this
>       little noticed error propagated into MT, and was never corrected,
>       though I recall someone talking about the problems DGP had in
>       the early days.  Marc's chronology/timeline stands by itself.]

Since this entire section hinges on one quote that is contradicted in
several other sources, I tend to dismiss the AI comment and go with the
TL12 low autonomous operation thread.

This is akin to the early MT Challenge article that had Varian on the
throne and Lucan as the murdered Prince.. a simple mistake.

>DIRECT QUOTE
>
>  T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
>
>    "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
>
>      [c.59 Imperial date]

Well, we've all seen the reaction to that haven't we?

> Long Night moments
>  -1700  No more fusion technology on Sylea (TL 7)
>  -1526  Long Night not noticeable on Terra (TL ?)

Note that Sylea maintained TL 10 throughout the Long Night, reaching TL11
in -650 and TL12 in -150. (MT RC, pg 34)

A look at Leroy's evidence shows that much of it consists of conjecture,
and fails to address the issue of where it is published that the Rule of
Man reached TL16+.  Even his last second mention of Greg Porter's comment
in EA fails to meet his lofty claims.

The facts as I see them:

The terraforming of Terra and Mars are fully withint the limitations of
TL12.  Indeed, the Mars project is still going on at the time of the
writing of Rats and Cats.

The two global terraforming projects mentioned.. one was a complete
failure, the other required two milenia and Imperial intervention to reach
partial success.  

There is no evidence that Solomani genetic engineering reached TL17 levels.
 I will grant that the solomani were advanced where genetic engineering was
concerned, but not to the degree Leroy claims.

Except for one sentence, all Traveller materials point to the RoM having
low-functioning automonous robots.

After reading the arguements, and checking the source material for myself,
I have to say that I still find nothing that contradicts the Rule of Man
possessing Tech 12 with some early tech 13.  Possibly a medical/genetic TL
of very early 14 could be justified.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:02:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: "Turgid prose"???

ehenry@magma.ca writes:

> PS. I always feel a bit awkward posting these long
> bits, because I'm not exactly Hemmingway. Please forgive any
> "turgid prose". I suppose it could be worse. :)

I must admit it's rather amusing to see an author apologizing for posting
one of the more enjoyable, intriguing, and thought-provoking messages to
have appeared on the TML in recent memory.  Stop being so damn hard on
yourself...and start posting more like this!

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:19:16 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

***********************************

>2)  What colour is the IISS sunburst?  When was this logo adopted?

The IISS starburst I believe is yellow, as red and marroon are used for
the
army and marines. I may be wrong. I do know that the IISS Service Emblem
is
combination of the Starburst and the symbol for the Communications
office,
which is more common site to see because the reliance on X-boat
communications.

**********************************

This info was in an old JTAS article.  I don't remember which number but
IIRC it had a three color cover of black, white, and green with the view
of a planet on it.  It was an article about the history of the scout
service.  Sorry I don't remeber the JTAS issue #.

TT

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:47:13 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

Ethan Henry wrote

**********************************

Didn't someone write an article on how Traveller technology must
be semi-self repairing in order for bizzare "canon" statements like
having ancient machinery in nearly perfect working order to be true?

**********************************

Blake's 7 anyone?  Any of the THUDDDers want to design the LIBERATOR?
(also...what exactly does THUDDD stand for...I musta missed that one?)

TT

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1542
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 10 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1543



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
Traveller in White Dwarf
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
THUDDD, what it stands for and more!
Some answers?  (fwd)
Re: Stars in Traveller
Java Application for Traveller
Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Sylea ---> Capital
Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
Re: Traveller in Java
Imperium, fighters
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:45:24 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

>  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

Tough question.  I think "Yes".  The data involved is widespread, but
unfixed data "left" out there wlill not have a specific impact on specific
campaigns.

Traveller, meanwhile, has always carried the torch of "Hard" sci-fi.  This
seems a relatively easy way to bring the "canon" universe into compliance
with "hard" science.

>  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

An "errata" to First Survey (or republishing if we are in time) is all we
are talking about here.

>  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

I advocate rules that get into as much detail as possible, in as modular a
fashion as possible.  So I could, using the next generation version of
Scouts, develop just the cultural aspects of a world, or the natural
resource data, or the economic data, or just what moons it has.

>  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

The main problem with complying with "hard science" is that science
changes.  In six months, after the Mars lander data has been chewed over,
all our planetary theories will undergo an "axial tilt" of a sort and be
reinterpreted, altered, completely changed, or just thrown out in light of
the new data.  Taking this into consideration, the best policy is to stay a
little bit 'abstract' in detail level for some aspects, similar to the way
PE stayed abstract with certain economic concepts that are debatable (it
also grabbed a couple by the horns, but I digress).

Good Luck!

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:43:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney) wrote:

Interesting, largely unconvincing, but interesting.  I'm inclined to agree
with you about the TL 14 nature of Solomani medical technology (including
genetic engineering).  However, going by the World Builder's Handbook it
is clearly possible for a culture to have a high common TL of 12 and a
medical TL of 14.  This is my assumption about the 2nd Imperium. 

: TERRAFORMING
: 
: MT Referee's Companion, pg. 31-32 - 
: Environmental Engineering  Technology:
: 
: TL12 "Major terraforming projects covering thousands of square
: kilometers become commonplace.  Significant advances in global weather
: control help make such terraforming projects possible."
: [Note that typical planets measure surface area in the millions,
: tens of millions, and hundreds of millions of square kilometers.
: At best this is one one thousandth of the surface, and is rooted
: in the basics of weather control. To claim that TL12 terraforming
: can accomplish TL16 terraforming feats, is like saying that cloud-
: seeding (TL8) weather control can do the job of global weather
: control (i.e. storm dissapation/prevention) at TL12.]
: 
: TL16 "Global terraforming becomes commonplace, allowing substantial
: improvements in a world with an unfavorable global environment.  For
: example, transforming a world with an insidious atmosphere to a world
: with a standard atmosphere is globabl terraforming."
: 
: MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - Terra
: "Visitors to humaniti's homeworld leave with the impression that no
: other world could ever compare with the homeworld of our race.  The
: scars of past disasters have healed, and today, Terra is one, great
: garden.  We have made Africa's great northern desert, the Sahara,
: into a multi-million-hectare farmland, tended by skilled robotic care.
: Our Reforestation projects have restored the rain forests and jungles
: of South America, Africa, and southern Asia.  We have even made the
: cool Siberian plains greener than at any other time in history.
: "Terra's current status as a global park belies its sore shape during
: the early days of star travel.  Atmospheric pollution threatened to
: ruin our world's climate.  Industrial smog became such a problem
: that we built domes to enclose several cities in North America and
: Europe.  Thoughtless methods of agriculture turned once-fertile lands
: to barren flats.  Extinctions reached a peak unseen in millions of
: years.
: 
: [Removing taints count as global atmospheric terraforming.]

I simply don't agree.  The MT Referee's Companion clearly states that
turning an Insidious atmosphere (such as Venus) into a standard atmosphere
is TL 16 Global Terraforming.  Doesn't it seem to you that doing this is a
much more extensive, higher tech feat than simply removing an atmospheric
taint?  In one base you take an atmosphere with no free oxygen, deadly
gases, no Earth- compatible life (and possibly a much higher or much lower
atmospheric pressure)and transform it into an earth-like world, complete
with earth-like like (which is necessary to maintain the oxygen
atmosphere. In the other case, you remove a single, or a small number of
unhealthy gases from an otherwise fully breathable oxygen atmosphere which
has a similar density to Earth's. 

Clearly the ability to remove an atmospheric taint is going to require
much less than TL 16. 

The current Solomani Confederation is clearly not TL 16 and they are
terraforming Mars *very* slowly.  Someone else suggested that the TL
limits on terraforming applied primarily to terraforming project which
were designed to be completed within a reasonable span of time (say less
than a century).  Mars and Heiphaistos are very slow projects.  It has
taken hundreds of years to change Mars so that it has *almost* gone from a
Trace atm. to a Very Thin atm. This is a very minor change compared to
turning an Insidious atm into a Standard atm. 

Also, does it not seem a bit odd to you that at TL 12 you can terraform at
most several hexes of a world, total?  Why would that be?  At TL 12 you
terraform several thousand miles and you suddenly reach some magic limit
that says you can't do any more? The *only* reasonable answer I can see
here is that the text refers to the fact that you can only terraform
several thousand square km *at once*.  By this logic, greening the Sahara
is quite possible, it would just take a while.  If you can turn Venus into
a new Earth at TL 16, it honestly doesn't make sense that greening the
Sahara won't take TL 14.  Quoting canon is useful, but adding in a modicum
of scientific knowledge and speculation is the only way to avoid vast
logical errors. 

I remain unconvinced.

: ROBOTICS
:  
: CT Book 8: Robots, pp. 19-20 - The Robot Brain
: "Tech Level 12: More reliable synaptic processors allow true self-
: programming (heuristic or self-teaching) AI software to be developed,
: but cost and size continue to be limiting factors. 'Low Autonomous'
: computer brains appear, making possible the first self-actuating,
: learning machine with a reasonable intelligence.
: 
: MT Imperial Encyclopedia, pg. 6 - A Chronology of the Imperium
:  95  MT Imperial Encyclopedia, pg. 6 - A Chronology of the Imperium
: [-2400  Imperial date    GenAssist geneering/uplift starts]
: "-2408 [Imperial date]   First Interstellar War ends"
: "-2398 [Imperial date]   Terran Confederation established"
: "-2389 [Imperial date]   Terran Navy uses artificially intelligent
:                     robots."

Why invoke the necessity of the 2nd Imperium using TL 16 robots when we
have the statement (which you just quoted above) which said that
"self-programming (heuristic or self-teaching) AI software is a TL 12
development".  No, TL 12 robots are not fully volitional sentient beings,
but by the above statement and by current definitions they are clearly
AIs.  We also have material in S&A which talks about the introduction of
the Terrans AI robots being a important factor in the Terran war effort. 
To me, this implies that robots were something relatively new on Terra. 
If the Terrans were building TL 16 robots during the wars it is only
logical to assume that they had built TL 12 & 13 low and high autonomous
robots at least a century or more earlier and that robots were fairly
ubiquitous in their culture. 

I also see no logical reason the Terrans would have had to have TL 16
robots.  The Zhodani do wonders with much lower tech warbots and combat
support robots.  A TL 12 low autonomous AI robot is a wonderful tool for a
war effort (especially since one task they can be put to is making more
robots, so exponential growth of robot populations is very easy as long as
the resources last).  Finally, we have no evidence in any sources that
2nd Imerium robots were fully sentient beings and not fancy AI tools (like 
low and high autonomous robots.  

Once again, I'm far from convinced.  In no cases are any of the quotes you
supply about either robots or terraforming unambigious enough to support
you viewpoint over the one I have just outlined. Given that there is no
reason to assume that the 2nd Imperium was TL 15 or 16, and that a number
of sources say it was not (once again excluding all T4 sources) there is
no reason assume that it was. 

Comments?


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com        

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:17:28 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Traveller in White Dwarf

At 20:38 10/07/97 BST-1, Andrew Boulton wrote:
>>  Yeah, me too with this. I've got the first 24 issues of White Dwarf, and
>> they have lots of good Traveller stuff too. Things like the Light Sabre for
>> Nobles and the adventure "An Alien Werewolf in London" would be well worth
>> giving a new lease of life to.
>
>Most of the best stuff was by Marcus L Rowland, who can be contacted at 
>mrowland@cix.co.uk. Sadly, he seems to have drifted away from Traveller.

	I have a few dozen articles by various authors that appeared in White
Dwarf 1-24. If I can contact these authors or whoever holds the rights to
them, then I can make them available on my web site.

	Following are the authors that I need to contact. Can anyone supply me
with their id, or web page, or who they may write for now, anyway that I
can contact them. Cheers.

Jae Campbell	
Michael Clarke	
Michael Holman	
Phil Masters	
Bob McWilliams	
Garth	Nix	
Paul Ormston	
Thomas M	Price	
Marcus L Rowland	<mrowland@cix.co.uk>
Andy	Slack	
Paul Vernon	
Nic Weeks	

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:25:46 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Glenn Hoppe wrote:
>I agree with another poster (Suz?) who stated that it could be
>impossible (or at least, more difficult) for Imperials to switch
>*military* careers. Switching from Army to Navy to whatever encourages
>munchkinism.

I agree with that - the interesting characters I'm thinking off (supporting
the need for career changes) were:

1 term Rogue, 4 term Army
1/2 term Injured Marine, 5 term Agent

All he changes were provoked by roll failures of soem sort except for

4 term scout, 2 term merchant.

I would also not allow two ship receipts if in T4.1 (still waiting for an
rtf of the new rules to read).

Maybe limit services to Marine, Navy, Army, and not scout (as they're quite
a bit different).

Dom



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 16:56:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!

> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:47:13 -0400
> From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
> 
> Blake's 7 anyone?  Any of the THUDDDers want to design the LIBERATOR?
> (also...what exactly does THUDDD stand for...I musta missed that one?)

THUDDD = "Traveller Highly Unofficial Democratic Design Derby"

...as is explained on the THUDDD website:

     http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/thuddd.html

where you'll also find THUDDD rules, the results of past THUDDDs, and the
specs for the current THUDDD competition, a yacht -- for which I have so
far received exactly zero entries.  What's up, folks?  Are the gearheads
on strike 'cause of the prose emphasis, and the lit'ry folk too busy
sighing and sipping tea to be bothered? :) 

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:15:18 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Some answers?  (fwd)

1. IISS Motto - as far as I know, the IISS has no motto. 
2. Colour of IISS sunburst - I think it's red, but I couldn't tell you how
I know that. Probably from the MT Imperial Encyclopedia or similar. I know
the Marines sunburst is Maroon...wait, I've found it...Imperial
Encyclopedia page 29 - Scouts, red; Navy, yellow; Army, black; Marines,
maroon. 
3. When did Sylea become Capital? There is no official answer to that, but
I suggest that it probably coincided with some political event, and the
name change was designed to take the Syleans 'down a peg'. The Vilani
emperor Artemsus (ruled from 54 to 183) might have done this during the
Pacification Campaigns...the planet was definitely called Capital by the
time of the Civil War (c.600). 
4. The major city on Capital is called Cleon (in Year 1100). However, I'm
not sure about what it might have been in Milieu Zero. I know from the
Milieu Zero sourcebook that there is a major
city called Mifa Lanco that floats above the planetary surface (but I
doubt if it is the 'capital'; and an orbital city called Ton Vorn, which
was the city of the Kings during the Long Night. The 'real' capital may
have been named Cleon in a burst of Imperial fervour when the Imperium was
formed, or may have been named after his death. 
5. Two starports on Sylea: Ton Vorn Orbital and Cleon Down. 
6. IISS decorations: I've looked and I can't find any references to IISS
decorations. I get the impression that the Scouts think that decorations
are a bit of a 'wank', the sort of thing that dumb grunts and Navy spacers
need to make themselves feel good. The Scouts just get on with the job,
and don't need any fancy bits of tin...
7. Extent of the Imperium - I'm not sure about this one, but somebody
(?Maybe Harold Hale?) posted something about this a few months back. I
know from something I'm doing on the Antares Sector that the Imperium was
expanding through the subsectors to rim-spinward of the Antares
Sector, until the Pacification Campaigns (76 to 120) when they had most of
the sector. 

Good luck! 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:20:22 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:

>  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

YES!!! Leroy has done a good job championing this cause. See his listed
links to read some excellent reasons as to why Traveller needs a repaired
stellar generation system.

>  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

Repair rules should be made available on the IG web page.

>  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

Enough to do the whole system. Stars, worlds, satellites, asteroid belts,
captured planets, gas giants. Hell, I'd even throw in optional rules to
make comets, oort clouds, black holes and nebulae (though the latter two
are extremely rare).

>  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

Establish a system that does not completely divorce the generation of the
system main and secondary worlds from the stellar type. For example, there
shouldn't be a bunch of dense atmospheric, large worlds orbiting type M8 V
stars. It's just not likely to happen.

The main fix should be the removal of too many type-M dwarf stars. These
are extremely rare and Traveller makes them out to be *the* most common
stellar type of all. Right now the fix is to change them to main sequence
stars (V) from dwarves (D). The system needs to be fixed to better reflect
reality.

By all means, Marc, let's fix the broken Traveller stellar data once and
for all. You would do a favor to the game that the last two incarnations
failed to accomplish when there were ready and willing volunteers like
Harold and Leroy chomping at the bit to fix things.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 19:18:51 -0500
From: "Andrew Akins" <igor@ames.net>
Subject: Java Application for Traveller

Richard C.S. Kinne <phaedrus@dreamscape.com> wrote:

> 	In looking about I found it facinating that someone was actually
>working on solutions in Java at what seemed to be an application rather
than
>an applet level. Might this be an interesting road to explore since more
and

I myself am writing a Java application (as opposed to applet) for
Traveller. Thus I avoid all the sandbox issues (although I could "sign" the
applet, I suppose).

I think java is a wonderful choice, due to the cross-platform aspects. My
program (which is nearing beta-stage for the astrogation portion) will run
on any machine that supports Java 1.1 (right now Solaris and
Win95/NT...soon Mac and other, I understand...)

More information will be posted when I'm closer to being done :)

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Andrew Akins                                                       |
| Home: igor@ames.net - http://www.ames.net/igor/                    |
| Work: andya@cms-gt.com - http://www.cms-gt.com/                    |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| May your villages remain ignorant of tax collectors, and may your  |
| sons be many and ugly and strong and willing workers, and may your |
| daughters be few and beautiful and excellent providers of love     |
| gifts from eminent families that live very far away, and may your  |
| lives be blessed by the beauty that has touched mine.              |
|                    - Number Ten Ox, "Bridge of Birds"              |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:34:46 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!

At 04:56 PM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:

>THUDDD = "Traveller Highly Unofficial Democratic Design Derby"
>
>...as is explained on the THUDDD website:
>
>     http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/thuddd.html
>
>where you'll also find THUDDD rules, the results of past THUDDDs, and the
>specs for the current THUDDD competition, a yacht -- for which I have so
>far received exactly zero entries.  What's up, folks?  Are the gearheads
>on strike 'cause of the prose emphasis, and the lit'ry folk too busy
>sighing and sipping tea to be bothered? :) 

Ooops!  The design staff from TransC has been busy testing zero-g
entertainment facilities and choosing silverware.. I'll get the whip
cracking over them!

Sir Arameth Gridlore, OEG
President, Gridlore Technologies, LIC

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:31:45 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

At 05:47 PM 7/10/97 -0400, you wrote:

>Blake's 7 anyone?  Any of the THUDDDers want to design the LIBERATOR?
>(also...what exactly does THUDDD stand for...I musta missed that one?)

Ooohhhh....  I like the idea of doing Zen and ORAC as NPCs, and know the
perfect guy to play Avon.  Slightly off topic, but wouldn't most folks
agree that B7 is one of the more Travellereque SF series out there?

As to the Liberator, it seems to be a TL17 or so scout ship with a limited
AI running it.  I could bash together some numbers (it would give me an
excuse to veg in front of the TV all day doing research..) but the
incompatible assumptions would render any comparison meaningless.

THUDD: The Highly Unofficial Design Derby
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 97 18:43:39 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Vilani Power Structure (a rebuttal)

Quoth Ethan Henry, on 1997-07-10 12:26:

>Well, although it is a long excerpt, I hope it makes a bit
>clearer what I was getting at. The Vilani do not have a 
>dictatorial power structure, yet the very nature of their 
>society makes them act in a way that seems "forced" to most
>Solomani. It has enabled them to efficiently rule a large
>interstellar empire, but the notions of priorities are slow
>to change in the Vilani. Combining these strong social
>drives with the Ziru Sirka's "Shadow Emperors", Terrans
>have a tendancy to describe the Vilani power structure as 
>one that is very top-down, when yes, I agree, it is in fact,
>quite the opposite. I am glad we've been able to clear things
>up somewhat.

<wiping tear from eye> Well done! You have captured much of the spirit of 
the Vilani. I'm glad this misunderstanding has been resolved.

E. Laparkikumiin

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:47:01
From: Jeff <nblade@extremezone.com>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:05:52 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

At 03:29 AM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:


>The Navy uses a yellow sunburst.  The IISS sunburst is red, and the Army is
>black on a red field.  The different colors for branch sunbursts came in
>after 247, when it was declared that the symbol, not the color, mattered.

>The "poni express" symbol wasn't adopted until the X-boat network was
>started in 624.

absolutely right on both accounts. What can I say, thats what I get for
typing a reply after 8hrs of work at 4:30am in morning. First I forgot the
color scheme and then I forgot what era he was asking about. Guess I should
get some sleep before I reply next time ( or at the very least read my
reply twice)

Jeff 
nblade@firstinter.net
http://www.firstinter.net/nblade/

BTW if any one does come up with a good motto tell me.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:54:13 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Sylea ---> Capital

I have to say first, that I'm delighted to see people obsessively
documenting their Traveller references. I love it, but...
Unfortunately, the downside is that others can look at what you're
referring to. I have a small question (not flamebait, please) about the
change of the name of Sylea to Capital. 
I only have one of the three sources that Hyphen quoted (Adventure 3), and
it states that Capital has been "seat of government since (the Imperium's)
founding". This does not necessarily mean that the planet has been called
Capital since the foundation of the Imperium. 
As for the assertion that we should begin calling Sylea "Capital"...I
suggest that the term "Capital" would have begun as a slang term, then
entered general usage, until over time, nobody called the planet Sylea
anymore...by which time, an official name change became just a matter of
formality. Of course, in Year Zero, if you talk about "Capital", everybody
*knows* what you mean...

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 18:02:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

My answer to the Traveller Hex question is as follows:

this code comes from VBA-Excel but it should translate easily to any
language.

Function TravNotation(number)

        If number > 9 Then
               TravNotation = Chr(number + 55)
        ElseIf number < 0 Then
                TravNotation = "0"
        Else
               TravNotation = TRIM(Str(number))
        End If

End Function

- ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 18:14:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller in Java

I too have been considering JAVA. All my stuff now is c++ command line
stuff or VBA. However, all JAVA applications, as compared with applets,
that I have seen have been terible messes. Perhaps its the coders, perhaps
its the language. Remeber if you want to write to a file it has to be an
application and not an applet.

- ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 18:35:59 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Imperium, fighters

Hello,
  Interestingly enough, the Imperium Terran fighter counters
use the same silhouettes as Terran SDB counters from Invasion:
Earth. So there is some precedent for seeing them as being
similar to non-Jump scout sized gunships.

Steven Hudson,
        Vancouver, British Columbia

The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"
       

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 20:39:59 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 13:52:08 -0700
Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:
>
>At 12:43 PM 7/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Note that the MT Referee's Companion has genetic manipulation starting at
>TL9 (pg 32)

Funny, my copy does not say what you imply, but I did read it in the
context that you suggest, and don't reach whatever conclusion you are
trying to suggest.

>Nowhere in your sources does it state that the Solomani terraformed entire
>worlds on a regular basis.

Of course.  They worked on Atmospheric terraforming, a much higher TL.

>You are reading more into the rules than are there.  According to the WBH,
>ALL forms of Terraforming recive a substantial bonus for TL12+ (WBH pgs
>68-69.)  

No, you are reading more into the rules than are there.  The procedures
you refer to deal with the TL of the World being terraformed, not
the TL of the Terraformers.  Also, that reference defines "wide-scale
terraforming" as effecting at least a hex, not a whole environment.

Of course, I could estimate the tech level of the force field required
to hold out the non-terraformed atmosphere. :)

>You have yet to show in Scots, WBH, or World Tamers' a hard rule declaring
>what forms of Terraforming are prohibited until TL 16.

Oh, so now I have to write rules declaring that our interpretation is
valid. :)

>The Sahara desert makes up about 1.7% of the Earth's surface area, or about
>9 hexes on a standard 500-hex world map.  This is not an "entire
>hemisphere" or larger, and fits with the TL-12 description.

We make no such claim about the importance of the Sahara, only to show
what _is_ possible at TL12, rather than the (rather extreme) claims I saw
here about what was possible at TL12.

>If you leave a natural system alone, it will repair itself.  Also, the roll
>for terraforming Earth's atmosphere would be -2.. impossible at *any* TL.
>I don't think it has ever been canon that Earth's atmosphere ever changed
>from 6 to 7.  It got very unpleasant, yes, but not to the "filter masks
>required" point.

Of course they didn't need filter masks--they were protected by their
domed cities, or didn't you bother to read that.

>In 832 the Imperium is TL 14.. or are you now saying that the Imperium was
>actually TL 16, or 17..

No, the proper interpretation there is that the TL15/16 Imperium could
not finish what the Terrans started.

>The fact that it took over 2000 years to complete the project should tell
>you something.. the Solomani overeached themselves, and started something
>that couldn't be done at their tech level.  If they had been TL16/17, the
>project would have been completed before the Long Night.

Like I said, they had their hands full, and suddenly with a _whole bunch_
of new worlds open to them, terraforming (a slow and long draw out process
no longer made as much sense) was no longer as important as it had been.

>The roll for changing Mars' atmosphere at TL12: Size=4, +1; Hyd=0, -1;
>Since no pop data is given I will give it a zero effect. Tech=12, +2;
>Life=No, +2.
>
>To change Mars' atmosphere at TL12:  4- on 2D6.  This is very doable.

Wrong.  That is the roll to determine if Mars' atmosphere had changed,
quite something else indeed.

>Please note that we are modifying bacteria today (at TL8.)  Also, they were
>using native lifeforms.

Yeah, and at TL 8, they would have as much trouble trying to do TL16
terraforming as they did at TL14.

>Since this entire section hinges on one quote that is contradicted in
>several other sources, I tend to dismiss the AI comment and go with the
>TL12 low autonomous operation thread.

Or the same flawed source is inconsistent with the rest of the truth.

>>DIRECT QUOTE
>>
>>  T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
>>
>>    "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
>>
>>      [c.59 Imperial date]
>
>Well, we've all seen the reaction to that haven't we?

Sorry, but I'm playing T4, and they are consistent with the past, no matter
how popular that notion is on this list.

>> Long Night moments
>>  -1700  No more fusion technology on Sylea (TL 7)
>>  -1526  Long Night not noticeable on Terra (TL ?)
>
>Note that Sylea maintained TL 10 throughout the Long Night, reaching TL11
>in -650 and TL12 in -150. (MT RC, pg 34)

No, 76 years after the -1776 entry, Sylea looses fusion tech, i.e. TL7.
(M0, pg 87)

>A look at Leroy's evidence shows that much of it consists of conjecture,
>and fails to address the issue of where it is published that the Rule of
>Man reached TL16+.  Even his last second mention of Greg Porter's comment
>in EA fails to meet his lofty claims.

I think "known maximum" circa 59 Imperial speaks for itself, but if you
are being stubborn about something ...  I can see the interpretation of
*known maximum* = *actual maximum*, but I don't agree.  I can see how it
is possible.  Afterall, there are only two realistic interpretations of
that statement.

>The facts as I see them:
>
>The terraforming of Terra and Mars are fully withint the limitations of
>TL12.  Indeed, the Mars project is still going on at the time of the
>writing of Rats and Cats.

Except that you ignore the facts about atmospheric terraforming.

I thought you called yourself a planetologist. :)  You don't even know how
to terraform using WBH. :)

>The two global terraforming projects mentioned.. one was a complete
>failure, the other required two milenia and Imperial intervention to reach
>partial success.  

Uh, make that atmospheric terraforming--TL16.

>There is no evidence that Solomani genetic engineering reached TL17 levels.
> I will grant that the solomani were advanced where genetic engineering was
>concerned, but not to the degree Leroy claims.

Agreed, we think TL14 or TL15.

>Except for one sentence, all Traveller materials point to the RoM having
>low-functioning automonous robots.

Or, except for one sentence, all Traveller materials point to the RoM having
Artificially Intelligent robots.  Like your Varian argument, the writer's of
Book 8 weren't up to speed with the rest of the universe.

>After reading the arguements, and checking the source material for myself,
>I have to say that I still find nothing that contradicts the Rule of Man
>possessing Tech 12 with some early tech 13.  Possibly a medical/genetic TL
>of very early 14 could be justified.

I'm not surprised since you spent a whole two hours (counting the time
to read and digest just what I was really saying) to put up a reply. :)

Actually though, I didn't expect you to be influenced by the facts--I do
expect some others "out there" to be happy that I have given them some
backup for what I had claimed, and they rejoiced in.

>   Douglas E. Berry

Like I said, you can promote all this "world-bending" at TL12, but that
doesn't leave much fun for the sense of awe that the TI will have for us
in M1100 (or the RoM in M-1800).

Have all the fun you want to in this thread, but I am moving on.


Leroy
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        Science Adventure
                                                        in the Far Future

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1543
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1544



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Traveller in Java
Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!
Re: Traveller in Java
Re: Dogs in space...
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
THUDDD has *three* Ds!
Re:  TL of RoM
Re: T4.1 career changes
Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
Traveller: Beyond The Pale... Episode 4
Re: Traveller in Java
Re: Sylea ---> Capital
RoM tech, again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:49:59 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph Heck <ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu>
Subject: Re: Traveller in Java

Mark Ayers said:
> I too have been considering JAVA. All my stuff now is c++ command line
> stuff or VBA. However, all JAVA applications, as compared with applets,
> that I have seen have been terible messes. Perhaps its the coders, perhaps
> its the language. Remeber if you want to write to a file it has to be an
> application and not an applet.

There's possibilities around that - one of which is emailing whatever
responses... sure, it can't access a local file system, but it can access
port 25 on whatever machine it came from. I've gone ahead and taken this
route with my animal encounter Applet

http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe/traveller/java/ccjoe/AnimalGen/example1.html

I've gotten myself bogged down more on UI issues at this point than
worries about saving the data I've manipulated.

- -- 
 joe                          (573) 882-2000
 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu    http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe
 PGP Fingerprint: E3 3F DF 08 BE 3E 44 A0  EE A9 80 7E 22 99 CD DF
 "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and
 impenetrable fog!" -- Calvin

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:49:09 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!

Craig Berry wrote:

>
>> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:47:13 -0400
>> From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
>>
>> Blake's 7 anyone?  Any of the THUDDDers want to design the LIBERATOR?
>> (also...what exactly does THUDDD stand for...I musta missed that one?)
>
>THUDDD = "Traveller Highly Unofficial Democratic Design Derby"
>
>...as is explained on the THUDDD website:
>
>     http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/thuddd.html
>
>where you'll also find THUDDD rules, the results of past THUDDDs, and the
>specs for the current THUDDD competition, a yacht -- for which I have so
>far received exactly zero entries.  What's up, folks?  Are the gearheads
>on strike 'cause of the prose emphasis, and the lit'ry folk too busy
>sighing and sipping tea to be bothered? :)

	Well, I've been too busy actually running a game to do it yet, but
wait for FSY's 500 Td 4G airframe saucer Ludwig-class yacht coming soon to
a TML near to you.  I just gotta decide on the laser bay vs. NPAW spinal
mount issue before I start crunching numbers..:).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 97 13:58:36 +0000
From: James.Dempsey@hr-m.b-m.defence.gov.au
Subject: Re: Traveller in Java

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com> said:

>I too have been considering JAVA. All my stuff now is c++ command line
>stuff or VBA. However, all JAVA applications, as compared with applets,
>that I have seen have been terible messes. Perhaps its the coders, 
>perhaps its the language. 

     Well, the language supports applications fairly well. It takes its 
syntax straight from C. ie public void main() {...} and that's your 
application. I should be able to convert my Starship Assembly Line 
applet into an application in pretty short order, if there was a demand 
for it.

>Remeber if you want to write to a file it has >to be an application and 
>not an applet.

     That isn't strictly true. There are two ways that an applet can 
have file IO. It can be run as a trusted applet (ie. it is on the local 
classpath), and it can write out files, and for some browsers you can 
have a .hotjava/properties file with specific directories which are 
allowed to be accessed listed (See Sun's Java Security FAQ for more info 
on this one).

     Of course if you are writing an application, then you _know_ that 
you can write out files, there is none of the "what if I don't" hassles 
which you have in applets.

Bye,
James Dempsey
jamesd@spirit.com.au (home)
james.dempsey@hr-m.b-m.defence.gov.au (work)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:19:45 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Dogs in space...

Instead of a dog in space why not get one of the Animal 'Bots from CSC?

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:16:09 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

>I can't help but think maybe some people are puting way to much thought
>into this. I dont see how a couple of items in a few supplements can
>cause the game to come crashing down.

If by "way too much thought" you mean more thought than the adventure
writers put in, then I agree. If you mean more thought than is warranted,
then I disagree. For me, an adventure comes "crashing down" if I I catch
myself saying 'oh puh-LEASE!' aloud when I read it. That happened to me
when I read of the TL 14 treasure hoard in Anomalies. Other posters have
remarked on the absurdities of finding TL 14 equipment from a TL 12 culture
which work perfectly after a thousand years. For me, it was the fact that
we've already had this in TNE and I have no intention of turning my
campaign into a treasure hunt.

Even if you ignore the adventures, a more serious problem is the fact that
the writers and editors of the book saw no need to maintain consistency
with previously-published materials. While this is fine for an individual
referee to do, it creates headaches when the publishers do it because I
can't use published materials without significant alterations, or a lot of
backpedaling at the end, if I want to maintain a consistent campaign.

>2. Mr. Berry
> I must congradulate you on a great Adventure in JTAS. 26. Actually I
>think I will use all most everything in that issue at sometime. I like
>to see a adventure like this were a pgmp and dex-F means nothing (err..
>Almost nothing).

Agreed. "Strike!" was dramatic, well-designed, and easily fits into any
campaign. Too bad the illustrations had nothing whatsoever to do with the
adventure.  Still, I liked it better than the feature adventure, which was
another monster of the month. At least they weren't psionic; those things
should be banned.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:07:38 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

At 08:39 PM 7/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 13:52:08 -0700
>Douglas E. Berry <dberry@hooked.net> writes:

>>Note that the MT Referee's Companion has genetic manipulation starting at
>>TL9 (pg 32)
>
>Funny, my copy does not say what you imply, but I did read it in the
>context that you suggest, and don't reach whatever conclusion you are
>trying to suggest.

"Advances in genetics lead to the development of practical limb
regeneration techniques."

As a survivor of a genetically linked cancer, let me assure you that the
abilty to regrow limbs, and force grow tissue at TL 10 is genetic
manipulation.  (Which we are doing today, BTW.)
>
>>Nowhere in your sources does it state that the Solomani terraformed entire
>>worlds on a regular basis.
>
>Of course.  They worked on Atmospheric terraforming, a much higher TL.

Then why is it possible to have atmospheric terraforming occuring in the
canonical Third Imperium?  It only reached TL15.

>No, you are reading more into the rules than are there.  The procedures
>you refer to deal with the TL of the World being terraformed, not
>the TL of the Terraformers.  Also, that reference defines "wide-scale
>terraforming" as effecting at least a hex, not a whole environment.
>
>Of course, I could estimate the tech level of the force field required
>to hold out the non-terraformed atmosphere. :)

Which is exactly what was done to Earth.

>>You have yet to show in Scouts, WBH, or World Tamers' a hard rule declaring
>>what forms of Terraforming are prohibited until TL 16.
>
>Oh, so now I have to write rules declaring that our interpretation is
>valid. :)

No, you need to show where in Traveller it is stated that the RoM reached
TL16+

>>If you leave a natural system alone, it will repair itself.  Also, the roll
>>for terraforming Earth's atmosphere would be -2.. impossible at *any* TL.
>>I don't think it has ever been canon that Earth's atmosphere ever changed
>>from 6 to 7.  It got very unpleasant, yes, but not to the "filter masks
>>required" point.
>
>Of course they didn't need filter masks--they were protected by their
>domed cities, or didn't you bother to read that.

According to the 1997 World Alamanc, there are 40 cities in the US alone
with over 1 million inhabitants.  79.8% of the american people live cities.
 Now, S&A states that "several cities" built domes.  Not "all" but
"several".  This is the same leap of illogic that leds people to brand all
homosexuals as AIDS carriers since some gays have the disease.

>>In 832 the Imperium is TL 14.. or are you now saying that the Imperium was
>>actually TL 16, or 17..
>
>No, the proper interpretation there is that the TL15/16 Imperium could
>not finish what the Terrans started.

The Imperium didn't achieve TL15 until 1000, during the Solomani Rim War
(the infamous page 34 of MT RC.)  So where did this TL16 knowledge come from?

>>The fact that it took over 2000 years to complete the project should tell
>>you something.. the Solomani overeached themselves, and started something
>>that couldn't be done at their tech level.  If they had been TL16/17, the
>>project would have been completed before the Long Night.
>
>Like I said, they had their hands full, and suddenly with a _whole bunch_
>of new worlds open to them, terraforming (a slow and long draw out process
>no longer made as much sense) was no longer as important as it had been.

Spurious arguement.  If you have invested billions of
dollars/credits/whatever into a project, you don't give it up just because
a new frontier opens up.  You'd go bankrupt!

>>The roll for changing Mars' atmosphere at TL12: Size=4, +1; Hyd=0, -1;
>>Since no pop data is given I will give it a zero effect. Tech=12, +2;
>>Life=No, +2.
>>
>>To change Mars' atmosphere at TL12:  4- on 2D6.  This is very doable.
>
>Wrong.  That is the roll to determine if Mars' atmosphere had changed,
>quite something else indeed.

Which it has, from 1 to 3.  BTW.. I just noticed something.. the article in
Rats and Cats states that the terraforming of Mars began *700* years ago..
this was written from the perspective of a Solomani commentator living
during the Rebellion!  Mars wasn't started on until the 400's Imperial!

>>Please note that we are modifying bacteria today (at TL8.)  Also, they were
>>using native lifeforms.
>
>Yeah, and at TL 8, they would have as much trouble trying to do TL16
>terraforming as they did at TL14.

and note that they failed miserably.  Hardly a ringing endorsement.

>>Since this entire section hinges on one quote that is contradicted in
>>several other sources, I tend to dismiss the AI comment and go with the
>>TL12 low autonomous operation thread.
>
>Or the same flawed source is inconsistent with the rest of the truth.

I see.  So several sources state that yes, the solomani used low autonomous
robots, one sentence uses the phrase "artifical intellegnce" and you chose
to believe that one.  Ever hear of Occram's Razor?  I've heard Sojourner
described as having Artifical Intellegence.  Does this mean that NASA is
using TL16 robotics on Mars?  Call the Men in Black!
>
>>>DIRECT QUOTE

>>>  T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15

>>>    "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."

>>Well, we've all seen the reaction to that haven't we?
>
>Sorry, but I'm playing T4, and they are consistent with the past, no matter
>how popular that notion is on this list.

No, they aren't.  Until now the Ziru Sirka was TL11, and the Rule of Man
was TL12.. the Imperium reached TL15, early 16 before it fell.

>>The facts as I see them:
>>
>>The terraforming of Terra and Mars are fully withint the limitations of
>>TL12.  Indeed, the Mars project is still going on at the time of the
>>writing of Rats and Cats.
>
>Except that you ignore the facts about atmospheric terraforming.

Even though by your own admission it shouldn't be possible for TL15 Earth
to be changing Mars' atmosphere code.  Earth was an Imperial possession for
over a century.. you'd think that they would have noticed TL16 terraforming
going on..

>I thought you called yourself a planetologist. :)  You don't even know how
>to terraform using WBH. :)

Now you are being deliberately insulting.  I really resent this.  Maybe
when you have a little more credibility around here, I'll accept you
judgements, but as for now, you don't know what you are talking about.

>>The two global terraforming projects mentioned.. one was a complete
>>failure, the other required two milenia and Imperial intervention to reach
>>partial success.  
>
>Uh, make that atmospheric terraforming--TL16.

by the Third Imperium?  When did they get to TL16?

>>Except for one sentence, all Traveller materials point to the RoM having
>>low-functioning automonous robots.
>
>Or, except for one sentence, all Traveller materials point to the RoM having
>Artificially Intelligent robots.  Like your Varian argument, the writer's of
>Book 8 weren't up to speed with the rest of the universe.

Amazing.  You've managed to completely reverse my point.  Ther is only
*one* sentence in 20 years of Traveller publications that makes reference
to artificial intellegences in the RoM.. and numerous sources that say that
the robots were mere machines able to "learn" and adapt to changing
situations.
>
>>After reading the arguements, and checking the source material for myself,
>>I have to say that I still find nothing that contradicts the Rule of Man
>>possessing Tech 12 with some early tech 13.  Possibly a medical/genetic TL
>>of very early 14 could be justified.
>
>I'm not surprised since you spent a whole two hours (counting the time
>to read and digest just what I was really saying) to put up a reply. :)

My Traveller materials sit by my desk, and I wanted to reply.. what, I
should sit in stunned awe at your reasoning?  I don't think so.  It took me
about twenty minutes to put together my reply.  What can I say?  I'm just
that good.

>Actually though, I didn't expect you to be influenced by the facts--I do
>expect some others "out there" to be happy that I have given them some
>backup for what I had claimed, and they rejoiced in.

OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
some of your points.

>Like I said, you can promote all this "world-bending" at TL12, but that
>doesn't leave much fun for the sense of awe that the TI will have for us
>in M1100 (or the RoM in M-1800).

You want space opera?  Fine, you can declare that the Ancients were really
the Solomani for all I care, just don't try to push it down our throats.

>Have all the fun you want to in this thread, but I am moving on.

Cutting and running. Good tactic, goes well with the "Silent Majority."
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:34:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD has *three* Ds!

> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 17:34:46 -0700
> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
> 
[snipped from my earlier post]
> >the current THUDDD competition, a yacht -- for which I have so
> >far received exactly zero entries.  What's up, folks?  Are the gearheads
> >on strike 'cause of the prose emphasis, and the lit'ry folk too busy
> >sighing and sipping tea to be bothered? :) 
> 
> Ooops!  The design staff from TransC has been busy testing zero-g
> entertainment facilities and choosing silverware.. I'll get the whip
> cracking over them!

Ah, heck, I know your design staff, and they *like* that kind of thing. :)

> THUDD: The Highly Unofficial Design Derby

Unless you're starting a competing contest with an oddly similar name,
that ain't true.  It's THUDDD, 3 Ds, and stands for "Traveller Highly
Unofficial Democratic Design Derby."

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:20:45 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re:  TL of RoM

At 10:24 AM 7/9/97 +0100, you wrote:
>better... Soylent Green, anyone?

	"It's pee-pul! Soylent Green is pee-pul!"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:25:21 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

At 06:02 PM 7/9/97 BST-1, you wrote:
>In-Reply-To: <l03020903afe82f3b3d48@[194.119.133.205]>
>
>SD,
>
>> Career changes were one of the T2300 things I liked in T4, lots. However, I
>> can just improvise id you don't put them in. I mean, that's what I did in
>> MT.
>
>Apply a -DM (=no. terms served?) to the enlistment roll of the new career if 
>you want to change jobs (why would the Navy want an ex-insurance salesman?).

	Maybe not, but a lot of people leave the Navy (Air Force, Marines, etc.)
here and become insurance salesmen ...

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:48:10 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

At 02:27 AM 7/10/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Jon Fuller writes:
>>1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
>>is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
>>other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
>>ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
>>partly?  

	Assuming we stick with the "jump grid" idea, the additional mass is quite
outside of the jump grid. I'd say the attacker jumps out, leaving the
attackee behind ... the gravitic disturbance set up by "huge stonking
tractor" beams would probably cause difficulty with the jump, though.

>>3) Suggest a good approximate toughness value for asteroid 'rock' material
>>(using the T:TNE system).
>
>   A question best answered by others, i.e. Dave Golden.

	Aaargh! You would have to pin me down ... I believe there's a toughness
value for rock somewhere in FF&S, but I'm in Virginia right now, so I don't
have access to my references.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 01:00:49 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Traveller: Beyond The Pale... Episode 4

	Just ran the fourth session of my latest campaign, titled
Traveller: Beyond The Pale.  Here's the post-game summary:

The Cast:

Amr Santayema: a young and clever merchant, played by the TML's own Ross
Coburn, who next game will find out what happens to characters whose
players cancel at the last second <evil, evil, EVIL chuckle>.

Lt Kehaaarl: An Aslan ex-marine.  Visualize Catbert, Evil H.R. Director, on
steroids and bad acid who's just fallen in love with an FSA OKA-SQ Riot
Termination Weapon.

Sir Loreni Vilash: Vilani merchant from a poor family whose trading acumen
led him to a knighthood.  Currently just trying to make a living in the
middle of a revolution.

Dame Iliana Berek'san: a prominent chanteuse; tall, pale, beautiful,
dressed in the cutting edge of Sylean fashion, with a blue & purple topknot
reaching down to her knees, coloured contacts, and a Famille Spofulam
Fashion Accessories designer laser pistol to match, who's sadly doomed
since her player got sick of her.

Perlis Dalal: a muscular female ex-scout, who's going to have to keep one
eye out for vengeful Rye-Ben for the rest of her life.  Played by the TML's
Glenn Grant.

Elo Lezaar, a highly geeky Vilani ex-Navy sensors and electronics tech.  He
mumbles, collects meditation rugs and keeps bees, and is played by TML'er
Sebastien Normandin.

	This bunch of intrepid adventurers is presently assembled, along
with a growingly large number of fellow fortune-seekers, on Mishegaan III,
an LSP mining colony, waiting for an Imperial interdict to lift on a
cluster of main-sequence stars three parsecs away.  They've incorporated,
borrowed some money with the connivance of Liontzel Huutzaa (Ling's Chief
Legal Officer, the only lawyer in a two-parsec radius, and such a crooked
one he bumps into himself walking around corners on a regular basis) and
bought up three  J-3 vessels of which they're planning on selling 2 and
keeping 1, an FSY Recollet Exploratory Trader.  However, Ling's unpleasant
labour relations have led to a full-scale worker revolt.  Last week, Dame
Berek'san went to dinner with Ling's senior manager on the planet just in
time for a terrorist attack, and Perlis and Kehaaarl were hired by Huutzaa
to spirit away Ling's records and cash reserves before the revolting
workers got their hands on them.  They were in the process of loading the
records and strongboxes onto a dolly prior to making a getaway through the
ventilation system when the inevitable happened...

This week:

	We opened with Vought Hendaar (Ling's numero uno) chatting
pleasantly with Dame Iliana.  Sadly, they were rudely interrupted by an
explosion at the front door to his quarters, which was followed shortly by
a bunch of disgruntled and armed Rye-Ben charging in.  In the heat of the
moment, one particularly dumb Rye-Ben managed to shoot out the big
panoramic windows overlooking the spaceport, and the resulting explosive
decompression blew everybody out the window and down the crater wall...

	Shortly thereafter, Sir Loreni recieved a call from spaceport
security enquiring as to why two of his crew members had been seen entering
the colony armed to the teeth in company with Huutzaa.  Sir Loreni,
forgetting that his having been partway with them must have been recorded
by a dozen cameras, played dumb and said that he hadn't a clue.

	Back in Ling's vault, Huutzaa and two of his assistants, guarded by
Perlis and Kehaaarl, were busily loading cash and data storage modules onto
a dolly when gunfire and explosions were heard nearby.  Perlis took up a
position covering the door.  Then the decompression alarms began to sound
and the sound of airtight bulkheads sealing was heard.  Shortly thereafter
the door was blown open by a breaching charge.  Perlis hosed the first
Rye-Ben through the door down with her ACR-12.  While Huutzaa and flunkies
finished up loading the dolly, Kehaaarl spotted someone trying to pull the
downed revolutionary to safety and fired his FSA 15mm gauss anti-tank
weapon (which I will get around to posting one of these days) through the
wall roughly where the would-be rescuer's body would be.  Huutzaa's
flunkies, vigourously assisted by Kehaaarl, climbed up into the vent and
began hoisting the dolly up.  Kehaaarl then took up a position covering the
door, while Huutzaa, followed by Perlis, began climbing up the ladder.

	Then someone tossed a breaching charge in the door.  Kehaaarl dived
for safety behind a desk.  Perlis, realizing she wasn't going to make it up
the ladder in time, flung herself to the floor.  The charge went off; I
rolled extremely badly, and so all save Huutzaa escaped with minimal
injuries; he took 6 points and fell off the ladder.  Kehaaarl then helped
Huutzaa up the ladder (rather energetically), while Perlis covered the door
(shooting two more Rye-Ben in the process).  Kehaaarl covered her escape
and then scooted up the ladder himself (at this point the Rye-Ben had taken
a half-dozen casualties and were regrouping), hauling it up after him.
They all ran down the ventilation shaft by which they'd entered; some
seconds later some extremely brave individual stuck his head into the vent
and had his courage rewarded with a 15mm gauss dart.

	Reaching the end of the shaft, they encountered a set of sealed
doors (automatic decompression safety measures had cut off their escape
route).  Huutzaa began to mess with the overrides while Perlis and Kehaaarl
covered his back.  One Rye-Ben actually managed to get a shot off (missing)
before getting blasted by Kehaaarl; then Huutzaa managed to get the doors
to open and they hustled the dolly out into the main ventilation shaft.
With gunfire sounding behind them, they rolled it onto the cargo elevator
they'd ridden up and descended back into the depths of the mine.  Loading
up their TL-12 utility vehicle, they started heading back towards the
minehead, but were stopped by the fact that there appeared to be a major
firefight, complete with big explosions and gargantuan cranes plummeting
hundreds of meters down mineshafts and so forth, taking place at the
minehead.

	Then they noted that atmospheric pressure in the mine was beginning
to drop; there had been a blowout somewhere.  Consulting his handcomp,
Huutzaa decided that the next best escape route would be an emergency
egress shaft about 10 km away through the tunnels.  Perlis called Sir
Loreni to arrange for pickup.

	Back at the ship, Amr had just sauntered out towards the terminal
concourse when Sir Loreni's negotiations for the sale of their Locust-class
trader were interrupted by Perlis' call for help.  However, their request
for clearance to take off was denied; spaceport control was not allowing
any departures given the state of unrest in the colony.  So they decided to
take the LAV-10 that had come with the Recollet.

	It turned out to be surplus from Baron Erghaan of Mu's elite
Special Riot Control Unit, upgraded with a Fusion+ power plant, and sported
a rather clumsily-retrofitted FSA OKA-SQ 5-barrel 4000 rpm 18mm shotgun in
a turret, with the ammo hopper hanging off the back.  Sir Loreni and Elo
piled into it and drove off at high speed to pick up the others, discussing
their prospects for obtaining cargo along the way and ignoring the raw
alien splendor of the Mishegaan landscape at sunset.

	Arriving at the emergency egress shaft (basically a largish
geodesic dome sheltering a cargo elevator out in the middle of nowhere) Elo
donned a respirator and entered the dome, while Sir Loreni stayed in the
getaway ca... er, LAV-10.  Seeing vehicle headlights at the bottom of the
shaft, (only about 10 m deep at this point) he called out; Perlis
responded.  Huuztaa's flunkies quickly loaded the strongboxes and files
onto the elevator, and they, Perlis, Kehaaarl, and Huutzaa rode up to the
top of the shaft, where Elo helped them unload the elevator.

	Suddenly, the elevator started descending again.  Elo quickly
ripped open the control panel and started messing with the wiring, causing
the elevator to jam in place halfway down; rather peeved, the Rye-Ben
Worker's Death-To-Ling Suppressionists Party members at the bottom of the
shaft opened fire, blowing several holes in the roof of the dome causing
decompression alarms to sound again.  The party beat a hasty retreat to the
airlock, with Elo, the last one out, thoroughly messing up the controls so
that the inner door only had one setting: shut.  They boarded the LAV-10,
Kehaaarl rapidly doffing his gun and its cassette backpack and jumping into
the gunnery station.  As they did so, a breaching charge blew a hole in the
side of the dome; Kehaaarl quickly turned the OKA-SQ onto the dome and
hosed it down with VRF shotgun fire as Sir Loreni floored it out of there;
however, he ran out of ammo after only 15 seconds or so...

	At Sir Loreni's insistence, Huutzaa called the spaceport
authorities and arranged to have the cash reserves picked up.  After
dropping off the strongboxes, they returned to the ship, where Huutzaa paid
Perlis and Kehaaarl rather handsomely.  Plans were made for obtaining cargo
and buying a launch, and Dame Berek'san's absence was noted.  As there was
no answer at Hendaar's quarters, Sir Loreni called Ling's head of security,
Stoob Noitag.  He reached him in Lebar Eehrt (the spaceport head's)'s
office; he was told that there had been a blowout in Hendaar's quarters
earlier and that Hendaar and Berek'san were missing.  Noitag then told Sir
Loreni that as of fifteen minutes ago he had resigned as Ling's chief of
security and was looking for passage off planet.  Sir Loreni quickly
accepted his offer of double the standard rate.

	Shortly thereafter Ling's chief medical officer called Sir Loreni,
and offered to purchase passage out for himself and his family, again at
double the usual rate...

	And we called it there, it being late.  More in two week's time...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:06:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller in Java

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Joseph Heck wrote:

> sure, it can't access a local file system, but it can access
> port 25 on whatever machine it came from.
> I've gotten myself bogged down more on UI issues at this point than
> worries about saving the data I've manipulated.

Thanks for the reasurance Joe. I'll look at your applet for ideas.
There must be room for both JAVA applets and applications.

- ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 01:02:44 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Sylea ---> Capital

Michael Barry wrote:
> 
>
> As for the assertion that we should begin calling Sylea "Capital"...I
> suggest that the term "Capital" would have begun as a slang term, then
> entered general usage, until over time, nobody called the planet Sylea
> anymore...by which time, an official name change became just a matter of
> formality. Of course, in Year Zero, if you talk about "Capital", everybody
> *knows* what you mean...

Perhaps, in M0, people would talk about 'Sylea', or 'The capital' (i.e..
capital of the 3I).  Then, after hundreds of years, it would become
known as just Capital.  However, I think that even those on the planet
would still call themselves Syleans and say the planet is Sylea.  It's
hard to change what people call themselves, even if you change the name
of the country\planet, etc. that they're on.

As for a date, I've been thinking, and, without access to the massive
Traveller libraries some have, I would guess around 400-600 the name
would become the standard.  In and around Core Subsector, it would
probably be called Sylea still though, as people had been calling it
that for thousands of years.

One interesting fact, do you think those on the frontier regions of the
Imperium in M1100 would know that it had indeed been called Sylea?  If
you said Sylea was the capital would they disagree?  It's odd what some
people don't know about their own countries sometimes, and when you get
to an interstellar level, who knows...

BTW, to everyone who replied to my questions, concerning my story, thank
you very much for all your help.  Right now, I'm figuring out what I'm
going to give the IISS as motto, and when I do, I'll post it
here....probably something do with stars, exploration and empire (but, I
guess that was obvious).

Thanks,
 
> **************************************************************************
> Michael Barry
> mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
> **************************************************************************

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virtually anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutely anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:14:47 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: RoM tech, again.

>I've flipped through the sources I can find (and I'm looking
>for the one I can't) and have to conclude that the problem is
>differing interpretations of tech descriptions. The -2389 AI 
>from the MT Encyclopedia clearly refers to TL 12 robots (also
>see Book 8, p.6), leaving the real issue the definition of
>terraforming. If the listings and write-ups are compared
>(MT Companion pps. 28, 31-32) it seems likely that terraforming
>capabilities are listed by TL only when they can be very reliably
>completed within a relatively limited time span (a few decades,
>not centuries).

  Here's the original post someone just referred to. I'll avoid the
terraforming technicalities due to not having WBH, but it seems
evident that perhaps TL 16+ robots implies TL 16 computers and much
else, not least fire control, and perhaps jump drives?

  Re: medical technology. It seems reasonable that accomplishing
something due to "advances in genetics" implies use of geneering?
If not, a correct explanation and/or definition would be useful.

  If the Long Night wasn't noticeable on Terra, why did Terra
not exceed TL 14 until after the Solomani Rim War (i.e., Invasion:
Earth)? While no advancement might occur during the Long Night what
happened from either -1110 (Old Earth Union formed) or 200 (trade
re-established) until 588 when Terra entered the 3I? (dates from AM6).

  Sylea losing fusion tech would be TL 9, not 7, correct?

>Or the same flawed source is inconsistent with the rest of the truth.
                                                                ^^^^^
  I have to point out that this sort of attitude isn't really helpful,
and doesn't have much to do with research or even debate (kind of like
watching Colonel North on "Crossfire").

Steven Hudson,
        Vancouver, British Columbia

The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"
       

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1544
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1545



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Rant: Rule of Man TL
Life SUpport
TNE Questions
MT Interrupts
(Fwd) Re:  TL of RoM
Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
TL9 8cm DEI Laser rifle
FFS headake
Fixing Stars
RoM TL16??
Re: Stars in Traveller
Traveller Integrated Timeline
Sylea as Capital (name change)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:17:12 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Douglas E. Berry wrote:
Hi,

> >>If you leave a natural system alone, it will repair itself.  Also, the roll
> >>for terraforming Earth's atmosphere would be -2.. impossible at *any* TL.
> >>I don't think it has ever been canon that Earth's atmosphere ever changed
> >>from 6 to 7.  It got very unpleasant, yes, but not to the "filter masks
> >>required" point.
> >
> >Of course they didn't need filter masks--they were protected by their
> >domed cities, or didn't you bother to read that.
> 
> According to the 1997 World Alamanc, there are 40 cities in the US alone
> with over 1 million inhabitants.  79.8% of the american people live cities.
>  Now, S&A states that "several cities" built domes.  Not "all" but
> "several".  This is the same leap of illogic that leds people to brand all
> homosexuals as AIDS carriers since some gays have the disease.

Just want to quickly back up Douglas here, S&A does indeed refer to
several cities in "North America and Europe".  Thus, this takes out many
of the world's largest cities, such as Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Rio De
Janiero.  Many of those have some of the worst smog, etc. (Don't many in
Tokyo wear filter masks?).  If the atmospheric problems had been that
bad, all of the world's countries would have had domes over at the very
least their most populous cities.  However, all of these Asian and South
American centres are left out.

Also, I suppose ana rguement could be made that the nations didn't have
the money for the domes, and, if S&A had pointed out that Japan had
domes I would agree.  However, Japan is a very wealthy nation, and on
the cutting edge of technology.  one would think that if the atmospheric
problems were large enouh to cause a UWP change, then the world's most
cutting edge technological nation -Japan- would have had domes over it's
cities.

Next, a small point concerning the terraforming TL.  Not having access
to WBH (I wish), I only conjecture.  However, here is some things from
S&A to take into accunt when deciding how much 'damage control' the
Terrans had to do after the ravages of the 19th and 20th centuries:

Solomani and Aslan, pg. 19

	"By the time our ancestors reached Mars, we were overtaxing our
planet's ecology with our carelessness.  Drastic global warming --a
result of atmospheric pollution-- caused sweeping changes in weather
patterns....
	While we humans fought against each other, Terra's wildlife fought
against the changing environment.  Widespread climate changes, along
with shinrkage of natural habitats, took a toll of Terra's animal and
plant populations.  Several species died out, unable to adjust to the
environmental disrption."

Sounds quite like today actually ;-\

Anyhow, back to the arguement.  It mentions in that paragraph that
'while we humans fought against each other'.  Thus, alll this happened
before the Terran exploration and conquest of their solar system, as it
mentions on the same page, "Although national competition was brisk for
resources of spa, we knew no major wars".  I would conjecture then, that
by the time of the discovery of Jump Drive (2087), Humans had begun the
major work of environmental recovery, all at TL 10 (is that J-Drive?) or
below in some areas.

Like I said, I don't have access to all the massive lirbaries, but this
is what it hought, that the RoM did NOT ascend to TL 15+.  I can see
some TL 14\15 areas perhaps...but TL12 was definitey the norm.  In
genetics\medicine TL13\14, but not the high numbers purposed by Leroy.

Thanks,

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:46:22 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Rant: Rule of Man TL

On 10 Jul 97 at 21:07, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge
> on the net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to
> many times to believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post,
> or you are making this all up.  I think I've seen two people post
> lukewarm commentary about some of your points.

	Personally, I find the idea of a high-tech RoM very intriguing; at 
least on the fields of geneering and computers/robotics RoM could've 
well reached TL 16, with TL 12 on others. I am not supporting Leroy 
per se, because high-tech RoM _is_ not canon. But, canon's been 
changed before - air/rafts were supposedly TL 8 vehicles. Looking out 
the window, I don't see any flying around. :)

	IMO, sometime in the (not-so-distant) future we'll have to rethink
some TL definitions again. AFAIK, cloning a sheep is TL 9 tech; so
are most of the computers you can buy at shops today. Practical 
laser weapons might be pushed way back into TL 11+, AI computers
down to TL 12-13, declare Jump Drive a variant with Stutterwarp 
being in common use in RL... :)

	I don't see any reason why Traveller wouldn't be around in one form
or another for the next 20 years, too. We just have to keep revising
it, so it stays _the_ state-of-the-art game.

	As for going out of line to patch up the mistakes made my some T4
authors, no way. It's going to take a whole lot more than some nice
pictures in the rulebooks (which are non-canon, btw.) to convice me
to change from my own cocktail of MT/Hard Times, GURPS and
Sterlingesque cyberpunk with some B5 flavour, to T4.

	Can't anybody post without the C-word anymore? :)


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:58:14 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Life SUpport

>Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 19:32:56 -0400
>From: "Michael L. Galligan" <teflonkid@voyager.net>
>Subject: Support Costs
>
>So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
>support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
>life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
>an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.
>
Atmosphere:
        Start by finding a breathable atmosphere.
        Then open the doors, and generate wind trhough vessel (Flush air)
        remove filters from atm system, and perform some kind of field recharge,
                probably involving current, open air, and fresh water.
        Refill emergency O2 supply and bulk gass supply (He, N, Ar... Ship's
                master's discretion and sense)
        Fertilize the plants aboard (See SSOM).

Food:
        Buy/Harvest/Grow food supplies.
        Break out the seal-a-meal

Solid Wastes
        Shovel them into a pit, or, if truly in the wilderness, dump them just
        prior to atmospheric entry

Water:
        Reload the ready supply from local.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:58:19 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: TNE Questions

>From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@mail.geocities.com>
>Subject: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
>
>I'm working on a story for T:TNE, and I'd like get some opinions on a few
>questions that have been bothering me today:

Here are my (NS) humble opinions... And everyone knows how bloody
opinionated I am! ;-)

>1) There are two ships floating about in the vastness of space.  One ship
>is kitted out with two huge stonking tractor beam mounts.  It grabs the
>other ship with its tractors and begins its jump sequence.  Does the second
>ship get 'dragged' into J-space with the first?  All the way?  Or just
>partly?

Based upon RSB and SSOM, Not at all, unless it pulls the other ship within
the jump-field's range (max diameter is Length +2m or so) prior to engaging
the JDrive.

>2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
>for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
>question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
>acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
>could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

TL 16 worlds in MT were few, and far between... 1 or two per sector.. not
enough for overall commercial impact... Based upon the 1120 stats, TL16 was
above "Imperial" levels; you couldn't field a TL 16 force too far from a TL
16 world where it originated; TL 15 was caommon enough to be fielded quite
a distance. And, with hard times starting in 1126, and TL FALLING... well,
yes, TL 16, for imperial forces, is too high.

[snip]

>4) (Again, trying not to restart a flame war (though pre-emptively donning
>the 'didn't you read the !@%#%$ FAQ?!?'-proof suit)) Does anyone think
>'Virus' would be more workable if it were really a plague of highly
>virulent nanites that hop from ship to ship and to stations and planetary
>surfaces in a kind of 'grey goo' scenario?  (As opposed to this silly bit
>of sentient software that just takes over everything magically. : P)

That's a tack I hadn't thought of... still, unreasonably virulent to have
done what is needed for TNE's setting to occur (Very Much IMHO)


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:58:25 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: MT Interrupts

>One of my MT players asked me a very good question, which I couldn't
>answer. In the MT combat rules, one of the restrictions on interrupts
>is:
>
>7 only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
>  enemy movement
>
>Now, since each "side" in a combat is permitted only one interrupt
>per combat round, isn't the above restriction redundant? How can a
>person be interrupted twice in a round, moving or not?

No, Erwin, you got that bit wrong. One interrupt per character. You may not
interrupt your OWN side's people/etc. But you can interrupt the guy who
interrupted your pal.

>Can some kind soul out there explain the reasoning behind this
>restriction to me?

Erwin:
        It boils down to this:

        Side A has one guy, side B has 5. A tries to act, B1 interrupts
immediately. Since A is alone, no others on A may interrup B, and no other
b's may interrupt B1, until B1's done and let A move 1 square or do one
action.

More complex sit: A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, b2,  b3. b4, b5, b6

A1: 1 space, interrupted
  B1 shoots, interrupted
    A2 moves to draw a bead on b1
      B2 interrupts A2 after 1st square, and shoots
      B3 interrupts A2 after 2nd square, and shoots
      B4 wants to interrupt, but can't until after A2 does something
    A2 Shoots B1 dead!
      B4 now interrupts A2 before A2 can step back into cover, and steps...
        A3 interrupts B4, and shoots him dead before he can get a shot off
           WITHOUT moving to do so
      B4 now dead, has no action
    A2 now steps back into cover (1 space
  B1 also now dead has no further action
a1 steps again
  B5 now interrupts, as A1's next space will be into cover
     so he moves once to get a bead...
    A4 interrupts, and shoots B6, resulting in B6 being KO'd
  B5 proceeds to shoot A1
A1, now wounded, finally gets into cover.

Combat sequening in MT is Interrupt driven. The above is a "from-memory"
rework of an explanation in TD...

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:08:56 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: (Fwd) Re:  TL of RoM

On 11 Jul 97 at 0:20, David J. Golden wrote:

> At 10:24 AM 7/9/97 +0100, you wrote:
> >better... Soylent Green, anyone?
> 
>  "It's pee-pul! Soylent Green is pee-pul!"

<Homer_Simpson>
"Mmmm... soy-lent green..." 
</Homer_Simpson>

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:09:39 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

On 11 Jul 97 at 0:48, David J. Golden wrote:

>  Aaargh! You would have to pin me down ... I believe there's a
> toughness value for rock somewhere in FF&S, but I'm in Virginia
> right now, so I don't have access to my references.

 FFS p. 38, Construction materials: Stone has toughness of 0.2/cm.
However, I have no idea for the weight, or for the cost of tunneling
an asteroid. Also, the actual armor value may vary a bit here and
there. In combat, I'd add a random modifier to the ship's armor value,
+-10% of the original might work fine. 

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:18:19 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

On 11 Jul 97 at 2:17, Peter Miller wrote:

> Just want to quickly back up Douglas here, S&A does indeed refer to
> several cities in "North America and Europe".  Thus, this takes out
> many of the world's largest cities, such as Tokyo, Shanghai,
> Beijing, Rio De Janiero.  Many of those have some of the worst smog,
> etc. (Don't many in Tokyo wear filter masks?).  If the atmospheric
> problems had been that bad, all of the world's countries would have
> had domes over at the very least their most populous cities. 
> However, all of these Asian and South American centres are left out.
> 
> Also, I suppose ana rguement could be made that the nations didn't
> have the money for the domes, and, if S&A had pointed out that Japan
> had domes I would agree.  However, Japan is a very wealthy nation,
> and on the cutting edge of technology.  one would think that if the
> atmospheric problems were large enouh to cause a UWP change, then
> the world's most cutting edge technological nation -Japan- would
> have had domes over it's cities.

	... or maybe just most European and North American people were
unwilling to give up the "freedom" of driving their hydrocarbon-
burning TL 6 ground vehicles that kept polluting the air, so domes
had to be built to keep the smog _inside_ the cities, wereas in other
parts of the world people gave up their cars and happily turned to
electric trikes and  public transportation..?

	"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the
impurities in our air and water that are doing it." 

                               -Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle 

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:46:21 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: TL9 8cm DEI Laser rifle

Hi everybody

I'm deserparate. I have difficutlies in the DEI Laser sequence.
In fact I didn't succeed in finding the same weight than the one give in
the TNE book (mark1, mod1)

TL9 8cm DEI Rifle (SA2, SA1, small auto). The official Weight is 4.2Kg

A DEI laser need

Focal Array,
Cooling system from 50 to 80% of the total
Structure (2 Level)
RAM adapter
Bullpup stock
Optic

+ Backpack which need
Battery
HPG
Cooling from 20 to 50% of total
Container

Does anyone tried to redo this design on the official example to verify it

The Laser is non gravitic and the max pulse is 0.04MJ (SA1), so the focal
array is designed with this value. 
The cooling system total volume is 1.33Liters

As the ROF is 1 (SA1) I multiply the FA by 4

Adding, ruggetized structure, RAM adapter, bulpup stock, optics and using
80% of cooling (max allowed), It's no good and weight is too low.

The values are nearly correct if I double the FA again. But if I do that,
the ROF become SA2 (with 0.04MJ pulse) which is not the given figure.

Please help!



- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:39:35 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: FFS headake

I'm very confuse about the batteries and HPG in the small weapon design
(Gauss, ETC and DEI Lasers)

I really need you opinion on those designs. Thanks in advance for help.


* About the (seems to be) correct case : DEI Lasers

Get the required energy then find the battery volume which can provide this
level of energy for a period depending on the number of shot you want.
The HPG is directly depending on the Required enregy per shot or per burst.

This sequence is OK, the battery usually take less than 10% of the volume
of the backpack (most is HPG) :-)


* About the corrected (but still broken) case : Gauss weapons

Gauss weapon are the evolution of slug wepon at TL12-13. So they would have
to be more efficient ( if not, they wouldn't be evolution)

Take the required energy, The reviever weight depend directly of this
figure. If you check the given array, they are coherent with the HPG table
in chapter 8. :-)

Now calculate the battery weight with the next page formula, you obtain
something usable for a pistol design (~200g usually), but totally unusable
in a portable autorifle (~3kg per 40 bullet). 
But if you recalculate the battery weight with the same system used is the
DEI laser sequence, you would find battery weight 15 times lighter
(average) :-(

It's Antti Lahtinen who explained me this design. Now I use it too. Gauss
pistol are real improvement of slug weapon (except for the recoil which is
usually higher because of the smaller weight. :-)

Sequence seems to be easily corrected.


* Now the Evil design : ETC slug ammo

The ETC cartrige use Energy to explode. So you need a HPG in the reciver
and battery in the feed system as for Gauss ammo.

The ETC reciver add 300g, assuming it's HPG, it's 150cm3, so at TL10
(0.08m3/MJ) this an energy of 1875J

But if you calculate the battery for one bullet, you would have a stored
energy of 27.000 J !! 15 times the Reciever energy capacity. :-(

Further more, as then TL increase the reciever energy increase (volume
doesn't reduce), that mean that the ETC cartridge efficiency reduce with TL
(sound stupid, isn't it?)

I suggest defining a required Energy for the ETC cartridge ignition and
then calculate all the figures (HPG banks and batteries) with the regular
battery and HPG sequence in chap 8.

What about 1000J to heat 1mg of material to plasma state? Sound not too
bad! and gives nearly good result in the weapon design sequence. 1000J for
10J/g material raises the Temp to 100.000K, might be sufficient, no?


- ----Other Topic------------------------
The Gauss ammo weight is broken

The Gauss figure says 0.04*pi*r2 which is not a volume but a surface.
The mass driver says pi*r3/10 (which is tghe correct formula of a cylinder
of 5 time its diameter in length)

Let's calculate the limit value (2cm bore)
   Gauss ammo : 12.56g (density = 0.04g/cm3, gazeous ???)
   Mass ammo : 314g (density = 10g/cm3, good average)

If you use the Mass driver formula the regular 'mm*20mm ammo weight 2.5g
instead of 0.5g, this multiply the muzzle energy by 5 at the same velocity
(or reduce the muzzle velocity by 2.23 for the same muzzle energy)

So the barrel length has to be modified (V/45)*TLm instead of (V/100)*TLm.
Even my figure gives different value, because the Gauss ammo mass formula
is a surface calculation.

The official TL13 gauss pistol (muzzle energy near 600J) has it's muzzle
velocity reduces from 1500m/s to 650m/s for the same damage efficiency. I
succeeded in keeping the weapon size.

But know the Reciver weight is nearly 90g, and if build only fro HPG, its
volume is 45cm3. The length is 9cm. Assuming it's a parallelepiped, I
obtain a section of 5cm2 (2*2.5cm) with a density iof 2g/cm. 

Further more, the barrel takes 10cm and weight nearly 600g if I remember (I
don't have to figure here). As the Grip is held of the reciever, this seems
to be a very fragile structure. 

Again Antti doesn't seem to add the reciver length to the gun, He explained
me that he has spread the HPG aroung the gun (I hope I've correctly
understood). I would personnally say that the reciver length is the length
of a bullet plus 1 or 2cm (Part of the barrel may be attached to the grip.

Why not increasing the barrel length, the feed system is direcly connected
to the barrel (or by the mean of a minimum reciever) then putting HPG
around the barrel (but not adding length)


Thanks for attention

- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:56:04 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Fixing Stars

Leroy & Marc:

PLEASE, by all means, CHANGE THE STELLAR GENERATION SYSTEM!!!

While I like CTBks2&6/MT/TNE/T4.0 World and System generation, and will
continue to use that system for compatability with old materials, it is the
most obviously dated part of Traveller as a whole.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:56:00 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: RoM TL16??

Leroy, et al:
        It was interesting to see Leroy's sources... the very same ones (to
the item) I would choose to show the RoM has no TL16 capability... just a
good TL10-11 baseline, with some fields pushing TL14 TOPS. As a general
rule, each major race has some "effective TL" for some item higher than
their Median High Common... The Hivers with +2 TL for computer purposes,
Solomani with +2 TL "gengeneering" and TL-1 Gravitics (Implied in cannon,
but not specific); Zhodani having +1TL for Medical treatment of Psychiatric
problems, but -1 TL on sensors (again, implied, not specific...).

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 3:05:21 CDT
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

> Harold Hale and I first "met" each other on-line via the History of
> the Imperium Working Group.  We were almost instant friends because
> we shared one very intense interest--Stars in Traveller.  The subject
> has also been the source of some disagreement between us, but for the
> most part we agree.  He spent a long time applying fixes to stars in
> the Solomani Rim, while I did for the stars of Spica sector.

Sigh.  Had my personal feelings with the direction Traveller was taking,
an unfortunate exchange with Loren Wiseman at GenCon (I was terribly 
fan-boy at the time, and know him a little better now), and my online 
time been free then like it is now, I would have stayed with HIWG...

I still regret walking away from this game for years...

[my exchange with Loren was one where I, someone who deeply believed that
the Rebellion setting stunk, was stunned to have him brag to myself and
others that "he" was the one who "killed" Strephon.  Hope I've grown up
a little since then...]

> We had attempted to get Dave Nilsen to put some fixes into to T:TNE,
> but he only made minor changes, and didn't really address the problems.
> In fact, he added new ones, but I digress.

Careful where you point those digressions...

> >From the first Book 6: Scouts, by GDW, we and others were encouraged
> to add more detail to our campaigns using the Expanded Generation System
> and the detailing of Stars and their systems.  As data was made available
> on the Internet, and through the publishing of sectors from GDW and then
> DGP, it became understood that the generation system produced companion
> stars that were not too realistic.

Um - try "way off".  I like the Scouts/WBH system, but there were little
problems...

> The problem is fixable, but there is a lot of sector data "out there"
> that has the original generated statistics for those stars.

Brace for impact.

> I just got off the phone with Marc and he is interested in seeing whay
> kind of response the posters of this mailing list have to say on the
> subject.  If there is no interest, then you can be assured of no change.

You know, I used to envy people on this list who said this stuff...  Then
that fateful day came when my voice mail at work had this little message -
"This is Marc Miller... I was looking at your website last night..." 

Okay - perhaps I am a little fan-boyish still - I have the number, I just
can't bring myself to call it - I prefer e-mail, it preserves the mystique
of "separation"...

> If there is sufficient interest to warrant "fixing" that part of the
> rules, then it will be up to how "you" make known your desire for change.
> 
> Some of you may be familiar with the Book 6: Scouts update web page I
> maintain.  It is by no means complete, and I have a very rough draft
> of a page for dealing with the rather frequent White Dwarf star system.
> I also have some additional material to put up on the pages, but have
> not done so at this time.
> 
>   EGS  http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~lwlguatn/SF/egs.html
>   WDS  http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~lwlguatn/SF/wds.html

I've seen this before, and the only reservation I had was your location 
for the Helix Nebula, and it's impact on that area of Imperial space...

Note - can we also throw the "locations of REAL stars list" into this
fix?

> Let Marc know how you feel about:
> 
>   1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

YES!

>   2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?
> 
>       (BTW, I personally advocate not including the stellar data
>        into listings, ala First Survey, if this issue is not going
>        to be dealt with, as was done in the earliest days of CT,
>        and T4 with the Core Subsector listing the rules book.)

Revise it.  The stellar info is the first bit of info players should have
access to, ESPECIALLY if exploring new systems...

>   3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?
> 
>        enough to do the entries in UWP files?
>        enough to do the whole system as has been done in the past?

I'd like to see WBH, but you'll need Roger Sanger's involvement there...
Actually, get him in on this - that book needs to come back into the
fold, and quick.

And a M0 version of the Starship Operator's Manual.

>   4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

Add that "locations of 'real' stars list" to this work, and I'm all for
it.  Otherwise, it's still not what my players are looking for...

Trust me - I don't run Solomani Rim adventures anymore because I was
hammered on the "real stars" thing...

> Marc and I plan to do our best to follow this thread if it takes off.
> Feel free to send any response privately if that is your style.

Great!

- --
============================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist,           (217) 351-8250 x2365 = 
= Computer Sciences Corporation, Champaign, IL       dmckinne@csci.csc.com =
= Winter War XXV Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 6-8, 1998    =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org       (217) 469-9917 = 
============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 3:19:40 CDT
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com>
Subject: Traveller Integrated Timeline

First, I've finally got Microsoft Access running, so those individuals who
contacted me last year about getting a much more web-accessible version of
the database running, please shout at me again!

Second, Leroy Guatney - someone told me you have mucho corrections for the
posted Timeline.  While the new draft is about three times larger, throw
your stuff at me, please?


DonM.
- --
============================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist,           (217) 351-8250 x2365 = 
= Computer Sciences Corporation, Champaign, IL       dmckinne@csci.csc.com =
= Winter War XXV Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 6-8, 1998    =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org       (217) 469-9917 = 
============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 3:17:24 CDT
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com>
Subject: Sylea as Capital (name change)

My take on this has always been this:

The official re-naming of Sylea to Capital was a profound event for Sylea;
therefore, there must have been a reason which made it necessary - an event
which required a response to show that Sylea was forever inseparable from
the Imperium...

During the Civil War, the Sylean worlds formed an autonomous state;
Emperor Cleon V, one of the longest reigning Emperors of the Flag, the 
Emperor who appointed Arbellatra Alkhaikoi Grand Admiral of the Marches
despite the actions of the last holder of that office (Plankwell), and
the man who "resubjugated the Home Worlds", was well positioned to have
done this - in fact, he is probably the one Emperor of the period other
than Olav (who had won the battle only to lose the war) and, of course,
Arbellatra, who could have ended the Civil War.

I've always wanted to explore him further, make him a more tragic figure,
grand plans, perhaps a hint of a "Zhunastu" bloodline, and enough of the
bearing of Cleon I to terrify his opponents, the "radical nobles".  To 
resubjugate Sylea after its declaration of autonomy, and claim the throne,
he would need an act to rally his followers around (and they were loyal -
many nobles walked out of the Moot session which recognized his murderer
as the next Emperor).  For these reasons, I've always felt that Emperor
Cleon V was the man who officially renamed Sylea to Capital; as a symbol
to Sylea that it could not step away from a troubled realm in its time
of need, and to a troubled Imperium that only one world could ever be 
the capital of 11,000 worlds.

It is significant to note that even the treasonous Dulinor, in the height
of his propaganda campaigns against the murderous Lucan during the
Rebellion, claimed to be planning his transfer of power to Capital, rather
than recognize Dlan as such.


DonM.
- --
============================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist,           (217) 351-8250 x2365 = 
= Computer Sciences Corporation, Champaign, IL       dmckinne@csci.csc.com =
= Winter War XXV Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 6-8, 1998    =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org       (217) 469-9917 = 
============================================================================

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1545
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1546



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re:  Traveller-digest V1997 #1541
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
Re: RoM TL
MT Interrupts
Changing Careers
life support
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: T4.1 career changes
Canon to the left of them, canon to the right of them

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 04:32:47 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

RFXn wrote:
> 
>         ... or maybe just most European and North American people were
> unwilling to give up the "freedom" of driving their hydrocarbon-
> burning TL 6 ground vehicles that kept polluting the air, so domes
> had to be built to keep the smog _inside_ the cities, wereas in other
> parts of the world people gave up their cars and happily turned to
> electric trikes and  public transportation..?

Very intriguing....and probably very true.  That's an excellent point,
and, since Japan, as I stated would be cutting edge, I guess they'd be
more apt to have electric\natural gas cars instead of our quaint little
gasoline versions :) 

Kind an interesting thought, domes being built over cities to keep the
smog IN, not keep the air pollutants out...:)
 
>         "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the
> impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
> 
>                                -Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle

Somehow, I'm not surprised....how is it you spell potato again? :-)
 
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 04:57:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: FKiesche@aol.com
Subject: Re:  Traveller-digest V1997 #1541

Greetings All:

Those who are looking to fill in gaps in their classic Traveller collection
might want to contact StackMC@aol.com. He has the following items available
in his latest "catalog" listing:

>>>102W - Azhanti High Lightning (Traveller) - VG shape box, VG/NM contents.  $60.00
88W - Alien Module 3, Vargr (Traveller) - VG shape, spine wear.  $20.00
87W - Alien Module 5, Droyne (Traveller) - VG/NM shape, price tag on cover. $25.00
86W - Alien Module 8, Darrians (Traveller) - VG shape, cover wear, price tag on cover.  $10.00
89W - The Traveller Book (hardcover) - Dust Jacket has some wear, nice.  $30.00
90W - The Spinward Marches Campaign (Traveller) - VG/NM shape, price tag on cover.  $15.00
91W - Starship Layout Sheets (Traveller, Games Workshop) - Near Mint, a few used.  $15.00
92W - Book #4, Mercenary (Traveller) - VG shape  $6.00
93W - Book #5, High Guard (Traveller) - Good/VG, cover very worn and seperating from staples.  $4.00
94W - Book #6, Scouts (Traveller) - VG/NM, price tag on cover.  $8.00
95W - Book #7, Merchant Prince (Traveller) - Near Mint  $10.00
96W - Supplement #11, Library Data N-Z (Traveller) - Near Mint, minor wear. $8.00
99W - Journal of the Travellers Aid Society #13 (Traveller) - VG/NM shape, minor wear.  $9.00
100W - Journal of the Travellers Aid Society #15 (Traveller) - NM shape, price tag on cover.  $8.00
97W - Best of JTAS Vol.1 (Traveller) - VG/NM, cover wear.  $8.00
98W - Best of JTAS Vol.2 (Traveller) - VG/NM, cover wear.  $7.00
101W - High Passage #2 (Traveller, FASA) - VG/NM, cover fading.  $8.00<<<

I've done a lot of business with Mike and have found him to be a completely
honest and trustworthy dealer. He sends your stuff out fast, and packs it
well. I don't know how firm he is on the prices, but it never hurts to ask...

If interested in any of the items, send mail to: StackMC@aol.com not to me!

Fred Kiesche
(FKiesche@aol.com)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:30:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

>    It was suggested here that I am stirring up a "canon" debate on
>    TML again--that is the farthest from what I wanted to do, but then
>    that is not always in my control.  On that subject, what I do want
>    to still say is that fragmentary quoting of sources can lead to
>    very myopic views of what is in print.  That is why I avoided a
>    trickling of quoting sources and discussing them one at a time,
>    without any high level view.

  Frankly, I like canon debates - it helps me rather a lot to see how
others look at source material and how they rationalize it.  Reasonable
and well thought out arguementation is always welcome on this list.

  What I found most interesting about the following citations was that I
was aware of all of them, and yet I have formed a very different picture
of what they mean.  Interesting how different people's minds work.
 
>    Nor would we want any "canon" debate to restrict what those writing
>    for T4 are doing.  It is a little difficult to revise Traveller in
>    light of twenty years experience if your hands are tied that way.
>    We have included one quote below as the exception that proves the
>    rule.

  I respectfully have to disagree here.  Much of what makes Traveller
attractive to me, and I dare say many other Traveller players, is exactly
that canonical background.  By and large, the game system is clunky
compared to other RPG systems, though since I've been playing it for so
many years I forgive it much.  The historical background material, on the
other hand, is at the heart of what Traveller is, and making major changes
without good reason seems counterproductive.
 
>    this form of complete documentation.  It just so happened that
>    enough of a trail had been prepared, that it only took us a few
>    hours to put this all together.  I've learned that some on TML
>    want you to put your quotes where your mouth is.  I guess I'll
>    have to say, that in the future (if I post here), you'll just have
>    to trust me, because I won't always have the luxury of time to
>    "prove" what I said was the truth.  At the same time, I'll try
>    to coin any posts carefully enough so as to not spark the emotional
>    response I first received to my statements.

  You may post whatever you like, but just as academics expect footnotes
that can be checked, TML posters have come to expect folks who make
assertions to back them up with evidence.  No one on this list will
"trust" you, but they will listen to well reasoned arguements.
 
> THE "UPLIFT"
> 
>   MT Referee's Companion, pg.32 - Medical Technology
> 
>     TL14 "Genetic Engineering techniques culminate in the creation of
>     altered, 'improved' life forms, including sentients.
> 
>   CT Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #6, - Dolphins
> 
>     "When humanity left the cradle of Terra, numerous other forms went
>     along.  ...  Scientists settled on using the Atlantic bottle-nosed
>     dolphin, enhanced by genetic engineering (or "geneering") to create
>     a new and hardier species (T. galactis) as a partner to human
>     settlers of these worlds."

  Nowhere is there any mention of making dolphins sentient; while the
sources mention brain modification, they do not therefore imply that
dolphins were not intelligent before.  Moreover, Traveller dolphins remain
very similar to their wild ancestors.  They use waldo-like devices and
specialized life suffort systems on land - they are not radically
modified. 

<<<Snippage of material on tuber colonies>>>

  None of the evidence you cite proves high tech levels for genetic
manipulation.  However, other Traveller materials, especial Rats & Cats,
states that the Solomani had advanced medical and genetic technology,
beyond what other human races did, since they come from the human
homeworld. If we assume, then, that the Tech Level system is a Vilani
construct (sounds like them, does it not?), I have no problem with TL13 or
TL 14 Solomani medical and biotechnology.  After all, MT allows for
variations of more than two tech levels from the standard TL, esp. in the
form of prototypes. 

  However, this does not imply anything else about Solomani tech levels,
since we already knew that they were above their general tech level in
this area.  In fact, if we assign TL14 to Solomani medical technology,
this could be argued as proof that the overall tech level is _lower_ than
TL14, since we know this area is the one that had advanced beyond the
others.

> TERRAFORMING
> 
>   MT Referee's Companion, pg. 31-32 - Environmental Engineering Technology
> 

  <<<Snippage of definitions of terraforming>>>

> 
>   MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - Terra
> 
>     "Visitors to humaniti's homeworld leave with the impression that no
>     other world could ever compare with the homeworld of our race.  The
>     scars of past disasters have healed, and today, Terra is one, great
>     garden.  We have made Africa's great northern desert, the Sahara,
>     into a multi-million-hectare farmland, tended by skilled robotic care.
>     Our Reforestation projects have restored the rain forests and jungles
>     of South America, Africa, and southern Asia.  We have even made the
>     cool Siberian plains greener than at any other time in history.

  Please note that all of the above descriptions are of restoration,
rather than of terraforming.  Much of the Sahara, particularly that in the
coastal region of the Med, was forested as late as the Roman Empire
period.  Massive deforestation (which also took place in Greece, Italy,
and other areas of Classical civilization) changed climatic patterns and
vastly expanded the Sahara.  The same can be applied to the jungles
mentioned, whose deforestation is a more recent event.  The only exception
might be the mention of the Siberian plains, but those are just "greener,"
which may mean that intensive agriculture of the Soviet style has been
moderated and improved.

>     "Terra's current status as a global park belies its sore shape during
>     the early days of star travel.  Atmospheric pollution threatened to
>     ruin our world's climate.  Industrial smog became such a problem
>     that we built domes to enclose several cities in North America and
>     Europe.  Thoughtless methods of agriculture turned once-fertile lands
>     to barren flats.  Extinctions reached a peak unseen in millions of
>     years.

  As others pointed out, not all cities were domed, only "several," and
there is no mention of Earth having a tainted atmosphere.

  Note also that the oceans have risen by 15 meters - hardly the sign of
fully mastered terraforming.

> 
>   CT Supplement 10: The Solomani Rim, pg. 38
> 
>     "Hephaistos is one of the few completed terraforming projects in the
>     Imperium.  Begun during the Interstellar Wars, the project was
>     abandoned and resumed several times.  The project was completed by
>     the Hephaistos Company, chartered by the [Third, LG] Imperium in 632.
>     The planet was opened in 835, and sections were sold to several
>     colonizing groups.  Although the project is officially complete, the
>     company is still engaged in work to reduce the ocean and atmosphere."
> 
>       [Note that Hephaistos is a size 9, atm 8 (dense), waterworld.]

  This is an Imperial project, completed under the Third Imperium.  There
is no indication of how far the project got under the Rule of Man - in
fact, it seems they failed, since the project was abandoned.

>   MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - The Outer System [of Sol]
>   
>     "Terraforming began to change the red face of arid Mars 700 years
>     ago.  The planet's thickening atmosphere now sports a much higher
>     ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide, and we hope to see actual rain
>     within the next century.  With the return of our Solomani citizens,
>     GenAssist has promised to speed completion of the terraforming
>     effort."
>     
>       [Note that by Traveller atmospheric pressure tables (TNE) that
>        Mars in 1997 AD has a trace atmosphere (UWP = 1), primarily
>        Carbon Dioxide.  Scouts and S&A say that the atmosphere is
>        UWP =3.  The size code for Mars is 4.]

  As others have already ponted out, this is an entirely Third Imperium
Project - Rule of Man had nothing to do with it - and can be done at lower
tech levels.

 
> 
>   MT Travellers' Digest #13, pg. 31 - Library Data of the Solomani Rim
> 
>     "This world used to have a thin atmosphere and a few oceans, before
>     the Terran corporation GenAssist attempted improvements.
> 
>     "Several centuries ago, the corporation attempted to 'encourage' a
>     native lifeform which fixed nitrogen into the soil for use by the
>     local plants.  The lifeform was not widespread or prolific, and
>     corporate personnel were hoping to encourage it in order to expand
>     the local agricultural regions.  GenAssist genetically altered the
>     bacteria for prolificity.  The alterations worked, and in a few
>     short years, the entire soil surface was fixing nitrogen at a 
>     prodigious rate--an alarming rate.  GenAssist tried desperately to
>     create an 'antidote' lifeform, but to no avail.  In a bizzare twist
>     of events, on of the 'antidote' attempts mutated into a strain
>     capable of storing oxygen in the soil.  Within a century, the entire
>     atmosphere of Ishimshulgi was locked in the world's crust."
> 
>       [Note that the result of using a lower tech (TL12 biotech) attempt
>        to convert a planet's atmosphere without the required TL to handle
>        global (atmospheric) terraforming.  Also, Ishimshulgi is c.1110, a
>        size 2 vacc world.]

  This is hardly good evidence - a major failure like this hardly implies
a mastery of the technology.  Anyway, although I do not have my copy of
Rats & Cats here, I think this is a project from the Imperial era, rather
than Rule of Man.  If you are using this an example that the Third
Imperium can't terraform, well and good, but how then did they do
Hephaistos and Mars, both Third Imperium projects?


> ROBOTICS
> 

<<<Big snippage of Robotics definitions>>>

  No comments here, other than to repeat what others have said - the one
citation you use seems to be a mistake, since it is contradicted by a
number of other sources.  Moreover, if Solomani robots were fully
artificially intelligent, would not the Rule of Man had to deal with the
question of their citizenship?  This is not a strong arguement, I admit,
but the absence of any mention is suggestive.
 
> 
> DIRECT QUOTE
> 
>   T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
> 
>     "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
> 
>       [c.59 Imperial date]
> 

  Well, we all know how we feel about this.  If Marc wants to change
things, well, okay, but it just seems silly to me.  Makes things too much
like TNE, and we all know how much folks on this list loved _that_ version
of Traveller.

> Leroy and J.P.

  Well, Leroy, thanks much for your post - it was nice to see that you
accepted the challenge of others and posted your evidence.  However, you
have not convinced me.  I still think the Rule of Man was basically TL12,
with perhaps some experimental TL13 stuff.  The one exception is Medical
and Biotech, but we already knew that that was several tech levels in
advance of the general Rule of Man tech level.  Based on your citations, I
agree that the Solomani had TL14 or so in that field.  As I said before,
however, this tends to imply that the rest of Rule of Man tech was _lower_
than TL14, since we know from other sources that biotechnology was well
ahead of the rest of Terran tech.

  I hope you will continue to participate in this discussion, rather than
abandoning it as you seemed to be saying in your last post.  If your
arguements impress people, they will speak up (see the recent task debate
for confirmation) - just don't count on the support of the silent
majority, because there is no such thing on TML.

  One other minor point - you might want to review your posts before you
send them, especially when you are responding to arguements.  Your recent
post where you accused another list member of not knowing how to use WBH
were uncalled for, and very rude - you should consider an apology.  You
will find that TML members will argue with you until the cows come home in
a polite way, but they do not take kindly to insults and abuse.  Remember
we cannot see you and tell your tone of voice, so make sure what you write
is what you mean to say.

  Again - thanks for posting your evidence - it made for a very
interesting discussion so far, and I hope we can continue.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:50:31 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

At 17:31 10/07/97 -0700, Douglas E. Berry wrote:
>Ooohhhh....  I like the idea of doing Zen and ORAC as NPCs, and know the
>perfect guy to play Avon.  Slightly off topic, but wouldn't most folks
>agree that B7 is one of the more Travellereque SF series out there?

	Definitely. And what with Blakes 7 having just about the best scripted
dialogue of anything in sci-fi ever, the role-playing possibilities could
be positively mouth watering.

	...Kerr Avon strolled into the control room, and glared at Orac, the
super-computer the size and shape of a standard suitcase, whose mannerisms
could be said to border on the arrogant. Lights flashed from within Orac's
transparent case, and a slight hum could be heard, indicating that he was
'on'. 
	"Well?" demanded Avon, wanting to know the answer to a problem he had
posed to Orac just a few hours ago.
	"'Well' is not a question!" shot back Orac.
	"You know what I mean!" sneered Avon.

>>As to the Liberator, it seems to be a TL17 or so scout ship with a limited
>AI running it.  I could bash together some numbers (it would give me an
>excuse to veg in front of the TV all day doing research..) but the
>incompatible assumptions would render any comparison meaningless.
>
	I can't wait! Altogether now..."Zen! Clear the neutron blasters for firing!"

	Btw, didn't the "Scorpio" look a little like a Traveller scout ship?

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:23:08 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: RoM TL

Doug Berry asks:

> OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
> net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
> believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
> this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
> some of your points.

I'd like to say how impressed I was by the degree of Leroy's insight, 
the quality of his research and the persuasiveness of his arguments...
but it wouldn't be very polite.

Isn't it funny how the very best TML pieces tend to come unheralded 
and unbidden from out of the blue (electrons are blue, honest)?  I do 
include Rod Elliott's adventure writeups in this category, since I'm
always pleasantly surprised to see one -- short-term memory must be 
going.

ObRoM: as has sort of been pointed out, a complex item like a vac(c) 
suit includes all sorts of technologies: communicators, displays, 
power sources, maybe even weapons.  A TL14 suit implies *all* of the 
above at TL14, including commo, computer and holo-HUD.  That goes a 
long way towards implying at least a broad TL13 to make an 
experimental one.

It strikes me that there are two ways of looking at TL: what you 
*can* do, and what you *actually* do.  The Terrans were always rather 
good at exploiting technology in inventive, creative and (if all else 
failed) sheer bloody-minded ways to get the desired results.  (You can 
build pyramids at TL0, it's just extremely hard work!)  I'm sure the 
Sahara can be irrigated from the edges inwards, at TL 3, but it'll be 
slow.  I'm sure TL 8-10 organisms can make more Venus habitable for 
humans.  The Solomani were extremely good at applying technology.

There are certain physical limits on what can be done by technology 
- -- the minimum sizes of CPUs, efficiency of fusion powerplants, etc..
These correspond to the Vilani TL system, which defines things in 
practical, functional terms, relative to known standards.

When the Terran Confederation "absorbed" the FIrst Imperium, its 
application of technology was boosted enormously.  A star-spanning 
empire 10 000 years old has a lot of applications of technology that 
a civilisation which reached the stars only a couple of hundred years 
before won't have had time to develop yet, so the RoM spent a fair 
amount of effort adopting the huge range of TL11 products of the ZS 
and improving them (TL12).  Even existing TL12 technologies underwent 
a period of consolidation using ideas from the reliable Vilani 
designs.

Exceptions to this would have been fields in which the Solomani were 
pre-eminent, notably genetic engineering and robotics.  Efforts in 
computing were largely devoted to adopting the widespread Vilani 
systems, rather than development, although the military continued to 
use Terran style computers for a long time.  The drive for 
improvement in robotics became much less after the end of the 
Interstellar Wars, when the massive expansion of the Solomani 
confederation was less of a priority than the absorption of the 
existing human populations of the ZS.  This left the RoM advancing 
rather steadily compared to their meteoric climb to TL12, with the 
exception of their genetic sciences.






Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:42:22 +0800
From: crew@earwax.pd.uwa.edu.au (David Crew)
Subject: MT Interrupts

Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com> wrote:

>One of my MT players asked me a very good question, which I couldn't
>answer. In the MT combat rules, one of the restrictions on interrupts
>is:
>
>7 only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
>  enemy movement
>
>Now, since each "side" in a combat is permitted only one interrupt
>per combat round, isn't the above restriction redundant? How can a
>person be interrupted twice in a round, moving or not?
>
>Can some kind soul out there explain the reasoning behind this
>restriction to me?

It is in one of those infamous MT errata I think.  After the errata
interrupts work something like:

Each "side" may only have one active interrupt at per attack or square of
movement.

For the next attack each side can interrupt again and so the restriction of
one per combat round was removed.  Note that you CAN interrupt someone on
your own side to lay down covering fire for example - so there could be two
interrupts - one per side - operating on each attack.  Also remember that
each person on each side still only gets one action per combat round no
matter how many interrupts have occured.  If you have already attacked you
can't interrupt.

Example (paraphrased from the errata):

Jack and Jill are in a fight with Bill and Bob in a starship corridor.
Jack has the first action for the combat round and he runs out of the
doorway he had been cowering behind down towards a crate to close from
medium to short range on Bob.  Jack heads out into the corridor for his
first square of movement.  Jill then interrupts Jack (note they are on the
same side) to lay down covering fire for him, rolls a 7 and succeeds. Bob
interrupts Jill to shoot Jack before he gets to the crate, rolls an 11 and
succeeds in interrupting.  (Jill would have been better waiting to
interrupt).   Each side now has one active interrupt and no more can occur
- - specifically Bill cannot interrupt Bob to shoot Jill (say).  The actions
are resolved - Bob, Jill, Jack.  Bob is unlucky and misses, Jill gets lucky
and Bob slumps to the floor and Jack moves his first square.

Jack now moves his second square - as it is still his action and he can
move (I forget how many) squares per round. Bill can this time interrupt,
does so and succeeds.  Jill can't interrupt Bill (she has no action left).
What happens to Jack is left as an excercise for the reader.

Incidentally I restrict interrupts to one ATTEMPT per side per attack or
movement rather than one SUCCESS as it means large battles flow quicker.

David Crew
crew@earwax.pd.uwa.edu.au
Physicist, Engineer and MT Ref.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:54:24 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Changing Careers

I wasn't going to add my voice to the the worthies who've already 
replied, but since I'm here: I understand the desire to moderate 
changes in career, ever since I rolled a scholar/army/marine 
character to try and break task systems with.  Gosh, you can make 
some overpowered individuals this way.  However, I really like the 
role-playing potential in multiple careers -- such as Dom Mooney's 
invalided Marine turned agent.  Marc, please leave in some potential 
for transfer, even if it's hard and/or the second career must be 
non-military.

FWIW I penalise career changes by only allowing mustering out when 
the character generation process is ended, in the final career, using 
the number of terms served _in the final career_ to determine number 
of benefits.  So my scholar 3 + college + 2 terms army + 2 terms 
marine (who ended up as rank O3) only got 4 mustering-out rolls.  My 
rationale is that mustering-out benefits are partly paid for by 
in-service contributions, which don't get transferred at anything 
like face value between careers, and partly loyalty bonuses ditto.


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 06:57:23 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: life support

I'll buy this for a limited number of stops, depending on how robust your
life support system is.

Just how many times can you scrub that filter before that smell of
Jo-Ralph's feet just won't come out?

How long can you go till your seal-a-meal runs out of seal charges?

There was a taint in water three stops ago that has just become a part of
the water refiltering system.  Why did it have to smell like Jo-Ralph's feet?

After a while in the boonies of space, the crew is gonna want to dock at a
civilized port.  

aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman) writes:
>>So far I have received one response from the list on the Cost of Life
>>support.  Yet, it does not take into account how one goes about getting
>>life support for a ship when no facilities are available.  Anyone with
>>an answer?  Thanx in advance, teflonkid out.
>Atmosphere:
>        Start by finding a breathable atmosphere.
>        Then open the doors, and generate wind trhough vessel (Flush air)
>        remove filters from atm system, and perform some kind of field
recharge,
>                probably involving current, open air, and fresh water.
>        Refill emergency O2 supply and bulk gass supply (He, N, Ar... Ship's
>                master's discretion and sense)
>        Fertilize the plants aboard (See SSOM).
>
>Food:
>        Buy/Harvest/Grow food supplies.
>        Break out the seal-a-meal
>
>Solid Wastes
>        Shovel them into a pit, or, if truly in the wilderness, dump them
just
>        prior to atmospheric entry
>
>Water:
>        Reload the ready supply from local.
>
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. The town was 
burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need those sheep anyway. 
That's our story and we're sticking to it.  
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:35:33 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

- -> >If you leave a natural system alone, it will repair itself.  Also, the roll
- -> >for terraforming Earth's atmosphere would be -2.. impossible at *any* TL.
- -> >I don't think it has ever been canon that Earth's atmosphere ever changed
- -> >from 6 to 7.  It got very unpleasant, yes, but not to the "filter masks
- -> >required" point.
- -> 
- -> Of course they didn't need filter masks--they were protected by their
- -> domed cities, or didn't you bother to read that.
But the domed cities might not have been a necessity without which 
the people would have died, but rather a comfort thing.
"Ugh, did you smell that?" Breathable but uncomfortable wheras a 
breathing mask is used in unbreathable circumstances!

- -> >In 832 the Imperium is TL 14.. or are you now saying that the Imperium was
- -> >actually TL 16, or 17..
- -> 
- -> No, the proper interpretation there is that the TL15/16 Imperium could
- -> not finish what the Terrans started.
Or, the proper interpretation is that the Terrans bit off more than 
they could chew, with the terraforming project having to wait for the 
higher-tech Imperium to finish it. 
- -> >>DIRECT QUOTE
- -> >>
- -> >>  T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
- -> >>
- -> >>    "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
- -> >>
- -> >>      [c.59 Imperial date]
- -> >
- -> >Well, we've all seen the reaction to that haven't we?
- -> 
- -> Sorry, but I'm playing T4, and they are consistent with the past, no matter
- -> how popular that notion is on this list.
Well this is the kind of statement that provokes dissent in our 
ranks. This is the very topic we are debation here and just saying 
that something is soandso doesn't prove anything. You FEEL that there 
is consistancy with the past, we don't! The best evidence to find out 
the TL of the ROM os by looking at direct evidence not at wishiwashi 
circumstancial evidence that can be interpreted both ways. MT's IC 
and RC both clearly state the RoM TL was 12. That's the most direct 
evidence there is and there is nothing ambiguous in these statements. 
They stand alone, ad need no interpretation.
You may feel differently, and play it differently, but this is one of 
the reasons why M:0 is not consistant with what has gone before!
- -> >> Long Night moments
- -> >>  -1700  No more fusion technology on Sylea (TL 7)
- -> >>  -1526  Long Night not noticeable on Terra (TL ?)
- -> >
- -> >Note that Sylea maintained TL 10 throughout the Long Night, reaching TL11
- -> >in -650 and TL12 in -150. (MT RC, pg 34)
- -> 
- -> No, 76 years after the -1776 entry, Sylea looses fusion tech, i.e. TL7.
- -> (M0, pg 87)
Again, you can't prove that M:0 is right by quoting M:0! That's like 
saying: A duck is just like an automobile...Want proof? Look at this 
automobile (sorry no duck to compare in sight, but trust me)!! 
 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:49:52 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

>Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:25:21 -0400
>From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes
>
>At 06:02 PM 7/9/97 BST-1, you wrote:
>>In-Reply-To: <l03020903afe82f3b3d48@[194.119.133.205]>
>>
>>SD,
>>
>>> Career changes were one of the T2300 things I liked in T4, lots. However, I
>>> can just improvise id you don't put them in. I mean, that's what I did in
>>> MT.

>>Apply a -DM (=no. terms served?) to the enlistment roll of the new career if 
>>you want to change jobs (why would the Navy want an ex-insurance salesman?).

>	Maybe not, but a lot of people leave the Navy (Air Force, Marines, etc.)
>here and become insurance salesmen ...

I remember a BBC documentary series called 'Fighter Pilot' which followed
the progress of a group of potential RAF fighter pilots through training. Of
the 30 or so, the only successful one was in his late 20's and had been a
milkman before enlisting. In NZ, the miltary actually prefer their recruits to
have gotten some experience in the civilian workforce before enlisting.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:49:58 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Canon to the left of them, canon to the right of them

>Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:15:18 +1000 (EST)
>From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
>Subject: Some answers?  (fwd)

>3. When did Sylea become Capital? There is no official answer to that, but
>I suggest that it probably coincided with some political event, and the
>name change was designed to take the Syleans 'down a peg'. The Vilani
>emperor Artemsus (ruled from 54 to 183) might have done this during the
>Pacification Campaigns...the planet was definitely called Capital by the
>time of the Civil War (c.600). 

Vilani Emperor?
Uhmm, I know this comes from M:0, but it sort of conflicts just a wee bit
with canon which states in several places that "All Emperors where
genetically pure Solomani until the marriage of Emperor Zhakirov to
Antiama Shiishuginsa in 679" (Library data N-Z, and AM 6 to name two).
The part Vilani Cleon and pure Vilani Artemsus of M:0 sorta fly in the
face of this fact. Now I can happily reevaluate canon to give a higher
than TL 12 RoM (I actually like that one), I can accept that Fusion+ was
not discovered until the 3rd Imperium, I can even accept that a deranged
silicon lifeform ran riot and killed civilisation. However this is somewhat
more than that. I'd like to see someone handwave this one away :*).

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1546
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1547



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Changing Careers
Re: Stars in Traveller
Starship Assembly Line v1.02 released
Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
TL of the Fule of Man
Re: T4.1 career changes
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
Re: MT Interrupts
Re: MT Interrupts
Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
Re: Turnip Prose
Scout Uniforms
Re: Stars in Traveller

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 07:22:54 +0000
From: twolf@unix.tfs.net
Subject: Re: Changing Careers

I am currently on my second career and planning for my third.  I went 
marine, college/grad school, and now I am on my 3 term in the army.  
When I retire from the army in a few years, I plan on being a 
professor at a University.

If I can have three careers why can't my characters?  Marc, fix stuff 
that needs to be fixed and leave the rest alone.

JD
Twolf

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:52:45 -0400
From: Wesley Esser <wesley@lynx.dac.neu.edu>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

stuff clipped..
> DGP, it became understood that the generation system produced companion
> stars that were not too realistic.
> 
> The problem is fixable, but there is a lot of sector data "out there"
> that has the original generated statistics for those stars.
> 
> I just got off the phone with Marc and he is interested in seeing whay
> kind of response the posters of this mailing list have to say on the
> subject.  If there is no interest, then you can be assured of no change.

PLEASE PLEASE Fix this...it has to be one of the most irritating aspects
of extended system generation

 
>   1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

Yes - willing suspension of disbelief is an important part of traveller,
but let's not push it too far.  TL4 Garden worlds orbiting white dwarf
stars may be justifiable once, but doing it 20 times in a sector is
definitely too far.

> 
>   2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?
> 
>       (BTW, I personally advocate not including the stellar data
>        into listings, ala First Survey, if this issue is not going
>        to be dealt with, as was done in the earliest days of CT,
>        and T4 with the Core Subsector listing the rules book.)

I think that corrected star data should go out in the same format as the
previous data, but with an indication that the data has been fixed. 
This makes it easy to import the corrected data into the various
programs that use it.  If it is decided to put out standard PE economics
extensions and extended system info into the official data, those files
can go out with a label of "Expanded" data.
> 
>   3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?
> 
>        enough to do the entries in UWP files?
>        enough to do the whole system as has been done in the past?

Whole system - the information on creating the UWP extended data is out
there (in PE for example). 

>   4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

I looked quickly at the fixes at your scouts website and it looks good
to me.  I think the system should have clear levels of complexity - ie,
basic extened UWP, full system generation, socio-cultural generation.  I
would also hope that there would be clear tie-ins to PE.  I would love
to see PE economic data included in this.  
 
> Marc and I plan to do our best to follow this thread if it takes off.
> Feel free to send any response privately if that is your style.

I am thrilled that Marc is looking at this seriously.  It has so much
potential to add richness to the game.
 
Wes Esser

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 21:24:06 
From: jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
Subject: Starship Assembly Line v1.02 released

Hello,

  I have just released a new version of The Starship Assembly Line.
SAL is a purpose built program to allow you to design Starships 
using SSDS without a calculator, pen or paper.

WHAT'S NEW SINCE v1.01

  - Cleanup of the interface appearance.
  - Add Economics calculation.
  - New "Add Standard Items" function.
  - Highlight illegal total values.
  - Fix class not found error introduced in 1.01.
  - Add option to Save but not view HTML files.
  - Reorganise SAL-Local file structure.

LOCATION

  http://www.spirit.net.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/SAL.html

FEATURES

  - Does ALL of the SSDS calculations for you.
  - Produces a full USP in Wildstar's new layout and design worksheet,
    in either Text or HTML format.
  - Output can be either saved, if running locally, or emailed to you
    if using running from my web-page.
  - All of the SSDS data and tables are either built in or available to
    view and select from.
  - May be downloaded for faster more efficient running.
  - Weapons and Electronics are contained in user-configurable data
    files. Utilities are provided for maintaining these data files.
  - Runs on any Java capable machine or web-browser.

SUPPORT

   I am happy to answer any questions, fix any bugs and discuss any
  features you would like to see, but are not present.


  Thats about it - have a look, try it out and tell me what you think.

bye,
James Dempsey
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 email: jamesd@spirit.com.au             | Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten!
 WWW:   http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd |   Astronomy Domine - Pink Floyd

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:24:18 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!

> I'll get the whip
> cracking over them!

Now, that's what I call a fully equiped yacht!  I'm sure Mistress will be 
angry that they have been bad boys.

Simon

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:24:16 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

>   1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

Not for day to day play.  None of my players has ever expressed any interest 
in the stellar type.  However, as Peter Brenton said, Traveller is the 
keeper of the "Hard Science" flame :-), and so a fix to more realistic stars 
gets a huge yes vote from me. 

  
>   2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

Not a problem, as far as I am concerned.  People who have "old" stellar data 
can use that or replace it with new stellar data (using a suitable Mac, PC 
or javo program that will be along shortly after the changes, I'm sure :-)


>   3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

Everything, as suggested by Chris Griffen (I personally might leave out 
black holes and nebulae if I was doing the EGS, but I don't mind if they are 
in the EGS ... I would certainly include new "official" generation as the 
default option in my own programs.

  
>   4)  Any other opinion of relevance?
See Chris Griffen's response!


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:24:14 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

Thank you for posting your sources in such detail, much of this was I 
recalled, but there were several items that I had overlooked.

=====

As a Solomani Supremist, I am please to see that RoM geneering has been 
clearly identified as reaching TL 14.

>MT Solomani & Aslan, pg.17 - The Politics of Race [c.1120]
> 
>    ...  Our scientists have raised
>    over twenty species to sentience through genetic manipulation and
>    controlled breeding."
 
>    MT Referee's Companion, pg.32 - Medical Technology
 
>    TL14 "Genetic Engineering techniques culminate in the creation of
>    altered, 'improved' life forms, including sentients.
 
As you noted in some of the material on Terraforming, the high 
geneering TL was used to enhance the terraforming of Mars but it seems 
that we had a bit of good luck, as things did not of so well on 
Ishimshulgi! 

>    Within a century, the entire
>    atmosphere of Ishimshulgi was locked in the world's crust.

While some have postulated that the setback on Ishimshulgi was due to 
RoM geneering being only "early" TL 14, I feel that the true problem 
lay in the rest of RoM tech being less advanced.

I am considerably encouraged that the release of an old Terran 
Confederation Naval PR bulletin about the commisioning a line of 
mass-produced robots as support staff for military personnel has grown 
into a justification for these robots being TL 16 AI's.  I think that 
if the Naval reports on the success of these robots is ever released 
there would be a serious blow to the Solomani Supremist movement.  
Fortunately, SolSec has made sure those archives are extremely unlikely 
to be discovered by the unimaginative Vilani. 
 
=====

There is an interesting article I came across in some old diaries of a 
Terran Naval officer during the early years of the RoM.  He tells the 
story of meeting twenty top Vilani commanders during their relocation 
on a POW vessel.  When questioned individually about their response to 
a world wide threat (a fission-drive ship headed for the planet, I 
believe), each of the twenty Vilani proposed identical solutions.

Identical!  I believe that Vilani sociologists are planning to use 
this to show how thorough the education of Vilani is, and how Vilani 
plan for every eventuallity.  I recommend a SolSupreme response 
pointing out that the uninspired Vilani have no concept of true 
initiative (of the type that let the vigourous and imaginative Terrans 
thrash the Vilani and so establish the RoM).  The predictable re-use of 
failed Vilani tactics in so many encounters was surely pivotal in the 
war.

Simon "Solomani Supremist" Early

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:48:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: TL of the Fule of Man

   Hi.

   Doug Berry asks:

> OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
> net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
> believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
> this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
> some of your points.

   While I can't say I believe that this thread is the least bit
   important, I must side against Leroy's opponants who attribute some
   kind of objectivity to the ridiculous, ahistorical, and self-serving
   values of `tech level'.  It seems to me that TL is nothing more than
   an arbitrary measure, probably cooked up by the IISS, of what degree
   a culture has figured out Ancient magic by studying old droyne
   refuse. (In other words, it's a measure of j-drive capability.
   Maybe.)

   I'd like to see more adventures with TL-15 artifacts in them, if for
   no other reason than that a preponderance of TL-15 antiques is the
   only explanation I can think of that tells how a scientifically
   incompetent, corrupt, oppressive, midieval, and backwards-thinking
   organization like the Imperium could ever reach TL-15 in 1100,
   instead of backsliding into oblivion.

   Seriously though, this issue (the meaning of TL) has been hashed to
   death on this mailing list on several occasions in the last few
   years.  Seeing as there is NO consensus of what TL means, I don't see
   how there can EVER be a consensus of what TL the alleged Rule of the
   alleged Man ever achieved. Seeing how `Anomolies' is the only product
   where a value has ever been asserted, the value used in `Anomolies'
   is the one I'll side with.  (And that value and a quarter may buy me
   a phone call. 8^)

   -Rob

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 02:09:26 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

> I remember a BBC documentary series called 'Fighter Pilot' which followed
> the progress of a group of potential RAF fighter pilots through training. Of
> the 30 or so, the only successful one was in his late 20's and had been a
> milkman before enlisting. In NZ, the miltary actually prefer their recruits to
> have gotten some experience in the civilian workforce before enlisting.

But don't forget that this is because these people are more likely to 
be dissillusioned with civilian life, and thus won't resign as soon 
as they've gone and gotten their chef's certs :)

Besides given the tiny size of our military, and current unenployment 
rates they can afford to be choosy.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 02:09:26 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

Ethan Henry wrote:
 
> This is my basic argument - The RoM was, overall, TL-12. I don't debate
> that. it is possible, however, even if it didn't necessarily happen,
> that some planets/systems/mega-corps/naval research labs/etc could
> have gotten up to TL-13 or 14 in very narrow fields, like the vacc suit.

IMO Vacc Suit manufacture isn't a 'narrow field', as making a TL14 
suit would need TL14 batteries, HPGs, comms, air storage/recycling 
systems and suit materials, just for starters. We've probably got a 
TL14 hand-computer (or equivilent) in there, and perhaps a laser 
rangefinder as well. I reckon that by the time you're able to make a 
Vacc Suit (of a given TL) there's probably not a lot of non-biotech 
you don't have.

> I look at the whole TL-14 vacc suit thing as a point-of-view thing
> more than anything. Remember when Rats&Cats appeared (well, actually, I don't,
> but I own a copy now) and it changed the Aslan from a major race to a
> minor race? Well, it did kind of. It depends on who you ask. Do the
> vacc suits in Anomolies have "TL-14" stitched on the left shoulder?
> Who says they're TL-14? What exactly separates a TL-14 vacc suit
> from a TL-12 or 13 one, specifically?? (Please, don't just repeat that
> it needs a TL-whatever manufacturing base - what are the physical
> differences between two suits of different TLs?) Do you actually have 
> the players, in character, walk around saying that this hand blender
> is TL-6 versus that TL-8 one? I doubt that anything less than a 
> long inspection by some with Vacc Suit-3+ would be able to even
> tell that a vacc suit is really TL 14 as opposed to TL 12.

Actually it's pretty darn easy -TL13+ suits have aren't encumbering, 
unless they're self-sealing (a give away in itself - self-seal is 
TL13+ tech), integral HUDs are TL14+ (a bit dumb, but there it is), 
but most importantly TL14 gives us the UHP air tank, not found at any 
lower TL. I don't think it'd be too hard to look at a TL14 suit (from 
a TL12 perspective) and say "'Man this is flash, look at those timy 
air tanks. And dig the nifty HUD..."
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:38:34 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: MT Interrupts

David Crew wrote:
> 
> Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com> wrote:
> 
> >* only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
> >  enemy movement
> >
> >Now, since each "side" in a combat is permitted only one interrupt
> >per combat round, isn't the above restriction redundant? How can a
> >person be interrupted twice in a round, moving or not?
> >
> >Can some kind soul out there explain the reasoning behind this
> >restriction to me?
> 
> It is in one of those infamous MT errata I think.  After the errata
> interrupts work something like:
> 
> Each "side" may only have one active interrupt at per attack or square of
> movement.
> 
> For the next attack each side can interrupt again and so the restriction of
> one per combat round was removed.  Note that you CAN interrupt someone on
> your own side to lay down covering fire for example - so there could be two
> interrupts - one per side - operating on each attack.  Also remember that
> each person on each side still only gets one action per combat round no
> matter how many interrupts have occured.  If you have already attacked you
> can't interrupt.

Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately, it raises another question:
which Errata is correct? Maybe we need errata for the errata. 

According to your answer, the post-errata version of the interrupt rules
dispense with the "one interrupt per side per combat round" rule in
favor of the "one interrupt per enemy attack or per square of enemy 
movement" rule. This is also what William Hostman's reply implied.

I haven't seen this change in any of the errata. Is this the correct
interpretation of the interrupt restrictions?

Out of curiousity, how does T4's combat system handle this? Or does it
get rid of interrupts altogether?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:31:35 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: MT Interrupts

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> No, Erwin, you got that bit wrong. One interrupt per character. You may not
> interrupt your OWN side's people/etc. But you can interrupt the guy who
> interrupted your pal.
> 

One of the many MT Errata collections I came across mentions that the
above restriction is wrong and should be removed. Unfortunately, I
can't remember which Errata it was. But, in thinking about this, 
the restriction does seem silly. 

Consider: A1 and A2 are fighting B1 and B2. A1 is about to do something
stupid. A2 should be able to interrupt him if possible.

>         Side A has one guy, side B has 5. A tries to act, B1 interrupts
> immediately. Since A is alone, no others on A may interrup B, and no other
> b's may interrupt B1, until B1's done and let A move 1 square or do one
> action.

This makes sense. However, it uses another Errata item, which is one
I also use. According to the original MT rules, when A is interrupted,
his turn is _over_. He doesn't get to move or do anything until his
next turn.

The Errata state that B1 interrupts A and, if A is still alive and
kicking after B1's interrupt, A gets to finish his turn afterward.

> 
> More complex sit: A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, b2,  b3. b4, b5, b6
> 
> A1: 1 space, interrupted
>   B1 shoots, interrupted
>     A2 moves to draw a bead on b1
>       B2 interrupts A2 after 1st square, and shoots
>       B3 interrupts A2 after 2nd square, and shoots

Can't happen. Only one interrupt per side per turn is allowed. B3
has to wait until the next turn. 

This is why I'm confused. Essentially, we have two restrictions that
seem to be redundant:

a) one interrupt per side per turn is allowed
b) only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
   enemy movement

If we play restriction a), then how can b) ever be used?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:45:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

> From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
> Subject: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
> 
>    The conversations were cut short due to one participant's insistence
>    on the Rule of Man having been unequivocly TL 12.  Now the whole story
>    can be told.

The whole story can, indeed, be told. The RoM is still TL12.

>    It was suggested here that I am stirring up a "canon" debate on
>    TML again--that is the farthest from what I wanted to do, but then
>    that is not always in my control.  On that subject, what I do want
>    to still say is that fragmentary quoting of sources can lead to
>    very myopic views of what is in print.  That is why I avoided a
>    trickling of quoting sources and discussing them one at a time,
>    without any high level view.

Fair enough.

>    We have excluded T4 references, not for any dislike of the product,
>    but because we felt it necessary to defend T4 not on what T4 says,
>    but what the past has "said".  In fact, we are _very_ pleased that
>    T4 has stayed as true to the game as they have.

You've excluded T4 references because they are what's on trial here -
you can't prove a statement by using the same statement in the proof.
I think that's called circular logic.

>    Nor would we want any "canon" debate to restrict what those writing
>    for T4 are doing.  It is a little difficult to revise Traveller in
>    light of twenty years experience if your hands are tied that way.
>    We have included one quote below as the exception that proves the
>    rule.

Traveller's revisions in "light of 20 years experience" are, I believe,
mechanical revisions. There have been no new findings that, to my
knowledge, have changed our understanding of the Third Imperium over
the last twenty years. The backdrop remains unchanged.

>    Reading over the Robots history allows one to conclude that there
>    was a misfire on the publication of sources with essays, but as I
>    recall, one of the complaints the "early" Digest Group had was not
>    having all of the sources we do.

So, you're saying that there have been inconsistencies, but you're
willing to read them in a way that suits your purpose.

>    Our research was not to prove finally, once and for all what the
>    Tech Level of the Rule of Man was, but to thoroughly document the
>    sources that reinforced some ideas.  It will be the job of the
>    writer of (future) Traveller materials to synthesize this into
>    material that we all know and love.

So, you've presented a number of arguments, but you have no
proposition or thesis which you're defending? Gosh, seems like a 
lot of work to do to "not to prove" something.

>    Finally, we stand resolved to not always in the future, provide
>    this form of complete documentation.  It just so happened that
>    enough of a trail had been prepared, that it only took us a few
>    hours to put this all together.  I've learned that some on TML
>    want you to put your quotes where your mouth is.  I guess I'll
>    have to say, that in the future (if I post here), you'll just have
>    to trust me, because I won't always have the luxury of time to
>    "prove" what I said was the truth.  At the same time, I'll try
>    to coin any posts carefully enough so as to not spark the emotional
>    response I first received to my statements.

If you make a statement that's putting forward a position that you claim
is the truth, don't expect anyone else to accep it until you have 
proof of your claim. That's the way it works, not just here, but
everywhere.

>    A few references have been pointed out (not yet confirmed) that
>    suggest a lower tech level for the Rule of Man or Terra.  The
>    purpose of _this_ post is to point out the _volume_ of evidence
>    that says the contrary.  We have not even touched on the Darrians
>    or Sword Worlds, as they are not in our current rimward focus,
>    though at my suggestion, many references were found supporting a
>    basic hypothesis:  Terra was beyond TL12!  Reading these facts in
>    that context may be enlightening if you are willing to consider.
>    Any final work will have to reconcile all of the evidence.

Terra was TL12! Terra was also beyond TL12! 

These statements do not contradict each other. I may even provide some
arguments to back this up.

>    I am _not_ out to offend.  I do enjoy discussing this game, something
>    I've done with Marc and other friends over the years.  What I have
>    to get used to, is doing it on TML, which compares with no other
>    mailing list I have ever belonged.

Hm, well, I don't know what other mailing lists you belong to, so I can't
say. I do imagine, however, that TML requires more vigorous proof
to support arguments than you might see on other mailing lists, yes.
This is probably because TML participants consider themselves, for the
most part, to be discussing "facts" not "opinions". Opinions can never
be wrong, which makes discussions considerably less formal.

> 
> THE "UPLIFT"
> 

Terran genetic engineering technology was higher than TL 12.
Sure. This doesn't mean that their overall TL was higher than
TL 12.

> 
> TERRAFORMING
> 

Out of laziness, I won't re-hash the arguments that other posters have
already made. Your example is proof that the Solomani did terraforming,
but not the Terrans. At any rate, it is debatable whether the terraforming
examples given do indeed represent anything signifgantly higher than
TL 12.

> 
> ROBOTICS
> 
>     "-2389 [Imperial date]   Terran Navy uses artificially intelligent
> 			     robots."
>   
>   MT Referee's Companion, pg. 28 - Technology Chart 1
> 
>     TL16 - "Artificial Intelligence Robots common"
> 

This is essentially sloppiness on the part of whoever wrote these
passages. In general usage, "artifical intelligence" is a broad term,
which encompases a number of meanings. Travellers "low autonomous"
robots would be artifically intelligent by modern definitions. 
Traveller is not, nor should it be, a technical text, where terms
have very exact and specific meanings. Besides, if you really want
to split hairs, the second quote says "common". The first quote 
says "The Terran Navy". I would argue that most Naval technologies,
while advanced, are by no means common.

> 
> DIRECT QUOTE
> 
>   T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
> 
>     "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
> 
>       [c.59 Imperial date]

Again, this is essentially the thesis that you're trying to prove,
whether or not you claim to be doing so. You can't prove this statement
with itself.


For me, at least, what it boils down to is this:

The RoM had a maximum of Jump-3.
Jump-3 is TL 12 technology.
Therefore, in broad terms, the RoM was TL 12.

There can be certain technological niches (god, I sound like a broken record)
where the niche TL is higher than the overall TL. You have given
good proof that Terran genetic/medical technology was probably higher
than TL 12. I don't think that the Terraforming examples are particularly
good, as they aren't either large or successful projects and terraforming
is more of an economic activity than a technological one. The examples
you gave of robotics show sloppiness of previous Traveller authors in terms of 
terminology more than anything.

The real sticking point here, is, as always, "What does TL mean"?
Can any TL 16 world produce any TL 16 device? No, we have examples
of that (Sambquis, whatever that planet is called). Can a TL 12
world do stuff at higher than TL 12? Yes, terran genetic engineering.
If I have a vacc suit with TL 14 material, a TL 12 communicator and
an experimental high-TL-12 PLSS, what TL is the whole thing considered
to be? TL is a vage concept, at best.

The overall TL of the RoM was TL 12. Anything that state otherwise is
a contradiction. This is by no means restrictive in terms of what was
available during the RoM, excepting jump drives.

I enjoyed the arguments you put together Leroy, this was a very
well-researched article, but I simply don't agree with your points.

Ethan
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:53:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: Turnip Prose

> From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
> Subject: "Turgid prose"???
> 
> I must admit it's rather amusing to see an author apologizing for posting
> one of the more enjoyable, intriguing, and thought-provoking messages to
> have appeared on the TML in recent memory.  Stop being so damn hard on
> yourself...and start posting more like this!

Well, after a five-year engineering education and three years of programming
and doing programmer training, your mind and style of speaking tend
to move in a certain way, which doesn't make for the best creative writing,
as this exceedingly long run-on sentence that I'm currently writing is
an exellent example of, showing how something that might be considered
acceptable to those who don't normally worry about grammar can be considered
absolutely awful be people, like my wife, who teaches english as a 
second langauge and is always correcting my grammar and pronounciation,
can consider quite bad, if not downright illiterate, whic it isn't,
it's just that I haven't really been trained in the right way to really
fully appreciate and utilize a decent writing style.

Oh, and lately I've started writing technical books and I was just worried
that paragraph after paragraph of describing how to compile Java programs
would negatively impact my writing style.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone. :)

Ethan
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 16:06:33 +0100
From: Andy Lilly <a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk>
Subject: Scout Uniforms

There was a question about the Scouts, with regard to "Writing a Traveller
story...need some answers please"...

>> >6)  Does the IISS have any decorations?  If so, what?
>> _Scouts and Assassins_ suggests the following:

etc.

When I asked Marc Miller about this (approximately a year ago) he said
basically that the uniforms for the scouts, and just about any other
Imperial service, will have changed several times over the period from
Milieu 0 to CT and MT times and beyond. So I'm afraid other than the red
sunburst, there's very little canon to define what they wear. "Uniform" is
quite a vague term to most Scouts, anyway... :-)

My own scout suit (which I sometimes wear when promoting Traveller at
events) is more of a dull grey. Reasoning? It hides the dirt and creases,
looks neutral for encounters, provides reasonable camouflage in most
environments (including urban but probably excluding deserts) without
looking strictly military. Ideal for your typical scout! Badges are small so
as not to be obtrusive.

As regards black, ok, it's natty looking but it scares the natives and you
stand out in a crowd. Blue? Be serious. Someone took some liberty with a
book cover and suddenly the scouts are striding around in clothing more
suited to providing a beacon for guiding planes into land... ok, so it would
offer camouflage in water, but that's small compensation.

Reality? Operational clothing is a grey TL12 CE suit with chameleon
capability to provide all round camouflage and to allow adaptation of
apparent body colours to match local norms (or expectations) and possibly to
aid communication with beings who react to body colouring or patterning.

Andy

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:32:01 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

Peter H. Brenton wrote:

>The main problem with complying with "hard science" is that science
>changes.  In six months, after the Mars lander data has been chewed over,
>all our planetary theories will undergo an "axial tilt" of a sort and be
>reinterpreted, altered, completely changed, or just thrown out in light of
>the new data.  Taking this into consideration, the best policy is to stay a
>little bit 'abstract' in detail level for some aspects, similar to the way
>PE stayed abstract with certain economic concepts that are debatable (it
>also grabbed a couple by the horns, but I digress).

That may be, but the stellar generation data in Traveller is *so* broken
that it can only be improved. This is a case where changes in science are
not likely to tell us, "Oh, well Traveller was right all along." Uh-uh. Not
this time.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1547
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1548



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Support Costs
T:TNE questions
MT Interrupts
Higher Education and Degrees
Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?
Re: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
Terraforming, partial, atmospheric, and otherwise
Re:TNE Questions
Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1537
Re: A Plea to Marc Miller
Re: Birthdays
Re: ancients
Re: Birthdays
Re: Meta-facts?
Re: RoM TL16??
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: The Rule of Man TL
RoM and TL's

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:55:26 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Support Costs

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>This will be a good thing...because after two weeks of this the air is
>going to stink, really bad.
>
>For a good example of what this will be like for the PC's, read up on
>running deep in WWI and WWII submarines.

An interesting 'canon' reference is the CT Introductory adventure 'The
Imperial Fringe' and CT Supplement 7 'Traders and Gunboats', in which the
Scout/Courier is described as having a major air filtration problem that
requires filters after two (?) weeks and a system flush every eight (?) to
keep the smell down. The expenses are described as going on filters,
cleaning agents and chemicals. Sorry it's vague but the books aren't to
hand.



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 00:36:40 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: T:TNE questions

Jon Fuller wrote:

>2) (Not intending to start another TL brushfire war) Is TL16 too high a TL
>for the 'Final' years of the Third Imperium?  (This goes back to the first
>question, BTW, because only at TL16 according to FF&S1 do you get an
>acceptable level of force for tractors.  Mind you, I'd love it if someone
>could say, 'oh sure, it was TL18 for tractor beams.  yeah.' :)

No - off the top of my head Vincennes/Deneb was a functioning TL16 society
in the borders of the 3i. TL18 is pushing it though. The write up in the
Regency Sourcebook and the MTJ both implie that Vincennes could become TL17
with very little effort. Hence the range of shops 'G' - TL16 that are based
on Vincennes. TL16 wouldn't be standard or even common...



- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:28:38 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: MT Interrupts

I just reread the posts by David Crew and William Hostman. They are
actually using different interrupt rules.

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> No, Erwin, you got that bit wrong. One interrupt per character. You may not
> interrupt your OWN side's people/etc. But you can interrupt the guy who
> interrupted your pal.
 
and later, the excellent combat round example he provides implies that
the rule that "only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per 
square of enemy movement" is used.

Then I came across this:

David Crew wrote:
> 
> Each "side" may only have one active interrupt at per attack or square of
> movement.
> 

Note the word "active". The great example he then cites shows that
once each side has an interrupt going, nobody else from that side can
interrupt.

> For the next attack each side can interrupt again and so the restriction of
> one per combat round was removed.  Note that you CAN interrupt someone on
> your own side to lay down covering fire for example - so there could be two
> interrupts - one per side - operating on each attack.  Also remember that
> each person on each side still only gets one action per combat round no
> matter how many interrupts have occured.  If you have already attacked you
> can't interrupt.
> 

While both people are in agreement that the "one interrupt per combat
round" rule is pure drivel, they differ on interrupting one's own
side. The examples they use also show that William doesn't the use 
"active interrupt" rule that David does.

I suspect that these differences come from using different Errata.

So, what's the general consensus out there for MT referees and players?
What are the restrictions on interrupts?

Personally, I think people should be able to interrupt their own side.
The covering fire scenario used by David is a great example of this.
I'm interested in other people's opinions, though.

Erwin

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jul 1997 15:44:46 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Higher Education and Degrees

What about separating the formal degree from the knowledge it supposedly
represents?  Make the degree like a decoration, maybe using a task roll based
on the primary skill/education of the program.  This has, I feel, great
role-playing opportunities.  Taking medical school as an example, once in a
while you will get an incompetent doctor; you will also get qualified doctors
without formal degrees.

This could even apply to lower levels of schooling.  You could have high
school graduates with educations of 2 (I know, I taught these kids last
year).  You could have dropouts with educations of 12 and worn out library
cards.

Why is this an advantage?  Imagine playing a doctor who didn't get his
degree.  You can't get a job as a doctor in respectable society.  You can
become an 'aletrnative medicine' chap who secretly uses real medicine to cure
people. you can serve the underworld, who don't much care for formal papers
(but hurt you when you fail).  You can become an embittered crank.  You can
ship out to the frontier, where skill counts for more than fancy paperwork. 
You can buy false papers, and live inder the threat of discovery.  All of
these are interesting and add depth to the character.

This could even apply to lower levels of schooling.  You could have high
school graduates with educations of 2 (I know, I taught these kids last
year).  You could have dropouts with educations of 12 and worn out library
cards.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:16:32 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?

Does anyone know if Best of JTAS vol. 1 features the article on
Victoria/Spinward Marches?

I'm considering an adventure in my TNE Regency campaign in which I
crashland the PCs on Victoria, and I seem to remember that a world write-up
existed in one of the early issues of JTAS.

Thanks.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:20:11 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

These sound like some (Mac) Excel spreadsheets I downloaded while 
working in the US in February (night shift + good web access = 100 Mb). 
 There were several files and I combined these into one large (383 k) 
Excel 5 sheet for my Windows PC.


Are these your spreadsheets?  They are excellent!  The version I have 
does not include animal encounters, so they may belong to someone else.

Features: 
Star system details
     User enters up to 3 stellar codes.
     Sheet generates number of orbits and planets and satelite UWP
     for each orbit (clever programming!).  The only drawback seems to
     be that the user places the main world (and UWP) manually, but 
     thats is not a huge problem!
     
Gas Giant details     
     User enters GG size and satelite UWP.
     Sheet generates physical data such as density, orbital period
     
World details
     Just like Gas Giant details, except user enters UWP and satellite
     UWP

Temperature
     User gives UWP, orbital data.
     Sheet generates temperature profils for different lattitudes,
     seasons, etc.

Starport
     User gives UWP.
     Sheet generates number of docking bays ("berths") in Up and Down
     facilities, shuttle frequwncy, ground transport frequency
     
Census
     User gives UWP.
     Sheet generates WBH TL profile, number of very large / large / etc
     cities, SDB fleet size and number of defense battalions.
     
Obviously, the programs are intended that data from earlier stages of 
the design sequence are used in later steps (UWP from one stage is used 
when detailing startport, census data etc.

I was going to forget about a Pascal program and just use these very 
efficient spreadsheets to detail the system, but I decided that I 
wanted a few more visual features and to be able to use a "random 
seed" so that I got the same data each time I visited a system without 
having to save hundreds of 383 k spreadsheets!.

(I did work out how to use random seeds to generate reproducible dice 
rolls using the Tools / Data analysis (add-in) or equivalent RANDOM 
macro command, but it seemed like a lot of hard work to make the the 
many macros use these dice rolls rather than a simple RAND).


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:26:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Terraforming, partial, atmospheric, and otherwise

With some trepidation I leap into the ongoing Leroy/Douglas ROM TL debate,
specifically on the issue of terraforming.  As an armchair planetologist
of more ecological bent (as opposed to my brother's greater emphasis on
physical parameters), the entire structure of the existing debate (and of
a good bit of the referenced canon) on this topic disturbs me greatly.

To speak of "atmospheric" terraforming, or "one-hemisphere" terraforming,
is grossly absurd.  A planet is a cohesive *system*; matter and energy are
continuously and pervasively exchanged between lithosphere, hydrosphere,
atmosphere, and space along inumerable pathways.  To put it another way,
"You can't change one thing."  Playing with a planet is like playing
that old game pick-up-sticks; anything you modify is almost certain to
have effects which ripple out into all other aspects of the planet, and
conversely unmodified aspects of the planet will "push back" against any
changes you make to one system.

Thus, "atmospheric terraforming" is an absurdity; you *can't* modify the
atmosphere significantly without also modifying oceans and land, and if
you don't take this into account, your terraforming will fail.  Similarly,
one-hex or one-hemisphere "terraforming" is silly; what's going to keep
the wrong air/water/animals/whatever out of your "safe area?"

Note that in this definition of terraforming I specifically *exclude*
projects such as bulk irrigation a la the Solomani Sahara effort;
terraforming is the process of taking an uninhabitable (or nearly so)
world and making it more suitable to an earthlike ecology.  If we allow
terraforming to include simple desert irrigation, then it's a TL 0
technology invented in Mesopotamia; everything since has been simple
scale-ups and efficiency improvements. 

I also strongly disagree with the MT-era assertion that terraforming small
worlds is easier than terraforming larger worlds.  Size *helps*, all other
things being equal, as there's a deeper gravity well to hold onto an
atmosphere.  This is for the common case of "pumping up" a low-atmosphere
world like Mars, of course, but that's really by far the most plausible
case; terraforming Venus is infinitely harder than terraforming Mars, and
there are likely to be enough Marses in the galaxy that nobody need bother
with the Venuses.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:47:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dedly@aol.com
Subject: Re:TNE Questions

Craig Berry wrote: (with regards to nanobots instead of Virus)

<<<*WARNING, DANGER, HIGH FLAMEWAR HAZARD*

This would make more sense from a raw plausibility perspective, certainly;
however, it would violate TNE canon history as to documented Virus
propagation methods.  Whether you're willing to toss some canon to gain
credibility is a question for you and your campaign.

There, was that value-neutral enough? :) >>>

Very well played. =)

<<<BTW, different topic, would anyone on the list be interested in an M:1200
world writeup, or is everyone focussed on M:0? >>>

I would definitely be interested. Although my campaign is currently at 1127,
I find that writeups for M:1200 are more relevant to me than M:0. 

\_/
DED

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:46:05 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, what it stands for and more!

At 11:49 PM 7/10/97 -0400, you wrote:

>	Well, I've been too busy actually running a game to do it yet, but
>wait for FSY's 500 Td 4G airframe saucer Ludwig-class yacht coming soon to
>a TML near to you.  I just gotta decide on the laser bay vs. NPAW spinal
>mount issue before I start crunching numbers..:).

And exactly what are you going to use for skeet with this thing?

PULL!!!!!!

<ZOT>
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:33:02 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

At 09:16 PM 7/10/97 -0800, you wrote:

>>2. Mr. Berry
>> I must congradulate you on a great Adventure in JTAS. 26. Actually I
>>think I will use all most everything in that issue at sometime. I like
>>to see a adventure like this were a pgmp and dex-F means nothing (err..
>>Almost nothing).
>
>Agreed. "Strike!" was dramatic, well-designed, and easily fits into any
>campaign. Too bad the illustrations had nothing whatsoever to do with the
>adventure.  Still, I liked it better than the feature adventure, which was
>another monster of the month. At least they weren't psionic; those things
>should be banned.

Ah, praise from my public :)

I try to write adventures that are challenging and don't require combat.
My ultimate goal is to run "Casablanca" on an occupied world during the 5FW.  

I'm currently in a creative mood.. what would people want to see me write
for JTAS?  Sample plots, character hooks.. you tell me and I'll write it.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:58:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Keebler863@aol.com
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1537

unsubscribe

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: A Plea to Marc Miller

In-Reply-To: <Pine.A41.3.95q.970621170143.27550A-100000@hector.NMSU.Edu>

P.,

> Well one of the things I like about task systems like that in MT or TNE
> (where you make the same die role regardless of difficulty) is that hyou
> can have players make a roll and tell you the difficulty that they
> made,without having to reveal the difficulty necessary - thus preserving
> some secrecy from the players.

Thank you, I was going to add this point.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In-Reply-To: <33ABC42C.4AAC@alaska.net>

Peter,

> If you let people pick their birthdays this will only encourage
> munchkinism as every player says "Today is my birthday, I was just
> discharged from the service this morning." thus pushing back the day
> they have to roll their aging saves by a few months.

Big ****ing deal - it's not going to be relevant for another *4 years* 
of game time. How many munchkins will still be playing the same 
character then?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 18:02 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: ancients

In-Reply-To: <970620202848_1377966441@emout05.mail.aol.com>

> Well considering all the talk of ancients lately, I decided to do a
> quick update of my site with some Grandfather background, so some of the
> 'facts' tossed around could be corrected (for instance he didn't necessarily
> have 420 children, he had 20 and they had about 20, so the exact number is
> not known, however he did supposedly kill them all, but than thats what he
> thinks, one never knows).

Weelll...he *does* have a 4-figure IQ, and he's had *300000 years* to catch 
any he missed the first time round, so if there *are* any left, they're so 
well hidden they might as well be dead.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In-Reply-To: <970621124935_-1429137631@emout13.mail.aol.com>

> For most (or many, or some) of you on the list, you know how to do birthdays,
> and do them or don't as you feel at the moment. The Birthday table is for the
> 12-16 year olds new to the game who don't know what to do. It's my job as
> game designer to give some direction to the new players. For a while my draft
> said "pick a birthday" and they floundered about how to do it, or they just
> didn't.

Sorry, but I was only about 12 when I started playing Traveller, and I'm pretty 
sure I could handle picking a number between 1 and 365 without breaking into a 
sweat. Actually, the way most people did it was to convert their own birthdays 
into the Imperial format.

Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 18:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Meta-facts?

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970623004041.006d0b04@pcisys.net>

David,

> There's a difference between things presented in the course of the
> adventure to the players, and "Referee's Facts." Sure, if it's in the
> Library Data or anything available or given to players, reinterpret the
> "behind-the-curtain" truth freely. Traveller has done that.
>  
>  But when the information presented to referees, marked as such and given
> as the absolute truth, changes, there are problems. If I'm told, in
> "Referee's Info," that A=B, it better stay that way. The whole reason for
> giving me that information is so that, if and when the players come to a
> point where they peel back a layer and I give them more information, I
> _know_ that the future storyline will back me up. But if, in one adventure,
> I present "A=B," the players will be very upset if, in a future adventure,
> I vehemently maintain that "A=C." Now, if there's a good explanation,
> that's one thing. But the ongoing storyline becomes worthless if it occurs
> too often, or for no other reason than that a later author either wasn't
> familiar with Traveller, or chose to ignore it simply because it was the
> easy way out.

Couldn't have put it better myself. My feelings exactly.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 20:12:10 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: RoM TL16??

On 10 Jul 97 at 23:56, William F. Hostman wrote:

> ...Solomani with +2 TL "gengeneering" and TL-1 Gravitics (Implied
> in cannon, but not specific)...

	I've long used additional weight/power consumption/cost penalties 
for Solomani gravitics. In FFS terms, Solomani-built lifters have 
+10% weight and power consumption, and +40% cost, in addition to +1 
to all TL requirements. This makes some grav applications more 
expensive and impractical, but still allows for things such as 
air/rafts etc.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:29:44 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

>The main problem with complying with "hard science" is that science
>changes.  In six months, after the Mars lander data has been chewed over,
>all our planetary theories will undergo an "axial tilt" of a sort and be
>reinterpreted, altered, completely changed, or just thrown out in light of
>the new data.

This probably isn't true for Pathfinder - Mars is fairly well studied and
Pathfinder has a small instrument suite compared to Viking (it's more of a
technology demonstrator than a full-fledged science mission.)

However, it's very true for science in general - especially for things like
extrasolar planets. Three years ago if Traveller's planet generation system
had produced gas giants in 0.05 AU orbits it would have been laughable...

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:53:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Character: "Lucky" Kiduram Shigiirda [long]

In a message dated 97-07-11 09:55:14 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Oops...is a non-graduate allowed to go to [N]OTC at all?
 If not, perhaps the phrase "attendees at University..." in checklist
 6.A.4 should be replaced with "graduates of University..."?
 Could a waiver be used to get in?
 
  >>
You attend while at University, but you get the commission when you graduate.
I suppose you get the skills anyway. Good point.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:13:10 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

Leroy William Lu Guatney <lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu> asked,
>  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

Assuming you mean stellar types and not positions of known stars, then
definitely!  [I haven't had a chance to visit your web pages yet]

>  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

It should be errata'd where necessary, and corrected in reprints or new
published material as soon as is feasible.

>  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?
>       enough to do the entries in UWP files?

Again, definitely!

>       enough to do the whole system as has been done in the past?

I'd be tempted to save it for a (bigger and better?) replacement for 
WBH, but if that's not going to happen within the next 12-15 months, 
perhaps it should be in the main book.  Put me down as a tentative "no".

>  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

A few:

a. Star generation really should be based on the habitability of the
   mainworld, rather than fixed up later.

b. I'm of the opinion that only star systems with planetary bodies are
   shown on the map, but that there lots more of no relevance to us.
   (This goes along with my belief that the 2D maps are maps of
   jumpspace connections, rather than normal space which is 3D).
   As a result, I'm not too bothered about there being inaccurate
   proportions of star types, so long as rare types are not very common.
   I can see that this might bother other people, though.

c. To do with world generation, rather than system generation:  There
   really ought to be a conversion algorithm to get from M:1100 data to
   M:0.

d. The main reason that I think the expanded gen. can wait until it gets
   its own book is that the information produced by it is not really all
   that exciting.  It needs added detail that would take up too much
   space in the main rulebook (like customs, resources, etc).

e. If done in its own book, how about more on the ecology of worlds?
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 14:04:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Man TL

> From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
> Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
> 
> IMO Vacc Suit manufacture isn't a 'narrow field', as making a TL14 
> suit would need TL14 batteries, HPGs, comms, air storage/recycling 
> systems and suit materials, just for starters. We've probably got a 
> TL14 hand-computer (or equivilent) in there, and perhaps a laser 
> rangefinder as well. I reckon that by the time you're able to make a 
> Vacc Suit (of a given TL) there's probably not a lot of non-biotech 
> you don't have.

Well, first of all, I'd like to say that I may stop contributing to
this thread soon, as I find myself repeating the same stuff over and over.
By no means is that your fault, Rupert.

If you had a vacc suit, where the suit itself was TL 14 and 
everything else was TL 12, what would you call it? My argument
is (I think this is the right term) simply a semantic one - you
and I have different idea of what constitutes a "vacc suit". 

> Actually it's pretty darn easy -TL13+ suits have aren't encumbering, 
> unless they're self-sealing (a give away in itself - self-seal is 
> TL13+ tech), integral HUDs are TL14+ (a bit dumb, but there it is), 
> but most importantly TL14 gives us the UHP air tank, not found at any 
> lower TL. I don't think it'd be too hard to look at a TL14 suit (from 
> a TL12 perspective) and say "'Man this is flash, look at those timy 
> air tanks. And dig the nifty HUD..."

Yes, TL 13+ suits are self sealing. Yes, they are less encumbering, but
it is questionable how much you'd actually notice it, IMO. Integral
HUDs are listed, in MT, as being either TL10+ or TL14+, depending on
whether you look at the text or the tables, so this is again, a
questionable issue.

And again, I'm not talking about computers, communicators, HUDs or PLSS
units. I'm talking strictly about vacc suits, which, depending on
how you want to slice things, don't include any of those items.
 TL 12 HUD, TL 14 suit, TL 12 PLSS, maybe a TL13 experimental communicator...
what's the TL?

Anyways, I've devolved from intelligent argument to contradiction,
so I will stand by my position that you could have TL14 bits
popping up here and there without an overall TL 14 manufacturing
base (well, assuming you're at TL 12).

I feel it necessary to quote another post from the same digest:
> From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
> Subject: TL of the Fule of Man
>
>    Seriously though, this issue (the meaning of TL) has been hashed to
>    death on this mailing list on several occasions in the last few
>    years.  Seeing as there is NO consensus of what TL means, I don't see
>    how there can EVER be a consensus of what TL the alleged Rule of the
>    alleged Man ever achieved. Seeing how `Anomolies' is the only product
>    where a value has ever been asserted, the value used in `Anomolies'
>    is the one I'll side with.  (And that value and a quarter may buy me
>    a phone call. 8^)

This is the basic problem. TL has, at its core, no clear definition.
We can debate, argue, discuss and kibitz all we want, but these
discussions are essentially meaningless without some sort of definition
of what TL is. Then again, even if we defined TL, it would likely be
such a large and loose definition that it wouldn't be useful anyways.

I wonder what TL is necessary to engage in near-C rock dropping...?

Ethan

- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 06:09:31 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: RoM and TL's

There's been a lot of talk about just what the TL the RoM achieved.
Here's my take (anoted)

We know that:
    -2431  Terrans discover J-1 (TL 9) [1]
    -2408  First Interstellar War ends, Terrans TL 10 [1]
    -2398  Terrans discover {develop} J-2 (TL 11) [1]
    -2389  Terran Navy introduces synaptic robots (TL 12) [2, 3]
    date uncertain  Terrans develop J-3 during 9th Interstellar War (TL 12)
[4, 5]
    -2235  Start of Nth Interstellar War [2, 5]
    -2204  Terran Confederation disolved, Rule of Man begins [2]
    -1776  Rule of Man collapses [2]
Just from these we get the Terrans advancing from TL 9 to TL 11 in just
33 years, not really too suprising, they just copied the Vilani. But then they
started to use elements of TL 12 within 11 years of this; most likely this was
just a case of applying existing Vilani tech in a way the Vilani hadn't.
However they were clearly into TL 12 in less than 165 years (they had J-3
before the beginning of the Nth Interstellar War).

Extrapolated facts: (I'm being cautious here)
During the Rule of Man the former Vilani worlds moved to Terrans standards,
not the other way round (hence the 3rd Imperium uses Terran SI units, a
circle of 360 degrees, Galanglic becomes the 'universal' language, base 10
numbering system, the Terran calendar and temporal system becomes the
standard; the circle and calendar are very convinicing here, the base 10 
system the least). Therefore, rather than modifing Terran systems to match
the Vilani, the Vilani moved their systems to match the Terrans.

From this, and the ingrained technological inertia of the Vilani at the time;
I think it can safely be assumed the the worlds of the former Ziru Sirka did
not advance technologically in any great degree during the Rule of Man,
therefore TL 11 to 12 can be assumed for these worlds.

However I do not feel that this is neccessarily true for the former worlds of
the Terran Confederation. Certainly the Terrans would have now more
completely absorbed Vilani technology; and most certainly they would
have not maintained their breakneck technological progress. However it is
not unbelievable that these worlds could have achieved TL 13 during the
latter period of the Rule of Man. Now if this is the case why does the 3rd
Imperium of 1100 commonly believe that they were TL 12. This can be
taken two ways.
Firstly the Rule of Man did not achieve TL 13.
  Okay, this is simple, but T4 is now indicating that the Rule of Man's
  technology exceeded that of the early 3rd Imperium, which we know
   was a reasonably mature TL 12 culture (achieved TL 12 in -150 [1])

The second option is that the 3rd Imerium of 1100 has some reason to
portray the Rule of Man as a technological inferior to the early
3rd Imperium.
    Why would they? To undermine Solomani claims to superiority.
    Could this be done? yes, it would be hard, but not as hard as might be
    thought. If one assumes that such a policy would have started in the
    mid 600's under Emperor Zharkirov, it would be very possible to have
    changed public perceptions by 1100. Even if it were started by Empress
    Margaret II in the early 900's it would still be quite possible, especially
    with the Solomani Rim War making it a matter of national security.

Now if one takes the second option, one can intergrate M:0 with older
canon without any radical changes. However in this case the Rule of
Man's maximum tech level can not go above TL 13, and this must be
restricted to the last 100 or so years of the Rule of Man (any more than
this becomes to hard to 'hide'). Note here it is important to note that the
sources don't state that the Rule of Man did not achieve TL 13, just that
they did achieve TL 12. This may seem like just a minor semantic
argument, but it exactly these type of minor semantic arguments which
could have reshaped the public perceptions of the Rule of Man's TL in
the late 3rd Imperium.

Now for my take on it all. The Rule of Man did achieve TL 13 in its
final stages, with the exception of J-4, which they didn't get (the absence
of J-4 drives makes it much easier for them to be portrayed as only TL 12
at a later date). Their genetic and biological sciences were even more
advanced than this, probably TL 14. However TL 13 was restricted to
the former Terran Confederation and never became a mature TL and was
therefore easily lost during the Long Night.

1 - MT Referee's Companion pp34
2 - MT Imperial Encylopedia 'A chronology of the Imperium' pp6-7
3 - CT Book 8 Robots pp6
4 - CT Alien module 6, Solomani pp5
5 - MT Imperial Encylopedia pp33

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1548
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 11 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1549



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Adventure postings
Re: Stars in traveller
Re: Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: T:TNE questions
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: TL of RoM and Artificial Intelligence
Re: TL of the Fule of Man
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Birthdays
Terraforming
Add me to your Mailing List
Re:  life support
Re: Higher Education and Degrees
Re: Munchkinism and birthdays

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:56:19 -0600 (MDT)
From: "P. ENGEBOS" <pengebos@NMSU.Edu>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

Peter Engebos				<pengebos@nmsu.edu>
T'Sarith, Lord deGaalth			<tsarith@io.com>
		http://web.nmsu.edu/~pengebos/

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> I try to write adventures that are challenging and don't require combat.
> My ultimate goal is to run "Casablanca" on an occupied world during the 5FW.  

<DROOL>I Want to play.  Move to New Mexico and ref it  :)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:10:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: MarkPeace@aol.com
Subject: Re: Stars in traveller

Don McKinney wrote:

>Add that "locations of 'real' stars list" to this work, and I'm all for
>it.  Otherwise, it's still not what my players are looking for...

>Trust me - I don't run Solomani Rim adventures anymore because I was
>hammered on the "real stars" thing...

Nice idea but I always found that trying to place real stars on the 2D
Traveler star maps never worked. eg. You can place all sorts of stars the
correct distance from Terra but the distances between these other stars is
often way off.

How about a possible solution to this, and other problems...

All systems mapped in Traveller have at least 1 planet/asteriod belt which I
always took to mean that stars with no significant objects orbiting them were
not even mapped (there wouldn't be anything for anyone to want to go there
for!)  So if a 'real' star doesn't exist in the Traveller universe maybe it
just doesn't have any planets. 

Mark

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:12:33 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?

At 09:16 AM 7/11/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Does anyone know if Best of JTAS vol. 1 features the article on
>Victoria/Spinward Marches?

Nope, it's only in Issue #2.. one of the few items I don't own *sob*

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 20:27 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970710125943.098760da@mail.hooked.net>

Douglas,

> >>>1)  Does the IISS have a motto? If so what is it?
>  
> >How about something like:
> >
> >"One Service to rule them all, One Service to find them,
> >One Service to bring them all and in the Empire bind them."
>  
> "Going forth in our dinky lttle 100-ton Scout Ships to make sure it's safe
> for the Navy in their 90,000-ton Battleships."

"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:13:51 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions

Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net> asked,
> BTW, different topic, would anyone on the list be interested in an
> M:1200 world writeup, or is everyone focussed on M:0? 

Well, I'm focussed on M:0 at the moment - *and* I'm interested in world
write-ups for whatever milieu. 8-)

Please do post it!
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:30:04 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

	I'm more than interested in seeing the star generation system 
changed myself. I've long since used GURPS Space system for 
generating stars - I'd like to see Traveller catch up...

	BTW, there's also some other issues I'd like to address here. For 
example, WBH produces too many worlds with oxygen atmospheres, even 
if the world has no life whatsoever... We came up with a house rule 
that simply said type 5, 6 and 8 atmospheres don't necessarily 
contain oxygen. So far I've worked out the details based on 
individual situations, but I'd like to have some solid rules for 
this.

	Some time ago, I saw web page with a world generation system that 
fixed this problem, but I've lost the adress. Anybody alse remember 
seeing one?

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:58:30 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

Simon Early wrote:
> 
> These sound like some (Mac) Excel spreadsheets I downloaded while
> working in the US in February (night shift + good web access = 100 Mb).
>  There were several files and I combined these into one large (383 k)
> Excel 5 sheet for my Windows PC.

Are you making this Excel spreadsheet available for the rest of us?
Personally, I'd REALLY appreciate an email from you with it. Hint hint.
Nudge nudge. Say no more!

Erwin

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:53:16 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

At 02:24 PM 7/11/97 +0100, Simon Early wrote:
>>   1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?
>
>Not for day to day play.

Agreed, save that one of my players is a physicist, even though she teaches
Windows 95 and such now.  She gets a bit testy whenever the world data is
just too far from what she knows, and is willing to go get current
references if it seems to egregious.

Fix it, or at least include a few references to what you think "should" be
correct.

>>   2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?
>
>Not a problem, as far as I am concerned.  People who have "old" stellar data 
>can use that or replace it with new stellar data (using a suitable Mac, PC 
>or javo program that will be along shortly after the changes, I'm sure :-)

Yep.  That is how I see it too.  Provide the correct distributions, a fix
algorithm, and the correct data.  People can use what they want to.

>>   3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?
>
>Everything, as suggested by Chris Griffen (I personally might leave out 
>black holes and nebulae if I was doing the EGS, but I don't mind if they are 
>in the EGS ... I would certainly include new "official" generation as the 
>default option in my own programs.

I want to have a definite system that expands well, so that my subsector
mapper can give decent results, but as  DM, I can easily and automatically
generate full data for the fifty planets that are likely to figure in a
typical game, and have a full data sheet like those in Knightfall or other
DGP products.

Basic: UWP, PBG, resources levels, perhaps infrastructure.
Extended: Adds stellar types, number of planets, and basic info for each
Full: Includes all of the social and technological details, as well as
little goodies like trade tables, animal encounters, and social customs

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:28:20 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM and Artificial Intelligence

Ethan Henry wrote:

>This is essentially sloppiness on the part of whoever wrote these
>passages. In general usage, "artifical intelligence" is a broad term,
>which encompases a number of meanings. Travellers "low autonomous"
>robots would be artifically intelligent by modern definitions.

Ethan makes a good point here.

If you mix and match between all the editions of the game, you can
rationalize just about anything. "Artificial intelligence" does not mean
the same thing in CT that it does in TNE, for instance. Using an obscure
reference in CT Book 8 and then trying to back it up with TNE's supposition
that low-autonomous AI appears at TL 13 pushes the envelope a bit.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:21:51 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: TL of the Fule of Man

Robert Flammang wrote:

>   While I can't say I believe that this thread is the least bit
>   important, I must side against Leroy's opponants who attribute some
>   kind of objectivity to the ridiculous, ahistorical, and self-serving
>   values of `tech level'.  It seems to me that TL is nothing more than
>   an arbitrary measure, probably cooked up by the IISS, of what degree
>   a culture has figured out Ancient magic by studying old droyne
>   refuse. (In other words, it's a measure of j-drive capability.
>   Maybe.)

Siding *against* tech levels in general is not a valid position. Traveller
posits tech levels and those of us who play the game have learned to live
with them.

You're not supporting either Douglas or Leroy with your comment. You're
merely stating that you think TL shouldn't even be an issue. So, by that
argument I guess, I should just make TL-16 stuff available in the M:0
Imperium, too. Hell, how about TL-17, or 18. What the heck!

The basic point being argued here is that Traveller has established a
linear progression throughout its history that leads to an Imperial
technical "maximum" of 15 during the CT era. There was a regression during
the Long Night and then a recovery afterwards. If you muck with the balance
of power too much, however, which IMO is what Leroy is suggesting with his
TL-16 RoM, you risk making the whole Traveller background irrelevent.

>   I'd like to see more adventures with TL-15 artifacts in them, if for
>   no other reason than that a preponderance of TL-15 antiques is the
>   only explanation I can think of that tells how a scientifically
>   incompetent, corrupt, oppressive, midieval, and backwards-thinking
>   organization like the Imperium could ever reach TL-15 in 1100,
>   instead of backsliding into oblivion.

Unfortunately, the only place you're likely to find TL-15 artifacts in the
M:0 or earlier setting is at an Ancients site. They should be *that* rare.
If you don't like the tech levels available in M:0, I highly recommend you
conduct a classic, Rebellion or New-Era campaign.

"Wanting" TL-15 stuff just isn't a very good justification for scrambling
canonical Traveller history.

>   Seriously though, this issue (the meaning of TL) has been hashed to
>   death on this mailing list on several occasions in the last few
>   years.  Seeing as there is NO consensus of what TL means, I don't see
>   how there can EVER be a consensus of what TL the alleged Rule of the
>   alleged Man ever achieved. Seeing how `Anomolies' is the only product
>   where a value has ever been asserted, the value used in `Anomolies'
>   is the one I'll side with.  (And that value and a quarter may buy me
>   a phone call. 8^)

I don't see how you can say there's NO consensus. There's NO consensus on
*anything* in Traveller. How many different ways can you describe a
law-level 9, a government level 7 or even an atmosphere of standard tainted
(7)? Dozens of ways! Most of it's wide open to interpretation. Tech level
provides us with a metric by which we can determine generally what a world
can manufacture and therefore what's generally available there. Of course
TL-15 stuff is available on TL-7 worlds, but for whatever reason, that
world does not produce TL-15 goods itself.

In my campaign, TL is generally used as a meter to determine what is
locally manufactured. With free traders flying here and yonder with goods
from world to world, however, goods of almost any TL can be purchased on a
world of starport of C or greater with a population above the "Lo" trade
code. Perhaps at a higher price, but they're available.

TL is a useful statistic even if the concept itself is inherently flawed.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:08:48 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Douglas Berry wrote:

>OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
>net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
>believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
>this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
>some of your points.

Just to say -

1) Leroy, thank you for posting your references.

2) Having read them, I have to state that I have come to the view that the
RoM is TL12 with limited TL13 in some areas like medical science. However...

3)...in my personal Traveller Universe, the Old Earth Union (OEU) continues
to develop against a backdrop of collapsing trade and regression, and
achieves TL13 technology. Unlike the 3i, the OEU is not expansionist to the
same degree, as they want nothing to do with those 'hidebound' Vilani who
caused the Empire to collapse. (The seed for the xenophobia that is the
Solomani Party). They also have several largish pocket empires (such as the
Vegans) and the Aslan to handle. Most expansion is to Rimward, away from
the Vilani.

The 3i Scout service discovers evidence of the higher technology possessed
by the Solomani, and Cleon invokes his famous 'this far but no farther'
routine on the Rimward expansion. The Imperium seeks to consolidate and
raise its technology until it feels confident to absorb (annexe!) Terra in
588. (Having seen what damage the Terran techology advantage gave against
the Vilani, the J4 vessels are all owned by the Terran Military, and not
overtly used, leading to rumours of Terran commanders being lucky and being
in the right place at the right time.)

IMO, of course.

Dom


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:33:07 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:30:20 -0700 (PDT)
Dr. Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> writes:
>Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
>
>  Frankly, I like canon debates - it helps me rather a lot to see how
>others look at source material and how they rationalize it.  Reasonable
>and well thought out arguementation is always welcome on this list.

Thanks, however, I do not see this as a "canon" debate.  I see it is a
a case of what J.P. wants me to describe as an archaeological paradigm
discussion (directed at you, as a matter of fact).  He sees it as the
same kind of reasoning as dealing with (if I have this correct) the issue
of Columbus discovered America, and therefore no artifacts found can be
pre-Columbian.  Personally, I think that is too "brainy."

It is simple.  There are scant references to the Rule of Man in the "canon"
of Traveller, and given that there are scant references, there is really
_no_ interpretation that is absolutely right.  Enter T4.  Now it is "canon"
and people don't like it because it doesn't agree with all that imagination
that _they_ supplied given a rather large hole.  This has been the story
of Traveller and it's subsequent generations.  Here's an example.

Traveller gets published in 1977.  In 1979 (according to my copy), JTAS#1
gets published.  (So does Adventure #1 Kinunir, but for this argument,
assume that JTAS was first.  It may have been, but I don't care.  Just
humor me.)

On Page 12 (of my minted, Marc Miller autographed copy) of Journal of the
Travellers' Aid Society #1, "Rescue on Ruie" states:

    "Ruie (0209 - C776977-7) is a balkanized, industrialized, and
     very autonomous world on the frontiers of the Imperium.  A
     former Lost Colony, it had worked itself up to tech level 5
     by the time it was rediscovered by the Scout Service 31 years
     ago."

Now don't get me wrong, I am _not_ bashing Jeffery May and his fine Amber
Zone from JTAS #1.  We played it.  It was fun.  etc. etc. etc.

The arguments I have seen here that somehow there can only be _one_ Traveller
are not at all persuasive.  I just invented a fictional character.  Call
him/her Edsel Gouch.  Edsel contends that the Third Imperium is presently at
1100 and the Scouts recontacted Ruie in 1069.  (With no library data to
go on, Edsel is right.  I further assume that there was nothing in the
first three books to discount Edsel.  These assumptions are not
unreasonable.)

Edsel has to run a campaign for his players and concludes that the Third
Imperium only rediscovered Jump Drive 50 years ago, the Imperium is 20
parsecs across, and that a dozen worlds were colonized 100 years ago before
the "Fall of Man".  Now, Edsel's campaign runs along just fine, and then
along come these "new" resources for Traveller.  Hmmm ... major disagreement.
Edsel and all of his/her players are caught up in this debate about the
"canonality" of this Adventure 1: Kinunir, and they refuse to accept any
more work from that source (GDW).  Yet they continue to buy/read/discuss/
argue/conjecture about the GDW material in the context of Edsel's universe.

Whether I like the material or not, CT, MT, TNE, and now T4 are the "canon"
from which I come.  The previous three editions are all out of print, no
longer supported by the companies that produced them, and are all fair game
for having revisions applied.  I am happy that a writer is trying to
satisfy me, a CT holdout, an MT holdout, and a TNE holdout.  I am unhappy
that they can't do the impossible--(recursively reference the last sentence
for the rest of this one.)

At least I can't fault them for trying.

BTW, I did say that I was finished with this thread.  However, if someone
_can_ clearly come up with a flat out statement in the published sources
that states the RoM _was_ only TL12, I would like to see an annotated
bibliography as thorough as ours was.  The fact is, the RoM TL issue is
fair game for any writer, whether or not they ever believed it from the
start (like I did).

Also, trying to keep this short:

  1) Terra, when it started Terraforming Mars, was _not_ a member of
     the Imperium.  Membership came later when it joined in 588.  So
     Martian terraforming is _not_ Imperial, and _atmospheric_ terra-
     forming can _not_ be done at a lower level, without the force
     walls I described earlier.  What tech is it that you can atm
     terraform a single hex, and not have the atmosphere mix?  Hmmm.

  2) Japan does not necessarily retain any pre-emininence in the future
     of Terra.  There are already signs that it may be fading from
     prominence.  The argument that they wouldn't have domed cities
     doesn't hold water given a vaccum of historical fact in the
     intervening 50, 100, or even 200+ years of future history that
     we do not yet know.

  3) Ishimshulgi _is_ an Imperial project, which as several of you
     have pointed out, the Imperium was TL14 at the time it attempted
     to do Ishimshulgi.  They failed _because_ they did not possess
     the tech to do _atmospheric_ terraforming, like that done to
     Mars by pre-Imperial Terra.


>  You may post whatever you like, but just as academics expect footnotes
>that can be checked, TML posters have come to expect folks who make
>assertions to back them up with evidence.  No one on this list will
>"trust" you, but they will listen to well reasoned arguements.

>> DIRECT QUOTE
>> 
>>   T4 Emperor's Arsenal, pg. 100 - Tech Level 15
>> 
>>     "Maximum known Second Imperium technology."
>> 
>>       [c.59 Imperial date]
>> 
>
>  Well, we all know how we feel about this.  If Marc wants to change
>things, well, okay, but it just seems silly to me.  Makes things too much
>like TNE, and we all know how much folks on this list loved _that_ version
>of Traveller.


Speak for yourself and a few others.  Personally, I am happy with a
consistent T4 background that is compatible with previous eras.  Note
that I did _not_ say it was the only background, but it is the one that
I can go to the store and buy off the shelf.


>  Well, Leroy, thanks much for your post - it was nice to see that you
>accepted the challenge of others and posted your evidence.


Let's see how many rise to my challenge above.  I am happy to see that
nobody is still purporting that the Rule of Man was merely TL12 and no
exceptions to that.  Funny--it sure feels a lot easier to issue those
challenges than to rise to them.


>  I hope you will continue to participate in this discussion, rather than
>abandoning it as you seemed to be saying in your last post.


Thank you for making me feel welcome to discuss this here.  For some, it
would seem that I have stepped in on some private turf, and the guardian
at the gate is saying, "None shall pass!"


>  One other minor point - you might want to review your posts before you
>send them, especially when you are responding to arguements.


Again, I am not out to offend in any way.  A discussion of the quotes is
fair game, and (academically) I expect there to be a _full_ quoting and
a separate interpretative section, as we did.  I don't think this is too
much to ask from people that _demand_ sources.

You're a PhD (I presume).  TML strikes me as an unrefereed journal.  It
strikes me that it could (to be _really_ useful) take a lesson from the
refereed journals.  Thoughts?

Your posts always come across as well thought out, but I also notice that
you don't post as much either.  Unfortunately, I have no such luxury.
(Up to 120 mph now.)  Actually, (a compliment) when I read your posts,
my mind always inserts the voice of Dr. Theopolis from Buck Rogers when
scanning your words.  Very soft, reasoning voice. :)


>  Again - thanks for posting your evidence - it made for a very
>interesting discussion so far, and I hope we can continue.
>
>Dr. Mark Clark


I was really hoping to get people to look at the evidence and throw off
the large consensus that gets established when people chat.  I worry about
the new folks being introduced to the game for the first time (like we
were) and listening in on what gets said here.

Having more fun than I ought to,


Leroy
  T4 Traveller like those before ...

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:46:14 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Birthdays

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>Sorry, but I was only about 12 when I started playing Traveller, and I'm
>pretty
>sure I could handle picking a number between 1 and 365 without breaking
>into a
>sweat. Actually, the way most people did it was to convert their own
>birthdays
>into the Imperial format.

Ditto - for the first characters anyway.

>Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?

No, but there is an increasing tendancy for kids to want it all on a plate,
with no effort of real initiative. (Ask my wife if you don't believe me!
Teaching 11-16 maths brings some interesting stories). We're becoming
Vilani culturally, without the co-operation! ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:41:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Terraforming

Craig Berry wrote:

>To speak of "atmospheric" terraforming, or "one-hemisphere" terraforming,
>is grossly absurd.  A planet is a cohesive *system*; matter and energy are
>continuously and pervasively exchanged between lithosphere, hydrosphere,
>atmosphere, and space along inumerable pathways.  To put it another way,
>"You can't change one thing."  Playing with a planet is like playing
>that old game pick-up-sticks; anything you modify is almost certain to
>have effects which ripple out into all other aspects of the planet, and
>conversely unmodified aspects of the planet will "push back" against any
>changes you make to one system.

Planetary ecosystems are in 'dynamic equilibrium'?

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:00:16 -0500
From: Alex Ingram <ingram@airmail.net>
Subject: Add me to your Mailing List



------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:51:18 -0400
From: "Michael L. Galligan" <teflonkid@voyager.net>
Subject: Re:  life support

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 06:57:23 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: life support

<snip jo-ralph>

After a while in the boonies of space, the crew is gonna want to dock at
a
civilized port.  

TeflonKid writes:  Ok, but how long til the system won't be able to
support life.  And given some other posts it looks like the cost to
repair life support at a starport will be accruing at standard rates. 
This cost being representative of all the things that just can't be done
without workshops and facilities.  Does this sound accurate?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:05:50 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Higher Education and Degrees

At 03:44 PM 7/11/97 GMT, Rob Prior wrote:
>What about separating the formal degree from the knowledge it supposedly
>represents?  Make the degree like a decoration, maybe using a task roll based
>on the primary skill/education of the program.  This has, I feel, great
>role-playing opportunities.  Taking medical school as an example, once in a
>while you will get an incompetent doctor; you will also get qualified doctors
>without formal degrees.

I like this.  I think I will do this regardless of how the new system goes.

The way we generate characters means that I like having lots of events in a
term.  I rarely require players to roll many dice during generation,
instead, I roll the dice, and then tell the player the result of the term.
If they do not like it, then we negotiate.  This way, anything they do not
care about, like getting promoted for most character concepts, goes as the
dice say, but anything important goes according to the character concept.
I usually do not ask them the character concept first, as that way, they
can change as the dice talk.

I have found that any result they care about is meaningful to the
character, and anything else adds background color.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:43:38 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Munchkinism and birthdays

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>Peter,
>
>> If you let people pick their birthdays this will only encourage
>> munchkinism as every player says "Today is my birthday, I was just
>> discharged from the service this morning." thus pushing back the day
>> they have to roll their aging saves by a few months.
>
>Big ****ing deal - it's not going to be relevant for another *4 years*
>of game time. How many munchkins will still be playing the same
>character then?

Interesting that this came up. I have two comments.

First of all, in my campaign, the players are about three months in game
time from hitting their first aging rolls. We use TNE rules, so there is
the physical fitness program option that gives you a nigh-impossible chance
at reducing the aging effects. They engaged me in about a half-hour
conversation about making the aging rolls less severe with the caviat that
they feel less inclined to play a character over a long period of time if
they have to suffer aging effects. I countered that they have also gained a
fair load of skill experience which has made them stronger. In short, they
may become slightly physically weaker, but they will also be wiser.

Secondly, the munchkin effect: After issuing experience for several years
of roleplaying time, characters slowly become quite formidable. We have now
completed almost a "term" (four years) of playing time with these
characters and they have become vastly improved over that time. One
character has gained *eight* levels of skill in various areas. That would
be about the equivalent of the first-term in a new career in TNE rules. My
fear is that they will slowly evolve into munchkin characters, but at the
same time, I already use an experience system that's more stingy than the
one suggested in the TNE main rulebook.

Just a couple of observations from a ref who still *is* running the same
group of characters after a long period of time.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1549
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 12 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1550



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Terraforming
Re: Munchkinism and birthdays
RoM Technology Debate
Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...
Re: Stars in T4
MORE T:TNE questions...
Re: Canon to the left of them, canon...
Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1544
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Bang! Canon warriors...
Re: TL of RoM
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Soylent What?
Re: The Rule of Man TL
Re: T4.1 career changes
Re: Birthdays
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1544

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:03:49 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Terraforming

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Planetary ecosystems are in 'dynamic equilibrium'?

Damn straight! Ecological processes are, at their heart, chemical in
nature, and ALL chemical reactions are in dynamic equilibrium. Some
reactions, to be sure, are rather heavily weighted to one side or the
other (the little one of nitroglycerin + shock or heat comes to mind), but
all are subject to equilibria.

When you start dealing with things like oceans (gigantic buffer
solutions), soil (gigantic buffer solutions, just a bit chunkier), and
biota (all SORTS of catalytic reactions), and constant input of energy
(sunlight, heat from the core) you're absolutely right that they
'push back', they push back, they change enormously sometimes, with
smaller input than you would think, and on and on. A planetary ecosphere
is probably the single most complex chemical system we will ever
encounter.

That's why the terraforming we're going to be doing for a long time will
be limited to heating the place up, or really small scale things like
making deserts where there used to be grasslands. Tucson's biggest health
problem at the turn of the century? Malaria, which came form the mosquitos
living in the swamps. What swamps? The ones around the rivers that aren't
there anymore. 

Humans have been pretty good at altering their environment for a long time
now; often with disastrous results. Look at the Mayans...most current
theories for the decline of their civilization include over-irrigation,
and depletion of farmlands as a cause. 

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:14:53 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Munchkinism and birthdays

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Chris Griffen wrote:

SNIP
 
> Secondly, the munchkin effect: After issuing experience for several years
> of roleplaying time, characters slowly become quite formidable. We have now
> completed almost a "term" (four years) of playing time with these
> characters and they have become vastly improved over that time. One
> character has gained *eight* levels of skill in various areas. That would
> be about the equivalent of the first-term in a new career in TNE rules. My
> fear is that they will slowly evolve into munchkin characters, but at the
> same time, I already use an experience system that's more stingy than the
> one suggested in the TNE main rulebook.
> 
> 

Well, you could always do what my first dungeonmaster did with our
characters when they got that powerful...took 'em away and made them
NPC's. That's drastic, course, and it helped that he was moving 600 miles
away at the time, but at the time they were retired they were starting to
have effects on politics and suchlike over a very large area. They were
bit players on that scale, but very powerful on the PC scale. They became
the patrons of the new group of players he picked up where he went.

Besides, by that point they're still not munchkins, merely very powerful
player characters, who will need to be kept on a level playing field; just
rachet up the NPC's power and influence to match.

Force them to start playing in the planetary and subsector politics,
because the powers that be will probably not tolerate free agents of that
power; no matter how powerful the individuals, on a grander playing scale
they can be as helpless as fresh minted newbies. They'll be forced to
choose sides in various matters, and they may make big friends and big
enemies.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:32:14 +0000
From: aspqrz@curie.dialix.com.au
Subject: RoM Technology Debate

> From:          owner-traveller-digest@MPGN.COM (Traveller-digest)
> To:            traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM
> Subject:       Technology in Traveller

It is worth noting (again) that the Technooogy rating system in 
Traveller is (and has always been) so badly flawed as to be *almost* 
completely meaningless and *almost* completely unusable.

It *might* (if, as some have suggested) be considered applicable to a 
Vilani style conservative culture (but even *that* is stretching it), 
but it simply does *not* work for anything else.

The major reasons are twofold --

1) The attempt to "rate" technology with one number (as for the Basic 
Game) -- a completely ridiculous concept.

2) The categories into which technology is split when using the more 
detailed ("advanced") system. 

3) Rating inventions rather than capabilities (this is *very* Vilani 
and completely anti-Terran).

For example, there is no practical difference between TL4 and TL5 as 
far as Mechanical technology *capabilities* are concerned -- a number 
of excellent SF Books have been written (Harrison, Turtledove et al) 
in recent years whereby Time Travellers give the CSA Sten Guns/K-47s 
- -- and these are not fantasy, the mechanical (and related) technology 
of the 1860s is quite up to producing such items. In fact, it is my 
understanding that a Sten Gun or AK-47 (or even an M-16) is 
mechanically *simpler* to produce than, say, a Lee Enfield SMLE .303 
Bolt Action Rifle ... as that latter requires a *lot* of expensive 
and time consuming precision machining, while Sten Guns and AKs are 
basically mostly stampings.

I have previously suggested that a more sensible method of rating 
technology would be to abandon the (Vilani specific) categories that 
exist at present and adopt more reasonable ones, such as --

Energy Generation
Electrics/Electronics
Material Science
Communications
Mechanical
Production

(and probably some others, I don't have my notes handy).

Some of these categories would "top out" -- Mechanical, for example, 
probably doesn't improve once you develop precision machining -- what 
occurs thereafter are improvements in *materials* and *production*.

Even there, any such system is fraught with difficulties based on 
assumptions that really cannot be supported. One of the major ones is 
that there is a necessary progression from one TL to the next -- that 
is, the assumption (say) that to reach TL14 (either overall or in an 
individual area) you need to actually complete *all* of TLs/1-13. 
While that may be the way it historically occurred on Terra or Vland, 
does this mean (since most of the applications areas are 
technological capability rather than *necessarily* scientific 
theoretical based) that it will necessarily *always* be the case?

It seems to me that the current debate over whether the TL14 stuff 
found in Milieu 0 dating back to the RoM (and all technology debates, 
for that matter) are based on these sorts of unproven and unlikely 
assumptions.

Well, I know that a sitgnificant number on the list don't agree with 
me, but, hey, that's my 2c worth!

Phil

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 20:36:27 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...

Hi,

> >Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?
> 
> No, but there is an increasing tendancy for kids to want it all on a plate,
> with no effort of real initiative. (Ask my wife if you don't believe me!
> Teaching 11-16 maths brings some interesting stories). We're becoming
> Vilani culturally, without the co-operation! ;-)

You know, being a 17-year old player of Traveller, and RPGs in general,
a lot of the time I see many people on this list exposing a real bias
towards younger players.  Now, while some players of a young gae may be
prone to munchkinism, and not being able to figure things out, I think
it is a gross injustic to say that all young gamers can't figure out how
to do a birthday.

Personally, I've found through my 8 years of RPG experience that gamers
of all ages are intelligent enought o figure things out when rules
aren't there to cover it.  And, there is a proportion of both young and
old gamers that just want the rules to dictate everything.  

If a person roleplays in the first place it demonstrates a distinct
creativity and imagination, and initiative as well.  

You say that a good analogy is your wife's teaching of math.  First of
all, how many in your wife's class are RPG players, and second,
comapring Math and Traveller (and school and Traveller) is hardly the
same.  One is a challenge for some people, andnot for others.  Also,
Traveller is a recreational activity, and, being in school at the moment
I know that many times I've a lot more willing to spend time learning
something I *want* to learn, rather than what I amn forced to learn at
school.  

In summary, in every age group of RPG players you can find those that
need rules explained, and have to have everything 'all on a plate'. 
However, to state that it only applies to younger players of Traveller,
as I have seen time and again on this list is not only inaccurate, but
insulting.

Thank you,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 97 00:00:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Re: Stars in T4

> 1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?
    Absolutely!  From a Game persepective this is like asking if magical
treasures are a big deal in AD&D. <GAG> This is a game of star travelling
adventure.  The LEAST we can do is get this right. ;)

> 2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?
    Stick it in a canon and fire it off to somewhere that the stars never
shine? <grin> It's wrong, it needs to be fixed.  Personally I'd yank it from
the printed Survey's and reserve this for expanded system generation.

> 3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?
    I want the ability to detail everything in that Star System and expand the
UWP stats al a DGP's World Builder's Handbook.  I should be able to take a
world figure out where the tectonic plates are, how the mountain ranges and
shape of continents effect current and wind flows and how that in turn creates
the various types of terrain on the planet.  I want to be able to take the UWP
and expand it out to the point I can figure out how the government works and
the impact of Law Levels and technology on the planet.  Heck some tables for
generating some important events in the planet's history would be wonderful so
I'd have to reinvent the wheel every time.  And rules on how to build the
planetary culture should be there as well.  Local naming conventions guidelines
for terrain and other thing.  In short, I want it ALL and I wouldn't mind
seeing a book entirely dedicated to developing all of this. ;)

> 4)  Any other opinion of relevance?
    This all needs to be put together, done well and gotten out on the shelves
ASAP!  We "old farts" on the mailing list are used to having to have to do all
of this and have tons of old Traveller resources at our disposal.  How many
times do you see people refering o copies of the Alien's Modules or Vilani &
Vargr or Solomani & Aslan.  All books out of print for over a DECADE!  New
players and Traveller GM's don't have these resources, and they need them or
something like them NOW!  That is IF we all want Traveller to grow and prosper,
which I presume Marc and the rest of us really want to have happen. ;)

Stephen

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:51:05 -0400
From: Jon Fuller <foxonetwo@mail.geocities.com>
Subject: MORE T:TNE questions...

I appreciate all the comments on my questions.  I have a few more, though,
that I'd like to add as fodder for discussion...

1) (This is just a little less flame-war prone than my first question on
this topic.  I repeat again, this is *not* intended to start a flame war.)
  Say Virus _did_ propogate as canon would have it.  Would nanites be an
effective defense against it? 

2) What's a good displacement tonnage figure for a medium-sized asteroid?

3) What would be the most efficient means of manuevering such an asteroid
in a solar system?

4) Would you even consider building a jump engine capable of shoving that
large a chunk of rock through j-space?  (I suppose that, if the Imperials
had 50 000 dt battleriders running around, they could do just about
anything with j-engines...)

5) What kind of manufacturing capability would be required to handle the
construction of such a huge engine?  

Thanks again.

.JF.
foxonetwo@geocities.com
http://pages.prodigy.com/fuller/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 11:43:42 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Re: Canon to the left of them, canon...

Hmmm...I remember the 'canon' phrase you're referring to...however, I
think it's likely to have been more than just 'clean living' that allowed
the Emperor Artemsus to live until "the age of 183, demonstrating the
natural longevity of the Lentuli line"... (MT Imperial Encyclopedia, p.8)

I prefer the explanation that Artemsus was Vilani, but I understand that
the 'long-lived Vilani' thing was merely 'DGP Canon', which is
inadmissible as evidence against 'GDW Canon' even though it seems to
me to have a lot more soul to it...<sigh>...I have to be the first to say
that for all their failings, I have enjoyed a lot of the stuff that has
been produced for T4 - but I'm not particularly technically focussed,
something of an achievement for me, having held jobs as a civil
servant, professional economist, statistician and soldier...

Perhaps, just as a little brain-teaser for the more historically-inclined,
TMLers might want to have a look at the Milieu Zero sourcebook, at the
name of Artemsus' father - and suggest an appropriate Terran nationality
for the extremely long-lived Lentulis...<CLUE: former Soviet republic>...

Cheers, 
MB
**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:37:48 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: T:TNE questions (some cliched, doubtless; not long)

At 09:59 AM 7/11/97 +2, you wrote:
>On 11 Jul 97 at 0:48, David J. Golden wrote:
>
>>  Aaargh! You would have to pin me down ... I believe there's a
>> toughness value for rock somewhere in FF&S, but I'm in Virginia
>> right now, so I don't have access to my references.
>
>	FFS p. 38, Construction materials: Stone has toughness of 0.2/cm.
>However, I have no idea for the weight, or for the cost of tunneling
>an asteroid. Also, the actual armor value may vary a bit here and
>there. In combat, I'd add a random modifier to the ship's armor 
>value, +-10% of the original might work fine. 

	If you're designing asteroid hulls, there are rules for that in the new
version of FF&S. FWIW, rock tends to be around 5t/m3. Cost for tunneling is
given in MT or in the meson gun deep site rules in FF&S, but they're
different. Take your pick. IIRC, FF&S2 followed closer to the MT costs than
the FF&S costs, but I won't swear to it.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:53:12 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

At 09:07 PM 7/10/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>Actually though, I didn't expect you to be influenced by the facts--I do
>>expect some others "out there" to be happy that I have given them some
>>backup for what I had claimed, and they rejoiced in.
>
>OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the

	Count me AGAINST. I'd rather not be counted with those who ignore the
explicit statements identifying the highest TL achieved by the RoM, and
pull a bunch of obscure or casual references that can be stretched into a
possible interpretation supporting the opposite. And using the T4
references which are in question to support the T4 references which are in
question ... seems somewhat circular to me. But then logic isn't taught in
many schools nowadays.

	Not that I'm arguing about the text of the references themselves. But as
others have pointed out, they're quite wide open to interpretation. Occam's
razor would slice in the direction of the interpretation that supports the
flat-out, explicit statements about the max TL of the RoM.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:06:40 +1200 (NZST)
From: Idiot/Savant <idiot@sans.vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1544

Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net> 
 
> > THUDD: The Highly Unofficial Design Derby
>
> Unless you're starting a competing contest with an oddly similar
> name, that ain't true.  It's THUDDD, 3 Ds, and stands for
> "Traveller Highly Unofficial Democratic Design Derby."

 Democaratic? This being Traveller, I suggest that we change the name to
THUFTDD, meaning The Highly Unofficial Feudally Technocratic...

 [loud "splat" as Idiot is hit with a laser-guided rock...]

- --
Idiot/Savant			idiot@sans.vuw.ac.nz
Betray your friends; Crush your enemies; 
Control the world; Drink some coffee

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:57:57 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

At 08:27 PM 7/11/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:

>"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"

now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 12:03:52 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Bang! Canon warriors...

Robert
Yours was the best post I've seen so far on the Rule of Man Tech Level
debate, and you're dissing them! Keep it up. 
I'm certain that a lot of people's arguments about 'canon' matching
between different eras would be unnecessary if people would just
understand the role that propaganda plays in human
societies...everybody knows the phrase 'history is written by the
winners', and the attendant cynicism at 'official history'; but most of
us haven't connected that with the fact that the West, and particularly
the USA, *are* the winners of the major conflicts of the 20th century. 

The thing that makes the Imperium such a wonderful setting for me is its 
hard-science, high-tech, almost *high-camp* insistence on a fictional 
medieval and authoritarian society, which maintains its own interests as
paramount but couldn't care less about individual citizens. It has to be
the most *brilliant* satire on 20th Century Western societies (not
pointing any particular finger at the USA), whether intentional or no. 

So I'd like to see a lot more humour and, yes, *heart* in Traveller.
Let's forgive each other for genuine mistakes made in good faith, and
accept criticism for what it is, even if we don't agree with it. 

And let's keep on crafting a universe we all love. 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:53:19 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

At 09:08 PM 7/11/97 +0100, you wrote:

>2) Having read them, I have to state that I have come to the view that the
>RoM is TL12 with limited TL13 in some areas like medical science. However...
>
>3)...in my personal Traveller Universe, the Old Earth Union (OEU) continues
>to develop against a backdrop of collapsing trade and regression, and
>achieves TL13 technology. Unlike the 3i, the OEU is not expansionist to the
>same degree, as they want nothing to do with those 'hidebound' Vilani who
>caused the Empire to collapse. (The seed for the xenophobia that is the
>Solomani Party). They also have several largish pocket empires (such as the
>Vegans) and the Aslan to handle. Most expansion is to Rimward, away from
>the Vilani.
>
>The 3i Scout service discovers evidence of the higher technology possessed
>by the Solomani, and Cleon invokes his famous 'this far but no farther'
>routine on the Rimward expansion. The Imperium seeks to consolidate and
>raise its technology until it feels confident to absorb (annexe!) Terra in
>588. (Having seen what damage the Terran techology advantage gave against
>the Vilani, the J4 vessels are all owned by the Terran Military, and not
>overtly used, leading to rumours of Terran commanders being lucky and being
>in the right place at the right time.)

EXCELLENT POST!!!!!

this is a great reading of whatever happened to Terra.. stung by the fall
of the Rule of Man, she licked her wounds and slowly rebuilt..

This gives me about 100 scernario ideas.. I urge you to write this up for
JTAS.

(Can you tell I like it?)
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:46:31 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

At 03:33 PM 7/11/97 -0600, Leroy wrote:
>Dr. Clark wrote:

>BTW, I did say that I was finished with this thread.  However, if someone
>_can_ clearly come up with a flat out statement in the published sources
>that states the RoM _was_ only TL12, I would like to see an annotated
>bibliography as thorough as ours was.  The fact is, the RoM TL issue is
>fair game for any writer, whether or not they ever believed it from the
>start (like I did).

For the Nth time, MT Referee's Companion, pg 34, Other Tech Level Notes:

"Below is a chart of the tech levels achieved by the major interstellar
powers.

<snip>

- -2210 TL12 Terrans discover Jump3"

That is the last entry for the Second Imperium.

>Also, trying to keep this short:
>
>  1) Terra, when it started Terraforming Mars, was _not_ a member of
>     the Imperium.  Membership came later when it joined in 588.  So
>     Martian terraforming is _not_ Imperial, and _atmospheric_ terra-
>     forming can _not_ be done at a lower level, without the force
>     walls I described earlier.  What tech is it that you can atm
>     terraform a single hex, and not have the atmosphere mix?  Hmmm.

So Terra was TL16 when the TL13 Imperium conquered it, dropped to TL14 for
the Solomani Rim War, and then climbed back to TL15 at the same pace as the
rest of the Imperium?

>  2) Japan does not necessarily retain any pre-emininence in the future
>     of Terra.  There are already signs that it may be fading from
>     prominence.  The argument that they wouldn't have domed cities
>     doesn't hold water given a vaccum of historical fact in the
>     intervening 50, 100, or even 200+ years of future history that
>     we do not yet know.

The quote remains.  "Several" cities domed themselves.  Not a wit of
evidence that Terra's atmosphere ever needed to be terraformed.

>  3) Ishimshulgi _is_ an Imperial project, which as several of you
>     have pointed out, the Imperium was TL14 at the time it attempted
>     to do Ishimshulgi.  They failed _because_ they did not possess
>     the tech to do _atmospheric_ terraforming, like that done to
>     Mars by pre-Imperial Terra.

See above, and also not Craig's posting about enviromental oneness and
Gaia-type interactions.

>>  Well, Leroy, thanks much for your post - it was nice to see that you
>>accepted the challenge of others and posted your evidence.

>Let's see how many rise to my challenge above.  I am happy to see that
>nobody is still purporting that the Rule of Man was merely TL12 and no
>exceptions to that.  Funny--it sure feels a lot easier to issue those
>challenges than to rise to them.

I don't think anyone ever made a sweeping declaration the the RoM was a
flat TL12.  I made the case very early on for some TL13 worlds to exist at
the beginning of Twilight, and have agreed all along that Solomani
medical/genetic technology was by far their best industry.  You however
were claiming a common TL16, with genetic skill comprable to the Ancients!

>>  I hope you will continue to participate in this discussion, rather than
>>abandoning it as you seemed to be saying in your last post.

>Thank you for making me feel welcome to discuss this here.  For some, it
>would seem that I have stepped in on some private turf, and the guardian
>at the gate is saying, "None shall pass!"

No, we just ask that you act according as we do, and back up your theories
from the start. Also, please refrain from insulting people.

>>  Again - thanks for posting your evidence - it made for a very
>>interesting discussion so far, and I hope we can continue.

>I was really hoping to get people to look at the evidence and throw off
>the large consensus that gets established when people chat.  I worry about
>the new folks being introduced to the game for the first time (like we
>were) and listening in on what gets said here.

I looked at the evidence, read the sources you quoted and found that not
only did they not support your conclusions, but a careful reading reveled
more support for a TL12 Terra.  Several people have agreed with the theory
that the RoM was TL12, with experimental TL14 medical knowledge.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:33:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Soylent What?

>"David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
>
>At 10:24 AM 7/9/97 +0100, you wrote:
>>better... Soylent Green, anyone?
>
> "It's pee-pul! Soylent Green is pee-pul!"

It is? I'm going to have to read these nutritional info labels more closely!

Loren Wiseman
   GDW Emeritus

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:40:25 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Man TL

Ethan Henry wrote:

> > From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
> > Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
> > 
> > IMO Vacc Suit manufacture isn't a 'narrow field', as making a TL14 
> > suit would need TL14 batteries, HPGs, comms, air storage/recycling 
> > systems and suit materials, just for starters. We've probably got a 
> > TL14 hand-computer (or equivilent) in there, and perhaps a laser 
> > rangefinder as well. I reckon that by the time you're able to make a 
> > Vacc Suit (of a given TL) there's probably not a lot of non-biotech 
> > you don't have.
> 
> Well, first of all, I'd like to say that I may stop contributing to
> this thread soon, as I find myself repeating the same stuff over and over.
> By no means is that your fault, Rupert.
> 
> If you had a vacc suit, where the suit itself was TL 14 and 
> everything else was TL 12, what would you call it? My argument
> is (I think this is the right term) simply a semantic one - you
> and I have different idea of what constitutes a "vacc suit". 
> 
> > Actually it's pretty darn easy -TL13+ suits have aren't encumbering, 
> > unless they're self-sealing (a give away in itself - self-seal is 
> > TL13+ tech), integral HUDs are TL14+ (a bit dumb, but there it is), 
> > but most importantly TL14 gives us the UHP air tank, not found at any 
> > lower TL. I don't think it'd be too hard to look at a TL14 suit (from 
> > a TL12 perspective) and say "'Man this is flash, look at those timy 
> > air tanks. And dig the nifty HUD..."
> 
> Yes, TL 13+ suits are self sealing. Yes, they are less encumbering, but
> it is questionable how much you'd actually notice it, IMO. Integral
> HUDs are listed, in MT, as being either TL10+ or TL14+, depending on
> whether you look at the text or the tables, so this is again, a
> questionable issue.

I've always assumed from my MT days when encumberance obviously had 
little to do with mass (how else could you say that the average 
civilian could only carry 14kg?).

> And again, I'm not talking about computers, communicators, HUDs or PLSS
> units. I'm talking strictly about vacc suits, which, depending on
> how you want to slice things, don't include any of those items.
>  TL 12 HUD, TL 14 suit, TL 12 PLSS, maybe a TL13 experimental communicator...
> what's the TL?

I see your point - when I see 'TL14 Vacc Suit' I assume that (almost) 
all of it will be made at TL14, where (I presume) you see the Suit as 
being the actual coverall listed in the equipment lists, or something 
similar. As to your mongrel example suit - I have no idea what its TL 
is 13+-1?
 
> I wonder what TL is necessary to engage in near-C rock dropping...?

Like truely intelligent robots - one more than the highest jump TL.

> Ethan
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 00:36:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: T4.1 career changes

Typically, however, we allow one career change now: you muster out and
automatically become an adventurer instead.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 00:35:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In a message dated 97-07-11 19:50:31 EDT, you write:

<< Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?
  >>
 Or (cynically) maybe we want to sell this game to some of those people too.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:43:49 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1544

On Sat, 12 Jul 1997, Idiot/Savant wrote:
> 
>  Democaratic? This being Traveller, I suggest that we change the name to
> THUFTDD, meaning The Highly Unofficial Feudally Technocratic...
> 
>  [loud "splat" as Idiot is hit with a laser-guided rock...]

HEY HEY HEY!!! That's Virus infested Near C rock to you, Bub!!!

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1550
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 12 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1551



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
Re: Terraforming
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
What Tech Level Really Means
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1547
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Clues to TL loss
RoM and TLs
Scout motto
Re: Bang! Canon warriors...
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: THUDDD
Re: Birthdays
Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...
Re: Canon to the left of them, canon...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:41:35 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

>I look at the whole TL-14 vacc suit thing as a point-of-view thing
>more than anything.

There are enormous differences between a TL 12 and a TL 14 vac suit.
Moreover, a vacc suit is not a single technology. To build one you must
have advanced materials, manufacturing, environmental engineering,
computer, electronics, power, and gravitics technology; simply being
advanced in one field wouldn't be enough. A vac suit is not like a lump of
bonded superdense, or even a jump drive. It is a complex system of
interacting technologies.

>... Do the
>vacc suits in Anomolies have "TL-14" stitched on the left shoulder?
>Who says they're TL-14? What exactly separates a TL-14 vacc suit
>from a TL-12 or 13 one, specifically??

From page 16 of Central Supply Catalog a TL 14 vac suit has a surface made
of smart materials which generate photoelectric energy and are
self-sealing, so their material technology is far in advance of TL 12.
Superdense layers which give an armor value of 5 are incorporated into the
material so the manufacturing technology is far in advance of TL 12. It has
water and air reclaiming facilities which operate "for as long as they care
to wear the suit" so the environmental technology is far in advance of TL
12. It contains miniaturized computers and power sources which are "beyond
current Imperium expertise". The grav modules are capable of NOE
maneuvering at 2 Gs so the grav and avionics technology are far in advance
of TL 12. TL 14 communications systems are 1/10 the size of TL 12 ones so
the electronics technology is far in advance of TL 12.

>I doubt that anything less than a
>long inspection by some with Vacc Suit-3+ would be able to even
>tell that a vacc suit is really TL 14 as opposed to TL 12.

If it doesn't need fuel, power, or consumables, flies rings around an
air/raft, and ACR slugs bounce off it, then it's probably TL 14. I think
even an untrained observer would be able to notice things like this.
Recovering a working TL 14 vac suit would revolutionize TL 12 technology.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:50:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Terraforming

> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:41:39 +0100
> From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
> Subject: Terraforming
> 
> Craig Berry wrote:
> 
> >To speak of "atmospheric" terraforming, or "one-hemisphere" terraforming,
> >is grossly absurd.  A planet is a cohesive *system*; matter and energy are
> >continuously and pervasively exchanged between lithosphere, hydrosphere,
> >atmosphere, and space along inumerable pathways.  To put it another way,
> >"You can't change one thing."  Playing with a planet is like playing
> >that old game pick-up-sticks; anything you modify is almost certain to
> >have effects which ripple out into all other aspects of the planet, and
> >conversely unmodified aspects of the planet will "push back" against any
> >changes you make to one system.
> 
> Planetary ecosystems are in 'dynamic equilibrium'?

Yes, they are; the extent to which this is true is a matter of active
debate at the moment (the extreme position is the "Gaia Hypothesis"), but
all planetologists (ecologists, meteorologists, oceanologists, etc.) agree
that the global biosphere (both the hydro-, litho-, and atmosphere, *and*
the life contained in all three) constitute a system of numerous related
dynamic equilibria. 

The oxygen cycle is a very simple example; increase CO2 slightly, and
plant life increases, converting it back into O2;  increase O2 a bit, and
animal life increases, converting it back into CO2.  (Needless to say,
emitting vast quantities of CO2 from non-biological processes into the
atmosphere while simultaneously razing the equatorial rainforests and
killing vast areas of oceanic phytoplankton rather breaks this
equilibrium, but that's another topic...)

The oxygen cycle in turn interacts over longer timescales with the
lithosphere.  Volcanic outgassing can increase CO2, moving the system as a
whole away from equilibrium; conversely, a lack of crustal turnover can
slowly lock all free oxygen into carbonate rocks under the ocean beds,
inaccessible to life.  These in turn play off the closely related nitrogen
cycle, and so on and on.  An ecosystem is a web of balanced dynamic
systems, in equilibrium until disturbed.  If a disturbance is small, the
ecosystem will eventually regain the original equilibrium.  If large, it
may instead find a new equilibrium.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 00:09:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Quoth Douglas E. Berry:
> At 08:27 PM 7/11/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:
> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> 
> now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!

"Ad infinitatem... ET ULTRA!!"

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:01:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: What Tech Level Really Means

Traveller Tech Levels are really just an answer to the player question:

	"What kind of guns can I buy on this planet?"

Similarly, Traveller Law Levels are just an answer to:

	"What kind of guns can I carry around on this planet?"


So many things become so much clearer if you think like a player
character.  ;-)

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 02:13:29 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1547

> ate: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:48:27 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
> Subject: TL of the Fule of Man
> 
>    Hi.
> 
>    Doug Berry asks:
> 
> > OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.
	TTTiiittthht-CHUNKsnip (Hydralic Snip)
>    While I can't say I believe that this thread is the least bit
>    important, I must side against Leroy's opponants who attribute some
>    kind of objectivity to the ridiculous, ahistorical, and self-serving
>    values of `tech level'.  It seems to me that TL is nothing more than
>    an arbitrary measure, probably cooked up by the IISS,
		More Snippgage
>    Seriously though, this issue (the meaning of TL) has been hashed to
>    death on this mailing list on several occasions in the last few
>    years.  Seeing as there is NO consensus of what TL means, I don't see
>    how there can EVER be a consensus of what TL the alleged Rule of the
>    alleged Man ever achieved. Seeing how `Anomolies' is the only product
>    where a value has ever been asserted, the value used in `Anomolies'
>    is the one I'll side with.  (And that value and a quarter may buy me
>    a phone call. 8^)
> 
>    -Rob
Duuuude, Right ON Man. I Like totaly agree, man. The tech level argument
would be most heinous.

And way done to death, the last flamewar on that topic only went to show
how juvinile the list could be. 

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 18:08:15 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Douglas E. Berry wrote:
> At 08:27 PM 7/11/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:
> 
> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> 
> now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!

Two versions, both probably terrible, given five years of rust 
accumulation :)

 AD INFINITEM ET EXTRA
or
AD INFINITEM ET ULTRA

Note that it's not infinitum (according to my tiny little dictionary) 
- - but I could well be wrong.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:05:32 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Clues to TL loss

>... Without a
>source of metals, you ain't gonna rebuild squat, folks, not if your TL
>ever goes below 5 or 6 or so, the raw materials of that high tech society
>are simply not available.

I beg to differ. The raw materials for a high tech society will probably be
even more easily available since they will already have been mined,
processed, and be sitting around for the taking in the form of abandoned
cars, buildings, railways, consumer products, and so on.

Now if a high tech society drops below the ability to support their
infrastructure or population, or cannot maintain food production,
transportation, manufacturing, health, education, or communication they
will have other problems, but raw materials ain't going to be one of them.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 16:34:03 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: RoM and TLs

Ahhh, a conspiracy theory - and from a Kiwi too - nice...
Andrew, I like the cut of your jib. Or whatever. 
I suggest an even simpler explanation, but along very similar lines to
yours; that at some time, the *official definition* of 'technological
level' was changed to give a lot more emphasis to jump drive technology
than it had previously. That way, you could just issue an edict to all
Scout bases, AAB repositories, government departments, corporations, etc.
telling them that by Emperor's decree, a TL12 planet shall be one that has
*this* stuff rather than *this* stuff, giving a greater emphasis to jump
drives because you *know* that despite their outstanding computers and
robotics and their bloody *astounding* medical and genetic technologies,
the Solomani just can't be better than the Imperials...because the
Imperials define what 'better' actually *means*! 

If this sounds far-fetched, try working as a government economist. 
About 18 months before an election, you get the Treasurer's
office on the blower, asking you what would happen to the deficit if the
official inflation estimates were to change by x percent...a few months
later, the inflation estimates come out, and guess what? 

"Oh Treasurer, what a wonderful deficit projection you have this budget." 
"Thank you, Financial Media. You may unzip me." 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 00:09:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Scout motto

> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:57:57 -0700
> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
> 
> At 08:27 PM 7/11/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:
> 
> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> 
> now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!

"Ad Infinitem Et Ultra."

Wow...I think we *do* have a winner!

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 03:14:20 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: Bang! Canon warriors...

>The thing that makes the Imperium such a wonderful setting for me is its
>hard-science, high-tech, almost *high-camp* insistence on a fictional
>medieval and authoritarian society, which maintains its own interests as
>paramount but couldn't care less about individual citizens. It has to be
>the most *brilliant* satire on 20th Century Western societies (not
>pointing any particular finger at the USA), whether intentional or no.

I agree that the Imperium is a wonderful setting, but I don't think it's a
satire of the twentieth century. If anything, it has the feel of the 18th
century, when young Western European empires had only loose control over a
large territorial claim. The limit of communications (the fastest ship) is
what it was in the pre-telegraph era. If the Imperium was a parody of the
twentieth century, then the emperor's eccentric antics would be instantly
beamed into everyone's home as entertainment. I think the attempt to invoke
a mercantilist, absolutist, high-tech parallel to the 17th & 18th century
European experience was VERY intentional, but that has nothing to do with
the twentieth century. Part of the problem with TNE and T-4 is that they've
lost sight of this fact. But that's a whole other kettle of fish...






Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 02:26:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

> It is simple.  There are scant references to the Rule of Man in the "canon"
> of Traveller, and given that there are scant references, there is really
> _no_ interpretation that is absolutely right.  Enter T4.  Now it is "canon"
> and people don't like it because it doesn't agree with all that imagination
> that _they_ supplied given a rather large hole.  This has been the story
> of Traveller and it's subsequent generations.  Here's an example.

  Well, I have to disagree with you here.  As other have pointed out,
there are strong references in MT, including the timeline, that imply that
the max Terran TL is 12, at least as far as jump drive (there is no date
for a discovery of J4, for example).  I'm sorry that I don't have my
Traveller material here in Denmark with me, so I can't give exact
footnotes, but the citations are in other posts.

  Now, as for T4 now being canon, well, we already have an entire book
(First Survey) rendered obsolete, as well as a major re-write of the main
rules and the replacement of the sector data in the main rules, so a minor
change to one line in EA does not seem to be out of line.  After all, MM
seems to pay attention to TML, and we can only hope he changes what (in my
and several other list members opinion) is clearly an error.
 
<<<Interesting example of using one JTAS entry for a campaign snipped>>>

  I don't follow you here - nothing later published in Traveller
contradicts the material in that entry, it merely expands on it.
Moreover, I think all on the TML would agree that there is considerable
room for varient campaigns, using a Traveller-like background, which is
how I would classify your example.

  By now, however, we have twenty years of Traveller material, and it is
much easier to flesh out a canon version of Traveller history (which in my
opinion is the only real reason to play the game).


> Whether I like the material or not, CT, MT, TNE, and now T4 are the "canon"
> from which I come.  The previous three editions are all out of print, no
> longer supported by the companies that produced them, and are all fair game
> for having revisions applied.  I am happy that a writer is trying to
> satisfy me, a CT holdout, an MT holdout, and a TNE holdout.  I am unhappy
> that they can't do the impossible--(recursively reference the last sentence
> for the rest of this one.)

  Well, my understanding is that T4 was intended as a concious effort to
take Traveller back to its CT roots, and in general that has been the case
(though I'd argue it's more of a CT/MT mix).  It is certainly a rejection
of many of the changes made in TNE, both in terms of system and
technological assumptions (thruster plates, most notably).  

  Frankly, I do not think it impossible for T4 to be consistant with
previous versions of Traveller, since there is realatively little detailed
stuff on the M0 setting in CT, MT, and TNE.  As long as you get the big
picture right, there is plenty of room in T4 for new and interesting
things (I'm looking forward to finding out more about the Imperium's early
opponents like the Chanestine Kingdom, for example).

> BTW, I did say that I was finished with this thread.  However, if someone
> _can_ clearly come up with a flat out statement in the published sources
> that states the RoM _was_ only TL12, I would like to see an annotated
> bibliography as thorough as ours was.  The fact is, the RoM TL issue is
> fair game for any writer, whether or not they ever believed it from the
> start (like I did).

  Again, someone has already posted MT references to this.  Moreover, the
general tenor of Rats & Cats and the Aliens: Solomani books, as well as
all of the examples you cite in your bibliography, convince me that the
low tech arguement makes more sense.

  Now, we do not have to agree, and I'm sure your campaign will work well
that way, but from what I've seen so far in TML posts, your arguements
have not convinced anyone else yet.
 
> Also, trying to keep this short:
> 
>   1) Terra, when it started Terraforming Mars, was _not_ a member of
>      the Imperium.  Membership came later when it joined in 588.  So
>      Martian terraforming is _not_ Imperial, and _atmospheric_ terra-
>      forming can _not_ be done at a lower level, without the force
>      walls I described earlier.  What tech is it that you can atm
>      terraform a single hex, and not have the atmosphere mix?  Hmmm.

  I'm not sure I follow you here.  The example you cite earlier about
single hex terraforming take place on worlds with existing atmosphere
(Earth, for example).  Others have already pointed out that the Martian
terraform can be done at TL12, at least according to World Builder's
Handbook.

  Moreover, we know Terra was not TL16+ when it joined the Imperium, and
the bulk of the Terraform took place under the Third Imperium (and was not
even finished ca. 1100).  While interesting (why the hell would they
terraform Mars, anyway?), I don't think it's an example that supports your
case.

>   2) Japan does not necessarily retain any pre-emininence in the future
>      of Terra.  There are already signs that it may be fading from
>      prominence.  The argument that they wouldn't have domed cities
>      doesn't hold water given a vaccum of historical fact in the
>      intervening 50, 100, or even 200+ years of future history that
>      we do not yet know.

  Again, as others have pointed out, only "some" cities had domes.  What
is important here is that we have not established that Earth's atmosphere
was "tainted" in the Traveller sense.  What the passages in Rats & Cats
suggest to me is minor industrial pollution, nothing more, which was
solved with the introduction of fusion.

>   3) Ishimshulgi _is_ an Imperial project, which as several of you
>      have pointed out, the Imperium was TL14 at the time it attempted
>      to do Ishimshulgi.  They failed _because_ they did not possess
>      the tech to do _atmospheric_ terraforming, like that done to
>      Mars by pre-Imperial Terra.

  Aside from the fact that most of the Martian terraform was done
under the Third Imperium, I'm not sure what you mean here, unless you are
suggesting that Terra was TL16+ while they were terraforming Mars?  That
is clearly false, given other data, as others have already pointed out.

> 
> Let's see how many rise to my challenge above.  I am happy to see that
> nobody is still purporting that the Rule of Man was merely TL12 and no
> exceptions to that.  Funny--it sure feels a lot easier to issue those
> challenges than to rise to them.

  Well, as others pointed out, the material you posted suggested to most
folks what I think would be the consensus position - the Rule of Man was
TL12, with higher ratings in genetics and biotechnology (TL14, maybe).
Since that was what most folks already thought, the burden was on you to
convince folks otherwise.  If you had asked me last year (or even a few
months ago) what I though the tech level of the Rule of Man was, I'd have
said 12 with 13 or 14 for medical and biotech.  I dare say most folks on
this list would agree with me, and the material you have cited so far has
not changed my mind.

> Again, I am not out to offend in any way.  A discussion of the quotes is
> fair game, and (academically) I expect there to be a _full_ quoting and
> a separate interpretative section, as we did.  I don't think this is too
> much to ask from people that _demand_ sources.

  True, though I would suggest in the future that you confine your
arguements to the matter at hand, rather than make comments about folks
not knowing how to use WBH, for example.  Perhaps the reason what I write
sounds so reasonable is that you have not directed any comments like that
at me - folks tend to go off on rants when they feel personally insulted.
 
  As for others producing an annotated bibliography like yours, well, I
don't think there is a need - folks have shown how your material can be
easily interpreted to fit the esisting idea of Rule of Man at TL12 with
qualifiers.   In fact, since your ideas are so radical, I think it not
unreasonable to assume the burden is on you to convince us.

> You're a PhD (I presume).  TML strikes me as an unrefereed journal.  It
> strikes me that it could (to be _really_ useful) take a lesson from the
> refereed journals.  Thoughts?

  Guilty - Doctorate in the History of Technology.  Actually, TML does
function (eventually) as a refereed journal - someone posts something,
others post corrections and suggestions, and usually some sort of
consensus emerges.  What most journals do is limit that discussion to who
they see as qualified in the field.  Since no schools are offering a
degree in Travellerology yet, we don't have a way of identifying
"qualified" vs. "unqualified" participants.

  Frankly, I think that is all to the good - the braod diversity of folks
who post here means that I learn something new constantly, especially
about biolegical and astrophysics, areas my education is weak in.  I hope
at least a few folks have learned a little something about history from me
- - I like to think so, anyway.
 
> Your posts always come across as well thought out, but I also notice that
> you don't post as much either.  Unfortunately, I have no such luxury.
> (Up to 120 mph now.)  Actually, (a compliment) when I read your posts,
> my mind always inserts the voice of Dr. Theopolis from Buck Rogers when
> scanning your words.  Very soft, reasoning voice. :)

  Well, I actually have a life - fancy a roleplayer having a life!  I also
get the digest version of TML, so often by the time I feel like
responding, someone else already has done so, and there is no need.

  As for my voice, well, some friends have called it "California surfer
dude on speed" - my written prose is nothing like the way I actually
speak, aside from a tendency to go off on long lectures when someone pokes
my history buttons, and a weakness for using large or obscure words.  I
certainly sound _nothing_ like Dr. Theopolis.

> I was really hoping to get people to look at the evidence and throw off
> the large consensus that gets established when people chat.  I worry about
> the new folks being introduced to the game for the first time (like we
> were) and listening in on what gets said here.

  Well, I think what happened is that people looked at your evidence,
evaluated it, and decided thay did not agree.  Made for a good discussion
though.

  Frankly, I have never been a fan of Tech Levels in Traveller, aside from
their use as the answer to the question "What can we buy around here, Mr.
GM, sir?" (my players are very polite).  WBH has at least some added
flexibility in that regard - I tend to be much more flexible about tech
levels in my games, though by flexible I mean in minor technology, not
stuff like weapons systems, star drives, and the like.

  Ah well, enough of fighting with telnet - time for a nap (this message
took nearly four hours to do since my connection with Oregon kept breaking
- - good thing I could amuse myself with the Traveller Web Ring on my other
computer). 

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 01:28:32 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: THUDDD

Bruce Johnson wrote

> On Sat, 12 Jul 1997, Idiot/Savant wrote:
> >
> > Democratic? This being Traveller, I suggest that we change the      > > name to
> > THUFTDD, meaning The Highly Unofficial Feudally Technocratic...
> >
> > [loud "splat" as Idiot is hit with a laser-guided rock...]

> HEY HEY HEY!!! That's Virus infested Near C rock to you, Bub!!!

What is the sexual orientation of this Virus infested Near C rock, and
is it being controlled by the Templars ?

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:36:47 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Birthdays

Marc wrote:

><< Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?
>  >>
> Or (cynically) maybe we want to sell this game to some of those people too.

Fair point; but I don't think a table showing birthdays will be the kind of
thing that 'those people' look for at the gaming shop, if they can find a
shop that doesn't shrink wrap ;-). Guns, spaceships and action, maybe....

Perhaps what we need is a starter edition of Traveller... not unlike the
version put out by WEG for Star Wars! (Not that I'm the first to suggest
it!)

Dom
(who smiles at the memory of unpacking Starter Edition Traveller when it
arrived in the post back in 83).

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:22:07 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...

>> No, but there is an increasing tendancy for kids to want it all on a plate,
>> with no effort of real initiative. (Ask my wife if you don't believe me!
>> Teaching 11-16 maths brings some interesting stories). We're becoming
>> Vilani culturally, without the co-operation! ;-)
>
>You know, being a 17-year old player of Traveller, and RPGs in general,
>a lot of the time I see many people on this list exposing a real bias
>towards younger players.  Now, while some players of a young gae may be
>prone to munchkinism, and not being able to figure things out, I think
>it is a gross injustic to say that all young gamers can't figure out how
>to do a birthday.


Peter,

First of all, I apologise - I should have avoided a sweeping generalisation
like that. (Especially as I started playing back when I was twelve).

>Personally, I've found through my 8 years of RPG experience that gamers
>of all ages are intelligent enought o figure things out when rules
>aren't there to cover it.  And, there is a proportion of both young and
>old gamers that just want the rules to dictate everything.

Fair point.

>If a person roleplays in the first place it demonstrates a distinct
>creativity and imagination, and initiative as well.

Yes - role playing is more interesting than 'roll' playing, and does
require the talents/abilities you describe above.

>You say that a good analogy is your wife's teaching of math.  First of
>all, how many in your wife's class are RPG players, and second,
>comapring Math and Traveller (and school and Traveller) is hardly the
>same.  One is a challenge for some people, andnot for others.  Also,
>Traveller is a recreational activity, and, being in school at the moment
>I know that many times I've a lot more willing to spend time learning
>something I *want* to learn, rather than what I amn forced to learn at
>school.

On the number of roleplayers in my wife's classes (say 300-400 students) I
couldn't tell you, but if my previous experience is anything to go by, in a
school of 1200 students we had around 15 to 20 roleplayers. (That's going
back 7 to 14 years ago). If you are hinting at the point 'how many younger
roleplayers do I know' the answer is two in my present group.

I was not comparing math and Traveller as such, but rather the attitude
that I get to listen to stories about every night. The most common refrain
my wife quotes is "It's not fair!" or "Why do we have to work it out?". The
point that I was making is that there is an increasing tendancy amongst
younger people (and I include my own age group -mid-twenties-  in that) to
want everything laid out just so, without need for any real effort. If T4.1
starts to provide rules for absolutely everything it undermines the
roleplaying aspect of the game.

Now, Marc originally posted that he was putting a Birthday Table in to
account for younger players who were having difficulty picking a birthdate
for their character. This, to me, is pandering to those with a complete
lack of initiative and is a waste of space in the rules (IMO). Any player,
whatever age, that I have ever seen has been able to pick a number between
1 and 365...

>In summary, in every age group of RPG players you can find those that
>need rules explained, and have to have everything 'all on a plate'.
>However, to state that it only applies to younger players of Traveller,
>as I have seen time and again on this list is not only inaccurate, but
>insulting.
>
>Thank you,

I don't believe that I actually stated that it 'only applies to younger
players'. Munchinism and lack of initiative occur with all age groups.
Providing rules for every situation just undermines the roleplaying aspects
of games. My point was a sweeping generalisation on the attitudes in
society today, not a targeted condemnation of young players. If you read it
that way, I apologise for any offence given to you and any other younger
players.

However, I still stand by the opinion that standards and attitudes are
slipping generally (in the UK at least) and the willingness to put effort
in or show initiative has dropped. I base this view on seeing work
experience students at work, and feedback from my wife and her many
teaching friends. If that offends, we'll just have to agree to differ.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 02:00:35 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Canon to the left of them, canon...

> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 11:43:42 +1000 (EST)
> From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
> Subject: Re: Canon to the left of them, canon...
> 
> Hmmm...I remember the 'canon' phrase you're referring to...however, I
> think it's likely to have been more than just 'clean living' that allowed
> the Emperor Artemsus to live until "the age of 183, demonstrating the
> natural longevity of the Lentuli line"... (MT Imperial Encyclopedia, p.8)
> 
> I prefer the explanation that Artemsus was Vilani, but I understand that
> the 'long-lived Vilani' thing was merely 'DGP Canon', which is
> inadmissible as evidence against 'GDW Canon' even though it seems to
> me to have a lot more soul to it...<sigh>...

I prefer the explanation that Emperor Artemsus was using anagathics.

In MT anagathics were normally considered a TL 15 phenomenon, however
Travellers Digest #10 (DGP 1987) states in "Anagathics, the Drug of the
Ages" - by Joe Fugate Sr (pg 40-41) that cruder forms of anagathics
treatment existed at lower TL's.

"To begin tech level 12 anti-aging treatments
Formidable, Medical (and Edu ? or patients End ?), 1 day (hazardous,
fateful)
Referee: The cost for initial treatment is MCr 5.  Success means the
charecter will suffer no side-effects from the treatment.  On a mishap,
a side-effect has occured:

Snip of nasty side effects

This treatment is good for 30 days, subsequent treatments are
Formidable, Medical (and Edu ? or patients End ?), 1 hour (safe)
Referee: The cost is Cr 50,000. The treatment must be repeated if it
fails.

Aa TL 13 this is Difficult, Medical (and Edu ? or patients End ?), 1
day, (hazardous, fateful),Cost - 1 MCr; at TL 14 it is Routine, Medical
(and Edu ? or patients End ?), 1 hour, (hazardous)- Cost Cr 500,00, at
TL 15 true Anagathics in pill form are developed, it is Routine, Medical
(and Edu ? or patients End ?), 1 hour, (hazardous).  At TL's 13-15
subsequent months of treatment are Cr 20,000 a month.

It is true that canonical data indicates that the Imperium has a social
predjudice against the nobility using anagathics in Millieu 1100 but I
think that part of the reason this predjudice developed was because
early nobility _did_ use anagathics.  It is arguable that living 50% or
100% longer than their subjects is one of the things that lead to out of
touch nobles (and ultimately to the Imperial Civil War, after which the
customs discouraging noble use of anagathics were coadified.

If you are the Emperor you have nigh unlimited personal money and power,
it is not very surprising if some Emperors tried to live extended lives.
Even the riskyness of the treatment might be ignored by the
overconfident nobility we often see in the Imperium.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1551
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 12 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1552



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Terraforming
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Scout Uniforms
T4 in the media?
Re: Birthdays
Why redefine the RoM as TL 13? (long)
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)
ROM TL Vote (was: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated b
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets
1st & 2nd Imperiums
M: 1200 & The Starburst
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: T4 in the media?
Re: T4 in the media?
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...
Re: M: 1200 & The Starburst
Re: Birthdays

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 22:28:09 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Terraforming

Today I found some old DPG suppliments in a remaindered book store
(given that they had a $1 each price tag I naturally bought them). One
of them was 'The Flamming Eye'. Flicking through it, I found an interesting
snipet of information relating to Terraforming and the RoM.

The world in question is Pradman/Lishun 0411 B6A587A-B
Reference 'The Flamming Eye' pp42 (DPG)

"Atmosphere compositon unbreathable irritant gas mix."

"Pradman was first colonised circa -2200 (during the Rule of Man) as
the site of a terraforming experiment. Over the next few centuries,
the atmosphere was improved to the point it was breathable without
artificial asistance. Thousands of peple immigrated to the newly
terraformed world.
 Then the Long Night happened. Pradman's new improved
atmosphere was not far enough along to be self-sustaining, so it
slowly decayed over the next 1700 years to the point were it was
almost as bad as it had been before the terraforming. Scouts of the
new Third Imerium - much to their suprise - found a thriving low
tech culture on Pradman. Th locals had managed to develop a
sophisticated series of chemical and ritual protections from the
hostile environment, to the point that humans could survive, even
flourish, on the world"

Now, I'll try to avoid drawing to much from what is basically a fairly
minor obscure reference. However it does hint that the RoM did
experiment with terraforming to degree and was at the very least
partially successful. I don't think too much more can be drawn out
of it, but it does give one at least momentary pause to think.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 12:33:00 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

Marc <CardSharks@aol.com> wrote,
> Next on my list (we ll, maybe not absolutely next) is defining terrain
> hex icons and what they mean for world mapping. I'd love to have a
> conversation / thread about this.

Always happy to offer my two penn'orth...

1. The needs of a large, full-colour map (like _Tarsus_) are different
   from a single-page B&W map.  Suggesting colours is good, since
   players can use colour on their own maps easier than shading; but the
   realities of production mean you need shading too.  Ideally, present
   a chart with the terrain name, suggested colour, and shading.  If
   possible, provide a sample map.

2. The needs of a worldmap are different from a regional map.  I think
   _World Tamer's Handbook_ handled this well, so I'll just direct you
   there (pp.19, 59-60, 78-79).  I don't know that you need to suggest
   colours for the more detailed terrain types, provided the "higher
   level" colours are sufficiently broad.  It's probably worth
   mentioning that the types used can be tailored to the individual
   world, so a worldmap of a 95% waterworld can indicate different
   depths even though that's overkill in other circumstances.

3. [A personal bugbear] Terrain types shouldn't neatly fill hexes!  They
   should go all over the place in the same way that coastlines do.
   This is especially true of mountain ranges.

4. Terrain should be divided into 'basic types' (desert, ice, ocean)
   represented by solid areas of colour/shading; and 'features' (city,
   starport, volcano) represented by solid black symbols.  Mountain
   ranges come somewhere in between.

5. For the shading, a balance needs to be maintained between clarity and
   looking good.  _Safari Ship_'s map was very clear; the _Path of
   Tears_ maps looked better but the different-density dot patterns were
   not easy to distinguish.  _Tarsus_ looked too blocky.

There we are - all IMHO, of course.

As to the specific icons/colours/shadings used, I don't have fixed
opinions for most.  A few suggestions to be added to:

   Desert - yellow, widely-spaced dots.  Traditional.
   Ocean - blue (of course), solid shading if possible.

   Urban/Cities - black blobs.  On world maps, these will usually be
   dots or squares.
   Starports - black stars (or crossed circle).  I'm not sure of the
   best way to distinguish quality; perhaps a combination of size and
   number of points would work.  Perhaps you don't need to.
   Mountains - black hats (^).
   Volcanos - black triangles pointing up.  Sort of filled-in mountains.

None of this is original, I'm just picking the bits I like best.

Hope this starts the ball rolling,
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:11:24 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

- -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an 
ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today? 
I'd think not! Leave it in Galangic, i say! 

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 09:38:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms

The scouts are on the leading edge of the frontier and danger, much like the
marines of today.  They would probably have a plethora of different uniforms
for use at home station and planetside in Imperiam space.  The natty uniforms
with lots of decorations  boost the image of the scout and give them a
feeling of importance and worth and are a good recruiting tool.  They surely
have utility uniforms as well for use in deep space ops and special use
uniforms for covert operations using the suit defined by Andy

>>Reality? Operational clothing is a grey TL12 CE suit with chameleon
capability to provide all round camouflage and to allow adaptation of
apparent body colours to match local norms (or expectations) and possibly to
aid communication with beings who react to body colouring or patterning.<<

I said it before but take a look at "Bill the Galactic Hero" by Harry
Harrison.  Great stuff, although tongue in cheek, for recruiting and
uniforms.

Todd Moody
no quote  ;->

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 08:04:13 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: T4 in the media?

I figure that others are interested too, so here's my question.

I just got Pyramid magazine (May/June '97)--it has a _very_ distinctive
cover. :)

Have any other magazines run T4 related articles?


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:28:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In a message dated 97-07-12 09:48:11 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Perhaps what we need is a starter edition of Traveller... not unlike the
 version put out by WEG for Star Wars! (Not that I'm the first to suggest
 it!)
 
  >>
Different subject, different strategy. Its under discussion as well.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 02:16:29 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Why redefine the RoM as TL 13? (long)

Well my objective here is to argue the subject line in the affirmative.

Why should the RoM be TL 13? All previous incarnations of Traveller
were set in or after the late 3rd Imperium; a period during which it matters
little in game and background terms whether the RoM achieved TL 12, 13,
14 or 15. The only relevance it has in these era is in the propaganda
struggle between the Solomani Confederation and 3rd Imperium. It must
be remembered that all previous material was written within that frame of
reference. Therefore until M:0, there was relatively little canon import
as to the TL of the RoM and this is reflected in the general lack of comment
on it in that material. Now as many people have pointed out, it is very
clearly implied (though never implictly stated, despite the table in the RC,
not even this unequivically states not TL 13) that the RoM was TL 12.
     [aside - Yes I know this is a seemingly meaningless semantic argument
                   but please bear with me]

So why then should this clear implication be ignored and revised to TL 13?
(Please note the revision is only to 13, not 14, 15, 16 etc.). Because the
overall thrust of the background for M:0 is that the RoM was superior to
the early 3rd Imperium (clearly and unequivically stated as TL 12). Now
it is possible to simply state that all the material published for M:0 is wrong
and the RoM was not superior; but this material, like or not, is now also
canon and so therefore whatever is done canon is going to be invalidated.
Remember that for T4 (and Traveller in general) to thrive, it must attract
new players who, by definition, do not have the extensive background
knowledge that 'seasoned' CT, MT and TNE veterans do. Changing the
M:0 background in a radical fashion now places that at risk (just as
changing the earlier background places the continued support of those
'seasoned veterans' at risk). Yes I know it would have been much much
better if the M:0 material had stayed within the bounds of the earlier CT,
MT, and TNE material; but it didn't, so that unfortunatly, is that.

Therefore, in my oh so humble opinion, the best option is to reconcile the
new M:0 material with the older M:1100 material in the most believable
fashion with the minimum of change to either body of material. Bearing
in mind at all times that this is a game and that background is not a holy
book chiselled in stone for all eternity.

How to do this? I think I have postualted a workable solution already on
a number of occasions. To restate (in simple terms): the RoM did in fact
reach TL 13 in a limited geographic (astrographic?) region (namely, the
former Terran Confederation) near the end of the RoM, with the very
important exception of Jump drives (and gravitic tech) which remained
at TL 12. Then later when the Solomani movement and the 3rd Imperium
went their seperate ways, the 3rd Imperium 'doctored' the records or
shifted the definition of TL 13 to prevent a propaganda victory for the
Solomani. (If desired, I'll repost my justifcation and reasoning for this
senario)

Pluses of this solution:
This change 'fixes' most of the supposed canon violations in the published
M:0 material (I'll address the ones it doesn't later) and has minimal impact
on the earlier M:1100 material. I feel it can even add to the background of
M:1100 a little by adding a good conspiracy to play with.
The region of higher tech is limited enough and the period is short
enough to severly restrict the number of TL 13 items outside this limited
region and even in it.
It is a believable and possible senario and fits well with Cleon's 'don't go
past Massilia' edict (from PE) as this is exactly where the higher tech
RoM worlds would have been.
It keeps high tech worlds out of the M:0 campaign area.

Minuses of this solution:
It does conflict with earlier material. However I feel the conflict is minor,
taking an ill defined period and redefining it in a believable manner to deal
with these conflicts. I would say it is no worse as a plot device than the
Virus or Ancients/Grandfather.
It opens up the possibility of large numbers of higher tech relics turning
up in adventures. This should not really be a problem, as realistically,
after 1700 years a TL 13 device is going to be just as broken and useful
(or more accurately, useless) as a TL 12 one; and the region of higher
tech is outside the M:0 campaign area. Again no worse than the Virus or
Ancients should have been. However, the examples of the Virus and
Ancients do show that care is neaded in this respect.
It does not address all the conflicts. This I will address now.

The conflicts it doesn't address (that I'm aware of) are the TL 14+ weapons
in EA, the current manufacture TL 13 equipment in CSC; and lastly, the
dreaded EVA-14 in CSC and Anomolies (there is also the pure Solomani
Emperor of CT, MT verses the part Vilani of M:0, but I can't explain this
one away yet).

The TL 14+ weapons:
EA clearly implies that these are just theoretical studies by the late RoM as
to what might be possible at higher TL's. The phrase "Maximum Second
Imperium technology" in the TL 15 blurb? Take a pen and draw a line
through it; then hope for a contrite "opps" from IG :*) (treat it the same as
the AI robots in RC).

The current manfacture TL 13 equipment in CSC:
Harder than the EA's TL 14+ weapons. Here postualte the occasional late
TL 12 world in or near the 3rd Imperium (like the occasional TL 16 one
in M:1100). A bit chuncky as a solution I'll admit, but workable.

The Dreaded and Infamous EVA-14 (also known as the TL 14 vacc suit):
This is harder yet, in fact my solution is down right inelegant and requires
suspension of disbelief.
During the Long Night a pocket empire briefly achieved TL 14, I'll call
it the Diaz-Ek'Mkana Empire. Explorers from this Empire roamed
through much of the former RoM during it's brief accendancy. For a
variety of reasons (xenophobia is one I can think of off the top of my
head, give me time and I'll come up with some more) they did not seek
to contact local inhabitants to any great degree. However they did
establish the occasional base on airless worlds and in deserted regions
(there's my explaination of 'Lock and Loot') before their collapse.
Since they were basically ephemerial, they were not recognised as
a seperate entity by early 3rd Imperium archologists, who attributed
the occasional traces of them to the RoM in error.
Okay, so it's not a 'good' or 'nice' example of handwaving, but it does
work IMO.

Right, I'll now go and dig out my asbestoes underware and invite
comments :*). However I have to get back to the production of the
ISBA newsletter, so my responses may be a little slowish.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:44:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In a message dated 97-07-11 22:51:01 EDT, you write:

<< Glenn Hoppe wrote:
 >I agree with another poster (Suz?) who stated that it could be
 >impossible (or at least, more difficult) for Imperials to switch
 >*military* careers. Switching from Army to Navy to whatever encourages
 >munchkinism.
 
 I agree with that - the interesting characters I'm thinking off (supporting
 the need for career changes) were:
 
 1 term Rogue, 4 term Army
 1/2 term Injured Marine, 5 term Agent
 
 All he changes were provoked by roll failures of soem sort except for
 
 4 term scout, 2 term merchant.
 
 I would also not allow two ship receipts if in T4.1 (still waiting for an
 rtf of the new rules to read).
 
 Maybe limit services to Marine, Navy, Army, and not scout (as they're quite
 a bit different).
 
 Dom >>

I have a few friends who have had careers in 2 branches of the military.  In
every case I am personally knowledgable of it was first terms as an enlisted
man and then separation followed usually by a few college terms to finish a
degree then a commission in a different branch of the service. 

 I think perhaps if the player decides to stop after a few terms and
voluntarily switch, he can have a successful second career in whatever branch
they choose.  It is a fact that if you are "mustered" out of one branch you
will not get into another branch of the service, at least in the U.S.  With
this in mind I think if they fail a roll and get the boot that they will not
be able to have a second career, at least in any formal branch of service,
perhaps they could continue in a Pirates or Hunters type of career.  

There were several supplements for CT that had some of that type of thing.
Anything like that gonna be available for T4.1?

Todd Moody
no quote

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 97 17:01 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970711104847.007a9648@mailgate.ftech.net>

Bruce,

> I can't wait! Altogether now..."Zen! Clear the neutron blasters for firing!"

"Confirmed."

>  Btw, didn't the "Scorpio" look a little like a Traveller scout ship?

More the bastard offspring of a Type S and the Millenium Falcon.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 97 17:01 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: ROM TL Vote (was: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated b

In-Reply-To: <199707111445.KAA16121@mag1.magmacom.com>

> For me, at least, what it boils down to is this:
>  
> The RoM had a maximum of Jump-3.
> Jump-3 is TL 12 technology.
> Therefore, in broad terms, the RoM was TL 12.
>  
> There can be certain technological niches (god, I sound like a broken record)
> where the niche TL is higher than the overall TL. You have given
> good proof that Terran genetic/medical technology was probably higher
> than TL 12. I don't think that the Terraforming examples are particularly
> good, as they aren't either large or successful projects and terraforming
> is more of an economic activity than a technological one. The examples
> you gave of robotics show sloppiness of previous Traveller authors in terms of 
> terminology more than anything.
>  
> I enjoyed the arguments you put together Leroy, this was a very
> well-researched article, but I simply don't agree with your points.

Agreed 100%.

It is *well established canon* that Solomani medical tech is superior to Imperial 
- - it's 16 in the classic era, so I can believe it reached 13 (*possibly* even 
early 14) towards the end of the ROM *IN THAT AREA ONLY*. ISTR that computer tech 
is good, too. That might have reached 13. However, I've seen no convincing 
evidence that the ROM ever reached higher than 12 in any other area, and there 
are many references that explicitly state their TL was 12.

Many people seem to agree, but I'm not sure what the consensus is. To save 
bandwidth here, email me with the Subject "ROM TL Vote = n", where n is the max 
effective TL you believe they achieved (*rare experimental* items may be 1 level 
above this).
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:42:13 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

> ad infinitem et ultra

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Let's hope Marc adopts this as "canon" real soon :-)

Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:42:10 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Hexadecimal numbers and spreadsheets

I'd be happy to e-mail them (or post them to a friendly Web Site - as 
offered by Peter Miller) - as soon as I confirm who the original author 
is so that he can be properly credited.

I'll probably even write the few lines of extra VB-XL macro needed to 
easily copy data from one sheet to the next to avoid re-typing.

Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:47:09 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: 1st & 2nd Imperiums

I  just recalled a quote that summed up the differences between the first
and second Imperiums.

From 'Blade Runner', with reference to the Terrans and their rapid expansion:

"A light that burns twice as bright,  burns half as long, and you have
burned so very, very bright."

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:04:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: M: 1200 & The Starburst

I would love to hear discussion about an M:1200 setting, or whatever, IG
intends to use as its "Far Future" setting... will there be a reunified
Imperium?
   By the way, I believe in one of the old rules sets (?MT), it was explained
that one of the subsequent Emperors/Empresses (c.300s) declared that the
Starburst would have no official color in order to honor a member race of the
Imperium that was blind to certain colors... can anyone remember this piece
of canon?

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:00:40 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

On 12 Jul 97 at 15:11, Volker A. Greimann wrote:

> -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an
> ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today? I'd think
> not! Leave it in Galangic, i say! 

	I say leave it in English - I think some old CT book mentioned 
English occupying the same linguistic niche Latin is occupying now, 
ie. a nearly dead language used for certain rituals.




/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:09:45 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: T4 in the media?

On 12 Jul 97 at 8:04, Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:

> I figure that others are interested too, so here's my question.
> 
> I just got Pyramid magazine (May/June '97)--it has a _very_
> distinctive cover. :)
> 
> Have any other magazines run T4 related articles?

	Can't say I've seen any, but I rarely buy any gaming magazines
these days - too much CCGs and boring gothic punk stuff.

	Talking about magazine covers, there's a quartely gaming mag
published in Finland that regularly has a Traveller-related cover.
Too bad they also accept adventures for translated games (2300AD and
T:2000, but not Traveller in any form).

	Also, "Spin", a zine published by Turku SF Society, tends to have
similar illustrations. *grin* *picks dried gouache from under
fingernails*


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:33:12 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: T4 in the media?

RFXn wrote:
> 
> On 12 Jul 97 at 8:04, Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:
> 
> > I figure that others are interested too, so here's my question.
> >
> > I just got Pyramid magazine (May/June '97)--it has a _very_
> > distinctive cover. :)
> >
> > Have any other magazines run T4 related articles?

An issue of Arcane (don't remember the number) at my local game store
had a two-age spread on the new Traveller.  It was pretty old though, as
it talked of the products as 'forthcoming' I believe.

Didn't someone mention Shadis having some Traveller stuff in it?
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
The best graphics and web design - http://www.irevolution.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:31:44 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

RFXn wrote:
> 
> On 12 Jul 97 at 15:11, Volker A. Greimann wrote:
> 
> > -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> > Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an
> > ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today? I'd think
> > not! Leave it in Galangic, i say!
> 
>         I say leave it in English - I think some old CT book mentioned
> English occupying the same linguistic niche Latin is occupying now,
> ie. a nearly dead language used for certain rituals.
> 
> /RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
>  -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
>  -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
>  -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

I think that I'll be using the "To Infinity and Beyond" as the motto for
the IISS in my short story, as first propogaed this question.  However,
should I put 'with regards to Buzz Lightyear'? :-)

- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virtually anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutely anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
The best graphics and web design - http://www.irevolution.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:15:14 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Birthdays & a Traveller age bias...

SD Mooney wrote:
 
> First of all, I apologise - I should have avoided a sweeping generalisation
> like that. (Especially as I started playing back when I was twelve).

Apologu accepted, I'm sure you didn't intent to offend me...thanks :-)
 
> I was not comparing math and Traveller as such, but rather the attitude
> that I get to listen to stories about every night. The most common refrain
> my wife quotes is "It's not fair!" or "Why do we have to work it out?". The
> point that I was making is that there is an increasing tendancy amongst
> younger people (and I include my own age group -mid-twenties-  in that) to
> want everything laid out just so, without need for any real effort. If T4.1
> starts to provide rules for absolutely everything it undermines the
> roleplaying aspect of the game.

True enough..I agree with that point about Math (being a person who just
can't stand th subject afterall <g>).  And, if T4.1 or any RPG for that
matter gives rules for everything, it stops the creativity and
imagination that are supposed to go into games.  Hence the reason I have
never utilizied an Encounter Reaction table in my life....why not juts
pick the reaction you think this NPC would have?!!

> Now, Marc originally posted that he was putting a Birthday Table in to
> account for younger players who were having difficulty picking a birthdate
> for their character. This, to me, is pandering to those with a complete
> lack of initiative and is a waste of space in the rules (IMO). Any player,
> whatever age, that I have ever seen has been able to pick a number between
> 1 and 365...

I agree with this.  It's not too difficult to understand the Traveller
dating system....in fact, it's not difficult at all.

> However, I still stand by the opinion that standards and attitudes are
> slipping generally (in the UK at least) and the willingness to put effort
> in or show initiative has dropped. I base this view on seeing work
> experience students at work, and feedback from my wife and her many
> teaching friends. If that offends, we'll just have to agree to differ.

Alright then.  We will agree to disagree...and not get an arguement
started. Thanks for replying Don, I'm glad we cleared this up...back to
Traveller! :-)
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
The best graphics and web design - http://www.irevolution.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 11:30:12 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: M: 1200 & The Starburst

At 01:04 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:

>   By the way, I believe in one of the old rules sets (?MT), it was explained
>that one of the subsequent Emperors/Empresses (c.300s) declared that the
>Starburst would have no official color in order to honor a member race of the
>Imperium that was blind to certain colors... can anyone remember this piece
>of canon?

In 247 a race whose vision centered in the far-IR joined the Imperium.  The
then-standard gold sun on a black field was invisible to them so the
Empress Porfiria [201(245)326] declared that it was the symbol, not the
colors that mattered.  Soon afterward the services adopted their
"traditional colors.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 97 19:57 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In-Reply-To: <970712003513_2091447389@emout05.mail.aol.com>

> << Or have IQs dropped over the last 15 years?
>   >>
>  Or (cynically) maybe we want to sell this game to some of those people too.

A better way would be to reduce the price...

Of course, they're not going to know about this mind-straining "think of a 
number" rule until *after* they've bought it.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1552
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 12 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1553



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Scout Uniforms
Re: A Plea to Marc Miller
Re: Scout Uniforms
Re: What Tech Level Really Means
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Scout Service Motto (was  Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Imperial TL
???
RoM Technology Debate
MT Interrupts
Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter
Imp Starburst
Degrees in Travellerology
Re: Rant: Rule of Man TL
Re: Aslan Education (Character Generation)
[none]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:57:23 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms

> ---Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms
>
>The scouts are on the leading edge of the frontier and danger, much like
the
>marines of today.  They would probably have a plethora of different
uniforms
>for use at home station and planetside in Imperiam space.  The natty
uniforms
>with lots of decorations  boost the image of the scout and give them a
>feeling of importance and worth and are a good recruiting tool.  They
surely
>have utility uniforms as well for use in deep space ops and special use
>uniforms for covert operations using the suit defined by Andy


The only analogue to The scouts I've been able to find in history has been
the government financed explorers & "Indian Scouts" of the american old
west in the Imperium's formative years, with a shift in style to a more
CIA-like operation later on.
I don't think your typical scout of any era would be to worried about a
uniform, motto's, etc.
These are the individuals who don't like to be around other people a whole
lot, or discipline.
Think about the highest award a scout can get: a 1 man starship.
I think it most likely that scouts would have, perhaps, a single set of
"dress blacks" for formal occasions, and wear fatigues during their normal
working day.

The Druid
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:08:38 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: A Plea to Marc Miller

>> Well one of the things I like about task systems like that in MT or TNE
>> (where you make the same die role regardless of difficulty) is that hyou
>> can have players make a roll and tell you the difficulty that they
>> made,without having to reveal the difficulty necessary - thus preserving
>> some secrecy from the players.
>
>Thank you, I was going to add this point.

Still easily enough done, just have them roll 5D everytime (under the system
on the Ref's Screen), one die at a time, and write them down as they are
rolled. Then, if for ex it is a formidable task, just add up the first 3
rolled for
the attempt. This allows you to maintain the secrecy factor and adds a 
level of trepidation and fear for the players as they roll the dice, and
really
is not as cumbersome in practice as it sounds; I tried it this last week with
my group and it ran well once they understood what I was doing. With 
5 dice in your hand and dropping them one by one, the roll is as quick as
you can call them out. And you get great responses as they are rolled:

"Ok, I got a 2, a 1, great!, a six, a five, and a six, Oh @%@##! God, I
hope it
was a lot easier than I think it is!" The task (opening a door with a lock he
was unfamiliar with) was Formidable, so his roll was a 9, and with a 7 Dex
and a 3 skill, he did OK, but was sweating bullets there for a bit. (I usually
use a T4/KB2 variant, but we were testing this out and didn't feel like
rolling *seven* dice every time; there would probably have been a few
coronaries around the table at the numbers :) ).


**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 16:04:47 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms

The Druid wrote:
> The only analogue to The scouts I've been able to find in history has been
> the government financed explorers & "Indian Scouts" of the american old
> west in the Imperium's formative years, with a shift in style to a more
> CIA-like operation later on.
> I don't think your typical scout of any era would be to worried about a
> uniform, motto's, etc.
> These are the individuals who don't like to be around other people a whole
> lot, or discipline.

Excellent historical analogy, that I'll admit I hadn't thought of.  If
you think about it, the 17-19th century 'frontiersman' really fits into
the scout mold.  Although they're government-funded, they operate alone,
and with their own rules really.  Great point Druid!

But, I still think that they'd have some uniform that they wear for
formal occasions, and have decorations\medals they can receive.  I
created one for a story called the 'Shining Star' (really goofy name,
but I couldn't think of much...) which was awarded upon retirement for a
career of excellent work.

As to the motto, I think the scouts would appreicate this piece of the
service, and would probably adopt it, along with some sort of personal
maxim or motto to go by.  Along with the 'To Infinity and Beyond' IISS
motto (well, the TML version at least) many would probably have less
savoury ones that they personally go by.  I see a scout as a gruff,
rugged individual who doesn't much like people, and prefers his own
company above that of others, save his close and personal friends. 
Dislikes bureaucracy, and governmental interference, and prefers to
operate without having to meet the administrators 'back home'.  That's
probably why the greatest reward they can get is their own ship.  That
way, a scout could free himself from bureaucratic bonds and go where he
wanted, when he wanted, and not worry too much about the administrative
parts of ship owning (ie. he doesn't make payments, can re-fuel for free
at scout bases).  The way a scoutship is handed out to ex-scouts was
almost definitely thought up by an ex-scout in the Imperial bureaucracy.

Thanks,
- -- 

________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"Virutally anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred
to the Traveller environment.  Orbital cities, nuclear war, alien
societies, puzzles, enigmas, absolutley anything can occur, with
imagination being the only limit."
                                - Marc W. Miller (CT Book 3)
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
The best graphics and web design - http://www.irevolution.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:22:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: What Tech Level Really Means

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Mark Clark wrote:

> Traveller Tech Levels are really just an answer to the player question:
>       "What kind of guns can I buy on this planet?"
> Similarly, Traveller Law Levels are just an answer to:
>       "What kind of guns can I carry around on this planet?"
> So many things become so much clearer if you think like a player
> character. 

And I always thought Law Level was the answer to the questions about
whether to just brake our fellows out of jail or to bone up on local legal
systems.

 ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 16:45:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

In a message dated 97-07-12 15:54:50 EDT, you write:

<< 
 3. [A personal bugbear] Terrain types shouldn't neatly fill hexes!  They
    should go all over the place in the same way that coastlines do.
    This is especially true of mountain ranges.
 
  >>
This also depends. By its very nature, hexes are intended to compartmentalize
terrain so we can judge its effects. On the other hand, if someone wants to,
they can make a free-ranging map without any hexes or grid at all (but that
is harder for players to actually use).

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 16:49:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.

Like... 

When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.

When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out benefits.

And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than when I
started. 

For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:01:36 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Scout Service Motto (was  Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Volker A. Greimann wrote
> 
> - -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"

> Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an
> ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today?
> I'd think not! Leave it in Galangic, i say!

The fact that most people do not speak it is exactly why the motto
should be in a dead language.  It sounds better that way and will very
very slightly increase the esprit de corp of the service if they have a
cool sounding motto whose exact meaning is obscure to nonmembers.  This
is presumably a part of why some current services and institutions have
their mottos in Latin.

Now it does not have to be Latin but could be some other dead language.
English might be a good choice in the "real" Imperium but does not make
a good choice for the game, since that is in English anyway (except for
translated or written in non anglophone countries of course). I suggest
that we handwave this away by suggesting that English is not used for
the motto for the exact same reason that old high Vilani is not used -
the Third Imperium is trying to avoid publically taking sides on the
"Who is better - the Vilani or the Terrans question ?" because whatever
side they pick they will upset people who believe otherwise and thus
reduce their empirebuilding ability.

Latin is a Terran tongue but it is not so obviously a Terran tongue _to
a Galanglic speaker_ as English is, therefore it is easier to get away
with using it for your motto.  Galanglic is descended from English (with
some other languages such as Spanish, Vilani, Chinese etc) and therefore
a Galanglic speaker will recognize English when they see/hear it.  A
well educated Galanglic speaker may well be able to understand some of
it, at least in written form.  I have always envisaged the relationship
between English and Third Empire Galanglic as being somewhat like the
relationship between Latin and French, Spanish, Italian, etc  or like
the relationship between Old English and Modern English. 

Since I dont speak/read Latin and have very little Spanish or French I
cannot confirm how easy it is for a native Spanish, French, Italian, etc
speaker to understand Latin.  I will say that as a well educated native
English speaker I had few problems understanding Chaucer (Middle
English) but that Beowulf in the origional (Old English) was almost
impossible to understand except for a few stray words. 

In the end however  we should use Latin because it just looks/sounds
cooler than using English does.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:05:04 +0000
From: twolf@unix.tfs.net
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

> I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.
> 
> Like... 
> 
> When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.
> 

Most soldiers get the GI Bill, the right to be buried in a national 
cementry, and VA benefits (ie. home loans).

> When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out
> benefits.
> 

No muster out benefits? How about +5 soc?

> And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than
> when I started. 
> 
> For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?
>
My vote would be no.  The game is fiction, why cloud it with the 
harsh reality that somethings just don't work out?

JD
Twolf

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 18:55:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: MarkPeace@aol.com
Subject: Imperial TL

I just happened to notice a paragraph in 'Grand Census' (p35) about Imperial
tech levels - no great surprises except that it mentions that there's one
TL17 world in the 3I (with an active, developing TL17 culture):
Sabmiqys (Antares 2117).

Intrigued, I looked it up in the c1100 data and the UPP is listed as
X160056-H with a population of 5 people.  How can one world in the 3I really
be TL17 with only 5 people?

Even stranger, the First Survey data lists it as E160100-7 (pop=50 people).
 From TL7 to TL17, not bad eh?  Those 5-50 people must be pretty amazing!

Mark.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:21 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: ???

>
>So I'd like to see a lot more humour and, yes, *heart* in Traveller.
>Let's forgive each other for genuine mistakes made in good faith, and
>accept criticism for what it is, even if we don't agree with it.
>
>And let's keep on crafting a universe we all love.
>
>**************************************************************************
>Michael Barry
>mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
>**************************************************************************

We don't all love the universe being crafted, Michael. I detest M0 as it's
come out. I couldn't care less about it. I will NEVER run M0. I await
M1100, M1050, M600, and M200. Hopefully, it will be better than M0 has
been. Just like I probably won't ever run M1200 if it is the post virus
M1200...

        Which is why I avoid posting on M0 issues. The RoM thing, though
represents a major tweak to the environment, that I hope won't be
promulgated in later Millieu books.

I also am not fond of the rules mechanics as they sit in T4.0... Some of it
is great, some totally broken... and I will get t4.1, so as to see if MM&IG
fixed enough for me to use the system for M1050.

As for the mistakes, Heart, and Humor... I agree with you.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:15 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: RoM Technology Debate

>Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 10:32:14 +0000
>From: aspqrz@curie.dialix.com.au
>Subject: RoM Technology Debate

Uh-Oh... Who woke Phil up??? ;-)

>> From:          owner-traveller-digest@MPGN.COM (Traveller-digest)
>> To:            traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM
>> Subject:       Technology in Traveller
>
>It is worth noting (again) that the Technooogy rating system in
>Traveller is (and has always been) so badly flawed as to be *almost*
>completely meaningless and *almost* completely unusable.
>
>It *might* (if, as some have suggested) be considered applicable to a
>Vilani style conservative culture (but even *that* is stretching it),
>but it simply does *not* work for anything else.

Phil, your whole argument on this matter is interesting reading... but ...

1) Technology does progress in linear and branching paths historically.

2) overall, most technologies  in a given area will be of similar and
interrelated precurser technologies; you can't make pentiums, current era
TV, digital watches, or Automaitc Fuel Injection without micro-chips or
micro-tube technology.

side note: I read (about a year ago) that some lab is developing micro-tube
technology, primaritly for CRT flat-screen (1mm or so thin!, with each
pixel a separate tube!)

3) Tech Levels, especially as broken down in WBH, are a usefull gaming
extrapolation.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:10 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: MT Interrupts

Erwin sayeth:
>a) one interrupt per side per turn is allowed
>b) only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of
>   enemy movement
>
>If we play restriction a), then how can b) ever be used?


Looking at my rulebook (PH, p68, 3rd printing):

Interrupt Task
 >to interrupt another unit's turn:
 >Routine, Movement speed (Safe)
 >Referee:If this task is successful, it becomes the interrupting unit's turn.
- ->**The interrupted units turn is considered spent for the combat round.** A
 >Failed interrup roll doesn't count as a spent turn. Ignore Mishaps.

the marked line (** marks mine) is immediatly obviously typoed if you read
the full detailed example at botom of same page, as after Aybee interuppts
NPC1, no other interupts of Dur are possible until both (a) NPC1's
interrupt is over and (B) Dur takes some other action.

I instead penciled in the following correction to make sense of the
examples in both magazines and the PM, RM, and RC.

- ->**The interrupting units turn is considered spent for the combat round.** A
                 ^^^

and the restrictions
 >Interrupts are subject to these restrictions:
1>- A unit may not interrupt the turn of it's own side
2>- Only one active interrupt is permitted per side
3>- only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of enemy
 >movement.

item 1 is no interrupting friendlies. Soo, you have to wait for your pal to
finish, the guy he interrupted to do something, then you can try to
interrupt him.

Item 2: I read as no "Tag-Team" (shared) interrupts. So fred and julie
can't share an interrupt, even if they are both in deep TP communication.

Item 3 I think has been hased to death...

Also, Erwin, I think maybe (if needed) this might be better by private
e-mail... or on X-boat, if only it were still around.... (Sigh, wish for
the old days)

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:02:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

In a message dated 97-07-12 04:09:18 EDT, you write:

<< and I'm pretty sure I could handle picking a number between 1 and 365
without breaking  into a sweat. >>

OK. Let's ignore world generation rules for a minute. I'm pretty sure you can
create a world while ignoring the dice-driven generation system. Once you
have done that, do another, and another, and another. You may be able to do
it, but after the 17th or so, it would be nice to fall back on the dice for
some answers.

Now look at birthdays. If the rule is... generate a date from 1 to 365, the
possible answers are:

just a minute while I program my spreadsheet / computer, random function.

I'll roll pick my own birthdate.

I roll these dice and get an answer.

I'll start with 1 and every new character I do will increment up.

I'll use today's date.

Etc. 

After a while, it is helpful to have a chart that gives a universal answer
that everyone can agree on.

This discussion boils down to

A. I'm the referee. I'll decide the system. If that is your argument, then
remember the designer/writer is the one that puts the reference system into
print.

B. This is a waste of one page and two paragraphs in the game book. Use it
for something else. If that is your argument, then you are second guessing
the writer/designer on what is important. Frankly, the entire T4 book does
not sufficiently explain what things mean (for example, you learn what a
character is byy generating characters; there should be some text just
explaining what a character is and how to play him/her/it).

C. Characters shouldn't have birthdates. They didn't before; no one paid any
attention to them. Again, the designer is setting an agenda wherein age is
important; birthdates are important; players and referees need to pay
attention to them.

D. This dumbs down the system. If that is the case, remember you aren't the
only one playing. We need new players, new buyers if Traveller is going to
survive. This is one way to make the system intelligible to them.

Frankly, I think the Birthday system is neat. It defines a basic piece of
character background, but removes the choice from the player. Sometimes, two
players both have the same birthday. Some players are born on holidays.
There's a part of the calendar that means something to the player when it
comes up. There are hooks on which events or situations can be hung.

Or is that page of chart absolutely necessarily needed for something else
that isn't going to be in T41 otherwise. If that is the case, tell me what
that one page should be.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:26 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter

Im my games, set 1050-1120, the scout motto is

        The universe is our destiny

And some players have insisted on it in the folowing tongues:

        Old high vilani, Sylean, Latin, and Greek.

The last Being Scout Xen's Player's request... so when asked what the crest
reads, Xen could respond "Dunno... it's greek to me...."

Casual Encounter - Xen Xanfried, Scout

Xen Xanfried, a 5 term scout,, born in 1074, is a tall, warm fellow, with a
love of drink, women, and song. His long blond hair is kept in a single
braid which hangs down to his belt line, and is woven with gold chains. Xen
is usually encountered in some seedy starport bar, starting fights with
marines, or just associating with slime. Almost always found in his TL15
tailored vacc-suit (IISS issue), he is also seldom without "Betsy", his 4mm
Gauss pistol.
        Xen has several hobbies, some of which would be the end of him if
he ever got truly caught at them. He is a small time drug runner, part time
con-man, and student of euphoria.
        When encountered, Xen will ususally be pursuing one of the above,
or more, and throwing parties aboard his surplussed Type A-2 Serpent
Scout/Survey vessel, an Aerodyne version of the Type S, with minimal survey
sensors added on, and no air-raft. The craft, Dubbed "Amy" is fitted with
an experimental TL16-17 AI, which has developed emotions, and a severe
crush on Xen. Play this up... he thinks of Amy as a non-exclusive wife, and
while he complains bitterly about her jealousy, controlling attitude, and
overprotectiveness, truly is starting to fall in love with her. He will not
maintain any long-term relationships with  women, but will engage in
promiscuous behavior given the opportunity. He always carries a box of
condoms... and will even share them if the need arrises.
        Xen also can be encountered anytime a Deus Ex Machina is needed...
he is a patron of the underdog, and really is a humanitarian at heart,
albiet a sociopathic one. If he needs to, he will kill with no remorse nor
second thought. He will defend anyone who he feels is in need, at risk to
his own life. He will also befriend anyone, at any time, for any reason, so
long as they are not a Marine (Imperial or otherwise).
        Xen has but one lasting friend, a Court-Duke from regina (IE,
career noble, without lands or position), by the name of William Hamford.
Hamford, as he is known by Hamford or "Hammie" amongst his friends, hooked
up with Xen as an escape from the social pressures of the life of a
Courtier, and upon retirement, they ran off. Hamford has two hobbies: Jump
Physics and Cocktail parties.
        Both gentlemen share a warped, and (usually) harmless sense of
humor. Xen is often found teasing people about his IISS emblems done in
greek (cost him some kCr15), and Xen's personal motto is "The Universe, my
playground"
        In 1117, they set off from Deneb to Capitol, with the self
appointed mission of executing Lucan, and putting Dulinor on the throne;
they will keep this quiet, and will subtly and frequently probe peoples
loyalties. They will quickly dissassociate with supporters of Lucan and
Margaret, both of whom they consider to be dangerously unstable.

after 1114, Hamford will accompany Xen almost everywhere.
After 1117, They tried to wipe amy's personality... And Amy became
Amy/Angie, developiong a second independant, psychotic personality called
Angie. Amy is usually dominant, and both are aware of each other. Angie has
the hots for Hamford, and keeps trying to convice the two scoundrels to
build a robotic remote body so that she can be "a real woman" to hamford.
Amy, being rather forgiving and motherly, forgave Xen, but not Hamford, for
the wipe attempt; Amy is simply too proffessional to do anything about it,
though.

MT stats

Xen Xanfried, Scout, 5 terms, as of 1114
        ACCB97, Joac-o-T 2, Pilot 2, Navigation 2, Gaus Pistol 1, Carousing
3, Engineering 1, Steward 1, Computer 1, Vacc Suit 1, Brawling 4 (actually,
Kung Fu), Streetwise 2, Bribery 0, Legal 0, Grave Veh 0

William "Hammie" Hamford, Noble, 6 terms, as of 1114
        8A7AFF, Pilot 1, Liaison 1, Carousing 1, Interview 2, Interrogation
1, Gambling 2, Computer 1, History 1, Physics 2, Admin 1, legal 3, Brawling
1,
Foil 1, Research 1, Vacc Suit 0, Streetwise 0, Grav Veh 0

Amy: 0007A7, COmputer 1, Pilot 1, Steward 1, Astrogation 1, Engineering 1
Angie: 000832, Same skills

Both are in the one TL 16 computer mounted; the other computers are TL15.
THe difference in mental stats is due to differences in the personality
programs, and access permissions to certain hardware. Amy set the general
knowledge database to hereself only; all access to it goes through Amy.
Angie develops a separate database for herself, and lacks good knowledge of
"correct social behaviour"

To quick convert these fellows to T4, add one to all listed skills, and add
perception 3 to both.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:38 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Imp Starburst

>I would love to hear discussion about an M:1200 setting, or whatever, IG
>intends to use as its "Far Future" setting... will there be a reunified
>Imperium?
>   By the way, I believe in one of the old rules sets (?MT), it was explained
>that one of the subsequent Emperors/Empresses (c.300s) declared that the
>Starburst would have no official color in order to honor a member race of the
>Imperium that was blind to certain colors... can anyone remember this piece
>of canon?
>
I shure can... just not where it is...

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 15:04:33 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Degrees in Travellerology

>
>  Guilty - Doctorate in the History of Technology.  Actually, TML does
>function (eventually) as a refereed journal - someone posts something,
>others post corrections and suggestions, and usually some sort of
>consensus emerges.  What most journals do is limit that discussion to who
>they see as qualified in the field.  Since no schools are offering a
>degree in Travellerology yet, we don't have a way of identifying
>"qualified" vs. "unqualified" participants.

Too true... However, there is a degree program in Role-Playing in (IIRC)
University of Sao Paulo, Brasil. Was noted in an issue of Pyramid Magazin
(SJG's house organ) 2 or 3 years ago. Hmm.. maybe I should go for a masters
there...

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:13:29 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Rant: Rule of Man TL

>	As for going out of line to patch up the mistakes made my some T4
>authors, no way. It's going to take a whole lot more than some nice
>pictures in the rulebooks (which are non-canon, btw.) to convice me
>to change from my own cocktail of MT/Hard Times, GURPS and
>Sterlingesque cyberpunk with some B5 flavour, to T4.

No one was ever suggesting you do such a thing. Douglas' post was
specifically about "canon" Traveller, referring only to published material.
Leroy's claim was that the Rule of Man had TL 15+ in the published
material. This is what Douglas refuted, he never said anything about
individual referees' campaigns. If you want a TL 15+ RoM, fine. Or better
yet, play TNE. That has TL 15+ artifacts and lots of ready published source
material.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:12:45 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Aslan Education (Character Generation)

>How do Aslan get educated? Are there schools? Does their family train them?
>Their clan?
>
>Within the universe of all Aslan, how do they do it.

One idea I kicked around was a society which used apprenticeship instead of
schooling. Parents, the creche, or whatever, would raise children until
they were old enough to follow instructions and then farm them out to
businesses and institutions as unskilled labour. The kids would earn enough
wage for upkeep while learning practical, business, and social skills.
Apprentices may be able to change jobs regularly, or be shuttled around
like corporate resources to gain wider life experiences. They would gain
cultural or academic knowledge by working for historians, researchers, or
lecturers.

Notable social effects of such a system would include a blurring of child
and adult roles, and a significant proportion of unskilled personnel in all
fields of endeavor including business, politics, the military, even as
starship crews.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:26:03 -0700
From: Mike Linsenmayer <mike-l@sure.net>
Subject: [none]

Updated Traveller Site!

All new graphics and navigation tools!

http://www.sure.net/~mike-l

Check it out and let me know what you think!

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1553
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Sunday, July 13 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1554



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
Tech level modifiers (please no flames, aaaaaaarrrrhhh crackle)
Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Imperial TL
Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Imperial TL
Re: Where is AOL?
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Writing a Traveller story...
Re: Writing...  Latin Slogans...
RE: Aslan Education (Character Generation)
RE: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
RE: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Birthdays
Uniforms?!?
Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 10:38:19 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

Peter (ahh, Newman...my nemesis...)
Thanks for your post on Artemsus using anagathics. You've raised some nice
points, but...
Do you really think that somebody could live to 183 using TL12 anagathics?
Even if they could, given the hideous range of side effects, would they
still be capable of running an empire for the last 40 or so years of that? 

And before your DGP reference I throw another - the reference to the
'long-lived Vilani' (Vilani & Vargr), which I am pretty sure grew directly
from the reference to the '*natural* longevity of the Lentuli line'...
Again, I emphasise *natural* longevity...though Artemsus was possibly
augmented by anagathics as well. 

I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about 
'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that 
Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,
and 'Solomani supremacy' being vapour. 

But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to suggest a
Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>

Cheers, 
MB
**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 10:58:55 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Tech level modifiers (please no flames, aaaaaaarrrrhhh crackle)

I like the idea that people have (implicitly and explicitly) been tossing
about, that of TL modifiers to reflect certain races' preferences,
prejudices, capabilities and so on. 
I suppose what I also like about it is that this is a 'patch' for 
Traveller tech levels to cover the inconsistencies between 1977 and 1997
Terran technologies. Rather than fiddle with the entire body of previously
printed material, just say "well, that's just because us Terrans are
really crap at building gravitics and jump drives, but we have
compensations in our greater handle on medical, geneering and robotics
technology". Not very elegant, but a useful blunt tool all the same. 

So what do we have so far in the way of TL modifiers?
Solomani: +2 for medical, geneering; +1 computers, robotics; -1 gravitics,
J-drive
Vilani: baseline, no modifiers (?)
Syleans: +2 Vacc suits  ;)
Hivers: +2 computers, robotics, psychohistory

Further suggestions?  

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:44:26 -0800
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

Michael Barry wrote:

>I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
>nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
>this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about
>'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that
>Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,
>and 'Solomani supremacy' being vapour.

OTOH, the family name (as you allude to below <G>) is definitely not Vilani
- -- which has no /t/ phoneme.

>But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to suggest a
>Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
>Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>

Uh... lemme think... uh... I know this one... um... wait, wait, I can
answer it... ah!  Ukrainian!  Definitely Ukrainian!

(ducking & running)

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:07:15 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

At 04:49 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:

>When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.

You got a very nice lapel pin.  Worth Cr2 easily on the open market.

>When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out benefits.

"Hordes of slavering fans", isn't that Roll 5 on the Material benefits table?

>For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

The possibility should be there, but remote.  I think that some mechanism
tied to failing a continuance roll would work.  (i.e., you get
court-martialed, your Captain goes bankrupt, etc..)

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:00:38 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial TL

At 06:55 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I just happened to notice a paragraph in 'Grand Census' (p35) about Imperial
>tech levels - no great surprises except that it mentions that there's one
>TL17 world in the 3I (with an active, developing TL17 culture):
>Sabmiqys (Antares 2117).
>
>Intrigued, I looked it up in the c1100 data and the UPP is listed as
>X160056-H with a population of 5 people.  How can one world in the 3I really
>be TL17 with only 5 people?
>
>Even stranger, the First Survey data lists it as E160100-7 (pop=50 people).
> From TL7 to TL17, not bad eh?  Those 5-50 people must be pretty amazing!

Sabmiqys is populated by a "race" of robots.. all that is left of a species
that travelled to the stars and brought back a plague.  The robots (which
are TL17 and are artificially intellegent) were ordered to refuse
permission to land to any ship.  The first few Sylean Scouts to show up
watched in horror as their companions' ships just exploded.  They had never
seen a planetary meson site in action.

Eventually, contact was made, but the Sabmiqys robots want nothing to do
with us, and tend to kill out of hand annoying interlopers.  Their overall
TL is 17, but their space travel TL is only 8.  They just don't care about
anything beyond far orbit.

The five people mention are probably the IISS crew manning the interdiction
station. 
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:54:00 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

At 10:38 AM 7/13/97 +1000, Michael Barry wrote:

>Peter (ahh, Newman...my nemesis...)
>Thanks for your post on Artemsus using anagathics. You've raised some nice
>points, but...
>Do you really think that somebody could live to 183 using TL12 anagathics?
>Even if they could, given the hideous range of side effects, would they
>still be capable of running an empire for the last 40 or so years of that? 
>
>And before your DGP reference I throw another - the reference to the
>'long-lived Vilani' (Vilani & Vargr), which I am pretty sure grew directly
>from the reference to the '*natural* longevity of the Lentuli line'...
>Again, I emphasise *natural* longevity...though Artemsus was possibly
>augmented by anagathics as well. 
>
>I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
>nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
>this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about 
>'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that 
>Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,
>and 'Solomani supremacy' being vapour. 

It's possible that the Lentuli line were more than a little Vilani, hiding
behind Solomani attitudes and customs.  Look at some of the Emperors of
that line.. Martin II was 142 before he ever took the throne!  It's
possible that Cleon III and IV were manipulated onto the throne in a
Solomani Restoration attempt; only they got a homocidal maniac in the first
case and an ineffectual, confrontational Emperor in the second.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 23:59:57 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

At 04:49 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.
>
>Like... 
>
>When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.
>
>When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out benefits.
>
>And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than when I
>started. 

	Well, I've never assumed that "mustering out" benefits were things handed
to you as you went out the door of your career. I've always ruled that the
cash represented money _and_ equipment (i.e. the stuff you bought right
after chargen) that you'd accumulated over the course of your career.
Likewise weapons, etc. So when you rolled to get Cr60,000 on the mustering
out table, that didn't mean the last thing military pay did was hand you a
wad of cash and warn you not to let the door hit your rear. It meant that,
over your however many terms, you'd accumulated up to Cr60,000 worth of
belongings. Likewise, the +Soc, weapon, etc. benefits.

	As for "actual" mustering out benefits, defined as a benefit explicitly
received when departing a career, in reward for services rendered, yeah,
I'd say you can wind up with nothing. If I leave the Air Force now (after
two terms), I get diddly--I lose all I've invested in a retirement(*), get
no separation pay, no kiss goodbye, and they won't let me take home an F16. 

	On the other hand, I've picked up a master's degree, quite a bit of
technical education, and I've managed to buy a house, a car, and a computer
(not necessarily in that order). But the character generation doesn't
produce those benefits on a term-by-term basis. Instead, at the end of
chargen, I'd get Cr Whatever. With that, I (the player) would purchase
equipment, a vehicle, etc. But that would represent things I (the
character) had picked up over the course of chargen, even though I (the
player) had 'bought' it all at a point in the process 'after' my career.

	But I really do ask that multiple careers be allowed. Probably _not_
military-to-military. But military, then civilian certainly. TNE did this,
and kept it under control (IIRC) by increasing your chances of ending
chargen each time you changed careers.

(*) Yes, I know. There's no explicit deduction from my pay for retirement.
But it's considered part of my benefits package whenever Congress thinks
about a pay raise ('gee, when you consider the future value of his
retirement, he's being quite well paid'), and I'm not allowed to deduct any
IRA contributions because I'm considered as making a contribution to an
employer-sponsored pension fund. Go figure. Not that I'm complaining, mind
you. I'm probably making half what I could working for LockMart ...

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 23:46:00 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial TL

At 06:55 PM 7/12/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I just happened to notice a paragraph in 'Grand Census' (p35) about Imperial
>tech levels - no great surprises except that it mentions that there's one
>TL17 world in the 3I (with an active, developing TL17 culture):
>Sabmiqys (Antares 2117).
>
>Intrigued, I looked it up in the c1100 data and the UPP is listed as
>X160056-H with a population of 5 people.  How can one world in the 3I really
>be TL17 with only 5 people?

	Artificially intelligent robots (no, seriously, that's the official,
canonical, published answer).

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 00:02:15 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Where is AOL?

>X-Sender: sinbad@dfw.net
>Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:27:48 -0500
>To: traveller@MPGN.COM, gdw-beta@qrc.com, hiwg-list@fwe.com
>From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw>
>Subject: Where is AOL?
>
>Does anyone know what is going on with AOL I have tried sending messages to
>Marc Miller and Greg Porter and I get the following back:
>   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
><<< HELO Sam.worldnet.att.net
><<< RSET
><<< MAIL FROM:<sinbad@dfw.net>
><<< RCPT TO:<BTRC@aol.com>
><<< DATA
><<< QUIT
>Connected to b.mx.aol.com:
>>>> MAIL From:<sinbad@dfw>
><<< 550 <sinbad@dfw>... Sender domain not found in DNS (see RFC 1123,
>sections 5.2.2 and 5.2.18).

	One problem, at least, isn't at the AOL end, it's at your end. Check your
email program setup. As you can see from this error message, and your
"From:" line quoted above, you don't have a valid return address specified.
"sinbad@dfw" isn't valid; it should be "sinbad@dfw.net"

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 21:18:04 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

>I'm currently in a creative mood.. what would people want to see me write
>for JTAS?  Sample plots, character hooks.. you tell me and I'll write it.

I need more adventures to run while the ship is in jump. My players are
going on a 4-jump journey and I need something to occupy them.

I suppose the steriotypical jump adventure would be a murder mystery a'la
the Orient Express. I have never tried this because I can't believe any
murderer stupid enough to commit the crime on board a cramped sealed
environment with no way to escape or hide evidence would be smart enough to
elude capture for more than a few hours. In my campaign a character once
stole a pocket comp while in jump. The captain simply locked all the
hatches and did a total sweep of every cubic centimetre of the ship,
starting at the forward avionics nacelle.

The ideal jump adventure would take about a week to resolve (obviously),
not require any fatalities (in case all the crew are player characters),
and somehow emphasize the fact the player is completely cut off from
outside help.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 21:19:20 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...

>I think that I'll be using the "To Infinity and Beyond" as the motto for
>the IISS in my short story, as first propogaed this question.  However,
>should I put 'with regards to Buzz Lightyear'? :-)

"To Infinity and Beyond" would be a fun motto to use in a campaign, but I
don't think it would be a good choice for a published story. First of all
it is a direct steal from "Toy Story", using it in a published work may
cause problems with Disney's legal department and may be seen as lacking in
imagination by readers. Second, while it may sound hunorous the first few
times you hear it, it will begin to sound trite and dated over time. The
Ithklur write-up in the old Hivers alien used a similar style of humor and,
while it was funny the first time I read it, it just sounds foolish in an
actual campaign and is incomprehensible unless you have a lot of mid-80's
american cultural knowledge.

Finally, "To Infinity and Beyond" really doesn't make a good motto for
anything. It sounds bombastic and naive, an effect Disney no doubt intended
to lampoon the all-american white-bread astronaut image. If your short
story intends to make the IISS look like a bunch of clueless buffoons you
should come up with an appropriate motto and not copy someone else's. If
you are attempting to make a serious drama you should pick a motto that
enhances your effort, not one that undermines it.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 01:23:25 -0400
From: Bill Rutherford <worj@topgun.cinecom.com>
Subject: Re: Writing...  Latin Slogans...

At 10:12 AM 7/12/97 EST, Volker wrote:
>-> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
>Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an 
>ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today? 
>I'd think not! Leave it in Galangic, i say!

BUT - Why (in 20th C Earth) Latin at all?  Because it's ancient and that
(seems to) lends a bit of class - of antiquity - to the slogan.  Somebody
(Forget who - sorry!) earlier posted a note about why we're not
experimenting with bizarre music types for the Imperial March (Sorry -
Emporer's Fanfare).  It's because we (generally) accept that our players
simply want to play Traveller - NOT learn an odd language (how similar
would you say Galanglic is to 20th C English?  Not very, I suspect...) How,
then, to make a slogan seem classy and ancient? Latin gives the impression
of antiquity - it's, in Traveller terms, the analog, expressed in 20th C
terms, of an ancient language/dialect.

Besides, maybe the Syleans had a thing about Latin...  ;^)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 09:36:01 +0400
From: Andy Long <andyl@icluae.co.ae>
Subject: RE: Aslan Education (Character Generation)

>>>>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Richard Hough [SMTP:rdhough@orca.bc.ca]
> Sent:	Sunday, July 13, 1997 5:13 AM
> >How do Aslan get educated? Are there schools? Does their family train
> them?
> >Their clan?
> >
> >Within the universe of all Aslan, how do they do it.
> 
> One idea I kicked around was a society which used apprenticeship
> instead of
> schooling. Parents, the creche, or whatever, would raise children
> until
> they were old enough to follow instructions and then farm them out to
> businesses and institutions as unskilled labour. The kids would earn
> enough
> wage for upkeep while learning practical, business, and social skills.
> Apprentices may be able to change jobs regularly, or be shuttled
> around
> like corporate resources to gain wider life experiences. They would
> gain
> cultural or academic knowledge by working for historians, researchers,
> or
> lecturers.
> 
> Notable social effects of such a system would include a blurring of
> child
> and adult roles, and a significant proportion of unskilled personnel
> in all
> fields of endeavor including business, politics, the military, even as
> starship crews.
> [andy long]  <<<<
> 
> But this is historically the position in many early Terran cultures.
> It is a matter of record that as schooling improved in Europe in the
> nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the differences between childhood
> and adulthood SHARPENED, eventually resulting in the phenomenon of the
> TEENAGER.
> 
> The boundary between children and adults was initially defined as
> occurring at puberty, when the former child was capable of taking
> his/her palce in the breeding population. They would then be
> apprenticed, either formally to some guild, or informally by working
> the farm with their parents, and were treated as adults in all
> respects.
> 
> (Note that even being pre-pubescent didn't save some children from
> being added to the labour pool - examples include use of children to
> climb chimneys in order to sweep them, or to go into the mines to haul
> loaded carts about with the onset of the industrial revolution -
> However, it was a liberal reaction to this kind of exploitation that
> prompted the passing of the factory acts in the UK, and started this
> sharpening of the child/adult distinction)
> 
> The lengthening of childhood past puberty is a relatively recent
> occurrence, historically speaking. The current trend of teenagers to
> be more sexually/politically/commercially demanding might be an
> attempt to return to the historical position of puberty being the
> demarcator.
> 
> Andy
> 
> ================================================================
> smtp Email:		andyl@icluae.co.ae OR
> 					andylong@x400.icl.co.uk OR
> 					A.G.Long@abu0101.wins.icl.co.uk
> OR
> 					andylong@emirates.net.ae
> x400 Email:		c=ae;a=emdan;p=icl;ou1=abu0101;
> 					s=Long;i=AG;
> 					o=International Computers Ltd;
> A.G. Long,
> c/o ICL			Phone:	+971 (2) 335200/338066
> PO Box 7237		Fax:	+971 (2) 338724
> Abu Dhabi			Mobile:+971 (50) 641 8232
> United Arab Emirates
> ================================================================
> 
> 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 09:39:47 +0400
From: Andy Long <andyl@icluae.co.ae>
Subject: RE: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

>>>>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Michael Barry [SMTP:mbarry@pcug.org.au]
> Sent:	Sunday, July 13, 1997 4:38 AM
> [andy long]  <Snip>
>  But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to
> suggest a
> Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
> Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>
> [andy long]  <<<<
> 
> OK, I'll bite - Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvilli (I'm positive that
> I've spelled at least one of those names wrong), was am ethnic
> Georgian who took a Russian name meaning 'Steel'.
> 
> Andy

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 09:49:28 +0400
From: Andy Long <andyl@icluae.co.ae>
Subject: RE: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

>>>>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	CardSharks@aol.com [SMTP:CardSharks@aol.com]
> Sent:	Sunday, July 13, 1997 3:02 AM
> [andy long]  <Snip>
>  B. This is a waste of one page and two paragraphs in the game book.
> Use it
> for something else. If that is your argument, then you are second
> guessing
> the writer/designer on what is important. Frankly, the entire T4 book
> does
> not sufficiently explain what things mean (for example, you learn what
> a
> character is byy generating characters; there should be some text just
> explaining what a character is and how to play him/her/it).
> [andy long]  <<<<
> 
> I find the point concerning learning about characters to be very
> telling. If I may throw in an observation from another GDW system, I
> found the T:2000 character generation chapters to be the best I have
> yet seen. The way that each section of the procedure is placed in
> context by Monk's telling of the backstory was an excellent idea, and
> brought the system to life for me.
> 
> If I had a say in the layout of the T4.1 books, I'd be pushing for
> this kind of format to be used .
> 
> Andy
> ================================================================
> smtp Email:		andyl@icluae.co.ae OR
> 			andylong@x400.icl.co.uk OR
> 			A.G.Long@abu0101.wins.icl.co.uk OR
> 			andylong@emirates.net.ae
> x400 Email:		c=ae;a=emdan;p=icl;ou1=abu0101;
> 			s=Long;i=AG;
> 			o=International Computers Ltd;
> A.G. Long, c/o ICL	Phone:	+971 (2) 335200/338066
> PO Box 7237		Fax:	+971 (2) 338724
> Abu Dhabi
> United Arab Emirates
> ================================================================
> 
> 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 07:31:54 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Birthdays

> 
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:02:09 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com

Mass Snip
> Frankly, I think the Birthday system is neat. 
> Marc
 
So Do I

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 07:07:27 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Uniforms?!?

> 
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 09:38:48 -0400 (EDT)
> From: VolantZep@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms
> 
> The scouts are on the leading edge of the frontier and danger, much like the
> marines of today.  They would probably have a plethora of different uniforms
> for use at home station and planetside in Imperiam space.  The natty uniforms
> with lots of decorations  boost the image of the scout and give them a
> feeling of importance and worth and are a good recruiting tool.

Uniforms? Maybe left over form the last time the scout in question was
TAD
to regular military. I always envisioned the scout being very informal,
the
only "Uniform" would be things like Vacc Suits and equipment. (bought in
Bulk) Other than that, Scouts in the field would have a credit line to 
equipement purchase.

Evyn

- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 03:07:53 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: The Rule of Harold Hale ;)

Ethan Henry writes:

We seem to have gone from a discussion, to a discussion
about the discussion, but that's OK...

Harold Hale writes:

>Why? I'm talking specifically about vacc suits. Why does having
>a TL-14 vacc suit depend on having Jump-4? My point is that TL is largely
>defined by what level of Jump a given society/culture/empire has reached,
>which really makes no comment whatsoever on how advanced their vacc suits
>are.

   Here's the problem: create too many exceptions to the rule, and
eventually there is no rule.  It is canon that the RoM achieved TL 12. 
We can, through some minor hand waving justify the *possibility* that
there were some worlds in the rimward that achieved early TL 13 just
before the Long Night began.  They would be the exception to the rule. 
Start allowing for mass produced TL 14 vacc suits, (and as Leroy has
suggested) TL 16 computers, and TL 17 terraforming and pretty soon
everybody who wants to hand over some high tech gear to their players
can justify it by using the magic words, "though the tech level of the
Rule of Man was only 12, they were so highly advanced in fields 'X','Y',
and 'Z' they managed to construct a working prototype of 'A', which is a
TL 21 'B'.  Traveller rapidly devolves into AD&D with laser rifles from
there, as players concentrate on locating "magic"items for their own use
or to sell for gold pieces (aka credits).  A TL 12 RoM is but the
figament of the imagination of old fart Traveller players who refuse to
throw their old books away and buy new ones.

>I don't remember seeing anywhere in the "Traveller Canon", of which I consider
>myself a student, that says "a planet/empire/whatever may not have 
>any items more than one level above their current TL". As a matter of fact,
>the MT WBH states the exact opposite. According to the WBH, a planet may
>have a specific niche where the niche TL is up to two (maybe more, I don't have
>my WBH handy) levels higher than the planet's "overall" TL.

   Never put in WBH, but it *should* of been, was the following
statement: "max tech level of any kind can never exceed the following
levels if you are planning on using this world in the canon Traveller
universe: Vilani Imperium - 11,  Rule of Man - 13, Third Imperium -
16."  This must be done or the numbers in WBH get ridiculously high,
blowing canon GDW material out of the water.

>Who's to say that there isn't a plan for a TL-22 vacc suit, sitting 
>on a desk in a blow-out lab on some tiny vacuum world, finished only 
>moments before the airlock blew out when a ship full of nasty ol' pirates 
>came crashing in, looking for loot?

   Like I said magic items.  The only magic items are suppose to be
Ancients technology, and *that* is supposed to be technology so beyond
the player characters that tinkering with it (or making part of your
personal cache of goodies) is just an all around bad idea.

>> (yes, I know what
>> Leroy et al think, including that mysterious "silent majority" that are
>> suppose to agree with them, but they are a minority none the less). 
>
>I don't understand what this means.

   Whenever Leroy is backed into a corner as being part of an
outnumbered minority, he tends to cite the "silent majority" who are out
there agreeing with him but refuse to speak up.

>> Mass produced (even at low levels) TL-14 vacc suits imply that the RoM
>> had achieved at least low level TL-14, since we are now moving beyond
>> the realm of the experimental and into the realm of more mature
>> technology.
>
>Well, sure. I never said they were "mass-produced" though.

   My impression was that the adventure states that these are items
which are available in quantities larger than a few on the open market.

>And again, I don't see how having even mass-produced TL-14 vacc suits is 
>dependent on having Jump-5 and other TL-14 technologies.

   See above.  Also, vacc suits fall into the larger realm of "Space
Technology" which would also include jump drives.

>Harold, I understand your feelings. I too have been playing Traveller
>for a long time. I have no desire to drive anyone apart. I do think
>that the Traveller universe is a big place, with a lot of possibilities
>to justify a lot of seemingly strange things. 

   And recall what I have said: variant stuff is fine, so long it is
recognized as such.  I make a *huge* distinction between canon and
non-canon material when I get into storyline debates.

>As much as I lament it, over time more and more conflicts are going 
>to creep into the "canon".  FF&S has no provision for solar-powered 
>jump drives, jump torpedoes or any of the other strange things that 
>have popped up in adventures over the years. It's not the end of the world.

   FF&S doesn't strictly prohibit them either.  In fact, it is in FF&S
that the artifical "100 DT Limit" was dropped, making jump capable
vessels below 100 DT possible (thus also jump torps, though I would rate
them as a tremdous waste of money).

>I look at the whole TL-14 vacc suit thing as a point-of-view thing
>more than anything. 

   This is part of what I mean by Relativism.  Someone said the vacc
suits are TL 14, so what?  I say they are TL 12.  Bob over there calls
them TL 9.  Tower of Babel time...

   Either the suits are of the same, less or greater tech level than the
ones sitting in the locker in my TL 12 Engineering Department.  By
calling them "TL 14 Vacc Suits" instead of "higher tech vaccsuits" there
is an understanding that the people calling them this know what their
exact tech level is and is they are stating it, whether "they" are
Imperial scientists giving them a rating, or the writer stating
something for the benefit of the audience.

>Do you actually have the players, in character, walk around 
>saying that this hand blender is TL-6 versus that TL-8 one?

   Quite often in my campaigns, but then mine take place in 1202-03.

>Like it or not Harold, the neighbourhood has to get re-paved and get
>new sidewalks once in a while. Shops come and go. Change doesn't
>only mean bad change, there's a lot of good change too.

   We are talking about changing the character of the neighborhood, not
just making some minor improvements/changes.

>Heh. I think you and I are on the same wavelenght in some spots at
>least. Eeeeeeeee-vil.

   Hey, I could run a total munchkin campaign where everybody is
successful and none of the tasks are too difficult, but that's never the
way reall life works.  Besides, the players in my group have well over
50 years of gaming experience between them, if I don't throw them some
change-ups and mis-direction, the game is going to get boring really
fast for them.

>>    I am anything these days but mainstream.
>
>Harold Hale, "In a Metal Mood", coming to finer record shops everywhere.
>(Or maybe "In a Canon Mood" would be better...) ;)

   My 30 minute remake of Rush's "2112" rocks.  Some of you may prefer
my selection of Metallica covers, or perhaps my faithful rendition of
the Kink's "You Really Got Me", which I did back in the 70s while I was
jamming with Eddie and Alex.  Unfortunately, it was later redubbed with
David Lee Roth's voice.  :-(
 
Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1554
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Sunday, July 13 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1555



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Career changes and scout uniforms
Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.
Re: Stars in Traveller
Sunburst color
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Imp Starburst
being a pest
Re: What Tech Level Really Means
Uncle Artemsus
MT Interrupts
Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
Re: T4 in the media?
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: Birthdays
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re:Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter
Re: Second Careers and the Draft..

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 01:20:52 -0700
From: David & Kristin Larson <dlarson@nwlink.com>
Subject: Career changes and scout uniforms

Andy Lilly <a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk> wrote on 11 July.....
Subject: Scout Uniforms

<snip>

>My own scout suit (which I sometimes wear when promoting Traveller at
>events) is more of a dull grey. Reasoning? It hides the dirt and creases,
>looks neutral for encounters, provides reasonable camouflage in most
>environments (including urban but probably excluding deserts) without
>looking strictly military. Ideal for your typical scout! Badges are small so
>as not to be obtrusive.
>
>As regards black, ok, it's natty looking but it scares the natives and you
>stand out in a crowd.

<snip>

The U.S. Army's dress blue uniform's pants are a a medium blue in color
while the jacket is so dark as to be almost black. The uniform grew out
of that in common use during the late 1800's; the jacket was typically
rolled up and stored out of the sun while the pants faded over time.

I like the idea of the black uniform. The dark grey fits as well, that
uniform has just been in use a bit longer.

Career changes need to be possible during character generation;
restricting a character to one career just isn't realistic, nor in the
spirit of generating an "adventurer". So far I'm on Flyer (2 terms),
College (1 term), Army (1 term, and in the 2d). So far no ill efects,
other than my "mustering out benefits" won't be nearly what they might
have been if I'd pursued a steadier course.

David (first post)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:29:57 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Rule Of Man/Terran Confederation TL, annotated bib.

Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:

<snip>

   Well, a great deal that was basically shot down by later posters to
the list.  In summation, I *agree* with the statements presented by
Douglas and others who *disagreed* with Leroy.  I do have some
additional comments however.

>   It was suggested here that I am stirring up a "canon" debate on
>   TML again--that is the farthest from what I wanted to do, but then
>   that is not always in my control.  On that subject, what I do want
>   to still say is that fragmentary quoting of sources can lead to
>   very myopic views of what is in print.  That is why I avoided a
>   trickling of quoting sources and discussing them one at a time,
>   without any high level view.

   Leroy believes that someone who is truly opened minded about this
topic agrees with him.  Hmm...but isn't it possible to be open minded
about the evidence and not agree with Leroy?  I guess he believes
otherwise.

>   We have excluded T4 references, not for any dislike of the product,
>   but because we felt it necessary to defend T4 not on what T4 says,
>   but what the past has "said".  In fact, we are _very_ pleased that
>   T4 has stayed as true to the game as they have.

   I am please they have managed to spell 'Imperium' correctly.  From a
strictly canon perspective, there is a great deal *not* to be pleased
about, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people upset by what they
have read so far, and this "debate" would be taking place.

>   Nor would we want any "canon" debate to restrict what those writing
>   for T4 are doing.  It is a little difficult to revise Traveller in
>   light of twenty years experience if your hands are tied that way.

   As I have stated previous, writing official material in the past has
proven more difficult because it must be entertaining while at the same
time sticking with previous canon (ask Dave Nilsen and Loren Wiseman
about the Regency Sourcebook).  Those who find that their creativity is
too stifled by that fact should consider writing variant or "off the
beaten path" (official but not part of the usual regions) work.

>   Our research was not to prove finally, once and for all what the
>   Tech Level of the Rule of Man was, but to thoroughly document the
>   sources that reinforced some ideas.  It will be the job of the
>   writer of (future) Traveller materials to synthesize this into
>   material that we all know and love.

   Document or spin?  Synthesize or fog?  Your citations (and your
interpretation of them) do nothing to clarify what the answer should be,
and future writers need guidelines that *clearly* spell out what the
limits are, which is why I suggested that Marc Miller look at the stuff
posted here, examine the primary sources, and make up his own mind about
the subject so that he can make an offical ruling.

>   I am _not_ out to offend.  I do enjoy discussing this game, something
>   I've done with Marc and other friends over the years.  What I have
>   to get used to, is doing it on TML, which compares with no other
>   mailing list I have ever belonged.

   Nice name toss.  I've spoken with Marc, Loren, Frank, Dave (at great
length), yourself, Terry Mcinnes, Chuck Kallenbach, and numerous other
Traveller current and former authors of an official and unofficial
status.  Others on this list have done so as well.  No one here is
overly impressed with status, power, rank, position, who you know, or
who you don't know.  They *are* impressed by the ability to demonstrate
knowledge in a timely fashion and by people who can produce reasoned
opinions about some subject related, in whatever vague way, to
Traveller.

>THE "UPLIFT"
>
>  MT Referee's Companion, pg.32 - Medical Technology
>
>    TL14 "Genetic Engineering techniques culminate in the creation of
>    altered, 'improved' life forms, including sentients.

   Try late TL 8.  Actually we've been doing this for centuries, which
helps to explain the wide variety of everything from dogs to roses.  As
for the creation of sentience, I see no problem with manipulating
Dolphins (which fall just below the line already) at TL 12.  Now making
a lab rat sentient, *may* take TL 14.  There is no evidence that this
was taking place during the RoM.

   General Note: In my studies of MT Solomani & Aslan, I have discovered
storyline "mines" which if taken to their logical conclusion can lead
you beyond the realm of established canon.  I take the material in S&A
with a grain of salt for this reason.

>  MT Solomani & Aslan, pg. 5 - Terra
>
>    "Visitors to humaniti's homeworld leave with the impression that no
>    other world could ever compare with the homeworld of our race.  The
>    scars of past disasters have healed, and today, Terra is one, great
>    garden.  We have made Africa's great northern desert, the Sahara,
>    into a multi-million-hectare farmland, tended by skilled robotic care.
>    Our Reforestation projects have restored the rain forests and jungles
>    of South America, Africa, and southern Asia.  We have even made the
>    cool Siberian plains greener than at any other time in history.

   All this makes perfect sense, given the state of environmental
knowledge today.

>    "Terra's current status as a global park belies its sore shape during
>    the early days of star travel.  Atmospheric pollution threatened to
>    ruin our world's climate.  

   Horse crap.  While ozone depletion was a concern five years ago,
man-made ozone depletion is being brought under control.  Within 20-40
years this will be a non-issue.  Acid rain is a problem, but only
because of what it does to vegetation.  This too is being brought
gradually under control.  On the whole, air pollution levels will
improve, not worsen, as we approach the middle of the next century.

>   Industrial smog became such a problem that we built domes to enclose 
>   several cities in North America and Europe.  

   The air quality in the United States is improving each year and looks
to continuing improving well into the future.  The dome over New York
that appears in one illustration is at best comical.  Somebody took the
Greenpeace propaganda leaflets a little too seriously before writing
this bit.

>   Thoughtless methods of agriculture turned once-fertile lands to barren flats.  

   Soil management practices here in the U.S. have improved greatly over
the last 30 years.  While it is still possible that Iowa will become a
desert, there would have to be major climatic changes before this would
take place.

>   Extinctions reached a peak unseen in millions of years.

   This part unfortunately ring true, no thanks to the government of
Brazil, those who still believe that a panda's liver will help their sex
life, and people who would rather have strip malls instead of parks.

>    "Yet, we accepted our responsibility, just in time to save the tottering
>    ecology.  Only the ocean level--standing 15 meters above its pre-jump
>    height--and coastal outlines survive as reminders of the damage we once
>    wrought by our own hands."

   Total and complete horse crap, for reasons that I have detailed on
this list before.  Less polluting forms of energy (fusion, super
batteries, fuel cells, "clean" hydrocarbon fuels) severely curb global
warming and help bring it under control.  No polar ice cap melt, thus no
dramatic raise in ocean levels.

>      [Removing taints count as global atmospheric terraforming.]

   We've cleaned up the skies over Los Angeles dramatically
already--does that mean we've achieved TL 16?  No, TL 12 I guess then. 
Again, DGP's bold predictions concerning Earth don't hold water (pardon
the pun), thus this example is irrelevant.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:46:00 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

Leroy William Lu Guatney writes:

>Harold Hale and I first "met" each other on-line via the History of
>the Imperium Working Group.  We were almost instant friends because
>we shared one very intense interest--Stars in Traveller.  The subject
>has also been the source of some disagreement between us, but for the
>most part we agree.  He spent a long time applying fixes to stars in
>the Solomani Rim, while I did for the stars of Spica sector.

   For those who are interested, my Solomani Rim star fixes will be
available on my Web site in the near future.  For now, they are in print
in Traveller Chronicle #10.

>We had attempted to get Dave Nilsen to put some fixes into to T:TNE,
>but he only made minor changes, and didn't really address the problems.
>In fact, he added new ones, but I digress.

   Leroy refers to the elimination of subdwarfs altogether and white
dwarfs as possible primary stars.  Dave did this I believe for reasons
of simplicity.  While subdwarf star systems undoubtably exist, but their
nature is still a major source of controversy.  White dwarf star systems
are less controversial, but require extra work to do them correctly.

>From the first Book 6: Scouts, by GDW, we and others were encouraged
>to add more detail to our campaigns using the Expanded Generation System
>and the detailing of Stars and their systems.  As data was made available
>on the Internet, and through the publishing of sectors from GDW and then
>DGP, it became understood that the generation system produced companion
>stars that were not too realistic.

   Read as: Garbage in, garbage out.

>The problem is fixable, but there is a lot of sector data "out there"
>that has the original generated statistics for those stars.

   Ditto.

>Let Marc know how you feel about:
>
>  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

   A bigger deal than how many dice to use for task resolution.  In a
word, yes.

>  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

   It should be fixed or burned.

>  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

   Using multiple levels of complexity, enough detail to make me beg for
mercy.  Failing that, enough to do the whole system as has been done in
the past.

>  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

   Make the whole thing available as a piece of software that will
generate crushing detail for you, including world maps.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 02:00:46 -0700
From: David & Kristin Larson <dlarson@nwlink.com>
Subject: Sunburst color

>Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:04:59 -0400 (EDT)
>From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
>Subject: M: 1200 & The Starburst
>
>I would love to hear discussion about an M:1200 setting, or whatever, IG
>intends to use as its "Far Future" setting... will there be a reunified
>Imperium?
>   By the way, I believe in one of the old rules sets (?MT), it was explained
>that one of the subsequent Emperors/Empresses (c.300s) declared that the
>Starburst would have no official color in order to honor a member race of the
>Imperium that was blind to certain colors... can anyone remember this piece
>of canon?

page 27, MT Player's Manual:
"  In 247, the Eliyoh (a nonhuman minor race) joined the Imperium. To
that race the symbology was unimpressive. The Eliyoh vision cenetered in
the far infrared, which resulted in distinction between the official
colors of black and yellow being impossible. So the Empress Porfiria
declared that the symbol would have no official color.
  The original banner in the Imperial throne room is still black with a
yellow sunburst. The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service uses a red
sunburst; the Imperial Navy, yellow; the Imperial Army, black; the
Imperial Marines, maroon."


Hope this isn't too old, as I subscribe to the digest version.  :)
David

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:58:03 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Matti Laakso writes:

>        ... or maybe just most European and North American people were
>unwilling to give up the "freedom" of driving their hydrocarbon-
>burning TL 6 ground vehicles that kept polluting the air, so domes
>had to be built to keep the smog _inside_ the cities, wereas in other
>parts of the world people gave up their cars and happily turned to
>electric trikes and  public transportation..?

   I don't know how many TL 6 cars you have in Finland, but they are an
endangered species in the U.S.  The vast majority of people here outside
of Alabama (I'm kidding) own TL 8 cars, which pollute which less than
their TL 6 counterparts.  By 2020, TL 9 cars will have virtually no
pollution and be owned by everyone except collectors who can afford to
pay the outrageous amount required for a few liters of hydrocarbon fuel.

>        "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the
>impurities in our air and water that are doing it." 
>
>                               -Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle 

   The empty-headed quotes made by the current Vice-President of the
U.S. Al Gore in his book on the environment make this look almost
intelligent (which decribes Dan Quayle...almost intelligent I mean).

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 11:58:05 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Imp Starburst

> >   By the way, I believe in one of the old rules sets (?MT), it was explained
> >that one of the subsequent Emperors/Empresses (c.300s) declared that the
> >Starburst would have no official color in order to honor a member race of the
> >Imperium that was blind to certain colors... can anyone remember this piece
> >of canon?
> >
> I shure can... just not where it is...

	MT Players Manual p.27:
	"In 247, the Eliyoh (a nonhuman minor race) joined the Imperium. To 
that race the symbology was unimpressive. The Eliyoh vision centered 
in the far infrared, which resulted in distinction between the 
official colors of black and yellow being impossible. So Empress 
Porfiria declared that the symbol would have no official color."

	*damn* nearly spilled coffee on the book while typing this, so 
please appreciate my effort! :)


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 04:51:00 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: being a pest

yes I'm being a pest.
we need a few more alpha tester before we can get the starlink project
going; the only real requirement is that you own a copy of pocket empires
and understand it (at least a little).
there is a link to the server, and a notice for IE3+ users as to status at
the bottom of
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller
we're not at the point of running turns yet, so you could consider this
pre-registration, sort of.

The Druid
clarkweb@bellsouth.net
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller
"Really weird stuff, from really weird people"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 22:15:29 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: What Tech Level Really Means

Mark Clark wrote:
> 
> Traveller Tech Levels are really just an answer to the player question:
> 
> 	"What kind of guns can I buy on this planet?"

And: "Where's the nearest system that can make my J-6 play balance 
breaker?"
 
> Similarly, Traveller Law Levels are just an answer to:
> 
> 	"What kind of guns can I carry around on this planet?"
> 
> 
> So many things become so much clearer if you think like a player
> character.  ;-)
R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:21:20 +0800
From: Michael Bailey <mickb@opera.iinet.net.au>
Subject: Uncle Artemsus

>But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to suggest a
>Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
>Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>


Aaaah yes....visions of 'Uncle' Artemsis Lentuli wandering about his study
with his peculiar, bow legged gait...smoking on a pipe and muttering in
grossly accented Galanglic about the Rodina *g*

Splendid!

Michael T. Bailey (mickb@opera.iinet.net.au)

"You drive", he said, "I think there's something wrong with me"
			Hunter S. Thompson - 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 19:52:18 +0800
From: crew@earwax.pd.uwa.edu.au (David Crew)
Subject: MT Interrupts

Prologue:  MT has three sets of errata that I know about
1) One on David Golden's Web Site dated 4/1/88
2) One in Joe Heck's Missouri Archives (mt1.err, mt2.err) which is dated
8/1/88 and was posted to the TML in November 88. It is substantially
similar to 1)
3) The September 1 1990 errata which I received with my boxed set.

1) and 2) don't have anything relevant to say about interrupts except
unintelligent animals can't make intelligent interrupts (e.g. An
unintelligent fierce carnivore won't interrupt to run away simply because
its target is in battle dress.)

3) I'll discuss below...


William F. Hostman <aramis@asylumbbs.com> wrote:

<snip>
>
>and the restrictions
> >Interrupts are subject to these restrictions:
>1>- A unit may not interrupt the turn of it's own side
>2>- Only one active interrupt is permitted per side
>3>- only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of enemy
> >movement.
>
>item 1 is no interrupting friendlies. Soo, you have to wait for your pal to
>finish, the guy he interrupted to do something, then you can try to
>interrupt him.

Errata 3 removes this restriction noting that restriction 2 keeps
interrupts sufficiently in check.  Note there are VERY few instances when
you want to interrupt your own side.  Generally you can wait for the enemy
to interrupt your friend and interrupt THEM to lay down covering fire.

>
>Item 2: I read as no "Tag-Team" (shared) interrupts. So fred and julie
>can't share an interrupt, even if they are both in deep TP communication.

Never thought of that one! :)  I simply read it to say 'Once your side has
ONE interrupt that's it!'

>
>Item 3 I think has been hased to death...

True... It is still relevant though...

I read this restriction to mean the original unit's turn has to be
completed before any more interrupts can occur.  e.g. NPC1 interrupts Dur,
Aybee interrupts NPC1.  No more interrupts can occur until Aybee, NPC1 and
Dur have had their turn (in that order and which is exactly the same as
what William said...).  Specifically when Aybee has finished his turn, Fred
(who is on Aybee's side) CANNOT interrupt NPC1. Nor can NPC2 (who is on
NPC1's side) interrupt Dur when NPC1 is finished.  (Got that?  Good then
explain it to me :))

>
>Also, Erwin, I think maybe (if needed) this might be better by private
>e-mail... or on X-boat, if only it were still around.... (Sigh, wish for
>the old days)

I don't agree (yet).  We're not using very much bandwidth and the TML is
devoted to traveller in ALL its forms...

David Crew
crew@pd.uwa.edu.au

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 03:55:31 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

Michael Barry wrote

> Peter (ahh, Newman...my nemesis...)

Wow, I've haven't been anyones nemesis in 12 or 13 years, should I be
glad you are on the other side of the pacific ? :)

> Thanks for your post on Artemsus using anagathics. You've raised some nice
> points, but...
> Do you really think that somebody could live to 183 using TL12 anagathics?

In MT TL 12 anagathics _if effective_ have the same effect that higher
Tl anagathics do, the charecter automatically succeeds at 2 aging saving
throws.  The only problems with the TL 12 variety is that they are very
hard to use (The Emperor has _the_ best Doctors), and Expensive (not a
problem for Emperors) and have hideous side effects.  If a charecter
manages to avoid the side effects (which is admitedly statistically
unlikely)(or has them covered up...) they can live just as long as
someone using TL 15 anagathics.

It is true that using MT aging rules an anagathics user will not
statistically be expected to live for 183 years (even with very high
starting stats), but using the MT aging rules a charecter _not_ using
anagathics (and with average 7777?? stats) will live for only about 69
years asuming statistically expected results on the aging table.  This
suggests to me that the MT aging rules are somewhat broken.  I vastly
prefer the T4 aging rules, which give a charecter with average (7777??)
stats a statistical life expectancy of 100 years.

> Even if they could, given the hideous range of side effects, would they
> still be capable of running an empire for the last 40 or so years of that?

Who says they _were_ running things ?  Perhaps that is another benefit 
(to the staff) of Emperors on Anagathics, they get so weird that your
palace power plays are unnoticed.

> And before your DGP reference I throw another - the reference to the
> 'long-lived Vilani' (Vilani & Vargr), which I am pretty sure grew directly
> from the reference to the '*natural* longevity of the Lentuli line'...
> Again, I emphasise *natural* longevity...though Artemsus was possibly
> augmented by anagathics as well.

The "natural" longevity of the Artemsus line could have been the line
used to cover up the anagathics use, especially in Milieu 1100 library
data where anti noble anagthic use predjudice existed and the details of
the Emperors Anagathic use were lost.
> 
> I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
> nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
> this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about
> 'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that
> Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,
> and 'Solomani supremacy' being vapour.

It does not seem unlikely to me that people were supposed to believe
that the high nobility were pure Solomani, after all Millieu 0 states
that Terrans were socially dominant on Sylea. The odds that they all
actually were Solomani seems a bit less.

To me Occam's Razor would go something like this:

Milieu 0 says that 80% of the population of Sylea are primarily racial
Vilani.  Therefore a Sylean could easily be Vilani.  Vilani are socially
inferior to Solomani.  Therefore a Vilani might try to pass as Solomani.
_But_  the genetic difference between Solomani and Vilani are fairly
easy to detect (blood type etc, to say nothing of genetic ID).  At TL 12
a government type 9 probably has socialized medicine.  Therefore they
have medical records on everyone.  Therefore a Vilani's efforts to pass
would have a high probability of failure.

Of course we could say that since Anagathics users or Vilani (even from
long lived bloodlines) are unlikely to live to be 183 it is logical to
believe the Artemsus was both Vilani _and_ an anagathic user.

If we want a conspiratorial Traveller universe we could say that the
Emperor Artemsus had clones made of himself (but younger) and that the
Emperors advisors had the Emperor killed and a clone (after cosmetic
surgery to age them) put in his place.  This process could have even
happened several times. Perhaps these clone Emperors were ruled by their
advisors in much the same way that child Emperors of Japan were puppets
of the Shogun during some historical periods.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 13:21 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: T4 in the media?

In-Reply-To: <9707121404.AA13534@carbon.cudenver.edu>

> I just got Pyramid magazine (May/June '97)--it has a _very_ distinctive
> cover. :)
>  
> Have any other magazines run T4 related articles?

Arcane (now RIP)
Valkyrie
Starburst
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:22:38 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

Hexes that fill terrain is fine by me ... I only show the coastline 
if I'm zooming in to 20 km mapping hexes of World Tamers and (I 
believe) Jo Grant's WorldMapper program in the Dulinor Suite from CORE.

Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 13:21 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In-Reply-To: <l03020902afecff4d0abe@[194.119.133.206]>

SD,

> Perhaps what we need is a starter edition of Traveller... not unlike the
> version put out by WEG for Star Wars! (Not that I'm the first to suggest
> it!)

I always felt insulted and patronised by "Starter Editions", the 
implication being that I was too young and/or stupid to understand the 
real thing. YMMV, of course.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:22:35 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

From Jo Grant's latest java app at:

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~jaymin/ttgjava.zip

The animal encounter terrain types are split into:

Prairie, Rough, Broken, Mountain,
Forest, Jungle, River, Swamp, Marsh,
Desert, Beach, Surface, Shallows, Depths,
Bottom, Sea cave, Sargasso, Ruins, Cave,
Chasm, Crater 

I assume these are WBH terrain types, and they look to cover terrain 
types for "livable" planets.  I would like to see the temperature 
extreme terrain types (as seen in various Traveller adventures) 
covered as well - Dinom in "Across the bright face" fits into the list 
of terrain types above, but I recall some ice & snow terrain types in 
another adventure which I can't find at the moment as well as the FASA 
maps of waterworlds and burning hot planets.   (Say, did you ever play 
the MetaGaming mini-game with crustals (rock islands) floating on 
molton lava? :-) just a thought).

There should definately be the "hatched" pattern for urban/cities 
(the underlying terrain type can be seen between the hatches) as seen 
in Invasion Earth and Across the Bright Face - this is a wargaming 
standard and much better than soild black.  The huge multi-hex urban 
areas stretching into the sea in Invasion Earth conjures up all sorts 
of images for me from favourite SciFi books and films.


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:27:03 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re:Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter

aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman) wrote:

Casual Encounter - Xen Xanfried, Scout

<snip, text clipping, paste to NPC file>

excellent post - now he may timeslip some 90 years into the future! ;-)
Thanks...

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 12:57:22 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft..

Marc wrote:

>I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.
>
>Like...
>
>When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.
>
>When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out benefits.
>
>And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than when I
>started.
>
>For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

I see your point, and it could make for some interesting roleplaying
opportunities.

However,

[and I'm going off T4 and the excerpts that have hit the TML from your
WFW97 file here, as my Mac won't read WFW97 :-( ]

the present character generation system doesn't account for all the junk
that you tend to accumulate as you pass through a career (eg car, tools,
PC, electrical equip, clothes). I've always assumed that the MO benefits
represent (at least in some part) these things.

But there's an evil streak in me that smiles at the thought of a player
starting with no money and a 10KCr debt! But I suppose that it shouldn't be
that often, and should be linked to,say, a failed continuance roll.


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1555
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Sunday, July 13 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1556



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Adventure postings
Re: RoM and TLs
Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
re:Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: MT Interrupts
Re: MT Interrupts
World generation
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Imperial TL
RE: Aslan Education (Character Generation)
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Scout Uniforms
[T97#1551] Scout Motto
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:31:49 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

 Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca> wrote:

>>I'm currently in a creative mood.. what would people want to see me write
>>for JTAS?  Sample plots, character hooks.. you tell me and I'll write it.
>
>I need more adventures to run while the ship is in jump. My players are
>going on a 4-jump journey and I need something to occupy them.
>
>I suppose the steriotypical jump adventure would be a murder mystery a'la
>the Orient Express. I have never tried this because I can't believe any
>murderer stupid enough to commit the crime on board a cramped sealed
>environment with no way to escape or hide evidence would be smart enough to
>elude capture for more than a few hours.

There was an adventure in an old White Dwarf called 'Smile Please', which
sort of did the murder mystery....






SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE
SPOILER NOTICE

... by having the players escort a 'box' on a liner, and have other
passengers 'murdered', whilst the box slowly appeared to be a Psionic
computer... and it was all a candid camera set up. Wouldn't work on their
own ship though, unless you turned it around so they were paid to pull the
prank...

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:29:27 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: RoM and TLs

At 04:34 PM 7/12/97 +1000, you wrote:
>Ahhh, a conspiracy theory - and from a Kiwi too - nice...

Are you impling that us Kiwi's are *not* into conspiracy theories :*)
Just look at Mr Morgan and the search for the 'smoking' expense
account.
(for those outside the antipodies, this refers to a political scandal
going on in NZ at the moment)

>Andrew, I like the cut of your jib. Or whatever. 
>I suggest an even simpler explanation, but along very similar lines to
>yours; that at some time, the *official definition* of 'technological
>level' was changed to give a lot more emphasis to jump drive technology
>than it had previously. That way, you could just issue an edict to all
>Scout bases, AAB repositories, government departments, corporations, etc.
>telling them that by Emperor's decree, a TL12 planet shall be one that has
>*this* stuff rather than *this* stuff, giving a greater emphasis to jump
>drives because you *know* that despite their outstanding computers and
>robotics and their bloody *astounding* medical and genetic technologies,
>the Solomani just can't be better than the Imperials...because the
>Imperials define what 'better' actually *means*! 

Now I *like* this, blows my doctoring the evidence explaination away.
Why doctor the evidence when you can just shift the goalposts, really
nice.
(ctl-x, ctl-v into my campaign)

>If this sounds far-fetched, try working as a government economist. 
>About 18 months before an election, you get the Treasurer's
>office on the blower, asking you what would happen to the deficit if the
>official inflation estimates were to change by x percent...a few months
>later, the inflation estimates come out, and guess what? 

>"Oh Treasurer, what a wonderful deficit projection you have this budget." 
>"Thank you, Financial Media. You may unzip me." 

You didn't perchance see our Mr Peters first budget and the subsequent
treasury forcast a few days later? A classic example of it.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:29:41 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

>Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 10:38:19 +1000 (EST)
>From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
>Subject: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

>Peter (ahh, Newman...my nemesis...)
>Thanks for your post on Artemsus using anagathics. You've raised some nice
>points, but...
>Do you really think that somebody could live to 183 using TL12 anagathics?
>Even if they could, given the hideous range of side effects, would they
>still be capable of running an empire for the last 40 or so years of that?

A very good point, especially as all the Lentuli line (8 Emperors and Empresses
out of 11 who ruled for 419 of the first 475 years of the 3rd mperium) seem to
have this longevity. As an aside, the Zhunastu Dynasty produced 3 Emperors,
two of whom ruled for only a year each.

>And before your DGP reference I throw another - the reference to the
>'long-lived Vilani' (Vilani & Vargr), which I am pretty sure grew directly
>from the reference to the '*natural* longevity of the Lentuli line'...
>Again, I emphasise *natural* longevity...though Artemsus was possibly
>augmented by anagathics as well. 

>I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
>nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
>this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about 
>'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that 
>Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,
>and 'Solomani supremacy' being vapour.

Regretably its not just a single reference. I've found four seperate sources
which give genetically pure Solomani Emperors until Margaret I (born 684,
proclaimed Empress 688, died 736). They are: Supplement 10 - Solomani Rim,
Supplement 11 - Library Data N-Z, Alien Module 6 - Solomani, and the
Imperial Encyclopedia. So unless there was massive doctoring of the records
at some later date (not that I'm against the occassional conspiracy myself :*) )
the pure Solomani nature of the early Emperors looks pretty much rock solid.
So I'd have to say the razor falls on the side of anagathics.

>But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to suggest a
>Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
>Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>

Did you know that that particular region (Georgia) has an unusally high
proportion of centinarians?

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:23:25 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re:Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

Marc wrote:

>In a message dated 97-07-12 04:09:18 EDT, you write:
>
><< and I'm pretty sure I could handle picking a number between 1 and 365
>without breaking  into a sweat. >>
>
>OK. Let's ignore world generation rules for a minute. I'm pretty sure you can
>create a world while ignoring the dice-driven generation system. Once you
>have done that, do another, and another, and another. You may be able to do
>it, but after the 17th or so, it would be nice to fall back on the dice for
>some answers.

Yes - I agree. I recently detailed up some systems in a subsector, and I
was quite happy for the first six, but after that my creativity was
somewhat drained and I fell back to Rob Prior's excellent Metator program
to expand and detail the system to give me some inspiration. (It's faster
and neater than doing it the dice way ;-) )

>Now look at birthdays. If the rule is... generate a date from 1 to 365, the
>possible answers are:

<snip of methods>

>After a while, it is helpful to have a chart that gives a universal answer
>that everyone can agree on.

I would find a formula more useful - one of the reasons I prefer building
High Guard ships to SSDS/QSDS, but that's a personal preference.

>This discussion boils down to
>
>A. I'm the referee. I'll decide the system. If that is your argument, then
>remember the designer/writer is the one that puts the reference system into
>print.

>D. This dumbs down the system. If that is the case, remember you aren't the
>only one playing. We need new players, new buyers if Traveller is going to
>survive. This is one way to make the system intelligible to them.

Not having seen the new character generation material I can't comment from
strength here (oh for a Word 6 or RTF version!), but 1 page!? Most of the
buyers of the game won't have seen the rulebook in detail before they get
it home. Now, the things that really interested me when I bought Traveller
the first time were the starships, guns and the character generation thing
(coming from D&D), a SciFi system at last!

The second time (MT) the sidebars with loads of snippets on the universe
attracted me, and still do. All the games I play these days have lots of
background material (besides Traveller, Elric!, Cyberpunk, Ars Magica.) in
the main rules. That is what made me want to go and buy more supplements...

>Frankly, I think the Birthday system is neat. It defines a basic piece of
>character background, but removes the choice from the player. Sometimes, two
>players both have the same birthday. Some players are born on holidays.
>There's a part of the calendar that means something to the player when it
>comes up. There are hooks on which events or situations can be hung.

I'll take the birthday situation either way - I really can't comment
without try the new rules.

>Or is that page of chart absolutely necessarily needed for something else
>that isn't going to be in T41 otherwise. If that is the case, tell me what
>that one page should be.

General historic background snippets on the Imperium, RoM and Vilani, in
sidebars covering everything to 1129. Put lots of M0 stuff in as well, but
allow the rules to cover the broad sweep to TL16. This will allow the main
rules to seem relevant in any Milieu. The background is Traveller (to me),
not the rule-set. However, a rule set that works and hangs together is
important, and we can only advise you our feelings on your plans for that.

My final question would be to ask you if you envisage the character
generation system being used often enough to give a lack of inspiration. If
you envisage the players doing the generation with refereee present, that
shouldn't be a problem. If you envisage the referee generating all the
characters, and having to do it often, the table is more valid. At present,
I have 4 to 6 players on a regular basis, and have only had to generate a
new character twice in four months (real time).

All the best

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:40:03 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

Marc <CardSharks@aol.com> writes
>For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

I am against this, although I agree it is probably more realistic.  
If you do want to add this sort of thing, put it in a life events 
table in "expanded" character generation, balanced by benefits 
such as contacts.  It could be phrased as (for example)

  1: A disaster strikes the base where you are stationed, destroying
     many people's possessions.  Reduce by one the number of rolls 
     when mustering out of your current career.

Roll similar things often enough, and you end up with no benefits...
 
John

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 07:30:09 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: MT Interrupts

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> I instead penciled in the following correction to make sense of the
> examples in both magazines and the PM, RM, and RC.
> 
> ->**The interrupting units turn is considered spent for the combat round.** A
>                  ^^^
> 

This correction makes sense.

> and the restrictions
>  >Interrupts are subject to these restrictions:
> 1>- A unit may not interrupt the turn of it's own side

After the discussions on the TML and after reading some errata, I've
scrapped this one. You should be able to interrupt your partner a) if
he's doing something dumb or b) if you want to put down covering fire
or otherwise assist him.

> 2>- Only one active interrupt is permitted per side
> 3>- only one interrupt is permitted per enemy attack or per square of enemy
>  >movement.
> 
> Item 2: I read as no "Tag-Team" (shared) interrupts. So fred and julie
> can't share an interrupt, even if they are both in deep TP communication.
> 

Interesting. I read this one as "if your side has an interrupt going
already, then your side can't do another one this round". For example:

A1 makes a move
  B1 interrupts him and does something evil
    A2 interrupts him

Now, B2, according to how I interpret that restriction, can't interrupt
A2 because the B side already has an interrupt going. I found that
restriction silly and have scrapped it.

> Item 3 I think has been hased to death...
> 

Agreed. I understand that one much better now and am keeping it.

> Also, Erwin, I think maybe (if needed) this might be better by private
> e-mail... or on X-boat, if only it were still around.... (Sigh, wish for
> the old days)

I must disagree. I am discussing an Traveller topic and want opinions
from
other Traveller players/referees. This list isn't, after all, a T4 list.
But thanks for the thoughts on the interrupts!  :-)
- -- 
Erwin Fritz
Unix/NT/LAN Guy
Gilbert Laustsen Jung Associates Ltd.
http://www.glja.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 07:40:54 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: MT Interrupts

David Crew wrote:
> 
> Prologue:  MT has three sets of errata that I know about
> 1) One on David Golden's Web Site dated 4/1/88
> 2) One in Joe Heck's Missouri Archives (mt1.err, mt2.err) which is dated
> 8/1/88 and was posted to the TML in November 88. It is substantially
> similar to 1)
> 3) The September 1 1990 errata which I received with my boxed set.
> 

Hey thanks! I didn't know where the errata were. I just picked them up
in my travels along the way.

> interrupts sufficiently in check.  Note there are VERY few instances when
> you want to interrupt your own side.  Generally you can wait for the enemy
> to interrupt your friend and interrupt THEM to lay down covering fire.
> 

Excellent point. Why fire at them if they're not firing first?

> >Item 3 I think has been hased to death...
> 
> True... It is still relevant though...
> 
> I read this restriction to mean the original unit's turn has to be
> completed before any more interrupts can occur.  e.g. NPC1 interrupts Dur,
> Aybee interrupts NPC1.  No more interrupts can occur until Aybee, NPC1 and
> Dur have had their turn (in that order and which is exactly the same as
> what William said...).  Specifically when Aybee has finished his turn, Fred
> (who is on Aybee's side) CANNOT interrupt NPC1. Nor can NPC2 (who is on
> NPC1's side) interrupt Dur when NPC1 is finished.  (Got that?  Good then
> explain it to me :))

With this example, if I understand things correctly, Fred can't
interrupt
NPC1 until after he's either attack (which ends NPC1's turn) or moved
one square from where he was when interrupted. Note that NPC1's turn may
not be over after he's moved that square, since he can probably move 
many squares in a turn.

So, things might work like this:

Dur goes
  NPC1 interrupts him and begins moving 10 meters
    Aybee interrupts him, does something
  NPC1 moves the first square of the 10 meters
    Fred interrupts him, does something
  NPC1 moves the remaining squares of the 10 meters because there's
nobody
       left to interrupt him
Dur finishes turn

What do you think? Am I missing something?

 
- -- 
Erwin Fritz
Unix/NT/LAN Guy
Gilbert Laustsen Jung Associates Ltd.
http://www.glja.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 16:11:20 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Bj|rn Sandberg <bs@dd.chalmers.se>
Subject: World generation

An idea floated into my brain while I was reading the comments on world
generation and tech levels. Why not have a smallish chart with year on one
axis and empire on another, and then have TL mods in that chart. That way,
one can generate worlds for different Millieus using the same system.

Perhaps mods for pop too ... Long Night, anyone?

Another comment: I have been trying to use Metator for system generation,
but things simply do not add up. I can't seem to get the program to put
the planet in a reasonably habitable zone. Is this a bug in the program,
or is it a deficiency in the generation system? I don't have access to
Book 6: Scouts/WBH or any of those, so I can't tell for myself.

 // Bjorn

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Bjorn Sandberg : Coder for hire : Part-time history nut : bs@dd.chalmers.se |
| Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 12:57:03 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

Marc <CardSharks@aol.com> writes,
>By its very nature, hexes are intended to compartmentalize
>terrain so we can judge its effects. On the other hand, if someone wants to,
>they can make a free-ranging map without any hexes or grid at all (but that
>is harder for players to actually use).

I was going to say "perhaps just do it for worldmaps", but on reflection
I'll stick to my guns - IMO it *is* generally applicable.

I think the idea of hexes as compartments is a wargaming approach.  I
imagine PCs pouring over orbital images and saying, "hm, it looks like
we can keep to the savannah for the first 175-200km, but after that
we'll have to cut through this jungle - that's going to slow us down",
rather than "9 hexes open, then 3 hexes jungle - look up the movement
rates in the ATV operator's manual".  To me, having hex compartments
encourages the second image.

The hexes are useful for players to have, even if they are not
compartments.  They make it easier to guess how far terrain lasts -
"looks about three and a half hexes" - and that little bit of added
uncertainty in how long the journey should take is no bad thing, surely?

Another point: they already need to do this for coastal hexes, so it's
not a new technique to learn, just broadening the application.

OTOH, as a programmer I can understand why computer mapping software
would want to use filled hexes... ;-)

BTW, although I called it a bugbear, this is not make-or-break - I'm not
going to boycott a product just because the maps don't conform to my
ideal!

Thanks for listening,
 
John

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 1997 14:33:46 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

>> For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?
>>
>My vote would be no.  The game is fiction, why cloud it with the 
>harsh reality that somethings just don't work out?

No negative benefits (unless they can be plot related?).  But I really liked
the idea of basing your mustering out rolls on (terms - 1) in each career. 
Thus, you can career-hop but you don't leave with much.  A perfect decision
for character generation: evaluate the trade-off and choose one.

The exception to this might be stopping a career to go to school, then
re-entering the same career.  I would view this as educational leave, so
although you don't get benefits for the academic term, you don't lose your
career benefits.  But leaving a career for another, then re-enting the first
career _would_ cost you benefits.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 10:31:08 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

David J. Golden wrote:
 I'm probably making half what I could working for LockMart ...

Yes, but don't foget the intense sense of fulfillment you get from being
in the the world's best pc military!)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 17:59:48 PDT
From: Eamon Watters <E.Watters@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Imperial TL

"Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net> sent:

>Sabmiqys is populated by a "race" of robots.. all that is left of a species
>that travelled to the stars and brought back a plague.  The robots (which
>are TL17 and are artificially intellegent) were ordered to refuse
>permission to land to any ship.  The first few Sylean Scouts to show up
>watched in horror as their companions' ships just exploded.  They had never
>seen a planetary meson site in action.

IIRC it was the Villani who had their ships blown apart from the inside. There is a 
reference to them being horified when the Terrans started using the same weapon 
against them in the Interstellar Wars.

Eamon.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:33:25 PDT
From: Eamon Watters <E.Watters@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK>
Subject: RE: Aslan Education (Character Generation)

Hi,

I thought I'd share my views on Aslan Education. Given the structure of Aslan society, it will 
probably be split into Male and Female education. Here's my ideas on both:


MALE: Basic Education: Clan based, mainly from much older males in the Clan

School Education: Non-existent, apprenticeships train 'teenage' males.
        
University Education: Establishments associated with the Chosen Career of a male Aslan educate 
him further, e.g. an Aslan wishing to become a military pilot will try for entry to a 'college' 
associated with one of his Clan's Naval Bases. Vassal Clan members are also eligible for this, 
and the possibility of entry also exists for members of other Clans who are allies or owed favours 
by the owning Clan. If wishing to become a merchant pilot the Aslan can be trained outside of the 
Clan system altogether - a female controled Corporation can provide for training to suitable 
candidates. In Clans Corporations also provide on the job training too. There is also the 
possibility of the Clan specializing in a certain field, like assasination who would provide their 
males with equivalent training  to a 'college'.

Female: Basic Education: Clan based, in 'schools' associated with the Clan.

School Education: For most, Clan based. Very talented Aslan may be funded, or sponsored to 
go to a Corporation that specialized in education. Also, a Clan may specialise in a certain field, 
providing excellent education in certain areas.

University Education: Unless a member of a large clan, a vassal thereof, or a member of a minor 
Clan who's female specialise in Higher Education, this is covered by Corporations that specialise 
in Educational Fields.

Eamon.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:31:58 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

> I have never tried this because I can't believe any
> murderer stupid enough to commit the crime on board a cramped sealed
> environment with no way to escape or hide evidence would be smart
> enough to elude capture for more than a few hours.

You should have played with some sneakier players ... one game at the (UK) 
Games Workshop in the "good old days" had a character smuggle a ton of 
illicit cargo onboard.  Now, we all know there is no way to hide an extra 
ton on a small (200 T merchant).  I did not know if the extra ton was from 
a passenger or a crew member (the cargo had been loaded while I was 
"diverted" in Startown).

The captain/owner was useless at organising the search (he was much more 
interested in his new aquarium that filled one entire wall of his 
stateroom) and delegated the task to me (I had discovered the mass 
discrepancy during take-off). We needed to find the cargo before we 
jumped, as we had no idea what it might be, and the captain refused to 
turn back based on a 0.5% power imbalance in the grav unit ... the thing 
was coming up for annual maintenace, so how I could believe such a small 
variation was beyond him.

The first sweep of obvious areas found nothing, so I started a more 
detailed search, spliting the job up to trustworthy PC teams.  No joy.

Just before jump I worked out who the likely culprit was, cross-checked 
that against the areas his team had searched and went to "double check".  
I never did find the extra ton, because on my way to double check I 
tripped over a pile of Credits in a brown envelope.  The 0.5% discrepency 
had to wait while I checked to see if anyone had lost these Credits.  
Fortunately, no-one claimed them, so I got to kepp them.  By then we were 
in jump and my duties took me elsewhere ....

Simon "McCoy, Chief of Security" Early

with thanks to
Albie "Volvo Silverstein - take Credit where Credit's due" Fiore
"Captain" Jerry
Andy Slack, Referee
Twilight's Peak (the adventure where this aside took place)

page down for the final answer


























The cargo was some extremely valuable wine, it was being stored in the 
out-of-use low berths that were used as large refrigerators to keep the 
wine at an ideal 4 Celcius.  The wine had, I suspect, both a suspicious 
origin and almost certainly an equally suspicous future.  Volvo (the 
smuggler) was also ship's doctor and, until then, a man of apparenttly 
unlimited integrity ... but that was all a sham as we later events in the 
campaign showed.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:16:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: Scout Uniforms

In a message dated 97-07-12 20:03:15 EDT, you write:

<<  I see a scout as a gruff,
 rugged individual who doesn't much like people, and prefers his own
 company above that of others, save his close and personal friends. 
 Dislikes bureaucracy, and governmental interference, and prefers to
 operate without having to meet the administrators 'back home'.  That's
 probably why the greatest reward they can get is their own ship.  That
 way, a scout could free himself from bureaucratic bonds and go where he
 wanted, when he wanted, and not worry too much about the administrative
 parts of ship owning (ie. he doesn't make payments, can re-fuel for free
 at scout bases).  >>
I think the analogy to the old west scouts is ok, but that starts sounding
"Star Wars"ish to me a little.  You can't run an organization with only
people of the type described above.  It would fall apart in short order.   I
can certainly see the scouts looking attractive to the type mentioned above,
but that type could care less about medals or getting promoted into the
higher levels of the organization.  It takes all kinds and the scouts are no
doubt filled with a good cross section of Imperial society, each with his
/her own reasons for going into the scouts.  I used the marines as my anaolgy
from more of a danger and recruiting perspective.  The scouts have really 2
key jobs, one is more typical of the frontier scout and one is more typical
of an undercover infiltrator.  The first one doesn't require much in the way
of uniform for the work they do aboard ship cataloging systems.  The real
undercover work doesn't come until later, and by a specific direction.  These
teams would be trained for undercover ops and have a plethora of disguises,
and devices for evesdropping.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 19:13:36 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: [T97#1551] Scout Motto

On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 06:19:53 -0400, Craig Berry
<cberry@cinenet.net> wrote:

>> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:57:57 -0700
>> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
>>=20
>> At 08:27 PM 7/11/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:
>>=20
>> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
>>=20
>> now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!
>
>"Ad Infinitem Et Ultra."
>
>Wow...I think we *do* have a winner!

Actually, when I saw this one, I thought of a slightly different
one - strictly unofficial, mind you:

"Per aspera ad aspera extra"

"Through hardship to more hardship"


Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In-Reply-To: <970712164859_1511355509@emout02.mail.aol.com>

> For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

Not unless you want the players to lynch the ref...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970712235957.0071ffc4@pcisys.net>

David,

> Well, I've never assumed that "mustering out" benefits were things handed
> to you as you went out the door of your career. I've always ruled that the
> cash represented money _and_ equipment (i.e. the stuff you bought right
> after chargen) that you'd accumulated over the course of your career.

That's the way I always ran it.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1556
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 14 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1557



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: Scout Service Motto (was  Re: Writing a Traveller story...need som
Re: Writing a Traveller story...
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Where is AOL?
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Adventure postings
"Anomalies" vacc suits
Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please
Re: Birthdays
Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding
Re: RoM and TLs
Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding
Need back issues of Challenge magazine
The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)
Re: MT Interrupts
Re: Terrain

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

In-Reply-To: <970712164510_1446864755@emout10.mail.aol.com>

> << 
>  3. [A personal bugbear] Terrain types shouldn't neatly fill hexes!  They
>     should go all over the place in the same way that coastlines do.
>     This is especially true of mountain ranges.
>   >>
> This also depends. By its very nature, hexes are intended to compartmentalize
> terrain so we can judge its effects. On the other hand, if someone wants to,
> they can make a free-ranging map without any hexes or grid at all (but that
> is harder for players to actually use).

IMHO, terrain filling the whole hex comes under the category of 'acceptable 
fudge' - it's obviously a simplification, but it makes life easier and there 
are no major problems with it.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Scout Service Motto (was  Re: Writing a Traveller story...need som

In-Reply-To: <33C7F0B0.26FF@alaska.net>

Peter,

> > - -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
>  
> > Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an
> > ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today?
> > I'd think not! Leave it in Galangic, i say!
>  
> The fact that most people do not speak it is exactly why the motto
> should be in a dead language.  It sounds better that way and will very
> very slightly increase the esprit de corp of the service if they have a
> cool sounding motto whose exact meaning is obscure to nonmembers.  This
> is presumably a part of why some current services and institutions have
> their mottos in Latin.

Agreed.

Plus, of course, we're less likely to get sued that way...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...

In-Reply-To: <l03102801afede49c8858@[207.194.197.159]>

> "To Infinity and Beyond" would be a fun motto to use in a campaign, but I
> don't think it would be a good choice for a published story. First of all
> it is a direct steal from "Toy Story", using it in a published work may
> cause problems with Disney's legal department and may be seen as lacking in
> imagination by readers. Second, while it may sound hunorous the first few
> times you hear it, it will begin to sound trite and dated over time. 

Which is why it's better in Latin - hopefully, nobody at Disney will spot it!

> Finally, "To Infinity and Beyond" really doesn't make a good motto for
> anything. It sounds bombastic and naive, an effect Disney no doubt intended
> to lampoon the all-american white-bread astronaut image. If your short
> story intends to make the IISS look like a bunch of clueless buffoons you
> should come up with an appropriate motto and not copy someone else's. If
> you are attempting to make a serious drama you should pick a motto that
> enhances your effort, not one that undermines it.

Actually, I think it *does* work. Picture the scene: some arrogant, 
upper-class twit from the Imperial Burocracy comes over to Scout HQ, sighing 
and tutting at the untidy 'uniforms' and general lack of respect, and 
announces that the IISS needs a motto.

"Huh. We don't need no stinking motto."
"Nonsense. Every other service has one, and you're not going to be the 
exception. It'll give you pride, and unity, and that sort of thing. Think of 
one. I'll be back in a week."

The Scouts mutter and complain for a while, until one - with an interest in 
ancient Solomani history - brings out an old holovid he found...

A week later, the bureaucrat returns.

"Well?"
"We thought of one: 'ad infinitum et ultra'"
"What does that mean?"
"It's Latin. Loses a bit in translation, but it's about going to the stars."
"Well that sounds appropriate."
"Yeah, and it's a famous Solomani saying."
"Really? Excellent! I'll go and inform the Emperor immediately!"

He leaves, the Scouts collapse in hysterics.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

In-Reply-To: <l03102801afecd5c4be88@[207.194.197.103]>

Richard,

> I suppose the steriotypical jump adventure would be a murder mystery a'la
> the Orient Express. I have never tried this because I can't believe any
> murderer stupid enough to commit the crime on board a cramped sealed
> environment with no way to escape or hide evidence would be smart enough to
> elude capture for more than a few hours. In my campaign a character once
> stole a pocket comp while in jump. The captain simply locked all the
> hatches and did a total sweep of every cubic centimetre of the ship,
> starting at the forward avionics nacelle.

Yes, whodunits in jump are a cliche...but they're also a lot of fun! There's 
a write-up of one I ran on my Traveller web pages, but a quick summary is:

Situation: Hiver-sponsored peace conference between the Solomani, Imperials, 
and Vegans during the 2nd Rim War (1119). The only neutral territory they can 
agree on is a Hiver-owned (but human-crewed) liner in jump. PCs are SolSec 
agents, part of the Solomani delegation. A couple of days into the 
conference, murders and/or 'accidents' start happening to members of the 
Imperial and Vegan delegation, and all the evidence points to one of the 
PCs...who claims to have no memories of the killings, despite waking up at 
the scene of one, covered in blood, holding the murder weapon...

What's *really* happening: Of course, it's all a Hiver plot! They don't 
*want* peace, because by the time the humans have finished blowing each other 
up they'll be so weak that they won't be a threat to the Hivers for decades 
at least (and they might be ready for a bit of manipulation...) They 
suggested their own peace conference before anybody else purely so they could 
ruin it, thus convincing the various sides that the others couldn't be 
trusted, and so hopefully prolonging the war longer than it would otherwise 
have lasted. Hidden away in a secret compartment (actually one of the 
turrets, which had all been welded shut for the trip), with a direct link to 
the ship's computer, was a powerful psionic assassin, who was really behind 
the murders. He could teleport to and from the murder scene, was telepathic, 
and had access the ship's security system, so he was effectively untraceable 
and omnipotent.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

In-Reply-To: <970712190208_1589656953@emout10.mail.aol.com>

I can't believe we're arguing so much over such a trivial point.

> << and I'm pretty sure I could handle picking a number between 1 and 365
> without breaking  into a sweat. >>
>  
> After a while, it is helpful to have a chart that gives a universal answer
> that everyone can agree on.

In all my 15 or so years of gaming, I have never needed a chart to determine a 
PC's birthday, and I've never seen an argument over it. Even when I was 12. And 
I've never seen any rules for it in any other game (although I have a feeling 
C&S had some).

> This discussion boils down to
>  
> B. This is a waste of one page and two paragraphs in the game book. Use it
> for something else. If that is your argument, then you are second guessing
> the writer/designer on what is important. 

Yep, this is most of my argument. This is the most pointless, trivial rule I 
can think of, and you're wasting a whole page on it?! *Anything* wold be more 
useful. Including a blank page. IMHO, of course.

> C. Characters shouldn't have birthdates. They didn't before; no one paid any
> attention to them. 

Well, no, they always had them, and they did pay attention to them, just not 
very much. Maybe once a year.

> Again, the designer is setting an agenda wherein age is
> important; birthdates are important; players and referees need to pay
> attention to them.

Perhaps if you could explain *why* they're now so important we might 
understand.

> D. This dumbs down the system. If that is the case, remember you aren't the
> only one playing. We need new players, new buyers if Traveller is going to
> survive. This is one way to make the system intelligible to them.

The game survived 20 years without it. I hardly think this is the 'killer rule' 
that will wipe every other game off the map.

> Frankly, I think the Birthday system is neat. 

Well, you would :-)

> There's a part of the calendar that means something to the player when it
> comes up. There are hooks on which events or situations can be hung.

I totally agree. I just don't think it requires a whole page to pick a number 
between 1 and 365.

> Or is that page of chart absolutely necessarily needed for something else
> that isn't going to be in T41 otherwise. If that is the case, tell me what
> that one page should be.

How about a copy of the Imperial Calendar, with all the important dates marked 
on it, with just a comment underneath saying that players should pick a date at 
random and the ref should mark it on the calendar.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 15:20:33 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Where is AOL?

At 11:59 PM 7/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>At 12:02 AM 7/13/97 -0400, "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net> wrote:
>>>
>>	One problem, at least, isn't at the AOL end, it's at your end. Check your
>>email program setup. As you can see from this error message, and your
>>"From:" line quoted above, you don't have a valid return address specified.
>>"sinbad@dfw" isn't valid; it should be "sinbad@dfw.net"
>
>David,
>I have checked my email settings, they are correct I have not changed
>anything at my end. I have a return email specified in the correct places.

	Then somewhere along the line, something is getting sliced out:

>Connected to b.mx.aol.com:
>>>> MAIL From:<sinbad@dfw>
><<< 550 <sinbad@dfw>... Sender domain not found in DNS (see RFC 1123,
>sections 5.2.2 and 5.2.18).

	Right here, _somebody_ is telling the AOL mail host that this message is
coming from "sinbad@dfw" To try and avoid some spam, the AOL host is trying
to lookup "dfw" to see if it's a valid domain. It's not, so AOL is
rejecting the message as being invalid.

	Furthermore, the message you sent me did NOT have the correct return
address. All it had was "sinbad@dfw"--here's the main headers:

>X-Sender: sinbad@dfw.net
>Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 23:59:05 -0500
>To: gdw-beta@qrc.com
>From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw>
>Subject: Re: Where is AOL?
>Cc: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>

	The X-Sender: header does _not_ contain the return address--the address in
brackets in the From: header is the return address. All I can suggest is
that somewhere your email setup is still wrong, because it's missing the
".net" at the end. I suppose, theoretically, your ISP's mail host could be
hiccupping, but that would be unlikely.

	The result is that if I just press "reply," the faulty address gets used.
My ISP's mail program can't contact "dfw" so the message would get returned
to me, I'd notice the missing ".net" and try again--that's how I got
through yesterday (because that's exactly what happened yesterday).

	As for why worldnet.att.com is getting in here:

><<< HELO Sam.worldnet.att.net

	I'd bet that "dfw.net" gets its net services from AT&T. Try doing a "whois
dfw.net"--I'll bet that there's an att.net name server in there somewhere.

	Good luck!

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 22:46:06 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Matti Laakso <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Harold Hale wrote:

>    I don't know how many TL 6 cars you have in Finland, but they are an
> endangered species in the U.S.  The vast majority of people here outside
> of Alabama (I'm kidding) own TL 8 cars, which pollute which less than
> their TL 6 counterparts.

	Uh, I think my irony didn't quite hit the spot... I'd say most
cars around here are either TL 7 or 8.

>  By 2020, TL 9 cars will have virtually no
> pollution and be owned by everyone except collectors who can afford to
> pay the outrageous amount required for a few liters of hydrocarbon fuel.

	*heh* hydrocarbon fuel already costs outrageous amounts of money.
At least Mercedes-Banz has put pretty much effort into fuel cell research
and estimate their first commercial models will be out by 2010.


/RFXn				aka. Matti Laakso (mlaakso@utu.fi)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 21:10 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

In-Reply-To: <l03020904afee7a292a9c@[194.119.133.227]>

SD,

> There was an adventure in an old White Dwarf called 'Smile Please', which
> sort of did the murder mystery....
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
> SPOILER NOTICE
>  
> ... by having the players escort a 'box' on a liner, and have other
> passengers 'murdered', whilst the box slowly appeared to be a Psionic
> computer... and it was all a candid camera set up. Wouldn't work on their
> own ship though, unless you turned it around so they were paid to pull the
> prank...

That was an *evil* scenario, and I nearly got lynched for running it..:-)
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 17:21:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: NUELOW@aol.com
Subject: "Anomalies" vacc suits

Howard Hale wrote:

>> My impression was that the adventure states that these are items

which are available in quantities larger than a few on the open market. <<

Your *impression*? With all the "cite your sources" talk on this list, you've
been faulting "Anomalies" adventures on impressions? Maybe you should at
least borrow a copy from someone. :/

However, speaking of sources... where does the adventure state that the
hi-tech items are available to the open market? Heck, I think I've even said
here on the list (at least twice) that they *weren't* available on the open
market. (If there's a mention of where such items are available/were
available beyond the solar system that served as the adventure's setting, I'd
like to know about. It might have been added in editing, but I know that I
didn't write any such paragraph. [I still have not seen the printed version
of "Anomalies.].)

Yep, that might be hand-waving...but no more so than those who want 1,000
different solar systems to identical tech levels and refus to allow for
localised innovations and differences [both up and down] in certain areas of
technological achievements.

Once again, the anthology was named "Anomalies." The answer to the question,
"are those airheads trying to up the overall tech level of the Second
Imperium?" is evident in the title of the collection.

Steve Miller

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:28:24 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

At 06:31 PM 7/12/97 +0000, Pete wrote:
><snip>
>I think that I'll be using the "To Infinity and Beyond" as the motto for
>the IISS in my short story, as first propogaed this question.  However,
>should I put 'with regards to Buzz Lightyear'? :-)
>
>-- 
>
>________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
>TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/
>
>
>

Good question: did Disney trade mark or copyright Buzz's catch phrase?

Garry

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 20:28:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In a message dated 97-07-13 03:20:17 EDT, you write:

<< 
 > 
 > Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:02:09 -0400 (EDT)
 > From: CardSharks@aol.com
 
 Mass Snip
 > Frankly, I think the Birthday system is neat. 
 > Marc
  
 So Do I
 
 Evyn
 -- 
  >>
Thank you,

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:37:49 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

Ahh, Newman...the Pacific Ocean will not stand in the way of my plans...

It appears to me that the evidence appears to be falling on the side of
Artemsus possessing mostly Solomani lineage, but with the
family line having some kind of freak geneline that enhances longevity.
Later doctorings of family and official histories led to the 'pure Vilani'
claim...

Please allow me to explain. We have the evidence of Solomani Georgian
descent in *Djugashvili* Lentuli's name, and the unusual fact that 20th
century Georgians (Central Asian, *not* USA) have a very high proportion
of centenarians (quite healthy ones too, AFAIK). The Georgians are also,
coincidentally, very Vilani-like in appearance, being quite dark-skinned
and dark-haired (refer Vilani & Vargr, DGP).

However, there are also references to the Lentuli line being 'pure Vilani'
and therefore enormously long-lived. How about this: during the Long
Night, a family of Vilani of very high social status but *way* down on its
luck intermarried with a wealthy upstart Solomani family - probably merchants 
of Georgian origin. A Georgian family with a history of longevity since 
pre-spaceflight Terra...

The resulting family line possessed *all* or many of the genes for
longevity (longevity is most likely linked to many genes, rather than just
a few). However, given that this is unlikely to have happened by chance...

It looks to me as though the Lentuli family have been *selectively
breeding themselves for longevity!!!* They have chosen Vilani, Solomani
and who knows what other genelines, carefully canvassing family trees for
longevity. They have engaged in a 2000-year-plus campaign of genetic
selection for a single purpose...political, social and economic dominance.
Which they damn near achieve in the first half of the Third Imperium. 

Now to achieve this, they have probably had to use a little more than just
selective breeding. Could the Lentuli family have maintained, in secret,
genetic technologies from the Rule of Man? (not wanting to reignite a 
particular flamewar)...Which they have then used on *themselves* over the
centuries to enhance their own longevity to an unimaginable degree? 

A family so obsessed with longevity would, of course, have
investigated anagathics, and found them either:
a) incredibly useful, perhaps incorporating them into their own
genetic program ie incorporating breeding for anagathics tolerance; or 
b) utterly useless, since all such anagathics do is reproduce the many
effects of *natural* longevity? My opinion tends towards b)...because
anagathics would also obscure the signs of natural aging, and thus
potentially pollute the carefully-tended Lentuli geneline.

Prejudice against nobles using anagathics would of course be encouraged by
the Lentuli family, which would be eager to maintain its own *natural*
advantage. But they would have to conceal their own genetic manipulations
from the disgust of both the Vilani *and* Solomani!  

Which brings us back to the pure Solomani vs. pure Vilani point...what
would be the best way for the Lentuli family to disguise their efforts at
self-improvement?
Why, none other than to insist that their longevity (which by the time of
the Sylean Federation would have become pretty bloody obvious), was in
fact because the Lentuli family was pure Vilani. Of course, Vilani family
records and AAB data could prove otherwise, but in the face of 2000 years
of Lentuli tampering and natural information entropy, the trail would be
confused at best. A *damn* good idea for a campaign, if I do say so
myself...

In the final analysis, just as on 20th century Terra, claims of 'racial
purity' are utter rubbish. Go far enough back, and a family
member comes from the wrong side of the fence...or an adulterous affair
that is never discovered...or a family covers up their 'shame' in a period
of intolerance...

One last thought. Who knows how long the Lentuli breeding program has gone
on? The program *may* predate spaceflight, and the 'long-lived Georgians'
we see today may in fact be the early results of such a program. Which
means that the program could have begun in the 19th or 18th centuries,
with the beginnings of genetic theory, or even earlier, when somebody came
up with the idea of applying animal husbandry techniques to human
families. This could go back a *long* way...

Plenty of food for thought here, I think. If you can't find any adventure
seeds in this, you are clinically dead from a role-playing perspective. 

Cheers, 
MB

PS anybody interested in this line of thinking might want to check out
Robert Heinlein's _Time Enough For Love_, and Octavia Butler's _Mind of my
Mind_
**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily

Proud to claim definite descent from Irish, Scottish, English, French,
German, Italian, and Spanish ancestors; and willing to admit the high 
likelihood of Portugese, Chinese, Burmese, Arab and Australian Aboriginal
forebears.  
Family motto: "Touched by the tar brush? We *are* the tar brush!"
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:47:38 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Re: RoM and TLs

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

> 
> Now I *like* this, blows my doctoring the evidence explaination away.
> Why doctor the evidence when you can just shift the goalposts, really
> nice.
> (ctl-x, ctl-v into my campaign)

Cutting-and-pasting is the sincerest form of flattery. 
> 
> 
> >"Oh Treasurer, what a wonderful deficit projection you have this budget." 
> >"Thank you, Financial Media. You may unzip me." 
> 
> You didn't perchance see our Mr Peters first budget and the subsequent
> treasury forcast a few days later? A classic example of it.

Unfortunately know. But I have seen enough for me to begin laughing
hysterically whenever somebody on the news mentions economic forecasts,
official statistics, or even census data. There are just too many points
at which fuzziness can enter the equation, and the underlying theories are
pretty dodgy in *so* many places. 

I think we can take a lesson from this back to our discussions of
Technological Levels, don't you...? 

Cheers,
Michael Barry

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:43:23 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

It all becomes clear.. the Lentuli family was behind the Templars from the
beginning.. manipulating the Sylean Federation into becoming the Imperium,
being the power behind the throne, then when the time was right, seizing
power.

scary stuff...


- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "But Luna was less than a quarter of a million |
|  miles away; you could practically throw rocks |
|  at it!"                                       |
|          _Farmer in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 21:19:55 -0500
From: Alex Ingram <ingram@airmail.net>
Subject: Need back issues of Challenge magazine

Just got back into the Traveller universe this week after a two year
break and getting ready to start a new MT group. Does anyone know where
I can get back issues of Challenge magazine: 53-55, 58, 60,61, 63-65,
69-71, 73 and 76-79? I have everything else.

Also back issues of Traveller's Digest: 1, 2 and 5 to complete my
collection!

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 21:23:34 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)

On 07/13/97 at 02:16 PM,  VolantZep@aol.com said:

>In a message dated 97-07-12 20:03:15 EDT, you write:

>scouts have really 2 key jobs, one is more typical of the frontier scout
>and one is more typical of an undercover infiltrator.  

Actually, as I organize things, there are *3* jobs for the Scouts: Survey,
Exploration, and...um.."something else."  Exploration and "something else"
are in the same department, but officially it's just exploration..if you
get my drift.

Anyway, here's how I describe the Scout Service in my games.

Scout Service

1.  Survey Department - Called the "Clean Team" by the Explorers, the
Survey Department Ships jump into new systems, do a quick survey and move
on.  They tend to be mainly scientists and technicians, skilled in remote
sensing and data analysis.  Long time members of this department tend to be
somewhat "space happy" loners that associate mainly with each other.  They
are the ones that usually get the ships on retirement and sail off into the
unknown.

2.  Exploration Department - Called the "Passengers" by members of the
Survey Department, the Explorer teams are the Scouts that actually land on
planets to do detailed studies of "interesting" planets.  Some teams
specialize in low-tech or unoccupied planets, they tend to be "rough and
ready" frontiersman types with all the skills of the explorer and
knowledges of university professors.  Other teams specialize in exploring
higher tech systems and they are more diplomatic and urbane, but are just
as tough as the frontiersman types.  All these folks tend to be the sort
that go on wild benders when they are off duty, and take an almost perverse
pride in the amount of trouble they get into.  They seldom get, or even
want a ship on retirement, but they are more than ready to go exploring
with anybody.

    2a.  Section Thirteen - Not called *anything* by anybody..in public!
    Members of Section 13 are specialists in deep recon, infiltration,
    and intelligence gathering missions on hostile planets.  If they are
    involved in "blacker" activities, you don't what to know about it.
    If these people exist and *if* they actually retire you don't want
    to know about that either..but if they did they would be passing as
    a more conventional scout.  If they existed.  ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:32:56 +0800
From: crew@earwax.pd.uwa.edu.au (David Crew)
Subject: Re: MT Interrupts

Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com> wrote

>David Crew wrote:
>> interrupts sufficiently in check.  Note there are VERY few instances when
>> you want to interrupt your own side.  Generally you can wait for the enemy
>> to interrupt your friend and interrupt THEM to lay down covering fire.
>>
>
>Excellent point. Why fire at them if they're not firing first?

The only reason for friendly interrupts I came up with was something like:
your buddy is about to charge through a curtain of superheated steam (which
he can't see) in the engine room - you interrupt to throw the emergency
cutoff.

>So, things might work like this:
>
>Dur goes
>  NPC1 interrupts him and begins moving 10 meters
>    Aybee interrupts him, does something
>  NPC1 moves the first square of the 10 meters
>    Fred interrupts him, does something
>  NPC1 moves the remaining squares of the 10 meters because there's
>nobody
>       left to interrupt him
>Dur finishes turn
>
>What do you think? Am I missing something?

Looks fine to me! :)

David Crew
crew@pd.uwa.edu.au

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:45:47 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: Terrain

John Wood wrote:

> Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 12:57:03 +0100
> From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)
>
> Marc <CardSharks@aol.com> writes,
> >By its very nature, hexes are intended to compartmentalize
> >terrain so we can judge its effects. On the other hand, if someone
> wants to,
> >they can make a free-ranging map without any hexes or grid at all
> (but that
> >is harder for players to actually use).
>
> I was going to say "perhaps just do it for worldmaps", but on
> reflection
> I'll stick to my guns - IMO it *is* generally applicable.
>
> I think the idea of hexes as compartments is a wargaming approach.  I
> imagine PCs pouring over orbital images and saying, "hm, it looks like
>
> we can keep to the savannah for the first 175-200km, but after that
> we'll have to cut through this jungle - that's going to slow us down",
>
> rather than "9 hexes open, then 3 hexes jungle - look up the movement
> rates in the ATV operator's manual".  To me, having hex compartments
> encourages the second image.
>
> The hexes are useful for players to have, even if they are not
> compartments.  They make it easier to guess how far terrain lasts -
> "looks about three and a half hexes" - and that little bit of added
> uncertainty in how long the journey should take is no bad thing,
> surely?
>
> <Snip>
>
> Thanks for listening,
>
> John
>

Mark,

Personally I like the idea of hexless (and gridless) maps. Coming from a
war game background I originally fell into the hex grid thinking, but on
reflection the idea of uncertainty that comes from using "aerial photo
recon" is more attractive. I can picture the players studying the maps
with rulers, etc. to map out a route (as in John's post above). It gives
more of the 'feel' of exploring the unknown. To aid in location the same
2 sided scaling system seen in most street maps could be used.

As for the look of the terrain, I vote for a realistic view. Take any
Rand-McNally atlas and draw the maps in a similar style. Again this adds
to the "feel" of aerial photos. Details such as highways, cities, etc.
can be added by line drawings and hash marks or be "photo realistic" by
porting in available area photos (color corrected and airbrushed, etc.).
This would give your world maps a realism not seen in other games and
add to Traveller's "Hard Science" feel.

All of this is, of course IMHO. You will do what you think is best for
your game. I thank you for listening.

Mike Peters

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1557
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 14 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1558



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)
Capital and Darrians
Thoughts on the Scout Motto
Challenge mag
Ecosystems
Scout Xen Xanfried
MT Interrupts Thread
Mustering Out Benefits
Re: Terraforming
Sell/Trade
Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics
Re: Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: MORE T:TNE questions...
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: China Boys
Re: RoM Technology Debate
Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary
Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding
Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:30:44 -0700
From: Jeff <nblade@extremezone.com>
Subject: Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)

>Actually, as I organize things, there are *3* jobs for the Scouts: Survey,
>Exploration, and...um.."something else."  Exploration and "something else"
>are in the same department, but officially it's just exploration..if you
>get my drift.

Offically by 1100 there are 7 Offices(deptartments) to the scouts service
 1. Survey Office
 2. Detached Duty Office (includes the intellgence branch)
 3. Communication Office
 4. Exploration Office
 5. Administation Office
 6. Operations Office ( includes the Security Branch )
 7. Technical Office

Since the the grand survey was not completed til 420 and not mention was
made to its start date, It is reasonable to assume that it does not yet
exist in the early part of M:0 until sometime in the 300's. Since The
X-boat service was not established until 624 , the Communcication office
would not be in existance until then. 

That still leaves 5 Offices divided into field and Bureaucracy. 

In regards to scout uniforms, the only thing I know for sure is that by
1100 the standard field duty uniform is the Tailored Vacc Suit. No mention
is ever made of what color although the B&W pics always show it as some
sort of dark color. Of course I'm sure that change came about about TL14
when they become available. I would think that they have gone through
several changes in uniforms as times change much the same as any other
branch of the military or civial service has done. 

Jeff

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:59:10 -0500
From: Alex Rebsch <grazzit@flash.net>
Subject: Capital and Darrians

- --------------C54C0AACD636A9A3CC57147E
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello out there.  I'm trying to gather information on Sylea or Capital
depending on when your talking about it.  I'm interested in maps, city
info, government, background info, etc... .  I know there is a good deal
of info in some of the TD issues but sadly I don't have any of these.
Can anybody help me here?

Also I need to find some info on Darrians since for some reason I
skipped them on my alien compendium on my web page.  Any useful info on
this race would be helpful. Thanks.

Alex Rebsch
grazzit@flash.net
http://www.flash.net/~grazzit/traveller.html

- --------------C54C0AACD636A9A3CC57147E
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML>
Hello out there.&nbsp; I'm trying to gather information on Sylea or Capital
depending on when your talking about it.&nbsp; I'm interested in maps,
city info, government, background info, etc... .&nbsp; I know there is
a good deal of info in some of the TD issues but sadly I don't have any
of these.&nbsp; Can anybody help me here?

<P>Also I need to find some info on Darrians since for some reason I skipped
them on my alien compendium on my web page.&nbsp; Any useful info on this
race would be helpful. Thanks.

<P>Alex Rebsch
<BR>grazzit@flash.net
<BR><U><FONT COLOR="#3333FF"><A HREF="http://www.flash.net/~grazzit/traveller.html">http://www.flash.net/~grazzit/traveller.html</A></FONT></U></HTML>

- --------------C54C0AACD636A9A3CC57147E--

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:13:39 -0700
From: Jeff <nblade@extremezone.com>
Subject: Thoughts on the Scout Motto

I been reading all the scout motto thread for a while, I think that there
would be no offical scout motto for the whole service. Rather there would
be motto for the various offices and even units of the scout service.

Jeff

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:56:00 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Challenge mag

Hello,
  What was the last issue number of Challenge?
I begin to harbour a horrible suspicion that I 
missed some.

        whimper,
                Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:15:44 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Ecosystems

> Planetary ecosystems are in 'dynamic equilibrium'?

In much the same way as they are in thermal equilibrium, yes.  That 
is to say, there is an overall equilibrium -- the actual "value" of 
which can vary -- but local deviations are possible.

It therefore follows that you can derive a thermodynamic quantity 
like chemical potential ( mu_i = partial dG / dn_i, where n_i is the 
concentration of species i ) which describes an ecosystem.  Ow, my 
head hurts.

Also ecosystems are probably chaotic strange attractors (now, there's 
a D&D monster for you!) so in theory that perishing butterfly can 
flip us from one stable equilibrating system to another, very 
different one.  Or increasing the CO2 content of an atmosphere.  Or a 
nuclear winter.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:22:12 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Scout Xen Xanfried

>Subject: Re:Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter
>
>aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman) wrote:
>
>Casual Encounter - Xen Xanfried, Scout
>
><snip, text clipping, paste to NPC file>
>
>excellent post - now he may timeslip some 90 years into the future! ;-)
>Thanks...
>
>Dom

Dom, Et al,

        Thank-you VERY much for the praise... Peter has played several who
encountered Xen at one time or another...

In my version of m1100, he's actually one of eight clones; kept apart by
the IISS, these eight have become aware of each the others... #7 is
homosexual, and #1 is QUITE homophobic... IISS HQ created Xen as a project
to create the "ultimate" scout... well... He's ultimate, but not as a
scout, except maybe as a "scout's Scout" (in the sense of "A Man's Man").
#6 and #7 are in Domain of xdeneb, the "Real Zen" (#8) left the DD and,
after killing Lucan, wound up in a cryo-berth after Amy/Angie got Virused,
and became Amy, Angie, Martha, Sue, and Freddie.... Xen and Hamford
sabotaged the PP from the outside (Venting fuel), signalled a distress
call, and mugged the piratical respondent, who had quite a few goodies, and
some warning about Virus... Hamford and Xen reawaken in 1222, in vilani
space, and make their way (courtesy of some Regency scouts meeting the
"Legendary" (as in thrown out of every bar on regina and Mora at least
twice) Xen, and counting upon Scout comeraderie) back home to regina.

        Another Xen (sans hamford, as there is only one of him) encounters
the RC, and gets "Retired" to a university as a relic... He dies trying to
escape, in 1213.

I wrote Xen up much based upon the original character, rather than how he
is as an NPC in my useage... He's more believeable thisaway...


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:22:17 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: MT Interrupts Thread

>> >Item 3 I think has been hased to death...
>>
>> True... It is still relevant though...
>>
>> I read this restriction to mean the original unit's turn has to be
>> completed before any more interrupts can occur.  e.g. NPC1 interrupts Dur,
>> Aybee interrupts NPC1.  No more interrupts can occur until Aybee, NPC1 and
>> Dur have had their turn (in that order and which is exactly the same as
>> what William said...).  Specifically when Aybee has finished his turn, Fred
>> (who is on Aybee's side) CANNOT interrupt NPC1. Nor can NPC2 (who is on
>> NPC1's side) interrupt Dur when NPC1 is finished.  (Got that?  Good then
>> explain it to me :))
>
>With this example, if I understand things correctly, Fred can't
>interrupt
>NPC1 until after he's either attack (which ends NPC1's turn) or moved
>one square from where he was when interrupted. Note that NPC1's turn may
>not be over after he's moved that square, since he can probably move
>many squares in a turn.
>
>So, things might work like this:
>
>Dur goes
>  NPC1 interrupts him and begins moving 10 meters
>    Aybee interrupts him, does something
>  NPC1 moves the first square of the 10 meters
>    Fred interrupts him, does something
>  NPC1 moves the remaining squares of the 10 meters because there's
>nobody
>       left to interrupt him
>Dur finishes turn
>
>What do you think? Am I missing something?

That is perfectly legal under both interps shown.... Mine allows for deeper
layers of interrupts. My definition of active interrupt is two people
acting at the same point; since no action can be taken while interrupted, a
character who has been interrupted is not an active interrupt, but an
interrupted interrupt (or, for clarity, a paused interrupt) so your friend
could interrupt the guy who made your interrupt turn paused...

More factors to consider:
 it when the first interrupt happens... I have the interrupt occur BEFORE
the action is resolved (the action is committed to be done, and announced,
then intterupts are allowed), so you can potentially stop ANY action.

You cannot interrupt someone you cannot percieve... important to not
percieve rather than see... especially in shipboard action or when psionics
are involved.

As for interrupting members of your own side, I allow it only if the
interrupt is to do somthing to THEM; you cut yourself off from the tactical
pool for doing it, though. A small price to pay.

I also allow refreshing the tactical pool, too...

        To refresh your side's tactical pool
        Difficult, Tactics, Int, 2 seconds x time roll [doing this for non-mt
        types]
        Referee: Becomes fatefull if hasty. on a success, restore points equal
        to the number of persons involved in the discussion who have tacctics.
        On a crit success, refresh pool to full. On a superficial mishap, lower
        own pool to 0. On a minor mishap, own pool goes to 0, and add 1d to
        oppsing side's tactical pool. on a major mishap, as minor, but 2 dice.
        On a Destroyed, as major, but also reduce own morale by 1d until
pool is
        successfully refreshed.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:22:25 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Mustering Out Benefits

Please, no negative MoB's...
Sure, I may have little to show for two terms of college (to get 1 BA!),
and a failed "survival" throw in the Army (served 0.25 years!, and spent
rest of year trying to get life back on track), but I have a couple
thousand in computer equipment, a few thou more in games, another 2-4
thousand in non-game books, easily $3000 in clothes, $1000 in weapons &
armor(Sword >$400, Daggers, 2 ~$100 each, Gambeson at $100, Helm @ $75,
Sgeign Dubh @ $30, several bokken, a mace, a few rattan "swords"), and
easily another $2000 worth of SCA garb, and my kilt ($500, last I
checked)... so I'm $18,000 in debt... Were I to acution everything I owned
off, I could probably come out about even (and naked, but, hey!)

I can see halving benefits for all but the final career... it's what you've
got left from that time frame and life-style.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:41:21 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Terraforming

Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>:

> Subject: Re: Terraforming

Vlandforming? 8-)

> On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, SD Mooney wrote:
> > 
> > Planetary ecosystems are in 'dynamic equilibrium'?
> 
> Damn straight! Ecological processes are, at their heart, chemical in
> nature, and ALL chemical reactions are in dynamic equilibrium. Some
> reactions, to be sure, are rather heavily weighted to one side or the
> other (the little one of nitroglycerin + shock or heat comes to mind), but
> all are subject to equilibria.

This is true with a couple of provisos: firstly, nitpicking, at the 
molecular level reactions aren't an equilibrium process; secondly, 
more critically, dynamic equilibrium is a state at which chemical 
processes arrive eventually, all things being equal.  The key word is 
eventually: the timescale for the conversion of diamond to graphite 
is extremely long, for instance.

It therefore follows that you can incrementally wreck an ecosystem by 
polluting it faster than it can equilibrate away the pollutant, or 
some byproduct thereof.  Similarly, if you can establish a local 
environment which progressively disturbs equilibrium in a direction 
you want -- a grove of trees. say -- this can be the focus for a 
progressive improvement of the global environment, all things being 
equal.

Which they aren't on Earth.  Sigh.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 01:49:09 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Sell/Trade

Gentlemen, as it sits, (0134 Ak Daylight Time)

Jens want's
> 4$        Challenge 32 Good
> 5$        Ascent to Anekthor (CT, Gamelords) Fine. For use with
>Mountain Env.
>10$        CT Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium (min $10).
>New condition.
>
and will get the  AtA & Citizen's for $20, shipping slow-baot to Germany,
postage included.

Tom Trellerberg has been offered MTJ3 for $25, inclusive of post.

Steve Crutchfield has offered me $15 for Challenge #32

Mike Stack has been sent a list of what's up, if he wants anything, he's
got til midnight, 15 July 97, Ak Daylight (Z+8) time.

 A refresher on whan't up on the block:
I am willing to Sell or trade any of the Following (Prices negotiable)
        MTJ 3, Very good
        Challenge 32 Good
        Imperial Encyclopedia (MT), Cover damage, highlighted
        101 vehicles (MT), Fine condition (has owner name blacked out)
        CT supp 12:Forms & Charts, Good condition (Cover Scuff, 2 pp have minor
                ink speckles)
        CT Supp 11: Library Data N-Z, Good, Highlighting.
        Ascent to Anekthor (CT, Gamelords) Fine. For use with Mountain Env.
        MT Rebellion SourceBook (GDW), Fine Cond
        MT COACC (GDW) Fine Cond


As for my Wish List
I am looking  for (in good or better shape):
        Dbl Adv 4 (GDW, CT)
        Adv 2,4,7,11,12 (GDW, CT)
        Alien Module 8: Darrians (GDW, CT)
        Dark Nebula boardgame (Everything there is a must; played is fine)
        5th Frontier War Boardgame (Ditto)
        The Adjutant #'s: 2, 7, 8, 11+
        TD's 1-7,

Sorry bout the group E-mail, but it is the easiest way for me to optimize
my on-ine time (I'm on an hourly rate)

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:21:59 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus and anagathics

Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>:

> But I'm enjoying the discussion, and I'd still like somebody to suggest a
> Terran nationality for Artemsus' father, *Djugashvili*
> Lentuli...that vicious dictator <hint,hint, hint>

Georgian.

[Famous last words: "Hey, y'all, watch this!"]


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:43:40 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Victoria in Best of JTAS 1?

In mail you write:

> Does anyone know if Best of JTAS vol. 1 features the article on
> Victoria/Spinward Marches?

It doesn't. But the article appeared in JTAS #2.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 21:07:11 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

In mail you write:

> The animal encounter terrain types are split into:
>
> Prairie, Rough, Broken, Mountain,
> Forest, Jungle, River, Swamp, Marsh,
> Desert, Beach, Surface, Shallows, Depths,
> Bottom, Sea cave, Sargasso, Ruins, Cave,
> Chasm, Crater 

Well, for one thing, you really should add more subtypes to some of these.
"Desert" actually covers several terrain types. Dune "seas" are a lot
different from "hardpan" which is different from ....

Also Prairie is both steppes and tundra. And maybe a few others. 

What animal encounters should be based on are biomes. They are a sort
of ecological community type. Somewhere I have a list of the ones on
earth. They tend to be based on climate. So you get something quite
like tundra if you go far enough up a mountain.

So terrain *and* climate add up to the biome. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:55:40 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MORE T:TNE questions...

In mail you write:

> 2) What's a good displacement tonnage figure for a medium-sized asteroid?

Medium asteroid would be around 10 km. Lets assume a cube for ease of
calculation. 10 km is 1e4 m. 1e4 cubed is 1e12. So that's 1 *trillion*
cubic meters. Each cubic meter weighs 1 ton time the density of the
material. So for rock, figure around 4-5 trillion tons *mass*. For
nickel-iron, it's about 8 trillion tons.

For *displacement* it's it's around 70 billion tons.

> 3) What would be the most efficient means of manuevering such an asteroid
> in a solar system?

A mass driver firing chunks of the asteroid. It'd be slow, but efficient.

> 4) Would you even consider building a jump engine capable of shoving that
> large a chunk of rock through j-space?  (I suppose that, if the Imperials
> had 50 000 dt battleriders running around, they could do just about
> anything with j-engines...)

Consider the required amount of fuel....

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:12:37 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

In mail you write:

> On 11 Jul 97 at 2:17, Peter Miller wrote:
>
>> Just want to quickly back up Douglas here, S&A does indeed refer to
>> several cities in "North America and Europe".  Thus, this takes out
>> many of the world's largest cities, such as Tokyo, Shanghai,
>> Beijing, Rio De Janiero.  Many of those have some of the worst smog,
>> etc. (Don't many in Tokyo wear filter masks?).

Actually, what they tend to wear are *surgical masks*. No *real*
filtering except for some particulates. Heck, I wear a "filter mask"
when pollen (or house dust) is bad. But that's because I have an allergy.

There are filters and filters. The kind I wear is just for particules
(paint, dust, pollen). A "true" filter mask (for tainted atmospheres)
will be more like the ones the ERT uses in case of chemical spills.
They use cartridges that absorb and neutralize the chemical in
question. 

The big difference is that a "real" filter mask has a cartridge
lifetime of minutes or hours. The sort I use (and folks in Tokyo use)
can be used for days or weeks.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 19:30:14 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: China Boys

In mail you write:

> At 03:17 PM 7/9/97 -0700, Steven Hudson wrote:
>
> I wrote:
>>>barbarians out.  The US is focussed on power projection, the Chinese 
> aren't.
>
>>  The Chinese aren't focussed on global power projection - regionally, they
>>have great hopes, as someone else pointed out. Both posts are correct.
>
> Other than Tibet, and border clashes with Vietnam and India, the Chinese
> have shown no interest in doing much outside their traditional borders.

They've shown a strong interest in *Russian* territory. Especialy
resource rich areas like Siberia. There's a reason the Soviets kept a
lot of troops on the border with China!

> Remember that the PRC has tolerated a British enclave until very recently,
> and still shows no sign of doing more about the existence of Taiwan (aka
> Nationalist China) than insisting that it is part of China, and protesting
> its recognition by the UN.

Grabbing Taiwan wouldn't get them much. They'd probably destroy much of
the industry during an invasion, and without that, Taiwan is pretty
worthless. What China needs is "easy" resources.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:08:07 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: RoM Technology Debate

In mail you write:

> 3) Rating inventions rather than capabilities (this is *very* Vilani 
> and completely anti-Terran).
>
> For example, there is no practical difference between TL4 and TL5 as 
> far as Mechanical technology *capabilities* are concerned -- a number 
> of excellent SF Books have been written (Harrison, Turtledove et al) 
> in recent years whereby Time Travellers give the CSA Sten Guns/K-47s 
> -- and these are not fantasy, the mechanical (and related) technology 
> of the 1860s is quite up to producing such items. In fact, it is my 
> understanding that a Sten Gun or AK-47 (or even an M-16) is 
> mechanically *simpler* to produce than, say, a Lee Enfield SMLE .303 
> Bolt Action Rifle ... as that latter requires a *lot* of expensive 
> and time consuming precision machining, while Sten Guns and AKs are 
> basically mostly stampings.

Not so minor detail. The metallurgy of the time (Civil War) is not up
to manufacturing the steel for the barrel and receiver of an AK-47. And
the chemical technology doesn't know how to make smokeless powder. That
took about 40 years of experimentation in the real world, though they
might be able to speed things up a bit with samples.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 19:44:35 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: 3D Damage Max Rebuttal to Commentary

In mail you write:

> Wrong.  While lasers may generate detectible levels of kinetic energy,
> most of the damage caused by a laser is thermal in nature.
>
> I only agreed that lasers should be limited to a maximum of 3D of
> damage because the beam focuses its damage on a small area of the
> target for a *very* brief moment.  A powerful enough beam will burn a
> finger-sized hole through the unfortunate victim and continue on down
> range (to transmit its remaining thermal energy to other targets), all
> in a blink of the eye.  Moving the weapon back and forth in an attempt
> to play the beam over the target will have essentially no effect,
> considering the short lifespan of the beam itself.

Actually, by the time you get to energy levels capable of drilling a
hole through a person, the laser pulse concentrates so much energy on
so small an area that the surface of the target *explodes* into vapor.

> Lasers deliver thermal energy instead of kinetic energy, but this
> energy is still focused over a relatively small area.  The beam
> strikes the target and begins to vapourize matter in its path.  The
> harder that material is to vapourize, the more energy is drawn out of
> the laser beam.  Humans are made up of mostly water, which has a
> relatively low vapourization point.  A 5,000J 5mm beam will pass right
> through a human being (vapourizing tissue directly in the beam's path
> while causing additional thermal damage to the surrounding tissue) and
> continue on down range.

Again, I suggest that you check out real lasers. The vaporizing
material will blast out a crater.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 13:04:32 +1
From: "Jonas Karlsson" <Jonas.Karlsson@mail.baldakinen.umea.se>
Subject: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

>From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
>In-Reply-To: <970712190208_1589656953@emout10.mail.aol.com>
> > Or is that page of chart absolutely necessarily needed for something else
> > that isn't going to be in T41 otherwise. If that is the case, tell me what
> > that one page should be.
> How about a copy of the Imperial Calendar, with all the important
> dates marked on it, with just a comment underneath saying that players
> should pick a date at random and the ref should mark it on the
> calendar.

Now, *this* suggestion I like. Give, say, a half-page to the calendar, 
give the comment above, and then an 'info box' about birthday (and 
possibly nameday, if it exists) traditions in the Imperium. (Only a 
brief note would be needed to detail Solomani traditions, obviously. 
;-) Adding a bit about how the Emperor's birthday is celebrated could 
also be appropriate.

It's just the kind of irrelevant detail I like in a game. Particularly 
if an adventure nugget centered - somehow - around a birtday 
celebration is given later. (Perhaps a terrorist group plotting to 
disturb the celebration of the Emperor's birthday? Or, less overdone, 
perhaps a passenger aboard the player's ship is about to become 50 (or 
any other age that tends to result in excessive celebration), and has 
decided to go off-planet on vacation rather than suffer the birthday 
party his practical-joker friends are likely to throw. Of course, they, 
not being the easily thwarted kind, have come up with an absolutely 
*hilarious* surprise for him...)
- --
| Jonas.Karlsson@baldakinen.umea.se          | I am a number,  |
| Jonas.Karlsson@capgemini.se - jonask@io.com| not a man! - 42 |

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:20:24 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

>Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:43:23 -0700
>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
>Subject: Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

>It all becomes clear.. the Lentuli family was behind the Templars from the
>beginning.. manipulating the Sylean Federation into becoming the Imperium,
>being the power behind the throne, then when the time was right, seizing
>power.

>scary stuff...

No no, you've got it all wrong, the Templars are just a front to hide the real
machinations. After what better way for the Lentuli to hide their plot than
by hinting at another grand conspiracy. Look I have the proof right here,
whats that Joseph, arghhhhhhhhhh splurtal thud.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:20:37 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

>Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:37:49 +1000 (EST)
>From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
>Subject: Artemsus, anagathics and selective breeding

>Ahh, Newman...the Pacific Ocean will not stand in the way of my plans...

>It appears to me that the evidence appears to be falling on the side of
>Artemsus possessing mostly Solomani lineage, but with the
>family line having some kind of freak geneline that enhances longevity.
>Later doctorings of family and official histories led to the 'pure Vilani'
>claim...

>Please allow me to explain. We have the evidence of Solomani Georgian
>descent in *Djugashvili* Lentuli's name, and the unusual fact that 20th
>century Georgians (Central Asian, *not* USA) have a very high proportion
>of centenarians (quite healthy ones too, AFAIK). The Georgians are also,
>coincidentally, very Vilani-like in appearance, being quite dark-skinned
>and dark-haired (refer Vilani & Vargr, DGP).

>However, there are also references to the Lentuli line being 'pure Vilani'
>and therefore enormously long-lived. How about this: during the Long
>Night, a family of Vilani of very high social status but *way* down on its
>luck intermarried with a wealthy upstart Solomani family - probably merchants 
>of Georgian origin. A Georgian family with a history of longevity since 
>pre-spaceflight Terra...

>The resulting family line possessed *all* or many of the genes for
>longevity (longevity is most likely linked to many genes, rather than just
>a few). However, given that this is unlikely to have happened by chance...

>It looks to me as though the Lentuli family have been *selectively
>breeding themselves for longevity!!!* They have chosen Vilani, Solomani
>and who knows what other genelines, carefully canvassing family trees for
>longevity. They have engaged in a 2000-year-plus campaign of genetic
>selection for a single purpose...political, social and economic dominance.
>Which they damn near achieve in the first half of the Third Imperium.

I'd look very closely at the records of the RoM for Lentuli tampering.
Now just why did the RoM fall again :*).

But they didn't come close to achieving dominance, they did achieve
dominance. A 420 year reign, with only a one year interuption; that
looks like dominance to me. And lets have a look at that ineruption.
Porfiria was a clear heir after Martin II's death, so why did she stand
aside in favour of Cleon III? Mayhap some nobles were getting a
little too close to the truth and mayhap they didn't survive Cleon's
reign :). But of course all ths begs the question, was Cleon I in on
the plot or just a dupe?

>Now to achieve this, they have probably had to use a little more than just
>selective breeding. Could the Lentuli family have maintained, in secret,
>genetic technologies from the Rule of Man? (not wanting to reignite a 
>particular flamewar)...Which they have then used on *themselves* over the
>centuries to enhance their own longevity to an unimaginable degree?

As most everyone seems to agree, in the field of geenering the RoM was
way in advance of anything seen before or until the late 3rd Imperium
(TL 14, maybe TL 15; though I'll tread carefully here). If the Lentuli had
been able to maintain these technologies (a big if, I'll admit), they could
have had access to very advanced general medical techniques which
would increase their lifespans, access to advanced genetic techniques
which would allow for selective breading; and finally access to anagathic
techniques considerably better than the TL 12 of Sylea if they chose to
use them.

>A family so obsessed with longevity would, of course, have
>investigated anagathics, and found them either:
>a) incredibly useful, perhaps incorporating them into their own
>genetic program ie incorporating breeding for anagathics tolerance; or 
>b) utterly useless, since all such anagathics do is reproduce the many
>effects of *natural* longevity? My opinion tends towards b)...because
>anagathics would also obscure the signs of natural aging, and thus
>potentially pollute the carefully-tended Lentuli geneline.

I'd disagree here. They way I've always though of anagathics is that
they slow down the aging process by enhancing the accuracy of cell
duplication within the human body. Thus they don't obscure the signs
of natural aging, they just delay them. Thus when you stop taking
anagathics, the years do not catch up on you. I'd say that they did
use them, but carefully, since someone who simply does not show
any signs of aging would stand out like a sore thumb (imagine if you
will the Emperor who everyone knows is 120 but still looks like a
20 year old, a bit obvious).

>Prejudice against nobles using anagathics would of course be encouraged by
>the Lentuli family, which would be eager to maintain its own *natural*
>advantage. But they would have to conceal their own genetic manipulations
>from the disgust of both the Vilani *and* Solomani!  

>Which brings us back to the pure Solomani vs. pure Vilani point...what
>would be the best way for the Lentuli family to disguise their efforts at
>self-improvement?
>Why, none other than to insist that their longevity (which by the time of
>the Sylean Federation would have become pretty bloody obvious), was in
>fact because the Lentuli family was pure Vilani. Of course, Vilani family
>records and AAB data could prove otherwise, but in the face of 2000 years
>of Lentuli tampering and natural information entropy, the trail would be
>confused at best. A *damn* good idea for a campaign, if I do say so
>myself...

Well a simple DNA test might show a lot, but who's going to walk up
to the Emperor (or earlier his chief advisor) and ask :*). I don't think that
the Lentuli would have come out and said they were Vilani. I think they
would have made no comment on it and just let this opinion form by itself
(with suitable subtle behind the scenes prodding of course). This would
make it much easier for them to overcome the anti-Vilani prejudice of
the early Imperium when they did take over. "Vilani, no of course not,
I'm pure Solomani, what ever gave you that idea."

>In the final analysis, just as on 20th century Terra, claims of 'racial
>purity' are utter rubbish. Go far enough back, and a family
>member comes from the wrong side of the fence...or an adulterous affair
>that is never discovered...or a family covers up their 'shame' in a period
>of intolerance...

Given that my own family bloodline disappears into the docks of
Copenhagen some five generations back on my mothers side, and my
father's is a mongrel of Cornish, Scots, Home Counties and French;
I'm in no postion to comment :*)

>One last thought. Who knows how long the Lentuli breeding program has gone
>on? The program *may* predate spaceflight, and the 'long-lived Georgians'
>we see today may in fact be the early results of such a program. Which
>means that the program could have begun in the 19th or 18th centuries,
>with the beginnings of genetic theory, or even earlier, when somebody came
>up with the idea of applying animal husbandry techniques to human
>families. This could go back a *long* way...

Ah but was that certain Georgian in on it, or (more likely) another dupe.

>Plenty of food for thought here, I think. If you can't find any adventure
>seeds in this, you are clinically dead from a role-playing perspective. 

Must say, I really like this. A neat packaged solution with *heaps* of
role-playing potential. And every game needs at least one grand
conspiracy IMO. As to hooks, just look at the period after the fall of the
Lentuli. No Emperor gets to die in their bed for another 150 years. The
Civil War was the Lentuli attempt to regain power. At first they try subtle
methods (the assassinations of Cleon IV, Jerome and Jaqueline I), but
that doesn't work, so bring on the Civil War.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1558
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 14 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1559



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1556
Scout Motto
Re: World Generation
Re: World Generation (Metator)
Re: Re: Scout Uniforms
Biomes
Re: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Rule of Man/TC TL, conclusions?
Re: RoM
Re: MORE TNE questions
collapse
Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Mottos and "dead" languages
[none]
PE super recyclers
THUDD? I think...
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Birthdays

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 00:39:15 -0400
From: "Richard C.S. Kinne" <phaedrus@dreamscape.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1556

Folks:	0037EDT	9707.14

	I hope I can quickly ask a simple question here, folks.
Nomenclature:  I know that T4 refers to Marc Miller's present version of
Traveller.  I've seen reference to T4.1.  Is this the new printing of the
basic rules manual that will be coming out at GenCon next month?

- --
Richard C.S. "Doc" Kinne
InterNet: phaedrus@dreamscape.com
Home Page: http://www.dreamscape.com/phaedrus/
Quote: "One headline said 'Accused Had Powerful Brain,' so it
	could have been worse, I suppose. But their use of the
	past tense rather worried me."
		-Sir Alan Mathison Turing, O.B.E., commenting 
		 on the headlines after his "gross indecency" 
		 trial, 1952.
		_Breaking the Code_

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 00:17:18 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Scout Motto

Now I love 'Ad Infinitum et ultra".
But for those who want a serious one, may I suggest

"Ecci Expeditori"
(It doesn't translate well into English, but something like
'The Scouts are comming', or 'The Scouts will come' is
close.}

or the single world "Primus"

In my own universe, my Scout Service uses:
"R=F8get Sild"

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 1997 12:50:32 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: World Generation

>An idea floated into my brain while I was reading the comments on world
>generation and tech levels. Why not have a smallish chart with year on one
>axis and empire on another, and then have TL mods in that chart. That way,
>one can generate worlds for different Millieus using the same system.

I like this idea!  Marc, pay attention to this one.

If this is too awkward for the main T4.1 rulebook (because you haven't had
time to think about other milieu in enough detail yet), then consider putting
in some indication as to which stats will change depending on milieu.  (Yes,
_I_ think that it's obviously the social ones, but as a high school teacher I
think you should specify it if you are aiming at the 'young gamer' market:
most of my students are still at the 'rules lawyer' stage, without enough
life experience to know when to bend/ignore a rule.)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 1997 12:57:56 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: World Generation (Metator)

>Another comment: I have been trying to use Metator for system generation,
>but things simply do not add up. I can't seem to get the program to put
>the planet in a reasonably habitable zone. Is this a bug in the program,
>or is it a deficiency in the generation system? I don't have access to
>Book 6: Scouts/WBH or any of those, so I can't tell for myself.

This is a deficiency in the generation system, or more precisely a deficiency
in Real Life (TM).  

Metator follows the Scouts system almost exactly.  This means that stars are
placed, then gas giants, empty orbits, and planetoid belts.  Then the main
world is placed, in the habitable zone if possible.  The only reason this
would be impossible is if the orbit is empty or occupied by a star (if it has
a gas giant the mainworld is placed as a moon, and planetoid belts are never
placed in the habitable zone).

That being said, for hot/cold stars, the 'habitable zone' often isn't,
especially if the planet has a non-Terran albedo.  This means that you can
get a 'habitable' world with an average temerature of 400 degrees Celcius! 
This is the generation system, not the program.  As a design decision, I
decided to stick as close to the system as possible.

Once Metator is finished, I plan on writing a different program that will
create as realistic systems as possible, using real science and ignoring game
rules.  This is, however, a long-term project.  Don't hold your breath :-)

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 1997 13:11:41 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Scout Uniforms

>The scouts have really 2
>key jobs, one is more typical of the frontier scout and one is more typical
>of an undercover infiltrator.

And the third type: the bureaucrats and technicians who support the other two
types, write the reports, fix the ships, man the bases....



Quoting from Book 6: Scouts:

Largely due to the efforts of the Scouts, the Sylean Federation rapidly
turned into an empire - the Third Imperium. The Sylean Federation Scout
Service became the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service: the IISS.

With the passage of time, however, the missions of the Scout Srvice have
evolved into different pursiuts. The original assignment of recontact soon
tunred into one of acutal discovery and exploration of new, unknown worlds.
[snip]

In order to handle the great diversityh of missions assigned to it, the Scout
Service is organized into offices. These offices are themselves further
divided into branches (or sometimes services), each responsible for a
specific mission or duty... Placed in authority over the several offices is a
central command structure (called Headquarters) which provides overall
control of tye scout service. Because Headquarters controls the operations of
the entire Scout Service throughout the Imperium, it is concerned primarily
with policy and administrative detail, rather than with the accomplishment of
specific missions, and is rarely more than a distance office providing
instructions and direction to the service.

The offices of the Scout Service are divided into the Bureaucracy (a standard
structured establishement) and the Field (an informally structured group of
individuals who accomplish many of the goals of the service). The Bureaucracy
is strict and governed by regulations, the Field is unconventional and
flexible.

end quote

The Field comprises the Exploration, Communications, and Survey offices.  The
Bureaucracy comprises Administration, Detached Duty, Technical Services, and
Operations.

The Field has no ranks per se, just job titles.  The Bureacracy has ranks.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 1997 13:31:29 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Biomes

>What animal encounters should be based on are biomes. They are a sort
>of ecological community type. Somewhere I have a list of the ones on
>earth. They tend to be based on climate. So you get something quite
>like tundra if you go far enough up a mountain.

This is a good idea.  I could live with either way of creating tables, but I
like this.  

Possibly we should stick with a fixed version of the existing terrain-based
tables, but use the biome for things like encounter frequency?

My summer project, if I can't get an RTF version of FFS to take on holiday
with me, will be to (a) finish Metator, and (b) come up with an animal
description system.  Suggestions welcome.

------------------------------

Date: 14 Jul 1997 13:35:57 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

>> Or is that page of chart absolutely necessarily needed for something else
>> that isn't going to be in T41 otherwise. If that is the case, tell me what
>> that one page should be.
>
>How about a copy of the Imperial Calendar, with all the important dates
marked 
>on it, with just a comment underneath saying that players should pick a date
at 
>random and the ref should mark it on the calendar.

This sounds really useful.  But I would just say that characters must have a
birtday, either chosen by the player or randomly selected.   

You should also indicate how the important holidays are observed, including
any movable/midweek holidays.  (Personally, I like the idea of the Imperium
keeping holidays firmly attached to the original commemorative date, rather
than following the current custom of moving them to the closest weekend so
that people can go to the cottage.)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:12:14 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/TC TL, conclusions?

There are some really excellent posts on this thread which I will have to
reply to soon, but I just wanted to get _this_ one out now, since it is
_so_ entertaining.

<FRIVOLITY>

Thank you all for your kind words.  I have enjoyed the TL discussion about
the Rule of Man.  Sometimes I am slow to catch on, but hey everyone has their
weak points and strong points. :)

I finally found the reference of relevance you all must have been using to
base arguements on a low-tech pre-history of the Third Imperium.  Rather
shrewd I must say.  It reminds me of an adventure J.P. wants to write.

On page 190 of T:TNE, Tech Level Decline table.  The decline of the world's
tech level is determined by the number of pips on dice (or a die) and that
amount is subtracted _directly_ from the world's tech level, all due to a
thing called Virus.

  Starting
  Tech Level    Decline

    0-8           1D6-3
    9-A           1D6
    B-D           2D6
    E+            3D6

By pushing the tech levels down, you've actually HARDENED the Imperia
(including the Third) against Virus--_very_ clever strategy, and _very_
forward thinking. :) <G>

J.P. wants to get a crack squad of Zhodani commandoes and raid Dlan to
off _all_ of Duilinor's ancestors.

In this spirit, I propose that we _all_ interpret the "Terrans discover J-3"
reference to mean that Terrans learned how to build large enough fuel tanks
to do J-1 three times sucessively, and we trim another die off the decline
table.  Starting at A (the maximum Vilani/RoM tech), a 1D6 roll means at
worst, worlds will be down to TL4 after Virus, and many will retain the
ability to do Jump drives at TL9.

</FRIVOLITY>

If you are fuming at this, just consider it a late 4/1/97 post, because I
really am laughing right now.  But I am sure I am not the only one. :)


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:00:16 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: RoM

Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:

>  1) Terra, when it started Terraforming Mars, was _not_ a member of
>     the Imperium.  Membership came later when it joined in 588.  So
>     Martian terraforming is _not_ Imperial, and _atmospheric_ terra-
>     forming can _not_ be done at a lower level, without the force
>     walls I described earlier.  What tech is it that you can atm
>     terraform a single hex, and not have the atmosphere mix?  Hmmm.

Sure, but it wasn't during the RoM either. In fact, this terraforming
project occurred over 2,000 years later. So, again, what does this have to
do with the RoM?

>Let's see how many rise to my challenge above.  I am happy to see that
>nobody is still purporting that the Rule of Man was merely TL12 and no
>exceptions to that.  Funny--it sure feels a lot easier to issue those
>challenges than to rise to them.

Let's keep perspective here. No one ever *had* major issues with the
Terrans achieving TLs above 12 in certain areas. It was your absurd theory
that they had access to TL 16 that drew so much flame.

There's nothing more frustrating that having a discussion with someone who
constantly tries to bend the material of his argument so that it seems he's
never strayed from his original position.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:07:45 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: MORE TNE questions

Jon Fuller wrote:

>1) (This is just a little less flame-war prone than my first question on
>this topic.  I repeat again, this is *not* intended to start a flame war.)
>  Say Virus _did_ propogate as canon would have it.  Would nanites be an
>effective defense against it?

Not unless they were TL-17 artificially intelligent nanites. Virus is able
to outwit computer systems with inferior intelligence.

>4) Would you even consider building a jump engine capable of shoving that
>large a chunk of rock through j-space?  (I suppose that, if the Imperials
>had 50 000 dt battleriders running around, they could do just about
>anything with j-engines...)

It would be impossible to install a lanthanum grid into an asteroid
effectively. That was the original theory, anyway.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:18:47 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: collapse

Quote from Bruce J.:
Humans have been pretty good at altering their environment for a long time
now; often with disastrous results. Look at the Mayans...most current
theories for the decline of their civilization include over-irrigation, and
depletion of farmlands as a cause. 

Kinda blowin' ta hell the "enlightened primitive peoples at one with nature"
 theories.  Actually most studies of collapsed civilizations seem to point a
strong causal finger at environmental overuse and subsequent collapse as a
reason for the fall. This includes Rome, Egypt and a variety of Medieval
African kingdoms

On a side note, I stand corrected. Tech has been lost. But, in compensation,
usually by the time it is noticed, it typically has been passed by or
replaced by a superior technology. The only losses have been through lack of
communication. 
I read an article from a teacher wherein he states that the head
administrator of his school told him he could not fail anybody, could not
single people out (read: help slower people catch up) and was expected to
take acting lessons to make his classes more entertaining. Like someone said
here on the TML, we are turning into Vilani without cooperation.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 08:48:54 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

Rob Prior wrote:
> 
> >How about a copy of the Imperial Calendar, with all the important dates
> marked
> >on it, with just a comment underneath saying that players should pick a date
> at
> >random and the ref should mark it on the calendar.
> 

What important dates are there besides 001?

> You should also indicate how the important holidays are observed, including
> any movable/midweek holidays.  (Personally, I like the idea of the Imperium
> keeping holidays firmly attached to the original commemorative date, rather
> than following the current custom of moving them to the closest weekend so
> that people can go to the cottage.)

I agree. In my world, "weekends" per se don't exist. That is, there 
isn't a set couple of days, Imperium-wide, which most people have off.
On some worlds people work seven days a week and take a month off.
On others, people work three days and then take one day off. My point
is that, although membership in the Imperium means working with the 
Imperial calendar, local customs still prevail when it comes to work
time.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:04:03 -0500
From: "Joul, Christopher" <JOUC1@Aerial1.com>
Subject: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)

Richard Hough Wrote:-
>I need more adventures to run while the ship is in jump. My players are
>going on a 4-jump journey and I need something to occupy them.

Not sure if this was a request for suggestions but here are a few
anyway:-

The Life support malfunctions just as the party enters jump (not enough
to immediately kill them, but enough so that they spend the jump running
arround trying to keep the system active) - kind of like in Apollo 13
where they had to use the lander's life support to keep them alive, but
it was only specked for two people.

Medical emergency - how about one of the players (or NPC) falls sick
soon after entering jump space, the individual is isolated quickly, but
soon others become infected.  The nature of the illness is up to the
referee, but it could life threatening, or could just make people
paranoid!

Hijacking is always a posibility, and so is a sabateur (though why
anyone would sabotage the ship which is keeping them alive requires a
good explanation).

Cargo Hazzard (could be a leeking container containing hazardous
chemicals, could be an illegal animal been transported in a cage instead
of a low berth).

Perhaps someone suicides (which looks like murder).

Malfunction in the VR entertainment suite provides an unusual adventure.

A Malfunction in the low berths causes everyone to be defrosted early,
leaving massive space problems and Life support overloads.

Mind due if one of these occured on every jump I made as a player I
would become a little bit suspicious, the likely hood of those such
events is prety small.

Hope these Ideas help.

Chris.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 18:30:13 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

>What animal encounters should be based on are biomes. They are a sort
>of ecological community type. Somewhere I have a list of the ones on
>earth. They tend to be based on climate. So you get something quite
>like tundra if you go far enough up a mountain.
>
>So terrain *and* climate add up to the biome.

Could you dig it up? I'm quite interested in doing something more universal
and useful than the standard animal enc system esp regarding animal types
and activities. BTW I liked the T2300 pyramid system which at least forced
the ref to invent some plants to go with his Player Eating animals.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:08:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Mottos and "dead" languages

>Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 20:03 BST-1
>From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
>Subject: Re: Scout Service Motto (was  Re: Writing a Traveller story...need 
som

>In-Reply-To: <33C7F0B0.26FF@alaska.net>

>Peter,

>> > - -> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
>>
>> > Why latin? Do you truly believe that people in the 3I speak an
>> > ancient terran language that is dead even on Earth today?
>> > I'd think not! Leave it in Galangic, i say!
>>
>> The fact that most people do not speak it is exactly why the motto
>> should be in a dead language.  It sounds better that way and will very
>> very slightly increase the esprit de corp of the service if they have a
>> cool sounding motto whose exact meaning is obscure to nonmembers.  This
>> is presumably a part of why some current services and institutions have
>> their mottos in Latin.

>Agreed.

>Plus, of course, we're less likely to get sued that way...

If not Latin, how about Vilani?  That seems to be like "latin" in the 3I. 
 Especialy in M:0.  And whats cool is that it isn't as dead as latin, but 
its not the 'common' tounge either.

Maybe the TravLang group can help us out with this one?  :-)
 -----------------------
Commander X

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 13:19:45 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: [none]

Quote from Michael Barry:
I like the idea that people have (implicitly and explicitly) been tossing
about, that of TL modifiers to reflect certain races' preferences,
prejudices, capabilities and so on. 

I feel that this is far from a "blunt tool"
I think it is great
Dynchians: small arms +1 TL
Bwaps: bureaucracy +3 TL
K'Kree: agriculture +1, Grav +1 (they had to get it right, they skipped
rockets)
Aslan: robots +1 TL, -1 Jump (they borrowed Solomani)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:31:38 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: PE super recyclers

>Also, most of the planets in question have been high tech for _millenia_
>by now. Easily worked deposits of ores and metals are flat out _gone_.
>Probably as 'early' as the end of the Ziru Sirrka, most medium to large
>population planets in Vilani space had been mined out long ago. Without a
>source of metals, you ain't gonna rebuild squat, folks, not if your TL
>ever goes below 5 or 6 or so, the raw materials of that high tech society
>are simply not available.

With cheap power ANYTHING can be recycled but then there would probably be
no NonInd worlds in Traveller nor interstellar empires so leave that aside.
The idea that resources can be used up is totally ignored in PE and one
might say that they did it for reasons of simplification. Well it
simplifies some things but complicates others: why are ther NonInd planets
at all? What are the disadvantages of having all ypour pop on one big ball
with good resources? Why do PEs explore at all except for the fun of
killing each other off? Are there anybody out there that thought about this
and came up with fudges/solutions/answers?


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 13:27:29 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: THUDD? I think...

Someone on the list mentioned something about a starship design contest. If
I'm way off base, then this is just some old-fashioned Noble's ship. Then
again, aren't all Nobles old-fashioned.

Ludwig - Class Pleasure Yacht

Tons: 300 Std (Closed Structure)    Volume: 4200m^3           Cost: 98.415MCr
Crew: 5             High/Mid Pass:  10/0          Low: 0
Cargo: ~15 Std             Controls: Standard Civ (High-auto) (Bridge)
TL: 11

8 Size Rating		J-2 Jump Drive (840 Std/Pc Fuel)
0 Fire Control Rating		1-G Maneuver (T-plates)
1 Lt. Laser (72mj) 	       	1.6 Power Plant (250 Mw)
           	 		840 Fuel (Scoop n/a , Refine n/a)

                                               	Sandcaster (24 Cans)

1x HangarFacility (Ship's Boat)            A 1 P 2 J 0 Sensors
                                      0 Armor, 8 Structure

Crew Detail: 1 Command, 1 Engineer, 1 Pilot, 1 Navigator, 1 Steward.

300 ton Closed Structure
Not Streamlined
1-G Acceleration
No Armor
Jump-2

TL-11 Thruster Plates provide 3000  tonnes of thrust (1-G)

TL-11 (72mj) L.Laser
TL- 11 Sandcaster

Standard Civilian Controls (Dynamic, High-Automation)
Sick Bay/Kitchen
Internal Hangar (30-ton Spacious)

TL-11 250 Mw Power Plant
Bridge (3 workstations)

6 Small Staterooms
10 Large Staterooms

Assembled by the small Martian ship construction cooperative known as
Phobos Yards, this custom designed pleasure yacht is a one of a kind
original initially designed as a mobile home and office for the Marquis of
Melanor.  The hull of the ship is a small iron-based asteroid recovered
from the nearby main belt in the Terran system. Perhaps the most
interesting features of the ship are the rooms and corridors where the
original rough, irregular surfaces of the asteroid have been preserved.
This was intentional and designed to evoke the dungeon-like feel of the
strange and mysterious underground passages beneath the Terran Mad Ludwig's
famous castle (which captured the Marquis' imagination when he first saw
them).  Hence the name of the ship class. The following areas have not been
left "natural," for obvious reasons: Bridge, Engineering Deck, Cargo Hold,
Sick Bay, Hangar, Crew Staterooms, and most access areas. The remainder of
the ship, which includes most passageways, all the Staterooms, and the
special custom rooms detailed below, are of tunneled out iron rock. Control
panels, lights, fixtures, and other interfaces are tastefully set into the
rock walls, and blend into the surroundings to heighten the effect.

The Ludwig is a pleasure craft, wholly unsuited for travel in frontier
environments. To begin with it is unstreamlined, and has no facilities for
fuel scooping or purification. Access to a type A or B starport with
refined fuel is almost a necessity. This serves the purposes of the ship's
owner ideally, since he has no intention of using the vessel as anything
other than a mobile base from which to entertain and conduct his business.
Being a noble, his business rarely takes him out of the established
spacelanes. For planetside landings, the Yacht carries in its spacious
hangar a well appointed 30-ton Ship's Boat (The _Lippizaner_) that sees to
the Marquis' needs quite well. The ship is unarmored, and only very lightly
armed with a light laser (fore) and sandcaster (aft). It has been designed
using TL-11 technology, so that it can be repaired and maintained on the
Marquis' home planet.

There are two main features of the ship which stand out from regular
vessels, and they are described below:

Conference Room/Dining Hall/Ballroom

Taking up the entire top deck of the ship (w/ the exception of the elevator
which provides access) is a large room (30m x 20m). The walls (up to about
8') have been carved out of the rough iron of the asteroid, and the top of
the room is a large, sealed dome, attached onto the "top" of the asteroid,
which provides spectacular space vistas in all directions. The dome can be
darkened when in Jumpspace. The room is used both as a Dining Hall and
Ballroom (the solid wood floor is perfect for this purpose). (Ref's Note:
The combination of spectacular vistas and the beautifully appointed antique
surroundings provides a juxtaposition which should get just about any ref's
descriptive juices flowing).

Grotto

One of the large staterooms has been converted into a beautiful secluded
grotto, complete w/ small waterfall and pool (all connected to the ship's
life support system). This area also has a large collection of tropical
plants, and appropriate wildlife noises can be pumped through the intercom.

The entire ship is decorated with splendid reproductions of Terran Baroque
and Rococo furniture and art. The Dining Hall features an ornate dining
table w/high backed chairs which seats up to 15 people comfortably. The
Louis XIV style is dominant, but other items are also present. Mirrors and
artwork decorate many of the rough-hewn walls, making the effect a most
astonishing one. Sconces w/ flickering florescent flames adorn the walls of
many passageways. The main stateroom features an ornate four poster bed and
matching dresser made of cherry.

There is a well appointed kitchen for serving special meals. (Design note:
This is in lieu of the Sick Bay, which is little more than a workstation,
automated medical assistant and medicine cabinet). Needless to say, the
crew are well taken care of and serve the Marquis with unquestioned loyalty.

Finally, when not in use, the cargo bay can be converted into a small
fencing venue, complete w/ spectator's seats and automated judging/scoring
system.

Note: There has been some talk about setting a whodunnit mystery abord a
starship recently. In my opinion, this ship would be ideal for the purpose.
Where mysteries are concerned, setting is everything...




Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 18:25:56 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

Harold Hale wrote:

>   Make the whole thing available as a piece of software that will
>generate crushing detail for you, including world maps.

What you want is Metator! ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 18:28:21 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Birthdays

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>> Perhaps what we need is a starter edition of Traveller... not unlike the
>> version put out by WEG for Star Wars! (Not that I'm the first to suggest
>> it!)
>
>I always felt insulted and patronised by "Starter Editions", the
>implication being that I was too young and/or stupid to understand the
>real thing. YMMV, of course.

But when I started playing Traveller it had two advantages - 1) it was
available in the UK at the time and (2) it was cheaper than the full
version. At the age of 12 the latter was very important!


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1559
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 14 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1560



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Earth in (now)
Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
terms
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: [T97#1551] Scout Motto
WTB: Traveller Alien Modules
Re: World Generation
Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4
Re: Scout Xen Xanfried
Re: Mottos and "dead" languages
Re: China Boys
Re: RoM Technology Debate
Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)
Sabmiqys
Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)
[none]
Re: Adventure postings

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 13:29:24 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Earth in (now)

QUOTE FROM A RANT:
This part unfortunately ring true, no thanks to the government of Brazil,
those who still believe that a panda's liver will help their sex life, and
people who would rather have strip malls instead of parks.

Yep. For every problem we solve, more idiocy rises to take its place. The
pollution problems are still there, but there has been, and continues to be,
a great deal of progress. Enough Generation X angst about the end of the
world, we are doing okay. 

It is just sad that, by the time we might have the tech to leave the world
and explore the stars, we are losing our educational system. 

And to quote PJ O'Rourke to Gen Xers: Turn your hat around, pull up your
pants and get a job

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:37:00 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)

Joul, Christopher wrote:
> 
> Hijacking is always a posibility, and so is a sabateur (though why
> anyone would sabotage the ship which is keeping them alive requires a
> good explanation).
> 

Religious fanatics bent on sending everyone to the next life?
Fanatical terrorists determined to avenge the latest wrong?
Someone who just snaps and decides to take a few with 'em?
Someone who has a new "theory" of how hyperspace works, can't find
anyone to test it, so decides to pick a "volunteer" ship?

> Malfunction in the VR entertainment suite provides an unusual adventure.

Puuuuleeeesse no. Plots like this are the reason I stopped watching
Star Trek:TNG.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:50:33 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

>Let Marc know how you feel about:
>
>  1)  Is fixing the stars in Traveller a big deal?

Yes, I've been very frustrated in trying to make sense out of the stellar
data produced by various sources and the rules themselves. The bias towards
white dwarfs all over the place shure needs fixing.

>  2)  What should happen to the existing data in print and ftp?

Keep it as is or clearly mark it as prefix or postfix data (if you follow
my terminology ;)

>  3)  How much of an Expanded Generation System is need?

I need as much data as possible as I like realism in the deep space parts
of Traveller roleplaying. But if that is too much trouble then the expanded
UWP with stars, gGGS and belts is OK.

>  4)  Any other opinion of relevance?

Leroy note a real world(tm) nebula that may be located in core sector somewhere.
PLEASE make this canon and sprinkle texts here and there with references like:

"As she viewed the land soon to become hers she notice for the first time
just how beautiful it was; illuminated by the core nebula the fields
shimmered weakly in strange colors like jewels. As she reluctantly returned
to the ballroom smiling at her guests she thought once again about ways to
inconspicuously killing her old father, the Duke"

Do not use it as a plot for Trecky adventures though.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 10:08:26 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

At 04:49 PM 7/12/97 -0400, Marc wrote:

Let me state first that I approve of multiple careers.  I have no problem
with a penalty DM, but the fact remains that everyone does _something_, so
if a person is going to play a 40 year old, and they blow a survival or
re-enlist after one term, we need a way of figuring out what they are going
to do to fill the intervening 18 years.  Second careers works for me.

On the other hand, some careers cannot be started late, while others can
be.  Losing a job is not equivalent to a failure to reenlist for a
businessman, but it is for a Navy man.

>I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.
>
>Like... 
>
>When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.

Yep.  Military careers had the right feel for a muster-out and a pension.

>When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out benefits.

On the other hand, you had been paid a salary, and had saved (or not) some
amount of cash and things.  Since the system does not cover that, mustering
out is a fair way of handling it.

I might prefer one, though, that gave salaries and had percentages taken
away.  For example, a person with a total skill in the area equal to the
number of terms or the rank they hold gets a given salary.  If they live
normally, they have some money, some stuff and some debt.  The balance
between these would vary with world and culture, of course.

If they live carefully, they keep a higher percentage, but should probably
keep playing this miserly lifestyle, while if they live profligate, then
they have less cash, but might have more stuff or a higher perceived SS.

>And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than when I
>started. 

Yep.  That is a pain.

I believe it was Millennium's End that had a deal where you determined your
career each year, and then got a blob of skills and a blob of cash and
stuff each year.  Some careers had a chance to lose money as well as gain,
and could result in taking a term or two of the "jailed criminal" career.

>For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

Perhaps, perhaps, but it would have to be carefully done.  I kind of like
the idea of getting some amount of stuff on a yearly basis, and the higher
the potential reward, the higher the risk.  Someone who saves carefully,
will have a nice, safe nest egg.  Someone who invests aggressively will
have either a much bigger one, or a much smaller one.  The charts can
reflect that by giving cash benefits based on an average, with potential
negatives, I suppose.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:15:07 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: terms

Just working it out....

Term One: university (+ part time military)
Term Two: miscellaneous dead end small jobs (Hey! a new career for
Traveller)*
Term Three: re-enlist in dead end jobs
Term Four: bureaucrat (First year of it anyway)

* I am working on it. Maybe this could be a series? Non-earth shaking jobs
for Traveller;
mcjobs, security guard, temp, janitor, retail sales, warehouse, farmer

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:20:57 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

>>Actually though, I didn't expect you to be influenced by the facts--I do
>>expect some others "out there" to be happy that I have given them some
>>backup for what I had claimed, and they rejoiced in.
>
>OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
>net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
>believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
>this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
>some of your points.
>
>>Like I said, you can promote all this "world-bending" at TL12, but that
>>doesn't leave much fun for the sense of awe that the TI will have for us
>>in M1100 (or the RoM in M-1800).
>
>You want space opera?  Fine, you can declare that the Ancients were really
>the Solomani for all I care, just don't try to push it down our throats.
>
>>Have all the fun you want to in this thread, but I am moving on.
>
>Cutting and running. Good tactic, goes well with the "Silent Majority."

- - As we sat there waiting for Leroys long awaited revelations of his
perpetuum mobile machine we wondered at what direction humanity would move
now that we had infinite power at our hands. When he finally showed up he
apologized for his machine not working right due to vortexes in the ley
lines and told us that the experiment workesd flawlessly just a couple of
hours ago and that he was backed by powerful organizations who choose to
remain in secret. Leroy told us that despite all heartless debunkers he
siply ignored them and wanted to move on to greater things. His film of the
device had been stolen from his hotelroom the night before by unknowns
(Leroy hinted at government agents).

After the lights went on the awe started to wear off and as we drove home
an irritating feeling cropped up: was this all there was to it? What about
the proof that the pamphlet promised - heck it was even printed on the
ticket that "Our entire worldview would change forever" -

I like Leroys stuff on Traveller astronomy and I hope he doesn't take
offense in poking parodying him a bit but it felt like he was begging for
it.
I put a smiley here     ;)

(Those wanting more evidence against Solomani godhood should read the
interview with Marc Miller in one of the Digests; Portraying the Solomanis
as bumbling fools was only one of the many good plottricks MM used to turn
peoples preconceived notions on their heads.)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 97 19:03 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: [T97#1551] Scout Motto

In-Reply-To: <33c92825.12317442@earth.execnet.com>

Jeff,

> >> >"To infinity...AND BEYOND!!"
> >> 
> >> now put that in Latin, and we got a winner!
> >
> >"Ad Infinitem Et Ultra."
> >
> >Wow...I think we *do* have a winner!
>  
> Actually, when I saw this one, I thought of a slightly different
> one - strictly unofficial, mind you:
>  
> "Per aspera ad aspera extra"
>  
> "Through hardship to more hardship"

Heh...yeah, I can definitely see that as the *un*official motto.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:51:31 -0400
From: "Scott Spieker" <scspieker@ncweb.com>
Subject: WTB: Traveller Alien Modules

Mark Miller,

	(Guys I'm sorry to send this through the TML to Mark, but I can't seem to
get a response through the standard E-mail system.)
	I have received your e-mail, and I would like to purchase the alien
modules you have listed.  What is the prefered payment method, and where do
I send the payment to?  Please respond to scspieker@ncweb.com  Thanks,
Scott Spieker

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 15:08:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: World Generation

In a message dated 97-07-14 11:01:03 EDT, you write:

<< 
 I like this idea!  Marc, pay attention to this one.
 
  >>

I read it already.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 15:01:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

In a message dated 97-07-14 10:47:16 EDT, you write:

<< You should also indicate how the important holidays are observed,
including
 any movable/midweek holidays.  (Personally, I like the idea of the Imperium
 keeping holidays firmly attached to the original commemorative date, rather
 than following the current custom of moving them to the closest weekend so
 that people can go to the cottage.)
 
  >>
Most dates are established (Veterans Day) on a Friday or a Monday. I suppose
the Emperor's birthday moves around depending on when he was actually born.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 15:04:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4

In a message dated 97-07-14 14:01:34 EDT, you write:

<<=20
 What important dates are there besides 001?
=20
  >>
IMPORTANT DATES
Date	Event
	001	Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
	009	School Year Starts
	091	Armed Forces Day
	181	Mid-Year Break.
	271	Thanksgiving
	328	School Year Ends (Graduation)
	359	Year End Break (to 365)

	varies	The Emperor=92s Birthday.

I'll leave this as an exercise to determine what day of the week these
holidays fall on (based on the named days in the Imperial Calendar). They=
 ARE
the same every year.

Marc

=20

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 11:06:59 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Scout Xen Xanfried

William F. Hostman wrote

> Dom wrote
> Subject: Scout Xen Xanfried
> 
> >Subject: Re:Scout Motto and a Casual Encounter
> >aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman) wrote:
> >
> >Casual Encounter - Xen Xanfried, Scout
> ><snip, text clipping, paste to NPC file>
> >excellent post - now he may timeslip some 90 years into the future! ;-)
> >Thanks...
> >Dom

>         Thank-you VERY much for the praise... Peter has played several who encountered Xen at one time or another...

Sound of semi terrorized player wimpering

Will treats this charecter like a wandering monster from Dungeons &
Dragons, or like a Demon - if you say his name, he may appear.  Every
time someone mentioned his name Will would roll to see if he would show
up in the adventure....

> In my version of m1100, he's actually one of eight clones; 

Which was why he could show up anywhere, even right after you had seen
someone put about 4 shots through his head.  His ship Amy seemed to
misjump at least 30 to 40% of the time, always in the direction the
story needed to take him.... At least one of my charecters was quite
convinced that Amy the Computer knows how to cause a controlled misjump.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 12:39:03 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Mottos and "dead" languages

Bill Prankard wrote, re: ad infinitem et ultra:

>If not Latin, how about Vilani?  That seems to be like "latin" in the 3I.
> Especialy in M:0.  And whats cool is that it isn't as dead as latin, but
>its not the 'common' tounge either.
>
>Maybe the TravLang group can help us out with this one?  :-)

Can't speak for the group... which is sorta dead these days, anyway.  But
I'd be glad to cobble something together along the lines we did come up
with.  Give me a day!

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 12:36:19 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: China Boys

Leonard Erickson wrote in response to me:

>> Other than Tibet, and border clashes with Vietnam and India, the Chinese
>> have shown no interest in doing much outside their traditional borders.
>
>They've shown a strong interest in *Russian* territory. Especialy
>resource rich areas like Siberia. There's a reason the Soviets kept a
>lot of troops on the border with China!

Yes, I'm sorry if I didn't introduce that paragraph clearly.  The regions
of Siberia which China presently claims/recently has claimed are those
which it controlled -- or at least held some political sway over -- in the
Yuan-Ming-Qing periods.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 17:50:01 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: RoM Technology Debate

Leonard Erickson writes:



>> 3) Rating inventions rather than capabilities (this is *very* Vilani 
>> and completely anti-Terran).
>>
>> For example, there is no practical difference between TL4 and TL5 as 
>> far as Mechanical technology *capabilities* are concerned -- a number 
>> of excellent SF Books have been written (Harrison, Turtledove et al) 
>> in recent years whereby Time Travellers give the CSA Sten Guns/K-47s 
>> -- and these are not fantasy, the mechanical (and related) technology 
>> of the 1860s is quite up to producing such items. In fact, it is my 
>> understanding that a Sten Gun or AK-47 (or even an M-16) is 
>> mechanically *simpler* to produce than, say, a Lee Enfield SMLE .303 
>> Bolt Action Rifle ... as that latter requires a *lot* of expensive 
>> and time consuming precision machining, while Sten Guns and AKs are 
>> basically mostly stampings.
>

>Not so minor detail. The metallurgy of the time (Civil War) is not up
>to manufacturing the steel for the barrel and receiver of an AK-47. And
>the chemical technology doesn't know how to make smokeless powder. That
>took about 40 years of experimentation in the real world, though they
>might be able to speed things up a bit with samples.


**Plot Spoiler Warning**



   In "Guns of the South" a historical novel by Harry Turtledove (one of
my favorite books by the way), the South is eventually able to come up
with gunpowder similar to that found in the bullets for the AK-47, and
make rounds that work in the weapon (Lee was worried about being
dependent on his "benefactors", for good reason).  However, it was also
explained that the new bullets would tend to dirty up the internals of
the weapon much more quickly than the original bullets, and would not
be completely smokeless.



   After the war ended, the North was able to take captured AK-47s and
make crude copies of them (along with the bullets).  While the new
weapons probably weren't as accurate or well machined as the original,
they were good enough to give the North a tremendous advantage, over 
their other neighbors, which they used to conquer Canada (nothing like 
a quick victory to help the masses forget a defeat).



   Back in the real world, gun makers on the Pakistan frontier in the
1980s were able to make copies of the AK-47 for the Afghan Resistance,
even though they were working in conditions that probably weren't much
more technologically advanced than those during the American Civil War. 
They did however have access to modern bullets.



   Having a piece of advanced technology (or should I say,
technologically beyond your current capabilities) in your hands allows
you to take all kinds of shortcuts and avoid technological blind alleys
that would otherwise slow your progress--so long as that technology is 
not so far advanced that its functioning appears magical.  This would 
explain at least part of the reason why the Terrans advance so rapidly 
from TL 9 to 11, but then slow dramatically as they crossed TL 12, even
though they had access to Ancients sites during the RoM.



   What is not explained in T4 is why the Syleans were not able to take
advantage of the relic technology that is apparently still around after
over 1500 years to advance their technological level.  Conspiracy
theories don't cut it, *but* Vilani influence and misinterpretations of
history would.  If, as I postulated some time back, historians of the
early Third Imperium ran across legends and stories that made them 
believe that the RoM had a tech level far in excess of what it actually 
was (TL 16-17, even 20-21 if credit is given to the humans of the RoM 
instead of the Ancients for some archeological sites), it is entirely 
plausible that they would conclude that one of the primary reasons for 
the fall of the Second Imperium was **unchecked technological 
development**.  Certainly the still rather conservative populace (many 
of ethnic Vilani descent) would accept such an explanation if it were
made into a coherent story backed up by believeable theories.  

   Only much later would the myth of a TL 15-16 RoM would be dispelled, 
and technological development on a faster pace be encouraged (the less
than 150 years it takes some worlds in the Third Imperium to get from TL
15 to 16).  Ironically, some of Leroy's supposed justifications for a TL 
16 RoM work quite nicely as the basis for the proposed canon RoM myths.

   A compromise?

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:10:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)

Richard Hough Wrote:-

>I need more adventures to run while the ship is in jump. My players are
>going on a 4-jump journey and I need something to occupy them.

Borrowing shamelessly from Andre Norton's Plague Ship...  How about some
of the crew and passengers (if any) come down with a new and potentially
deadly disease.  The medic can't isolate the agents responsible, the
patients are slowly getting worse, and the disease is spreading.  At this
point the PCs may also start to worry about being locked up in quarantine
for years, even if they survive. 

In the book, the "disease" turned out to actually be caused by bites from
several quite small, hard to locate (and hard to catch/kill) alien
critter.  However, the creatures left no obvious bite marks and stayed
hidden from the crew (in the book the critters were around a foot tall,
bipedal and insect-like) you could also make them able to change color to
add even more fun.  In the book, it also turned out that a rival company
had placed the critters on the ship, a good book, and a fun adventure... 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:42:45 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Sabmiqys

Does anyone recall which issue of JTAS/Challenge/Best of JTAS
contained the writeup of Sabmiqys?  I'm working on Antares sector
for JimV's GALACTIC, and this information is classified as
must-include.

Also, the UWP data I have for that sector doesn't seem to include
... Antares itself.  Can someone give me a location and a UWP for
it?  Or a source for the canonical info?

Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 15:31:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas <douglas@*teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Erwin Fritz wrote:

> Joul, Christopher wrote:
> > 
> > Hijacking is always a posibility, and so is a sabateur (though why
> > anyone would sabotage the ship which is keeping them alive requires a
> > good explanation).
> > 
> 
> Religious fanatics bent on sending everyone to the next life?
> Fanatical terrorists determined to avenge the latest wrong?
> Someone who just snaps and decides to take a few with 'em?
> Someone who has a new "theory" of how hyperspace works, can't find
> anyone to test it, so decides to pick a "volunteer" ship?
> 
> > Malfunction in the VR entertainment suite provides an unusual adventure.
> 
> Puuuuleeeesse no. Plots like this are the reason I stopped watching
> Star Trek:TNG.
> 

Just as a side note...

Until an unfortunate accident recently, the adventuring party centered
around a scientist charactor who had his 'own' lab ship.  Actually, the
lab ship belongs to the university that sponsered the PC, but he was also
saddled with two additional scientists with thier own agendas.

One of these scientists is a J-Space expert, and prior to jumping out the
first time, the previous captain of the lab ship strongly recommended to
the new that the lab be powered off during jumps!

Anyway, I was able to use the additional NPCs as foils for a number of
adventures.

- --------------------------------------------
Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology
                                              -Merlin

douglas@teleport.com
http:\\www.teleport.com\~douglas\

MCSE: Windows95, Windows NT 3.51 Server, Windows NT 3.51 Workstation, 
      Exchange Server, Basic Networking, TCP/IP
- --------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 18:37:56 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [none]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>SD,
>
>> There was an adventure in an old White Dwarf called 'Smile Please', which
>> sort of did the murder mystery....

<snip>

>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>>
>> ... by having the players escort a 'box' on a liner, and have other
>> passengers 'murdered', whilst the box slowly appeared to be a Psionic
>> computer... and it was all a candid camera set up. Wouldn't work on their
>> own ship though, unless you turned it around so they were paid to pull the
>> prank...
>
>That was an *evil* scenario, and I nearly got lynched for running it..:-)

I got the same reaction...

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 00:04:51 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>SD,
>
>> There was an adventure in an old White Dwarf called 'Smile Please', which
>> sort of did the murder mystery....

<snip>

>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>> SPOILER NOTICE
>>
>> ... by having the players escort a 'box' on a liner, and have other
>> passengers 'murdered', whilst the box slowly appeared to be a Psionic
>> computer... and it was all a candid camera set up. Wouldn't work on their
>> own ship though, unless you turned it around so they were paid to pull the
>> prank...
>
>That was an *evil* scenario, and I nearly got lynched for running it..:-)

I got the same reaction...

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1560
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1561



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Holidays, Important Dates
Re: Challenge mag
Artemsus anagathics and conspiracy
Sabmiqys and Antares
Re: Tech Level of the Rule of Man/Terran Confederation....
Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
"Dark Ages" trade
Re: Holidays, Important Dates
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)
T4 CharGen Program Test Version 
Re: Terrain (was Software)
Re: collapse
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Info on TL 8-9 Maneuver drives?
Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?
Re: Terraforming
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Terrain
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Terrain
Xen and the art of GM'ing
sabmiqys
Important Dates?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 14:54:32 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Holidays, Important Dates

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> IMPORTANT DATES
> Date    Event
>         009     School Year Starts

Is it logical to mandate a fixed date for this one for EVERY world
in the Imperium? Or is this just for Imperium-wide institutions like
Naval Academies.

What about cultures where schooling isn't done in an institution,
where it might be done in the home? What about cultures where schooling
isn't done at all?

On agricultural worlds, this date might cause conflicts if the children
are needed to help with harvesting crops and the local year doesn't
have the same length as the Imperial one.

>         271     Thanksgiving

This one I find odd. In Canada and in the U.S. this holiday exists
because we're basically settlers from afar. Europe and Asia, to the
best of my knowledge, do not celebrate this one.

I figure that this holiday, if celebrated at all, would vary depending
upon the world you're on. 

>         328     School Year Ends (Graduation)

See my points above regarding the beginning of the school year.

>         359     Year End Break (to 365)
> 

Does this means that this entire week is a holiday? Damn, my characters
just went through the end of 1106 and I only gave 001 as a holiday.


The way I see it (YMMV), the Imperium has a "hands-off" policy to
local planetary culture, as long as the security of the realm isn't
threatened. Therefore there should be very few dictated holidays
from the Iridium Throne. Local holidays will almost always prevail over
Imperial ones. 

Having said that, I can still see 001, the Emperor's birthday and
Armed Forces day being used.

Ah well, just my two bits. 

As always, comments are appreciated and solicited.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:44:22 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Challenge mag

At 07:56 AM 7/14/97 +0000, Steven wrote:
>Hello,
>  What was the last issue number of Challenge?
>I begin to harbour a horrible suspicion that I 
>missed some.
>
>        whimper,
>                Steven Hudson
>
>

The last one on my self is #77; as I had recently renewed my subscription, I
believe that to be last issue published.

Garry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:19:23 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Artemsus anagathics and conspiracy

One thing I particularly like about Andrew V's last posting...
The Lentulis would, of course, insist officially that they are Solomani.
But as Andrew says, there would be lots of winks and nudges behind their
backs...."Yeah, suuurrree they're Solomani...look at the dark hair and
skin...<snicker>...and how their great-great-great grandfather is still
playing racquetball at 145...<smirk>...suuurrreee the Lentuli are
Solomani...<ha ha ha>"
Which is of course exactly the attitude that the Lentuli want to foster. 

Back on the selective breeding and genetics angle: 
I suggest that the Lentulis would keep a particular interest in new human
minor races, trying to select new genelines that they could add to their
own. They would have an ongoing programme seeking out the families
of Vilani super-centenarians for any they'd missed (maybe aged 150+ as a
baseline?). 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:39:00 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Sabmiqys and Antares

Sabmiqys/Antares 2117 X160056-H (m:1100 DATA - SECOND SURVEY - JTAS 28)
Antares/Antares 2421 A762788-B (m:0 DATA - FIRST SURVEY - FS)
Antares/Antares 2421 A762ADA-D (m:1100 DATA - TNS Challenge 43 & VARIOUS
OTHERS)

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:02:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: RSpake2064@aol.com
Subject: Re: Tech Level of the Rule of Man/Terran Confederation....

TL 13 (at least near the end of the war)  it is in the book 101 Vehicles
where there are TL 13 vehicles that where being used near the end of the
fighting and some of the TL 13 Tanks where used on all the worlds....

Ricahrd.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:41:00 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is
belived the belt was made during the "war of the Ancients"....and is all
I've been able to find (in my vast Traveller library--NOT!!) is this
reference.  Can anyone flesh out this info from other canonical sorces
(of which I am lacking many).  That said, I would also be interested in
hearing about any non-canon ideas that anyone has used while their PC's
adventured in this area.  {the preceding sentence was typed while
simultaneously while climbing into my TL35 RoM battledress which
contains, amoung other things, an ECM system that can jam even the most
advanced anti-canon seeking weapons designed by the RCCC (the Royal
Commission for Canon Correctness) ;-}

Thanks in adavance for any help

TT

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:55:54 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: "Dark Ages" trade

Hello,
>   I don't think that there is any doubt that progress in the 5th-12th
>   centuries was much slower than what we are used to today.  What may
>   be a more interesting question is whether progress in that period was
>   slower than in previous ages.  Did technology really regress from
>   that of the Roman period?  Clearly, government regressed.  Less
>   clearly, trade probably regressed too.  According to `theory,' this

  Long-range trade, especially ship-borne, effectively ceased to
exist from the collapse of the Western empire. If this thread
continues, what date range is being treated? Some of the numbers
being tossed about aren't medieval, let alone "Dark".

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:54:05 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Holidays, Important Dates

Hello,

> >         271     Thanksgiving
> 
> This one I find odd. In Canada and in the U.S. this holiday exists
> because we're basically settlers from afar. Europe and Asia, to the
> best of my knowledge, do not celebrate this one.

Quite correct, at least they don't celebrate it in Europe.  When we
first moved to Canada (I was 1 year old) we celebrated our first
Thanksgiving in a McDonalds, cause my parnets had no idea what it was
:-)

The only reason we celebrate it is because it's in recognition of the
first harvest in the New World by the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and,
help from the Natives, etc.  Of course, even here in the North America
the date varies from October 13th in Canada, to the date of November
27th in the USA (never understood that, harvest is over by then...can
anyone Americans please tell me....), so I can't really see it being
standard throughout the Imperium.

Perhaps during the RoM, some Solomani bureaucrat on Sylea was from North
America, and introduced the holiday to Sylea.  It's been celebrated ever
since, and most have forgotten why, but Cleon, being brought up as a
good Sylean included it in his list of Imperial Holidays, the official
writeup of the holiday?

- --Imperial Holidays--
Thanksgiving (271):  A traditional Sylean holiday, first recorded during
the Rule of Man (Second Imperium) over 1500 years ago.  A day of thanks
for the year gone by, including a festive feast, and sometimes a
celebratory party of some sort.  As a favourite holiday of Cleon I
during his upbringing, this holiday was introduced to the Imperium when
the official calender of the Imperium was created in 1.  As such, it has
spread throughout Imperial dominated space as a standard holiday.

- -note:  Solomani sources dictate that the holiday originated on Earth,
but this information cannot be confirmed, and is thought to be some form
of Solomani propoganda.
- --End--
 
> The way I see it (YMMV), the Imperium has a "hands-off" policy to
> local planetary culture, as long as the security of the realm isn't
> threatened. Therefore there should be very few dictated holidays
> from the Iridium Throne. Local holidays will almost always prevail over
> Imperial ones.
> 
> Having said that, I can still see 001, the Emperor's birthday and
> Armed Forces day being used.

Going with the description I gave, I can see the Imperium including
Thanksgiving.  I also see the calender as being a very important tool of
the Imperium.  They don't have that much to show their power of the
realm, but a calender is a very important item, and I can see strict
control being maintained, possibly in the Imperial Office of Calender
Control or whatnot.  In this Bureau, member planets would submit a
calender, and register holidays, etc. with the Imperial Office.  This
way, member planets get their own holidays, while the Imperium keeps
it's control over the dating system.

Thanks,
- -- 
________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"The catherdral of St. Basil in Moscow, Russia was built with 8 cupolas
to commerate the 8 days Ivan the Terrible fought to capture the city of
Kazan.  To make sure that it's architects never again built so
magnificent
a structure, Ivan deprived them of their eyes, arms, and tongues."
				- Ripley's Believe It or Not!

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:56:13 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

At 10:41 PM 7/14/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
>other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is
>belived the belt was made during the "war of the Ancients"....and is all
>I've been able to find (in my vast Traveller library--NOT!!) is this
>reference.  Can anyone flesh out this info from other canonical sorces
>(of which I am lacking many).


Shionty Belt has a large percentage of anti-matter.  It is interdicted for
safety reasons.  At least, that's the offcial story.

>{the preceding sentence was typed while
>simultaneously while climbing into my TL35 RoM battledress which
>contains, amoung other things, an ECM system that can jam even the most
>advanced anti-canon seeking weapons designed by the RCCC (the Royal
>Commission for Canon Correctness) ;-}

We of the RCCC are patient.  You have to come out some time..
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:53:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)

In a message dated 97-07-14 03:25:36 EDT, you write:

<< 
 That still leaves 5 Offices divided into field and Bureaucracy. 
 
 In regards to scout uniforms, the only thing I know for sure is that by
 1100 the standard field duty uniform is the Tailored Vacc Suit. No mention
 is ever made of what color although the B&W pics always show it as some
 sort of dark color. Of course I'm sure that change came about about TL14
 when they become available. I would think that they have gone through
 several changes in uniforms as times change much the same as any other
 branch of the military or civial service has done. 
 
 Jeff
  >>
The background is great,  (tongue firmly in cheek) run a party of office
lackeys and take them through a typical exciting day at the office....okay
maybe not.

I understand that the the Operations Branches all have tailored vacc suits
(do they give them to the bearucrats too, like the "leather bomber jackets"
of the USAF for morale? no offense intended)
But it seems unlikely that they live in the ding dang thing all the time,
that would be like me wearing my flight suit everywhere I went, on and off
duty.  (I do know a few guys like that ;-> , but most are young and think
they are irresistable)   Seems more likely that they would have some sort of
utility uniform for shipboard working.  Or are the ships so unreliable that
they could have a rapid decompression at any given moment(unlikely).

Todd Moody

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:01:13 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: T4 CharGen Program Test Version 

Ok, friends and neighbors, the Traveller Character Generator v0.9(test)
for DOS is now up on the Pan-Imperia web page. This will take a 
character up through generation until the mustering out process, that part
hasn't been coded yet. The program uses the T4 character generation 
system; I've put the program in the current state up to get feedback on 
any bugs, values that don't seem right, suggestions for what y'all would
like to see, etc. As the read.me files states, it is a work in progress and
will
eventually have a DOS or Windows GUI for those who prefer mouse 
clicks to a command line. 

I'd appreciate any comments y'all would like to make, I think it would 
be best to send them to my email account (paud@athens.net) instead of
here, please.

To anyone who decides to give it a test drive, thank you and I hope you
find it of some use. Remember that I am not a programmer, the last time
I actually wrote code was in a Comp Sci class in college back in 1985;
so I'm having to learn a lot as I go. The last time I coded, OOP was just
Alley's last name :)


**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:43:18 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Terrain (was Software)

In mail you write:

>>What animal encounters should be based on are biomes. They are a sort
>>of ecological community type. Somewhere I have a list of the ones on
>>earth. They tend to be based on climate. So you get something quite
>>like tundra if you go far enough up a mountain.
>>
>>So terrain *and* climate add up to the biome.
>
> Could you dig it up? I'm quite interested in doing something more universal
> and useful than the standard animal enc system esp regarding animal types
> and activities. BTW I liked the T2300 pyramid system which at least forced
> the ref to invent some plants to go with his Player Eating animals.

I'd advise doing some reading on ecology. That's where I got my list,
from a pocket intro to ecology. But it's buried in storage along with
most of my library. :-(

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:06:42 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: collapse

In mail you write:

> Kinda blowin' ta hell the "enlightened primitive peoples at one with nature"
>  theories.  Actually most studies of collapsed civilizations seem to point a
> strong causal finger at environmental overuse and subsequent collapse as a
> reason for the fall. This includes Rome, Egypt and a variety of Medieval
> African kingdoms

Also a number of Native American civilizations. For example, it's
thought that the Anasazi culture and several others in the Southwest
and Mexico failed when either a climate change or a major failure in
irrigation structures occured. 

Low tech cultures that are within the first few generations of
irrigated agriculture are *very* vulnerable to "systems failure". They
usually have one dam that's been enlarged slowly over the years and if
it fails after the population hits a certain size odds are that there's
no way to build it up again in time to save them.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:44:06 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

Rob_Prior wrote

> > How about a copy of the Imperial Calendar, with all the important   > > dates markedon it, with just a comment underneath saying that > > players should pick a date at random and the ref should mark it on  > > the calendar.

If Marc wants to stick with the Birthday generation chart he is using
now, perhaps the Calender should be the page facing this chart.

> This sounds really useful.  But I would just say that characters must have a
> birtday, either chosen by the player or randomly selected.
> 
> You should also indicate how the important holidays are observed, including
> any movable/midweek holidays.  (Personally, I like the idea of the Imperium
> keeping holidays firmly attached to the original commemorative date, rather
> than following the current custom of moving them to the closest weekend so
> that people can go to the cottage.)

But using the Imperial calender the same day of the year is always on
the same day of the week.  So all the Imperium has to do when
designating a holiday in the first place is put it on a day that many
people on many planets are more likely to have off anyway, perhaps
Sixday or Sevenday.

Naturally this will not work for The Emperors Birthday (which will fall
on a random day of the week) but that is obviously an important enough
day that the Imperium will want to encourage its member states to let
people have the day off, as a "nation-building" kind of thing.

Triskedeskaphobes should note that using the Imperial Calender the 13th
is _always_ on a Fiday :)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:03:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Info on TL 8-9 Maneuver drives?

Does anyone know any good web sites or other on-line sources for info on
some of the nifty speculative maneuver drive ideas folks at NASA have 
come up with, like gaseous core nuclear fission powered rockets? 


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:12:06 -0800
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?

Here's a suggestion for a Vilani translation of "To infinity and beyond" as
the IISS motto:


       Nakikhidaka Sumkugaguud Sulalaarshadiin


Grammatical breakdown:

     na        - KIKHIDA -    ka
[distributive] - INFINITY - [accusative]

        su                -            m                  - KUGA   -
[1pl subjunctive subject] - [3rd inanimate direct object] - REACH  -
    -          g           -        uud
    -[expansive dimension] - [antecessive converb]

         su               -        la                           - LAAR -
[1pl subjunctive subject] - [imperfect aspectual reduplication] - HALT -

    -       sha            -      d     -          iin
    - [allative dimension] - [negative] - [voluntative/imperative mood]


Literal (official) translation:  Having reached out to the infinte all
around us, let's not stop there!

Notes:  Tone markings were omitted for the sake of clarity for Galanglophones.

The prefix /na-/ is a distributive, refering to a plurality of items
scattered here and there, rather than considered as a group.

The verbal suffix /-g(a)-/ is a "dimensional" affix, indicating movement or
activity that is increasing in intensity, or epxanding outwards from a
center.

The reduplication of the verbal root /LAAR/ indicates the imperfect aspect,
here perhaps signifying a continuous, habitual, or repeated action.  /LAAR/
itself means "to halt, to stop, to quit pursuit" and is closely related to
the root /LAR/ (4th tone) meaning "to practice self-control."  The verbal
suffix /-sha-/ basically indicates motion or action directed away from the
point of reference (usually taken to be the speaker); more idiomatically,
it often carries a formal or polite nuance of distancing the speaker from
the action in question.  The phrasing of this element should also be
considered in the context of the Vilani regard for "knowing one's limits."


Idiomatic back-translation from Vilani:  We're scattered out all over the
place, and let's just keep charging on blindly!

NB:  The usual Vilani abbreviation of this phrase, Na.Su.Su., happens to be
homophonic with the colloquial descriptive term /nasusu/.  As defined in
the standard glossary of Vilani slang:  "to possess a superabundance of
narcissism and machismo, suitable for public mockery."

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:50:02 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Terraforming

Yet another quote:

On 14 Jul 97 at 10:41, Nick Munn wrote:

> Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>:
> 
> > Subject: Re: Terraforming
> 
> Vlandforming? 8-)

"Oh look Zogon! It's oxygen-nitrogen right now, but we can G'Vontform 
it into fluoride in just a couple of years!" :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:54:21 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

>For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?

Personally, I like this idea. Character generation needs to have the
possibility for a negative outcome each term so there is a disincentive to
stay in character generation until you're 50. Because aging rolls don't
start to meet characteristic increases until the late 40s, most Traveller
characters start out around the same age. There should be some tradeoffs in
character generation so younger characters have some advantage. I'm not
saying they should be better, but there should be at least some advantage
(aside from Psionics characteristics, which do not play a significant role
in my campaign).

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 22:33:30 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Terrain

>Personally I like the idea of hexless (and gridless) maps. Coming from a
>war game background I originally fell into the hex grid thinking, but on
>reflection the idea of uncertainty that comes from using "aerial photo
>recon" is more attractive. I can picture the players studying the maps
>with rulers, etc. to map out a route (as in John's post above). It gives
>more of the 'feel' of exploring the unknown. To aid in location the same
>2 sided scaling system seen in most street maps could be used.

I agree completely. With gridless maps the referee can use whatever grid or
measuring system she or he prefers. Personally, I would measure area with
some taut string and photocopy some hex paper on transparencies for
measuring area. A gridless system is far more versatile than breaking
everything into discrete hexes, and works for areas smaller than 1 hex is
size.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:03:31 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

I believe that the custon in Tokyo is to wear a mask when you are 
"infectious", to prevent spreading your germs to others while you 
carry on working/shopping/whatever.

The Japanese are such a polite race!

Simon

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:03:33 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Terrain

> Personally I like the idea of hexless (and gridless) maps.

When I get *my* (:-) I wish) TL 12 scout ship, I think I will write some 
software to lay a scale grid over the SatScans so that I get an immediate 
sense of distances between interesting looking locations. 


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:25:35 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Xen and the art of GM'ing

>Sound of semi terrorized player wimpering
>
>Will treats this charecter [Xen] like a wandering monster from Dungeons &
>Dragons, or like a Demon - if you say his name, he may appear.  Every
>time someone mentioned his name Will would roll to see if he would show
>up in the adventure....

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa. And in times of dire need, how the
players would keep talking him up.... But that actually only occurred in
two campaigns... the rest, I just rolled to make people nervous.

>> In my version of m1100, he's actually one of eight clones;
>
>Which was why he could show up anywhere, even right after you had seen
>someone put about 4 shots through his head.  His ship Amy seemed to
>misjump at least 30 to 40% of the time, always in the direction the
>story needed to take him.... At least one of my charecters was quite
>convinced that Amy the Computer knows how to cause a controlled misjump.

Xen does misjup a lot... courtesy of the MT rules for misjups, most are not
dangerous. What peter fails to realize it that, when we ran under MT, 7%+
of the jumps the players mader were ALSO misjumps of one kind or another...
By MT stock rules, you'll have a 3/36 (~9%) chance of misjump, with 91 % of
misjumps being merely mild time variations from the "167" standards so
only1% of traffic actually goes off course, assuming casual use of
unrefined fuel, and passable maintenance.

And, since one PC decided that Xen could do a Controlled Misjump, he set
off to learn how to himself... Intentionally misjumping the ship more than
once. Good thing MT's misjump rules are so forgiving... something lacking
in T4's...

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:52:21 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: sabmiqys

jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin) wrote:
>Does anyone recall which issue of JTAS/Challenge/Best of JTAS
>contained the writeup of Sabmiqys?


Challenge 28 (I could swear I looked this up for someone a month or so
back!), pp.31-32.

>Also, the UWP data I have for that sector doesn't seem to include
>... Antares itself.  Can someone give me a location and a UWP for
>it?  Or a source for the canonical info?

The article gives: Antares 2117 X-160056-H


It's by Joe Fugate if that's any help.

tc
timothy.collinson@solent.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:58:48 +0100
From: Andy Lilly <a.s.lilly@nortel.co.uk>
Subject: Important Dates?

Marc,

You posted the following IMPORTANT DATES:

>Date	Event
>	001	Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
>	009	School Year Starts
>	091	Armed Forces Day
>	181	Mid-Year Break.
>	271	Thanksgiving
>	328	School Year Ends (Graduation)
>	359	Year End Break (to 365)

Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
certain how to interpret this?

I'd be inclined to put in a few other Imperial holidays if you think it
appropriate, plus some text to say that perhaps these holidays such as the
Mid-Year Break have tended to change name over the years, reflecting the
names of great Imperial heros, e.g. "Cleon Day", "Admiral XYZ's Day", etc.

Perhaps Thanksgiving should be renamed as a general Religious Day, where
every religion across the Imperium is permitted to be practiced without
suppression by the local government, perhaps called "Freedom Day" or
somesuch generality? Perhaps it's a day on which Imperial pardons are handed
out to reformed criminals, and other such niceties. Needless to say the
degree to which it's enforced across the Imperium is limited, but it could
make for some interesting adventure hooks?

Anyone else got any views on what could be regarded as Imperium-wide
holidays? (It might be worth noting in the text for T4.1 that obviously
every world has its own set of holidays, etc. in addition to those given).

Andy

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1561
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1562



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Terrain
Re: TL of RoM
Holidays of the Imperium & schools
Re: Important Dates?
Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)
PE stats for Sylia
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Terrain (was Software)
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1561
Star Generation
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Holidays of the Imperium & schools
thanksgiving
Re: Important Dates?
Boring Jobs (was "terms")
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Holidays, Important Dates
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re[2]: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:35:47 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Terrain

>I agree completely. With gridless maps the referee can use whatever grid or
>measuring system she or he prefers. Personally, I would measure area with
>some taut string and photocopy some hex paper on transparencies for
>measuring area. A gridless system is far more versatile than breaking
>everything into discrete hexes, and works for areas smaller than 1 hex is
>size.
>
>--
>Richard Hough
>rdhough@orca.bc.ca

I much prefer a square grid system with grids in 1000 km, 100 km, 10 km etc
Please avoid the wargameish hexes though. the only reason for using hexes
would be that it was a tradition from the Vilani or somesuch (Hiver?) to
use hexes as mapgrids. The grids should only be guides for measurements and
terrain should compleately ignore the grids - no single terrain per
hex/square please.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:47:37 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: TL of RoM

Harold Hale writes:

>    Only much later would the myth of a TL 15-16 RoM would be dispelled, 
> and technological development on a faster pace be encouraged (the less
> than 150 years it takes some worlds in the Third Imperium to get from TL
> 15 to 16).  Ironically, some of Leroy's supposed justifications for a TL 
> 16 RoM work quite nicely as the basis for the proposed canon RoM myths.

Oooh, I like this idea.

However, it does spoil the myth if one actually finds TL14 RoM gear 
lying around...

... of course, it might be a Darrian import, long forgotten 8-)

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:42:00 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Holidays of the Imperium & schools

> IMPORTANT DATES
> Date	Event
> 	001	Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
> 	009	School Year Starts
> 	091	Armed Forces Day
> 	181	Mid-Year Break.
> 	271	Thanksgiving
> 	328	School Year Ends (Graduation)
> 	359	Year End Break (to 365)
> 
> 	varies	The Emperor's Birthday.

Please can we have Tuday 45 as Valentine's day?  I'd like the 
Valentine's rose to be canonical in some sense.

(It needn't be an Imperial holiday as such, but would be widely 
observed.)

Aren't school years likely to depend on local factors?  Lower TL 
worlds might have graduation just before the harvest, close schools 
for the winter, etc. -- and local years which are longer or shorter 
than 365 standard days might also interfere.

Indeed, will all schools be structured by year?  High tech flexible 
learning might be structured by ability, with a 7 year old rated at 9 
for languages (and learning mostly with nine year olds) but at 6 for 
maths.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:52:20 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

>>Date   Event
>>       001     Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
>>       009     School Year Starts
>>       091     Armed Forces Day
>>       181     Mid-Year Break.
>>       271     Thanksgiving
>>       328     School Year Ends (Graduation)
>>       359     Year End Break (to 365)
>
>Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
>certain how to interpret this?

What about Halloween (all Imperial kids dress up like aliens) and spring
break (all horny Imperials teenagers go to Vland to get drunk & pregnant).

Yanks in space.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 03:03:08 -0700
From: Jeff <nblade@extremezone.com>
Subject: Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)

At 04:22 AM 7/15/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I understand that the the Operations Branches all have tailored vacc suits
>(do they give them to the bearucrats too, like the "leather bomber jackets"
>of the USAF for morale? no offense intended)

Try the field branch mostly, although some of the operation office would
wear one as well when the situation required it. The Admin office would
almost never wear one.


>But it seems unlikely that they live in the ding dang thing all the time,
>that would be like me wearing my flight suit everywhere I went, on and off
>duty.  (I do know a few guys like that ;-> , but most are young and think
>they are irresistable)   Seems more likely that they would have some sort of
>utility uniform for shipboard working.  Or are the ships so unreliable that
>they could have a rapid decompression at any given moment(unlikely).

Well as I stated its a field uniform, which is fairly light and in many
respects looks like some sort of ships jumpsuit. I'm sure that they have
many other types of uniforms and could have a shipboard uniform. Well in
the naval service, I can think of at least 6 uniforms that I owned; 2
dress, 2 working dress, 1 Utility , and 1 engineering smock/coveralls( a
shipboard only uniform. ). I do agree that in their off duty time they
would wear something else.

Jeff

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:24:58 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: PE stats for Sylia

Hi,
	my question is directed at Doug, Stu & Andy really but input from
any source is welcome.

In the PE book - Infrastructure, Culture, Resources are given in an example.
Are these going to be used as canon (basically I'm using Sylea to be the
default generation template. i.e. before you randomly generate or read from a
data file the only world that exists is Sylea). Also can the list decide what
the world character of Sylea is as otherwise I'll have to randomly generate new
values everytime I start the program which is rather messy. And of course for
those people who want to use PE not as game in its own right but as a setting
generator.

Help ?

Terry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:25:36 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

> Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
> certain how to interpret this?

Giving thanks you were born in N. America ;^)


> I'd be inclined to put in a few other Imperial holidays if you think it
> appropriate, plus some text to say that perhaps these holidays such as the
> Mid-Year Break have tended to change name over the years, reflecting the
> names of great Imperial heros, e.g. "Cleon Day", "Admiral XYZ's Day", etc.

I'd have said that Holiday was Cleon's Day, in effect.

> Perhaps Thanksgiving should be renamed as a general Religious Day, where
> every religion across the Imperium is permitted to be practiced without
> suppression by the local government, perhaps called "Freedom Day" or
> somesuch generality? Perhaps it's a day on which Imperial pardons are handed
> out to reformed criminals, and other such niceties. Needless to say the
> degree to which it's enforced across the Imperium is limited, but it could
> make for some interesting adventure hooks?

I can see it now... the Duke on the balcony, the crowd below chanting 
"Release Barabbas!  Release Barabbas!"  (Or possibly Roger...)

I'd really love to run that particular adventure, but it would take a 
very mature group of players and I can't see it being published.  If 
it were reasonably subtle, the players mightn't catch on until near 
the end 8-)

I'd say Holiday would be *the* day for such things; the Holiday 
pardons go well with the honours list.

> Anyone else got any views on what could be regarded as Imperium-wide
> holidays? (It might be worth noting in the text for T4.1 that obviously
> every world has its own set of holidays, etc. in addition to those given).

For purely selfish reasons, Valentine's day (I'll repost the 
reasoning behind it if people want, but basically it was adopted by 
the Vilani under the RoM).  I can see Nobles treating it as a 
splendid custom.

Perhaps one Vilani-influenced holiday -- my preference would be to 
link Holiday with a Vilani "contemplation of empire" tradition.  
Something to emphasise that the 3I isn't just Terrans in Spaaaace.

What would the Imperium want to commemorate/emphasise?  Peace, trade, 
iteself of course, jobs, prosperity and the like.  A world would 
commonly celebrate the day it joined the 3I as a holiday -- many 
choose to join on Holiday, and the original worlds of the Sylean 
Federation will observe Holiday as "the day we founded the Imperium".

A science festival and a trade festival would be appropriate, but I 
don't have any good ideas for them.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 02:31:24 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

Marc Miller Wrote

>Date   Event
>       001     Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
>       009     School Year Starts
>       091     Armed Forces Day
>       181     Mid-Year Break.
>       271     Thanksgiving
>       328     School Year Ends (Graduation)
>       359     Year End Break (to 365)

T4's Starships says (pg 5)

"The Empire observes several standard holidays throughout the year. 
Apart from Holiday (Day 001), four other days are recognized as
Imperial-wide Holidays, all of which fall on a Oneday.  The Emperor's
(Cleon ?) Birthday is celebrated in Oneday 051.  Empire Day, celebrating
the achievments of the Imperial Military, is Oneday 114. Standard
Religious Holiday, for all religions to observe their most holy day, has
been standardized to fall on Oneday 184.  Finally Harvest Revel is held
on Oneday 282 to give thanks for the many blessings of the Imperial
Throne.  Differing regions and planets have other holidays added on, but
these are the Imperial decreed holidays that are observed regardless of
location."

You may want to make sure that the dates you use in T4.1 match those in
Starships.  This seemed to be one of the few things in Starships didn't
mess up. On the other hand if you are going to put these dates in the
T4.1 rulebook, then you can take them out of the new version of
Starships.  

I do suggest that you remove the Standard Religious Holiday listed as
occuring on Oneday 184 as it seems unlikely that the religions would not
protest this sort of thing very strongly, and some planets (Religious
Dictatorships) might avoid joining the Imperium soley to avoid this
government meddling in religion.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:52:20 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: Terrain (was Software)

Hi,

marc said,

>This also depends. By its very nature, hexes are intended to compartmentalize
>terrain so we can judge its effects. On the other hand, if someone wants to,
>they can make a free-ranging map without any hexes or grid at all (but that
>is harder for players to actually use).

strangely enough I've been working on this problem for a entirely different
reason. The best possible solution is for GMs/players to be able to tunnel into
any given hex and see that hex made up of other hexes, simple really. The the
onus is on the GM to make sure that the hexes at that level are defined (for
instance its unnecessary to define smaller hexes if the larger hex is all water
or all desert but if the terrain changes within that hex at a higher
resolution then they are defined at that higher resolution. also this makes
maps rather more dynamic as once the balance of terrain types swings from water
to land (for instance). the super cell above it becomes all land too.

Anyway suffice it to say I'm working onb this at the moment and when I've
finished my actual work :-) I'll create a traveller version.

Terry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:18:55 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1561

Traveller-digest wrote:

> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:55:54 -0700
> From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
> Subject: "Dark Ages" trade
> 
> Hello,
> >   I don't think that there is any doubt that progress in the 5th-12th
> >   centuries was much slower than what we are used to today.  What may
> >   be a more interesting question is whether progress in that period was
> >   slower than in previous ages.  Did technology really regress from
> >   that of the Roman period?  Clearly, government regressed.  Less
> >   clearly, trade probably regressed too.  According to `theory,' this
> 
>   Long-range trade, especially ship-borne, effectively ceased to
> exist from the collapse of the Western empire. If this thread
> continues, what date range is being treated? Some of the numbers
> being tossed about aren't medieval, let alone "Dark".
> 
>         Steven Hudson
> 

Technology, if anything, advanced substantially from the Roman to the
Medieval period. I'm sure Dr Clark will correct me if I'm wrong,
but Lynn White's "Medieval Technology and Social Change" is still
pretty much holding up as a standard work, and is a damn good
read to boot (if apparently wrong in some matters of detail).

Whether or not long-distance trade collapsed after the end of the
Western Roman Empire is a hotly debated point. What I will say
is substantial evidence exists for trade across the North Sea,
between Constantinople and the Frankish Kingdoms and a large
trade in "tourism" through the movement of pilgrims to and
from the holy places of Christendom between the 5th and 10th
centuries.

Ian Whitchurch

PS I know it's bad form not to actually cite alleged evidence,
but I cant find the needed volume of Braudel ... I know the
first work about the continuity of trade during the "dark ages"
was Henri Pirenne's Mahomet et Charlemagne, in the late 19th
century. The rise of the view of the "Middle Ages" *as a time
of progress* can be dated from this book, IMO.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:58:38 GMT0
From: terry.williams@luton.ac.uk
Subject: Star Generation

Hi,
	could someone send the system (and a complete list of valid types and
contraints) for generating star types. I've only got the T4 books to work from
(sorry I sold TLBB around 17 years ago :-(    ).

Send it to terry@luton.ac.uk as I don't want to bore the list with stuff they
already know.

Terry

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:22:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

In a message dated 97-07-15 05:30:10 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Perhaps Thanksgiving should be renamed as a general Religious Day, where
 every religion across the Imperium is permitted to be practiced without
 suppression by the local government, perhaps called "Freedom Day" or
 somesuch generality? Perhaps it's a day on which Imperial pardons are handed
 out to reformed criminals, and other such niceties. Needless to say the
 degree to which it's enforced across the Imperium is limited, but it could
 make for some interesting adventure hooks?
>>
I doubt various religions would all agree to observe their specific holidays
on the same date. Religions have their own holidays... an enlightened
government will allow people personal days; an unenlightened government (or
employer) won't.

Thanksgiving may be given religious overtones, but it is a family holiday
meant for family gatherings.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:22:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

In a message dated 97-07-15 05:30:10 EDT, you write:

<< Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
 certain how to interpret this?
 
 >>
I am sure there are many many people in the growing Imperium who, when
confronted with the need to adopt the Imperial calendar posed the same
questiuon (perhaps substituting Imperial for "(North) American"). And without
official guidance, it may be that the holiday has different meanings on
different worlds (or in different regions).

Meanwhile, it does seem that everyone understands Armed Forces Day.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:21:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

In a message dated 97-07-15 07:41:15 EDT, you write:

<< 
 You may want to make sure that the dates you use in T4.1 match those in
 Starships.  This seemed to be one of the few things in Starships didn't
 mess up. On the other hand if you are going to put these dates in the
 T4.1 rulebook, then you can take them out of the new version of
 Starships.  
 
  >>
(vent mode on)

Starships was also rushed into print without anyone who wrote in in even
talking to me. I really didn't understand why the calendar was in Starships
anyway.

Meanwhile, I agree that Religious Holiday comes out. 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:22:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Holidays of the Imperium & schools

In a message dated 97-07-15 07:41:02 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Please can we have Tuday 45 as Valentine's day?  I'd like the 
 Valentine's rose to be canonical in some sense.
 
 (It needn't be an Imperial holiday as such, but would be widely 
 observed.)
 
 Aren't school years likely to depend on local factors?  Lower TL 
 worlds might have graduation just before the harvest, close schools 
 for the winter, etc. -- and local years which are longer or shorter 
 than 365 standard days might also interfere.
 
 Indeed, will all schools be structured by year?  High tech flexible 
 learning might be structured by ability, with a 7 year old rated at 9 
 for languages (and learning mostly with nine year olds) but at 6 for 
 maths.
 
>>

For Tuday 045  to be Valentine's day, you'll have to enlist the support of
the greeting card companies.

As to school years, you see the great problems for calendar reform across
interstellar distances. The Imperium dictates few things, but calendar reform
is one of them. For those in the Imperium, this IS how they do things. At
least, this IS how the reports are filled out on Sylea. Locally, I'm sure the
principals and administrators just do as they always have and then date the
diplomas 328-XXX.

Initially there will be conservative resistance to change. But a school year
needs to be about a year long. A system with a physical year half as long
would probably have twice as many grades teaching half as much each.

Just like a kid finishing High School a semester early and having to wait to
June for the diploma. Or someone in independent study having to wait until
the standardized tests are administered before he can actually get credit.
Schools are built around bureaucracies rather than for the needs of students
to get on with their lives.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:00:38 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: thanksgiving

Quote Andy Lilly:
Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
certain how to interpret this?

This is when North Americans celebrate the fact that the locals didn't kill
us when we got here. According to legend, the Indians gave the starving
colonial idiots some food and said let's be friends.
(SUCKER!)

Quote Andy Lilly again:
Perhaps Thanksgiving should be renamed as a general Religious Day, where
every religion across the Imperium is permitted to be practiced without
suppression by the local government, perhaps called "Freedom Day" or
somesuch generality? 

Freedom and religion are not the same animal. They don't even belong in the
same room together, Perhaps there would be a Multicultural Day, celebrating
the vast panoply that makes up the Imperium. I think in the interests of
survival, the Imperium would be, by necessity, a secular state. REALLY
secular, because the slightest foray into religion brings heat that they
would not want (like this probably will) in their formative stages. They
would probably begin entering into official religions once they were secure,
and had people believing in the ideals rather than just the economic
advantages. 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 06:03:47 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

> Marc,
> 
> You posted the following IMPORTANT DATES:
> 
> >Date	Event
> >	001	Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
> >	009	School Year Starts
> >	091	Armed Forces Day
> >	181	Mid-Year Break.
> >	271	Thanksgiving
> >	328	School Year Ends (Graduation)
> >	359	Year End Break (to 365)
> 
> Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
> certain how to interpret this?

Andy,

Who says that an Imperial Thanksgiving is directly related to the
North American holiday?  

Maybe we're all supposed to give thanks that the Imperium has come 
to being and included our world in its sphere of control, er, um, 
protection :-)

Or perhaps it is directly related and through the years has just 
devolved into a general day of thanks for what we have and has 
nothing whatever to do with religion at all. With its origins so lost 
in the mists of time no one remembers how it came to being.

The name portrays a simple concept, a day of giving thanks. How it is 
interpreted from there is up to the referee... at least until 
canonical references dictate otherwise.

Regardless, I'm sure it isn't the celebration of pilgrims and three 
ships crossing an ocean on some planet to escape religious 
persecution. 

Suz 

Suzette C. Dollar
#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 1997 13:03:49 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Boring Jobs (was "terms")

>* I am working on it. Maybe this could be a series? Non-earth shaking jobs
>for Traveller;
>mcjobs, security guard, temp, janitor, retail sales, warehouse, farmer

Already done for MegaTraveller.  In HyperCard format, check out
http://www.interlog.com/~dmci104/GamingClub/Traveller/software.html and find
the MegaCharacter file.  

This is a HyperCard character generator.  It includes a _lot_ of non-standard
but everyday careers, because I used it mostly for creating detailed NPCs.
(It also generates physical descriptions and psychological profiles
(motivations and personality) because I wanted to make every NPC a potential
detailed NPC.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 1997 13:20:44 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

>Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
>other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.

I remember readiong something about contra-terrene matter (antimatter) but
can't remember where.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 1997 13:19:31 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Holidays, Important Dates

- ---start quote---
On agricultural worlds, this date might cause conflicts if the children
are needed to help with harvesting crops and the local year doesn't
have the same length as the Imperial one.

>         271     Thanksgiving

This one I find odd. In Canada and in the U.S. this holiday exists
because we're basically settlers from afar. Europe and Asia, to the
best of my knowledge, do not celebrate this one.

I figure that this holiday, if celebrated at all, would vary depending
upon the world you're on. 
- ---end quote---

Thanksgiving as a harvest festival was originally an American custom that
migrated to Canada (although I should note that we celebrate a different day
up here).  England (and France) have Harvest Festivals, at least locally
celebrated in rural communities (speaking from experience).


I see the school days as representing Imperial academies, and possibly
Imperially-supported local universities.  In an effort to standardize, the
Imperium may well ride roughshod over local customs (or some planetary
givernors might).  Hmmm.

Adventure idea: players are on a world which has just converted everything to
Imperial calendar, under orders from insensitive Imperial governor.  School
is in session - in the middle of local hurricane season (when all sensible
people used to remain in shelters).  Players must help rescue schoolchildren,
and then convince governor that not everything can be changed.  Plot twist:
players discover that governor has no opinion on subject, but enthusiastic
planetary government decided to throw away all local institutions so that
planet would not be regarded as 'hicks' - players must convince local
government that Imperium doesn't care about local caledars as long as
citizens can convert to Imperial for offworld transactions.  (Hint: play on
hero status, and shamelessly use Imperial citizenship as 'authority')


What I would like to see on the Imperial holiday list would be some
commemorative battles and major events.  For example, up here we still have
Victoria Day (although that has become just a long weekend, almost no one
honours the dead queen anymore).  But the equivalent of the D-day landings,
Hiroshima, and so on would at least be remembered.   This would be an easy
way of introducing Imperial history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 03:06:04 -0700
From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

John Wood@CBTSYSTEMS
07/15/97 03:06 AM
I think we should avoid Amerocentric and Terracentric holidays in the
Imperial calendar. Adding days like Thanksgiving tends to perpetuate the
'Minnesota-in-space' syndrome that can detract so much from the atmosphere
of a game set amongst thousands of alien stars in a time when our present
culture will be dead and forgotten.
     You should also remember that public holidays are a subtle instrument
of the state - a means of reinforcing a particular cultural vision,
ideology, religion or whatever. With this in mind I think imperium-wide
holidays will tend to be limited to days such as Holiday, which celebrate
an event of universal political and cultural significance to the worlds of
the Third Imperium. The start and end of school years will be local
affairs.
     By the way, did you know that in Britain the monarch has two
birthdays? One is his/her own birthday and this changes from monarch to
monarch. The other is the Official Birthday which is a public event and
takes place on the same date every year. Cleons official birthday is much
more likely to be a cause for a public, imperium-wide holiday than the end
of the school year.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Jul 1997 13:29:05 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
Subject: Re: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

>I believe that the custon in Tokyo is to wear a mask when you are 
>"infectious", to prevent spreading your germs to others while you 
>carry on working/shopping/whatever.
>
>The Japanese are such a polite race!

While many of my parents send their kids to school when they are _extremely_
sick (and infectious) because "they are too sick to stay home alone", which
usually results in half the class being sick the next week.  Something
missing from their sense of social responsibility, I think....

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:37:38 +1000 (EST)
From: David Jaques-Watson <davidjw@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Re[2]: Writing a Traveller story...need some answers please

Dear Folks -

Well, I've delved back through my Library Data references and, well, *gasp*
could I be WRONG??! The best I can come up with is the MT Encyc which says
Capital has been the seat of government since the founding of the Third
Imperium - no mention of the name change. My Amiga is still packed away (we
moved house a month ago) so I can't check the HIWG references; this _may_ be
where I got the reference from. However, that would still make it
unsubstantiated.

So! where does that leave us? Well, I better fix my web Library Data, for
one. ;-)  And yes, the fact that Mileau 0 calls the planet Sylea does seem
to be a give-away...

I like Michael Barry's idea that the term "Capital" found initial usage in
slang. I also like Andrew Boulton's idea, that the _official_ name change
occurred when Artemsus Lentuli took over as the third Emperor. That really
sounds quite plausible. You can just see Art "weeping" over poor old Cleon
I's grave and promising the citizenry that he, Artemsus, will keep the
"wonderful legacy left to us" alive and well - with a nod and a wink to the
nobility, of course.

As Andrew says, the city now known as "Cleon" was probably renamed at the
same time.

BTW, the excerpts from _Scouts and Assassins_ were not meant as "canon"
references; that's why I said "S&A _suggests_...." This has not been a
"canonical" reference for Scouts ever since GDW wrote Book 6, even if it had
some neat ideas. ;-)

However, for those who think that different domains may have different
uniforms, or that uniforms change over time [insert "Star Trek" reference
here], or otherwise like throwing their players a variant to keep them
awake, it's a suggestion.
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)                         davidjw@pcug.org.au
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1562
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1563



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)
IISS Motto
IISS Motto (was Writing a Traveller story...)
Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Important Dates?
Re: World generation
Imperial Calendar and local calendars
Re: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?
SSDS  Newbie Questions
PE in 1100 (was: PE stats for Sylia)
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Important Dates?
THUDDD 5 Submission : The Rising Star

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:46:42 -0500
From: "Joul, Christopher" <JOUC1@Aerial1.com>
Subject: Re: Jump Adventures (was Adventure postings)

I wrote:-

>> Malfunction in the VR entertainment suite provides an unusual adventure.

Erwin Fritz  Responded:-

>Puuuuleeeesse no. Plots like this are the reason I stopped watching
>Star Trek:TNG.

I was more thinking of the 'Better Than Life' game from Red Dwarf, but
on reflection I can see how you immediately thought of ST:TNG.

Chris.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:42:54 +1000 (EST)
From: David Jaques-Watson <davidjw@pcug.org.au>
Subject: IISS Motto

Dear Folks -

Re: my last attampt at a motto:
Aw, damn! AB already thought of that one!

Just goes to show, read ALL your mail before you reply...
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)                         davidjw@pcug.org.au
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:40:25 +1000 (EST)
From: David Jaques-Watson <davidjw@pcug.org.au>
Subject: IISS Motto (was Writing a Traveller story...)

Dear Folks -

Jeff wrote:
>BTW if any one does come up with a good motto tell me.

Oh! Oh! Just thought of one! How about:
        "To Infinity And Beyond!"

;-)
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)                         davidjw@pcug.org.au
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 00:04:31 +1000 (EST)
From: David Jaques-Watson <davidjw@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Dear Folks -

Douglas, of the RCCC, is correct (presumably the anti-matter is left over
from whatever destroyed the planet).

However, he will be forced to undergo a retraining course as he failed to
pick up that the system is called _Shionthy_!  ;-)

(It's available in my Library Data pages, BTW - including rules for avoiding
the antimatter).
________________________________________________________________________
Hyphen (David Jaques-Watson)                         davidjw@pcug.org.au
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:09:59 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

About Thanksgiving and other holidays:

	Considering the number of people who celebrate Thanksgiving, and the 
number of people who celebrate May Day (day 121)...

	Both China and Russia were very active in the early days of 
Terra's interstellar history. There's also been talk of Dugashvili 
Lentuli being of "Georgian" origin etc. (great idea, btw!)... I'd say 
May Day would be a better holiday candidate than Thanksgiving.

	Just some random change, Cr .02 or something.

On 15 Jul 97 at 8:22, CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> Meanwhile, it does seem that everyone understands Armed Forces Day.

	It _is_ an Empire, after all. :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:15:46 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Bj|rn Sandberg <bs@dd.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: World generation

Following up on my own idea, I think that perhaps there should be two
numbers for each Millieu; a TL modifier and a TL maximum. This gives a
little more control over the result. For example, the RoM would have
+1(16) (ow! ow! ow! ok, -3(13)) while the Vilani might have -2(11) ... the
last one gives many Vilani worlds a TL 11 since I figure that after about
1000+ years most worlds would be fairly uniform in tech level.

I must say I like the version where the newly-fledged Imperium confuses
Ancient artifacts with RoM leftovers... I bet my players will be rather
confused when we switch from M1100 to M0 and the RoM climbs 4 tech levels
or so <g>

// Bjorn

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Bjorn Sandberg : Coder for hire : Part-time history nut : bs@dd.chalmers.se |
| Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:03:32 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Imperial Calendar and local calendars

Here's how I picture calendars. 

A given Imperial world will use two calendars. One, its local calendar,
will use units of local days and season-cycles (what we call years).
This assumes that the world has a decent-sized agricultural sector
of the economy. Seasons become all-important then. Weeks and months
are units of convenience only.

Now, this world is also a member of the Imperium. Therefore it deals
with offworld citizens and Imperial institutions. A common frame of
reference is needed and that's why the Imperial calendar is a standard.

The locals will use the local calendar in all situations except those
where the Imperium is involved. Then they will convert the local date
and time into the Imperial date/time system. Naturally, hand computers, 
watches and other instruments which have clocks will be able to 
instantly flip back and forth between the two systems.

For example, let's say we have a world with a sidereal year of 200 days.
Its day (measured from sunrise to sunrise and averaged over the year)
is 20 hours. After a few hundred years, I'd say that the local populace
will be quite used to this cycle. Their crops grow by it. Their 
livestock live by it. Humans, by nature, prefer to do outdoor things
in the daylight, so they plan by it.

Why on earth (pardon the pun) would they stick by the Imperial calendar?
Yes, indeed, it's 3:00 AM (Imperial), the sun is shining, yet all the
businesses are closed for the "night". It's harvest time, but it's 
also Holiday, so farmer Jones (Vilani: Jiiiinnnegggi?) can't find anyone
to hire? 

Embassies, consulates, Imperial military installations, interstellar
merchant lines, passenger liners and starports would use the Imperial
calendar. The local government offices and shops whose customers 
primarily use the Imperial calendar would use both systems. Most local
citizens would use the local calendar and would never need to convert.

Thoughts, anyone?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:40:31 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

>While many of my parents send their kids to school when they are _extremely_
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

More than two? ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:39:06 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

>Andy,
>
>Who says that an Imperial Thanksgiving is directly related to the
>North American holiday?
>
>Maybe we're all supposed to give thanks that the Imperium has come
>to being and included our world in its sphere of control, er, um,
>protection :-)
>
>Or perhaps it is directly related and through the years has just
>devolved into a general day of thanks for what we have and has
>nothing whatever to do with religion at all. With its origins so lost
>in the mists of time no one remembers how it came to being.
>
>The name portrays a simple concept, a day of giving thanks. How it is
>interpreted from there is up to the referee... at least until
>canonical references dictate otherwise.
>
>Regardless, I'm sure it isn't the celebration of pilgrims and three
>ships crossing an ocean on some planet to escape religious
>persecution.
>
>Suz

Yes maybe, but the guys (me included) buying the IG products will think
that the game designers were lazy when they couldn't come up with original
holidays no matter what the designer thought. I'd say most Imperial
holidays will be less abstract and more concrete celebrating achievements
of the Imperium/emperor precursors to the Imperium: The official conclusion
of the Grand Survey, the emperors coronation. The passing of the first
Imperial credit (trade festivals on lots of planets) etc.

Just say NO to yanks in space!


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:16:14 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Bj|rn Sandberg <bs@dd.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Zhodani spies intercepted a report from David 
Jaques-Watson:

> Dear Folks -
> 
> Douglas, of the RCCC, is correct (presumably the anti-matter is left over
> from whatever destroyed the planet).
> 
> However, he will be forced to undergo a retraining course as he failed to
> pick up that the system is called _Shionthy_!  ;-)
> 
> (It's available in my Library Data pages, BTW - including rules for avoiding
> the antimatter).

There's a novel by Larry Niven which involves a protosun of antimatter
that is passing through the galaxy at abt 0.8c ... you get a lot of
strange effects there. I think the novel was a part of _Neutron Star_ but
I won't swear on it. In any case, folks, bring your anti-rad suits... it's
HOT out there (in one sense of the word, at least)

// Bjorn

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Bjorn Sandberg : Coder for hire : Part-time history nut : bs@dd.chalmers.se |
| Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:30:51 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?

>Here's a suggestion for a Vilani translation of "To infinity and beyond" as

Wasn't that the motto of Rex Nebular's organization (think Toy Story)?

Pretty silly if you ask me (not that anyone has to).

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:40:35 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: SSDS  Newbie Questions

> Sorry if this is in a FAQ somewhere (I know these are painfully newbie
> 
> questions) but, here goes:
> 
> 1) What is the difference between Basic and Standard Life Support?
> 
> 2) Do you need life support if you are in a G-Tank?
> 
> 3) How many lasers can you put in one turret? (Couldn't you put up to
> 3 in a 
> turret before?)
> 
> Armor:
> 4) Why does armor take up internal volume?
> 
> 5) A suggestion on finding the Armor Rating:  According to the Errata
> at: 
> http://www.spirit.net.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/Errata.html, 
> 
> "To calculate the armor value which appears in the USP, take the armor
> value 
> decided upon in in step 3 (paras 3 & 4), convert that to the USP value
> using 
> the chart on page 107, and then multiply the result by 10.  This gives
> the 
> vlaue for the USP which is compatible with the rules in T4."
> 
> My suggestion is to use a different multiple based upon material.
> Since 
> Bonded Superdense costs twice as much as Superdense material, it
> should 
> protect better, no?  Here's my suggested multiples (based upon the
> Toughness 
> stats in Central Supply Catalog pg56.)
> 
> TL	Material		Multiple	Cost(MCr/m3)	Density
> 10	Crystaliron		9			.009
> 10
> 12	Superdense	11			.014
> 15
> 14	Bonded SD		14			.028
> 15
> 17	Coherent SD	16			.035
> 15
> 
> (Note: I'm not sure which cost is right.  The SSDS has a cost of .014
> MCr/m3 
> for Superdense whereas the Central Supply Catalog has a cost of .14
> MCr/m3. I 
> went with SSDS.)
> 
> So, lets take an armor level of 120 (USP: 4):
> 
> TL	Armor Rating
> 10	36		
> 12	44
> 14	56
> 17	64
> 
> As you can see, there is a significant difference between the ratings
> (as there should be; Coherent Superdense costs nearly 4 times more
> than crystaliron for less than double the protection.)
> 
> 6) Are there more efficient thrusters for later tech levels (15+)?
> 
> 7) What does the Accomodation: bunk allow for?
> 
> 8) When would you need launch tubes?
> 
> 9) How would you create a fixed arc laser (sort of like a spinal mount
> laser)?  
> 
> 10) Can you fire a ship's weapon multiple times/round?
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance for any and all answers!
> Scott

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:56:57 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: PE in 1100 (was: PE stats for Sylia)

Terry Williams' question inspired my own;

Has anyone tried to use PE to expand worlds in the third Imperium circa
1100?  I know that a lot of us are still using that era rather tham M:0.  I
plan to expand a few worlds, but how do I use the Imperium itself as a
"pocket empire"?

I'll have my own answers eventually, but thought I'd bring it up.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:56:33 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

Anders Backman wrote:
> 
> I'd say most Imperial
> holidays will be less abstract and more concrete celebrating achievements
> of the Imperium/emperor precursors to the Imperium: The official conclusion
> of the Grand Survey, the emperors coronation. The passing of the first
> Imperial credit (trade festivals on lots of planets) etc.
> 

How about a holiday in each sector celebrating the founding of the
first output in that sector? You could have Spinward Marches day,
Deneb day, and so on.

> Just say NO to yanks in space!
> 

Actually, say no to Terrans in space, as far as cultural holidays go.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:16:11 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

Anders Backman wrote:

>>>Date   Event
>>>       001     Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
>>>       009     School Year Starts
>>>       091     Armed Forces Day
>>>       181     Mid-Year Break.
>>>       271     Thanksgiving
>>>       328     School Year Ends (Graduation)
>>>       359     Year End Break (to 365)
>>
>>Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
>>certain how to interpret this?
>
>What about Halloween (all Imperial kids dress up like aliens) and spring
>break (all horny Imperials teenagers go to Vland to get drunk & pregnant).
>
>Yanks in space.

Anders' obviously tongue-in-cheek response to this debate echos my own.
(And I'm a Yank! <g>)

We're talking about a civilization 2500 years in the future. Taking a look
2500 years *backward* from here, did the Ancient Greeks, Assyrians or
Egyptians celebrate Armed Forces Day or Thanksgiving? And furthermore, how
can you mandate when school starts and stops or when the "mid-year" break
occurs. I know there's the "Officer of Calendar Compliance" but you're
going to have local holidays, some of which will have religious or other
cultural significance that the Imperium won't be able to remove.

I have a player in my Regency campaign group who described his character as
Scottish Solomani and Zhodani descent. I told him that the likelihood of
him maintaining an uninterrupted line of Scottish blood, especially as far
away as the Regency, was next to none over the 3700-year (Regency occurs in
year 1200) intervening period. Let's not forget that things have changed
over this period of time.

While dates 001-365 and reservation of date 001 as "Holiday" are mandated
per the old Supplement 8, Library Data, the rest of the calendar year
should be left alone for the individual cultures to determine. Otherwise
you risk turning the Imperium into a culturally biased macrocosm of the
20th century United States. If there's one thing I've always liked about
Traveller, it's that it makes an attempt to not cater to any one
20th-century nationality or culture. I don't want to see "Yanks in Space"
any more than our British, Norwegian, Danish or other nationals on this
list.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:30:36 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: THUDDD 5 Submission : The Rising Star

<fontfamily><param>Times</param>Note: Apologies in advance for any
formatting problems; Microsoft Word version (or any conversion MS word
can do) available to any who ask.  Also, any input to a revised edition
is welcome.


The Rising Star


Tons: 500 std ( SL Dome/Disc )      Volume: 7,000 m^3             
Cost: 411.600 MCr ( 372.440 MCr )

Crew: 13/13 ( /HighAuto  )           Passengers High/Medium: 8/0       
                Passengers Low: 0 

Cargo: 30.0 std                            Controls: Civilian Std (
/Bridge )                          Tech Level: 12


8  Size Rating                                 2  Jump Drive ( 50
std/pc fuel )

                                                     3  Maneuver (
Thruster, 375 Mw /No CG )

2xLaser Emitters (+4) 1/1-0-0-0         2  Power Plant Rating ( 2x250Mw
)

1xLaser Battery (+4) 1/2-1-0-0          105  Fuel 

                                                     1  Sandcaster ( 30
cans )

                                                     0  Nuclear Damper

                                                     0  Meson Screen

                                                     0  Black Globe

                                           A1 P2 J0  Sensors 

                                                    10  Armor,  14 
Structure




1xSick Bay ( 8 std )                                           1xPool 
(12x8x3.5m) ( 35 std )

1xDining Salon (12x7x3m) ( 18 std )                    1xRecreation
Room (12x8x3.5m) ( 35 std )

1xExtra Large Kitchen (adds 40m^3) ( 3 std )        1xHot Tub 
(4x4x3.5m) ( 4 std )

1xMinimal Hangar ( 40 std craft )

1xVehicle Bay ( 12 std craft )


Crew Details: 1 cmd, 2 mvr, 1 elc, 4 gun, 0 scr, 1 eng, 0 mtn, 0 crf, 0
trp, 0 sci, 3 stw, 0 brk, 1 med


A standard 40 ton Pinnace is included in the price and adds MCr 20
(From T4 Rulebook).


Passengers sometimes choose to travel double occupancy, so
theoretically the passenger capacity is 16.


Options and appointment packages to be specified by buyer - an example
of the class is given here.  Price includes approx. Mcr 8 to construct
and equip the Dining Salon, Kitchen, Rec. Room, Pool and Hot Tub
chamber.  There's also a few tons left over (40m^3 or so) which has
been put to widening passeges, adding decorated alcoves, and generally
making life more comfortable on board for the passengers. 



Wandering Star Charters

Mail Code Sylea-Botania 38312


Gentleperson, 


Thank you for your inquiry regarding our luxury charter craft. 
Currently we have available several vessels of the _Eastern Star_ Class
luxury Yacht built by the Goodenuf Construction Company of Sylea.  The
vessel which seems to fit your schedule is the _Rising Star_, a 500 ton
luxury liner.  I have appended a description below.  Please contact me
soon with your intentions since the liner's schedule must be set well
in advance to assure our low prices.  


Speaking of prices, the _Rising Star_ is available, fully crewed, for a
cost of Mcr 1 for each two weeks (Four week minimum, round trip
required).  There is a strict list of available destinations due to
potential problems outside Cleon's Imperium, but any destination within
the Imperium which has no travel restriction is quite acceptable.


The Rising Star


Built in the Year 26 by the Goodenuf Construction Company, the _Rising
Star_ is truly a Jewel in the Wandering Star line of vessels.  The
custom package fitted in this vessel includes a multi-purpose
recreation room, a specialized swimming pool which can be configured
for constant flow lap swimming, a steamy hot tub, and a celestial main
dining salon, with incredible views of the stars (while in normal
space, of course).  All staterooms are two rooms; a bedchamber and a
parlor, and are luxuriously appointed.


Layout and Configuration


The ship's sleek lines have been commented on since the first of the
class was built.  The smooth manta-shaped body is equipped with a
Starcaster(TM) maneuver drive capable of 3 standard gravities of
acceleration, and the Mark II Quick-hop Hyperdrive carries the vessel 2
parsecs per jump, and double redundant Zhunastu Fusion+(TM) power
plants provide.


The forward section of the vessel's hull reveals the now-famous Dining
Salon observation windows on the lower half of the hull, with the
Ship's bridge occupying a small bulge on the upper half.  Two light
laser turrets are mounted port and starboard of the center section on
the upper hull towards the aft of the vessel, while the main armament,
a single heavy laser emitter, is mounted flush with the dorsal hull in
the center so as not to interfere with the ship's landing operations.


Hull sections taper to either side of the main portion of the hull,
acting as atmospheric control surfaces and giving the ship a
streamlined look. A long tapering aft hull section contains drives and
the 40 ton ship's boat hangar.  An additional hangar for a vehicle of
up to 12 tons is available for Guest's vehicles and can accommodate
either ground or grav vehicles (A luxury speeder is also available for
an additional fee).  A 35 ton cargo bay with a ventral loading hatch is
available for guest use, and can also accommodate vehicles.


Internal accommodations justify the reputation of the vehicle class. 
Each passenger stateroom suite has two rooms, a bedchamber and parlor. 
The bedchambers are draped in rich fabrics from different sections of
the Imperium, covering the walls and ceiling and giving the illusion
that guests are in some noble mansion, rather than traveling through
space.  Oversized canopy beds are made up fresh daily (or more often if
you wish).  Deep-stained hardwoods make up the dressers, bedframe, and
other furniture, while elegant flagstones and beautiful handmade rugs
cover the floors.  


A stone fireplace adorns each parlor, along with large comfortable
chairs and divans in a styles from Vilani times.  The fireplace gives
off a gentle warmth and flickering light of real flame, but requires no
manual feeding.  A wet bar gives instant access to whatever snack or
beverage the guest wishes to have on hand, while a fully stocked bar
and kitchen is available at all times in the main dining salon.  Access
terminals are ingeniously hidden until needed for work.  A large oaken
table is set against one wall which can be employed as work surface or
dinner table if the guest takes meals in.


We hope, though, that the guests will attend dinner in the main Dining
Salon each night.  Our expert Chef prepares an incredible meal each
evening in his well appointed kitchen.  The room in which this meal is
served makes all occasions special.  Up to 17 ebony high backed chairs
(one for each passenger assuming double occupancy staterooms plus one
for the Captain) can be set around the solid Obsidian table, on which
the gleaming blue stylized tableware positively sparkles, and the solid
crystalline glasses gleam with an inner light.  the room is paneled
with rare vlandian deep-rose quartz, and a gentle golden light is
emitted from frosted-glass sconce fixtures around the room, as well as
the electric blue crystalline chandelier overhead.  


Backlit glass cabinets along one wall of the room display the ships
service; bowls of rare crystal, plates and flatware of different new
and ancient style in materials that make the most jaded visitors gawk,
serving dishes of the finest silver, rare liquors and fine vintage
wines from all over the Imperium and beyond are displayed for your
appreciation.


What draws the eyes however, especially in orbit, is the wall of glass
that makes up the front wall of the salon.  Polarized crystal viewports
look out on whatever vista is  presently displayed, and can be
conveniently blacked out in jumpspace or during a burningly bright
reentry.  The windows angle from your feet outward, giving a falling
sensation any who stand by the glass.  The view is broken only by
narrow structural supports, necessary for safety reasons.  Generally
dinner is served by the light of the stars or the light reflected off
the orb of whatever planet lies below.  When this light enters the
salon, the chandelier fractures it into a million beams which throw
ever-changing beautiful patterns on the walls and ceiling of the
chamber.


When not dining, guests can still be entertained and kept in shape in
the 12 meter by 6 meter exercise pool.  In exercise pool mode a
constantly adjusting current is maintained to keep the swimmer in place
as she or he completes their desired distance swim.  It can even be
adjusted so that when the swimmer reaches the end of the 12 meter
length of the pool they have actually swum a simulated Olympic sized
pool length.  At its deepest end, the pool is 2 meters deep.


Near the pool is a hot tub, the relaxing heated tub provides a gentle
means of easing muscles overworked in the exercise room just to
starboard, and has the option of operating in zero gravity with a
breathing apparatus, an experience that has to be felt to be believed. 
Aquatic scenes decorate the ceramic interior of the tub, hand painted
and custom made for the ship.


The aforementioned exercise room has many standard high tech resistance
and weightlifting equipment, and a small games court which can be
configured for a number of games (Some take the entire exercise room,
and other equipment is stowed when used for this purpose).  Gravity is
fully adjustable, so those incredible slam dunks are now easy, no
matter what shape you are in.  And if you want a real workout, add 30%
to the gravity and see how hard roto-ball can really be.  This double
height room is the mirror image of the pool section, and is at the same
level as the bottom of the pool, but on the opposite side of the ship.


A fully stocked sick bay staffed by a full time doctor is on board to
meet any medical need.  In addition we have spared no expense in making
sure our passengers are delivered safely.  Three laser and a defensive
sandcaster are carried, and at 3G acceleration, there is only a very
small likelihood that our well trained gunners would have anything to
shoot at.  Sensors, communications and other equipment are all
state-of-the-art Imperial technology, not backwater imitations. Our
components are manufactured for us to exacting specifications, not
"cookie cutter" standard components which have been outsourced to
who-knows-where.  You will meet and get to know your captain during
your journey, so you can be confident about how the ship is being
handled.  A full staff of 6 stewards and a chef see to your every
need.


We hope you will join us as we cruise among the stars of the Imperium!



Design Notes


Designed using SSDS by way of Andrew Akins design template (The
"Starship Assembly Line").


Obviously this ship is built for ambiance, not to make money (not the
usual way, anyway).  


Glean what you can from the text regarding shape and layout.  I
envision a shape like a flattened horseshoe crab, with drive sections
to either side of  the ship's boat hangar, which sort of overhangs the
stern cargo hatch.  The reference to "atmospheric control surfaces" was
more fanciful than factual since the vessel is streamlined only, not an
airframe.  The shape I envision does, however, somewhat resemble a
flying wing.


The pool and rec room each occupy 490 m^3  I would be interested to
hear if anyone thinks this is insufficient.  The hot tub is between the
two and occupies 22m^3.  It should also have an airlock, but the design
does not include one.  The dining salon occupies 252m^3 at the bow of
the vessel.  It should be considered a serious vulnerability in battle.
 I added 40m^3 to the Kitchen, theorizing that most shipboard galleys
are tiny efficient little affairs unworthy of the attention of a chef.


Gunners double as stewards (wouldn't the passengers love to hear that?)
when not gunning.  3 stewards are also on the crew and are full time. 
They will all be able to cook, but one is the master chef (no extra
salary is figured into the cost though).  The doctor is also employed
as a passenger liaison, and the Captain is expected to dine with the
passengers.


A standard (but well furnished) 40 ton pinnace is docked in a hangar on
the aft dorsal portion of the craft.  Forward of and beside this are
crew quarters, with the bridge at the bow of the upper deck.  To the
right and left of this central "spine" are the oversized rec room and
pool, with the hot tub room beneath the spine.  Beneath the Bridge
itself is the dining salon.  Outboard, in front of, and behind the
'big' rooms are the passenger staterooms which often have one square
meter observation ports when possible.


Each passenger stateroom is actually one large stateroom and one small
stateroom.  They are either single or double occupancy, as desired by
passenger.  


This vessel costs almost 400,000 credits per week to operate (including
mortgage)!  Obviously this expense is either going to be paid by a very
rich owner, or some profitable run must be found where the passengers
pay 50,000 per week (single occupancy) for transportation, and the ship
runs full all the time.  I had the idea of a luxury charter service. 
This allows rich nobles to travel in style without actually buying a
vessel.  Rather than paying passage (and being unable to control what
riffraff occupies the other staterooms), they rent the whole vessel by
the month.  In any case, low operating cost is obviously not a
priority.


</fontfamily>

Peter H. Brenton	  

MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center		

(617) 253-3185

brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1563
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1564



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Holidays, Important Dates
Spring Break on Vland? (was: Re: Important Dates?)
Dead Ends
Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Stars in Traveller
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: terms
Re: Birthdays
Re: PE in 1100 (was: PE stats for Sylia)
Re: Important Dates?
Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets
Imperial calendar
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Re: Imperial calendar
Re: Important Dates?
No yanks in space
Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets
Re: Terrain
Re: Second Careers and the Draft...
Scholar Career and College Terms
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:48:21 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Holidays, Important Dates

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Peter Miller wrote:

>  Of course, even here in the North America
> the date varies from October 13th in Canada, to the date of November
> 27th in the USA (never understood that, harvest is over by then...can
> anyone Americans please tell me....), so I can't really see it being
> standard throughout the Imperium.

Why, because all the important football games are on that day, of course!

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:39:02 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Spring Break on Vland? (was: Re: Important Dates?)

At 11:52 AM 7/15/97 +0100, you wrote:

>What about Halloween (all Imperial kids dress up like aliens) and spring
>break (all horny Imperials teenagers go to Vland to get drunk & pregnant).

Somehow, I can't picture Vland as being a hot Spring Break destination.  A
planet that defines conservatism and where everybody where concealing
clothing?  Naw.. Send me to planet Halea, where sex is the religion and
beer bubbles up from natural springs...

>Yanks in space.

Yep!  Although I have named a class of Armored Cruiser the Vasa after the
famous, if short lived, battleship.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:56:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Dead Ends

Glenn Crawford said:

<deletions>
> miscellaneous dead end small jobs (Hey! a new career for Traveller)*

Ask Marc about the "Shoe Salesman" career 

Loren Wiseman
     GDW Emeritus

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:53:39 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Kenji Schwarz wrote:

snip
 
> NB:  The usual Vilani abbreviation of this phrase, Na.Su.Su., happens to be
> homophonic with the colloquial descriptive term /nasusu/.  As defined in
> the standard glossary of Vilani slang:  "to possess a superabundance of
> narcissism and machismo, suitable for public mockery."

Are you absoulutely _sure_ that's not "nanu nanu"?

he he he I think I got's a scout uniform for you...bright rainbow
suspenders figure prominently! ;-P

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:43:29 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

At 11:25 AM 7/15/97 +0100, you wrote:

>> Perhaps Thanksgiving should be renamed as a general Religious Day, where
>> every religion across the Imperium is permitted to be practiced without
>> suppression by the local government, perhaps called "Freedom Day" or
>> somesuch generality? Perhaps it's a day on which Imperial pardons are
handed
>> out to reformed criminals, and other such niceties. Needless to say the
>> degree to which it's enforced across the Imperium is limited, but it could
>> make for some interesting adventure hooks?
>
>I can see it now... the Duke on the balcony, the crowd below chanting 
>"Release Barabbas!  Release Barabbas!"  (Or possibly Roger...)

"Show some repwect!  Earl Pwankwell has come all the way fwom Swylewa!"

>I'd say Holiday would be *the* day for such things; the Holiday 
>pardons go well with the honours list.

The Emperor's Birthday.  "As His Majesty celebrates his birth, he
graciously gives a new life to the following persons, and orders that they
be forgiven..."

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Stars in Traveller

In-Reply-To: <l03020900aff01150150c@[194.119.133.201]>

> Harold Hale wrote:
>  
> >   Make the whole thing available as a piece of software that will
> >generate crushing detail for you, including world maps.
>  
> What you want is Metator! ;-)

What we want is a PC version :-(
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970714100826.007b5860@mail.deltanet.com>

Scott,

> I believe it was Millennium's End that had a deal where you determined your
> career each year, and then got a blob of skills and a blob of cash and
> stuff each year.  Some careers had a chance to lose money as well as gain,
> and could result in taking a term or two of the "jailed criminal" career.

Doesn't CORPS have something like that?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: terms

In-Reply-To: <19970714181502437.AAA429@[192.168.2.7]>

> Just working it out....
>  
> Term One: university (+ part time military)
> Term Two: miscellaneous dead end small jobs (Hey! a new career for
> Traveller)*
> Term Three: re-enlist in dead end jobs
> Term Four: bureaucrat (First year of it anyway)

Hmm...

Term 1: university. made the honours roll (but only just!)
Term 2: probably counts as bureaucrat. Blew the survival roll for the last 
year and retired.

> * I am working on it. Maybe this could be a series? Non-earth shaking jobs
> for Traveller;
> mcjobs, security guard, temp, janitor, retail sales, warehouse, farmer

...taxi driver, prostitute, car mechanic...

One of the things I liked about TNE was the wide variety of careers.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Birthdays

In-Reply-To: <l03020901aff011b62d1b@[194.119.133.201]>

SD,

> >I always felt insulted and patronised by "Starter Editions", the
> >implication being that I was too young and/or stupid to understand the
> >real thing. YMMV, of course.
>  
> But when I started playing Traveller it had two advantages - 1) it was
> available in the UK at the time and (2) it was cheaper than the full
> version. At the age of 12 the latter was very important!

IIRC Starter came out after Deluxe* (which is the one I bought), and 
wasn't significantly cheaper. Plus, if you like it, you'll want to get 
the proper version later, which means you'll end up paying more in the 
end. Of course, if you *don't* like it, you won't have wasted as much 
money, but who wouldn't like Traveller...?

*T4 needs a deluxe version - boxed, w/scenario, full-colour sector map, 
etc.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 19:05:17 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: PE in 1100 (was: PE stats for Sylia)

>Terry Williams' question inspired my own;
>
>Has anyone tried to use PE to expand worlds in the third Imperium circa
>1100?  I know that a lot of us are still using that era rather tham M:0.  I
>plan to expand a few worlds, but how do I use the Imperium itself as a
>"pocket empire"?
>
>I'll have my own answers eventually, but thought I'd bring it up.
>
>Pete

The PE rules seem heavily geared towards TL 11-12 because there's ltlle
provision for decreased transport costs at higher TL and as far as I can
tell you'd never manage an empire the size of a sector efficiently let
alone the Imperium.
Perhaps some alterations of the transport formula (was it 1 + Parsecs/2?)
for different TLs.

I'm fiddling around with a compleately different set of rules for governing
small empires with less calculations and realism(+) and more geared towards
producing the canon TL increases, empire sizes, population distributions
etc.
(Any Leroyish RoM TL hikes would automatically generate an encounter with
Yaskoydroy with a hangover ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 19:15:46 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

>> Just say NO to yanks in space!
>>
>
>Actually, say no to Terrans in space, as far as cultural holidays go.

Yes I agree but curiously enough the problem of "Terrans in space" seem to
coincide with "Yanks in space" to a large degree. My good and friendly
nature prohibits me from delving on shortcomings in historal and cultural
education amongst those suffering from the above mentioned syndromes ;)

Did I mention the Sword World holiday of "midsummer eve" where all Sword
Worlders drink moonshine booze till they puke or eat rotten fish and
copulate in nature?
My contribution to the Scandinavians in space theme ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:29:33 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets

They are available at my web site:

<http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bjohnson/tprogs.html>

There are also three system writeups, (very well done, btw) in another
page

<http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bjohnson/tadven.html>

They are binhexed Mac files, but are uncompressed, so anyone with Excel
and a un-binhexer can make use of them. The world writeups have
spreadsheets with trade tables, etc as well as .gif and macintosh Pict
maps.

Really nice stuff, Rob!

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:37:15 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Imperial calendar

Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
Terra, and move in sync?!

(I can think of plenty of reasons why they may stay the same, but...)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:25:21 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

Erwin Fritz wrote:
> 
> How about a holiday in each sector celebrating the founding of the
> first output in that sector? You could have Spinward Marches day,
> Deneb day, and so on.

Oooops. That's "outpost", not "output". Next time I'll drink my 
coffee before posting to this list.

Erwin

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:02:20 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

At 06:04 PM 7/15/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:

>> I believe it was Millennium's End that had a deal where you determined your
>> career each year, and then got a blob of skills and a blob of cash and
>> stuff each year.  Some careers had a chance to lose money as well as gain,
>> and could result in taking a term or two of the "jailed criminal" career.
>
>Doesn't CORPS have something like that?

Yep, CORPS figures your stating funds based on your highest applicaple
skill (note: you'd better have a good line ready to convince the GM that
"Rifle" is an appropriate skill), and then you get double that amount in
goods.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:21:37 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar

- -> Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
- -> 1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
- -> local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
- -> Terra, and move in sync?!
I always figured it was because of the RoM. It brought it's calendar 
to the stars, and it served as a uniform calendar in RoM space. In 
those areas where Star Travel never failed (Sylea comes to mind), it 
remained in effect to be a universal calendar for all connected 
systems. Why change a system that is used everywhere anyways? 




Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 20:25 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

In-Reply-To: <970715082209_-392459170@emout13.mail.aol.com>

> I doubt various religions would all agree to observe their specific holidays
> on the same date. Religions have their own holidays...

Isn't Christmas actually an amalgam of several Christian and Pagan religious 
festivals?

> Thanksgiving may be given religious overtones, but it is a family holiday
> meant for family gatherings.

How about just calling it 'Family Day'?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:55:13 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: No yanks in space

No yanks in space?

I think it would be in the best interests of humaniti if you banned whiny
Euros instead. 

If you made this comment about any other nation or race, you would be called
a racist, but you can get away with it because the Americans have a sense of
humour.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:43:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: lansford <lansford@vnet.net>
Subject: Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets

> They are binhexed Mac files, but are uncompressed, so anyone with Excel
> and a un-binhexer can make use of them. The world writeups have
> spreadsheets with trade tables, etc as well as .gif and macintosh Pict
> maps.

Excel 5 for Windows won't open them.  ("Cannot open normal document
created in Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh version 1.x.")  Help says to
save the file as a SYLK on a Mac.

Jean Lansford
lansford@vnet.net

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:41:37 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Terrain

It has been said:

************************************
I much prefer a square grid system with grids in 1000 km, 100 km, 10 km
etc
Please avoid the wargameish hexes though. the only reason for using
hexes
would be that it was a tradition from the Vilani or somesuch (Hiver?) to
use hexes as mapgrids. The grids should only be guides for measurements
and
terrain should compleately ignore the grids - no single terrain per
hex/square please.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se
************************************

I for one like hexes because they provide a more uniform "distance
covered" for travel in any random direction.  Traveling from one corner
to the opposing corner is only 1.26 times the total distance of the hex
as measured from face to opposing face.  For a square corner to corner
goes up to 1.41 times--almost double that for the hex.  This fails to
address other reasons why others do not like hexes, but explains one of
the reasons I do.  Maybe gridless maps, with an overlay transparency of
the grid-d'jour (as someone else suggested) might be a reasonable
answer.

TT

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:57:15 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Second Careers and the Draft...

At 06:04 PM 7/15/97 BST-1, Andrew Boulton wrote:
>In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970714100826.007b5860@mail.deltanet.com>
>
>Scott,

>> I believe it was Millennium's End that had a deal where you determined your
>> career each year, and then got a blob of skills and a blob of cash and
>> stuff each year.  Some careers had a chance to lose money as well as gain,
>> and could result in taking a term or two of the "jailed criminal" career.
>
>Doesn't CORPS have something like that?

It well might.  I have downloaded the brief intro for core, but I have not
yet decided whether to snag the whole thing.

Last week, we started a PE game.  In order to set it up, I ended up having
the entire family do a bidding war for the major stats a' la Amber.  I
updated the four stats a bit - Physical, Lore, Interpersonal, and Military,
but other than that, ran it fairly straight.  The setup was surprisingly
fun, but I have not yet had a chance to play a full session.

I think I will use the Castle Falkenstein skill system for the next set of
characters.  It was easy to explain, easy to use, but required a whole lot
of DM interpretation, which I do anyway.

Scott

Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:21:47 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Scholar Career and College Terms

While working through the section on Scholars and their ability to 
substitute terms of school for terms in their "career", I am interested in
how people handle this as a whole. In the T4 book, it states that they 
may "apply to College or Grad School (if he has not already attended)".

	1) Does this mean if they have already gotten a degree they can't
go for a term, or does it mean if they attended but left before graduating
that they can't go back in?

	2) Under this rule, no character can have multiple degrees. Do most
people running/reffing  scholars ignore this rule in their house rules? Which
brings up a new question:

	3) How many people out their are/have played Scholars, and how
do you think they rate against the more traditional military/scout types? I
know it depends a lot on the ref and what kind of mission we design, but
I'd like a general feel from the group.

	4) And if The Boss is listening, I see that the T4.1 chargen file that 
you made available lets scholars go back to school, but makes no mention
of prior attendance. Is this a sign that passengers with multiple PhDs will
officially soon be around to bore the pants off our poor ships' crew in 
those long periods in jump space? :)


Paul Darius Owensby
pauld@athens.net
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:24:31 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Anders' rather excellent summary here gives me the opportunity to clear the
air a bit. :)

On Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:20:57 +0100
anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) writes:
>Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
>
>>>Actually though, I didn't expect you to be influenced by the facts--I do
>>>expect some others "out there" to be happy that I have given them some
>>>backup for what I had claimed, and they rejoiced in.
>>
>>OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
>>net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
>>believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
>>this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
>>some of your points.


It is really funny that this got turned into silent supporters routine.
Also notice that in any attempt at an unbiased poll, pollsters do not
stand around outside debate halls to poll people, unless the point of
the poll is to see who won the debate.  Voting here persuades me very
little, and we should stop offending the rest of the world where
government is not always the American system, not that the American
system really votes on anything at a high level.

Several people (seemingly very rational people) posted enthusiastically
when I posted what I did.  I have stated for the record that I ran a
campaign where Terra returned to the former glory of it's past, and
returned to TL16.  Others have posted in the same spirit, which pleases
me that there were a few who wanted to stand up and take some of rotten
tomatoe tossing with me. :)

For me, the bottom line is having fun.  A good referee can easily handle
high tech in a campaign, and GOD knows I have to reign in J.P. a lot when
I set up. :)

Would I allow a TL14 vacc suit to appear anomalously?  RESOUNDINGLY YES,
and I have run a campaign long enough that I wouldn't need some TL16
theory of the RoM to explain it.  I have _always_ taken the published
domain of the Traveller universe as a challenge to incorporate with mine.
At the same time, I wouldn't accept the lack of TL14 vacc suit showing
up as lack of proof that the RoM was higher tech.

Hell, by the time the MT Rebellion era was getting its footing with the
Digest issue on Capital, my CT campaign was going strong in _1180_ Imperial
dating!!

I have digressed.  Silent Supporters.  Indeed.  If I hadn't seen the
(so far) resounding agreement on the "Stars in Traveller" post that Marc
asked me to start, I wouldn't have thought it possible for more than 4
people on TML to agree about anything! :)


>>>Have all the fun you want to in this thread, but I am moving on.
>>
>>Cutting and running. Good tactic, goes well with the "Silent Majority."


I'm insulted!  (Not really :)


>- - As we sat there waiting for Leroys long awaited revelations of his


Swedes have instant gratification orientation too! :)  [read smiley most]


>After the lights went on the awe started to wear off and as we drove home
>an irritating feeling cropped up: was this all there was to it? What about
>the proof that the pamphlet promised - heck it was even printed on the
>ticket that "Our entire worldview would change forever" -


Hey, I only said it was an interesting compilation.  It proved to be an
excellent exercise in learning about TML.  I was interested only in the
fact that the notion "of Traveller's history, is accepted by some, as
not exactly cast in stone."

I first brought up the least little bit of thread on this on the HIWG
manipulator list over a year ago now.  You can ask Harold Hale, Steve
Bonneville, or Scott Galliand if you don't believe me.  This was a
notion of "what might have been" and it was put out by myself and J.P.
at the time, just based upon what was in print in the past.

Interestingly enough, this was _before_ any notion of a high tech level
RoM in the T4 pages, because none had yet been released.  Like it or not,
a high tech RoM is in the canon, and now that T4 is the latest canon, it
is _more_ canon than ever before.  I just wanted to point out how much
support there was for it, and it is _perfectly_ valid as a plot device.

A high tech RoM should be no offense to anyone for several reasons,

  1)  it all happened a long time ago and should be of little
      consequence to anyone with a lick of sense refereeing a
      campaign; I don't know anyone who runs a campaign with
      every piece of rules anyway, witness the discussion that
      proved beyond a shadow of doubt about how much terraforming
      you can do at TL 12.

  2)  if RoM was TL16 max, I would probably recommend never running
      a milieu set in it, unless you had great experience keeping
      tech within the bounds of the campaign;  anyone who ever ran
      a late-CT/early-MT campaign in the Spinward Marches has
      Darrian or Deneb to deal with;  as Mark Clark posted, it was
      a player amusement park on Darrian, but the G-shops of Deneb
      would give a referee a thing or two to think about; impossible,
      NO.

  3)  You could always do what I have always done with something I
      disagreed with, either just plain don't use it, or put a spin
      (ala Clinton, Hale, et al) and redefine it.

>I like Leroys stuff on Traveller astronomy and I hope he doesn't take
>offense in poking parodying him a bit but it felt like he was begging for
>it.
>I put a smiley here     ;)


If you can't laugh at yourself, you take yourself way too seriously. :)

If you can't laugh at someone else, they take themselves way too
seriously.

As I have said before, it is very difficult to offend me.  First, you
have to be someone I know and respect to be able to offend, and then I
ignore all the emotion, and just get to bottom of it.

BTW, respect is earned, not automatically given.  That could be why I
heard so much intolerance of intolerance, but I place no pecking order on
places like TML, HIWG list, or any internet chat site.  Everyone has a
right to opinion, but nobody should make Traveller a living hell.  This
is all about having fun, and little about who offended who.  All of that
poppycock smacks of political correctness.  A friend, whom I quoted in
a paper I did last year on PC, said:

   "There is a notion on college campuses of a right from being
    offended.  There is no such right.  If someone tells me,
    'I'm offended', I reply, 'So?'"


Flames to /dev/null or 'who am i'@localhost

Again, I have digressed.  I would not let any post taint my opinion of
anyone, though I have had a thorough lesson in watching the politics
of TML unfold.  I am very interested in fixing the Astronomy aspect of
Traveller, and I would not allow anything to distract me from that goal.


>(Those wanting more evidence against Solomani godhood should read the
>interview with Marc Miller in one of the Digests; Portraying the Solomanis
>as bumbling fools was only one of the many good plottricks MM used to turn
>peoples preconceived notions on their heads.)


Interestingly, it seems trendy to psycoanalyze the writers of past pieces
of Traveller material.  But, when the facts are put in print, not every
purchaser of the game has that insight.  Nor does that have any real
meaning.  These are the things that are always paramount on my mind.


>/Anders Backman
>

Thanks for your inviting post. :)


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1564
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1565



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Holidays and Days off for Imperial Govt workers
Scots in Space!
Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?
Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1559
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Emperor's Birthday
Shionthy
Important Dates
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
<no subject>
Re: Scots in Space!
Terrorforming :)
Re: Dark Ages trade
Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets
Athenian Class Trader
Nebula Design Contest
Pandora Class Freighter
Sojourner Wilds Trader

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:40:31 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Holidays and Days off for Imperial Govt workers

Time for me to ring in with the Me too :

I like the idea of Freedom Day as a holiday.

The cries of Barrabas ( or Roger :) ) or Windhoek to be pardoned seems like
a useful game idea and I think gives a feel that is not too " Yanks in
Space "

Shade


Solomani Security - Protecting Terra From Aliens Since 1947

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:37:26 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Scots in Space!

>I have a player in my Regency campaign group who described his character 
>as Scottish Solomani and Zhodani descent.  I told him that the liklihood
of him >maintaining an uninterrupted line of Scottish blood, especially as
far away
>as the Regency, was next to none over the 3700-year intervening period.  

While I'll probably go to bat with your assumption concerning a Scots blood
line in the Regency, I'm afraid I cant agree concernign other areas of the
Imperium.
Many worlds, particularly in Rimward areas of the Imperium, are described
as having a cultural flavor much like those who settled it.

Huy Braseal in the Solomani Rim comes to mind.  A strongly anti-Solomani
world  ( in the Imperium in the 1100's ), which has so strong a Scots bent
that they still wear kilts.  There are other examples of this throughout
the Rimward areas.

But, I must agree, that being in the Regency, it would be unlikely.

BTW, what exactly would a Scots/Zho be like??

John

Solomani Security - Protecting Terra From Aliens Since 1947

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:43:42 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?

Peter Brenton wrote:

>>Here's a suggestion for a Vilani translation of "To infinity and beyond" as
>
>Wasn't that the motto of Rex Nebular's organization (think Toy Story)?
>
>Pretty silly if you ask me (not that anyone has to).

I couldn't agree more <G>.  Hence the less-than-respectful tone of the
Vilani translation...  I'd be glad to do renditions for other slogans...
er, mottos, if people suggest 'em.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:45:25 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Ad infinitem, pro Vilani?

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>> NB:  The usual Vilani abbreviation of this phrase, Na.Su.Su., happens to be
>> homophonic with the colloquial descriptive term /nasusu/.  As defined in
>> the standard glossary of Vilani slang:  "to possess a superabundance of
>> narcissism and machismo, suitable for public mockery."
>
>Are you absoulutely _sure_ that's not "nanu nanu"?
>
>he he he I think I got's a scout uniform for you...bright rainbow
>suspenders figure prominently! ;-P

Absolutely!  I think _Vilani & Vargr_ has a few words to say about
outlandish Vilani costume, in fact.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:58:42 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1559

Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org> wrote...

>If not Latin, how about Vilani?  That seems to be like "latin" in the =
3I.=20
> Especialy in M:0.  And whats cool is that it isn't as dead as latin, =
but=20
>its not the 'common' tounge either.

No good - Remember the reason that was given for not using
English (as contrasted with Galanglic)?  Primarily, that it would
be too recognizable?  That applies to Vilani, as well - we have
definitely a whole planet and probably an entire cultural region,
which used Vilani routinely for several thousand years before the
rise of the Third Imperium.

It's extremely likely that Third Imperium Galanglic is a mishmosh
of whatever English had become by the time of the RoM, plus
Vilani, and plus regionally prominent languages in the various
regions, forming dialects.  Someone who was monolingual in
Galanglic would probably be able to decipher a large amount of
"Classical" Vilani.

Languages do that kind of thing.  Remember that English as we
know it today is fundamentally the result of Norman men-at-arms
(speaking Norman French) trying to pick up Saxon barmaid
(speaking what we call Old English).  Plus all the loan words
picked up from other languages to describe things outside the
experience of the English speaking people who "discovered" them
to their European rulers.


Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:07:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

In a message dated 97-07-15 02:54:36 EDT, you write:

<< >Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
 >other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is
  >>
Shionthy Belt is where Grandfather tilted the Droyne homeworld into a pocket
universe after the Ancient War. It's still there.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:09:53 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

How is time kept uniform in the Imperium?  For instance, CUT or "zulu"
time is an incredibly precise measurement for military purposes.  How is
this standardized across interstellar distances?  Pulsars?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:24:16 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Emperor's Birthday

Please note that in Commonwealth countries, where we still celebrate the
monarch's birthday, the date has nothing whatsoever to do with the
Queen/King's "real" birthday. The date also varies widely depending on
what country or even (in Oz) what state you're in. 

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:19:15 +1000 (EST)
From: Michael Barry <mbarry@pcug.org.au>
Subject: Shionthy

Shionthy Belt is interdicted because there are lots of particles of
anti-matter drifting about, waiting to hit unwary vessels like hi-ex
missiles! But apparently there is a small population of
illegal prospectors, since
the stuff is worth squillions per gram...

**************************************************************************
Michael Barry
mbarry@pcug.org.au               <--- checked daily
**************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 03:36:25 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Important Dates

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:52:20 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Re: Important Dates?

> >Sorry, but what's Thanksgiving? Not being a (North) American, I'm not
> >certain how to interpret this?

American Cultural Imperalism?
 
> What about Halloween (all Imperial kids dress up like aliens) and spring
> break (all horny Imperials teenagers go to Vland to get drunk & pregnant).

Hell, I can think of a half dozen Plot bits for the second one.

> Yanks in space.
Hell yes, We invented it. 8-)

How 'bouts vetrans day?.

Evyn

- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:31:00 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Story is "Flatlander."  Neutron Star

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:44:54 -0400
From: "Thomas E. Meadows" <tommedos@bright.net>
Subject: <no subject>

Unsubscribe traveller-digest

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:43:03 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!

Dark Nebula - Principality of Caledon
Imperial Client state

see Scotian Deep Tracing Company

....sure - coudn't be any Scottish bloodlines remaining in 4500/5600 AD.
Just us Caledonians.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:59:10 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Terrorforming :)

  Or, what's wrong with this definition of planetform?

        Kirurform (def'n) - application of massive thermo-nuclear
and cobalt weapon bombardment to a planet inhabited by sapient
carnivores in a traditional K'kree cultural context. Wait 500
years, seed, mow, and colonize.

  Sorry to those who've seen this one already.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:59:45 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Dark Ages trade

Hello,
>> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:55:54 -0700
>> From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
>> Subject: "Dark Ages" trade

>>   Long-range trade, especially ship-borne, effectively ceased to
>> exist from the collapse of the Western empire. If this thread
>> continues, what date range is being treated? Some of the numbers
>> being tossed about aren't medieval, let alone "Dark".
>> 
>>         Steven Hudson
>> 
>Technology, if anything, advanced substantially from the Roman to the

  Please be advised that I'm not touching that one - that's
somebody else's issue. Now, if you want to consider the use 
of administrative and fiscal apparatus' to be a technology,
then maybe I'll go after it :)

>Whether or not long-distance trade collapsed after the end of the
>Western Roman Empire is a hotly debated point. What I will say

  Volume dropped off to almost nothing, currency circulation
(esp. gold), ditto. Land routes were a poor attempt to replace
oceanic trade, and explains why some routes maintained traffic
or were created whole.

  The essential point, that of traffic drop-off below the
level needed to sustain the Roman world-economy, is 
accepted/promulgated pps. 101-103, The Identity of France,
vol. II. Actually, it sounds a _lot_ like the rationale
for the fall of the RoM, which otherwise makes very little
sense outside the humanities.  

>PS I know it's bad form not to actually cite alleged evidence,
>but I cant find the needed volume of Braudel ... I know the

        Yours truly,
                Steven Hudson,
                Vancouver, British Columbia

The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"
       

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:18:52 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets

Blech! I'll open 'em in Excel 4 (latest I have on the Mac) and save 'em as
PC Excel spreadsheets, I guess, but there are no guarantees as to when. 

I HATE Microsloth sometimes...most of the time, actually...you won't
believe the day I've had with an Access database that decided to hose
itself :-< Stupid program can't even open it's own files. Sheesh!

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, lansford wrote:

> > They are binhexed Mac files, but are uncompressed, so anyone with Excel
> > and a un-binhexer can make use of them. The world writeups have
> > spreadsheets with trade tables, etc as well as .gif and macintosh Pict
> > maps.
> 
> Excel 5 for Windows won't open them.  ("Cannot open normal document
> created in Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh version 1.x.")  Help says to
> save the file as a SYLK on a Mac.
> 
> Jean Lansford
> lansford@vnet.net
> 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:03 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Athenian Class Trader

 
General Data, Athenian Class Trader

Displacement: 250 tons                          Hull Armor: 31
Length: 28.26 meters                            Volume: 3500 m3
Price: MCr 74.7, with discount MCr67.23         Target Size: S
Configuration: Airframed Dome/Disc              Tech Level: 8/12
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 2378.2 / 2095.1
Mass No Pod (Loaded/Empty): 2485.24 / 2062.04

Engineering Data
Power Plant: 170.51 MW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration (25.5765 m3 fuel)	
Jump Performance: 2 (525 m3 fuel)
G-Rating: 1G HEPlaR (125 MW/G), Auxiliary High Efficiency CG (25 MW)
G-Turns: 54 (J1: 70.8; 87.6 using all jump fuel), 15.6 m3 fuel each
Maint: 81

Electronics
Computer: 3xTL-11 Standard computer (0.35 MW)
Commo: Maser (Unlimited; 0.6 MW), Radio (1 hex; 1 MW)
Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 140 km/h NOE
Sensors: AEMS (0.0001 hex; 0.5 MW), PEMS (3 hex; 0.15 MW)
ECM/ECCM: None
Controls: No bridge, 6 normal workstations

Armament
Offensive: TL-11 80Mj Laser Turret overpowered to -2 DMs (Loc 10; 11MW, 1Crew)
Defensive: TL-11 Sand Turret (Loc 11; 1 MW; 1 crew, 24 Cans); 2 Decoy Dispensers
(30xTL-12 Decoys total)
Master Fire Directors: None

Accommodations
Life Support: Extended-Reduced (0.4024 MW), Gravitic Compensators (10.06 MW)
Crew: 7 (2xManeuver, 1xElectronics, 2xEngineer, 2xGunnery/Stewards)
Crew Accommodations: 5xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW)
Passengers: 12xMedium, 3xMedium without passenger pod.
Passenger Accommodations: 12xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW), 3xSmall Staterooms (0.15kW)
without passenger pod.
Other Facilities: 20dT Pod with 9 of above Small Staterooms, 27.08m3
Passenger Lounge
Cargo: 742 m3 (53 tons), 3 Large Hatches; Cargo Without Pod: 1022.4 m3 (73.03 tons)
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 1x4-ton minimal hangar
Air Locks: 2	

Notes
Total Fuel Tankage: 1394.31975 m3 (99.6 tons) 
Fuel scoops (10% of ship surface), fills tanks in 1 hours	
Fuel purification machinery (2.8MW), 20.91 hours to refine 1394.31975 m3.
8.5 MW power shortfall.


The Athenian Class Trader is the first ship design by the Auroran firm
of E.P. Aquana and Offspring. It was designed for the first RCSA ship
design competition, for a survivable Wilds Trader that would be
attractive to Free Traders. We liased with many Free Traders and
Coalition Corporations as to their 'ideal' small trader, and this is the result.

The hull is of 250 displacement tons, a bit larger than ordinary
traders. Then again, those traders were designed for the Old Imperium,
not the Wilds. Of disc configuration, it catches the eye because of
many features, firstly it's airframe design. If this ships contragrav breaks 
down in the wilds it is still capable of safely refueling at gas giants
and landing. It also has a beefed up internal structure - to counter
turbulence and to enable the ship to set down at sea under stormy
conditions - Waterworlds are no obstacle to this ship. As one gets
closer something peculiar is noticed - it has three large cargo
hatches. The fact is that one of these 
hatches is for the passenger pod that is carried near the front of the
ship. A Free Trader wishing to run cargo can purchase the ship without
the pod, and lug lucrative items about in the 73 displacement ton hold
- - almost as impressive as that of a Subsidised Merchant. Anyone wishing
to run a mixed load just leaves it in, cutting cargo to 53 tons, but
adding staterooms for 9 more medium passengers. Other pods are being
designed, including a 19 berth low passenger pod, a shop pod, a lab
pod, and a vehicle pod. If the owner wants to carry more pods he can, 2
more can be fitted behind the other cargo hatches. This does 
however leave the remaining 13 tons of the bay inaccessable. These pods
are built to TL-8 standards, meaning they can be built and supported at
a large amount of facilities in the Coalition - and the Wilds. One last
thing might catch your eye before you enter the ship - at the end of
the wing root, a small 'pepperpot'. This is the dispenser for the
ship's decoys - 15 carried in each dispenser. It adds about 3/4 of a
million credits to the price of the ship - but 
they'll help bring her back safe.

While going inside you'll notice the thickness of the hull, armoured to
a reasonable level. The hull is also constructed to TL-8 standards to
allow it to be manufactured at any of the Coalition's shipyards. The
power plant is designed to TL-10 standards and the comms to TL-9 for a
similar reason. Looking around it seems much like any other ship, but
unlike most ships this one comes with weaponry installed. One AurTech
TL-11 80Mj Laser sits at the apex of the ship. This reliable weapon is
overpowered so it can fire off a shot every 20 
seconds - handy if some Teddie's fired a couple of missiles at you
whilst you're running for the Jump radius. An Eosian Sandcaster fills
out the weaponry in the dorsal position. A small hangar fills out the
requirements for owners that want a air raft. After that there's
nothing else to say about the ship - it hauls cargo, people, and will
get you there and back safely. Simple. It's flexiblity, with it's pod
design, ensures that no matter what the economic climate in our 
Coalition in the future, the Athenian will be making good money in it.

 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:17:59 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Nebula Design Contest

Hi,
Here are the submissions for the Nebula Contest (TNE version of THUDDD)
The exact rules are on my web pages.  The contest was for a Wilds
Trader, a ship that was designed to explore the Virus ravaged wilds of 1200.

To vote, put the ships in the order you like them.  Number 1 is the
best, and number 6 the worst. If you made up one of the ships, don't
vote for your own, I'll normalize the results to take account for that.
 Send your votes to me by Sunday July 20th.  If you have any questions
or I screwed up your entry email me.

The entries ran a bit long, so I'll send them in the next few messages,
but they are, in alphabetical order:

Athenian Class Trader
Iguana class Far Trader
Pandora Class Freighter
Sojourner Wilds Trader
Tycoon Class Modular Wilds Trader 
Virtue Class Upgradable Wilds Trader 
 
Enjoy,

Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:24 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Pandora Class Freighter

Pandora-Class Freighter

Designed in 1201 the Pandora was the first commercial vessel designed at
Hiver Tech. Originally dismissed as, "to expensive to be practical," the
Pandora quickly found acceptance among the intelligence operatives of RCES.
With it's characteristically "bland exterior" and uncommonly rugged design
the Pandora has been utilized with great success on a number of particularly
sensitive intelligence gathering operations.

With it's respectable sensor package, electronically masked hull and
moderate performance characteristics the Pandora is able to act as a mobile
listening post for the Reformation Coalition while still maintaining a
respectable profit margin due to the size of it's hold. While it's offensive
capabilities are somewhat limited with it's complement of Hokhok missiles
and retractable Plasma turret the Pandora begins to live up to it's
namesake. Finally, the Pandora's hold has been specially designed to
function as either a cargo hold or an adapter for specially designed
multi-mission pods displacing up to 50 tons.

The first Pandora was completed in late 1201 and four more were finished by
the middle of 1202. Currently, RCES plans to expand it's fleet of Pandora's
to ten by the end of 1203.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pandora-Class Freighter

General Data

 Displacement: 250/253 tons                  Hull Armor: 40
 Length: 37.67 meters                        Volume: 3,500/3,535 m3
 Price: 156.7 MCr                            Target Size: S
 Configuration:Airframed Cylinder            Tech Level: 12
 Mass (Loaded/Unloaded): 2,840 / 2,5665.5

Engineering Data

     Power Plant: 382 MW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration (57.3 m3 fuel)
     Jump Performance: 2 (530 m3 fuel)
     G-Rating: 2G HEPlaR (146.13 MW/G), Auxiliary High Efficiency CG (25.25
     MW)
     G-Turns: 40 (J1: 54.5; 69 using all jump fuel), 18.3 m3 fuel each
     Maint: 105

Electronics

     Computer: 2xTL-12 Standard computer (0.4 MW), TL 12 Fibre-optic
     computer (0.8 MW)
     Commo: Maser (Unlimited; 0.6 MW), Radio (1 hex; 1 MW)
     Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 160 km/h NOE
     Sensors: AEMS (8 hex; 24 MW), PEMS Folding array (4 hex; 0.15 MW),
     ECM/ECCM: EM Masking (3.5 MW)
     Controls: No bridge, 9 normal workstations

Armament

     Offensive: LTM-115-5-1 (15.97 MW; 1 crew)
     3 DT socket (No crew)
     Defensive: Sand Turret (1 MW; 1 crew)
     Master Fire Directors: TL-12 (4 Diff Mods; 10 hex; Msl 10 hex; 3.1 MW;
     1 crew)

     Name        Short     Medium     Long      Extreme
     LTM-115-5-1 10:1/10-3010:1/10-30 10:1/10-3010:1/10-30
     3 DT socket

     Name        MCr       G-Turns    Hits      Primary    Secondary
RangeCommSensoSignatures
                                                Warhead    Warheads
     x5 Hokhok                                             x2
     Missile     4.5       80/8       1D6       1/25-79    1/18-56   0 
  10L 0.1P +2/+2/+2/+2/+0

Accommodations

     Life Support: Extended (0.37 MW), Gravitic Compensators (9.23 MW)
     Grav Compensation: 3 G.
     Crew: 10 (2xManeuver, 1xElectronics, 3xEngineer, 3xGunnery, 1xCommand)
     Crew Accommodations: 6xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW)
     Passenger Accommodations: 5xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW)
     Cargo: 725 m3 (51.8 tons), 2 Large Hatches, 4 missiles in magazine
     Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 4x0.5-ton AF grapple, 1x2-ton
     minimal hangar
     Air Locks: 2

Notes

Total Fuel Tankage: 1,318.175 m3 (94.2 tons).
Fuel scoops (10% of ship surface), fills tanks in 0.94 hours.
Fuel purification machinery (1.8MW), 26.36 hours to refine 1,318.175 m3.
Crew requirements are calculated by using 'Original FFS' crew model.
0.2 MW power surplus
x2 Retractable TL13 Plasma 4mm / VFR Gauss Gun. 800 Rounds Plasma / 30,000
Rounds 4mm Gauss. Port and Starboard mountings.
700 Cubic meters of cargo space is in one large bay capable of supporting a
50DT module. The remaining 25 cubic meters is carefully hidden in a hollowed
out section beneath the fusion power plant.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damage Tables

Area    Surface Hits    Internal Explosion              System
1       Ant. 1-10       Elec                            AEMS-1h         LS-7H
2-3                     1-12 Qtrs, 13-14 Elec, 15-20 Fuel       AG-1H  
                MD-1H
4-5     AL 1            1-13 Qtrs, 14-15 Socket, 16-20 Fuel     AL-2x1h
        MFD-1H
6-9     CH 1-4, EMR 5-6 1-12 Hold, 13-20 Fuel           ELS-3H         
        PEMS-1h
10-11                   1-6 Turrets, 7-20 Fuel          EMM-1H          PEMS Ant-1h
12-15   CH 1-4, EMR 5-6 1-12 Hold, 13-20 Fuel           EMM Rad-3h     
        PP-8H
16-19                   1-8 Eng, 9-20 Fuel              FPP-3H         
        SSR-11x2h
20                      Eng                             FT-13H         
        JD-3H

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Hokhok Missile
General Data
Displacement: 0.5/0.5 tons
Hull Armor: 10
Length: 4.75 meters
Volume: 7/7 m3
Price: MCr 2.5/4.3(with submunitions)
Target Size: SM
Configuration: Airframe Cylinder
Tech Level: 12/13
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 10.1 / 9.9 with external systems, 10.1 / 9.9
without external systems

Engineering Data
Power Plant: 3 MW Fussion Power Plant, 0.0073 year duration (0.00219 m3 fuel) TL13
Jump Performance: None
G-Rating: 8G HEPlaR (0.29 MW/G),
G-Turns: 80, 0 m3 fuel each
Maint: 1

Electronics
Computer: TL-12 Flight computer (0.04 MW)
Commo: Laser (10 hex; 0.15 MW), 
Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 160 km/h NOE
Sensors: PEMS 30,000km (1.0hex, 0.03MW) 
ECM/ECCM: EM Masking (0.007MW)

Armament
Offensive: 	1 TL12 500kt X-Ray Det Warhead. 1:1/25-79
	   	x2 Magnetically Slung TL12 100kt X-Ray Det Warheads. 1:1/18-56	

Notes
Total Fuel Tankage: 0.5845 m3 (0.1 tons) 
0 MW power surplus

The Hokhok Missile was designed to be mounted in the specially designed
belly slings of the Pandora Class Wild's Freighter.  Powered by the
newly developed TL13 Fusion power plant, the Hokhok has been able to
acheive a number of G-Turns vastly superior to it's contempararies.
Originally conceived as an armed intelligence drone the Hokhok was
quickly modified into an effective search and destroy weapon.  Small
enough to pass unnoticed in many systems and possessing respectable
stealth capablities the Hokhok is utilized to covertly listen in on
ground transmissions while the Freighter maintains a descrete distance
and then once the Freighter has decided to land the Hokhok is often
left behind to provide high cover.  With its triple warhead system the
Hokhok is often simply used as a delivery system for the two smaller
warheads thus allowing the larger missile to be simply recovered and
utilized again when the time is right.
The Hokhok's only drawback is it's hefty price tag, at close to 4.5 MCr
a unit they have yet to be widely embraced by any service.  However, a
number of these missiles were recently purchaces by RCES and modified
for as yet unknown duties.
 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:37 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Sojourner Wilds Trader

 
This was my design, figured I'd let everyone know, because I was the
one counting the ballots.  Give this what ever weight you want. Lewis

- -----------------------------------------------
Sojourner Wilds Trader

The Sojourner is KeeEEka Strongwall's entry into the Coalition's competition
for a new Wilds Trader.  It is the first ship designed by the shipyard, and 
if it is chosen, the shipyard hopes that it will be just the first in a 
long line of Schalli designed and built ships. While it is built by Schalli,
it is designed for use by humans.  

TeeCLEEEoo Blackfin, the chief designer of the Sojourner, designed the ship
to succeed in the unique situation that the Wilds present.  The ship is
heavily armored, not so much for space battles, but in case a
local planetary leader tries to steal the ship. The Jayhawk Far Trader
is so lightly armored, that it barely protects against small 
arms fire. The Sojourner's hull is five times as thick and is capable of
withstanding light anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns,
mortars, recoilless rifles and some artillery pieces.  The ship also is 
capable of protecting itself.  It has a belly turret with four VRF gauss
guns mounted in it,  each gun has 60,000 rounds of ammunition in the turret.
The VRF Gauss guns are built on Fija, and are standard RC issue, which is
also compatible with relic Imperial models. This will make it easier
to acquire spare parts if an break down occurs. An autocannon was 
contemplated, but in the Wilds it might be hard to acquire additional
ammunition.  Standard dart ammunition can be manufactured in the
Sojourner's machine shop.  The ship also mounts a standard Tl-12 120 Mj
laser turret. The turret is capable of firing a shot every 18 seconds 
(4 combat rounds) if used in ground combat.  It also has a standard 
sandcaster, capable of protecting the ship against hostile Vampire and 
pirate ships. Its sensor's are also much improved from those in the
Jayhawk.  In the Wilds, it is essential to know if potential enemies
are laying about.

The ship has a 12 ton vehicle bay and comes with a standard TL-8 Tracked 
ATV.  These ATV's are built on Lucifer, and imported to Aubaine. For a small
upgrade fee, the ATV can be upgraded to a wheeled ATV, or even an airraft.
The Sojourner has state of the art TL-12 machine shop, and electronic shop.
These shops have a dual use; they can replace many of the minor parts on the
ship in case of a malfunction. They can also be used to repair relic 
technology on Wilds worlds.  This way the ship can earn additional revenue
between jumps, either by acting as a mobile fix-it shop, or by buying 
broken equipment, repairing it and then selling it to someone else.
The shops come with a extensive library of parts and equipment
that can be built with the available tools. This will also help rebuild
the wilds worlds, so that they will be in better shape when the RC contacts
them.  

The Sojourner provides ample means for a Captain to make a profit, it has
20 staterooms, usually nine of these go to the crew, but individual captains
can decide to double up crew members to provide more space for passengers.
It can also carry 89 tons of cargo, which is almost double that of the 
Jayhawk Far Trader.  This should provide enough space, that the owners
will have no problem paying off their mortgages.  An exact economical plan
can't be worked out because most Free Traders will be buying cargo on 
speculation, and the exact profit/loss ratio  can't be worked out in advance.
 
The ship has a fairly simple appearance.  It is a smooth box, with a 
rounded nose, a HEPlaR thruster is mounted on either side of the ship
at the rear.  The quad-gauss gun is mounted in a belly turret, under the 
nose of the ship.  The sandcaster turret is also a belly turret located
mid-ships, while the laser turret is located directly above this on the
top of the ship.  Access to the cargo bay and ATV bay is from the rear,
via a roll down ramp.  When on the ground the ship rests on four landing
feet, during flight these fold up into the hull.  

Inside the ship is fairly simple.  The ship is laid out with two levels,
the top deck, contains the cockpit, crew and passenger lounge, staterooms 
and jump drive. Fuel for the jump drives and HEPlaR drives is located in 
several compartments in the bottom deck. The fuel is compartmentalized to
minimize losses in case of battle damage.  Most of the cargo bay is 
located on the bottom deck, but at the rear of the ship it expands into
the top deck, to allow the storage of taller cargos.  The ATV is also
stored on the bottom deck, at the rear of the ship.  

Staterooms are fairly spartan, and lack many of the high tech features
that are common in some ships, such as holographic projection screens,
variable form furniture etc.  It was thought that these items didn't improve
the functionality of the ship, and would be rather difficult to maintain
in the Wilds.  Each Sojourner does come with an extensive collection of
technical manuals and informational holovids, in addition to many 
entertainment videos.  The passenger's lounge holovid unit, can be dismounted
and used to display videos on remote locations.  It was thought that some
crews might want to show  videos to residents of the Wild. This could be
either as entertainment or as a training seminar.  It should be noted
that the library collection was chosen to put the best face possible on the
Coalition. 

- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------

General Data				
Displacement: 300 tons			Hull Armor: 50
Length: 25.02 meters			Volume: 4200 m3
Price: MCr 105.9                        Target Size: S
Configuration: Streamlined Box		Tech Level: 12
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 2973.5 / 2538				

Engineering Data				
Power Plant: 268 MW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration (40.2 m3 fuel)
			
Jump Performance: 2 (630 m3 fuel)				
G-Rating: 1G HEPlaR (147 MW/G), Auxiliary High Efficiency CG (30 MW)
			
G-Turns: 30 (J1: 47.1; 64.3 using all jump fuel), 18.4 m3 fuel each
			
Maint: 106				

Electronics				
Computer: 3xTL-12 Standard computer (0.4 MW)				
Commo: Laser (1 hex; 0.08 MW), Maser (10 hex; 0.3 MW), Radio (10 hex; 10 MW)
Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 160 km/h NOE
Sensors: AEMS (6 hex; 20 MW), PEMS (4 hex; 0.15 MW), 
ECM/ECCM: None
Controls: No bridge, 7 normal workstations

Armament
Offensive:  TL-12 120 Mj laser turret. ROF=100. 
            4:1/9-27 8:1/9-27 16:1/6-19 32:1/3-9 (33 MW; 1 crew)
Defensive: Sand Turret (1 MW; 1 crew)30 cans, 1d10x5 beam reduction
Master Fire Directors: None

Accommodations
Life Support: Extended (0.5846 MW), Gravitic Compensators (14.615 MW)
Crew: 9 (2xManeuver, 1xElectronics, 3xEngineer, 2xGunnery, 1xCommand)
Crew Accommodations: 9xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW)
Passengers: 11xMedium, 
Passenger Accommodations: 11xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW)		
				
Other Facilities: Electronics Shop (0.6 MW), Machine Shop (1 MW), 
						
Cargo: 1246 m3 (89 tons), 3 Large Hatches			
			
Small Craft and Launch Facilities:12 ton vehicle bay, with 3 ton
       Tracked ATV.
Air Locks: 3							

Notes							
Total Fuel Tankage: 1221.45 m3 (87.2 tons) 			
			
Fuel scoops (20% of ship surface), fills tanks in 0.36 hours	
					
Fuel purification machinery (1.832MW), 24 hours to refine 1221.45 m3.
						
0.8 MW power surplus							
  
 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1565
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 15 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1566



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Virtue Class Upgradable Wilds Trader 
Tycoon Class Modular Wilds Trader 
Iguana class Far Trader
Re: Terrain
Calender and Timekeeping

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:50 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Virtue Class Upgradable Wilds Trader 

 
My ship is intentionally designed to be upgraded by its owner(s) as time
goes by.  Also, I detailed the damage charts to the N-th degree, as you
can see.  

The basic version ("1/A") is only MCr 58.41 and gives jump-1 and 1 G
performance.  The ultimate version ("3/B") is MCr 85.21 and gives jump-3
and 2 G performance.  Owners who want "longer legs" (a higher jump number)
and improved fuel performance can install the next larger jump drive, and
those wanting faster acceleration can install a larger fusion plant, in
either case, without changing the ship's architecture (because of the
reserved space in the engineering section), negating the need for a naval
architect.  

I detailed the damage charts to this extreme so as to quicken the
determination of damage locations.  

I visualize this ship as being very similar (externally) to the classic
jump-1 Beowulf-class free trader.  

Including the collapsible fuel bladders increases the ship's versatility.
Also, if the ship wants to carry more passengers, the electronics crew
could "hot bunk", freeing up one more stateroom.  

 
_Virtue_-Class Upgradable Wilds Trader 

GENERAL DATA: 

Displacement: 200 tons             Hull Armor: 21 
Length: 42.5 meters                Volume: 2,800 cubic meters 
Tech Level:                        Configuration: Wedge SL 
  (Option A): 12/10 or 12/11;      Target Size: S 
  (Option B): 12/9                      
Price:                             Mass (Loaded/Empty):                    
  (Version 1/A): MCr 58.41           (Version 1/A): 2,314.646/1,135.786 
  (Version 1/B): MCr 68.41           (Version 1/B): 2,514.646/1,335.786 
  (Version 2/A): MCr 66.81           (Version 2/A): 2,398.646/1,219.786 
  (Version 2/B): MCr 76.81           (Version 2/B): 2,598.646/1,419.786 
  (Version 3/A): MCr 75.21           (Version 3/A): 2,482.646/1,303.786 
  (Version 3/B): MCr 85.21           (Version 3/B): 2,682.646/1,503.786 

ENGINEERING DATA: 

Power Plant: 
  (Option A): TL-10/11 150 MW Fusion plant, 1.333 years duration 
    (fuel use: 22.5 m^3/year; power shortfall of 0.27 MW); 
  (Option B): TL-9 250 MW Fusion plant, 0.8 years duration 
    (fuel use: 37.5 m^3/year; power shortfall of 0.27 MW) 
Jump Performance: 
  (Option 1): One parsec (fuel use: 280 m^3); 
  (Option 2): Two parsecs (fuel use: 420 m^3 total; 210 m^3/parsec);  
  (Option 3): Three parsecs (fuel use: 560 m^3 total; 186.667 m^3/parsec) 
G-Rating: 
  2 G's/HEPlaR (100 MW/G; "Option A" restricted to only 1 G); 
  Contra-Grav Lifters (20 MW) 
G-Turns: 
  (Option 1): 33.6, 12.5 m^3 each (56 if using jump fuel) 
  (Option 2): 22.4, 12.5 m^3 each (39.2 with reserve for jump-1; 
    56 if using all jump fuel) 
  (Option 3): 11.2, 12.5 m^3 each (26.133 with reserve for jump-2; 
    41.067 with reserve for jump-1; 56 if using all jump fuel) 
Fuel Tankage: 
  700 m^3, plus 30 m^3 reserved for power plant; 
  7x 100 m^3 collapsible fuel bladders capable of holding an additional 
    700 m^3 (an additional 56 G-turns) 
Maintenance Points: 
  (Version 1/A): 101 
  (Version 1/B): 111 
  (Version 2/A): 105 
  (Version 2/B): 115 
  (Version 3/A): 109 
  (Version 3/B): 119 

ELECTRONICS: 

Computers: 3x TL-12 Mod Std Computers (0.4 MW each) 
Communicators: 
  1x TL-12 30,000 km Radio (1 hx; 1 MW); 
  1x TL-12 1,000 AU Laser-Comm (inf.; 0.3 MW); 
  1x TL-12 1,000 AU Maser-Comm (inf.; 0.6 MW) 
Avionics: TL-11+ Avionics 
Sensors: 
  1x TL-12 30,000 km Active EMS (1 hx; 11 MW); 
  1x TL-12 90,000 km Passive EMS, fixed array (3 hx; 0.1 MW) 
ECM/ECCM: None 
Controls: Flight deck with 3x Normal workstations, 
  plus 2x Normal workstations 

ARMAMENTS: 

Hardpoints: 2x Turret Socket Hardpoints (Loc: 16/17, 18/19; Arcs: All) 

ACCOMMODATIONS: 

Life Support: Extended (0.56 MW); Grav Compensators (3 G's; 14 MW) 
Crew: 4 or 5 (2x Maneuver; 1x Electronics; 1x or 2x Engineering) 
Crew Accommodations: 4x Small Staterooms (0.0005 MW each) 
Passenger Accommodations: 
  4x Small Staterooms (0.0005 MW each); 
  4x Low Berths (0.001 MW each) 
Cargo: 
  1,129.86 m^3 (approx. 80.7 dt; see Fuel Tankage above); 
  4x Large Cargo Hatches 
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: None 
Air Locks: 2 (0.001 MW each) 

NOTES: 

1) Fuel scoops capable of ingesting 1,120 cubic meters (80 dt) per hour.  
2) Fuel purification machinery capable of refining 200 cubic meters every 
  six hours (1.2 MW; 6.3 hrs. for 210 m^3; 8.4 hrs. for 280 m^3; 9.333 hrs. 
  for 186.667 m^3; 12.6 hrs. for 420 m^3; 16.8 hrs. for 560 m^3; 21 hrs. 
  for 700 m^3).  
3) Sufficient space has been reserved in engineering section for Jump-3 
  drive and TL-9 250 MW fusion plant.  
4) Maneuver drive ignition chamber/heat exchanger is designed for 2 G's of 
  acceleration.  The actual performance available depends on the power budget.  
5) Many of the proposed ship names are variations of Thrift/Frugality,
  Pragmatism/Practicality, and Industriousness.  


DAMAGE CHARTS: 

AREA      SURFACE HITS             INTERNAL HITS 
01        01-13: Antenna           01-04: Electronics
          14-20: ---               05-07: Bridge Crew 
                                   08-20: Fuel 
02-03     ---                      01-02: Stateroom #1 
                                   03-04: Stateroom #2 
                                   05-06: Stateroom #3 
                                   07-08: Stateroom #4 
                                   09-10: Stateroom #5 
                                   11-12: Stateroom #6 
                                   13-14: Stateroom #7 
                                   15-16: Stateroom #8 
                                   17:    Low Berth #1 
                                   18:    Low Berth #2 
                                   19:    Low Berth #3 
                                   20:    Low Berth #4 
04-05     ---                      01-02: Life Support 
                                   03:    Emergency Life Support 
                                   04-20: Cargo 
06-07     01-03: Cargo Hatch #1    01-15: Cargo / Fuel (Bladders) 
          04-20: ---               16-20: Cargo 
08-09     01-03: Cargo Hatch #2    01-10: Cargo / Fuel (Bladders) 
          04-20: ---               11:    Collapsible Fuel Bladder 
                                   12-18: Fuel 
                                   19-20: Contra-Grav Lifters 
10        ---                      Cargo 
11        ---                      01-10: Cargo / Fuel (Bladders) 
                                   11:    Collapsible Fuel Bladder 
                                   12-15: Fuel 
                                   16-19: Artif. Grav./G-Comp. 
                                   20:    Contra-Grav Lifters 
12-13     01-03: Cargo Hatch #3    01-10: Cargo / Fuel (Bladders) 
          04-20: ---               11-20: Fuel 
14-15     01-03: Cargo Hatch #4    01-10: Cargo / Fuel (Bladders) 
          04-20: ---               11:    Collapsible Fuel Bladder 
                                   12-18: Fuel 
                                   19-20: Contra-Grav Lifters 
16-17     ---                      01-03: Turret Socket 
                                   04-20: Fuel 
18-19     ---                      01-03: Turret Socket 
                                   04:    Fuel 
                                   05-10: Fuel Purification Plant 
                                   11:    Engineering Crew or 
                                     Damage Control Party (50%/50%) 
                                   12-15: Reserved (A) / 
                                     Power Plant (B) 
                                   16-20: Power Plant 
20        ---                      01-08: Jump Drive 
                                   09-12: Reserved (1) / 
                                     Jump Drive (2/3) 
                                   13-16: Reserved (1/2) / 
                                     Jump Drive (3) 
                                   17:    Fuel 
                                   18-20: Maneuver Drive 

SYSTEMS: 
Power Plant - 3H / 5H 
Jump Drive - 2H / 3H / 4H 
Maneuver Drive - (4h) 
Contra-Grav - 1H 
Fuel Purification - 2H 
Life Support - 3H 
Emergency Life Support - 1H 
Artificial Gravity/G-Compensation - 1H 
Small Stateroom - (2h) 
Low Berth - (1h) 
Collapsible Fuel Bladder - (1h) 
All Others - (1h) 

 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:44 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Tycoon Class Modular Wilds Trader 

 
Here's the info on the "basic package" (1 Tycoon + 1 Gofer): 
  Total Price: MCr 72.028 
    (53.944 + 18.084) 
  Total Maintenance Points: 79 
    (50 + 29) 
  Total Mass (Loaded/Empty): 1,888.967/1,426.267 metric tonnes 
    (1,247.381/1,208.181 + 641.586/218.086) 
  Total Power Surplus: 27.109 MW 
    (7.063 + 3.046 + 17) 
  Total Crew/Passenger *Long-Term* Accommodations: 
    9x Small Staterooms (8 + 1) 
    2x Low Berths       (0 + 2) 
  Total Cargo Capacity: 420 m^3 = 30 displacement tons 
    (0 + 420) 
  Jump/Maneuver Performance: J-3; 1G 

Evil Idea (At No Extra Charge): Use 25-ton and/or 50-ton Modules for 
  RC Clipper! :-) 
 
_Tycoon_-Class Modular Wilds Trader 

GENERAL DATA: 

Displacement: 100/300 tons              Hull Armor: 14 
Length: 35 meters                       Volume: 1,400/4,200 m^3 
Price: MCr 53.944                       Target Size: Small (S) 
Configuration: Close Structure USL      Tech Level: 12/11 
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 1,247.381/1,208.181 tonnes 

ENGINEERING DATA: 

Power Plant: TL-11/12 80 MW Fusion plant (7.063 MW surplus; 
  40 MW/hit), one-half year duration 
Jump Drive: Performance varies according to displacement (see below) 
Maneuver Drive: 1 G/HEPlaR (1 G at all displacements due to design 
  restrictions; see below for power & fuel use); no Contra-Grav Lifters 
G-Turns: Varies according to displacement (see below) 
Fuel Tankage: 560 m^3 
Maintenance Points: 50 

ELECTRONICS: 

Controls: Flight deck with 3x workstations, plus 1x other workstation 
Avionics: TL-12 Flight Avionics 
Computers: 3x TL-12 Model Standard (0.4 MW each) 
Communications: 
  1x TL-12 30,000 km Radio (1 hx; 1 MW) 
  1x TL-12 1,000 AU Laser-Comm (inf.; 0.3 MW) 
  1x TL-12 1,000 AU Maser-Comm (inf.; 0.6 MW) 
Sensors: 
  1x TL-12 30,000 km Active EMS (1 hx; 11 MW) 
  1x TL-12 120,000 km Passive EMS, fixed array (4 hx; 0.15 MW) 

ARMAMENTS: None 

ACCOMMODATIONS: 

Airlocks: 3 (0.001 MW each) 
Life Support: Extended (0.28 MW); G-Compensators (up to 3 Gs; 7 MW) 
Crew: 4 (2x Maneuver; 1x Electronics; 1x Engineering) 
Crew/Passenger Accommodations: 8x Small Staterooms (0.0005 MW each) 
Cargo: None 
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 4x External Grapples (USL) for 
  50-ton Box SL Shuttle 

NOTES: 

1) Values listed for Price and Mass do *not* include any Shuttles.  
2) The exact performance (range) and fuel use of the jump drive, as well 
  as the power and fuel use of the maneuver drive, vary according to the 
  displacement tonnage, as shown below.  

    Tonnage    Jump Range & Fuel             Maneuver Power & Fuel 
    100 tons   3 pc.; 280 m^3 (93.333/pc.)   50 MW; 6.25 m^3/G-turn 
    150 tons   3 pc.; 420 m^3 (140/pc.)      75 MW; 9.375 m^3/G-turn 
    200 tons   2 pc.; 420 m^3 (210/pc.)      100 MW; 12.5 m^3/G-turn 
    250 tons   1 parsec; 350 m^3             125 MW; 15.625 m^3/G-turn 
    300 tons   1 parsec; 420 m^3             150 MW; 18.75 m^3/G-turn 

3) Relic high-tech jump drives could be installed to improve range (and 
  fuel economy; at 100 tons displacement) and mass.  (Imagine salvaging 
  TL-15 Jump-4 drives from the classic 100-ton Express Boat.)  

    Tech Level   Mass   Range       Fuel Use 
    TL-13        (-0)   4 parsecs   350 m^3 (87.5 m^3 per parsec) 
    TL-14        -42    5 parsecs   420 m^3 (84 m^3 per parsec) 
    TL-15        -84    5 parsecs   420 m^3 (84 m^3 per parsec) 

4) Turret sockets on the Shuttles are treated as being at locations 6, 
  7, 8, and 9, respectively, when docked; thus, they can all fire into 
  arcs 1, 2, 3, and 4.  

DAMAGE TABLES: 

Area    Surface                 Internal                Systems 
01      01-11: Antenna          01-04: Electronics      PP - 2H 
        12-19: ---              05-08: Shuttle #1       JD - 3H 
        20:    Airlock          09-12: Shuttle #2       MD - (3h) 
                                13-16: Shuttle #3       FPP - 2H 
                                17-20: Shuttle #4       LS - 2H 
02      ---                     Shuttle #1              ELS - 1H 
03      ---                     Shuttle #2              AG - 1H 
04      ---                     Shuttle #3              Grapple - 1H 
05      ---                     Shuttle #4                each 
06      ---                     01-18: Shuttle #1       All Others - 
                                19-20: Grapple #1         (1h) 
07      ---                     01-18: Shuttle #2 
                                19-20: Grapple #2 
08      ---                     01-18: Shuttle #3 
                                19-20: Grapple #3 
09      ---                     01-18: Shuttle #4 
                                19-20: Grapple #4 
10      ---                     01-10: Shuttle #1 
                                11-20: Shuttle #2 
11      ---                     01-10: Shuttle #3 
                                11-20: Shuttle #4 
12      ---                     01-15: Shuttle #1 
                                16-20: Grapple #1 
13      ---                     01-15: Shuttle #2 
                                16-20: Grapple #2 
14      ---                     01-15: Shuttle #3 
                                16-20: Grapple #3 
15      ---                     01-15: Shuttle #4 
                                16-20: Grapple #4 
16-19   ---                     01:    Engineering 
                                02-14: Fuel 
                                15-20: Quarters 
20      01:    Airlock          01-17: Engineering 
        02-20: ---              18-20: Fuel 

 


_Gofer_-Class Cargo/Fuel Shuttle (for Modular Wilds Trader) 

GENERAL DATA: 

Displacement: 50 tons                   Hull Armor: 14 
Length: 14 meters                       Volume: 700 m^3 
Price: MCr 18.084                       Target Size: Very Small (VS) 
Configuration: Box SL                   Tech Level: 12/11 
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 641.586/218.086 tonnes 

ENGINEERING DATA: 

Power Plant: TL-11/12 50 MW Fusion plant (3.046 MW surplus; 
  50 MW/hit), one year duration 
Jump Drive: None 
Maneuver Drive: 1 G/HEPlaR (25 MW); Contra-Grav Lifters (5 MW) 
G-Turns: 16 (3.125 m^3 each) 
Fuel Tankage: 50 m^3, plus 7.5 m^3 reserved for power plant; 
  6x 70 m^3 collapsible fuel bladders capable of holding an 
  additional 420 m^3 in the cargo hold 
Maintenance Points: 29 

ELECTRONICS: 

Controls: Flight deck with 1x workstation 
Avionics: TL-12 Flight Avionics 
Computers: 2x TL-12 Model Standard (0.4 MW each) 
Communications: 1x TL-12 30,000 km Radio (1 hx; 1 MW) 
Sensors: 1x TL-12 30,000 km Active EMS (1 hx; 11 MW) 

ARMAMENTS: 

Hardpoints: 1x Turret Socket (Loc: 10; Arcs: 2, 3, 4) 

ACCOMMODATIONS: 

Airlocks: 1 (0.001 MW) 
Life Support: Extended (0.14 M); G-Compensators (up to 3 Gs; 3.5 MW) 
Crew: 1 (Maneuver) 
Crew/Passenger Accommodations: 
  1x Small Stateroom (0.0005 MW) 
  2x Low Berths (0.001 MW each) 
  4x Adequate Seats 
Cargo: 420 m^3 (30 d.t.; see Fuel Tankage above); 2x Large Cargo Hatches 
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: None 

NOTES: 

1) When docked with a _Tycoon_ Modular Trader, the Shuttle provides the 
  25 MW needed by the _Tycoon_ for the maneuver drive's increased power 
  usage.  
2) Whenever a laser turret is installed, it is customary to plan for 
  "overpowering" the weapon, as this is easily achieved whenever the 
  Shuttle is docked with a _Tycoon_ Modular Trader.  (The Radio, Active 
  EMS, and CG Lifters on the Shuttle are unneeded and thus powered down, 
  freeing a total of 17 MW with which to "overpower" the laser weapon.)  

DAMAGE TABLES: 

Area    Surface                 Internal                Systems 
01      01-09: Radio Antenna    01-04: Bridge Crew      PP - 1H 
        10-13: AEMS Antenna     05-15: Electronics      CG - (2h) 
        14-18: ---              16-20: Life Support     LS - 1H 
        19-20: Airlock                                  ELS - 1H 
02-03   ---                     01:    Seat #1          AG - (3h) 
                                02:    Seat #2          All Others 
                                03:    Seat #3            - (1h) 
                                04:    Seat #4 
                                05-08: Low Berth #1 
                                09-12: Low Berth #2 
                                13-20: Small Stateroom 
04-05   ---                     Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
06-07   ---                     Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
08      01-09: Cargo Hatch      Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
                 (Starboard) 
        10-20: --- 
09      01-09: Cargo Hatch      Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
                 (Port) 
        10-20: --- 
10      ---                     Turret Socket 
11      ---                     01-09: CG Lifters 
                                10-12: Emergency LS 
                                13-16: AG/G-Compensators 
                                17-20: Turret Socket 
12-13   ---                     Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
14      01-09: Cargo Hatch      Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
                 (Starboard) 
        10-20: --- 
15      01-09: Cargo Hatch      Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
                 (Port) 
        10-20: --- 
16-19   ---                     01-15: Cargo (Fuel in Bladders) 
                                16-18: Bladders 
                                19-20: Fuel 
20      ---                     01-14: Power Plant 
                                15:    Maneuver Drive 
                                16-20: Fuel 

 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 19:18:14 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Iguana class Far Trader

 
 
Iguana class Far Trader designed by Apogee Ship Design.

General Data				
Displacement: 200(100) tons			Hull Armor: 30
Length: 17.35 meters				Volume: 2800 m3 (1400 m3)
Price: MCr 72.5 + Modules			Target Size: S
Configuration: Streamlined Box			Tech Level: 12
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 1350.4 / 1308.6 + Modules				

Engineering Data				
Power Plant: 193 MW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration (28.95 m3 fuel)
Jump Performance: 2 (420 m3 fuel)  (3 (280 m3 fuel))			
G-Rating: 1G HEPlaR (100 MW/G)  (2G HEPlaR (50 MW/G)), 
          Contra-Grav Lifters (10 MW)
G-Turns: With Modules: 11 (J1: 28.6; 45.4 using all jump fuel), 12.5 m3
                       fuel each
         Without Modules: 46 (J2: 60.9; J1: 75.9; 90.8 using all jump
			  fuel), 6.25 m3 fuel each
Maint: 51				

Electronics				
Computer: 3xTL-12 Standard computer (0.4 MW)				
Commo: Maser (Unlimited; 0.6 MW), Radio (10 hex; 10 MW)
Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 160 km/h NOE
Sensors: AEMS (2 hex; 12.5 MW), PEMS (3 hex; 0.1 MW), ECM/ECCM: None
Controls: No bridge, 6 normal workstations

Armament
Offensive: Laser Barbette (42 MW; 1 crew)
Defensive: Sand Turret (1 MW; 1 crew)
Master Fire Directors: None

Accommodations
Life Support: Extended (0.1574 MW), Gravitic Compensators (3.935 MW)
Crew: 8 (2xManeuver, 1xElectronics, 2xEngineer, 2xGunnery, 1xCommand)
Crew Accommodations: 8 small staterooms.
Passengers: None
Passenger Accommodations: None
Cargo: 0 m3
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 1x2-ton minimal hanger, attachments
                                   for 2x50-ton modules.
Other Facilities: None
Air Locks: 1

Notes
Total Fuel Tankage: 596.45 m3 (42.6 tons) 
Fuel scoops (15% of ship surface), fills tanks in 0.71 hours
Fuel purification machinery (1.2MW), 17.89 hours to refine 596.45 m3.



Modules (note all modules are built at TL10 for ease of repair, 
have contra-grav and batteries sufficent to last for one hour):

Cargo Module:
Displacement: 50 tons				Hull Armor: 30
Length: 14 meters				Volume: 700 m3
Price: MCr 1.54					Target Size: VS
Configuration: Streamlined Box			Tech Level: 10
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 881.4 / 230.4
Cargo: 651 m3 (46.5 tons), 1 Large Cargo Hatch
Power Requirements: 10.3 MW


Cargo/Fuel Module:
Displacement: 50 tons				Hull Armor: 30
Length: 14 meters				Volume: 700 m3
Price: MCr 1.54					Target Size: VS
Configuration: Streamlined Box			Tech Level: 10
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 601.4 / 230.4
Cargo: 350 m3 (25 tons), 1 Large Cargo Hatch
Fuel: 301 m3 (21.5 tons), 24 G-Turns, an additional 9 hours to refine.
Power Requirements: 10.3 MW


Cargo/Passengers Module:
Displacement: 50 tons				Hull Armor: 30
Length: 14 meters				Volume: 700 m3
Price: MCr 1.9					Target Size: VS
Configuration: Streamlined Box			Tech Level: 10
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 588.6 / 248.6
Cargo: 340 m3 (24.3 tons), 1 Small Cargo Hatch
Crew: 1 (1 steward)
Crew accommodations: 1 small stateroom.
Passengers accommodations: 8 small staterooms.
Air Locks: 1
Power Requirements: 10.3 MW


High-Passengers Module:
Displacement: 50 tons				Hull Armor: 30
Length: 14 meters				Volume: 700 m3
Price: MCr 2.28					Target Size: VS
Configuration: Streamlined Box			Tech Level: 10
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 432.6 / 260.6
Cargo: 172 m3 (12.3 tons), 1 Small Cargo Hatch
Crew: 1 (1 steward)
Crew accommodations: 1 small stateroom.
Passengers accommodations: 6 large staterooms.
Air Locks: 1
Others: 4-ton common area.
Power Requirements: 10.3 MW

- - -----------------------------------------------------------------------


When we at Apogee Ship Design first started to design a Far Trader to
replace the venerable Jayhawk, we first looked at ways we might
improve the design to make it a better trader.  However we soon
realised that very few major improvements could be made over the basic
design of the Jayhawk, forcing us to step back and rethink the aims
of our design.  This lead us to the conclusion that the main failing
of most Far Traders currently available is their survivability, and
this lead us to design the Iguana.

These are dangerous times, particularly beyond the borders of the
Coalition, so the Iguana has been designed to survive, even at the
cost of its cargo.  The Iguana's first line of defense against any
would be attackers is its standard sandcaster turret, and laser
barbette capable of giving almost all similarly sized ships second
thoughts.  If that doesn't prove sufficient then the Iguana is still
capable of turning tail and running.  Since the Iguana's cargo is held
externally, in two large fifty displacement ton cargo modules
specifically designed to fit the Iguana, these can be dropped to
improve the performance characteristics of the ship, doubling its
acceleration and improving its jump capability to allow a three parsec
jump, or an emergency one parsec jump on less than one hundred litres
of fuel.

Another advantage the Iguana has over its competition is its
flexability.  Since the individual captain can determine the type of
modules he purchases for his ship he can decide whether to make it a
pure cargo hauler, or a passenger liner, or a mix of the two.  The
modules can also be used to make loading and unloading the ship
faster, since they each contain contra-grav lifters, and enough
batteries to maintain the contra-grav, life support and artifical
gravity for over an hour, they can easily be moved about the starport
to positions where they are easier to unload.  It would even be
possible for a group of Free traders to form a cooperative and
purchase several extra modules allowing even more rapid turn around
times.

It should be noted that we recommend that no captain ever use a module
from an unrecognised source.  Whilst we have made every effort to
prevent Virus infection from a compromised module, the designers will
take no responsibility for any captain who accepts a module which has
been infected by Virus.  The anti-virus methods employed to prevent
this kind of infection can basically be split into three sections,
voluntary conection, limited connection, and isolation.  The first
ensures that no connection can be made between the ship and the
modules until a switch has been thrown on both sides.  This will then
connect the module to a disposable "canary" until the ship's switch is
thrown again.  The second is a very limited protocol on the limited
connections between the ship.  If any variance is detected on either
the power, or contra-grav control line, these connections will be
broken off. The third guard is that both these connections are
isolated inside the ship, in particular the power connection is to a
small self contained 21MW fusion plant.

The only problem with using the Iguana in the replacement ship scheme
is its relative cost, but this could be offset fairly easily by
retaining part ownership of the ship when exchanging it.  A fifteen to
twenty percent share would probably not be seen as too excessive by most
Free traders bringing in old ships for new, and would bring immediate
material gain to the Coalition.

The Iguana is fairly uninteresting to look at, a blunt nose slopes
back to a slightly rounded box, about nine meters wide and high, and
almost eighteen meters long, disturbed only by the large indented
rectangles the modules sit in.  Under the nose is the entrance to the
small vehicle bay, whilst above it is the cockpit.  Behind the vehicle
bay is the ships internal fuel tanks, and above that the crew quaters,
and the cross corridor which connects to the two hatches the modules
connect to.  Further back the barbette sits mounted on the centre line
of the ship and dorsally mounted. Just behind that is the ventrally
mounted sandcaster, and behind these the engine room.  Finally,
between the jump drive and the engines themselves, below the engine
room is an airlock, exiting the port side of the ship.

The modules themselves vary little in their appearance, being
themselves slightly rounded boxes, a little over seven meters square
and fourteen meters long, and with a hatch centrally on each side, and
one underneath to allow for later designs to carry them piggy back.
The only difference is the modules designed to carry cargo have a
large cargo hatch at one end, and those designed to carry passengers
have an airlock.  Which end this is, is up to the captain when he
connects the module.

Notes:  

It is virtually impossible for the ship to collect modules again after
they have been dropped, however it is possible for a ship with
grapples, or a large enough hanger to recover them.

A larger version is currently being designed with a main body of two
hundred tons, and able to connect to four of the modules, to exchange
for the ex-subsidised merchants and liners still in use.  However this
project had been put on hold whilst finishing the Iguana.  Further
details will be forthcoming.

A second version that's still at the concept stage is of a 'Lancer
varient of the main body with upgraded weapons, sensors, and
maneuverability, that could be sold to 'Lancers and used for covert
missions.  These ships would look essentially identical to the Iguana
(or the larger version if it's decided the Iguana isn't large enough),
and could even use the same modules, and thus appear as a normal
trader.  With this in mind all the modules have internal bracing to
allow up to 3G maneuvering.



Suggeted Loadouts:

For settled areas such as those within the coalition:
Cargo - Cargo
Total Price: MCr 75.6
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 3113.2 / 1769.4
Cargo: 1302 m3 (93 tons)

For more dangerous areas:
Cargo/Fuel - Cargo
Total Price: MCr 75.6
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 2833.2 / 1769.4
Cargo: 1001 m3 (71.5 tons)
Total G-Turns: 35 (J1: 52.6; 69.4 using all jump fuel)

Or for areas with regular passengers:
Cargo/Fuel - Cargo/Passengers
Total Price: MCr 75.9
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 2540.4 / 1787.6
Cargo: 790 m3 (56.4 tons)
Total G-Turns: 35 (J1: 52.6; 69.4 using all jump fuel)
Passengers: 8 mid-passengers.
 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 19:18:08 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: Terrain

Simon Early wrote:

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 08:03:33 +0100
> From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Terrain
>
> > Personally I like the idea of hexless (and gridless) maps.
>
> When I get *my* (:-) I wish) TL 12 scout ship, I think I will write
> some
> software to lay a scale grid over the SatScans so that I get an
> immediate
> sense of distances between interesting looking locations.
>
> Simon
>
> ------------------------------

I don't disagree that a grid system of some tiype can be used. It has
been for years when rapid location is needed, (ie. in milatary mapping,
etc). Go look in your neighborhood fire house. However these all use a
system of Alphnumerics listed along two sides (top or bottom AND one
side) of the map for cross-reference. (as I mentioned). My main point
was rather than use terrain fitted conveniently into hexes or squares,
create realistic looking maps, simulair to the PHOTOS your SatScans
would diplay. Why have little "^"s for mountains that end at the edge of
a hex or square. Make the maps look realistic then overlay them with
what every grid system you or your players feel comfortable with.

Mike Peters

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:38:08 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Calender and Timekeeping

>
>Why on earth (pardon the pun) would they stick by the Imperial calendar?
>Yes, indeed, it's 3:00 AM (Imperial), the sun is shining, yet all the
>businesses are closed for the "night". It's harvest time, but it's
>also Holiday, so farmer Jones (Vilani: Jiiiinnnegggi?) can't find anyone
>to hire?
>
>Embassies, consulates, Imperial military installations, interstellar
>merchant lines, passenger liners and starports would use the Imperial
>calendar. The local government offices and shops whose customers
>primarily use the Imperial calendar would use both systems. Most local
>citizens would use the local calendar and would never need to convert.
>
>Thoughts, anyone?

I figure most groundside bases will have TWO sets of clocks (Left is local,
right is imperial {Cleon/Sylea/Capitol time}, both with dates upon them.
Most worlds will use a local calendar and clock where convinient (IE,
within the 16-30 hour limits). On worlds where daylight is never seen (Too
far out, all pop underground, etc), and on orbital stations and colonies,
and aboard shipping, the Sylea Standard Time references will be used. Most
startowns will have SST displays for convinience, and most towns with any
off-world or imperial connections will also have at least a cetral clock
(Usually local above SST).

as most comm techs will tell you, operating on two different time schedules
is not too hard (Z aka UCT aka GMT vs Local). As a mission communicator for
the Civil Air Patrol, I had to tell p[iltos local times, and jot down Z
times for all instructions. As well as run all the logs on Z times. ANd we
were Z+8 or Z+9 dependant upon Daylight Savings Time.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1566
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 16 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1567



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea
<sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Scots in Space!!
Re: Emperor Artemsus
Re: Important dates
Re: min Tech Level for artifical Gravity
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Scots in Space!!
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)
Traveller 4.1?
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Important Dates?
Re: Imperial calendar
FSY's THUDDD entry
FF&S ships this week?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:22:09 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea

I had an idea for the Imperial Anthem.  My local PBS station is re-running
"Blake's 7" (bliss!) and it struck me that the end credit theme would be a
good canidate.

As for the scouts, I think the theme from Red Dwarf would work..

"It's cold outside,
There's no kind of atmosphere
I'm all alone,
More or less
Let me fly, far away from here!
Fun, fun, fun
In the sun, sun, sun"

etc..




- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:17:23 +1
From: "Jonas Karlsson" <Jonas.Karlsson@mail.baldakinen.umea.se>
Subject: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

> From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
>
> No yanks in space?
> 
> I think it would be in the best interests of humaniti if you banned
> whiny Euros instead. 
> 
> If you made this comment about any other nation or race, you would be
> called a racist, but you can get away with it because the Americans
> have a sense of humour.

And Canadians don't?

(This message severely re-edited after having counted to 10 before 
pressing Send. More people should try this technique...)

ObTraveller: As we know, nationalism, regionalism, excessive 
patriotism, racism and the like continues even in the age of Traveller, 
but how big a part does it take in your games?

In my current campaign (Milieu 0), I'm trying to (hopefully subtly ;-) 
encourage the players to feel superior to the 'natives' they encounter, 
*they* are after all Citizens of the Imperium, while the natives are 
mere, well, *natives*. I am, of course, doing this to set them up for a 
fall later. ;-)

On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the 
Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the 
Pedantically Bureaucratic Vilani, and the Recklessly Hasty Solomani, 
but how about others? (And are my two samples really the likely 
stereotypes for said groups?)


A supply of spare smileys for the smiley-impaired can be found 
below. Free of charge. No purchase required. Void where prohibited by
law. Be the first on your block to own a complete collection.

:-)
;-)
:)
8-)
:+)
:=)
:^)
0-)
(-:
- --
| Jonas.Karlsson@baldakinen.umea.se          | I am a number,  |
| Jonas.Karlsson@capgemini.se - jonask@io.com| not a man! - 42 |

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:15:25 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

At 02:24 PM 7/15/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Anders' rather excellent summary here gives me the opportunity to clear the
>air a bit. :)

First off, this bit is from me, not Anders.

>>>OK.  Anybody who agrees with Leroy, please post.  The oldest dodge on the
>>>net is the "silent supporter" routine.  I have seen it to many times to
>>>believe it.  Either you have supporters who will post, or you are making
>>>this all up.  I think I've seen two people post lukewarm commentary about
>>>some of your points.

>It is really funny that this got turned into silent supporters routine.
>Also notice that in any attempt at an unbiased poll, pollsters do not
>stand around outside debate halls to poll people, unless the point of
>the poll is to see who won the debate.  Voting here persuades me very
>little, and we should stop offending the rest of the world where
>government is not always the American system, not that the American
>system really votes on anything at a high level.

Forgive me in believing in democracy.  We recently had a very close
election here in San Francisco, a multi-million dollar stadium referendum
passed by fewer than 2000 votes in a city of 750,000.  The stsdium
opponents claimed that they had the support of people who didn't vote.
Should we have overturned the election on their word?

Also recently, Marc asked us if we supported a revision to the task system.
 This lead to the largest outpouring of messages I've ever seen on the TML.
 So TMLers are not afraid of stating their opinions, even if it's just "I
agree with opinion X."

I will also remind you that *you* were the one who kept referring to the
silent supporters you had, telling us of the adoring horde hanging on your
words.  I just called you on it.  Well, where did they go?

>Several people (seemingly very rational people) posted enthusiastically
>when I posted what I did.  I have stated for the record that I ran a
>campaign where Terra returned to the former glory of it's past, and
>returned to TL16.  Others have posted in the same spirit, which pleases
>me that there were a few who wanted to stand up and take some of rotten
>tomatoe tossing with me. :)

Remind me of their names and the digest these messages appeared in.  I'd
like to look these enthusiastic messages, since I can't recall them.  I
suppose I could go through the archieves...

>For me, the bottom line is having fun.  A good referee can easily handle
>high tech in a campaign, and GOD knows I have to reign in J.P. a lot when
>I set up. :)

I've run a campaign that had Earth at TL17.  I didn't call it the Third
Imperium though, it was the Restored Catholic Empire.

<snip>

>I have digressed.  Silent Supporters.  Indeed.  If I hadn't seen the
>(so far) resounding agreement on the "Stars in Traveller" post that Marc
>asked me to start, I wouldn't have thought it possible for more than 4
>people on TML to agree about anything! :)

Oh, we agree on many things.  The task system needed revision, the stellar
codes should be brought more in line with scientific knowledge, and that
your theory was flawed.  I've been shown to be wrong before, and accepted
my errors.  Why can't you?

>>- - As we sat there waiting for Leroys long awaited revelations of his

>Swedes have instant gratification orientation too! :)  [read smiley most]

When someone insults me, I don't care how much they are smiling.  I don't
like it.  I really do not appreciate your sense of "humor", as it reminds
me of Harlan Ellison's.. done at someone else's expense.

>>After the lights went on the awe started to wear off and as we drove home
>>an irritating feeling cropped up: was this all there was to it? What about
>>the proof that the pamphlet promised - heck it was even printed on the
>>ticket that "Our entire worldview would change forever" -

>Hey, I only said it was an interesting compilation.  It proved to be an
>excellent exercise in learning about TML.  I was interested only in the
>fact that the notion "of Traveller's history, is accepted by some, as
>not exactly cast in stone."

No you came out and said you had proof that the Rule of Man had achieved
Tech Levels ranging from TL16-19 to Ancient levels.  If you insist, I have
that post saved and can quote you directly.  The bit that Anders has in
quotation above is a direct quote from one of your early posts.  Could you
at least admit that you said what you said?

<snip>

>Interestingly enough, this was _before_ any notion of a high tech level
>RoM in the T4 pages, because none had yet been released.  Like it or not,
>a high tech RoM is in the canon, and now that T4 is the latest canon, it
>is _more_ canon than ever before.  I just wanted to point out how much
>support there was for it, and it is _perfectly_ valid as a plot device.

And the end result was that everyone except you agreed that the evidence,
as presented by you, gave more credence to the late TL12 theory.  Excuse
me, I forgot all these supporters who seem unable to post their support.

>A high tech RoM should be no offense to anyone for several reasons,
>
>  1)  it all happened a long time ago and should be of little
>      consequence to anyone with a lick of sense refereeing a
>      campaign; I don't know anyone who runs a campaign with
>      every piece of rules anyway, witness the discussion that
>      proved beyond a shadow of doubt about how much terraforming
>      you can do at TL 12.

Nice dodge.  Since Milieu:0 is set at the dawn of the new age, what
happened to the previous empire is very important.  It will affect what
could have and did happen near the beginning of Twilight.  

>  2)  if RoM was TL16 max, I would probably recommend never running
>      a milieu set in it, unless you had great experience keeping
>      tech within the bounds of the campaign;  anyone who ever ran
>      a late-CT/early-MT campaign in the Spinward Marches has
>      Darrian or Deneb to deal with;  as Mark Clark posted, it was
>      a player amusement park on Darrian, but the G-shops of Deneb
>      would give a referee a thing or two to think about; impossible,
>      NO.

Actually, it was Vicennes that was TL16.  It was (as is in my current
campaign) far enough away from the Spinward Marches to make TL16 gear very
rare.  Even when you can get it, TL16 isn't much of an improvement of TL15.

>  3)  You could always do what I have always done with something I
>      disagreed with, either just plain don't use it, or put a spin
>      (ala Clinton, Hale, et al) and redefine it.

Well, you have proven yourself to be a master of spin-control in these last
few posts.. "I didn't really say I had proof, I just wanted to foster
discussion!"

>If you can't laugh at someone else, they take themselves way too
>seriously.

Hate to tell you, but I am not smiling, and I'm the guy who devouts half
his web pages to Traveller humor.  I do not find it amusing to be accused,
by someone I don't know, of not being able to comprhend what I read, of not
being able to use a product that I've used for ten years (WBH), and I find
your tone to be condecending at best.

>BTW, respect is earned, not automatically given.  That could be why I
>heard so much intolerance of intolerance, but I place no pecking order on
>places like TML, HIWG list, or any internet chat site.  Everyone has a
>right to opinion, but nobody should make Traveller a living hell.  This
>is all about having fun, and little about who offended who.  All of that
>poppycock smacks of political correctness.  A friend, whom I quoted in
>a paper I did last year on PC, said:

<snip quote>

I have made many friends here, and can say that our shared participation on
this list has brought my brother and me closer than we've been since...
well, when we played Traveller as kids!  I did not make these friends by
being imperious and rude.  

>Again, I have digressed.  I would not let any post taint my opinion of
>anyone, though I have had a thorough lesson in watching the politics
>of TML unfold.  I am very interested in fixing the Astronomy aspect of
>Traveller, and I would not allow anything to distract me from that goal.

How noble.  What politics?  The TML is divided into two groups.. us
loudmouths who post a great deal, and those who lurk.  We follow a few
simple rules, similar to those you find in any social setting, and have a
great time.  I'm not aware of my making Traveller a nightmare for anyone
(my players might disagree after they find that hulk this weekend...)

>>(Those wanting more evidence against Solomani godhood should read the
>>interview with Marc Miller in one of the Digests; Portraying the Solomanis
>>as bumbling fools was only one of the many good plottricks MM used to turn
>>peoples preconceived notions on their heads.)

>Interestingly, it seems trendy to psycoanalyze the writers of past pieces
>of Traveller material.  But, when the facts are put in print, not every
>purchaser of the game has that insight.  Nor does that have any real
>meaning.  These are the things that are always paramount on my mind.

The nice thing about the TML is the wide variety of people who read it, not
just from a educational/Traveller experience, but a cultural standpoint.
Since we are from all walks of life, and all parts of the globe, I can gain
insight into things by reading what Anders or Carlos or Michael Barry has
to say..

That's how we work, this have never been about dictating to one another. 

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:30:03 -0400
From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!!

>Dark Nebula- Principality of Caledon  Imperial Client State

Actually its in Reavers Deep, but once again is a fine example of what I
speak of.

I imagine kilts on Battle Dress

LOL

John

Solomani Security - Protecting Terra From Aliens Since 1947

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:36:21 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Emperor Artemsus

Michael Barry writes:
>And before your DGP reference I throw another - the reference to the
>'long-lived Vilani' (Vilani & Vargr), which I am pretty sure grew directly
>from the reference to the '*natural* longevity of the Lentuli line'...
>Again, I emphasise *natural* longevity...though Artemsus was possibly
>augmented by anagathics as well. 
> 
>I do remember the quote that stated that the Imperial family and high
>nobility were exclusively Solomani until (?later than M:0 anyway?); but
>this single reference sounds to me a lot like the kind of hot air about 
>'racial purity' that plagues Terra in the late 20th century. I suggest that 
>Occam's Razor cuts on the side of Artemsus being Vilani,

Or he could be a Solomani with a few obscure Vilani forefathers  --  that
just happened to contribute their longevity to him. After all, what race
is a man who has 11 Solomani and 4 Vilani great-great-grandparents? (Hey,
one of them contributed twice ;-).


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 04:23:43 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Important dates

Peter Newman writes:
>I do suggest that you remove the Standard Religious Holiday listed as
>occuring on Oneday 184 as it seems unlikely that the religions would not
>protest this sort of thing very strongly, and some planets (Religious
>Dictatorships) might avoid joining the Imperium soley to avoid this
>government meddling in religion.

And Marc Miller replied:
>Meanwhile, I agree that Religious Holiday comes out. 

I'm not protesting this, but there is at least one precedent for something
similar that I know of. In Denmark the 4th friday after Easter is a holiday
called 'Store Bededag' -- Great Prayer Day. It dates back several centuries
to a Danish statesman who noticed that there were all these half holidays 
where people were supposed to offer prayers to various saints. He removed
all these 'small' prayer days and rolled them into one (full) holiday.
And the clergy accepted this.

Besides, an official empire-wide holiday dedicated to all religions wouldn't
prevent the various religions from celebrating their own special holidays,
merely provide those who were flexible enough to use it with an extra
convenience.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8


 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:37:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: RSpake2064@aol.com
Subject: Re: min Tech Level for artifical Gravity

what is the minum Gravitics Tech Level for any form of artifical gravity
(non-spin ops)...

richard

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:32:05 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

Speaking as a yank who has seen and done a lot more for yankland than
the average bear, I feel I can say  the US is pretty damn shortsighted
and its populace ignorant of "offshore" world.  Nothing and no country
last forever, and the worst thing Traveller can have added to it is
ANYTHING resembling current earth culture. At the US' current speed
nobody will be worrying about "yank" culture affecting anyone in 100
years.

China on the other hand...


Bottom line-please be creative with holidays.  I doubt the greeks
celebrated many of ours 3000 years ago.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:04:53 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!!

> I imagine kilts on Battle Dress
> 

With bagpipes and claymores...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:12:14 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

At 11:25 AM 7/15/97 +0100, you wrote:

>I can see it now... the Duke on the balcony, the crowd below chanting 
>"Release Barabbas!  Release Barabbas!"  (Or possibly Roger...)

	Don't you mean "Woger?"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:09:32 -0400
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

At 09:44 PM 7/14/97 -0800, you wrote:

>But using the Imperial calender the same day of the year is always on
>the same day of the week.  So all the Imperium has to do when
>designating a holiday in the first place is put it on a day that many
>people on many planets are more likely to have off anyway, perhaps
>Sixday or Sevenday.
>
>Naturally this will not work for The Emperors Birthday (which will fall

	Nor will it work very well with "local" calendars based on the mainworld's
actual orbital period. I'd strongly wager that most worlds have the "real"
calendar they use for day-to-day stuff, and only think about the Imperial
calendar where they interface with the Imperium.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:53:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: fcain@st6000.sct.edu (Franklin W. Cain)
Subject: Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)

> Subject: Dead Ends
> Ask Marc about the "Shoe Salesman" career 
> Loren Wiseman
>      GDW Emeritus

And an example character would be...  :-)  

Al Bundy 
UPP: 758552 
Shoe Salesman, 6 terms, age 42 
Skills: Channel Surf-2, Comeback/Wit-3, Ogle/Leer-2, Sloth-1, Whine-1 
Cr (neglible) 

(OK, OK, I've been watching too much TV... :-) 
Franklin

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:34:55 -0400
From: "Richard C.S. Kinne" <phaedrus@dreamscape.com>
Subject: Traveller 4.1?

Hello Folks:	2333EDT	9707.15

	I just have a small question on nomenclature here.  I know that 
T4 is Marc's present version of the rules as they are presently published
by Imperium Games.  What exactly is the T4.1 being referred to?  Is this
Marc's re-editing that is coming out at GenCon?

- --
Cmdr. Richard C.S. "Doc" Kinne
InterNet: phaedrus@dreamscape.com
Home Page: http://www.dreamscape.com/phaedrus/
Quote: "Release the Geese!"
		-LCDR Nathaniel Burbank's new security system...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:13:25 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

15 Jul 1997 13:20:44 GMT, Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>I remember readiong something about contra-terrene matter (antimatter) but
>can't remember where.

I always had a problem with that.  If the belt was made up
of antimatter, then the imperium would be using it to run
their military ships (at least).
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:58:53 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

> I think we should avoid Amerocentric and Terracentric holidays in the
> Imperial calendar. Adding days like Thanksgiving tends to perpetuate the
> 'Minnesota-in-space' syndrome that can detract so much from the atmosphere
> of a game set amongst thousands of alien stars in a time when our present
> culture will be dead and forgotten.

Well, except that it makes sense for a non-religous Imperium for the
same reasons it is celebrated in a US that has seperation of church
and state.

Thanksgiving is besically the secularization of similar religous
festivals.  Presumably the date it occurs at is an Solomani
influence.
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 00:10:21 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
> 1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
> local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
> Terra, and move in sync?!

Quoting "Solomani & Aslan", Page 23 (The Solomani Calender):

"The Third Imperium established it's calender according to the rotation
and revolution of Capital.  Fortunately for us Solomani, Capital has a
24 hour rotation, and a 364.97 day revolution.  The Solomani calender
and that of the Third Imperium are vitrually identical."

Thanks,
- -- 
________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"The catherdral of St. Basil in Moscow, Russia was built with 8 cupolas
to commerate the 8 days Ivan the Terrible fought to capture the city of
Kazan.  To make sure that it's architects never again built so
magnificent
a structure, Ivan deprived them of their eyes, arms, and tongues."
				- Ripley's Believe It or Not!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 00:36:06 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: FSY's THUDDD entry

Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht (SSDS Beta .pdf)

Tons: 500 Std (A/F Saucer)    Volume: 7000 m^3                   Cost: 305 MCr
Crew: 14                      High/Mid Pass: 9                   Low: 0
Cargo: 20 Std                 Controls: TL-12 Hi auto (Bridge)   TL: 12

08 Size                               03 Jump Drive (150 Std/Pc Fuel)
                                      04 Maneuver (T-plate, 20,000 Tons Thrust)
01x 95 Mj Civ. Laser (0) 1/1-0-0-0    2.4 Power Plant (1x 600Mw)
                                      150 Fuel (Scoop 40, Refine 8.3)
                                      00 Meson Screen (0 Mw)
                                      01 Sandcasters (30 Cans)
01x Spacious Hangar (20 td launch)    00 Nuclear Damper
                                      A4 P4 J0 Sensors (0 Stealth/Cloak)
                                      10 Armor, 22 Structure

Crew Detail: 02 Command, 02 Sensors, 02 Gunners, 02 Engineer, 03 Steward,
             02 Flight Deck

Notes: Vessel is equipped with sickbay.


News Item, Imperial Yacht Club Newsletter, IY 16-322:

Famille Spofulam Yards Launches New Yacht

	Recently, I was given the opportunity of touring the first
production model of Famille Spofulam's latest yacht offering.  Greeted by
Hengabar Spofulam at Famille Spofulam's orbital HQ, I was treated to the
usual Spofulam wet bar and buffet before being ushered onto the antiseptic
floor of Production Line #3 to tour the prototype, which is to be used as a
corporate yacht by FSY.

	This reporter's first reaction upon viewing FSY's latest, sitting
incongrously next to the hulking black form of a Bludgeon-class patrol
cruiser, was: "It's a baby Caligula!".  Indeed, the Imelda-class yacht
(named after an ancient Terran queen renowned for her love of luxury and
lavish tastes) is outwardly very similar to FSY's well-known 1000-ton
megayacht; it has an airframe saucer hull with prominent vertical
stabilizers evoking early space-age Terran ground craft styling, in default
hull colour settings of hot pink and chrome.  Although the Imelda is
somewhat sleeker than the Caligula, the family resemblance is pronounced.

	The Imelda's performance and specifications are pure Spofulam; 4G
T-plate maneuver drives, a 3-parsec jump drive, a hull stressed to 10G's
for atmospheric operations and heavy armour are what we've come to expect
from Hengabar's boys and girls.  The only exception is the rather prosaic
95 Mj laser/sandcaster armament suite.  Scoops, a purification plant and a
hangar for a 20-ton launch reflect the Spofulam concern for spaceworthiness
and functionality; the Imelda is capable of more than just the Highport to
Highport run.  In general, this is a fast, long-ranged and capable craft.

	While the exterior and performance specs are fairly standard for a
Spofulam vessel. the interior decor reflects a new departure from FSY's
trademark blond wood and indirect lighting motif.  Rather than striving for
simplicity, maximum ergonomic efficiency, and richness of material, FSY's
interior designers have gone for all-out opulence in the newly popular
Restoration style; an ornate fusion of First and Second Imperium motifs
expressed in Sylean materials.  The result, the product of months of work
by noted designer Chonpohl Ghohltyeh, is stunning: the panelling is of
burled green Lartsa-wood, with obsidian tile floors inlaid with green and
white nephrite.  Fixtures are crafted of Iridium-plated gold engraved with
both Imperial Sunbursts and Ziru Sirkaa and Rule of Man heraldry, and the
furnishings are upholstered in the finest butter-soft Noggah skin, dyed to
match the panelling.  Ghohltyeh's services are available for those wishing
to create their own decors, albeit for an additional fee.

	Mr. Spofulam led me in through the hangar, as the passenger
airlocks were not yet fully completed.  The hangar is situated right aft,
between the two vertical stabilizers.  At the moment empty, the hangar is
designed to accomodate an Imperial-standard 20td launch, with space enough
to permit maximum ease of on-board service.  After a perfunctory
explanation of the hangar facilities, I was led forward, detouring through
the somewhat smaller (20td) cargo hold, into the working areas of the ship,
on the lower deck.

	The lower deck is laid out in a rather simple manner; right aft is
the hangar, which connects to the cargo hold as well as to the central
engineering area.  A rather nice touch in the hangar area is the large and
luxuriously appointed passenger grav shaft leading directly up to the main
corridor on the passenger deck; this permits passengers to disembark in
style and proceed to the passenger areas without having to tour through the
working areas of the ship.

	Forward of the cargo bay lies the engineering spaces; the J-3
Famille Spofulams Subsystems Jump Drive hulks immaculately in the center in
a large compartment, where the two engineering workstations are situated.
Access hatches to the spaces containing the twin 10,000 ton-rated Spofulam
Gravitics maneuver drives (mounted aft, outboard of the vertical
stabilizers) are situated at the rear of the jump drive compartment.
Likewise, access hatches for the 600Mw Zhunastu Fusion Systems power plant
(to portside of the jump drive compartment), and purification plant (to
starboard of the jump drive compartment) radiate from the jump drive
compartment.

	Forward of the jump drive compartment is an access hatch leading to
a compartment holding a grav shaft to the passenger areas, and connecting
to the sickbay and 5-workstation bridge.  From here on, Ghohltyeh's hand
became evident; the decor changed from workmanlike Spofulam
engineering-area industrial chic to Restoration-style splendour; the
sickbay is as much of a work of the desinger's creative mind as it is one
of medical engineering.  Like the sickbay, the bridge has Lartsa-wood
panelling on all non-instrument surfaces, and is laid out around a massive
owner's chair, with power swivel, an endless range of adjustments, a
refreshment center in one arm and a comm/computer panel in the other, and
upholstered in what must have been the hides of the softest baby Noggahs.

	Returning to the grav shaft in the hangar, Mr Spofulam led me up to
the passenger deck.  The grav shaft opens up onto a luxuriously-appointed
corridor leading forwards.  Discreet panels at the aftermost end of the
main corridor lead to the crew quarters and galley and stewarding areas.
The accomodations are luxurious, even for the crew; all crew save gunners
and the two junior stewards have large staterooms to themselves.  While not
up to the standard of accomodation of the passenger areas, not even the
most work-to-rule member of the Spacers Guild could find anything to
complain of here: the staterooms are all done in traditional Spofulam blond
wood and indirect lighting.  After a brief tour of the crew areas, which
connect to engineering via twin grav shafts to port and starboard, I was
led back into the main corridor and into the passenger areas.

	  The double-width doors at the end of the corridor open inwards,
to the tune of Famille Spofulam's corporate anthem, to reveal an immense
(300M^3) oval lounge divided into dining, recreational, and lounging areas
by artfully placed and shaped planters filled with a variety of Terran,
Sylean, and Vilani vegetation.  The Imelda's passenger areas are centered
around this space: eight staterooms are provided for the comfort of the
owner's guests, five of which are standard 4td large staterooms, and three
of which FSY has termed "MegaStaterooms"; vast and opulent 150M^3 spaces
containing every possible amenity.

	Even these are beggared by the master's stateroom, which at 216
M^3, or 15 displacement tons, is quite simply immense, with huge panoramic
viewports set in the ceiling.  The furnishings are of course quite
spectacular; a large canopied bed, sunken coversation pit, immense wet bar
carved from a simple lump of black jade, and amazingly, a fireplace crowned
with an actual working ancient Terran "Lava Lamp", one of only four known
to be in existence.  However, these are all minor details compared to the
Imelda's most noteworthy feature; 66M^3 of the master's stateroom are taken
up by what has to be the single most gigantic 'fresher ever installed on a
private vessel, situated dead forwards. Resembling more a tropical
greenhouse than it does a sanitation facility, it holds a hot tub, a sauna,
and several large planters filled with a variety of Sylean, Terran, and
Vilani tropical plants.  Terran bats and parrots and other exotic flying
life forms fly from plant to plant, their cries echoing pleasantly from the
walls.  Most remarkable, however, is the massive alabaster-and-Iridium
toilet, situated at the very front of the vessel, facing huge panoramic
windows dead forwards.

	FSY expects to begin semi-custom production of the Imelda-class
early next year, at the rate of "one or two" a year.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 00:11:22 -0500
From: Alex Rebsch <grazzit@flash.net>
Subject: FF&S ships this week?

I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.  She said it was going
to be shipped the end of this week.  Also she wanted to know if I would
like to add a T-Shirt or Mousepad to my order?  Is IG so desperate for
money that they have to elemarket t-shirts?  Anyway the good news is
that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?


Alex

grazzit@flash.net

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1567
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 16 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1568



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Scots in Space
Re: No yanks in space
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Dark Ages Trade
Re: Important Dates?
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re: Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
RE: Second Careers and the Draft...
Refueling question
Imperial calendar et al
Traveller Chat
Character Generation and Aging Rolls
shoe salesman
Imperial to Solomani dates
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea
terrorforming
Imperial to Solomani dates
Re: shoe salesman
Re: Refueling question
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Holidays
Re: FF&S ships this week?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:47:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:37:26 -0400
> From: "Shade" <jwatts@catt.com>
>
> BTW, what exactly would a Scots/Zho be like??

A guy who says "Fuck ye" *before* you pass on buying the next round, knows
for certain what's under your kilt, and refers to anyone *not* a Scots/Zho
as a "fuggin' Sassenach."

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:10:39 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: No yanks in space

>No yanks in space?
>
>I think it would be in the best interests of humaniti if you banned whiny
>Euros instead.
>
>If you made this comment about any other nation or race, you would be called
>a racist, but you can get away with it because the Americans have a sense of
>humour.

The above quote has some weird koan/paradoxity.
I do agree that most americans have a sense of humor but some seem to
suffer from VERY ticklish national egos. Enough said.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:28:09 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

>In my current campaign (Milieu 0), I'm trying to (hopefully subtly ;-)
>encourage the players to feel superior to the 'natives' they encounter,
>*they* are after all Citizens of the Imperium, while the natives are
>mere, well, *natives*. I am, of course, doing this to set them up for a
>fall later. ;-)
>
>On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the
>Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the
>Pedantically Bureaucratic Vilani, and the Recklessly Hasty Solomani,
>but how about others? (And are my two samples really the likely
>stereotypes for said groups?)

Vargr: All Vargr are criminals and pirates (they actually manage to govern
an entire and in some cases several solar systems with tech levels much
higher than Terra today). Most Vargr are working in normal day to day jobs,
taking care of children, researching etc.

The Zhodani: All Zhos are plotting the downfall of the Imperium through
backstabbing, psionic evilness and other cowardly means. Most proles work,
have kids, watch holo etc and the major difference for them compared to
Imperials is that they probably have no locks on their doors and can go out
at night without fear of getting robbed.

Belters: All belters, booze, take drugs, work alone in junkyard spaceship
when they aren't claimjumping or pirating. The stereotype is based on the
american (and others) goldrush but take a look at mining companies today:
They may not be environmentally friendly but they shure run a tight ship
and behave like big business. There was a writeup of Glisten on the list
that propagated this myth by portraying more or less the entire pop (9) to
be a bunch of rowdy drunks. BTW all my belter PC have been drug using
drunkards with criminal bent and pracy as a hobby but that's beside the
point.

Female patrons in Keith adventures: The girl was beautiful, frightened and
needed help ;)



/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:35:13 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

>I've run a campaign that had Earth at TL17.  I didn't call it the Third
>Imperium though, it was the Restored Catholic Empire.

Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of relics,
pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.

On could spin an adventure around Vargr scholars researching some relics
that the church knows are forgeries and cloak and dagger stuff from that.
To have cool and balanced scientific Vargr in opposition to weird,
crackpot, fanatic Solomani could be an intersting twist.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 01:20:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dark Ages Trade

  Well, we went over this in depth not long ago, so I'll be brief.  While
there is little written documentation on long distance trade, recent
archeological work suggests that long-distance trade was common throughout
the period refered to as the Dark Ages.  Vikings made a lot of money that
way, for example - not all of them raped, pillaged, and plundered.

  As for Lynn White's "Medievil Technology and Social Change," I'm afraid
I must report many of its conclusions have been rejected by scholars in
the field.  Oddly, this does not include most historians of technology -
few of them work in period before 1800, and so White's work has maintained
its status.  A new book by Dr. Alan Marcus of Iowa State University coming
out this year will lay out the failings in White's work (as part of a
larger survey of the history of technology before the Industrial
Revolution), so perhaps they'll stop reprinting White at last. 

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:59:14 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Important Dates?

"David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>:

> >I can see it now... the Duke on the balcony, the crowd below chanting 
> >"Release Barabbas!  Release Barabbas!"  (Or possibly Roger...)
> 
> 	Don't you mean "Woger?"

Don't be thilly.  Thimon the Thylean Thtrangler, perhapth...

I *have* enjoyed all the comments on this, folks.

\end{python}
</python>
kill -9 Brian

ObTrav: Is there such a thing as a "noble" accent or affectation of 
speech in M0, or is it too early for such a thing to have developed?

Nick
Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:09:43 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

Alex Rebsch <grazzit@flash.net>:

> I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
> concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.  She said it was going
> to be shipped the end of this week.  Also she wanted to know if I would
> like to add a T-Shirt or Mousepad to my order?  Is IG so desperate for
> money that they have to elemarket t-shirts?  Anyway the good news is
> that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
> extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?

Guess.

Let's put it this way, it was given an extensive going-over by a 
number of knowledgeable people (and some others like me) which was 
roughly half completed when it went to IG for typesetting and 
printing.  How much correction took place after the submission I 
don't know, but as sent to IG it wasn't anywhere near ready.  This 
wasn't Dave & Guy's fault...

IMHO, of course.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:14:14 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht

Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote
> Subject: FSY's THUDDD entry
> 
> Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht (SSDS Beta .pdf)

[description snipped]

Where is the giant clothes closet off the master suite designed to hold
2000 pairs of shoes in your description?   :)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:19:43 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

- -> << >Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
- ->  >other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is
- ->   >>
- -> Shionthy Belt is where Grandfather tilted the Droyne homeworld into a pocket
- -> universe after the Ancient War. It's still there.
Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source 
of this info?
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:48:50 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: Second Careers and the Draft...

On Sunday, July 13, 1997 8:49 AM, CardSharks@aol.com
[SMTP:CardSharks@aol.com] wrote:
> I'm thinking about some of the other aspects of second careers.
> 
> Like... 
> 
> When I left the army after 1 term, I got no mustering out benefits.
> 
> When I left game designing after 5 terms, I got no muster out
benefits.
> 
> And after 1 term in insurance sales, I ended up with less $$ than when
I
> started. 
> 
> For realism sake, do we include negative MO benefits as well?
> 
> Marc
> 
> 

Bad Rolls - Bummer, hate it when that happens :)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:38:17 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Refueling question

Our starship has both Purification Plant (a small one) and Fuel Scoops

All the tanks can be filled within few hours, but th purification is way
longer (39h).

So the question is, do I have to stay in the Water/Gas Giant during the
purification process or only during the refueling process.

Related question : Can I purifiy fuel during flight. I assume that the fuel
tanks are divided in small container (1m3 for example) connected by pipes
and "doors" (don't know the exact translation :-(

During the Purification the wastes (mainly O2 in the case of water
refueling) should be dumped in space...

Thanks for information
 
- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:49:51 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Imperial calendar et al

First: Where are the Vilani holidays? Surely at least one of the
       Imperial holidays would reflect them.

Second: As a measure of chrome, AM 6 gives the Imperial date 292-940
        as 13th March 5471 (a Sunday by the way). Working back
        (allowing for that 400 years in the Solomani Calendar are 97
        days longer than 400 Imperial years) I get 001-0 (the founding
        of the 3rd Imperium) as Thursday, 11th January 4569 AD. From
        this one can work out a precise date (including day of week)
        for any date in the Imperial calendar. The points to remember
        is that the day of the week will advance by one day per year,
        except in leap years (remember a century is only a leap year if
        divisable by 400 not 4) when it will advance by two days.
        Therefore, every 400 years the day of the week of a date will
        regress by one. i.e. if a particular date falls on a Thursday,
        400 years later it will fall on a Wednesday. Incidentally
        Strephon was assassinated on Friday, 19th Febuary 5685 AD.
        Pity GDW didn't make Strephon's assassination 307-1116, that
        will be Friday, 13th August 5685AD.

If anybodies interested, I'll try to write a program converting Imperial
dates into Solomani dates.

We now return you to the Presidents address already in progress.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 05:53:33 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
Subject: Traveller Chat

Greetings!

This week on Traveller Chat, Doug Berry will be leading the 
discussion on Labor Relations in the Third Imperium, with focus on 
Unions and Guilds. (I did get that right, didn't I, Doug?).

Thursday, July 17, 1997
10:00pm EDT (Usually most arrive by 9:30pm ET)
Imperium Games Server
www.imperiumgames.com
ports 6665 or 6666

As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggested topics, 
please email me.

Suz

Suzette C. Dollar
#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:43:11 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Character Generation and Aging Rolls

While fixing a bug in my chargen program, I've found that it is really
damn hard to keep a character from living forever if you are determined
to do so. Much thanks to Roderick Elliott for noticing this while creating
a character that bore an amazing resemblance to Yaskodray's mythical
Lost Grandchild :)  in an effort to see if you could really die from aging.

In large part, it is closely related to the recent Skills vs Stats War in that
it points out a large problem in making Stat increases, particularly End,
so damn easy to get. If a player starts with a high End, and spends several
terms getting +1's to bring it up to 15 or so, aging cannot keep up with 
the character quick enough to keep lowering the stats, especially if a
couple of rolls are spent boosting Str and Dex as well. And if one of the
stats (other than End) is actually lowered to 0, it is just about impossible
to fail a Difficult roll against a very high End.

Now I realize that a ref is highly unlikely to allow such a character to 
exist without VERY good justification, and only munchkinish players or
those with a particular desire to play a very peculiar character would
go through the process to this length, but it remains a hole in the rules.
Is there an absolute maximum age that a character (not on anagathics)
can reach, regardless of high stats? I've arbitrarily chosen one (sufficiently
high that I don't *think* it will effect anyone's character generation), 
but I'd like a consensus before I put it to rest, or an actual age if it is 
somewhere in the Canon and I can't find it. I also have noticed that
the T4.1 file doesn't have any aging rules in it (other than a reference
that aging starts after term 6[!]), so I don't know what changes might
be planned for that.

Speaking of holes, what are the conditions for players having second
careers that y'all use? The Boss has stated that in T4.1, only Vargr
will be allowed more than 1 career. While I think that is a bit extreme,
I feel that the current system makes it *far* too easy to have 3 or 4
careers under one's belt as well. A few questions:

	1) Under the current system, a character who *voluntarily* 
leaves a service with a commission may later re-enlist (with the correct
rolls) in the same service. I am assuming that characters that either
are injured or fail to reupped can not later come back into the same
service. Is this an appropriate assumption?

	2) A character cannot voluntarily serve more than 7 terms in the
same service. Does this count non-sequential terms, or just sequentially?
E.g., Kevin Bacon (a good Vlandish name) serves 4 terms in the Scouts,
leaves for 2 terms in the Entertainers, then comes back for another 3
terms in the Scouts. At this point, must he mandatorily retire, having 
served a total of 7 terms? Or is he considered to have served only 3?
How many terms is he allowed for pension and mustering out, 3, 7, or
some other number?

	3) How do y'all handle "automatic eligibility"? As it stands now,
a character with the right rolls placed in Stats, or just lucky enough not
to lose too many points might serve 4 or 5 terms in a career, and then 
still be automatically eligible forex the Army after leaving the first career.
Is it likely that a character 34 or 38 years old would still be so attractive
to another service? Should automatic eligibility be revoked in a career
(other than Nobles) if not chosen as a first career?

*Wheww* that's all I can think of for now. More annoying questions to
come as matters proceed :)

P.S. Interesting sidenote: My spell checker kicks out "Roebuck" and
"Ordering" as alternatives for "Roderick". How long have you been 
getting kickbacks from Sears, and how much are they paying you? :)


**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:55:37 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: shoe salesman

Al Bundy 
UPP: 758552 
Shoe Salesman, 6 terms, age 42 
Skills: Channel Surf-2, Comeback/Wit-3, Ogle/Leer-2, Sloth-1, Whine-1 
Cr (neglible) 

Al is a big guy, and several episodes have demonstrated his brawling
ability.
Perhaps 967651, add brawling 3, athletics 2, ground vehicle 1, Invent Shoes
with Socks Attached 2
For possesions, Al also has his car, and a very healthy collection of
Playboys (which Peg sold for a couple hundred bucks)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 01:14:52 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Imperial to Solomani dates

Okay so I screwed up, opps. Here are the corrected dates

Foundation of the 3rd Imperium: 001-0 = Thursday, 9th January 4531 AD
Terra incorporated into the Empire: 206-588 = Thursday, 13th March 5119 AD
Solomani Sphere dissolved: 292-940 = Monday, 13th March 5471 AD
Strephon Assassinated: 132-1116 = Friday, 9th August 5606 AD

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:27:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

In a message dated 97-07-16 08:42:48 EDT, you write:

<< Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source 
 of this info?
>>

Actually, I'm not sure there is a printed source. It might be in Secret of
the Ancients. Otherwise, I suppose my email would have to be the source.

Marc Miller

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:15:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea

Bureau X agents have intercepted the following message:

>Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:22:09 -0700
>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
>Subject: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea

>I had an idea for the Imperial Anthem.  My local PBS station is re-running
>"Blake's 7" (bliss!) and it struck me that the end credit theme would be a
>good canidate.

>As for the scouts, I think the theme from Red Dwarf would work..

>"It's cold outside,
>There's no kind of atmosphere
>I'm all alone,
>More or less
>Let me fly, far away from here!
>Fun, fun, fun
>In the sun, sun, sun"

>etc..

The Commander doth reply:

Yes, the goal of any Imperial Scout is to
"...lie shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango(or trake?) juice..."

ROTFL! :-)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:34:25 +0100 (BST)
From: "mark.wilkin" <aa4mwi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk>
Subject: terrorforming

> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 15:59:10 -0700
> From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
> Subject: Terrorforming :)
> 
>   Or, what's wrong with this definition of planetform?
> 
>         Kirurform (def'n) - application of massive thermo-nuclear
> and cobalt weapon bombardment to a planet inhabited by sapient
> carnivores in a traditional K'kree cultural context. Wait 500
> years, seed, mow, and colonize.
prejudicial terraforming, what a wonderful turn of phrase, think Genesis 
device :-)

mark wilkin

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 01:52:45 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Imperial to Solomani dates

Maybe third time lucky. Having finally found the problem (a misreading of
a date). I am willing to put these as the corrected dates (I've even gone
through and checked them by hand).

Foundation of the 3rd Imperium: 001-0 = Saturday, 11th January 4521 AD
Terra incorporated into the Empire: 205-588 = Saturday, 13th March 5109 AD
Emperor Zharkirov marries Antiana Shiishuginsa:
               228-679 = Monday, 13th March 5200 AD
Solomani Sphere dissolved: 292-950 = Saturday, 13th March 5471 AD
Strephon Assassinated: 132-1116 = Sunday, 24th August 5636 AD

Regretably, until I get this damn thing debugged, I think I'll have to
say this date conversion program is broke.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:04:21 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: shoe salesman

>Al is a big guy, and several episodes have demonstrated his brawling
>ability.
>Perhaps 967651, add brawling 3, athletics 2, ground vehicle 1, Invent Shoes
>with Socks Attached 2
>For possesions, Al also has his car, and a very healthy collection of
>Playboys (which Peg sold for a couple hundred bucks)

Yeah, agree to all of the above but who can calculate the TNE wear value of
his car?


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 07:48:18 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:
> 
> Our starship has both Purification Plant (a small one) and Fuel Scoops
> 
> All the tanks can be filled within few hours, but th purification is way
> longer (39h).
> 
> So the question is, do I have to stay in the Water/Gas Giant during the
> purification process or only during the refueling process.
> 

Once you've tanked up, feel free to move on. Your purification plant
will process the fuel later. Note that you should wait until you
have enough refined fuel for the power plant, which powers the maneuver
drive.


> Related question : Can I purifiy fuel during flight. I assume that the fuel
> tanks are divided in small container (1m3 for example) connected by pipes
> and "doors" (don't know the exact translation :-(
> 

They're called baffles. I also made this assumption because at least
one of the combat systems for Traveller has damages like 'Fuel-1'.
This means 10% of fuel is lost, which implies that baffles exists
(or else the rest of the fuel would escape through the same hole).

> During the Purification the wastes (mainly O2 in the case of water
> refueling) should be dumped in space...
> 

Yes.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:32:40 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

At 12:11 AM 7/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
>concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.  She said it was going
>to be shipped the end of this week.  Also she wanted to know if I would
>like to add a T-Shirt or Mousepad to my order?  Is IG so desperate for
>money that they have to elemarket t-shirts?  Anyway the good news is
>that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
>extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?
>
>
Alex,

Well from what I have heard it did not get very much broad playtesting less
than one week. It was rushed into completion not by choice of the
designers. Sound familar, the last one was Starships. I will be interested
in looking before I buy on this product you should be too.
- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 11:36:42 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Holidays

1...2...3...4...5...ah, to hell with it

Here is a very simple solution to Holidays:

You try to have at least one every thirty days or so. The Imperium gets to
name 3, the domain gets to name 3 and the rest are planetary.

How could the imperium agree on any given holiday when the countries of one
lousy planet cannot?
We share the continent with both the Mexicans and Americans, but the
Mexicans have no Thanksgiving, and even Canada and the USA celebrate on
diffferent days. Then there is Independence Day, Canada Day and Cinqo de
Mayo. We do not celebrate those in the other countries (except in areas near
the borders). The closest things to universal holidays on Earth are May Day
(most of planet outside North America), Christmas, or something very
similiar (most of planet except East Asia) and New Years Day (just on
diffferent days all over the planet)

I don't even have Galanglic as that common. There are loads of English
(modern Galanglic equivalent) speakers all over this planet but that doesn't
mean you are always going to find one. Or they may speak english, but
pretend not to, just to annoy you. 

As far as racism in the Third Imperium, officially, there is none. 
<snicker, snicker>
And Aslan are welcome at fine country clubs, and property values don't drop
when Vargr move in

0   \
  ^  |
0   /
(very large smiley)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:57:38 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

Alex Rebsch wrote:

>I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
>concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.  She said it was going
>to be shipped the end of this week.  Also she wanted to know if I would
>like to add a T-Shirt or Mousepad to my order?  Is IG so desperate for
>money that they have to elemarket t-shirts?  Anyway the good news is
>that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
>extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?

It should be quite good. It was written by some very qualified people who
have put a fair amount of playtesting (playtesting for T4?! What a novel
concept!) into the design rules.

They didn't get to eliminate the ridiculous "Fusion Plus" but they did get
to clarify some major design issues. I think we'll all be pleased.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1568
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 16 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1569



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Starter Traveller
Re: Scots in Space!
Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets
Re: Imperial calendar et al
Re: Scots in Space!!
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: No yanks in space
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Imperial calendar
Psionic Institutes
Re: PE super recyclers
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)
Off Topic: Java
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)
Al Bundy in Milieu Zero
Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets
Sell Trade
Medieval Tech

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:07:28 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Starter Traveller

>I always felt insulted and patronised by "Starter Editions", the
>implication being that I was too young and/or stupid to understand the
>real thing. YMMV, of course.

Strange, many of the Starter Editions I have seen were IMHO much better
games than the 'advanced' edition. The starter editions were more enjoyable
because they was designed to make an enjoyable game rather than explaining
all the detailed rules for character generation and combat and then
requiring the players to come up with adventures themselves.

Perhaps the problem is your perception that a starter edition was not the
"real thing". What exactly is your distinction between a "Starter Edition"
and the "real thing"? Is the T4 rule book alone a "Starter Edition"? How
about the main rules plus all the supplements? Or do you need all the
adventures and JTAS articles to have the "real thing"? How much money do
you have to spend before you no longer feel insulted?

The distinction in my mind is that a "Starter Edition" is a complete game
with no extra work or purchase required before you can start playing. It
should have all characters, maps, counters, encounters, and so on
pre-generated so one can start playing immediately. Ideally the adventures
and rules should be introduced in stages so you don't have to learn
everything before you can start the first scenario. The starter editions of
RPGs I have played were not some kind of watered-down rule set, but
complete games enjoyable in themselves.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:14:51 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!

> BTW, what exactly would a Scots/Zho be like??

My guess is that the large zho forehead gives him the ability to inflict a 
nasty Glaswegian kiss!  He probably suffered a lot as a child:

"Is your mother zho?  Stitch that!"


Simon

(Glaswegian kiss = slang for a head butt)
(sterotypical Scot threat = "Can your mother sew?  Stitch that")

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:14:47 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets

> Blech! I'll open 'em in Excel 4 (latest I have on the Mac) and save 'em as
> PC Excel spreadsheets

Sounds good to me :-)

Did any PC user have problems with un-BixHexing the file?  I got only one 
partial (25 k) file showing - aet, which I assume is the animal encounter 
tables.


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:08:51 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar et al

At 11:49 PM 7/16/97 +1200, you wrote:

>If anybodies interested, I'll try to write a program converting Imperial
>dates into Solomani dates.

I would be quite interested in that.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:20:45 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!!

At 09:30 PM 7/15/97 -0400, you wrote:

>I imagine kilts on Battle Dress

The MTJ article on BattleDress showed the Marine assult armor with a skirt
or kilt covering the groin/hips.  Good idea since this area needs to have a
great deal of freedom of motion.  This illustration is what started me down
the rocky road to my current Marines in dress kilts obcession.


- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:18:21 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

At 09:35 AM 7/16/97 +0100, Anders wrote:

>>I've run a campaign that had Earth at TL17.  I didn't call it the Third
>>Imperium though, it was the Restored Catholic Empire.
>
>Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
>adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of relics,
>pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
>laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.

I've been doing some work on what the traditional churches have been doing
since the RoM.  This comes form one of my players, whose PC is a rabbi!
For simplicities sake I've written in a great reconcilliation among the
Christian churches, leaving a slightly more liberal Catholic Church.  (I do
not want to deal with fundamentalists in Traveller.)

Doing this has also caused me to write on the Church of the Stellar
Divinity.. does anyone have any information about this group beyond what
appears in DA6?

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:00:22 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, David P. Summers wrote:

> 15 Jul 1997 13:20:44 GMT, Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
> >I remember readiong something about contra-terrene matter (antimatter) but
> >can't remember where.
> 
> I always had a problem with that.  If the belt was made up
> of antimatter, then the imperium would be using it to run
> their military ships (at least).

First, that's EASY to explain...you want your fleet's fuel supply line
based entirely on a belt containing an unknown amount of antimatter way
off in the Spinward Reaches? And you're off in, sayyyy Alpha Crucis?

A second point; maybe the physicists can answer. Exactly how do you find
out that that chunk of stuff in front of your ship is antimatter? "Ping"
it with matter and look for the flash? Will the NMR of antimatter be
different than that of matter?

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:00:43 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: No yanks in space

>>I think it would be in the best interests of humaniti if you banned whiny
>>Euros instead.
>>
>>If you made this comment about any other nation or race, you would be called
>>a racist, but you can get away with it because the Americans have a sense of
>>humour.
>
>The above quote has some weird koan/paradoxity.
>I do agree that most americans have a sense of humor but some seem to
>suffer from VERY ticklish national egos. Enough said.

I will agree, yet disagree.

I would say that Americans are a diverse enough group, just like any other
nationality, that "most" Americans will poorly fit any sweeping statements.

That said, I think it is safe to say that among those who are verbal about
their nationality, disparaging statements about their country or
countrypersons made in jest are not always received in the spirit they are
given.

Obtrav;  Are Vargr nationalistic about the Vargr extent in general?  or
only about their specific slice thereof?  Perhaps they have a better sense
of humor than I expect, but I bet they take any non-vargr opinion of any
Vargr group in a non-humorous fashion (same caveat about
over-generalization I made above applies).

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:06:10 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Leroy William Lu Guatney wrote:

>It is really funny that this got turned into silent supporters routine.
>Also notice that in any attempt at an unbiased poll, pollsters do not
>stand around outside debate halls to poll people, unless the point of
>the poll is to see who won the debate.  ...<snip>...
>Several people (seemingly very rational people) posted enthusiastically
>when I posted what I did.  I have stated for the record that I ran a
>campaign where Terra returned to the former glory of it's past, and
>returned to TL16.  Others have posted in the same spirit, which pleases
>me that there were a few who wanted to stand up and take some of rotten
>tomatoe tossing with me. :)

Yes, but the majority of responses were *against* your theories. In fact,
the data that you provided gave more proof *against* a general TL of 13 or
higher for the RoM. You seem unwilling to face the fact that your theory is
unpopular and poorly supported. Any argument that uses your data as proof
of a RoM of TL 16+ is pure sophistry. You've used this "silent majority"
tack before, and quite frankly, it's getting old.

>Interestingly enough, this was _before_ any notion of a high tech level
>RoM in the T4 pages, because none had yet been released.  Like it or not,
>a high tech RoM is in the canon, and now that T4 is the latest canon, it
>is _more_ canon than ever before.  I just wanted to point out how much
>support there was for it, and it is _perfectly_ valid as a plot device.

You are deluded. I don't mean this as an insult, but merely a statement
based on the fact that you're making claims which have not been validated.
I know you think you're cozied up to Marc on all this, but I have not seen
a single post from him that says, "By God, yes! Leroy's right! The RoM
*was* TL-16+ in several areas and we're going to completely throw canon to
the wolves and reshape the Traveller background according to Leroy's
vision!"

Until I see that, your stuff ain't canon. And if I *do* see it, I will
finally stop my crusade to adhere to canon as much as possible on the
grounds that IMHO, the game would be heading in a horribly wrong direction.
And I won't be alone.

>  2)  if RoM was TL16 max, I would probably recommend never running
>      a milieu set in it, unless you had great experience keeping
>      tech within the bounds of the campaign;  anyone who ever ran
>      a late-CT/early-MT campaign in the Spinward Marches has
>      Darrian or Deneb to deal with;  as Mark Clark posted, it was
>      a player amusement park on Darrian, but the G-shops of Deneb
>      would give a referee a thing or two to think about; impossible,
>      NO.

That's just it: the whole premise of T4 is the development of several
milieus that enable Traveller players to conduct campaigns in several
settings in various historical periods. If you quarantine certain
historical periods, you degrade the premise of the game.

>  3)  You could always do what I have always done with something I
>      disagreed with, either just plain don't use it, or put a spin
>      (ala Clinton, Hale, et al) and redefine it.

That should be easy, since your ideas are just a variant and have no basis
in canon.

>Flames to /dev/null or 'who am i'@localhost

If you consider this message a flame, then so be it. You're not the real
audience for my comments anyway. I address you since you are the author of
the post, but my real concern is that by some bizarre stretch of the
imagination, your theories might be remotely considered to become canonical
information. That would be a travesty and I won't stand by to watch that
happen without having said my piece.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 18:10 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar

In-Reply-To: <l03020900aff16512348a@[194.119.133.193]>

> Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
> 1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
> local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
> Terra, and move in sync?!

Actually, it does.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 18:11 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Psionic Institutes

I'm about half way through this ATM, and it seems pretty good so far. 
Two points though:

1. Does that grey, circular background graphic annoy everybody else as 
much as it annoys me? It's very distracting when you're trying to read 
(the same goes for /Anomalies/ BTW - I *really* hope this isn't going 
to become a standard feature (it probably buggers up OCR systems, too, 
which will piss off any blind players)).

2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:08:07 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: PE super recyclers

Anders Backman <anders.backman@aniware.se> wrote,
> The idea that resources can be used up is totally ignored in PE and
> one might say that they did it for reasons of simplification. Well it
> simplifies some things but complicates others: why are ther NonInd
> planets at all? What are the disadvantages of having all ypour pop on
> one big ball with good resources? Why do PEs explore at all except for
> the fun of killing each other off? Are there anybody out there that
> thought about this and came up with fudges/solutions/answers?

Some reasons for not concentrating on a single, industrial planet:

(1) Prestige.  Empires tend to be judged on a "never mind the quality,
    feel the width" basis - "Their empire is HUGE!"

(2) Undesirables.  You want somewhere to put people you don't want "at
    home".

(3) The pioneering spirit.  Perhaps the masses don't actually like being
    huddled, and would rather go somewhere with fewer facilities but
    more opportunity.

(4) Dangerous experiments.  Who wants to try out nuclear bombs in their
    own (hemi)sphere?

(5) Military bases.  Staging posts, observation posts - this is actually
    catered for slightly in the PE rules.

(6) Defense.  You don't want your whole empire taken out by one
    relativistic rock, do you?

Not *entirely* serious,
 
John
P.S. Just noticed I'm not the only John Wood on this list - hi!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:15:14 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

At 12:11 AM 7/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
>concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.

A friend of mine is very close to dropping IG altogether, because of the
persistent calls by Melody.

She apparently left something like three calls on the office voice mail
about this, and he gets called once couple of weeks about other products he
has not yet purchased.  He would have avoided giving them a phone number at
all, except that it is required for credit card orders.

It could be because he did a web order, but if that is so, why not send an
email?  It is less intrusive and cheaper.

He thought of asking if there was a special sucker field in the database,
and whether it could be cleared for his entry.

I am not nearly as annoyed, as the only call I have gotten from them in the
last few months was checking up on an error of theirs.  This, I consider a
good call.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:15:39 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)

>>I've run a campaign that had Earth at TL17.  I didn't call it the Third
>>Imperium though, it was the Restored Catholic Empire.
>
>Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
>adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of relics,
>pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
>laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.

[other idea snipped]

I think it would be good for "shock" value in my own campaign.  Yes, I
can't wait to see the expressionon on the face of one (ex-catholic) player
when the "Agents" who are following them around are revealed to
be...Priests of the Order of Saint Carlotta, the secret intelligence branch
of the Catholic Church, attempting to acquire that relic or piece of
technology or...well, whatever.

I envision the Archbishop of Regina (I'm playing in 1100) as a
machiavellian prince of the church with a hand in everything that goes on,
influencing social events and politics on many worlds.

Having watched Tim Curry play Cardinal Richelieu (sp?) in (latest remake
of) The Three Musketeers last night (Boy did they alter that story...people
lived whom I though were supposed to die!), I am inspired to have a
powerful arch-villian in the ecclesiastical red.  (But an archbishop would
be purple, right?  Maybe the Cardinal of Aramis could be the villian then).

Definite shock value and future possibilities.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:26:36 -0700
From: "Eric Jackson" <Alric@SpryNet.Com>
Subject: Off Topic: Java

I am working on a Java character generator for T4, unfortunately I am new
to Java (but not programming) and I am having difficulties.

If someone on this list knows Java and is willing to give me a few hints
and pointers it would be most appreciated. 

Please E-Mail me in private, as this doesn't directly concern the list.

Eric J
Alric@SpryNet.Com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:34:47 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Leroy William Lu Guatney writes:

>Several people (seemingly very rational people) posted enthusiastically
>when I posted what I did.  I have stated for the record that I ran a
>campaign where Terra returned to the former glory of it's past, and
>returned to TL16.  Others have posted in the same spirit, which pleases
>me that there were a few who wanted to stand up and take some of rotten
>tomatoe tossing with me. :)

   No one is trying to rob anyone of fun, or insist that you drop your
version of "reality" because it isn't canon.  When however you insist
that your version of "reality" is the *canon* one, you can expect a
portion of slings, arrows, and even laurels depending upon how well you
justify your position, and how controversial it is.

>Hey, I only said it was an interesting compilation.  It proved to be an
>excellent exercise in learning about TML.  I was interested only in the
>fact that the notion "of Traveller's history, is accepted by some, as
>not exactly cast in stone."

   This reminds me of the guy back in my college days who, as a group
psychology experiment, dressed up in Nazi garb (no Leroy I'm not calling
you a Nazi) and walked around the Quad in the middle of campus on a
Wednesday afternoon during Spring Term (the busiest time of year on the
busiest day), pausing briefly to spray paint a Nazi symbol on the
sidewalk.  He was lucky that all he got was shoved around a bit and
escorted off by Campus Security.  Several of us (Army and Air Force ROTC
cadets, who rarely cooperated on anything) were just about to pick the
little weasel up and toss him into a nearby trashcan.

   If all this was to you Leroy was an "exercise", I would recommend
that you find some other place to work out.  If on the other hand you
were only interested in the gathering of evidence, then you should have
said that from the very beginning.  As it is, no one around here had any
doubt as to you true feelings on the subject, as you clearly stated them
in previous posts.  

   History for purposes of canon is ***not*** relative.  If 'A' is 'A',
it is stated as such, if for story purposes it might be 'B' or 'C'
that's fine, so long as no definative statements are made.  I feel you
are slipping into the same trap that Frank and Dave did back in TNE,
where not even the referee could be trusted with "The Truth".  That
isn't cricket.

   On the other hand, perhaps you are attempting your own brand of spin
control here....

>I first brought up the least little bit of thread on this on the HIWG
>manipulator list over a year ago now.  You can ask Harold Hale, Steve
>Bonneville, or Scott Galliand if you don't believe me.  This was a
>notion of "what might have been" and it was put out by myself and J.P.
>at the time, just based upon what was in print in the past.

   And I recall telling you that you were wrong then too.

>Interestingly enough, this was _before_ any notion of a high tech level
>RoM in the T4 pages, because none had yet been released.  Like it or not,
>a high tech RoM is in the canon, and now that T4 is the latest canon, it
>is _more_ canon than ever before.  I just wanted to point out how much
>support there was for it, and it is _perfectly_ valid as a plot device.

   As if T4 can be trusted as a canon source.  Wait until the errata
clears.  There have been some major malfunctions made in T4 up to this
point, why should this be any different?

   Note how Leroy is now falling back on the patented, "well that's not
what it says now" defense, even though it was agreed by everyone
participating in these discussions that what T4 had to say is
irrelevant.

>  3)  You could always do what I have always done with something I
>      disagreed with, either just plain don't use it, or put a spin
>      (ala Clinton, Hale, et al) and redefine it.

   Nice insult Leroy, you nearly slipped it in past my radar.  If there
is a spin doctor, PhD in our midst, *you* are clearly it, not me.  If
there is someone here whose past performances have demonstrated that
they belong in the same sentence will Bill Clinton (aka Herr
Slickmeister), *you* Leroy are the one.

>Interestingly, it seems trendy to psycoanalyze the writers of past pieces
>of Traveller material.  But, when the facts are put in print, not every
>purchaser of the game has that insight.  Nor does that have any real
>meaning.  These are the things that are always paramount on my mind.

   Figuring out what someone meant is a basic part of reading.  Proper
literary analysis demands it.  Do I care what Marc Miller has for
breakfast every morning or how he feels about his mother?  Hell no. 
That's not relevant to the discussion.  Knowing that Frank Chadwick and
Dave Nilsen were heavily influenced by H. Beam Piper when they created
the Reformation Coalition setting for TNE *is* relevant however.  So is
a knowledge of the overall intent of the author or authors who create a
work.

   There can be no question that previous GDW authors did not intend for
the Second Imperium to have a technological level equal or superior to
that of the Third Imperium.  End of topic.  The only question at this
point is, where **below** the Third Imperium does the RoM fall.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:41:14 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)

Franklin W. Cain writes:

>And an example character would be...  :-)  
>
>Al Bundy 
>UPP: 758552 
>Shoe Salesman, 6 terms, age 42 
>Skills: Channel Surf-2, Comeback/Wit-3, Ogle/Leer-2, Sloth-1, Whine-1 
>Cr (neglible) 

   You neglected to list Mr. Bundy's Unarmed Martial Arts skill (as was
demonstrated in more than one episode):

   Unarmed M.A.-2

  I would also rate his Ogle/Leer skill at at least 3, given the amount
of time he spent practicing it, he should have built up a considerable
amount of experience points.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:32:14 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Al Bundy in Milieu Zero

>Al is a big guy, and several episodes have demonstrated his brawling
>ability.
>Perhaps 967651, add brawling 3, athletics 2, ground vehicle 1, Invent Shoes
>with Socks Attached 2
>For possesions, Al also has his car, and a very healthy collection of
>Playboys (which Peg sold for a couple hundred bucks)

>Yeah, agree to all of the above but who can calculate the TNE wear value of
his car?

That one's easy....around in 30 in 1997
(10 + the number of years since he bought it and since he has never had an
annual overhaul, IIRC it is a 1975-78, or someowhere around then)

Oh yeah, add mechanic 2 (he helped Steve Rhodes build a car in one episode),
relive glory days 6, 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:33:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: lansford <lansford@vnet.net>
Subject: Re: Rob Prior's World Builder Handbook spreadsheets

> Did any PC user have problems with un-BixHexing the file?  I got only one 
> partial (25 k) file showing - aet, which I assume is the animal encounter 
> tables.

Not here; Netscape 4 unBinHexed it as it downloaded.

Jean Lansford
lansford@vnet.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:30:09 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Sell Trade

 A refresher on whan't up on the block:
I am willing to Sell or trade any of the Following (Prices negotiable)
        Imperial Encyclopedia (MT), Cover damage, highlighted
        101 vehicles (MT), Fine condition (has owner name blacked out)
        MT Rebellion SourceBook (GDW), Fine Cond
        MT COACC (GDW) Fine Cond


As for my Wish List
I am looking  for (in good or better shape):
        Dbl Adv 4 (GDW, CT)
        Adv 2,4,7,11,12 (GDW, CT)
        Alien Module 8: Darrians (GDW, CT)
        5th Frontier War Boardgame (Ditto)
        The Adjutant #'s: 2, 7, 8, 11+
        TD's 1-7,

Next decision date is 15 August 97...semi-sealed bid auction. Notice of
others bidding on same stuff will be given; ammounts and types not given
until final decisions are made.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:34:40 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Medieval Tech

>  As for Lynn White's "Medievil Technology and Social Change," I'm afraid
>I must report many of its conclusions have been rejected by scholars in
>the field.  Oddly, this does not include most historians of technology -
>few of them work in period before 1800, and so White's work has maintained
>its status.  A new book by Dr. Alan Marcus of Iowa State University coming
>out this year will lay out the failings in White's work (as part of a
>larger survey of the history of technology before the Industrial
>Revolution), so perhaps they'll stop reprinting White at last.

An old professor of mine by the name of Bert Hall at the University of
Toronto just recently published an article entitled _Lynn White's Medieval
Technology and Social Change After Thirty Years_  reflecting on the impact
of his article and the more recent scholarship responding to it. He was a
student of White's in California. I think the article is in one of last
year's issues of _Technology and Culture_ (where else). The consensus is
that his work hasn't held up, although whose would after thirty years.

I actually think that White's article _The Historical Roots of Our
Ecological Crisis_, written in _Science_ thirty years ago, still remains
quite poignant. Depressing, but poingnant.

Any idea what this Marcus guy has to say about the whole affair?



Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1569
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 16 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1570



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial to Solomani dates
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (w
ROM TL vote
Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea
Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea
Re: Calender and Timekeeping
Re: FF&S ships this week?
[none]
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Rule of Man/TC TL
<no subject>
Re: Al Bundy in Milieu Zero
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Church of Stellar Divinity
Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
What do Scouts do?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:13:48 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Imperial to Solomani dates

> Solomani Sphere dissolved: 292-950 = Saturday, 13th March 5471 AD

I think you mis-read the misprint.  Alien Module 6, poge 11 says that the 
Sphere was dissolved in 940 but then gives the date as 292-950.  The History 
box on p12 gives 940 as the year as well.  The MT Encyclopedia (p7 and p37) 
implies that there may have been a 10 year spread between "friction" (940) and 
re-integration (950) which may expalin having two dates.  Unfortunately the 
Ecyclopedia gives 950 = 5468 AD while Alien module 6 gives 950 = 5471 AD.

MT Referee's Companion p45 states that Imperial 1120 = Terran 5641, which would 
favour 950 = 5471 AD being the "calibration" date. 

Using Excel 97 (which claims to work up to Friday, 31st December 9999) I have 
written a tiny spreadsheet that gives the dates as:


292-940  Monday 13th March 5471
001-0    Tuesday 9th January 4531
132-1116 Wednesday 22nd August 5646
206-588  Thursday 13th March 5119
229-679  Saturday 13th March 5210

If we use 292-950 as the "calibration" date, and work out when the other 13/Mar 
days are we get:

292-950  Monday 13th March 5471
001-0    Saturday 11th January 4521
132-1116 Sunday 24th August 5636
204-588  Thursday 13th March 5109
227-679  Monday 13th March 5200
which implies:
263-1120 Tuesday 1st January 5641 (MT Ref Companion p 45)

Then again, we have the MT Encyclopedia p7 which matches
292-950  Friday 13th March 5468 (or possibly 940 = 5458 is the key year)
cunninly incompatable with:
263-1120 Tuesday 1st January 5641 (MT Ref Companion p 45)
cunninly incompatible with:
MT Encyclopedia p37 which again gives 940 as the year the autonomous region 
(Solomani Sphere) was revoked,

### advertisement ###

Here at SolSupreme we offer to all our members a HandComp program to calculate 
and store all of your important Terran dates.  No longer will you need to worry 
about forgetting important anniversaries on the correct (Terran) dates.  A 
little-used feature allows you to be notified of anniversaries using the 
Imperial calendar.

Your for only Cr9, or free with life membership.

For those who use our genealogy records to trace your family tree back to 
pre-jump Earth, the program is compatable with all dates from 1900 (Terran) 
onwards.  The next update, for Excel 4532, will allow for dates back to 1 
(Terran) to be compatable with the Caledonian "Mac" genealogy data and the 
Templar database.

### SolSupreme ###


I had not realised there was this 10-year discrepancy in the Solomani dates ... 
I was planning to include Imperial/Vilani/Zhodani/Aslan dates in my 
up-coming Win 95 program (based on the Alien Modules which mostly gave 
"calibration" dates to allow such conversion).  I'm sure the TML will find the 
true conversion dates in due course!  Here is my stab at it:

Aslan   201-3644 = Imperial 000-0    (MT Ref Companion p42) ??? misprint for
Aslan   201-3644 = Imperial 001-1111  ???
Aslan   ddd-3644 = Imperial ddd-1111 (Alien Module 6 p2)
Aslan   ddd-3642 = Imperial ddd-1110 (MT Encycolpedia p7)
This data is all consistent (approximately) if we assume the misprint (000-0 is 
not a valid date, I believe).


Droyne  1401/ccc = Imperial ddd-1111 (Alien Module 7 p 2)


Solomani (see main part of message) - three years to choose from


Vilani  3882.ddd = Imperial ddd-1120 (MT ref Companion p 45)
Vilani  3931.ddd = Imperial ddd-1110 (MT Encycolpedia p7)
Completely inconsistent!


Zhodani 3471.1 Dranzhrin = Imperial 289-1112 (Alien Module 4 p3)
Zhodani 3474.3 season/dd = Imperial ddd-1120 (MT ref Companion p 45)
Zhodani 3470.2 season/dd = Imperial ddd-1110 (MT Encycolpedia p7)
This data is all consistent (approximately)

Perhaps Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com> can come to the rescue with his 
timeline in Access?  (My reference: message 7755 on my PC). 


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:41:43 -0700
From: JayStr <jaystr@best.com>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

>>Anyway the good news is
>> that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
>> extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?

>Guess.

>Let's put it this way, it was given an extensive going-over by a 
>number of knowledgeable people (and some others like me) which was 
>roughly half completed when it went to IG for typesetting and 
>printing.  How much correction took place after the submission I 
>don't know, but as sent to IG it wasn't anywhere near ready.  This 
>wasn't Dave & Guy's fault...

>IMHO, of course.

>Nick

Oh, CHRIST. Not again. (Howling, wailing, gnashing of teeth etc.)

- -- Jay Stranahan

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:58:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (w

I can see it now, the chief engineer of a ship asks his assistant weither or 
not he forgot the check "this, that, and the other thing".

The Ensign gets a little ticked and says, "I wasn't expecting the Vilani 
Inquisition!"

Just then 3 Vilani in outlandish red traditional Vilani Costumes burst forth 
from the engineering deck's iris valve.

"NOBODY EXPECTS THE VILANI INQUISITION!"

"Our chief weapon is distrust of technology, and conservativism, TWO! 
weapons are distrust of technology, conservatism, and boring bureaux... 
THREE!..."

"We'll come in again..."


 ---------------------------------
More insanity brought to you by X-TEK Industries
Makers of Ctulhu Chip Cookies
"Insanely Delicious!"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:12 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: ROM TL vote

Currently the results are:

11-: 0
12 : 4
13 : 3
14+: 0

Giving an average TL of about 12.5.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:12 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970715182209.364f28b4@mail.hooked.net>

Douglas,

> As for the scouts, I think the theme from Red Dwarf would work..

*YES!*
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:12 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem--Here's an idea

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970715182209.364f28b4@mail.hooked.net>

Douglas,

> As for the scouts, I think the theme from Red Dwarf would work..

*YES!*
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:13 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Calender and Timekeeping

In-Reply-To: <v01540a02aff1c3ead579@[198.70.218.37]>

William,

> I figure most groundside bases will have TWO sets of clocks (Left is local,
> right is imperial {Cleon/Sylea/Capitol time}, both with dates upon them.
> Most worlds will use a local calendar and clock where convinient (IE,
> within the 16-30 hour limits). On worlds where daylight is never seen (Too
> far out, all pop underground, etc), and on orbital stations and colonies,
> and aboard shipping, the Sylea Standard Time references will be used. Most
> startowns will have SST displays for convinience, and most towns with any
> off-world or imperial connections will also have at least a cetral clock
> (Usually local above SST).

Yep, works for me (only call it *Imperial* Standard Time).
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:12 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

In-Reply-To: <3178DE4217F@ramsley.shef.ac.uk>

Nick,

> > money that they have to elemarket t-shirts?  Anyway the good news is
> > that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
> > extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?
>  
> Guess.
>  
> Let's put it this way, it was given an extensive going-over by a 
> number of knowledgeable people (and some others like me) which was 
> roughly half completed when it went to IG for typesetting and 
> printing.  How much correction took place after the submission I 
> don't know, but as sent to IG it wasn't anywhere near ready.

Oh, for God's sake, are IG complete morons? Are they *deliberately* trying 
to piss off their customers by releasing unfinished, uncorrected products?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 15:45:51 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: [none]

 
Hi, a few weeks ago, I posted a write up for Coaise/Thoezennt/Old
Expanses in Y:1200.  It was a planet ruled by two competing Virus, who
pitted their people against each other in a series of wars, for the
sake of the amusment/intellectual excercise of the Virses.

I forgot to send along teh robot enforcers that the Viruses use.  None
of the people know that the Keepers are robots, they think that they
are chosen from the people to serve the Westlord/Eastlord.

The robots were built using the system in Vampire Fleets.

If you missed the world write up it is at:
  
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/bard/opal/opal9054.html

Lewis
- -----------------

Keepers of Order

Combat Move: 10m/turn
Endurance:12 hrs
Inititive:3
Intelligence:3
Command Function:Low Auto
Armor:3 (All locations)
Damage Capacity:20+20
Assets: Slug Weapon (Pistol)3/6
        Linguistics:0/3
	Misc Skill:3/6

Armament: Tl-5 9mm SMG concealed in stomach.
ROF:5   Dam:2    Pen:1-Nil    Mag:30   Recoil  SS-1  Brst:3   Rng:48
Weapon is fully stabilized and can be fired with at any speed.
Note:Only two brsts can be fired or the robot will tip over.

Electronics: Visual Spectrum Eye,Audio Detector

Travel Move: 100kph/4hrs
Cargo:25kg
Mass:563kg
TL:15
Price:184,600 Cr
Fuel Type:Electricity 
Mnt:1

Arm  	    Lift      Hit     Umd     Wpn
Left/Right 500kg       6        3       -

	The Keepers of Order are humanoid shaped robots. They constantly wear
thick hooded robes and rap their faces in gauze. This is to disguise their
true nature to the masses.  Without their clothing they are quite apparent
as robots, looking like animated maniqueins.(SP)  Before the Collapse,
the Keepers were starport loading robots, but they were coopted by the
Westlord and the Eastlord.  The concealed submachine gun is a new
addition and the weapon is of local manufacture.  The weapon stabilization
gear was ripped out of various TL-15 vehicles.  
 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:13 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

In-Reply-To: <33CB517C.1A2D@alaska.net>

> >Date   Event
> >       001     Holiday. First Day Of Year. (not a named weekday).
> >       009     School Year Starts
> >       091     Armed Forces Day
> >       181     Mid-Year Break.
> >       271     Thanksgiving
> >       328     School Year Ends (Graduation)
> >       359     Year End Break (to 365)
>  
> T4's Starships says (pg 5)

Sadly, Marc doesn't seem to like those. Let me run my ideas up the 
flagpole and see who salutes them...

001  Holiday. 
     On which we celebrate the founding of our glorious Third Imperium.
009  School Year starts. 
     This only officially applies to Imperial schools (eg the Imperial 
     Naval Academy), but many other schools (especially on Sylea) also    
     follow the Immperial School Year.
034  Imperial Forces Day.
     On which we give thanks to all the brave members of the Imperial
     Forces (Army, Navy, Marines, and Scouts), and remember those who died 
     in the service of the Emperor.
051  Emperor Cleon's Birthday.
     On which we celebrate the birth of our Emperor, and, in return, he
     bestows honours upon the greatest of his subjects.
090  Quarter Day.
     A simple public holiday marking the end of the first quarter.
121  Workers' Day.
     On which we remember the workers - the tiny cogs who keep the great
     Imperial machine running smoothly.
181  Mid-Year Break.
     A simple public holiday marking the end of the second quarter.
184  Standard Religious Holiday.
219  Family Day.
272  Three-Quarter Day.
     A simple public holiday marking the end of the third quarter.
328  School Year Ends (Graduation).   
     This only officially applies to Imperial schools (eg the Imperial 
     Naval Academy), but many other schools (especially on Sylea) also    
     follow the Immperial School Year.
359  Year End Break (to 365).
     A week-long celebration of the Empire, leading up to Holiday and the 
     new year.

Worlds generally also celebrate the day they joined the Imperium - 
traditionally, this is 001, but not in all cases - and, in the case of 
colony worlds, the day they were founded.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:52:57 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/TC TL

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:06:10 -0700
Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com> writes:
>
>of a RoM of TL 16+ is pure sophistry. You've used this "silent majority"
>tack before, and quite frankly, it's getting old.


BS!  You are confusing the unsubscribes from the HIWG list with a silent
majority.  When people unsubscribe, I take that as someone who was convinced
to not hang around anymore.  Leave that baggage on the HIWG list, TML is
rattled enough.


>You are deluded. I don't mean this as an insult, but merely a statement
>based on the fact that you're making claims which have not been validated.
>I know you think you're cozied up to Marc on all this, but I have not seen
>a single post from him that says, "By God, yes! Leroy's right!


Actually, I haven't even bothered to ask what Marc thought on the subject.
Nor would I--after all, I have _some_ manners. :)

Like I said, I am _perfectly_ happy with what T4 says.  I'm just one of the
few who are willing to take a reentry flame without an ablat shield on it.
Afterall, if TML must "think" something, it "must" be right, right?
(rhetorical) <G>


Leroy "TechG" Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:54:30 -0400
From: "Thomas E. Meadows" <tommedos@bright.net>
Subject: <no subject>

unsubscribe traveller-digest

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:55:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas <douglas@*teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Al Bundy in Milieu Zero

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Glenn Crawford wrote:

> 
> >Al is a big guy, and several episodes have demonstrated his brawling
> >ability.
> >Perhaps 967651, add brawling 3, athletics 2, ground vehicle 1, Invent Shoes
> >with Socks Attached 2
> >For possesions, Al also has his car, and a very healthy collection of
> >Playboys (which Peg sold for a couple hundred bucks)
> 
> >Yeah, agree to all of the above but who can calculate the TNE wear value of
> his car?
> 
> That one's easy....around in 30 in 1997
> (10 + the number of years since he bought it and since he has never had an
> annual overhaul, IIRC it is a 1975-78, or someowhere around then)
> 
> Oh yeah, add mechanic 2 (he helped Steve Rhodes build a car in one episode),
> relive glory days 6, 
> 

Let's not forget drug tolerance (alcohol) 2, leadership (formed club) 1,
and either athletic 1 or throwing 1 (depending on how you see American
football)

- --------------------------------------------
Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology
                                              -Merlin

douglas@teleport.com
http:\\www.teleport.com\~douglas\

MCSE: Windows95, Windows NT 3.51 Server, Windows NT 3.51 Workstation, 
      Exchange Server, Basic Networking, TCP/IP
- --------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:03:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:32:05 -0500
> From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
> 
> Bottom line-please be creative with holidays.  I doubt the greeks
> celebrated many of ours 3000 years ago.

Actually, they did.

Almost all of the enduring, powerful holidays in our civilization, and in
most world civilizations past and present, are tied strongly to the
seasonal calendar.  There are 8 'special' points in this calendar; the two
equinoxes, the two solstices, and the four points halfway between these
(the 'cross quarter' points).  I've listed these for the northern
hemisphere, together with well-known holidays corresponding:

Vernal Equinox  (03/20)         Easter (floating, 0-34 days following VE)
  CQ 1          (05/01)         May Day (05/01)
Summer Solstice (06/21)         US Independence Day (7/4)
  CQ 2          (08/02)         (none)
Autumnal Eq.    (09/21)         US Labor Day (early September)
  CQ 3          (11/01)         Halloween (10/31)
Winter Solstice (12/21)         Christmas (12/25)
  CQ 4          (02/01)         Ground Hog Day (2/2)

I suggest that Independence Day would not be nearly so large nor popular a
holiday if it hadn't absorbed the cultural energy of Midsummer's Day.

The Catholic calendar of saint's days was specifically crafted to co-opt
'pagan' celebrations on the seasonal days; for example, 6/21 is St. John's
Day, a major feast day coincidentally atop the Summer Solstice.

So, while the Greeks undoubtedly gave them different names, they did
almost certainly have holidays at the same seasonal points as we do, and
these likely had similar characters, given how tied the seasons are to
cycles of planting and harvest, death and rebirth.

Now, of course, a multiplanetary society won't have this common reference
point of seasons to keep their holiday calendars coherent.  But that's a
separate question.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 17:32:49 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Church of Stellar Divinity

Douglas Berry wrote:

>Doing this has also caused me to write on the Church of the Stellar
>Divinity.. does anyone have any information about this group beyond what
>appears in DA6?

While reading the Regency Sourcebook,  I had an idea for a radical sect
of the CSD. I was going to make them a fring element on Parvid (see
Divine Intervention), but since I decided to play in the RC and not the
Spinward Marches, I moved them to Luhtala/Old Expanses.  Feel free to
move them somewhere else.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------
 
Church of Stellar Divinity
The Church of Stellar Divinity is widespread throughout the 
Imperium, it believes that Stars are divine beings and need to 
be worshiped.  If a believer is faithful, after his death, his 
spirit will merge with the stars.  On Parvid/Spinward Marches a heretic
branch of the church sprang up. This branch believes that the stars are at 
war with each other, and that people from other planets are 
followers of another star, and must be destroyed.  The branch of 
the church that existed on Luhtala, took this heresy one step 
farther and believes that it is the duty of all believers to help 
fight the war against the other stars.

Before the Collapse, the group was actively seeking to locate a 
working copy of the mythical star trigger. With such a device, 
they could destroy entire stars, and help Lutala's star, Amicron, 
win supremacy.

One possible adventure plot is for the Church to fly in to an 
enemy star system and fire canisters of radioactive waste in to a 
star.  They realize this won't destroy the star, but feel that it 
might weaken the star enough so Amicron might take advantage of 
its momentary weakness.

The Church also wants to make a device in which they could 
actually enter the atmosphere of the star and commune directly 
with Amicron.  For a possible design see the novel Sundiver by 
David Brin. I don't think a device is practical at Traveller tech
levels, but it doesn't stop some wackos from trying anyway.

- -----------------------------------------------------------------

These guys are pretty nutty, and would probably be used for comic relief.




Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:14:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:19:43 MET
> From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
> 
> - -> Shionthy Belt is where Grandfather tilted the Droyne homeworld into
> - -> a pocket universe after the Ancient War. It's still there.
>
> Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source 
> of this info?

*LOL!*  You clipped the attribution from that quote, but Marc Miller
Himself [cue muted peals of thunder] wrote it.  Sources don't get a whole
lot more official than that.

The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:

  Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML
  CT/MT publications by GDW
  CT/MT publications by DGP or FASA
  TNE
  National Enquirer
  All other pre-T4 Traveller publications
  Non-Marc old fogies speaking ex cathedra on TML
  T4

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:14:13 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:15:25 -0700, "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>

>>It is really funny that this got turned into silent supporters routine.
>>Also notice that in any attempt at an unbiased poll, pollsters do not
>>stand around outside debate halls to poll people, unless the point of
>>the poll is to see who won the debate.  Voting here persuades me very
>>little, and we should stop offending the rest of the world where
>>government is not always the American system, not that the American
>>system really votes on anything at a high level.

>Forgive me in believing in democracy.  We recently had a very close
>election here in San Francisco, a multi-million dollar stadium referendum
>passed by fewer than 2000 votes in a city of 750,000.  The stsdium
>opponents claimed that they had the support of people who didn't vote.
>Should we have overturned the election on their word?

Well, I didn't agree with the poster's position on TL, and I
also don't believe in designing game systems by popular
acclamation, but he has a point.  A point that holds true in
every gaming list I've been on.

The argument is that a majority of the list supports a certain position.
However, the fact is looking at only people who volunteer an opinion
is notorious for being a poor way of measuring either what people
believe or even what they would vote if a formal election is held.
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:24:39 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

>> I always had a problem with that.  If the belt was made up
>> of antimatter, then the imperium would be using it to run
>> their military ships (at least).

>First, that's EASY to explain...you want your fleet's fuel supply line
>based entirely on a belt containing an unknown amount of antimatter way
>off in the Spinward Reaches? And you're off in, sayyyy Alpha Crucis?

With antimatter you only need to refuel every decade or so.  Compared
to refueling every jump, this is vast improvement, (not to mention
that fact that you free up all that space).

>A second point; maybe the physicists can answer. Exactly how do you find
>out that that chunk of stuff in front of your ship is antimatter? "Ping"
>it with matter and look for the flash?

Exactly.   In fact, you just look for that radiation that occurse
when it interacts with interplanetary dust.
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:18:03 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: What do Scouts do?

In the Scott Universe, Scouts have three missions - survey, contact, and
administration.  Of those three, the first is divided into known worlds and
unknown worlds.  During early M0, unknown world survey missions are
possibly the best known function, but known world survey missions are the
most important.  As the Imperium ages, the X-boat network gradually takes
over as the best known function of the Scout service.  Contact missions are
the ones that have the most glamor among the scouts themselves, and they
have become quite adept in a short time at protecting their contact
missions from other potential Empire builders.  While the extent of their
survey and contact missions require administration work, most Scouts, and
many members of the public, think that they are completely superfluous.
Few people are as bitter as a long term scout Administrator.

When a ship jumps, it creates a small bubble of real space inside jump
space.  The bubble is quite stable, save at the boundary of jumpspace -
jumpspace gradually breaks down the structure of real space and the things
in it, which is why one needs to pump such tremendous quantities of fuel
into it.  Further, this gives pilots, astrogators, and engineers something
to do during the jump - they are rather busy making sure the calculations
work out.

In an idea universe, this process is entirely predictable.  In the real
world, it is not.  Minor fluctuations in the type and quantity of dust in
the area where one jumps from or two can cause dramatic jump bubble
fluctuations, as can impure fuel.  If you do not have an accurate chart,
you will face roughly the same kinds of difficulties faced someone running
with unrefined fuel.

To prevent this kind of loss, most planets of TL9 or better spend a fair
amount of time and money charting out the area within 100 diameters of
their world.  As a military defense, they often only provide data on
certain well known places, which means that most pirates, who cannot afford
a small scout wing, will tend to cluster in the same rough places that the
merchant ships will be jumping in to.

The Imperium does not like depending on local talent for mapping, and so
funds the scout service well to have ships nearly everywhere plotting all
sorts of approach corridors for a system.  In addition, all of those scout
couriers perform an automatic sample and scan on arrival into a new system,
which gives scout bases a tremendous quantity of raw data on a large number
of systems.

Further, the Scouts will often place an automatic beacon at a few
judiciously chosen points which samples the information and broadcasts a
select subset of it to ships leaving.  I have theorized that the Scouts use
transponders of passing ships to carry this information to other systems as
well, but I have not implemented this as yet.  People might be unhappy
about carrying information for the Scouts for free.  (Note: I usually make
purchasing this information from the Scouts a major money sink for players,
instead of life support, as this can be roughly proportional to the size of
the vessel with little handwaving.)

This does bring up one question - the scouts visit these places long before
anyone else.  How do they deal with the complete lack of such information?

1.  Sensors and trained operators carefully examining the entry point.

By doing a more careful and detailed than usual survey of your jump entry
point, you do not need as much data on your exit point.  It is usually wise
to take about a week or so before making a jump from an unfamiliar system
without a standard Imperial beacon to make sure that you are going to get a
good jump.

2.  Long distance observation of the jump exit point.

A week's survey of the exit point from a parsec away can also reduce the
risk, though not as well as a good survey of the entry point.  The entry
point is by far more critical, but every little bit helps.

3.  An educated guess based on old data.

The data does drift, but it tends to remain approximately correct for
several months.  Further, if you have enough data about the system in
general, produced by a recent large scale survey, you can predict how the
data will drift.  The combination of lots of data and lots of computing
power is what allows large starports to produce course tapes that reduce
the risk, even for vessels without a Scout-grade sensor rig.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1570
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 17 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1571



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re: Traveller stereotypes
Re: ROM TL vote
Re: Shionthy Belt
[T97#1568] Yanks in Space...
Re: Refueling question
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Calender and Timekeeping
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Scout slogan?
Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)
The Kankurur G Carrier for T4
Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht
Character Generation and Aging Rolls
Re: Holidays
Re: Imperial calendar et al
What is the sound of TL falling
Belters

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:27:36 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

At 06:11 PM 7/16/97 BST-1, Andrew Boulton wrote:

>1. Does that grey, circular background graphic annoy everybody else as 
>much as it annoys me? It's very distracting when you're trying to read 
>(the same goes for /Anomalies/ BTW - I *really* hope this isn't going 
>to become a standard feature (it probably buggers up OCR systems, too, 
>which will piss off any blind players)).

Yes, I despise background graphics.  The exception are documents and forms
not meant to be read, like stock certificates.

Of course, I also dislike it on web pages for much the same reason.
Anything that makes the text harder to read is annoying to me.

Scott

Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:32:45 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

At 10:15 AM 7/16/97 -0700, I wrote:
>At 12:11 AM 7/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>I was quite suprised to receive a call from Melody with Imperium Games
>>concerning the shipping of Fire Fusion and Steel.
>
>A friend of mine is very close to dropping IG altogether, because of the
>persistent calls by Melody.
...
>I am not nearly as annoyed, as the only call I have gotten from them in the
>last few months was checking up on an error of theirs.  This, I consider a
>good call.

I spoke a bit soon.  I just got my call.

I did ask, and she said that the decision to go with telemarketing rests
with Courtney Solomon.

At least they picked a friendly person to do the telemarketing.  I am still
not terribly vexed, at least not enough to cancel the Internet pre-order
plan yet.

My associate who was ticked before has said it all hinges on the quality of
FFS.  If it is down to the standards of some previous products, he will
drop the plan and ask them not to call him, while he will keep it if it is
good.  Until they call again.

Note: he commented that IG had caused a loss of innocence.  Previously, he
always felt it very important to get every supplement for a new game, just
to have them all.  After getting Starships, the first printing of the
rulebook, First Survey, and M0, he decided to wait until he heard at least
three good reviews about anything before buying it.

(M0 would have been a good supplement, save that it depended on a map which
was changed after the text was written.)

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:44:47 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller stereotypes

>>On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the
>>Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the
>>Pedantically Bureaucratic Vilani, and the Recklessly Hasty Solomani,
>>but how about others? (And are my two samples really the likely
>>stereotypes for said groups?)

In addition to Anders':

SWORD WORLDERS: They're all boorish, male-chauvinistic, imperialistic
blowhards. Also, their confederate states can't get along with each other.
THE TRUTH: They *are* a male-dominated culture, but only our own political
correctness dictates that to be wrong. They *were* the first Terran humans
to settle the Spinward Marches. Imagine setting up shop in a virtually
uncharted region of space and then having it overrun by a bunch of Imperial
landgrabbers. See the parallel with the Native Americans, anyone? Also,
they are a confederation, not a monolithic republic, so political hegemony
by one power was not in the plan.

ASLANS: All they ever want to do is duel for their honor. The males are
stupid because they don't understand money and other "female"
responsibilities.

K'KREE: They're genocidal against any and all carnivorous
races...waitaminnit! That one's true!!! <g>

As a side note, there was a great article on "Epithets of the Fifth
Frontier War,"  in an old issue of JTAS that dealt with the issue of
wartime name calling. I believe it was by Marc Miller. "Doggies," "Zhos,"
you name it.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:04:36 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: ROM TL vote

At 09:12 PM 7/16/97 BST-1, Andrew Boulton wrote:
>
>Currently the results are:
>
>11-: 0
>12 : 4
>13 : 3
>14+: 0
>
>Giving an average TL of about 12.5.

A vote!  A chance to vote on something!  oboyoboyoboy!  Put me down for
TL12, with the odd bit of research at a different level, and perhaps a
small boost in eco, in return for a drop in grav.

A note: I am writing a program to go through and regenerate in place the FS
data.  I am now thinking that TL should be much more homogenous across the
Imperium, if anyone cares to make it so, and the benefits mean that
someopne almost certainly did want it.

I have not yet come up with hard and fast rules, but I am thinking that
perhaps the rule should be that anyone within one merchant jump of a high
tech, high pop world will have a TL within three of it, unless something
unusual is happening.  (Unusual in my lexicon is about 10%, while unlikely
is about 5%, and exceedingly rare is about 1%.)

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:12:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:00:22 -0700 (MST)
> From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
> 
> On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, David P. Summers wrote:
> > I always had a problem with that.  If the belt was made up
> > of antimatter, then the imperium would be using it to run
> > their military ships (at least).
> 
> First, that's EASY to explain...you want your fleet's fuel supply line
> based entirely on a belt containing an unknown amount of antimatter way
> off in the Spinward Reaches? And you're off in, sayyyy Alpha Crucis?

Beyond which, merely *having* antimatter is only the first problem
involved in M/AM propulsion.  Storing the stuff aboard a ship is verrrry
tricky as well.  Granted, with TL-15 grav control it's much easier than it
looks from TL-8.  But if the power goes out, you are *toast*.  A Fuel-1
hit against a fusion ship means you're a bit low on gas; the same hit on a
M/AM ship means you turn into a flash of radiation detectable from nearby
star systems. :) 

> A second point; maybe the physicists can answer. Exactly how do you find
> out that that chunk of stuff in front of your ship is antimatter? "Ping"
> it with matter and look for the flash? Will the NMR of antimatter be
> different than that of matter?

NMR should be identical, if I'm figuring correctly.  Pinging with normal
matter would be the trick.  In fact, just the normal 'background' of
normal matter -- solar wind particles, pieces of normal-matter asteroid
dust, and such -- should be quite adequate to keep AM objects in the belt
'glowing' detectably.  Scan the system for 511 keV photon sources, and
you'll locate all the significant chunks of antimatter.

Note by the way that this 'glow' is *far* outside the visible range.  The
Mk I eyeball couldn't tell the difference between a normal and an AM rock,
unless enough normal matter were hitting the latter to heat it up and
create visible thermal (blackbody) radiation.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:51:26 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: [T97#1568] Yanks in Space...

anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) wrote...

>Belters: All belters, booze, take drugs, work alone in junkyard spaceship
>when they aren't claimjumping or pirating. The stereotype is based on the
>american (and others) goldrush but take a look at mining companies today:
>They may not be environmentally friendly but they shure run a tight ship
>and behave like big business. There was a writeup of Glisten on the list
>that propagated this myth by portraying more or less the entire pop (9) to
>be a bunch of rowdy drunks. BTW all my belter PC have been drug using
>drunkards with criminal bent and pracy as a hobby but that's beside the
>point.

That was my writeup of Glisten you're referring to, and my intent
was not to portray them as a bunch of rowdy drunks.  I _did_
assume a strong streak of anarchism running through the entire
culture, top to bottom, but that's just my bias; at the time, I
was going through a phase of believing that the US government was
out of control.  I'm still not convinced it isn't, but that
discussion is for another list at another time.

Also, in any kind of report written for tourists, by tourists
(even "professional" tourists), what will be noticed is what's
_different_ from the run-of-the-mill that you can find at home.
The RICE papers, regardless of official intent, would naturally
follow that pattern.  In all probability, if a New Yorker were to
visit Glisten, s/he'd probably find it to be a lot like Midtown
Manhattan, with funny clothes ("in color combinations that even a
Vargr might find in questionable taste"), and a strange
arrangement for providing public services.

Now, my writeup of Nutema is an unabashed "Stereotypical Texans
in Space" ripoff of H. Beam Piper's "Lone Star Planet" (published
in some areas as "Planet for Texans"), with enough names changed
and extras added (hopefully consistently) to provide the guilty
with a single fig leaf.

>From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) also wrote

>Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
>adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of =
relics,
>pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
>laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.

I was wondering about this, too.  I even went so far as to
inquire of a Roman Catholic friend as to how the Church hierarchy
would maintain itself on planets that were cut off from contact
with the Vatican.  Still waiting for an answer; if there's
interest, I'll post when I get it.


Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:06:28 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

It has been said....

******************************************
> So the question is, do I have to stay in the Water/Gas Giant during the
> purification process or only during the refueling process.
> 

Once you've tanked up, feel free to move on. Your purification plant
will process the fuel later. Note that you should wait until you
******************************************

When I first saw this, I said "no way".....by the time you "refine" H2O
(mass 18) and dump the O (mass 16), and then liquify the remaining H
(mass 1).....It is going to take a good many liters of liquid water to
make 1 liter of LH2.  I then started looking in my reference books and
(as always when looking for something specific it can't be found)
couldn't come up with all the figures I needed to calculate it for
sure.  The one figure I did come up with was that LH2 (at 20K--its
boiling point) had a relative density of 0.07 that of water at STP.  So
if H2 (having 2Hs) is 2g(H2)/mole and water having 2 Hs also has
2g(H2)/mole and water at 30C is approx 1kg/l, then

LH2:  .07*(1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g)= 35 moles(H2)/liter

H20:  (1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g) = 500 moles(H2)/liter

Can this be?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Can some blessed soul show me the error in my ways....I must be missing
something stupid....please help this will bother me...lose sleep, etc...

Is water truely a beter way to store large quanities of H2 in less space
than LH2 (neglecting that H2 in the water has no "fuel" value---just
talking about the quantity of H atoms stored in a given space)????

Thanks for your help in advance....
If I'm missing something obvious please forgive my stupidity (in
advance)....

TT--(possessing just enough knowledge to be dangerous to himself and
others, but not enough to actually be useful....)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:37:26 -0400
From: Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

Howdy Leroy,

My name is Dan Lane and I'm Tom Lane's ("deadeys)twin brother.  I'm a 
naval engineer stationed in Norfolk VA.  My brother and I have been 
running/playing Traveller since about 1979.  I'm curious to see the
content 
of your original RoM posting.  I may have some interesting numerical 
information for you that could support a thesis of high TLs for RoM.  
This is a purely mathematical model (first order approximation) and 
absolutely untestested except by historical trends.  It would form a 
very complex multi-faceted system for evaluating TLs.

If you're interested please let me know.  Also, please note, the 
implications of this tool are far from canonical regarding such things
as 
gravitics.

- -Dan

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:02:25 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, David P. Summers wrote:
> > 15 Jul 1997 13:20:44 GMT, Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
> > >I remember readiong something about contra-terrene matter (antimatter) but
> > >can't remember where.

> A second point; maybe the physicists can answer. Exactly how do you find
> out that that chunk of stuff in front of your ship is antimatter? "Ping"
> it with matter and look for the flash? Will the NMR of antimatter be
> different than that of matter?

How about a low powered Meson Communicator? Or a very low power PA 
pulse? Bothof these would allow precise control of how much M-AM 
reaction could take place, and you can do it from a good long way 
away.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:13:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Calender and Timekeeping

In a message dated 97-07-16 03:16:15 EDT, you write:

<< >Why on earth (pardon the pun) would they stick by the Imperial calendar?
 >Yes, indeed, it's 3:00 AM (Imperial), the sun is shining, yet all the
 >businesses are closed for the "night". It's harvest time, but it's
 >also Holiday, so farmer Jones (Vilani: Jiiiinnnegggi?) can't find anyone
 >to hire?
 >
 >Embassies, consulates, Imperial military installations, interstellar
 >merchant lines, passenger liners and starports would use the Imperial
 >calendar. The local government offices and shops whose customers
 >primarily use the Imperial calendar would use both systems. Most local
 >citizens would use the local calendar and would never need to convert.
>
>Thoughts, anyone?

That's fairly on track. Scheduled freight and passenger lines would use
"Imperial Time/Calendar" for scheduling. The military certainly would.
Anything high tech would make automatic conversions on the computer screen
when asked or when necessary.

Any world without a natural calendar (ie, vac world, asteroid belt, etc)
would probably be on Imperial time.

What I like about this discussion is the plot ideas. Thoughtless bureaucrats
implement imposed Imperial calendar without regard to harvest or natural
cycles. Devious bureaucrats motivated by local concerns work to sabotage
adoption because it shuffles local holidays. Imperial Office of Calendar
Compliance sticks its nose into all sorts of affairs in order to make sure
new members of the Imperium are truly loyal and adopting the calendar.

BTW, Thanksgiving is also a Jewish holiday (different time of the year).

Marc Miller

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:03:36 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

Yeah, and the Roman Saturnalia/Christmas.  I just want some creativity. 
Surely some events have happened in 3000 years the Imperials would want
to commemorate.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:57:53 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Scout slogan?

>Nor would I--after all, I have _some_ manners. :)

  Really?
        Steven Hudson

(highly impromptu Scout slogan: "The canary's dead. Send the new guy?"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:57:26 -0400
From: Daniel Poulin <pould@netcom.ca>
Subject: Re: "Shoe Salesman" Career... :-)

At 23:53 15/07/97 -0400, Franklin W. Cain wrote:
>> Subject: Dead Ends
>> Ask Marc about the "Shoe Salesman" career 
>> Loren Wiseman
>>      GDW Emeritus
>
>And an example character would be...  :-)  
>
>Al Bundy 
>UPP: 758552 
>Shoe Salesman, 6 terms, age 42 
>Skills: Channel Surf-2, Comeback/Wit-3, Ogle/Leer-2, Sloth-1, Whine-1 
>Cr (neglible) 
>
>(OK, OK, I've been watching too much TV... :-) 
>Franklin
>
>

I knew I was watching too much TV when I had exactly the same thought...  Is
it only me or would the dog have the highest UPP? (probably the highest
intelligence anyway...).

Daniel Poulin
pould@netcom.ca 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:07:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: The Kankurur G Carrier for T4

This is an attempt to render the old MT Kankurur G Carrier (From page
46-47 of the DGP MT World Builders Handbook) While I generally prefer MT
to T4, I greatly prefer Greg Porter's Vehicle generation rules from the
CSC. 

One of my main problems with vehicles from MT is that they were *huge*. 
The Kankurur was originally 10 DSP (the size of a 40 ft long, 18 wheeler
truck) This seems rather excessive to me.  This version is 4 DSP and is
the size of a large mobile home, which seems much more reasonable. 

I have two versions of the Kankurur listed here, one with Contra Grav, and
another with Thruster plates.  The Thruster plate version seems more
reasonable to me, since it allows longer voyages and more versatile usage
(good qualities for a scout exploration vessel). When question arose I
used the WBH deckplans in prefrence to the written description when
designing this version of the Kankurur

Both versions are listed below, the stats for the Thruster version are
printed inside <...>, the stats for the Contra Grav version are printed in
[...]. Only drive volume and power requirements, fusion plant (and fuel)
volume, and cargo volume differ between the two versions. 

I replaced the Meson Communicator with a Maser since this saved most of
the cost of the vehicle and over 2 DSP of volume

TL 15 Kankurur G Carrier:

Displacement: 4.0 (USP 7) 

56.00 m^3	Total Volume
Configuration: 	Box streamlined
Dimensions:	2.8 m x 2.8 m x 7 m
Structural 
material:	Bonded Sd
0.6 m^3		10 G Chassis		--	        0.168 MCr	
0.26 m^3	Bonded Sd Armor		--	        0.073 MCr
Armor Rating:	9	

12 m^3		6 X Roomy Seats		
8 m^3		4 x Bunks
6 m^3		Large Air Lock
3 m^3		Standard Life Support + 
		Showers & Water Recycling   	0.1 Mw   0.18 MCr
1 m^3		Kitchen
<10 m^3		400 Ton Thrusters	       	 10 Mw 	  2.5 MCr>
[5 m^3		TL 12+ 250 Ton C-Grav	       1.75 Mw   0.05 MCr]
- --		Continental Radio x2		0.2 Mw  0.005 MCr
- --		Orbital Maser			1.0 Mw   0.03 MCr   
0.04 m^3	Continental AEMS (civilian)	0.1 Mw   0.16 MCr
0.04 m^3	Continental PEMS (civilian)	 --	 0.16 MCr
0.5 m^3		6 G Grav Compensation          0.35 Mw  0.025 MCr
<2 m^3		TL 15 Fusion Plant	      +12.6 Mw    0.4 MCr>
<0.27 m^3	1 Year of Fuel 			--	       -->
[0.7 m^3	TL 15 Fusion Plant	       +4.4 Mw   0.14 MCr]
[0.1 m^3	1 Year of Fuel			--	       --]
<12 m^3	Cargo Space			--		       -->
[17 m^3	Cargo Space			--  		       --]

<Cost: 		3.75 MCr>

[Cost: 		1.05 MCr]

Comments Welcome-


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:18:37 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

> 2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?

Because its a Milieu 0 sourcebook. The Droyne are unknown in that 
era.

Suz 

Suzette C. Dollar
#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 22:14:19 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht

Peter Newman wrote:

>
>Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote
>> Subject: FSY's THUDDD entry
>>
>> Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht (SSDS Beta .pdf)
>
>[description snipped]
>
>Where is the giant clothes closet off the master suite designed to hold
>2000 pairs of shoes in your description?   :)


	[long string of expletives deleted]

	You know, I'd completely forgotten about the shoes.  Darn!

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 22:34:25 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Character Generation and Aging Rolls

Paul D. Owensby wrote:

>
>While fixing a bug in my chargen program, I've found that it is really
>damn hard to keep a character from living forever if you are determined
>to do so. Much thanks to Roderick Elliott for noticing this while creating
>a character that bore an amazing resemblance to Yaskodray's mythical
>Lost Grandchild :)  in an effort to see if you could really die from aging.
>
[snip]


	Well, a funny side effect was that before the program stopped
making aging rolls, his INT had fallen to about 3.  What with the +1
physical, EDU, and SOC results on the career tables, by age 221 (after
multiple 7-year stints in the Nobles, he re-enlisted in the Army and just
kept going) or so when he was felled in his prime by a bug in the app, his
UPP looked like FFF3FF.  His Language score was about 12, his carousing 10,
he had fencing out the wazoo... but he was as dumb as a piece of 2X4.
Under KB v.2.0, he would have been an utter menace to society... just not a
very bright one :).

	This has revealed an interesting flaw in the chargen system;
basically, you can rack up an insane score on skills if you get lucky or
keep it up long enough.  Frankly, I have no idea what Fencing 12 is
supposed to represent.  And, under any task system that multiplies stats,
it results in an insanely high target number.

	I suggest capping skills at 6, and adding a roll every time you get
a skill; you have to roll higher than your rating in that skill in order to
add to it.  This would have a seriously munchkin-proofing effect; it'd be
easy to get up to 3 or so, but after that it would be progressively harder
to get up to the stratospheric skill ratings.   Marc, what do you think?



>P.S. Interesting sidenote: My spell checker kicks out "Roebuck" and
>"Ordering" as alternatives for "Roderick". How long have you been
>getting kickbacks from Sears, and how much are they paying you? :)
>


	Hm... I know nothing about this.  Maybe I should sue :).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:47:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Holidays

Does anyone remember the sf situation comedy (very short lived) called Quark.
They had the crew of a space station standing around at a party celebrating
Holliday No 11. (as in "Happy Holiday No. 11!"). Would that work?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:45:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar et al

In a message dated 97-07-16 15:11:12 EDT, you write:

<< 
 >If anybodies interested, I'll try to write a program converting Imperial
 >dates into Solomani dates.
 
  >>
I also would love to see it. We could establish a benchmark on when specific
dates coincide.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 03:00:42 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: What is the sound of TL falling

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 97 21:12 BST-1
> From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
> Subject: ROM TL vote
> 
> Currently the results are:
> 
> 11-: 0
> 12 : 4
> 13 : 3
> 14+: 0
> 
> Giving an average TL of about 12.5.
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
>  "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"
> 

You forgot one catagory, zen there is no TL, all is illusion.
Or in other words I support both sides of this argument. At least until
we came come down to a solid Defintion of TL.

My personal view is that some TL 14 worlds could have existed during the
ROM, but the highest "comonly" available Tech ran around the 12.5 mark.

IMNSHO, TL controls locally manufactured tech, in most cases. Truely 
Isolated worlds it would be the limit of gear available.

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 01:12:57 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Belters

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:28:09 +0100
> From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
> Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

> Belters: All belters, booze, take drugs, work alone in junkyard spaceship
> when they aren't claimjumping or pirating. The stereotype is based on the
> american (and others) goldrush but take a look at mining companies today:
> They may not be environmentally friendly but they shure run a tight ship
> and behave like big business. There was a writeup of Glisten on the list
> that propagated this myth by portraying more or less the entire pop (9) to
> be a bunch of rowdy drunks. BTW all my belter PC have been drug using
> drunkards with criminal bent and pracy as a hobby but that's beside the
> point.

Yep that has been my take on belters. Hell, I live Nevada within twenty
miles of the Comstock, and that sterotype fits. I think the next 
belter I play will have starting his own mobile Brothel/Casino as his
lifes
ambition.

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1571
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 17 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1572



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: FSY's THUDDD entry
Re: Terrorforming :)
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Imperial calendar
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Imperial Calendar and local calendars
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran	 Confederation TL)
Re: PE super recyclers
Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: Holidays
Re: Refueling question
Re: Medieval Tech
re: Quality Control
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)
Re: RoM TL
Starter Ed
World generation

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:32:31 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

In mail you write:

> At 09:44 PM 7/14/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>>But using the Imperial calender the same day of the year is always on
>>the same day of the week.  So all the Imperium has to do when
>>designating a holiday in the first place is put it on a day that many
>>people on many planets are more likely to have off anyway, perhaps
>>Sixday or Sevenday.
>>
>>Naturally this will not work for The Emperors Birthday (which will fall
>
>    Nor will it work very well with "local" calendars based on the mainworld's
> actual orbital period. I'd strongly wager that most worlds have the "real"
> calendar they use for day-to-day stuff, and only think about the Imperial
> calendar where they interface with the Imperium.

Not only that, but you have to deal with the difference betwen the
length of the day (24 hours) and the length of the sol (local solar
day). The day is an imperial standard. The sol is purely local. 

Thus the planets have no *choice* but to have a local calendar using
sols. The length of the local year may or may not be really important,
but it's probably of *some* importance. So the local calendars will
vary all over the place.

BTW, I'm not making up the term "sol". They use it with the Viking and
Mars Pathfinder data. On Mars the sol is around 24 hr 47 min.

So due to the difference, one thing that is going to happen is that the
time during jump will likely have you shifting the day/night cycle on
board from that of the departure point to that of the destination. The
idea is to have the shipboard time at least *resemble* the local time. 

Otherwise you have things like it being 3am ship's time at noon local
time. 

I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
(ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:46:40 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: FSY's THUDDD entry

In mail you write:

> Famille Spofulam Yards Imelda-class yacht (SSDS Beta .pdf)

<snip>

> walls.  Most remarkable, however, is the massive alabaster-and-Iridium
> toilet, situated at the very front of the vessel, facing huge panoramic
> windows dead forwards.

I hope those windows are one way glass! :-)

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:59:31 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Terrorforming :)

In mail you write:

>   Or, what's wrong with this definition of planetform?
>
>         Kirurform (def'n) - application of massive thermo-nuclear
> and cobalt weapon bombardment to a planet inhabited by sapient
> carnivores in a traditional K'kree cultural context. Wait 500
> years, seed, mow, and colonize.

Easy!

It's far cheaper to just throw rocks, and it doesn't contaminate the
real estate.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:28:32 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

In mail you write:

> A second point; maybe the physicists can answer. Exactly how do you find
> out that that chunk of stuff in front of your ship is antimatter? "Ping"
> it with matter and look for the flash? Will the NMR of antimatter be
> different than that of matter?

Bounce a low power electron beam off of it. Normal matter will get a
bit warm. Antimatter will react by releasing *lots* of gamma rays (due
to electron/positron annihilation).

So a modified PAW (even a man portable unit) should be sufficient to ID
antimatter from a distance of a km or so.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:11:59 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial calendar

In mail you write:

> Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
> 1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
> local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
> Terra, and move in sync?!

The year, being standard for a whole bunch of worlds, doesn't *have* to
match the local year, and you can avoid charges of favoritism that way.

Also, I suspect that the Imperial and Solomani calendars are *not* in
synch. As I recall they have different leap year rules. So they likely
differ by several days after a mere few hundred years.
- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:24:29 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

In mail you write:

> 15 Jul 1997 13:20:44 GMT, Rob_Prior@nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
>>I remember readiong something about contra-terrene matter (antimatter) but
>>can't remember where.
>
> I always had a problem with that.  If the belt was made up
> of antimatter, then the imperium would be using it to run
> their military ships (at least).

Harnessing chunks of "natural" antimatter for power is a *major* pain.
Consider a chunk of antimatter rock. Unless you can refine it, you have
a mix of different elements, which makes it hard to get a controlled
reaction with normal matter.

Read Jack Williamson's SeeTee stories for more examples of why working
with "natural" antimatter is such a pain.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:00:34 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

In mail you write:

> How is time kept uniform in the Imperium?  For instance, CUT or "zulu"
> time is an incredibly precise measurement for military purposes.  How is
> this standardized across interstellar distances?  Pulsars?

Well, you have to realize that "simultaneous" is a meaningless concept
when dealing with widely seperated events. So synchronizing is not a
simple thing.

Since the duration of a jump is not constant (and, if I recall
correctly, the duration onboard and as measured "outside" don't have to
match either) you can't use ship's clocks to synchronize. 

Pulsars are ok for distance, but not so good for timing. I suspect that
the only way to get really accurate time synchronization is to exchange
radio/laser signals between the two star systems. Done properly this
will give the distance and the time.

Luckily, it takes a lot of time to explore and develop a world. So the
fact that reliable timing propogates at light speed isn't a handicap. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:16:08 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial Calendar and local calendars

In mail you write:

> Here's how I picture calendars. 
>
> A given Imperial world will use two calendars. One, its local calendar,
> will use units of local days and season-cycles (what we call years).
> This assumes that the world has a decent-sized agricultural sector
> of the economy. Seasons become all-important then. Weeks and months
> are units of convenience only.

Actually, seasons tend to be important even *without* much
agriculture. Weather changes with season. So you want reminders.

> For example, let's say we have a world with a sidereal year of 200 days.
> Its day (measured from sunrise to sunrise and averaged over the year)
> is 20 hours. After a few hundred years, I'd say that the local populace
> will be quite used to this cycle. Their crops grow by it. Their 
> livestock live by it. Humans, by nature, prefer to do outdoor things
> in the daylight, so they plan by it.

Just remember that the day isn't likely to be that "even". It's more
likely to be 19.7 hours, and 200.3 days (actually "sols").

This is why I figure that there will be a *local* time unit that goes
evenly into the sol. We can assume a standard name for it, which
everyone knows means "local hour" just like "sol" means "local day".

You need to be able to divide up the day evenly to make time zones and
work shifts work out without major hassles.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:05:17 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)

In mail you write:

>>>I've run a campaign that had Earth at TL17.  I didn't call it the Third
>>>Imperium though, it was the Restored Catholic Empire.
>>
>>Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
>>adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of relics,
>>pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
>>laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.
>
> [other idea snipped]
>
> I think it would be good for "shock" value in my own campaign.  Yes, I
> can't wait to see the expressionon on the face of one (ex-catholic) player
> when the "Agents" who are following them around are revealed to
> be...Priests of the Order of Saint Carlotta, the secret intelligence branch
> of the Catholic Church, attempting to acquire that relic or piece of
> technology or...well, whatever.

There's a comic (originally from Comico) called "Evangeline". The
original promo art had a lady in a nun's habit and the same lady in a
jumpsuit with a pistol (typical James Bond pose). And the caption "She
really is on a mission from God". Evangeline is a nun. She's also an
agent of the Church, and can, if necessary kill as coldly as anyone in
the spy business.

> I envision the Archbishop of Regina (I'm playing in 1100) as a
> machiavellian prince of the church with a hand in everything that goes on,
> influencing social events and politics on many worlds.
>
> Having watched Tim Curry play Cardinal Richelieu (sp?) in (latest remake
> of) The Three Musketeers last night (Boy did they alter that story...people
> lived whom I though were supposed to die!), I am inspired to have a
> powerful arch-villian in the ecclesiastical red.  (But an archbishop would
> be purple, right?  Maybe the Cardinal of Aramis could be the villian then).

They *really* changed the storyline. And they dropped one element that
is the *most* adaptable to Traveller. That warrant from the Cardinal:

	"By my hand, and for the good of the state, what the bearer has
	 done has been done."

A true "carte blanche". A similar Imperial Warrant signed by some high
noble could be a *very* valuable bit of loot from an adventure. It
gives the *ultimate* "get out of jail free" card. The big stress on
most players would be "do we really want to waste it on *this*?"

I can see players going thru all sorts of contortions to avoid
"wasting" the warrant. :-)

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:21:20 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

In mail you write:

> Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
> other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is
> belived the belt was made during the "war of the Ancients"....and is all
> I've been able to find (in my vast Traveller library--NOT!!) is this
> reference.  Can anyone flesh out this info from other canonical sorces
> (of which I am lacking many).

There are references (somewhere) to the belt containing *antimatter*
asteroids. That's a good reason for a red zone. Both because of the
hazard, and because the Navy wants to figure out how to use the
antimatter. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:20:35 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran	 Confederation TL)

>Having watched Tim Curry play Cardinal Richelieu (sp?) in (latest remake
>of) The Three Musketeers last night (Boy did they alter that story...people
>lived whom I though were supposed to die!), I am inspired to have a
>powerful arch-villian in the ecclesiastical red.  (But an archbishop would
>be purple, right?  Maybe the Cardinal of Aramis could be the villian then).

Why not go the whole distance and instead of basing the archbishop on Tim
Curry in "The three musketeers" (hated that one) base the Archbishop on Tim
Curry in Ridley Scotts "The Legend" - now that's an archvillain!

>Definite shock value and future possibilities.
>
>Pete

BTW Thos wanting inspiration for cloak & dagger with a catholiv twist in
Traveller should see "Hudson Hawk". Funny and laid back movie with one of
my favourite Traveller themes: Cat footed gentlemanly burglers stealing
priceless art stuff with wit and charm. The problem with this in Traveller
is that most (my) PC have as much wit and charm as a stick of dynamite.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:14:58 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: PE super recyclers

>Some reasons for not concentrating on a single, industrial planet:
>
>(1) Prestige.  Empires tend to be judged on a "never mind the quality,
>    feel the width" basis - "Their empire is HUGE!"
Then we need rules for prestige based on size of empire.

>(2) Undesirables.  You want somewhere to put people you don't want "at
>    home".
Yes, but millions of 'em?

>(3) The pioneering spirit.  Perhaps the masses don't actually like being
>    huddled, and would rather go somewhere with fewer facilities but
>    more opportunity.
then we need rules for that.

>(4) Dangerous experiments.  Who wants to try out nuclear bombs in their
>    own (hemi)sphere?
Yes but with millions of inhabitants (OK the US managed to test two bombs
on Japan with millions of inhabitants with little loss in popularity except
from Japan (<Not *entirely* serious>)

>(5) Military bases.  Staging posts, observation posts - this is actually
>    catered for slightly in the PE rules.
>
>(6) Defense.  You don't want your whole empire taken out by one
>    relativistic rock, do you?
Depends on what task system you use and wether thruster plates or HEPLAR
are in use ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:31:18 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

>> 2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?
>
>Because its a Milieu 0 sourcebook. The Droyne are unknown in that
>era.
>
>Suz
>


When did the Imperials actually encounter the Droyne? It must have been
quite a shock to find a nonhuman race scattered on different planets
generally lacking in jumptech.
BTW My alternate Yaskoydroy campaign has come so far as to the point where
the PCs are discussing wether to kill Yaskoydroy or his enemy Tsiotstroy
(Gvoudzon, my Vargr PC argues for killing them both).


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 01:13:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Holidays

CardSharks@aol.com (Marc Miller) wrote:

>Does anyone remember the sf situation comedy (very short lived) called 
Quark.
>They had the crew of a space station standing around at a party celebrating
>Holiday No 11. (as in "Happy Holiday No. 11!"). Would that work?

I don't know about anyone else, but I *love* this idea, please use it.
Other than the current emperor's birthday and the date of the founding of
the Imperium, how about all other holidays are numbered.  Each individual
world then get to decide what to name each of these holidays (as in
Holiday No. 6:  TreeRat Migration Day, Holiday No. 8:  Solomani Rim War
Victory Day).  Everyone gets their favorite local holidays, but the
Imperial Calendar remains unsullied by local preferences and
idiosyncracies. 

This method of naming holidays is both fun and truly captures the spirit
of living in a truly *Vast* Imperium + it has that nice Vilani touch to 
it :)

- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:06:14 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

Thomas wrote:
>When I first saw this, I said "no way".....by the time you "refine" H2O
>(mass 18) and dump the O (mass 16), and then liquify the remaining H
>(mass 1).....It is going to take a good many liters of liquid water to
>make 1 liter of LH2.  I then started looking in my reference books and
>(as always when looking for something specific it can't be found)
>couldn't come up with all the figures I needed to calculate it for
>sure.  The one figure I did come up with was that LH2 (at 20K--its
>boiling point) had a relative density of 0.07 that of water at STP.  So
>if H2 (having 2Hs) is 2g(H2)/mole and water having 2 Hs also has
>2g(H2)/mole and water at 30C is approx 1kg/l, then
>
>LH2:  .07*(1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g)= 35 moles(H2)/liter
>
>H20:  (1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g) = 500 moles(H2)/liter
>
>Can this be?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
>Can some blessed soul show me the error in my ways....I must be missing
>something stupid....please help this will bother me...lose sleep, etc...

Yes Liquid H2 is 14 times lighter than Water (for the same volume). And
then there is more H2 in on Liter of water than in one liter of H2. 

>Is water truely a beter way to store large quanities of H2 in less space
>than LH2 (neglecting that H2 in the water has no "fuel" value---just
>talking about the quantity of H atoms stored in a given space)????

I've also thought of that, but using water has some drawback:
14m3 of H2 weight 1T
1m3 of H2O weight 1T and has 1/9T of H2

So there is 1.55 times more H2 in H2O than in H2 (for the same volume)

imagine you needed 1400m3 of H2 (100T), you would need 900m3 of water
instead. But the trouble is that the weight for the same "efficiency" in 9
times higher. 

That is to say that you would have to recalculate the needed tonnes of
thrust to push your ship. The fuel consumption would be higher then.

Further more, you would need a fuel purification plant sufficiently large
to provide the correct rate of LH2 to the Propulsion device. 

Last remark : The jump fuel HAS to be Liquid H2 (and well refined), so you
would have to wait to get the required jump fuel volume for the jump. 

The only solution if you want to use this design is

Jump fuel tank filled with refined H2
G-turn tanks filled with water.
Fuel purification plant sufficiently large G-turns fuel
Thrust energy and fuel consuption recalculated with the loaded mass


- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 01:33:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Medieval Tech

> An old professor of mine by the name of Bert Hall at the University of
> Toronto just recently published an article entitled _Lynn White's Medieval
> Technology and Social Change After Thirty Years_  reflecting on the impact
> of his article and the more recent scholarship responding to it. He was a
> student of White's in California. I think the article is in one of last
> year's issues of _Technology and Culture_ (where else). The consensus is
> that his work hasn't held up, although whose would after thirty years.

  Well, I just went over to the library (it's one door down here in
Aarhus) and looked over the last two years of T&C - the article is not
there.  I'd love to know where it is published, though, since it sounds
interesting.
 
> I actually think that White's article _The Historical Roots of Our
> Ecological Crisis_, written in _Science_ thirty years ago, still remains
> quite poignant. Depressing, but poingnant.

  I agree - makes it hard to see how we can change our social behaviour
with respect to the environment, given how deep seated our actions seem to
be.

> Any idea what this Marcus guy has to say about the whole affair?

  As I recall from talking with him, the book is a survey that makes use
of the most recent scholarship on a wide variety of things.  The section
that addresses White's work is based on several studies from the late
1970s and early 1980s that show some of the causal relationships that
White cites can't be true, since either the chronology is off or the
events described didn't happen.  My notes on all this are back in Oregon -
remind me after September 15 and I'll dig the stuff out and post
references.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 01:44:04 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: re: Quality Control

>Note: he commented that IG had caused a loss of innocence.  Previously, he
>always felt it very important to get every supplement for a new game, just
>to have them all.  After getting Starships, the first printing of the
>rulebook, First Survey, and M0, he decided to wait until he heard at least
>three good reviews about anything before buying it.

  Regretfully, I have to agree. In the meantime I'm going to hope
that they go nuts and put the CT stuff on CD. (drool)

        Steven Hudson,
                Vancouver, British Columbia

The CT Creed: "There is no Game but Traveller, and High Guard is its' Product"
       

        

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:00:34 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

>Since the duration of a jump is not constant (and, if I recall
>correctly, the duration onboard and as measured "outside" don't have to
>match either) you can't use ship's clocks to synchronize.

Is that canon? I believe that an White Dwarf article way back had something
on jump relativity errors and also that there's beem some talk about it in
Challenge but as far as I can tell (isn't there a net acronym for that?)
nothing from Digest or GDW. The "Strider incident" article in Challenge
gave the refs several options on what the girl really was and one variant
was that she had suffered a severe jump relativity error.

This might be an simple plotdevice to transport PC into another era (out of
TNE perhaps ;) but I don't like it especially not for normal jumps as time
dilation and such smells relativity theory and jumping has NOTHING to do
with speed. The same goes for stutterwarp by the way.

Anyone got any sources or ideas here?


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:06:26 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL)

>They *really* changed the storyline. And they dropped one element that
>is the *most* adaptable to Traveller. That warrant from the Cardinal:
>
>        "By my hand, and for the good of the state, what the bearer has
>         done has been done."
>
>A true "carte blanche". A similar Imperial Warrant signed by some high
>noble could be a *very* valuable bit of loot from an adventure. It
>gives the *ultimate* "get out of jail free" card. The big stress on
>most players would be "do we really want to waste it on *this*?"
>
>I can see players going thru all sorts of contortions to avoid
>"wasting" the warrant. :-)

The Edict 319 (or whatever the number) was more or less just that and
Norris spent the early parts of 5FW tracking it down so that he could use
it on the incompetent Santanochev and relieve him of his command.
Q: How does the Imperium handle such document so they look cool, official
and pompous yet "impossible" (as in impossible task) to forge. Please no
electronic credit cards stuff - I want some high tech noble rings marking
sigills or whatever.

BTW What ever happened to poor Santanochev after the war?


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:10:37 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: RoM TL

> A note: I am writing a program to go through and regenerate in place the FS
> data.  I am now thinking that TL should be much more homogenous across the
> Imperium, if anyone cares to make it so, and the benefits mean that
> someopne almost certainly did want it.

The benefits are all for the lower-tech world as its TL approaches 
that of the higher.  That may mean that the Vilani control of 
technology artificially slowed the technological growth of new 
colonies, simply to have markets for high-tech goods.  After all, if 
most worlds are TL11, there's going to be very little demand for 
manufactured goods, and interstellar shipping will be a luxuries 
trade only.  There will be exceptions -- asteroid worlds will have to 
sell their goods low to echange for vital supplies -- but in general 
a homogeneous TL will reduce trade.

There was also the Vilani use of TL as power: only the Vilani could 
be allowed TL11, and "subject races" would be discouraged from 
scientific experimentation.  This also would act against the 
trickle-down of TL from high to low.

Finally, if you can import the TL11 goods you need, why spend all 
that money on research?  Many world governments, given the choice, 
would choose public spending over technology every time.

I think all these mitigate against the spread of technology in 
Traveller, but obviously the extent of the effect is debatable...

Nick


Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:50:17 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Starter Ed

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>IIRC Starter came out after Deluxe* (which is the one I bought), and
>wasn't significantly cheaper. Plus, if you like it, you'll want to get
>the proper version later, which means you'll end up paying more in the
>end. Of course, if you *don't* like it, you won't have wasted as much
>money, but who wouldn't like Traveller...?

When I got it, Games Workshop (boo! Hiss!) only stocked Starter Edition. <Sigh>

>*T4 needs a deluxe version - boxed, w/scenario, full-colour sector map,
>etc.

Agree

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:49:10 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: World generation

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>> Harold Hale wrote:
>>
>> >   Make the whole thing available as a piece of software that will
>> >generate crushing detail for you, including world maps.
>>
>> What you want is Metator! ;-)
>
>What we want is a PC version :-(

Why do you want a politically correct version of Metator?  ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1572
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 17 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1573



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Shionthy Belt (Regina 0706)
[none]
Re: Refueling question
Re: Rule of Man/TC TL
RE: Calendar and timekeeping
Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources
Site update!
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Site update!
Re: Terrorforming
Bundys in Traveller
[none]
Re: Calender and Timekeeping
Re: Starter Traveller
Re: [T97 #1571] Yanks in Space...
Re: Imperial Calendar and local calendars
Re: World generation
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: PE super recyclers
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation  TL)
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra
Re: Calender and Timekeeping
Site update finally completed (whew)!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:21:30 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt (Regina 0706)

Marc wrote:

>In a message dated 97-07-16 08:42:48 EDT, you write:
>
><< Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source
> of this info?
>>>
>
>Actually, I'm not sure there is a printed source. It might be in Secret of
>the Ancients. Otherwise, I suppose my email would have to be the source.

To help, a paper source:

"Shionthy (2306): This belt is thought to be the remains of a world
destroyed by the Ancients in their final war, as it contains significant
quantities of antimatter."

Regency Sourcebook, page 38

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:56:08 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [none]

Peter Miller wrote:

>SD Mooney wrote:
>>
>> Why (is?) the Imperial Calendar in sync with the Solomani? If it is, over
>> 1700 years aren't the Syleans likely to have re-aligned the calendar to the
>> local year, or does Sylea just conveniently have the same orbital period as
>> Terra, and move in sync?!
>
>Quoting "Solomani & Aslan", Page 23 (The Solomani Calender):
>
>"The Third Imperium established it's calender according to the rotation
>and revolution of Capital.  Fortunately for us Solomani, Capital has a
>24 hour rotation, and a 364.97 day revolution.  The Solomani calender
>and that of the Third Imperium are virtually identical."

Thanks Peter.

Now, does the handwaving extend to the years being in sync? In other words,
are the various solstices in sync...
Handwave.... ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:52:47 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>:

[amounts of hydrogen per unit volum of water and L-hyd]

> LH2:  .07*(1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g)= 35 moles(H2)/liter
> 
> H20:  (1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g) = 500 moles(H2)/liter
> 
> Can this be?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Yes and no.

LH2: 0.07*1000g H/l * 1 mol / 1.008g H = 70 mol H / l
H2O: 1000g H2O/l * (2 mol H / 18.016g H2O) = 111 mol H / l

So, water *is* a more compact way of storing H2 than LHyd, but not to 
the tune of 10 times. 

Energy taken to release the H2 is minimal compared to fusion
powerplant output per mol: energy of an O-H bond in H2O is roughly
428 kJ/mol, so it takes twice that to dissociate an H2O molecule. If
we assume we get no energy back from the 2H -> H2 and 2O -> O2
processes (i.e. we only get heat, not work), then 1 mol H requires
428 kJ to produce.  In an hour a 1 MW powerplant produces 3600 MJ =
8500 mol (say) = 8.5 tonnes of H2.

The FF&S draft gives 0.01 MW to purify 1 m^3 LH2 in 6 hours at TL8. 
I would calculate that as 0.01 * 6 * 8.5 tonnes = 0.51 tonnes = 7
m^3, assuming zero overhead for pumps etc..  Later purification 
plants are more efficient and manage 0.005 MW/m^3 / 6 hours.  This 
also includes refining the fuel once the H2 is produced, if you take 
the position that jump LH2 has to be pure protium, with no deuterium 
or tritium.

Nick


Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:07:30 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/TC TL

lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney):

> Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com> writes:
> >
> >of a RoM of TL 16+ is pure sophistry. You've used this "silent majority"
> >tack before, and quite frankly, it's getting old.
> 
> BS!  You are confusing the unsubscribes from the HIWG list with a silent
> majority.  When people unsubscribe, I take that as someone who was convinced
> to not hang around anymore.  Leave that baggage on the HIWG list, TML is
> rattled enough.

So, let me get this straight: you're saying that if someone 
unsubscribes to a list where there's a discussion of RoM TL, they 
must agree with you, otherwise they'd stay and debate it?

If I accept "convinced not to hang around anymore" as a reason for 
unsubscribing to a list, that could mean:

a) Convinced view A is correct
b) Convinced view not-A is correct
c) Fed up of the whole argument

or probably lots of other things.  I cannot believe you are asserting 
anything so ludicrous as "everyone who unsubscribed must have agreed 
with me", so could you please explain this?

Nick

P.S. On the basis of Leroy's evidence, I'd agree with a TL12 RoM, 
maybe shading into TL13 in some areas (certainly experiments) and TL 
13-14 in genetic and perhaps medical technology.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 02:00:07 -0700
From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: RE: Calendar and timekeeping

John Wood@CBTSYSTEMS
07/17/97 02:00 AM
Cardsharks said - "What I like about this discussion is the plot ideas.
Thoughtless bureaucrats implement imposed Imperial calendar without regard
to harvest or natural cycles. Devious bureaucrats motivated by local
concerns work to sabotage adoption because it shuffles local holidays.
Imperial Office of Calendar Compliance sticks its nose into all sorts of
affairs in order to make sure new members of the Imperium are truly loyal
and adopting the calendar."

I second that emotion. When the Julian Calendar was replaced by the
Gregorian calendar in the early 18th century here in Britain and Ireland
there were massive demonstrations and even civil disturbances. Country
dwellers felt that the city dwellers and parliaments were imposing a
calendar that bore no relation to the rythms of their lives - replacing
popular holidays, market days, and festivals that were an established part
of rural life.
     There are even stories - largely apocryphal, but often reported by
less careful historians - that there were riots in Dublin, Ireland, because
less educated memebers of the public were convinced that the calendar
adjustment had actually robbed them of 11 days of their lives. Imagine the
chaos that could ensue from this kind of misconception and the trouble the
Imperium would have clearing up the confusion (and the debris).

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:17:46 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

- -> > - -> Shionthy Belt is where Grandfather tilted the Droyne homeworld into
- -> > - -> a pocket universe after the Ancient War. It's still there.
- -> >
- -> > Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source 
- -> > of this info?
- -> *LOL!*  You clipped the attribution from that quote, but Marc 
- -> Himself [cue muted peals of thunder] wrote it.  Sources don't get 
- -> more official than that.
I know, i feel the same way, but what i was *actually* after was more 
detailed information....
BTW.: Anybody notice that there are 3 different pocket universes in 
Regina Subsector alone???
 
- -> The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:
- -> 
- ->   Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML
- ->   CT/MT publications by GDW
- ->   CT/MT publications by DGP or FASA
- ->   TNE
- ->   National Enquirer
- ->   All other pre-T4 Traveller publications
- ->   Non-Marc old fogies speaking ex cathedra on TML
- ->   T4
This is the way i figure out what's canon to me as well. Although 
sometimes DGP Material takes precedence over GDW material '(if i like 
it better), as in the alien books. 
However i do count posters as LKW and other official old fogies 
higher than TNE! 



Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:22:55 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Site update!

My list of Ancients Sites on my homepage will bne updated in half an 
hour. Be sure to check it out as i've added about 8 new sites.

Other subtle changes on my other pages as well!

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:39:42 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

> This might be an simple plotdevice to transport PC into another era (out of
> TNE perhaps ;) but I don't like it especially not for normal jumps as time
> dilation and such smells relativity theory and jumping has NOTHING to do
> with speed. The same goes for stutterwarp by the way.
> 
> Anyone got any sources or ideas here?
> 
Anytime you distend spacetime you may get time travel ala wormholes. 
A lot of cosmological work being done right now into these geometries
for instant space and time travel.  All theoretical and probably more
fringe than the average physicist.

So jumping may not take yoiu close to the speed of light, but it does do
something with space, brigning in the prospect of gravity and general
relativity.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:43:46 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Site update!

- -> My list of Ancients Sites on my homepage will bne updated in half an 
- -> hour. Be sure to check it out as i've added about 8 new sites.
- -> 
- -> Other subtle changes on my other pages as well!
Well, it seems i was to quick to post...
Took the wrong disk to the PC-Pool, so i uploded the old version 
instead :-(
The new version will be up tomorrow! Sorry! 

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jul 97 08:59:26 EDT
From: Jeffery.M.Miller@Dartmouth.EDU (Jeffery M. Miller)
Subject: Re: Terrorforming

- --- Shadow Erikson wrote:
It's far cheaper to just throw rocks, and it doesn't contaminate the
real estate.
- --- end of quote ---
Rocks! yes, rocks! But at what velocity? and what would make the most sense for
delivery approaches! LET's TALK ABOUT ROCKS, BAY-BEE!! :-D

Solly, I just can't resist when I see 'rocks' on the TML....;-> I feel much
better now...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:07:44 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Bundys in Traveller

Peg 554564 (looks 9), Slut 3, Spend Money 5, Watch TV 5, Brawling 1
Kelly 885224 (looks B), Slut 7, Star in Rock Video 1, Brawling 3
Bud 567993, Scheme to get laid 3, Blackmail 2, Brawling 2
the dog (cannot remember name) 375721, Telepathy 2

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:33:40 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: [none]

Someone mention Quark?

I remember it had two very buxom clones, a spock-like plant guy named Ficus,
and starrred Richard Benjamin as the owner of an intergalactic garbage
truck/spaceship.

I am sorry, but that is all I remember

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:42:10 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Calender and Timekeeping

Hi,

	I'm sending this again as it returned an error the first time. Apologies
if it hits the list twice.

At 21:13 16/07/97 -0400, CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
>What I like about this discussion is the plot ideas. Thoughtless bureaucrats
>implement imposed Imperial calendar without regard to harvest or natural
>cycles. Devious bureaucrats motivated by local concerns work to sabotage
>adoption because it shuffles local holidays. Imperial Office of Calendar
>Compliance sticks its nose into all sorts of affairs in order to make sure
>new members of the Imperium are truly loyal and adopting the calendar.

	I remember my father telling me that he once read somewhere that hundreds
of years ago, there were riots when the calendar was changed. People
thought they were not going to live as long because a calendar change
showed on record that someone lived a few weeks or something shorter than
they actually did! Conversely, changing the calendar to move the dateline
forward could also have its own problems. Changes such as these could cause
all sorts of various unpredicatable situations. 

	I can see it now; Imperial officials tell the low-tech populace that it is
now next week, due to a re-alignment of the calendar, and Duayle the farmer
leads a revolt. His produce has just ripened, and he was due to take it to
market tomorrow, but market day was now technically last week - although it
never really took place due to the calendar changing - and the next big
market day isn't for three weeks. His produce will have turned well rotten
by then, so he has to sell it locally at vastly reduced prices, almost
ruining him. Any pohn-beets that are left go red to indicate that they have
become poisonous, and Duayle uses the juice from them to poison the local
Imperial governor because he is so aggrieved at what has happened.

	The governor, being an off-worlder, doesn't carry the chemical in his
bloodstream that would have adversely reacted with Duayle's pohn-beet
poison, and so laughs off the attack. He sentences Duayle to one week in
prison, but as the current week was ruled as being last week, Duayle gets
off. What a laugh!

>BTW, Thanksgiving is also a Jewish holiday (different time of the year).
>
	Hmm...I wonder how good Jewish chicken soup tastes a few thousand years
from now?

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 16:53:00 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Starter Traveller

On 16 Jul 97 at 9:07, Richard Hough wrote:

> Strange, many of the Starter Editions I have seen were IMHO much
> better games than the 'advanced' edition. The starter editions were
> more enjoyable because they was designed to make an enjoyable game
> rather than explaining all the detailed rules for character
> generation and combat and then requiring the players to come up with
> adventures themselves.

	More often than not, it's way much more work trying to get a 
commercially published adventure up and running than making up your 
own. Every time I buy an adventure, I find that I'm forced to rewrite 
50% of it: Not only because I'm using a different game system, but 
because most adventures are location-specific. So, time to dig those 
sector maps and start looking for matching worlds closer to the PCs.

	Even worse, most published adventures tend to concentrate on flashy 
maps and illos, but at the table boil down to something closer to 
Duke Nukem.

	Of course there are exceptions - the Argon Gambit was one of the
best adventures I've ever thrown at my players (Thanks for finding it 
for me back then, Paul!).

> The distinction in my mind is that a "Starter Edition" is a complete
> game with no extra work or purchase required before you can start
> playing. It should have all characters, maps, counters, encounters,
> and so on pre-generated so one can start playing immediately.

	Again, IMO, the best adventures are the ones you write specifically 
for your group, set on worlds of your choice, in a subsector you feel 
comfortable with, in your favorite time period. Think mass 
production versus custom made. Of course it takes time, but if your 
group gets together, say, once a month, you have more than enough 
time to do it all yourself. It only takes an hour to work a nice 
coloured world map.

	Hmmm.. I'm starting to realize why I always leave a gaming store
empty-handed (It's because they don't have Solomani & Aslan and Best
of JTAS #1 *wink wink nudge nudge*).

	To me the idea of a starter edition Traveller sounds odd. "Starter 
edition" = T$R ripping off 12-year olds, "Traveller" = an intelligent 
game for adults who have patience to work a while to get what they 
want.

	What was it Leroy said something about instant gratification? :)


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:08:38 -0500
From: "William A. Barnett-Lewis" <wlewis@mailbag.com>
Subject: Re: [T97 #1571] Yanks in Space...

> From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
> Subject: [T97#1568] Yanks in Space...
(Snip) 
> >From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) also wrote
> 
> >Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
> >adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of =
> relics,
> >pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
> >laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.
> 
> I was wondering about this, too.  I even went so far as to
> inquire of a Roman Catholic friend as to how the Church hierarchy
> would maintain itself on planets that were cut off from contact
> with the Vatican.  Still waiting for an answer; if there's
> interest, I'll post when I get it.

(Yow and end to lurking! Something I _know_ about!)

This would actually be the same way they did during the past 2000 years- 
1) Municipality/Small continent - Bishop           =   Baron
2) High pop Continent/Small World - Archbishop     =   Count
3) High pop World  - Archbishop                    =   Earl
4) Sector  -  Cardinal                             =   Duke
5) Universe ;'> - Pope                             =   Emperor

This structure was taken directly from the Roman Imperial government and
worked quite well untill the black death of the 14th century seriously
messed up the social structure underlying it. (see Barbra Tuchman's "A
Distant Mirror" for more detail on that.) 

In all probability, by that time, there will have been some kind of
realinement between the sects of Christianity. I doubt that it'll ever
merge compleatly into one (it never has been, why start now?), but a UN
kind of governing body w/ the pope as SecGen I could see quite easily.
Also, church hierarchies have always been political; if you introduce
any of them to your campaign, you'll get lots of interesting fodder for
nuggets...

William Barnett-Lewis
wlewis@mailbag.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 07:54:02 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calendar and local calendars

Leonard Erickson wrote:
> 
> In mail you write:
> 
> > Here's how I picture calendars.
> >
> > A given Imperial world will use two calendars. One, its local calendar,
> > will use units of local days and season-cycles (what we call years).
> > This assumes that the world has a decent-sized agricultural sector
> > of the economy. Seasons become all-important then. Weeks and months
> > are units of convenience only.
> 
> Actually, seasons tend to be important even *without* much
> agriculture. Weather changes with season. So you want reminders.
> 
Agreed. However, these reminders are conveniences if you don't have
much agriculture. They are critical if you do.

> > For example, let's say we have a world with a sidereal year of 200 days.
> > Its day (measured from sunrise to sunrise and averaged over the year)
> > is 20 hours. After a few hundred years, I'd say that the local populace
> > will be quite used to this cycle. Their crops grow by it. Their
> > livestock live by it. Humans, by nature, prefer to do outdoor things
> > in the daylight, so they plan by it.
> 
> Just remember that the day isn't likely to be that "even". It's more
> likely to be 19.7 hours, and 200.3 days (actually "sols").
> 

I was just picking numbers. You're right, of course.

> This is why I figure that there will be a *local* time unit that goes
> evenly into the sol. We can assume a standard name for it, which
> everyone knows means "local hour" just like "sol" means "local day".
> 

Good idea and quite logical.

> You need to be able to divide up the day evenly to make time zones and
> work shifts work out without major hassles.

Unless you work your employees all day long! Sorry, mind snapped there
for a moment.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:08:36 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: World generation

On 16 Jul 97 at 18:49, SD Mooney wrote:

> Andrew Boulton wrote:
> 
> >> Harold Hale wrote:
> >>
> >> >   Make the whole thing available as a piece of software that will
> >> >generate crushing detail for you, including world maps.
> >>
> >> What you want is Metator! ;-)
> >
> >What we want is a PC version :-(
> 
> Why do you want a politically correct version of Metator?  ;-)

Because both Meta and Ator would feel insulted if put under the same 
label and _will_ sue any users of the software. Unless they use Macs. 
Which makes no sense at all, and neither does this.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:25:45 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra

On 16 Jul 97 at 21:05, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> A true "carte blanche". A similar Imperial Warrant signed by some
> high noble could be a *very* valuable bit of loot from an adventure.
> It gives the *ultimate* "get out of jail free" card. The big stress
> on most players would be "do we really want to waste it on *this*?"
> 
> I can see players going thru all sorts of contortions to avoid
> "wasting" the warrant. :-)

	... even more fun being when my group finally tries to use their bit 
of loot (an Imperial Document(tm) with a holochip imbedded in the 
paper containing an Argon Blue code) and it turns out the code was 
issued by Dulinor just prior to the Assassination...

	And the suckers are heading to Margaret's space in a TL 11 trader! 
*grin*

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:37:54 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

On 16 Jul 97 at 20:03, Tom Lane wrote:

> Yeah, and the Roman Saturnalia/Christmas.  I just want some
> creativity. Surely some events have happened in 3000 years the
> Imperials would want to commemorate.

	Jake Day? :)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:52:34 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: PE super recyclers

On 17 Jul 97 at 9:14, Anders Backman wrote:

> >Some reasons for not concentrating on a single, industrial planet:
> >
> >(1) Prestige.  Empires tend to be judged on a "never mind the quality,
> >    feel the width" basis - "Their empire is HUGE!"
> Then we need rules for prestige based on size of empire.

*wave* "Yes, yes... but in the Good Old Days, we had thousands of 
extremely complicated rules, more prestigious than anything 
anybody has built after..."

> >(2) Undesirables.  You want somewhere to put people you don't want "at
> >    home".
> Yes, but millions of 'em?

Smaller "empires" have handled tens of millions of "undesirables". 
Still, a TL 6 9mm round costs a lot less than a low passage.

> >(3) The pioneering spirit.  Perhaps the masses don't actually like being
> >    huddled, and would rather go somewhere with fewer facilities but
> >    more opportunity.

"... Mars! A new world awaits! A land of golden opportunity!..."

> >(4) Dangerous experiments.  Who wants to try out nuclear bombs in their
> >    own (hemi)sphere?

The thanksgiving-celebrating "Imperials" did. And more recently 
some bald Navy captains in silly jumpsuits.

> Yes but with millions of inhabitants (OK the US managed to test two
> bombs on Japan with millions of inhabitants with little loss in
> popularity except from Japan (<Not *entirely* serious>)

	... some say without those two bombs we wouldn't have Gojira :)


 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:03:39 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation  TL)

>Why not go the whole distance and instead of basing the archbishop on Tim
>Curry in "The three musketeers" (hated that one) base the Archbishop on Tim
>Curry in Ridley Scotts "The Legend" - now that's an archvillain!

Well, aside from the makeup I'd have to acquire...

Why not go really whole hog and use Tim Curry as "Frank N. Furter" from The
Rocky Horror Picture Show...."Oh Rocky!"

No no, that would just get silly.  "Something tasteful in Green please?"

"I see you shiver with antici....[say it!]...pation,

...So I'll remove the cause......[but what about the symptoms?] ....But not
the symptoms!"

Pete


Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:02:34 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra

On 17 Jul 97 at 11:06, Anders Backman wrote:

> Q: How does the Imperium handle such document so they look cool,
> official and pompous yet "impossible" (as in impossible task) to
> forge. Please no electronic credit cards stuff - I want some high
> tech noble rings marking sigills or whatever.

	A medieval-type scroll made of high-strenght plastics, with 
molecular-level "text" (public verification keys) spread here and 
there. Feels like pergament, stands up to almost any kind of 
punishment. The basic text of the document is written on it, the same 
text in more detail (with all revelant law texts) is stored on three 
private-key signed TL 13 holochips imbedded in "paper".

	Any naval base, embassy etc. has an extensive database of 
high-ranking nobility's public keys, so verifying authenticity is 
easy. Just boot that PDGP (Pretty Damn Good Privacy)... :)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:10:09 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Calender and Timekeeping

On 17 Jul 97 at 14:42, Bruce E J Lewis wrote:

>  Hmm...I wonder how good Jewish chicken soup tastes a few thousand
> years from now?

	Depends on whether or not you have access to a gravisonic polarizer
(I know, it sounds like deteronic frombotzer), or are you just going
to freeze-dry it gently in the airlock. If neither, your Jewish
chicken soup might just start _thinking_ about how good you would
taste like.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:24:42 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Site update finally completed (whew)!

- -> -> My list of Ancients Sites on my homepage will bne updated in half an 
- -> -> hour. Be sure to check it out as i've added about 8 new sites.
- -> -> 
- -> -> Other subtle changes on my other pages as well!
- -> Well, it seems i was to quick to post...
- -> Took the wrong disk to the PC-Pool, so i uploded the old version 
- -> instead :-(
- -> The new version will be up tomorrow! Sorry! 
Managed to do it today after all! Have fun, go wild, tell me what you 
like and what you don't like, any problems you may have with the site 
or anything you have to add.
If yu have any information about any missing Ancient Sites, mail it 
to me as well, so i can include it in my next update! 



Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1573
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 17 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1574



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1570
An apology
3D starmap mailing list
Mars in Traveller
Re: Medieval Tech
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: Scots in Space!
Bundys
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Sword Worlds Navy
Re: Holidays
Re: An apology
Re: Refueling question
Calendars and simultaneity
Re: RoM TL
Water to store Hydrogen
2nd Carreers
Aging and Vilani (and Solomani)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:22:39 CDT
From: Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1570

> Then again, we have the MT Encyclopedia p7 which matches
> 292-950  Friday 13th March 5468 (or possibly 940 = 5458 is the key year)
> cunninly incompatable with:
> 263-1120 Tuesday 1st January 5641 (MT Ref Companion p 45)
> cunninly incompatible with:
> MT Encyclopedia p37 which again gives 940 as the year the autonomous region 
> (Solomani Sphere) was revoked,

> Solomani (see main part of message) - three years to choose from
> 
> Vilani  3882.ddd = Imperial ddd-1120 (MT ref Companion p 45)
> Vilani  3931.ddd = Imperial ddd-1110 (MT Encycolpedia p7)
> Completely inconsistent!
 
> Perhaps Don McKinney <dmckinne@csci.csc.com> can come to the rescue with his 
> timeline in Access?  (My reference: message 7755 on my PC). 

Well, let's see - I've found several problems with the MT Ref Comp sources,
as not matching up with either Imp Ency, or the earlier CT sources.

940 is the correct year for the dissolution of the autonomous region.
 
As a standard practice, I use Imperial Dating for everything.  Honestly,
given that the MT Imp Encyclopedia listing was done via a spreadsheet,
I'd use that data to rebuild it, and generate everything from the Imperial
Dates given...


DonM.
- --
============================================================================
= Donald E. McKinney, Senior CM Specialist,           (217) 351-8250 x2365 = 
= Computer Sciences Corporation, Champaign, IL       dmckinne@csci.csc.com =
= Winter War XXV Convention Chairman, Champaign, IL, February 6-8, 1998    =
= dmckinne@prairienet.org or winterwar@prairienet.org       (217) 469-9917 = 
============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:19:37 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: An apology

	After going through 105 emails from this list alone, I checked my 
sent-mail folder and noticed I'd posted at least 5 messages that had 
no relevance whatsoever to task system, character generation, RoM TL 
or to any other subject discussed here.

	I can only say that I haven't had any coffee today, ran out of 
cigarettes 6 hours ago and generally felt lightheaded and delirious. 
Even some of Harolds comments made me smile, so it must be pretty 
serious. :P

	Apologies to everybody I offended (and apples to the rest).

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:16:38 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: 3D starmap mailing list

The following is a post I picked up out of the Mac EvangeList (of all
places;-) and may be of interest to a number of members of this list.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

This tidbit is from:

Brian McNett <brianmc@aol.com>

I'm starting a mailing list for people interested in creating 3D 
Starmaps. I've started the mailing list because there are several people 
who have expressed interest in my current starmap project, and keeping 
them updated as a group is more practical than doing so individually. 
Also, I see a shortage of reliable, up-to-date tools for creating and 
manipulating such maps in 3D on the Apple Macintosh, and wish to 
encourage others to help create such tools.

I've also started this list partly at the behest of Winchell Chung, whose 
3D Starmap page is a fine place to get started:

<http://www.clarke.net/nyrath/starmap.html>

However, the Mac tools are a bit dated, and Winch and I'd both appreciate 
some input toward correcting this situation. Don't give Winch a tough 
time about all the PC stuff on the site! Winch works as a Mac programmer 
- -- he's one of the good guys!

You may subscribe to the list by sending a message to <brianmc@aol.com>, 
and including the words:

subscribe 3D Starmap

Somewhere in the body of the message. You will recieve an automated 
response explaining how to post to the list, and some basic rules and 
procedures. The list will be available only in digest format, at first on 
a weekly basis, and possibly increasing in frequency if traffic demands 
it.

to unsubscribe, send a message and include the words:

unsubscribe 3D Starmap

Somewhere in the body. You'll receive an automated response confirming 
your removal from the list.

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who might like to 
have, or have a use for a FileMaker Pro database of the stars within 40 
light years of the Sun. I'm developing one as part of my current starmap 
project. Details on the list itself.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:48:16 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Mars in Traveller

Does anybody have any information on Mars with respect to Traveller,
particularly Re: M1100 or M0. I seem to remember that the detailed system
generation procedure in Book 6: Scouts had examples of the Regina and Terra
system (which hopefully would include Mars), but I haven't had a copy of
Book 6 in years.

Are there any other sources which detail the planet in Traveller terms (in
any milieu) and provide more than a UPP.

Just curious.


Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:42:25 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: Medieval Tech

>  Well, I just went over to the library (it's one door down here in
>Aarhus) and looked over the last two years of T&C - the article is not
>there.  I'd love to know where it is published, though, since it sounds
>interesting.

I had a pre-print copy of the article, so I wasn't sure where it was to be
found. I did some digging, and it appears that the article was to be
printed in a book called _Technological Change_ Ed., Robert Fox. (London:
Harwood). I guess it was printed this year, but I'm not sure.

>  I agree - makes it hard to see how we can change our social behaviour
>with respect to the environment, given how deep seated our actions seem to
>be.

Makes you wonder how realistic all this interstellar history in Traveller
is. It's certainly optimistic and would probably need to be accompanied by
social and cultural changes that made these people all but unrecognizable
to us. Unfortunately, that's a level of realism that makes games
impractical (and largely meaningless).



Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:40:32 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

Leonard Erickson wrote:

> I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
> (ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.

Why not use SI prefixes?

hour equivalent = decisol
minute = millisol
second = microsol

for Terra (1 sol = approx. 24 standard hours)

1 hour = 0.417 decisol
1 minute = 0.694 millisol
1 second = 11.57 microsol

Of course, metric time isn't nearly as handy to divide as base 60
minutes/seconds, and 24 hours per day.

Alternatively, how's this entymology:

1 sol = 24 sol-hours -> solours -> solars
1 solar = 60 sol-minutes -> solinutes  -> solmints
1 solmint = 60 sol-seconds -> solsecs (hmmmm...)

On second thought, hows this:

Sol - Solor - Solit - Solec

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 97 18:29 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Scots in Space!

In-Reply-To: <VA.0000041d.01087bc3@taz>

> > BTW, what exactly would a Scots/Zho be like??
>  
> My guess is that the large zho forehead gives him the ability to inflict a 
> nasty Glaswegian kiss!

From the *inside!*

> Simon
>  
> (Glaswegian kiss = slang for a head butt)
> (sterotypical Scot threat = "Can your mother sew?  Stitch that")

______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:10:18 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Bundys

The dog's name is Buck

Marcie 4878A(A at peak, down to 6)
Steve Rhodes 677BB(A at peak, down to 4)


That's what Taveller needs....a random stuff during generation chart. The
sort of thing that fleshes out background. You can make it up, but I have
always felt that a bit of randomness makes you think more than designing
characters who are all tragic heroes (or some other template)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:54:17 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, David P. Summers wrote:
 
> With antimatter you only need to refuel every decade or so.  Compared
> to refueling every jump, this is vast improvement, (not to mention
> that fact that you free up all that space).

Only if you hold to the idea that ALL the hydrogen fuel during jump is
consumed to generate power. Given the various jump theories floating about
that indicate that the hydrogen is used to create a bubble of normalspace
around the ship, you still need 'fuel'.

As for fuelling powerplants and suchlike, though, you're correct. 

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:22:30 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Sword Worlds Navy

In my Regency campaign, I'm building up a string of adventures around an
armed insurrection by the remaining Sword Worlds against the Regency.
Members of the tne-rces list are pretty familiar with this since I've
subjected them to some of my preliminary plans.

I don't own the Fifth Frontier War game and I'd like to know what sort of
naval forces the Sword Worlds had in that game. This should give me some
insight as to how powerful I should make the navy of the remaining Sword
Worlds navy during the New Era.

Can someone who owns Fifth Frontier War game tell me what the fleets of the
Sword Worlds consisted of? Ship types, numbers, speed, admiral skill levels
and names would all be helpful. Also, what was the symbol on the Sword
World chits?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:37:13 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Holidays

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> Does anyone remember the sf situation comedy (very short lived) called Quark.
> They had the crew of a space station standing around at a party celebrating
> Holliday No 11. (as in "Happy Holiday No. 11!"). Would that work?

for those people's campaign that run more to 'Red Dwarf' than 'Serious
sociopolitical analysis in Space' certainly.

I can see it now...the ancient Solomani tradition of Holiday 11, with it's
honorable and ancient traditions rising from the mists (and myths) of
time...which was actually invented by one A.J. Rimmer during his all-too
brief promotion to Space technician third class in charge of marking in
the calendar, and decided that the calendar just didn't look right, needed
a touch of mauve there, and invented a new holiday. 

Was that the summer replacement series of (way too many years ago) with
Richard Benjamin as the captain of a garbage colletor ship?

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:36:45 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: An apology

- ->     After going through 105 emails from this list alone, I checked my 
- -> sent-mail folder and noticed I'd posted at least 5 messages that had 
- -> no relevance whatsoever to task system, character generation, RoM TL 
- -> or to any other subject discussed here.
- -> 
- ->     I can only say that I haven't had any coffee today, ran out of 
- -> cigarettes 6 hours ago and generally felt lightheaded and delirious. 
- -> Even some of Harolds comments made me smile, so it must be pretty 
- -> serious. :P
- -> 
- ->     Apologies to everybody I offended (and apples to the rest).
<RANT-MODE ON>
Simple apologies won't save your a** buddy. Wasting our bandwidth 
with this kind of off-topic ramble is just the thing this list cannot
be tolerated. I suggest that the perpetrators be banned from posting 
for a period of blah, blah blahblahblahblahblah.....
</Rant mode off>
Glad to see there ARE other topics as well ;-)
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:25:19 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Thomas Walter Trelenberg wrote:
> 
> LH2:  .07*(1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g)= 35 moles(H2)/liter
> 
> H20:  (1000g/l)*(mole(H2)/2g) = 500 moles(H2)/liter
> 
> Can this be?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
> Can some blessed soul show me the error in my ways....I must be missing
> something stupid....please help this will bother me...lose sleep, etc...
> 
> Is water truely a beter way to store large quanities of H2 in less space
> than LH2 (neglecting that H2 in the water has no "fuel" value---just
> talking about the quantity of H atoms stored in a given space)????
> 
> Thanks for your help in advance....
> If I'm missing something obvious please forgive my stupidity (in
> advance)....

Well, you've messed up the calculations; a liter of H2 liquid is NOT the
same number of moles as a liter of water, liquid.

1 Mole H2 = 2g which is the molar equivalent of 1 Mole H2O = 18g

therefore 1 l LH2 = 0.07 g/l = 0.07g H2/ 2G/Mole =
0.035 moles H2
while 1l H2O = 1000 g/l = 1000 gH2O / 18 g/mole = 55.5 moles H2O = 55.5
Moles H2

yes, H2O is a Mah-velous way to store H2. We can only presume that the
reason that H2 is standard vs H2O is that the 'fuel purification' process
produces lH2 at a very slow rate compared to the rate at which it needs to
be dumped for the ship to jump.

Better yet, store the stuff as lNH3, liquid ammonia:

lNH3 = 1.5 Moles H2

1l NH3 = 0.68 g/ml * 1000 ml = 680 g/l / 17 g/Mole = 40 moles NH3 *1.5
moles H2 = 60 moles H2 / l NH3. The only drawback is that ammonia is a
corrosive material, but since we send thousands of tankloads of lNH3
around the country daily with few mishaps, it could be done.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:31:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Calendars and simultaneity

   Hi.

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:11:59 PST
> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

> Also, I suspect that the Imperial and Solomani calendars are *not* in
> synch. As I recall they have different leap year rules. So they likely
> differ by several days after a mere few hundred years.

   In CT, the years of Gregorian and Imperial calendars were (on
   average) exactly in sync.  (MT, in a fit of other unnecessary changes
   to canon designed to make calculations more difficult, changed this.) 
   Since the Imperial calendar seems to have no leap years, this means
   that (in CT), the Imperial and Gregorian days do not match, although
   they are pretty close.  In MT, who knows? Maybe nothing matches.  MT
   gives many scattered (and very detailed) references to calendars in
   various books; it would not surprise me at all if these references
   contradicted one another. At any rate, they are way too complicated
   for me to want to bother using them; I'll just stick with the old
   CT/Gregorian conversion.

> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:00:34 PST
> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

>> How is time kept uniform in the Imperium?  For instance, CUT or "zulu"
>> time is an incredibly precise measurement for military purposes.  How is
>> this standardized across interstellar distances?  Pulsars?

> Well, you have to realize that "simultaneous" is a meaningless concept
> when dealing with widely seperated events. So synchronizing is not a
> simple thing.

   `Simultaneous' is not meaningless for widely separated events if they
   move in the same rest frame.  Since special relativity is very well
   understood, it should be trivial for two worlds to lock onto a signal
   from a pulsar and then correct for the velocity difference between
   them.  Since these velocity differences are liable to be small
   relativistically speaking, the habitants of one world should have
   little trouble speaking of simultaneous events on other worlds.

   -Rob

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:01:39 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: RoM TL

At 10:10 AM 7/17/97 +0100, Anders wrote:
>> A note: I am writing a program to go through and regenerate in place the FS
>> data.  I am now thinking that TL should be much more homogenous across the
>> Imperium, if anyone cares to make it so, and the benefits mean that
>> someopne almost certainly did want it.
>
>The benefits are all for the lower-tech world as its TL approaches 
>that of the higher.

Yes and no - the benefits feel greater to the low tech world all the way
along, but for most of the period of tech level growth from zero to that of
the high tech world, it benefits the high tech world out of proportion to
what it costs them.  Figure - training a hundred doctors to the point of a
medical tech takes a few years, and uses fairly cheap resources.  This then
builds a very powerful caste of healers that need high tech medicines, and
that can convince kings and lords to buy these drugs.

You are quite correct, though, that you do not want the low tech world
getting to the point where it becomes competition.

I envision a deliberate Imperial program to bring worlds up to "reasonable
standards" early on.  Any world that is not specifically prevented from
having this happen should probably be brought up to 2-3 tech levels below
the Imperial average.  After all, Earth would be a hell of a market for
Sylea today, and a hell of a competitor if they were dumb enough to let us
get too much higher.  They want us to be a good market for TL12 fusion plus
and grav vehicles, but they do not want us producing lots of goodies that
someone might want instead of fusion plus and grav cars.

>That may mean that the Vilani control of 
>technology artificially slowed the technological growth of new 
>colonies, simply to have markets for high-tech goods.

I have no problem with that, I just think that they would want the tech
levels to hover about TL8-9, if TL11 was what the Vilani Empire ran at.

>  After all, if 
>most worlds are TL11, there's going to be very little demand for 
>manufactured goods, and interstellar shipping will be a luxuries 
>trade only.

Good point - I will make sure that the high tech worlds stay on top, by
making the surrounding worlds only come up to a marketable tech level.
After all, no matter how much a TL0 culture wants Pepsi, they are not going
to produce enough to justify shipping to the place.

>  There will be exceptions -- asteroid worlds will have to 
>sell their goods low to echange for vital supplies -- but in general 
>a homogeneous TL will reduce trade.

True, true.  I do think, though, that the tech level spread on neighboring
worlds should be closer than they now are.  It seems (to me) that two TLs
or so is a good target.  This gives your military a clear advantage (about
a factor of ten in my rules), your economy greater strength (about a factor
of two in production), but makes them a good enough market to sell to. 

...
>Finally, if you can import the TL11 goods you need, why spend all 
>that money on research?  Many world governments, given the choice, 
>would choose public spending over technology every time.

True, but if you are too low, you cannot afford the TL11 goods you need.
When the "blaster" (laser) your bodyguard should have is something near the
annual product of your duchy, you have a problem.  This would motivate them
to improve for quite some time.

Once they get technology to the level where you can afford to buy most of
the high tech goods you want, then the need is much less.  Further, the
grants, loans, and technology investments that were formerly given to you
by the clever merchants (in exchange for land and so on) dry up about this
point.

>I think all these mitigate against the spread of technology in 
>Traveller, but obviously the extent of the effect is debatable...

I'd be glad to debate it, but I suspect our conclusions would be similar in
broad, different in fine.  You raise some good points as to why there
should be a significant spread, and I hope I have been convincing that the
spread will be near that supposed ideal much of the time, because it is in
the high tech world's interest for it to be.

This leaves the huge question of what the ideal spread actually is and
should be.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:19:06 -0500 (CDT)
From: Andy Holzricher <jhereg@onyx.southwind.net>
Subject: Water to store Hydrogen

>Last remark : The jump fuel HAS to be Liquid H2 (and well refined), so
you
>would have to wait to get the required jump fuel volume for the jump. 

>The only solution if you want to use this design is

>Jump fuel tank filled with refined H2
>G-turn tanks filled with water.
>Fuel purification plant sufficiently large G-turns fuel
>Thrust energy and fuel consuption recalculated with the loaded mass

I see it as invaluable for someone jumping into the unknown. Carry
emergency oxygen and H2 for to jump out.  It may not be immediately
available, but it is onboard if you need it.
				Andy Holzrichter

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:18:00 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: 2nd Carreers

>Speaking of holes, what are the conditions for players having second
>careers that y'all use? The Boss has stated that in T4.1, only Vargr
>will be allowed more than 1 career. While I think that is a bit extreme,
>I feel that the current system makes it *far* too easy to have 3 or 4
>careers under one's belt as well. A few questions:

agreed. Vargr should be able to switch easier. Culturally vilani never
switch. Solomani I allow to switch 1 time in CGen, even under MT. Imperial
(not culturally vilani, solomani, or some other significant minor race with
CGen mods) I would allow 1 switch if it made sense... I assume this later
group is the basis for all Traveller editions' CGen rules.

>        1) Under the current system, a character who *voluntarily*
>leaves a service with a commission may later re-enlist (with the correct
>rolls) in the same service. I am assuming that characters that either
>are injured or fail to reupped can not later come back into the same
>service. Is this an appropriate assumption?

I allow anyone who voluntarily left (I.E., didn't fail re-enlist or
survival) to re-up so long as they can make 5 terms by the end of their 9th
term. More flexible with non-(para-)military. And when those injured out
try to go back, first they must make the CT/MT "Waiver" throw: 8+ on 2d, no
mods.

>        2) A character cannot voluntarily serve more than 7 terms in the
>same service. Does this count non-sequential terms, or just sequentially?
>E.g., Kevin Bacon (a good Vlandish name) serves 4 terms in the Scouts,
>leaves for 2 terms in the Entertainers, then comes back for another 3
>terms in the Scouts. At this point, must he mandatorily retire, having
>served a total of 7 terms? Or is he considered to have served only 3?
>How many terms is he allowed for pension and mustering out, 3, 7, or
>some other number?

I'd limit it to 7 terms plus any extras for manditory reenlistment in any
one given career. I've always ignored the 7 term limit, tho...

>        3) How do y'all handle "automatic eligibility"? As it stands now,
>a character with the right rolls placed in Stats, or just lucky enough not
>to lose too many points might serve 4 or 5 terms in a career, and then
>still be automatically eligible forex the Army after leaving the first career.
>Is it likely that a character 34 or 38 years old would still be so attractive
>to another service? Should automatic eligibility be revoked in a career
>(other than Nobles) if not chosen as a first career?

No auto eligibility for those over 18. But a +1 to the target # (under t4).


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:18:06 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Aging and Vilani (and Solomani)

Somebody mentioned the aging rules (I think it was peter)...

CT & MT's Aging rules tended to have a Life Expectancy of about 70 years;
However, obviously, solomani should be longer lived, as should Vliani. V&V
game me a method for determining Blood Purity; I modified it to suit my
needs. Note that (IIRC) the average expected lifespan for any +1 aging save
character is about 100 years under CT/MT aging tables.

Under MT, in S&A, I noticed that Solomani Aging Saves were 1 point easier
than Imperial. Vilani are +0 to +5. Sooo, I use the following table
(adapted from V&V, and modified):

Roll 2d6 + applicable modifiers (modifiers may be ignored if desired)

Roll    Aging Save Bonus             Modifiers Table
15+     +5 (Vilani Long Lived)       +1 Homeworld within First Imperium
14      +4 Pure Vilani               +1 HW w/in Vland Domain
13      +3 Notably Vilani            +1 HW w/in Vilani Cultural Region
12      +2 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW w/in 20 pc of Vland
11      +1 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW has Vilani sounding Name**
9-10    +0 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW has gov't type 1 or 9
5-8     +0, assorted creoles      -1/-2 HW w/in Solomani Confed Borders*
2-4     +0 Mixed Terran              -1 HW has obviously terran name**
(-5)-1  +1 Pure Terran               -2 HW within Solomani Rim
<(-5)   +2 Long Lived Terran         -1 HW Outside 1st Imperium
                                    -PS if character has Party Standing stat***
*Use the pre-split borders. Those areas captured in the Solomani Rim War
are subject to a use the lower DM after 900.

**Ref's should be liberal with these mods; give the benefit of the doubt IF
the player asks you to.

*** Initial PS only. I allow Imperial PC's to be members of the Solomani
Party, should they choose. They then have both a Soc and A Party Stat.
Since imperial careers do not allow for improvements of the party stat, it
will NOT go up duing initial CGen. All members of the Party are at least
Creols, and must treat final rolls (on the table above) of 9+ as 8.

Now, with all this gibberish up, It relates to the Lentuli Line. Obviously,
Terrans are hardier stock than most hominids in imperial space, by MT
Rules. So are Vilani. Why?

Terrans: they are fully compatable with their native environment, thus it
tends to throw more at them during evolutionary time. Selection for the
healthiest individuals. And healtier persons are GENERALLY longer lived.

Vilani: DUe to the need for specialized food preparation (V&V, p.2), a long
and involved proccess (except for canibilani), it can be assumed that the
shugilli who lived longer learned better, and thus were more prosperous
(less starved). It can be assumed that their families prospered, and
probably interbred with the rest of the population, thus dragging the whole
population upwards, and appretices would then train longer, become better
shugilli, and raise the overall health of the community, as well as
spreading the selected for genome through the population more thoroughly.

The reasons for Putting the two races at opposite ends is as follows:

1) Terrans probably do not have the selected genome for vilani aging; I
figure it is a semi-recessive trait. (Now we see who's kept up on their
genetics) (Semi-recessive traits are ones that, IIUC/IIRC are composed of
several recessive genes, but will manifest with only partial duplication to
trigger)

2) Vilani are selected for natural longevity by genetic design; Solomani
gain longevity by selection for overall health, and resistance to
pathogens. Most of those pathoges being absent on Vland, Vilani genotypes
do not have as highly developed immune systems responses; those ceased
being selected for once they were placed on Vland. 9800 years is time to
see changes starting (that's the time from Vilani spaceflight to M0,); the
300,000 years of isolation on vland is more than enough to support major
evolutionary change.

3) It makes for good story-lines

In M0, it seems that the aging saves have been modified to give the basic
system an expected lifespan of ~100 years (according to peter). Also, M0
assumes most of the syleans are Solomani, Vilani, or a creole thereof.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1574
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Thursday, July 17 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1575



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran  Confederation  TL)
Just got my call.
Re: Shionthy Belt
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: Volker Greimann's site
Re: Psionic Institutes
Schattenfalke Jump Transport (TNE Design)
Catholics in Imperium
The Travlang List seems to have some problems...
Sword Worlds' Navy
Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land
Clocks and Calendars in Known Space
Re: Mars in Traveller

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:30:02 -0600
From: Eric Holmes <holmes_eric_t@lanl.gov>
Subject: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573

Herr Greimann and my other TML compatriots:

Please define the term "pocket universe" and its implications.

How can I use this "artifact" for an adventure?

VAG:  You mention additional locations in the Regina subsector of the 
Spinward Marches.  Might you provide your listing of Ancient sites
and associated Pocket Universes?

Thank you for your assistance.  I am currently starting up a CT Spinward
Marches Campaign, using the Ashanti High Lightning rules for personal
combat.  The more background I can get, the more I can throw at the
players.

Cheers!

Eric

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:56:01 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terran  Confederation  TL)

At 11:03 AM 7/17/97 -0400, you wrote:

>Why not go really whole hog and use Tim Curry as "Frank N. Furter" from The
>Rocky Horror Picture Show...."Oh Rocky!"

For the last year, the doorman at the Lunion TAS has been Riff-Raff.

BTW: I have over 600 showings of the RHPS under my corset.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:03:51 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Just got my call.

Well it was inevitable.  I just got my call from Melody.

A little backround.. as many of you know, i'm not in the best of help,
currently I'm fighting some strange infection that has made walking very
painful.  So getting to the phone required a great deal of effort on my part.

Once on the phone, I informed Melody that I do not buy supplements without
looking at them first, and until I get paid for my JTAS article which was
released over a month ago, I will not be purchasing any of their products.

I also recieved yet another catalog in the mail yesterday.  It was the same
as the one I got back in March, down to the hilariously bad release schedule.

Makes me wonder...
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:45:02 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt

Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:12:50 -0700 (PDT), Craig Berry
<cberry@cinenet.net>>Beyond which, merely *having* antimatter is only
the first problem
>involved in M/AM propulsion.  Storing the stuff aboard a ship is verrrry
>tricky as well.  Granted, with TL-15 grav control it's much easier than it
>looks from TL-8.

Yes, it is _much_ easier.  We can store small amounts now.  It
would be very doable at TL-15.

>But if the power goes out, you are *toast*.

Well, that is why you would have an emergency "warp core ejections"
system with an auxilary power supply (just like in Star Trek :-).
The fact is that you can easily make up an emergency system that
can keep it going in case of minor damage and an eject it if
the power system is so badly damaged it's not coming back
on line.
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:50:35 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:24:29 PST, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard
Erickson)
> Harnessing chunks of "natural" antimatter for power is a *major* pain.

So is Fusion....
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:05:50 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Volker Greimann's site

Volker A. Greimann wrote:

>Managed to do it today after all! Have fun, go wild, tell me what you
>like and what you don't like, any problems you may have with the site
>or anything you have to add.
>If yu have any information about any missing Ancient Sites, mail it
>to me as well, so i can include it in my next update!

Very nice, Volker. Thanks for the handy Ancients resource.

Two small issues:

1) I hate to act territorial, but I sort of coined the use of the term
"Domain of Deneb" last April as the title of my own page located at :

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml

I don't object to your use of the term (how could I since I hold no legal
license to the name!) but there could be some brand confusion if people use
our sites frequently. Just a thought.

2) You might want to make the Imperial Sunburst in the upper lefthand
corner a non-scrolling region. A scroll bar appears next to it which is
slightly misleading. All a scroll attempt does is drop you down about three
or four pixels.

Nice work!

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 97 21:10 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

In-Reply-To: <199707170219.TAA02445@mail.goodnet.com>

Suzette,

> > 2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?
>  
> Because its a Milieu 0 sourcebook. The Droyne are unknown in that 
> era.

Not quite true IIRC. They are known about, but nobody has yet realised 
they are a major race (either way, they - and Chirpers - have already 
been mentioned in T4 products, so it's not like you're introducing 
anything new).

When did the 3I encounter the K'Kree & Hivers? They *are* on the table, 
which surprised me.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:46:13 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Schattenfalke Jump Transport (TNE Design)

=46or my TNE Sword Worlds campaign, I've constructed the following ship.

The PCs will probably use these to get around stealthily so as not to be
captured by Regency military forces.


Schattenfalke-Class Jump Transport

GENERAL DATA
Displacement: 95.2 tons   Hull Armor: 41
Length: 40.93 meters      Volume: 1332 m3
Price: MCr96.3            Target Size: VS
Configuration: Needle/SL  Tech Level: 13
Mass (Loaded/Empty): 1046.3/1009.7 tonnes

ENGINEERING DATA
Power Plant: 74.11 MW Fusion Power Plant (74.11 MW/hit), 1 year duration
Jump Performance: 4 (333.1 m3 fuel)
G-Rating: 4 (4.75 MW/G), CG lifters (9.5 MW)
G-Turns: 64 (619.6 using jump fuel), 0.6 m3 of fuel each
Maint: 28

ELECTRONICS
Computer: 3xTL-13 Mod Fib Computers (0.9 MW ea.)
Commo: 30,000 km radio (1 hexes; 1 MW), 1000AU maser (=83; 0.6 MW)
Avionics: TL-13 Avionics
Sensors: Passive EMS Fixed Array 90,000km (3 hexes; 0.1 MW), Passive EMS
=46olding Array 120,000km (4 hexes; 0.15 MW)
ECM/ECCM: EMS Jammer (2 hexes; 25 MW), EM Masking (1.33 MW)
Controls: No bridge; 3 normal workstations

ARMAMENT
Offensive: 1xTL-13 160-Mj Remote Laser Turret (Loc: 16; Arcs: All; 4.44 MW;
1 crew)
Defensive: 100 AEMS and 100 PEMS TL-13 decoys
Master Fire Directors: 1xTL-13 MFD (4 Diff Mod; 2.27 MW; 1 crew)

                        Short      Medium     Long        Extreme
160-Mj Laser Turret     4:1/10-32  8:1/10-32  16:1/10-31  32:1/5-15


ACCOMMODATIONS
Life Support: Extended (0.2612 MW), Gravitic Compensators (4G; 6.53 MW)
Crew: 3 (2xManeuver, 1xGunnery).
Crew Accommodations: 2xSmall Stateroom (0.0005 MW ea.)
Passenger Accommodations: 32xLow Berth (0.001 MW ea.)
Cargo: 40.5 m3 , 1 small cargo hatches
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: None
Air Locks: 1

NOTES
The Schattenfalke-Class Jump Transport provides stealthy transportation for
commando teams and covert operatives. The design maximizes TL-13 stealth
capabilities using a sub-100-ton hull, EM masking, EMS jammer and decoys.
Schattenfalkes are currently constructed only at top-secret naval yards on
Anduril/Sword Worlds (Spinward Marches: 1026 A985855-D). Fuel scoops
covering 20% of the ship's surface fill the tank in 0.36 hours. The ship
also has a fuel purification plant (0.946 MW; 378.815 cubic meters in 12
hours). Displacement tons and volume without the decoys is 95 tonnes and
1330 cubic meters, respectively. The ship's laser is remote-controlled from
the MFD.

DAMAGE TABLES
Area (1D20) Surface Hits  Internal Explosion                 Systems
1-3	    1-3:Ant       1-12:Elec, 13-18:Qtrs, Hold:19-20  AG-1H    PEMS-(1h)
4-6	    1:AL, 2-3:CH  1-2:Hold, 3-20:Fuel	             AL-(1h)  MD-(1h)
7-12                      1-16:Qtrs, 17-20:Fuel	             ELS-2H   PP-1H
13-15                     1-18:Qtrs, 19-20:Fuel	             EMM-(2h) SSR-(2=
h)
16          1:Decoys      1-12:LT, 13-20:Fuel	             LT-1H    FPP-2H
17-20       1-2:EMMR      1-13:Eng, 14-20:Fuel               LS-3H    JD-2H

                                                             Low Berth-(1h)

                                                             PEMS Ant-(1h)
                                                             EMM Rad-(1h)
                                                             MFD-(4h)

                                                             Decoys-(1h)


Notes on the decoys: Each decoy is 0.012 m3 in volume, 0.01 tonnes,
consumes 1 m3 of hull surface area and costs Cr20008.


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:30:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Catholics in Imperium

   Hi

> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:08:38 -0500
> From: "William A. Barnett-Lewis" <wlewis@mailbag.com>

> (Yow and end to lurking! Something I _know_ about!)

> This would actually be the same way they did during the past 2000 years- 
> 1) Municipality/Small continent - Bishop           =   Baron
> 2) High pop Continent/Small World - Archbishop     =   Count
> 3) High pop World  - Archbishop                    =   Earl
> 4) Sector  -  Cardinal                             =   Duke
> 5) Universe ;'> - Pope                             =   Emperor

   Technically, a cardinal is not part of the church's government
   hierarchy per se; he's just a bishop, priest or deacon who happens to
   have been appointed to a very important college.  Today, most
   cardinals are archbishops, which means they do have positions in the
   government hierarchy, but as archbishops, not cardinals.  The various
   ranks of bishops are Assistant, Suffragan, Diocesan, Metropolitan or
   Archbishop, Primate, Patriarch, and Pope.

   A workable interstellar schema might be to have the first four ranks
   as they are today, with primates heading subsector-sized terratories
   and patriarchs heading sectors, domains, or nonterratorial bodies
   (like special rites).  Regular episcopal appointments might be
   handled by the primates, who would take over what are today the
   pope's major duties.

   -Rob

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:10:48 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...

I just sent a post to the Travlang list, and got back three error
reports:

1) Kenji, you subscribed at accessone.com; there appears to be no
such domain - or at least that's what's being reported.

2) Anders, the host that you subscribed from exists, but claims
that there's no such person as anders.backman at that location.
3) Plus, it had trouble contacting your host to start with.

The text of the message I sent is included below; if you are a
member of Travlang, and did not receive this message, please let
me know, so I can try to figure out what's wrong.

BEGIN INCLUDED TEXT - Subject: Those damn Solomani tranlsators...

  We know that there is no 'D' in Vilani, but that the way the
  Vilani pronounce 'R' is similar (but not quite identical) to
  the way Solomani pronounce 'D'.

  We know that most of the sector names from the Imperial Core
  are Vilani names.

  That means that there are at least three erroneous sector
  names.

  Dagudashag    - this should be Ragurashag.
  Mendan        - this should be Menran.
  Amdukan       - this should be Amrukan.

  And at least one planet that became prominent is also
  erroneous:

  Usdiki        - this should be Usriki.

  I note that if I pronounce _every_ maybe-Vilani word that I
  see that has either an 'R' or a 'D' in it as though it _were_
  Vilani, I am thoroughly convinced that a Solomani with a South
  Asian (Indo-pak) background would have _no_ trouble
  identifying the words as having 'R', not 'D'.

END INCLUDED TEXT

Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:23:02 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Sword Worlds' Navy

The Sword Worlds do not have a unified military.  It's a loose
confederation.  The member worlds support their own Naval & ground forces.
Expect slight variations in uniforms, gear, and rank.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/  Opinions Mine!
"Meatspace" - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual world), also 
"carbon community."
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 15:29:21 -0800
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:54:17 -0700 (MST), Bruce Johnson
<johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
>Only if you hold to the idea that ALL the hydrogen fuel during jump is
>consumed to generate power. Given the various jump theories floating about
>that indicate that the hydrogen is used to create a bubble of normalspace
>around the ship, you still need 'fuel'.
>
>As for fuelling powerplants and suchlike, though, you're correct. 

Well, I was never a big fan of this theory, however, in any
case it makes  a difference with maneuver drives, etc.
 
In fact, misjumps are no longer fatal.  At 6 G's you can probably
get to a nearby star before yoru provisions run out, and even
if you can't, you just hop in a low birth for the trip.
 
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 17:02:13 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land

At 01:30 PM 7/17/97 -0600, Eric Holmes wrote:
>Please define the term "pocket universe" and its implications.

The way I look at it, each block of technology is ruled by a small set of
technologies.  We are in the age ruled by energy-dense fossil fuels and
mechanization.  The Imperial era is in the era rules by jump drive, grav
vehicles, and fusion power.  The Ancient era runs from TL16-TL21, and is
ruled by antimatter power, AI machines, and pocket universes/teleportation.
 The TL22-30 era is ruled by universal gates, limitless power for each
living being, and awesomely large scale projects.  As Gurps Ultra Tech put
it, **POOF**, you are healed, dead, or inside a structure of arbitrary size
and complication.

Pocket universes were discussed at length in Secret of the Ancients, I
believe, in which Marc Miller finally described in detail exactly how the
Grandfather did his teleportation magic.

The idea is that teleportation is a really groovy power for an individual
or race to have, but that it has minor physics problems, even worse than
for a jump drive.  For example if momentum is conserved and you teleport
dramatically eastward/westward, your momentum will be suddenly very
different from your surroundings, which can lead to psion hurtling into the
air, or slamming into the earth.  If energy is conserved, and you teleport
upwards, you have a higher energy, which has to come from somewhere.
Likewise, a Psion who teleports a dozen km straight down has the energy of
a satchel charge or small artillery shell.  (12000*9.8*100kg results in
roughly 12Mj, or about a 3 kg bomb.)

Add one other factor to this mix.  We already know that there is at least
one alternative space - jump space.  Traveller canon insists that entry
into jump space takes a week to exit, and has some range limitations.  If
teleportation matter transmission used jump space, then we have the
possibility of less than a week being needed for a jump.

In order to settle "how it works", Marc stated that the Ancients, who had
matter transport, did it by opening a gate to a pocket universe, shoving
what they wanted to move into it, and then opening a second gate to where
they wanted it to go.  The transit was instantaneous, and energy and
momentum were conserved, though entropy was not.

A pocket universe is a chunk of our own space time which has been
completely separated from our own.  There are a fair number of naturally
occurring ones, but they are not big, and they do not contain stars or
other energy sources.  IIRC, he said that it was a TL21 task to separate a
chunk of space yourself and turn it into its very own universe.  If you do
not want to do that, and instead want to create one from scratch, it is a
much harder task.  TL25 or so?

Why would you want to pinch one off, or create one from scratch?

1.  Most pocket universes do not contains stars.  If you are going to spend
any significant time there, it would be nice if there were a clean power
source fueled for a billion years.

2.  The distance that you can move in a teleportation is limited to the
size of the pocket universe you are in.  Thus, the bigger the universe, the
farther you can go in one instantaneous hop.  I assume that a Psion with
teleportation jumps through a bunch of them when making a hop, and that
there are a fair number available.  Unfortunately, there is some effort
required, so it would be very, very convenient of the Psion could hook up
with a really big pocket universe, and thus make it easier to make a long
jump.

By pinching it off yourself, you get to make it as large as you need it,
and you can put whatever you need inside of it.

The Grandfather needed to go hide, and so moved a dozen stars and an area
about the size of a subsector as one big pocket universe.  He left a number
of gates here and there, from which he can emerge and look around.  If all
of his gates get destroyed, there is a hint that he could build more.

End of stuff form Secret of the Ancients and other references.

I have ruled that Psionics is, in general, powered by gating energy in from
jump space, from the near area through a pocket universe gate, or from the
personal resources of the psion.  Of these, the pocket universe is by far
the most useful, _if_ there happens to be one nearby with a decent energy
differential from where you now are.  Races that focus on Psionics discover
that the amount of energy they can direct becomes limitless, once they can
put a universe nearby with a big power supply in it, and another one that
they can use to teleport arbitrary distances.

Thus, if you have a universe that is 50M across, you can connect as many
times as your hardware can handle, as long as all of the connecting
receivers can fit within the boundary.  Further, if one of the gates goes
into jump space, only other receivers on that same vessel can connect to
the pocket universe.  You cannot use it to enter/exit a ship currently in
jump space, at least at the TL the Ancients were at when they started to
plaster each other with monster energy beams.

Each time you connect to such a thing, you make it harder for someone else
to do so at the same time, and that connecting to the center is far easier
than connecting to the outside.  Further, the easiest connections skate
around the boundary of it without ever entering the pocket universe, which
is why early TL17-18 devices do not put anything there, they just instantly
transfer things to other places.  Most people at TL17 are convinced that
this is just like jump space - it always takes zero time for a teleport,
instead of a week for a jump.

In my own universe, the big secret of TL18 is the ability to leave things
in the pocket universe.  If it is possible to store jump fuel in such a
place, and to have it remain connected to the vessel when it hits jump
space, then you can just plop a gas giant into your pocket universe, and
stop worrying about fuel.  I figure this starts to happen at TL18.  The
pocket universe can be accessed from only one receiver, and it is bound to
that one at construction.  Pocket universes are also used for longer
distance instantaneous teleportation.

About TL 19 or so, I receivers are good enough to send simple things over
interstellar distances, such as fuel, power, and information.  You are
still cut off in jump space, but you can bring along your gas giant worth
of fuel, and a small AM plant to run things while you are out of touch.
Planets start to get connected virtually with zero time links.  It still
takes time to move things, as interstellar teleportation is limited.
Further, technology has revealed how to scramble someone else's links, and
so warships have independent power supplies.

At TL21+, you can use a pocket universe to connect complicated machinery to
a ship in jump space.  In addition, interstellar teleportation becomes
practical, but can still be interfered with.  This means that your "ship"
is only as big as the life support area you want to be able to walk around
in, with all of the nasty power plant, drives, screens, and so on being at
home where experts on the ground can maintain it.  This is about the end of
the starship as we know it.  You can put big, nasty weapons on your planet,
and send out ships that are essentially just receivers.  As long as the
enemy cannot jam you, you can do fearsome damage from a tiny vessel.
Jamming technology becomes the order of the day, with AIs far smarter than
their creators trying to outthink each other.

Sometime after this, they finally figure out secure interstellar
teleportation without prepared receivers, and there is an end to jump
vessels entirely.  All transport becomes instantaneous, and weaponry that
can rattle space time becomes commonplace.  Right about then, each living
person becomes a minor godling by any standard of previous people.

>How can I use this "artifact" for an adventure?

I used it in the form of teleportation, and also to have rooms bigger
inside than out.  I also used it to store things from any time in the last
million years or so.  I have not yet sprung the godling thing on the
players yet, because it truly is a campaign killer, unless there is some
reason for them to not interact with the being again.

I am thinking that this could explain why Grandfather is hiding out in a
pocket universe - he realized that he was a near godling, and that someone
else at the core had gotten there first.  He is hoping that either the
critter at the core would wipe out the Imperium, and figure it was safe, or
that the third Imperium could be used as a catspaw.

My one sure rule for Ancient encounters - the Ancients do NOT make any kind
of sense, and they should stay that way.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:51:47 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Clocks and Calendars in Known Space

Sources:
AM#  - GDW: Alien Module #
MTA# - DGP: Megatraveller Alien #
CT   - GDW: Classic Traveller Basic Set (or equivalent)
?    - Don't recall; can't locate; certain of info, though.

=46or convenience:
DAY refers to standard Imperial day
SOL refers to local planetary day
YEAR refers to standard Imperial year
ANO refers to local planetary orbital period about star.

Imperial Dating System: (CT)
DAY =3D 24 hours, divided into 60 minutes, divided into 60 seconds.
YEAR =3D 365 DAYs, numbered 001 to 365.  001 is a holiday, called
HOLIDAY; does not have a day name attached.  Other days have a
day name attached in a cycle of seven; names are Oneday, Twoday,
Threeday, Fourday, Fiveday, Sixday, Sevenday; elided to Wonday,
Tuday, Thriday, Forday, Fiday, Sixday, Senday.  Cycle always
comes out "perfect"; any given numbered day will occur on the
same named day every year.  Dates written "ddd-yyyy"; ddd is day
number, yyyy is year number.  001-0001 is date of founding of
Third Imperium

Vilani dating system: (?)
SOL =3D 32 hours, divided into _dran_, "day", asterise to asterset
and _dir_, "night", asterset to asterise.  Other divisions
probable but not documented.
ANO =3D 1,000 half-SOLs. ANO begins with dran and counts
sequentially, alternating dran and dir.  Dates written
"yyyy.ddd"; yyyy is ANO, ddd is number of dran or dir (ddd odd is
dran, ddd even is dir). 0001.001 is date of founding of First
Imperium.

NOTE: MTA1 gives SOL of "just under" 32 hours and ANO of "about"
360 SOLs, and divides SOL into 4 quarters or 10 tenths; the tenth
is divided into 100 mils.  No equivalent dating is given.
Intercalary SOLs are inserted at the end of every tenth ANO, but
since an exact measurement of the ANO and SOL are not given, the
details can't be determined.

Solomani Dating System: (?)
SOL =3D DAY
ANO =3D 365 SOLs in most years; complex rule for inserting
intercalary SOLs 97 times in 400 ANOs.  ANO divided into 12
"months" of varying but roughly equal numbers of SOLs, each month
named; SOLs start count from 1 each month.  Dates written "month
d, yyyy"; month is name of month, d is day within month, yyyy is
year.  Month names in order from start of year: January,
=46ebruary, March, April, May, June, July, August, September,
October, November, December.  January 1, 0001 is date held to be
traditional date of religious initiation of significant religious
figure on Terra.

Zhodani dating system: (AM4)
SOL =3D 27.02 hours, subdivisions probable but not documented.
ANO =3D 244.44 SOLs.  Divided into six "seasons", each 40 SOLs
long.  Each SOL in season named, also numbered.  Four SOLs not
part of season, individually named. ANOs grouped by three (called
"olympiad"); intercalary day inserted every third olympiad.
Dates written as "oooo.y season dd"; oooo is olympiad number; y
is year number within olympiad; season is name of season; dd is
number of day within season.  Translated season names, from start
of ANO (named SOLs in ALL CAPS): SUNBRIGHT, Rain, MOON DAY, Heat,
SUNFLIGHT, Waning, Harvest, THANKSGIVING, Chill, Thaw.  In ANO 3
of each olympiad, OLYMPIAD DAY inserted between Chill and Thaw;
in ANO 3 of each third olympiad, DOUBLE OLYMPIAD DAY inserted
between OLYMPIAD DAY and Thaw.  Definite equivalent date given;
3471.1 Sunbright corresponds to Imperial 289-1112.

Aslan dating system: (AM1)
SOL =3D 36 hours; divisions: 1 SOL into 16 parts, each into 8
parts, each into 64 parts, each into 8 parts.
ANO =3D 212.2 SOLs, individually named; use sequential numbering.
Intercalary SOL added every 5 ANOs.  ANO 3644 corresponds to
Imperial year 1111, but no exact DAY/SOL correspondence given.
Written date format not given; recommend "yyyy (ddd)"; yyyy is
ANO number; ddd is SOL number within ANO.  ANO 1 SOL 1 date of
initiation of present Aslan governmental structure.

K'kree Dating System: (AM2)
SOL =3D 28.6 hours; Divided into 4 "watches", Divided into 10
parts, each subdivided into 10 parts, each further subdivided
into 10 parts, and each divided into 10 parts.
ANO =3D 368 SOLs, ten parts of 37 SOLs, SOLs numbered sequentially
in part.  Part #4 only contains 35 SOLs.  ANO 7713 corresponds to
Imperial year 1110, but no DAY/SOL correspondence given.  No
written date format given; recommend "yyyy.p dd"; yyyy is ANO
number, p is part number, dd is SOL number in part.

Vargr Dating System: (AM3)
There being no single dominant polity among the Vargr, no
standard clock or calendar has been implemented.  Use Imperial
system, or local system to referee's liking.

Droyne Dating System: (AM5)
No information on Droyne timekeeping has been supplied.  Use
dominant system in area of Droyne encounters.

Hiver Dating System: (AM7)
SOL =3D approximately 30 hours, divided into 6 intervals.  Other
divisions said to exist, but are not detailed.
ANO =3D 143 SOLs, sequentially numbered from start of ANO.  Written
format "yyyy/ddd"; yyyy is ANO number; ddd is SOL number.
0001/001 is date of selection of capital of Hive Federation.
Hiver ANO 1401 corresponds to Imperial year 1111; no DAY/SOL
correspondence given.

Darrian Dating System: (AM8)
No information on Darrian timekeeping has been supplied.  As
Darrian culture is strongly influenced by Solomani culture, and
maintains cordial relations with the Imperium, either Solomani or
Imperial systems may be used.

NOTE: The two unknown sources were actually the same; I
distinctly recall seeing _something_ that had all of the
calendars laid out graphically, side by side, and provided useful
information about all of them.  My recollection says that it was
a GDW publication, for either CT or MT.  FWIW, the Solomani
system is just a continuation of our current system, which I
assume everyone knows the details of.

Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:55:05 -0400
From: Peter Miller <pmiller@linkeasy.net>
Subject: Re: Mars in Traveller

Sebastien Normandin wrote:
> 
> Does anybody have any information on Mars with respect to Traveller,
> particularly Re: M1100 or M0. I seem to remember that the detailed system
> generation procedure in Book 6: Scouts had examples of the Regina and Terra
> system (which hopefully would include Mars), but I haven't had a copy of
> Book 6 in years.
> 
> Are there any other sources which detail the planet in Traveller terms (in
> any milieu) and provide more than a UPP.
> 
> Just curious.
> 
> Sebastian Normandin
> 
> Luckyj@odyssee.net

In Solomani & Aslan, page 7 "The Terran Star System" has the following:

Orbit		Name		UWP		Remarks
4		Mars		F43056a-F	Co Ml

Also, the book states this (page 5)

"Terraforming began to change the red face of arid Mars 700 years ago
[note - 4938 AD].  The planet's thickening atmosphere now sports a much
higher ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide, and we hope to see actual rain
within the next century.  With the return of our Solomani citizens,
GenAssist has prmised to pseed completion of the terraforming effort."

All of that is in the Rebellion Era, around 1116-1118 I believe,

Thanks,
- -- 
________________________________________________ Peter J. Miller
TravWeb Central - http://www.dragonfire.net/~pm/traveller/

"The catherdral of St. Basil in Moscow, Russia was built with 8 cupolas
to commerate the 8 days Ivan the Terrible fought to capture the city of
Kazan.  To make sure that it's architects never again built so
magnificent
a structure, Ivan deprived them of their eyes, arms, and tongues."
				- Ripley's Believe It or Not!

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1575
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1576



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)
Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...
Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573
Re: Clocks and Calendars in Known Space
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573
TNE/M:1200 -- Instant/FTL Commo & Psionics...
Teleportation follies.
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra
Re: Holidays
Re: Refueling question
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land
Psioncs, Droyne, and M0
Re Psionic Institutes
Re: Teleportation follies.
Re: TNE/M:1200 -- Instant/FTL Commo & Psionics...
Re Munchins and T4 CGen

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:12:25 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Shionty Belt (Regina 0706)

Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, David P. Summers wrote:
>  
> > With antimatter you only need to refuel every decade or so.  Compared
> > to refueling every jump, this is vast improvement, (not to mention
> > that fact that you free up all that space).
> 
> Only if you hold to the idea that ALL the hydrogen fuel during jump is
> consumed to generate power. Given the various jump theories floating about
> that indicate that the hydrogen is used to create a bubble of normalspace
> around the ship, you still need 'fuel'.
> 
> As for fuelling powerplants and suchlike, though, you're correct. 

Didn't MT have a rules, or table that said that if your TL was 17+ 
you needed less Jump Fuel? I always assumed that was because of 
anti-matter power plants.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:32:33 -0800
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...

Jeff --

I'm definitely @accessone.com -- dunno what to say more than that.  The
list has been a little screwy for a long time; whenever I sent anything to
it, it would bounce a copy back to me as "undeliverable" from Anders'
edress.

On to the fun stuff:

>BEGIN INCLUDED TEXT - Subject: Those damn Solomani tranlsators...
>
>  We know that there is no 'D' in Vilani, but that the way the
>  Vilani pronounce 'R' is similar (but not quite identical) to
>  the way Solomani pronounce 'D'.

Isn't it that Vilani has no /t/?  The syllable generation table in _Vilani
and Vargr_ shows initial and final /d/ and /r/, but no /t/.

My thought is that the Vilani /r/ is a tap, rather than a trill, and placed
in a alveolar or retroflex position -- so to a native American English
speaker, it might sound more t-ish than not.  /d/ likewise, being
articulated farther back on the roof of the mouth than the Western European
/d/s, and more like the retroflex /d./ of South Asian languages.  Which
also means that some Solomani transcribers could well confuse the Vilani
/r/ and /d/ -- they're pretty similar in sound.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:13:48 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573

At 01:30 PM 7/17/97 -0600, you wrote:

>Please define the term "pocket universe" and its implications.

At the end of the Final War, Yaskodray (*the* Ancient) pinched off several
universes.  These were small, one or two parsecs across, and served as a
convinent hiding place for him as he watched the rest of us.

There was an adventure published (12; Secret of the Ancients) which took
the PCs to Yaskodray's home pocket.

Unless you a running a high power campaign, the characters won't ever have
access to a PU.  Almost no-one in the Imperium even imagines their existence.

>How can I use this "artifact" for an adventure?

See above.. I recommend avoiding them.  PUs are like the astral plane in
AD&D, too much power that unbalances the regular game.  Remember that
creating a pocket universe is about TL35 by all sources.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:06:00 +1000
From: Jason Anderson <midnight@kagi.com>
Subject: Re: Clocks and Calendars in Known Space

>NOTE: The two unknown sources were actually the same; I
>distinctly recall seeing _something_ that had all of the
>calendars laid out graphically, side by side, and provided useful
>information about all of them.  My recollection says that it was
>a GDW publication, for either CT or MT.


MT Referees Companion? (or whatever it was called - I don't own it, I've
just borrowed a copy before. I do remember it had something like what you
describe in it).

Cheers,
Jason

- -------
Beyond Midnight Software                               <midnight@kagi.com>
                                      <http://www.vision.net.au/~midnight>

             If it's not on fire then it's a software problem.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:34:30 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

At 06:32 pm 07/16/97 PST, you wrote:
>I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
>(ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.

	Decisol, centisol, etc. Why become hung up on the 1/24th division of
Earth's day that's just a leftover from some ancient culture or the other
(Babylonians?).
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:17:14 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

At 10:15 am 07/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
>At 12:11 AM 7/16/97 -0500, you wrote:
>A friend of mine is very close to dropping IG altogether, because of the
>persistent calls by Melody.


>He thought of asking if there was a special sucker field in the database,
>and whether it could be cleared for his entry.

	There may be. I've only received two phone calls, quite widely spread, and
made it clear each time I won't order anything sight-unseen. I won't even
shop in a game store which shrink-wraps its books. I insist on browsing
through anything and considering a wide variety of factors before buying.

	OK, one caveat--I did order the signed T4.1, just like I ordered the
signed T4 (which continues its attempts to self-destruct--I don't know if
it's the cover rejecting the contents, or vice-versa).
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 19:47:07 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573

At 01:30 pm 07/17/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Herr Greimann and my other TML compatriots:
>
>Please define the term "pocket universe" and its implications.

	"Pocket Universe"--The 'super-Droyne' Grandfather, among his other
incomprehensible technologies, developed the ability to manipulate the very
fabric of space itself. Part of this was the ability to "pinch off" a
portion of our universe into its own separate bubble universe. Among other
things, he used this to create hiding holes for himself, some of his
equipment, and several worlds of Droyne who supported him in his quest to
kill his Grandchildren.


- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:27:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: fcain@st6000.sct.edu (Franklin W. Cain)
Subject: TNE/M:1200 -- Instant/FTL Commo & Psionics...

Some people have mentioned on these two lists various hints and innuendo
about FTL/instant commo for the Post-Virus Era.  I'd like to add my own
contribution to the bonfire...  

In Classic Traveller's _Adventure_3:_Research_Station_Gamma_, the afore-
mentioned Research Station is engaged in psionic studies, specifically
*interstellar*-range telepathy.  The module mentions that the project is
*feasible*.  (It also states that the Imperium wouldn't like this info
released because the Zhos would be able to implement this commo system
much easier, but that's another story...)  One of the "threads" (i.e.,
seeds for future adventures) is the possibility of selling this research
info to the Zhos for a small fortune (so one would presume that this info
is legitimate...).  

Last, but not least: Bear in mind that (IIRC) the author of this module
was Marc Miller (so it *must* be canon... :-).  

Franklin

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:31:59 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Teleportation follies.

Scott Ellsworth wrote:

[snip]
>
>The idea is that teleportation is a really groovy power for an individual
>or race to have, but that it has minor physics problems, even worse than
>for a jump drive.  For example if momentum is conserved and you teleport
>dramatically eastward/westward, your momentum will be suddenly very
>different from your surroundings, which can lead to psion hurtling into the
>air, or slamming into the earth.  If energy is conserved, and you teleport
>upwards, you have a higher energy, which has to come from somewhere.
>Likewise, a Psion who teleports a dozen km straight down has the energy of
>a satchel charge or small artillery shell.  (12000*9.8*100kg results in
>roughly 12Mj, or about a 3 kg bomb.)
[snip]


	I just had this sudden vision of a bunch of people sitting sedately
around at a picnic, when all of a sudden...

<pop!>  WHOOOOooooooooosh Kaboom!

	This whole thing is just too Pythonesque for words.

	However, it's now convinced me that there IS a place for psionics
in my campaign.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:29:53 -0500
From: Chris Olson <Chris_Olson@itd.sterling.com>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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RFXn wrote:

> On 17 Jul 97 at 11:06, Anders Backman wrote:
>
> > Q: How does the Imperium handle such document so they look cool,
> > official and pompous yet "impossible" (as in impossible task) to
> > forge. Please no electronic credit cards stuff - I want some high
> > tech noble rings marking sigills or whatever.
>
>         A medieval-type scroll made of high-strenght plastics, with
> molecular-level "text" (public verification keys) spread here and
> there. Feels like pergament, stands up to almost any kind of
> punishment. The basic text of the document is written on it, the same
> text in more detail (with all revelant law texts) is stored on three
> private-key signed TL 13 holochips imbedded in "paper".
>
>         Any naval base, embassy etc. has an extensive database of
> high-ranking nobility's public keys, so verifying authenticity is
> easy. Just boot that PDGP (Pretty Damn Good Privacy)... :)

Why stop there?  Electronic paper!

Looks like paper, feels like paper, acts like paper.  When fed into the
proper machine can even
be erased and re-written!  What cannot be re-written is the triple
private key encryption (ala message above) stored in the micro-thin
computer in the center. The keys can be verified with
(again) the proper machine...

Chris Olson

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- --------------08A8B706377EC70226EE4B31--

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 03:45:31 +0100 (BST)
From: Eamon Patrick Watters <E.Watters@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Holidays

How about 'Jump Day' celebrating the first time a 'foolhardy' Villani 
made a Jump to one of their STL-Colonized worlds?

'Contact Day' when the Villani met their first sentient aliens?

Also, seeing that the Third Imperium sets great stock from being 
descended from the First and Second Imperiums - 'First Imperium Holiday' 
and 'Second Imperium Holiday'.

I can already see the fights breaking out between the Villani and 
Solomani PC's - joy!

Eamon.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:48:21 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

Thanks for everyones help on this:

***************************************
Well, you've messed up the calculations; a liter of H2 liquid is NOT the
same number of moles as a liter of water, liquid.

1 Mole H2 = 2g which is the molar equivalent of 1 Mole H2O = 18g
***************************************

Just to let you know that I'm not completely hopeless--I just want to
explain that my calculations were not in error even if my approach to
solving the problem was.  knowing that 1 mole(H2O) = 18g I said, OK then
in 1 mole of (H2O) the is 2g of H,  which is why I said 2g(H)/mole for
water.  All this is neither here nor there....I guess its just in the
world view I would rather be guilty of a bit of sloppy thinking as
oppossed to looking like I don't how to turn atomic weights into g/mole
(which has to be one of the easiest calcs science has to offer :-})

***************************************
yes, H2O is a Mah-velous way to store H2. We can only presume that the
reason that H2 is standard vs H2O is that the 'fuel purification'
process
produces lH2 at a very slow rate compared to the rate at which it needs
to
be dumped for the ship to jump.
***************************************

This is good to know and changes my way of thinking about fueling (I
held before that you could not leave your source while refining as X
amount of unrefined source would provide <X amount of refined product).
I was wrong and I thank everyone on the list who helped set me straight!

***************************************
Better yet, store the stuff as lNH3, liquid ammonia:

lNH3 = 1.5 Moles H2

1l NH3 = 0.68 g/ml * 1000 ml = 680 g/l / 17 g/Mole = 40 moles NH3 *1.5
moles H2 = 60 moles H2 / l NH3. The only drawback is that ammonia is a
corrosive material, but since we send thousands of tankloads of lNH3
around the country daily with few mishaps, it could be done.
***************************************

Would ammonia then tend to be the "source" that one would look for when
gas giant skimming or would straight hydrogen be the way to go....by
this I mean: would it be better to find an ammonia rich GG, get so many
tons of ammonia (knowing that this many tons of ammonia will refine to
just the right amount to fill your tanks), and then refine as you
procede to your jump point......OR.......Can you purify and liquify H2
fast enough during the skim (this is my thinking:  The H2 you will be
skimming is gas.....some of the volume of gas you skim will actualy be
impurities that you will vent overboard, reducing the amount of gas in
the ship.  You will then liquify the H2 which then takes up less space. 
So it seems that if you only fill your tanks with the bulk gas from the
GG and then start our for the jump point, your tanks will not even be
half full by the time you purify and liquify.)  The only "outs" I see in
this is if some dense storage medium (as water or ammonia) is skimmed
and refined on the way to jump point or if the purification machinery
can purify and liquify the whole load while remaining in the GG's
atmosphere.  If I am wrong in this too please correct me....I find this
really interesting.  Also, opinions on which method is used and its
consequences to gameplay

Thanks a heap!!!

TT

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:25:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

In a message dated 97-07-17 21:58:48 EDT, you write:

<<   `Simultaneous' is not meaningless for widely separated events if they
   >>
This entire thread is the fabric of which adventures and stories are made.
What other science fiction universe is discussing this sort of thing in
detail?

So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on 098-198 on
Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine inheritance?

If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:17:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

In a message dated 97-07-16 22:28:34 EDT, you write:

<< 
 001  Holiday. 
      On which we celebrate the founding of our glorious Third Imperium.

 009  School Year starts. 
      This only officially applies to Imperial schools (eg the Imperial 
      Naval Academy), but many other schools (especially on Sylea) also    
      follow the Immperial School Year.

*** especially ones that have transfer students from other schools; ie./
Universities,  Grad Schools, Med School.


 034  Imperial Forces Day.
      On which we give thanks to all the brave members of the Imperial
      Forces (Army, Navy, Marines, and Scouts), and remember those who died 
      in the service of the Emperor.

*** Why this date?

 051  Emperor Cleon's Birthday.
      On which we celebrate the birth of our Emperor, and, in return, he
      bestows honours upon the greatest of his subjects.

 090  Quarter Day.
      A simple public holiday marking the end of the first quarter.
 121  Workers' Day.
      On which we remember the workers - the tiny cogs who keep the great
      Imperial machine running smoothly.

*** But this name sounds so communist, almost like Workers' and Peasants'
Day.

 181  Mid-Year Break.
      A simple public holiday marking the end of the second quarter.

 184  Standard Religious Holiday.
 219  Family Day.
 272  Three-Quarter Day.
      A simple public holiday marking the end of the third quarter.
 328  School Year Ends (Graduation).   
      This only officially applies to Imperial schools (eg the Imperial 
      Naval Academy), but many other schools (especially on Sylea) also    
      follow the Immperial School Year.
 359  Year End Break (to 365).
      A week-long celebration of the Empire, leading up to Holiday and the 
      new year.

*** which also has economic purpose to increase consumption.

Why add generic holidays like the infamous "Holiday No. 11" (or 3/4 day) when
they could be named and mean something? like Armed Forces Day, etc?

I object to a standard Religous Holiday. I think the religious calendar is a
separate consideration. If you instituted such a day, how many religions
would actually use it? Would Jews decide to celebrate passover on that day?
Probably not. Would Christians decide that Easter now fell on 181? Probably
not. What about Ramadan?  Probably not.

From a game standpoint, I am ignoring most of religion. From a government
standpoint, I think Cleon knows better than to open that bag of worms and
risk rejection of his calendar.

Marc





 
  >>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:27:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land

In a message dated 97-07-17 21:16:42 EDT, you write:

<< 
 My one sure rule for Ancient encounters - the Ancients do NOT make any kind
 of sense, and they should stay that way.
 
  >>
Great rule. 

Marc 

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:05:47 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Psioncs, Droyne, and M0

>Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:18:37 +0000
>From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
>Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes
>
>> 2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?
>
>Because its a Milieu 0 sourcebook. The Droyne are unknown in that
>era.
>
>Suz
>

Looking at GDW's AM 5: Droyne, I find SS N of Dagudashag, and in SS J of
Massilia are Droyne worlds... Really close to the borders of M0 Imperial
Space. A MAJOR oversight there...

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:05:28 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re Psionic Institutes

>I'm about half way through this ATM, and it seems pretty good so far.
>Two points though:
>
>1. Does that grey, circular background graphic annoy everybody else as
>much as it annoys me? It's very distracting when you're trying to read
>(the same goes for /Anomalies/ BTW - I *really* hope this isn't going
>to become a standard feature (it probably buggers up OCR systems, too,
>which will piss off any blind players)).

YES!

>2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?

I wondered that myself.

3. On the alien interaction table, it isn't listed which is telepath and
which is target.

4. There is no entry for READING a hiver's mind. Hivers are not psionic,
but can be affected by psionics (Hiver and Ithklur, p. 44-45). Also implied
in AM7, Hivers.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:02:31 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Teleportation follies.

At 10:31 PM 7/17/97 -0400, Roderick wrote:

>	I just had this sudden vision of a bunch of people sitting sedately
>around at a picnic, when all of a sudden...
>
><pop!>  WHOOOOooooooooosh Kaboom!
>
>	This whole thing is just too Pythonesque for words.
>
>	However, it's now convinced me that there IS a place for psionics
>in my campaign.

I cannot shake the mental image....  Imperial troops dug in, cautiously
scanning over the ramparts, waiting for the Zhodani attack, when suddenly:

<pop!>

WHOOOOOSH!

Aiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (in Zhdatl, of course)

as an entire battalion of Consular Guards goes flinging skyward....

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 21:07:06 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: TNE/M:1200 -- Instant/FTL Commo & Psionics...

At 10:27 PM 7/17/97 -0400, Franklin wrote:

>In Classic Traveller's _Adventure_3:_Research_Station_Gamma_, the afore-
>mentioned Research Station is engaged in psionic studies, specifically
>*interstellar*-range telepathy.  The module mentions that the project is
>*feasible*.  (It also states that the Imperium wouldn't like this info
>released because the Zhos would be able to implement this commo system
>much easier, but that's another story...)  One of the "threads" (i.e.,
>seeds for future adventures) is the possibility of selling this research
>info to the Zhos for a small fortune (so one would presume that this info
>is legitimate...).  

When we were discussing the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory <tm> a few
months back, one of the ideas we came up with was a telepathic net, which
linked *exceedingly* powerful telepaths with instantaneous interstellar
communication.  The problem is, this was designed to be used by the
*Ancients;* the extremely rare human telepath who can even access the net
tends to go quite mad, quite quickly.

>Last, but not least: Bear in mind that (IIRC) the author of this module
>was Marc Miller (so it *must* be canon... :-).  

I, the Inquisitor Magnus of the Royal Commission for Canon Correctness,
doth hereby declare Adventure 2 to be canon in all shape and form.

Yea, verily.

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:05:52 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re Munchins and T4 CGen

>
>        Well, a funny side effect was that before the program stopped
>making aging rolls, his INT had fallen to about 3.  What with the +1
>physical, EDU, and SOC results on the career tables, by age 221 (after
>multiple 7-year stints in the Nobles, he re-enlisted in the Army and just
>kept going) or so when he was felled in his prime by a bug in the app, his
>UPP looked like FFF3FF.  His Language score was about 12, his carousing 10,
>he had fencing out the wazoo... but he was as dumb as a piece of 2X4.
>Under KB v.2.0, he would have been an utter menace to society... just not a
>very bright one :).
>
>        This has revealed an interesting flaw in the chargen system;
>basically, you can rack up an insane score on skills if you get lucky or
>keep it up long enough.  Frankly, I have no idea what Fencing 12 is
>supposed to represent.  And, under any task system that multiplies stats,
>it results in an insanely high target number.

I can see an easier fix... nor more than two rolls per table per term.
Assuming you roll skills. (I require players to roll all but one of their
skill reciepts per term... that last one they may pick or roll). None of my
players have really concentrated their skill rolls on one particular table,
especially the Pers Dev.

The aging rules, too, can cause problems, as in 1.25 terms, you can gain 5
skills/atts, and lose up to 3 to 4 points. All the way out. And, at 35-39,
the aging save is 3+??? Really??? I think not steep enough for play
ballance. T4's aging rules, while providing good expected ages, need a cap
on how much you can per unit time per attribute and/or skill, not caps on
skill levels.

Now, by limiting to two rolls on pers dev per term, we get a max physical
gain of +2 per term (yes, I know, there are some bonuses available
elsewhere), or +2.5 per aging interval, and a max loss of 4 per aging
interval. Gee, lookit Arnold Swartzenegger....

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1576
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1577



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re Catholic Church (longish)
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re: An apology
Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources
Re: RoM TL Vote
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Dark Ages Trade
FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!
Re: Refueling question
Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra
Spreading technology (was Re: RoM TL)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:05:33 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re Catholic Church (longish)

>From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
>>From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman) also wrote
>
>>Yes, where is the catholic church in M0 and 3I? Lots of interesting
>>adventures could be spun around pope assasination plots, theft of =
>relics,
>>pope banning research into jumpgate for weird reasons, the church
>>laundering credit for the Interstellar Coke Cartels etc.
>
>I was wondering about this, too.  I even went so far as to
>inquire of a Roman Catholic friend as to how the Church hierarchy
>would maintain itself on planets that were cut off from contact
>with the Vatican.  Still waiting for an answer; if there's
>interest, I'll post when I get it.

In my humble opinion, strongly shaped by many afternoons hanging with the
priests, deacon-brothers, and brothers (My father was the permanent
diocesan deacon assigned to an otherwise Dominican parish) discussing
philosophy, religion, and the Catholic curch:

Catholocism will probably be around, with not the 22 rites of today, but
probably some 200+ rites. (See notes and terms, below) Each christian sect
that the church encounters, and has the same dogma (See terms, below) will
be invited so seek union. Usually, this results in a new rite within the
church, and a scism within said religion. Because of the difference of
rites, the church can be seen better (currently) as 22 diferent religions
with common dogma, all united under the Pope.

Just for reference here are the ranks within the church
Hierarchs:
        Pope
        Other Patriarchs
        Cardinal (including Cardinal, and Deacon-Cardinal)
        Arch Bishop/Metropolitan
        Bishop/Eparch
        Auxilary Bishop
Regular Clergy (Priesthood/Presbyterate):
        Monsignor/Archpriest/ProtoPresbyter
        Priest/Presbyter
Deaconate:
        Arch Deacon
        Deacon
        Sub-Deacon
Non-ordained Clergy
        Brothers, Sisters, Nuns, Lay Ministers

Not all rites use the all the ranks. Almost all the rites have both ranks
of the priesthood, and all rites use Bishop, Archbishop/Metropolitan.
Almost all rites have Deacons, many have Archdeacons and subdeacons; Note
that I refer to common useage; ALL priests have been Deacons (for at least
a few months) during the seminary, and most have been Sub-deacons. All
hierarchs are also Priests.

Many hierarchs have never served as lower ranked hierarchs; theynare almost
all priests before consideration; the few deacons who have been elevated to
the hierarchy have been ordained as priests during the elevation. In
theory, a layperson could be elected pope, they would be ordained then
installed. It hasn't happened in 1800+ years.

Roles of the Clergy:
Deacons: Assist the priesthood during the Divine Liturgy, Teach, and
sometimes Preach (depending upon rite, and the local bishop). Note that
Deacons are ordained to Read the gospels and be Euchaistic Ministers.
Deacons cannot lead the Divine Liturgy, nor hear confessions. They cannot
consecrate the Eucharist, but may lead Euchaistic services with previously
consecrated Eucharist.

Priests: Consecrate the Eucharist during the Divine Liturgy, Preach, Teach,
counsel, and administrate. Hear Confessions. Perform last rights.

Hierarchs: Administrate, and keep the parishes and dioceses they are
responsible for teaching the correct theology AND dogma.

Abbots, Priors, Abbesses, Prioresses, Mother General, Mother SUperior:
these are all titles for those who run an abbey, priory, nunnery, or
cloister, be it male or female population. Abbots and Priors are usually
priests, as well, but not always. They are the administrative and spiritual
leaders of these communities.

Vicar Genereral & Vicar: Someone acting for another; usually a priest
acting as the "1st officer" to a bishop or archbishop.

Some other Notes:
The two largest rites are the Roman and Byzantine Rites. Byzantine Rite
Catholocism is very very conservative, and looks to keep the ways of the
church (except for language in daily and weekly liturgies) as they have
been. Byzantine Catholocism has 24 recensions (ethnic sub-rites) which
share a common theology, set of liturgies, and liturgical musics, but
different languages and layouts.

Roman Catholocism is the one that is OFFICIALLY designated to be the rite
which will change to keep up with the times. Right now, this has caused
some problems, namely (Ex-)Archbishop Lefevbre and his followers. Rome is
still working on doing exactly what Lefevbre wanted: creating a new Rite
which adheres to the pre-vatican II expression of Roman Catholocism.

The church keeps on expanding, too: In the works at the Vatican, the
approval process is ongoing for 3 new rites. One is an African rite, which
will be tailored around the african expression (ne, recension) of Roman
Catholocism. The other two are for some of the groups working on Re-union
with Rome: Episcopalian and Lutheran Rites. These two, as Episcopalian and
Lutheran Priests, Parishes, and in at least one case a whole diocese,
trickle over to catholocism, they will be able to maintain their
theological and liturgical identities.

Age of the Catholic Church as a Whole. Catholics trace their religious
lineage of leadership back through St. Peter the Apostle, and through the
Apostles, to Judaism. Different rite have differing views on the "Old Law",
that of the old testament. Also, the early formations of what would become
the catholic church had Deacons, Priests, and Bishops as early as 100 AD,
based upon some roman historians, and records of the various sects.
Orthodoxy also traces it's roots back then. Many catholic historians and
theologians place the orthodoxy scism around 300 AD; the official
excomunications were around 1000 AD, by which point, the Byzantine rite had
been readmitted! Some really good historical ideas in church histories,
excellent for fantasy settings, and even useable in traveller.

- -----
In traveller, some suggestions:

Most Rites will have:
        1) Married Priests (Most rites do now... Only 2, including the romans,
                do not)
        2) Married Deacons (All current rites have married deacons)
        3) Females in the Priesthood and Deaconate
        4) VERY conservative outlooks on Right vs Wrong. The 10 Commandments
                are in the Bible.
Many Rites will have Some female hierarchs; I think that, in another 3000
years, we may see an Acknowledged female pope. We might also see some
maried Hierarchs.

Each planet with a catholic presence will tend to have one rite present,
some will have 2, or (Rarely) 3 or more. Each such planet will have a
"Nuncio", who is the papal representative, and most with significant
populations will have a cardinal (but he goes to Rome)

Most rites currently present or in the works will be present amongst the
stars, and will have a patriarch as their head. Small rites (1 planet or
smaller) will have an Archbishop as their head. Cardinals don't run
things... they go to rome. Most rite with a patriarch will also have a
cardinal or two, or more, depending upon size and influence. Most off-earth
rites will have the patriarch roughly in the center of their rite's
strongest areas.

Many rites will have a Senior Archbishop for a given world, and then normal
structure there-down.

Normally, a Bishop has a small city and it's surrounds, and this is called
a Diocese; An arch-bishop has a diocese of his own AND had "feudal vassal"
dioceses under him. Auxillary Bishops are assigned to run sections of large
diocese, or to function as administrators, and the ready replacement for
the Bishop.

Any worlds cut off from contact with rome will appoint a Synod of Bishops,
and eventually a Patriarch... So, early in M0, the Patriarch of Sylea (and
the Sylean Rite) should be looking for other worlds to reunite with.
Patriarchs for Ecumenical Councils. These EC's can do almost anything the
pope can do. They can do almost anything the college of cardinals can do,
except elect a pope. Some would elect a "demi-pope",

Religious profiles should be done by RITE or Order, not for the whole
shebang, because each can be quite varied. Here are some Guidelines,
though:
        God View: 4-8, with individuals rangine 3-9. If dualist, then the
        second, evil deity is Satan. If Rational Poly Theists, they will be
        generally an ignorant society, converted recently, or backsliders

        Spiritual aim: 6-7, with some persons at 1

        Devotion Required: 6 (weekly), although technically, to be catholic
        it is only 12 (annually) as a minimum.

        Organizational Structure: 1-4, although some groups will technically
        be in the range of 0-8, depending on contact with rome and local
        factors

        Liturgical Formality: Most will be 6-8, with wome groups being in
        the 3-10 range

        Missionary Fervor: 3,6,9, or A. A Theologian, in response to a Traveller
        inspired question (an Aslan wanting to convert!) wrote to rome with the
        following question:
                Dou you have to be human to be a member of the Catholic Church?
        and got the following response:
                "...you must be a Reasoning, Intelligent being, capable of
                understanding the Sacraments.
                "Why do you ask?"
                [signed]"John Paul II"
        [from a letter from Pope John Paul II to Fr. John Fearon, OP. quoted
        from memory. Fr. John showed this to myself and the player who had
        origionally asked the question, who just happened to be Jewish. Fr.
John
        though it was an "Interesting Question, deserving of an answer."]
        Certain groups, however, would fall into the 4 or 7 ranges (tolerant of
        some other races).

        Number of Adherants: Varies, but any rite would be at least code 4
        (tens of thousands) and most recensions (ethnic sub-rites) would be
code
        4. Some rites could get as high as code C (trillions), and in M1100,
        I suspect the Roman and Byzantine Rites would push the C Scale.

As for Recognizability, Most Byzantines would probably recognize the
Byzantine Rite of the 4000's to 5000's, as the Byzantines are fixated on
preserving the rite as it has been.  Most Romans would probably NOT
recognize the Roman Rite of the Imperial Era, but would recognize that it
is similar.


Also, Don't expect to see too many Roman Catholics in the Marches... I
figure that we'll see Lutheran Catholics (Sword Worlds), and probably
Denebian and Moran Rite catholics. I figure that there will also be a few
others around, and, wherever there are catholics, there go 5 orders as
well:
Dominicans      (OP)    Order of Preachers
Jesuits         (SJ)    Society of Jesus
Fransican       (OFM)   Order of Friars Minor &
                (SSSF)  School Sister of St. Francis
                (PC)    Poor Clairs founded by St. Francis
Holy Cross      (CSC)   Congregatio Sacta Cruces
Benedictine     (OSB)   Oder of St. Benedict
- -----
Terms and definitions:

Eucharist: The Bread and Wine, after they have been consecrated. Once
consecrated believed to be manifestations of Christ's own Body and Blood.
See Dogma, Transubstantiation. Also know as Communion.

Dogma: That which must be belived to be a Catholic. Set by the Papacy with
the consent of the college of cardinals.
        1) Christ has 2 indivisible natures, both god and man
        2) The Transubstantiation of the Eucharist
        3) That there is One God, in Three persons: The Father, The Son, and
        the Holy Spirit (aka Holy Ghost)
        4) The Resurection of Christ
        5) that God created the heaven and the earth*
        6) the Forgiveness of sins*
        7) The resurection of all at the end times to face judgement
        8) that some are so holy in life that they go straight to heaven
        (saints), and that they can talk to god on your behalf.
        9) that Christ ascended into Heaven under his own Power.
       10) That Mary was a Virgin, and was assumed into heaven Body and Soul.
       11) Life Everlasting (Life after Death/Heaven)*
       12) THe Seven (or more) Sacraments**
       13) that the Bible is INSPIRED BY GOD***
        * These ones I feel will be allowed freer interpretations than
        currently allowed.
       ** Currently there are seven, more MIGHT be added, though I doubt it.
      *** Not, of necessity that it is the WORD of god without error, but that
        God inspired the authors to write God's word.

Theology: The particular body of belief, philosophy, and explanation of a
particular Rite which explains Dogma, and the liturgies, to the people of
that rite. Each rite's theology differs, some more than others.

Transubstantiation: The verb indicative of christ placing his essential
nature into the bread and wine during the Divine Liturgy.

Roman Catholic: Common (but acceptable) misnomer for "Member of the Roman
Rite of the Catholic Curch"

Divine Litugy: The Eucharistic Consecration Service, where the Preists
Consecrate the Bread and Wine, and it Transubstantiates into the Body and
Blood. The Roman Rite's DIvine Liturgy is the Mass

Liturgy: Any ritual prayer with formalized standards by Rite.
        Mass: See Divine Liturgy
        Matins: Morning Prayers
        Vespers: Evening Prayers
        Hours: Prayers at other times in the day
        Nones: Midday Prayer, Archaic, still used in some orders.
        Eucharistic Liturgy: any service where the Eucarist is distributed
                Includes both the Divine Liturgy, and some other liturgies
                for use by Lay Ministers, Deacons, and priests (some rites
                have different ones for each category!)

Sacraments: Those actions deemed to be most pleasing to god:
        Baptism
        COnfirmation, where you swear to your faith publicly.
        Marriage
        Extreme Unction ("last rites", not just for the dying anymore)*
        Holy Orders/Ordination
        Communion (recieving the Eucharist)*
        Reconcilliation (Confession)*
        * can be recieved more than once under NORMAL circumstances.
        [NB: I have recieves Extreme Unction twice, both times immediately
                 prior to surgury. It is now for the Sick and Dying]

Orders: A group of individuals, who have a Papal charter, who live, pray,
and dress in a distinctive style. Most Orders are afilliated with one rite,
some with 2 or 3. Note that some orders have NO clerics (Deacons, priests
or hierarchs), and almost no hierarchs are members of Orders. Most orders
are also "monastic" in that they live in monasteries. Not all monasteries
are cloisters...

Cloister: A monastery that restricts entry to members of the clergy, and in
some cases, members of the order in question.

Monastery: A place of secluded residence for members of holy orders or
diocesan clergy.

Seminary: a place where persons take training for Ordination. Usually
priests will have attended seminaries.

Deacons, some notes, which apply to the deaconate as a whole:
        Permanent Deacons
                These men are not studying for the priesthood
        Transitional Deacons
                Those men who are studiing to become priests, and spend
                time as a deacon in preparation for the priesthood. Not ALL
                get ordained as priests.

Diocesesan Clergy: Those clergy who are not members of orders, and are
ordained by and for the local bishop into the priesthood and/or diaconate.
I cannot recall ever hearing of a Hierarch who was a member of a Holy Order
when Elevated.

Elevation: the ceremony where a priest is made a hierarch.
Ordination: the ceremony where a layperson becomes a member of the clergy.
        Subdeacons bedome Deacons
        Deacons become either archdeacons or priests
        Priests become Archpriests.

Some other orders:      Initals Notes
Felician                (CSSF)  Congregation of Sisters of St. Felix
                                Education & Nursing
Sisters of Mercy        (RSM)   Religious Sister of Mercy
Sisters of St. Anne     (SSA)   Sisters of St. Anne (assist jesuits)
Urusalan Sisters        ()      Education, especially girls.
Christian Brothers      (CB)    Education of Boys
SIsters of Providence   (CSP)   Hospitals and Nursing Homes
Alexandrian Brothers    (CFA)   Hosital & Health Care.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:40:01 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

JayStr writes:

>>Anyway the good news is
>> that FF&S should be coming soon.  My question is does anybody know how
>> extensively its been playtested or was it just thrown to the presses?
>
>Guess.
>
>Let's put it this way, it was given an extensive going-over by a 
>number of knowledgeable people (and some others like me) which was 
>roughly half completed when it went to IG for typesetting and 
>printing.  How much correction took place after the submission I 
>don't know, but as sent to IG it wasn't anywhere near ready.  This 
>wasn't Dave & Guy's fault...
>
>IMHO, of course.

   Let it be known that Dave and Guy will be held blameless if it comes
out looking like MegaErrata (MegaTraveller to some).  Even if they
turned something in to IG that looks like it was generated by a 6 year
old with a box of crayons and a black marker, it is up to IG to do the
final editing and determine if something is ready to be taken to the
printers.

   This is beginning to sound like the starship design system debacle in
the main T4 sourcebook.  God I hope not.  My prayers are with both Dave
and Guy.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 01:06:02 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: An apology

RFXn writes: 

>        After going through 105 emails from this list alone, I checked my 
>sent-mail folder and noticed I'd posted at least 5 messages that had 
>no relevance whatsoever to task system, character generation, RoM TL 
>or to any other subject discussed here.

   I'm sure you'll get back on topic soon.  :-)

>        I can only say that I haven't had any coffee today, ran out of 
>cigarettes 6 hours ago and generally felt lightheaded and delirious. 
>Even some of Harolds comments made me smile, so it must be pretty 
>serious. :P

   The subtle humor of some of my recent posts is lost on people who
aren't hyped up on caffeine and/or nicotine. 

>   Apologies to everybody I offended (and apples to the rest).

   None taken.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 01:36:41 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

Craig Berry writes:

>The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:
>
>  Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML
>  CT/MT publications by GDW
>  CT/MT publications by DGP or FASA
>  TNE
>  National Enquirer
>  All other pre-T4 Traveller publications
>  Non-Marc old fogies speaking ex cathedra on TML
>  T4

   My order would be as follows:

1) God says so.

2) A GDW publication says so (later versions taking precendence over
older ones).

3) An officially licensed publication other than GDW says so (later
versions taking precendence over older ones).

4) An author published by GDW says so (precedence given to actual GDW
employees).

5) An author published in an officially licensed resource says so.

6) A concensus of a Traveller fan organization (i.e. HIWG) says so.

7) A concensus of an Internet mailing list (i.e. TML) says so.

8) An unofficial (or declared unofficial by GDW) publication says so.

9) Rumor has it at the local gamestore...

   I did not put T4 into this list because Marc Miller is currently
rewriting it, thus the current set of books could end up being a
subgroup of #8 (declared unofficial by IG).

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 22:48:42 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: RoM TL Vote

> Currently the results are:
>
> 11-: 0
> 12 : 4
> 13 : 3
> 14+: 0
>
> Giving an average TL of about 12.5.

Waitaminit Andrew, when you posted your question you asked for the
*maximum* TL achieved by the RoM, not the average. The average TL would be
completely different from the average of suggested maximums.

And if this is the way you decide what the TL should be what's to stop
certain people from voting for a TL of 33 to get an "average" of 15?

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 01:59:30 +0000
From: "Nicholas Sylvain" <sylvain@ix22.ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:25:59 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity
> 
> So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on 098-198 on
> Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
> to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine inheritance?

Yes indeedy!  A very knotty problem, and likely to cause many hordes 
of lawyers to bill many hours and kill many trees.   However, unless 
the Baron is dumb as a post, a good will should dispense witj most of 
the difficulty.

> If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
> promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
> authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
> evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

I would say yes -- the action is in fact authorized by the proper 
authority, even if the person is not aware of that fact.   
Authorization is the key, not knowledge, IMO.


- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Sylvain (sylvain@ix.netcom.com) Your tour guide to Ohio's finest
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney           correctional accomodations! I can
Montgomery County, Ohio                  design a stay to meet your deeds!
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:49:34 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Dark Ages Trade

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 01:20:23 -0700 (PDT)
Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> writes:
>
>  Well, we went over this in depth not long ago, so I'll be brief.  While
>there is little written documentation on long distance trade, recent
>archeological work suggests that long-distance trade was common throughout
>the period refered to as the Dark Ages.  Vikings made a lot of money that
>way, for example - not all of them raped, pillaged, and plundered.
>

Dr. Clark,

   J.P. asked me to relay a post.

   J.P. considers it an anomaly that western culture is so myopic in its
worldview.  (I am not surprised in any way, shape or form.)  While trade
slowed in the Med during the period you mentioned, the Southern Sung were
trading with India, West Africa, Indonesia, and quite probably Northwest
Australia.  At the same time, accounts in Chinese literature give reference
to voyages to the West coast of North America (no archaeological proof here).
It doesn't sound to me like long distance trade on the planet was curtailed
in the period under discussion.

Leroy for J.P.,


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:27:18 -0700
From: Douglas <douglas@teleport.com>
Subject: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!

I thought of sending this on the humor list, but really it's more appro to our group!

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas R Glatz
PDG Computer Services

E-Mail: douglas@teleport.com
HTTP://www.teleport.com/~douglas/

Never anger a dragon, for they have found we are crunchy and go well with Brie...
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- ----------
From: 	announce@martianconsulate.com[SMTP:announce@martianconsulate.com]
Sent: 	Thursday, July 17, 1997 7:53 PM
To: 	douglas@teleport.com
Subject: 	Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -oOo- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
In case you were looking for a unique gift 
to surprise a special somebody in your life:

The Martian Consulate, L.L.C. offers a unique 
novelty gift: a land claim on the planet Mars! 

You can register a land claim in a your name or
another person's name and receive a beautiful 
11" x 14" Certificate of Deed Registration, 
Site Survey, and hand addressed gift card 
for only $29.95!! We have satisfied customers
in over a dozen countries on three continents!

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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -oOo- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:17:18 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Refueling question

>yes, H2O is a Mah-velous way to store H2. We can only presume that the
>reason that H2 is standard vs H2O is that the 'fuel purification' process
>produces lH2 at a very slow rate compared to the rate at which it needs to
>be dumped for the ship to jump.
>
>Better yet, store the stuff as lNH3, liquid ammonia:

I think water is better because as you extract the H2 you can breathe the
surplus oxygen.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:31:52 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Catholic Church in M:0 and beyond (was Re: Rule of Man/Terra

>>         A medieval-type scroll made of high-strenght plastics, with
>> molecular-level "text" (public verification keys) spread here and
>> there. Feels like pergament, stands up to almost any kind of
>> punishment. The basic text of the document is written on it, the same
>> text in more detail (with all revelant law texts) is stored on three
>> private-key signed TL 13 holochips imbedded in "paper".
>>
>>         Any naval base, embassy etc. has an extensive database of
>> high-ranking nobility's public keys, so verifying authenticity is
>> easy. Just boot that PDGP (Pretty Damn Good Privacy)... :)
>
>Why stop there?  Electronic paper!
>
>Looks like paper, feels like paper, acts like paper.  When fed into the
>proper machine can even
>be erased and re-written!  What cannot be re-written is the triple
>private key encryption (ala message above) stored in the micro-thin
>computer in the center. The keys can be verified with
>(again) the proper machine...
>
>Chris Olson

Wasn't this exactly what the first post stated?

>Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Content-Description: Card for Chris Olson
>Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf"

Could you please switch off those damned vcard.vcf attachments?
You've just sent something that will go directly to the trash to EVERYONE
on the list.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:18:02 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Spreading technology (was Re: RoM TL)

Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>:

> At 10:10 AM 7/17/97 +0100, Anders wrote:

I'll take that as a compliment, but Anders mightn't 8-)

> >The benefits are all for the lower-tech world as its TL approaches 
> >that of the higher.
> 
> Yes and no - the benefits feel greater to the low tech world all the way
> along, but for most of the period of tech level growth from zero to that of
> the high tech world, it benefits the high tech world out of proportion to
> what it costs them.  Figure - training a hundred doctors to the point of a
> medical tech takes a few years, and uses fairly cheap resources.  This then
> builds a very powerful caste of healers that need high tech medicines, and
> that can convince kings and lords to buy these drugs.

Good point that technology creates new demands.


> I envision a deliberate Imperial program to bring worlds up to "reasonable
> standards" early on.  Any world that is not specifically prevented from
> having this happen should probably be brought up to 2-3 tech levels below
> the Imperial average.

It's a good vision, but it will be somewhat blurred by other factors: 
for instance, my hypothetical banana republic at TL6/7 would be 
offering serious tax breaks to industrial concerns to relocate to my 
world, controlling high tech imports (just for the elite) and 
brutally repressing the peasants a bit.  I'd either gain TL as 
companies flocked cautiously to the world, without a ceiling, or 
remain isolationist in order to improve my control over the masses -- 
adding some feudal technocracy to my non-charismatic dictatorship, as 
it were.

There's also the question of who the TL8/9 worlds trade with, if most 
of their neighbours are of similar TL.  They too would press for 
worlds 2-3 TLs lower to export *their* goods to, partly offsetting 
the cost of high TL imports.  The political pressure would be 
immense, in many cases.

I suppose what I'm saying is that a "trickle-down" trade 11 to 9 to 7 
to 5 allows more people to benefit from trade.  The high tech gain 
because they don't need to invest so deeply (and make the starships 
by which trade operates), the mid tech can offset the cost of high 
tech by importing resources cheaply from low TL planets, and low TL 
planets can afford to buy from mid TL more cheaply than from high TL.

Pre-Industrial TLs would be a prime taget for improvement always.

> After all, Earth would be a hell of a market for
> Sylea today, and a hell of a competitor if they were dumb enough to let us
> get too much higher.  They want us to be a good market for TL12 fusion plus
> and grav vehicles, but they do not want us producing lots of goodies that
> someone might want instead of fusion plus and grav cars.

Except once we have the technology we can compete in some areas: 
software, for instance, or entertainment (using the high TL media).  
But broadly agreed.

> >That may mean that the Vilani control of 
> >technology artificially slowed the technological growth of new 
> >colonies, simply to have markets for high-tech goods.
> 
> I have no problem with that, I just think that they would want the tech
> levels to hover about TL8-9, if TL11 was what the Vilani Empire ran at.

I think they'd be keener to cap the TL at 8 or 9 than make sure 
everyone was at TL 8 or 9, especially in the later years of 
stagnation.  The Vilani were aware of the effect of "subject" races 
without inhibitions on scientific research getting their hands on 
high TL gear -- they kept J2 a military secret for many years as a 
result -- and would have acted to minimise TL advancement outside the 
old regions of Vland.

> True, true.  I do think, though, that the tech level spread on neighboring
> worlds should be closer than they now are.  It seems (to me) that two TLs
> or so is a good target.  This gives your military a clear advantage (about
> a factor of ten in my rules), your economy greater strength (about a factor
> of two in production), but makes them a good enough market to sell to. 

One thing you might consider is some modification of this based on 
likely trade routes.  If two worlds are on a jump-1 main, they will 
have very good reason to trade directly.  If one world is low-TL and 
a jump-1 main bypasses it, there will be much less incentive to 
cultivate that world.

I'd entirely agree that a couple of TLs is enough difference.

> Once they get technology to the level where you can afford to buy most of
> the high tech goods you want, then the need is much less.  Further, the
> grants, loans, and technology investments that were formerly given to you
> by the clever merchants (in exchange for land and so on) dry up about this
> point.

8-)

I imagine trade sanctions keep the treat of "nationalising" this 
industry at bay -- mostly.

> >I think all these mitigate against the spread of technology in 
> >Traveller, but obviously the extent of the effect is debatable...
> 
> I'd be glad to debate it, but I suspect our conclusions would be similar in
> broad, different in fine.  You raise some good points as to why there
> should be a significant spread, and I hope I have been convincing that the
> spread will be near that supposed ideal much of the time, because it is in
> the high tech world's interest for it to be.

Points well made and taken; in broad, as you say, I agree.

> This leaves the huge question of what the ideal spread actually is and
> should be.

I suspect a mixture of TLs, partly for political reasons, partly for 
economic ones.

And of course the Long Night would throw major spanners into the 
works, and the 3I was more technocratic, so worlds had major 
advantages in spending money on research rather than developing 
markets.

All IMHO,

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1577
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1578



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Dark Ages Trade
Re: Spreading Technology
Droyne in M:0
Religions in space
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Teleportation follies.
Re: FF&S ships this week?
Re : Refueling Question
Re: Shionthy Belt
Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...
Re: Refueling question
Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources
Re: Refueling question
Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...
Noble Lands
Re: Volker Greimann's site
FWD: Special offer for Traveller

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 04:01:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dark Ages Trade

  Yes, I agree that there was considerable trade outside of Europe during
the period known as the Dark Ages.  Thing is, nobody refers to those other
parts of the world as being in the Dark Ages - that's purely a European
reference.

  As for Eurocentrism, well, I teach my students about the various things
that come from Africa and Asia, particularly technological innovations
like gunpowder, the magnetic compass, and the like.  I also teach them
about stuff that comes from the European tradition, like ending chattal
slavery, railroads, and the like.  Eurocentrism doesn't fly with me,
though Eurobashing doesn't either.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 04:13:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

  As far as tech levels go for trade, what you want is a society that
develops to levels as close as your own as possible, not one that is
inferior.  Surprised?  Well, dumping stuff on inferior tech level peoples
seems like a good idea, but unless you are hell bent on extracting some
raw materials from them (which the higher levels of Traveller tech make
rather silly given fusion and such), they just will not have the money to
buy the stuff you are making.

  For examples, take a look at the trade patterns of any large
industrialized country today (Europe, North America, Japan).  The majority
of their trade, both import and export, is with other industrialized
nations, not the third world.

  Now, what this means for Traveller tech levels, I haven't a clue, but I
think most folks would agree that Traveller tech level variations between
planets is one of the odder things about the game.  Must be some
explanation other than economics, esp. for M1100.  Perhaps resource
exhaustion, but with fusion recycling is so much easier than flying to
another system in an expensive starship and buying new ingredients.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:09:31 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Droyne in M:0

Anders Backman writes:
>When did the Imperials actually encounter the Droyne? 

Depending on how close to Sylea the nearest Droyne world is they could have
known about then for a long time or meet them during the early part of the
1st Century.

>It must have been quite a shock to find a nonhuman race scattered on 
>different planets generally lacking in jumptech.

Presumably no one in the 3rd Imperium would bat an eye. First of all, they
may not even realize that the 'Andorites' of Andor are the same species as
the 'Fliegers' of Fliegerwelt and the Droyne of [some Droyne world somewhere
else]. If they did, they would  just assume that these had been moved around 
during the Siru Zirka or the RoM and simply lost their jump drive technology 
later. Once they found out that these aliens had lived on their planets for 
300 to 400,000 years, they would assume that they had been scattered by the 
Ancients just as humans had been (and I bet there are one or two other alien 
races that have been relocated by individual Ancients (plus a few more 
gengineering experiments (in my universe there is a species derived from
otters on a world in Urnian))).

What makes the scientific community conclude that the Droyne are a major race 
is the discovery that identical coyn sets appear on a number of different 
Droyne worlds simultaneously around -75,000. The conclusion is that one 
Droyne culture invented jump drive, spread the coyns, and then lost the jump 
technology again later. There are some problems with that theory (mainly 
because it isn't true), but that's the best explanation anyone can come up 
with (The truth is far to far-fetched to even be suspected, much less 
credited; remember that most of what we, the Traveller players and referees 
know about the Ancients is unknown to the people of Xharted Space  -  in 1110 
the theory that the Droyne and the Ancients are the same is just beginning to 
percolate through the scientific community Behind the Claw).

Btw. according to an article by Marc Miller in an issue of _Different Worlds_
the discovery that Droyne are a major race is made in 790.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:20:55 +0100
From: Nick Munn <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Religions in space

All of the following IMHO and not intended to cause offence to 
anyone.

The trends in religion are towards more prescriptive and more 
inclusive styles: "fundamentalist" religions become more rigid if 
anything and "liberal" ones much less so.

In Christianity the effect is to slow the pace of change in the Roman 
Catholic church to almost zero (in the opinion of friends who are RC) 
and make evangelical/charismatic groups very conservative within 
their core beliefs.  This is often held to be a reaction to the 
changing and frightening world (rather patronisingly, sometimes).

Liberal or syncretist elements are increasingly less rigid and less 
effective, and many are moving towards Humanism.  I ascribe this to 
the fact that Humanism's ethical basis in the West is derived from 
Christianity, and has developed the logical implications of it far 
beyond what the churches would countenance.  This is not to say that 
Humanism's ethical take is better, just that it is the driving force 
behind the modification of modern ethics.  To take a recent debate in 
the UK, gay elements in the Anglican (Episcopalian) church have 
borrowed their ethical standpoint from Humanism, while the opposing 
traditionalist/fundamentalist lobby employ a more prescriptive 
reading of the Bible and tradition.

Similar divisions exist in other major religions, including Judaism 
(orthodox/reform) and Islam ("We're not all terrorists"/"We should 
be militant"), and I think the process of division is a fundamental 
one.

In Traveller then, what will we have?  A few crackpot sects, for 
sure, but presumably some faiths which aren't so ludicrous.  Given 
the proliferation of some ethical values throughout the Imperium, one 
could assume a kind of "background" religion, which is:

o There may or may not be a God (probably only one if any)
o Good and evil are not always relative terms
o There are certain activities (slavery, murder) which are always 
  unacceptable and wrong

This would represent the default ethical position of an Imperial 
citizen (and coincidentally a late 20th century Brit), but have 
limited force in modifying behaviour.  Note the similarity between 
what the Imperium condemns in law and what Western Europe condemns... 
it's canon 8-)

Liberals would hold stronger beliefs (or lack of them!) along similar 
lines, usually quite general ones like "good relationships are 
fundamental to human life"; they would be more keen on applying them 
than the average citizen.

Fundamentalists could hold almost any belief, with strong adherence, 
and could be seen to violate "standard" conceptions of right and 
wrong.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:26:30 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

Marc Miller wrote:

>In a message dated 97-07-17 21:58:48 EDT, you write:
>
><<   `Simultaneous' is not meaningless for widely separated events if they
>   >>
>This entire thread is the fabric of which adventures and stories are made.
>What other science fiction universe is discussing this sort of thing in
>detail?
>
>So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on 098-198 on
>Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
>to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine inheritance?
>


	Not neccessarily.  People have this habit of finding strange and
unusual ways of dying in circumstances that beggar belief and really
complicate things for their legal representatives and cause endless
hilarity to law students (ask me about _Trans-Quebec Helicopters_ v. _Heirs
of Lee_ or Hydro-Quebec_ v. _Girouard_ sometime).  So, the civil law (I
dunno about the common law, but I'd be surprised if it didn't have a
similar rule) came up with a rule that if two people died in such a way as
to make it impossible to determine who died first, they're deemed to have
died on the same date.  It's at art.616 para. 1 for those of you with
copies of the Civil Code of Quebec.

	This of course is assuming that for some insane reason the good
Baron died intestate.  I know zip-all about Imperial tax law, but here on
Earth your average High Net Worth Individual generally has an estate plan
done up so tight that it can not only handle, but even derive tax benefits
from, an alien abduction.

	Given the dating uncertainty inherent in life in the Imperium, I'd
suspect that there'd just be a rule that barring evidence that local
versions of Imperial time are badly out of sync, the Imperial time and date
of death is deemed to be the time of death for successions purposes.

	Not perfect, but it would keep the poor SOB's at the Office of
Calendar Compliance from being ritually humiliated during cross-examination
too often :).


>If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
>promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
>authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
>evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

	Hm.  Interesting.  Depends on what exactly was being proclaimed?
Just going on gut feelings, if it were empowering him to attack the Zhodani
or something like that and he didn't wait for it, I suspect he'd be in
trouble.  But if it were just regular legislation, I imagine that action in
accordance with it would be OK if it were after the date it came into
force...

	Acting outside of one's powers without knowledge that one is
empowered to do so strikes me as being the kind of thing a well-run
Imperium would seek to prevent.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:13:47 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Teleportation follies.

Doug Berry wrote:

>
>>	I just had this sudden vision of a bunch of people sitting sedately
>>around at a picnic, when all of a sudden...
>>
>><pop!>  WHOOOOooooooooosh Kaboom!
>>
>>	This whole thing is just too Pythonesque for words.
>>
>>	However, it's now convinced me that there IS a place for psionics
>>in my campaign.
>
>I cannot shake the mental image....  Imperial troops dug in, cautiously
>scanning over the ramparts, waiting for the Zhodani attack, when suddenly:
>
><pop!>
>
>WHOOOOOSH!
>
>Aiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (in Zhdatl, of course)
>
>as an entire battalion of Consular Guards goes flinging skyward....


	Naw.  <pop>KABOOOOM!

as an elite battalion of Zhodani EKESTT's (Elite Kinetic Energy Suicide
Teleportation Troopers) ports in from low orbit, with tanks of napalm and
nitroglycerin and big bags of finishing nails and rusty bits of metal
duct-taped to their uniforms.

	This would be worse even than relativistic rocks; at least frac-cee
asteroids are just dumb matter, and don't know what they're doing, and
don't know that it's incredibly impolite.  But sophonts, they should know
better: there'd just be no excuse whatsoever for doing that kind of thing :)

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:43:49 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: FF&S ships this week?

>   This is beginning to sound like the starship design system debacle in
>the main T4 sourcebook.  God I hope not.  My prayers are with both Dave
>and Guy.

Well, once again the TML has judged a product in 10 or so messages prior to
anyone on the list actually receiving said product.

I hope I'm not dangling flame bait by politely suggesting we wait until
someone has the item in hand prior to reviewing it.  With all due respect
to the playtesters who were not allowed enough time, even they did not
*see* the final product.

I also want to point out that with the designers actually being on the
list, the feedback-errata loop will be very short.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center
(617) 253-3185
brenton@psfc.mit.edu

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:43:51 -0400
From: Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re : Refueling Question

Hi All,

Nick Munn wrote -

> Energy taken to release the H2 is minimal compared to fusion
> powerplant output per mol: energy of an O-H bond in H2O is roughly
> 428 kJ/mol, so it takes twice that to dissociate an H2O molecule. If
> we assume we get no energy back from the 2H -> H2 and 2O -> O2
> processes (i.e. we only get heat, not work), then 1 mol H requires
> 428 kJ to produce.  =


You've made a few errors here, as far as I can see.

You split water in hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis.

Using decade-old A level chemistry I worked out the
following -

One Faraday is equivalent to 96487 Joules. If we are =

disassociating H2O by electrolysis, then one Faraday =

deposits one mole of Hydrogen at the  electrode. =

This means that 3,600,000,000 Joules ( 1 MJ per second =

i.e. one MW, for one hour ) evolves =

3,600,000,000 / 96487 =3D 37310.7 moles
of Hydrogen. Using 1.008 grams for a =

molar weight of H we get 37609.2 =

grams of Hydrogen. This is 0.537 m3 of Liquid =

Hydrogen per MW per hour.

Since Hydrogen accounts for 1/9th of water by mass, =

this 37609.2 grams must account for 1/9th of the =

input water. Thus we had 338482.8 grams or say =

338.5 kg of water to start with. That's 0.338 m3.

So to process 1 m3 ( 1000kg  ) of water requires =

1 MW for 2.95 hours and evolves 1.586 m3 of Liquid =

Hydrogen massing 111.11 kg ( i.e. 1000/9 ) and 888.8
kg of Liquid Oxygen with a volume of =

0.778 m3 for a total volume of 2.36 m3 of products.

> In an hour a 1 MW powerplant produces 3600 MJ =3D
> 8500 mol (say) =3D 8.5 tonnes of H2.

No way ! 8500 moles of Hydrogen is not 8.5 tonnes. =

1 mole of Hydrogen is 1.008 g, so it's
about 8.5 kg. But this figure is wrong anyway, =

so it doesn't matter :-)

> The FF&S draft gives 0.01 MW to purify 1 m^3 LH2 in 6 hours at TL8. =


0.01 MW for 6 hours is 0.01 x 6 x 3,600,000,000 =

Joules. That's 216,000,000 Joules total. This is equivalent to =

2238.6 mol of Hydrogen, or 2256.6 grams. This is about  =

0.03 m3 of Liquid Hydrogen, substantially
less than FF&S.

Is this correct ? Can FF&S ][ be so wrong ? If so, I will think long
and hard before buying it.

> I would calculate that as 0.01 * 6 * 8.5 tonnes =3D 0.51 tonnes =3D 7
> m^3, assuming zero overhead for pumps etc..  =


Again, your 8.5 tonnes figure is incorrect. It should be 8.5 kg =

by your calculations. This renders this calculation meaningless.

Andy Brick
exeus@compuserve.com
http://www.caco.demon.co.uk/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:46:40 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt

Volker Greimann writes:

>>>>Does anyone have any information on why the Shionty Belt is interdicted
>>>>other than that which is given in Adv 1: Kinunir.  Adv 1 says that it is

The most comprehensive reference I've found is a Library Data entry in the
_Beltstrike_ boxed module:

"SHIONTHY (Regina 0706 X-)))742-8): The large belt dominating this system is 
believed by many authorities to be the result of the destruction of a large
world by the Ancients. The presence of quantities of anti-matter in the belt
suggests a mechanism. Because of the anti-matter, Shionthy Belt is dangerous
to enter (the explosion resulting from contact with even a microscopic
particle can cause severe damage) and has been interdicted by the Imperium.
Before interdiction, Shionthy had already acquired a population of belters
searching for fragments of anti-matter, worth several million credits per
gram. Imperial law allows established populations to remain in a system
after interdiction and, despite periodic disasters  --  in addition to the
dangers of anti-matter, asteroids occasionally collide with each other in
this young belt  --  the population has grown. The inhabitants sell their
finds to the Imperium, which, despite the humanitarian concerns which led to
interdiction, finds the present arrangement too valuable to abandon."

_Secret of the Ancients_ has a map room in an Ancient base showing a planet
in the Shionthy system where the belt is now. There is a referee's note
stating: "Based on this evidence, it is logical to conclude (correctly)
that Shionthy was converted to an asteroid belt during the Final War."

Marc Miller replied:
>>>Shionthy Belt is where Grandfather tilted the Droyne homeworld into a pocket
>>>universe after the Ancient War. It's still there.

Volker:
>>Cool , i'll add that to my Ancients Site! What is the official source 
>>of this info?

Marc:
>Actually, I'm not sure there is a printed source. It might be in Secret of
>the Ancients. Otherwise, I suppose my email would have to be the source.

I thought I had caught you out here, but it seems not. _SotA_ speaks of three 
star systems previously located in hexes 0507, 0606, and 0707 in Regina 
Subsector that was pinched off by Grandfather into his residental pocket 
universe, but upon checking I find that none of them were Eskaloyt, the
Droyne homeworld. One of the systems were given to the Droyne faction that 
had supported Grandfather, but that dosen't mean that it was Eskaloyt. So 
Eskaloyt was another planet in the Shionthy System than the one that was 
destroyed and was tilted into a different pocket universe than Grandfather's 
Pad, is that right? Interesting. I've always thought that Eskaloyt was either
destroyed or identical to Andor.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:06:45 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...

At 22:10 17/07/97 GMT, Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
>I just sent a post to the Travlang list, and got back three error
>reports:
>
>1) Kenji, you subscribed at accessone.com; there appears to be no
>such domain - or at least that's what's being reported.
>
>2) Anders, the host that you subscribed from exists, but claims
>that there's no such person as anders.backman at that location.
>3) Plus, it had trouble contacting your host to start with.
>
	There was a big problem with the 'net yesterday. This is what happened
according to Computergram...

"Human error brought the Internet to a virtual standstill yesterday when the
InterNIC - effectively the Internet's address book - was lost by its
keeper, Network Solutions Inc. Any addresses with .com, .net or .org top
level domains were affected to some degree, which meant electronic mail
could not be delivered and Web sites were not accessible. Network Solutions
was working to repopulate its InterNIC database with new address
information as we went to press..."

	There is more, but this is the gist of it.

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:43:36 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

> The only drawback is that ammonia is a
> corrosive material

Not to normal iron & steel.  Sure, copper (as used in power and control 
cables) gets corroded as do a few other materials, but I would not 
describe ammonia as corrosive.

Mind you, I might describe ammonia as "corrosive" to humans (particularly if 
inhaled), which is may be what you are thinking off.

Liquid Ammonia (LAM, perhaps) can be conveniently stored at around -33 C at 
atmospheric pressure.

(I used to designed ammonia plants for a living)


I used to favoured ammonia as a storage mechanism for hydrogen - M-drives 
use the hydrogen as fusion fuel, the nitrogen as reaction mass (along with 
lots of other ammonia).

These days, if I start playing Traveller again, I would probably postulate a 
synthetic-zeolite storage medium.   Apparantly, in R&D on hydrogen-powered 
cars, you can store more hydrogen in tank filled with activated carbon than 
in an empty tank (well, empty except for the hydrogen!).  This is to do with 
hydrogen absorbing strongly on the carbon so that the atom density is higher 
than a high pressure gas can give you.  If we also take in some of the "cold 
fusion" theory about hydrogen absorbing strongly onto Palladium elctrodes, 
we could postulate a suitable lightweight material that can absorb hydrogen 
strongly.

I know traveller "canon" refers to L-Hyd, but I have yet to be convinced of 
the wisdom and practicallity of storing hydrogen at a few dergees above 
absolute zero on a starship.  I have never let that stop me from using L-Hyd 
as the strage mechanism in all of the Traveller games I've been involved in 
.. most PCs see it like refueling at the gas station and seldom give it a 
second thought until they want a nasty way to deal with hijackers ("I flood 
the passenger deck with L-Hyd").


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:06:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

In a message dated 97-07-18 09:05:59 EDT, you write:

<< >The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:
 >
 >  Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML

     Marc Speaking Ex Cathedra elsewhere?

>  CT/MT publications by GDW

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 07:53:30 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Refueling question

Anders Backman wrote:
> 
> >yes, H2O is a Mah-velous way to store H2. We can only presume that the
> >reason that H2 is standard vs H2O is that the 'fuel purification' process
> >produces lH2 at a very slow rate compared to the rate at which it needs to
> >be dumped for the ship to jump.
> >
> >Better yet, store the stuff as lNH3, liquid ammonia:
> 
> I think water is better because as you extract the H2 you can breathe the
> surplus oxygen.
> 

You'd probably vent it to space. There's enough oxygen on board 
already. The problem with breathing recycled air has more to do
with getting rid of carbon dioxide than with replenishing used
oxygen.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:30:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...

Please tell me how to subscribe to the TravLang List?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:30:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Noble Lands

This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).

Size	 Diameter 	 Circumference 	 Hex 	 HexArea 
0	 -   	 -   	 -   	 -   
1	 1,600 	 5,027 	 144 	 15,469 
2	 3,200 	 10,053 	 287 	 61,876 
3	 4,800 	 15,080 	 431 	 139,222 
4	 6,400 	 20,106 	 574 	 247,505 
5	 8,000 	 25,133 	 718 	 386,727 
6	 9,600 	 30,159 	 862 	 556,886 
7	 11,200 	 35,186 	 1,005 	 757,984 
8	 12,800 	 40,212 	 1,149 	 990,020 
9	 14,400 	 45,239 	 1,293 	 1,252,995 
10	 16,000 	 50,265 	 1,436 	 1,546,907

Social B or Higher	Knight
Social C	Baron, Baroness
Social D	Count, Countess
Social E	Marquis, Marquesa
Social F	Duke, Duchess

B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex generates an
income.
C gets a barony (of several) hexes and an income from those hexes.
D+ gets an override from knights and baronies under him/her.

I'd like input on 

1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
km?

2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

3. How many hexes do other nobles get?

I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
surveyed (and developed) etc.

Ideas. Thoughts. Comments?

Marc 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:35:55 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Volker Greimann's site

- -> Very nice, Volker. Thanks for the handy Ancients resource.
Thanks!
 
- -> Two small issues:
- -> 
- -> 1) I hate to act territorial, but I sort of coined the use of the term
- -> "Domain of Deneb" last April as the title of my own page located at :
- -> 
- -> http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml
- -> 
- -> I don't object to your use of the term (how could I since I hold no legal
- -> license to the name!) but there could be some brand confusion if people use
- -> our sites frequently. Just a thought.
Hmm, didn't know that.... 
I just chose the title to signify my preferenctial region for 
Traveller. Briefly before i called it Domain of VAG,, but figured 
that nobody would know what it meant... Maybe i'll change it to 
Kepper of the Flame later on.... I like the sound of that as well! 
(That's still free, isn't it?)

- -> 2) You might want to make the Imperial Sunburst in the upper lefthand
- -> corner a non-scrolling region. A scroll bar appears next to it which is
- -> slightly misleading. All a scroll attempt does is drop you down about three
- -> or four pixels.
Please, please help me with that. That's one thing that's annoying me 
as well, unend! When defining the Frameset, i put a line scrolling=No 
in there, but the  scollbar shows up all the same, no matter what i 
try....

Anyway, glad you liked it!
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:47:38 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

Here's something i have been asked to forward by Thomas Biskup (you 
might remember him, he was on the list a while ago)
Please don't send the replies to me but rather to this adress instead:
- -> Von:            willert <Holger@willert.e.eunet.de>


- -> Koenntest du vielleicht auf der Liste einen Hinweis auf die Teile
- -> fallen lassen?  Dafuer waere ich dir unglaublich dankbar.  Irgend-
- -> wie scheint unsere tolle Geschaeftsverbindung nicht ganz mit
- -> dem Server klarzukommen :-(  Fuer einen kleinen Hinweis auf
- ->     http://www.mag-net.de/FANEN/index.html
- -> und das Sammlerstueck waeren wir dir echt dankbar :-)
- -> 
- -> Ciao,
- -> 
- -> Thomas Biskup
- -> Webmaster Fantasy En'Counter
This won't make any sense to you all, so i'll explain....
Thomas told me that the store where he is webmaster has a limited 
quantity of the Limited Edition Traveller Aliens Hardbound (discussed 
on the list a while ago) which collects all the alien modules and 
alien realms as well. It was published with a worldwide total limit 
of 200 issues, all singed (ah, signed ;-) by MM himself.
For more info surf to the above website. Don't worry the relevant 
part is in English as well. 
So if this little treasure is stil missing in your collection, get it 
while supplies last (i already placed an order ;-)


Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1578
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1579



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Sector Data
Local Years
Aging
Re: FWD: Special offer...
Star Frontiers...
Re: Psioncs, Droyne, and M0
Re: Holidays
Land Grants
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Local Years
Re: Noble Lands
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
re: Catholic church
Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen
Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
ATTN: MARC MILLER (Re: T4 Character Gen MkII)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:48:54 GMT
From: "J." <Jonathan@hccm.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

Nicholas Sylvain wrote:
>> Marc Miller wrote:
>> So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on
098-198 on
>> Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
>> to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine
inheritance?
>>
>> If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do
something is
>> promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within
that
>> authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
>> evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?
>
>I would say yes -- the action is in fact authorized by the proper 
>authority, even if the person is not aware of that fact.   
>Authorization is the key, not knowledge, IMO.

I would say Baron Dinsha would be doing very little after that date,
except being buried of course :)

But seriously, I agree that it's legal, but is it a wise thing to do?
He would be acting on the assumption that he will be getting that authority,
I think thats a very dangerous assumption to make.

For example Baron Dinsha is waiting for the Emperor's permission to colonise
a new planet (or whatever), he sends a message asking for the Emperors 
permission that he knows will arrive on a certain date. The baron assumes
that he will gain the Emperors permissions and so starts his colonisation
a few days after the Emperor received the message. 
Legal? yes. 
Wise? Well, what if the Emperor finds out about the what the baron did,
I wouldn't be happy if I was emperor and a lowly baron had the nerve to
assume that I would give him permission.

Hmmmm, sounds like a good plot to me, the PC's could be sent with the message 
to the Emperor (or another powerful noble) and then sent back with a reply.
The 
Emperor then finds out about the Barons actions and decides to take action 
against him, but the real reason the Baron wanted to move so quickly was to 
provide food for the starving population of a nearby planet.
A squadron of navy cruisers complete with a detachment of marines arrive to 
remove the baron and the other "illegal" trespassers. Will the PC's fight,
surrender or even try and convince the Marine commander that the baron is 
right? 

I'm off to write this down somewhere.........

J.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:06:07 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Sector Data

I know it has been a while (29th may) since you posted the list of 
sector names, but I've only just got round to comparing them with the 
list from Steve Bonneville (bonnevil@cs.umn.edu), which I assume I 
pulled of a web page Q1 this year.

Just one spelling error in your list:

26 Un'k!!'ng  K'kree name

should read

26 Un'k!!k'ng  K'kree name

I knew there was something missing when I tried to pronounce it :-).

Steve's list includes semi-official/HIWG/suspect names for several 
other sectors not on your list.


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:10:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dedly@aol.com
Subject: Local Years

With all the talk going on about the Imperial Calendar, I was wondering how
everyone deals with local "years." Obviously, only a few worlds are going to
orbit their sun(s) in 365 days. If we are to use our own solar system as a
guide, then we can take those values appropriately, i.e. All worlds in orbit
3 (Earth) orbit their star(s) in 365 days (rounding off) while those in orbit
1 (Mercury) orbit their star(s) in 88 days (if my memory is still working).

Why am I concerned about this? Well, I like to add a bit of seasonal variance
in climate (weather hazards) whenever possible. If this is already covered in
a previously released book, please forgive me. It's not in any that I own. 

Thanks!
\_/
DED

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:23:13 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Aging

Somebody mentioned the aging rules (I think it was peter)...

Roll 2d6 + applicable modifiers (modifiers may be ignored if desired)

Roll    Aging Save Bonus             Modifiers Table
15+     +5 (Vilani Long Lived)       +1 Homeworld within First Imperium
14      +4 Pure Vilani               +1 HW w/in Vland Domain
13      +3 Notably Vilani            +1 HW w/in Vilani Cultural Region
12      +2 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW w/in 20 pc of Vland
11      +1 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW has Vilani sounding Name**
9-10    +0 Mixed Vilani              +1 HW has gov't type 1 or 9
5-8     +0, assorted creoles      -1/-2 HW w/in Solomani Confed Borders*
2-4     +0 Mixed Terran              -1 HW has obviously terran name**
(-5)-1  +1 Pure Terran               -2 HW within Solomani Rim
<(-5)   +2 Long Lived Terran         -1 HW Outside 1st Imperium
                                    -PS if character has Party Standing
stat***

I LIKE IT

A mod I use, as a bonus against aging is (TL-7)/2

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:18:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer...

Yes, I saw an announcement in a newgroup a few days ago...

Limited special edition offer in the Fantasy En'Counter!!!

          THE TRAVELLERS' AID SOCIETY ALIEN ENCYCLOPEDIA
          ----------------------------------------------

This limited special edition (200 items printed for world-wide sale)
includes all the alien supplements for the Classic Traveller Series
produced by GDW.  Descriptions for the following races of the Traveller
universe thus are included:
        * Aslan
        * K'kree
        * Vargr
        * Zhodani
        * Droyne
        * Solomani
        * Hivers
        * Darrians
As a bonus the Alien Realms Supplement is included.

On more than 400 pages you will find the collected heap of information
from those long out of stock supplements.

Each book produced by IBR Productions is available as a hard cover
bound in leather imitate, and is numbered and hand-signed by Marc
W. Miller, the creator of the Traveller universe.  It costs 250 german
marks.

The first twelve orders will also receive a free Traveller T shirt.

A truly unique item considering it's low print run and the wealth
of information included.

Get it now from Germany from
                htpp://www.mag-net.de/FANEN/index.html
or
                EMail: FanEn@willert.e.eunet.de
or
                Tel.: +49 0201 786877
or
                FAX:  +49 0201 797410

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CUSTOMERS FROM NON-EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: Due 
to the high shipping costs we can't mail this offer to the USA or similar
countries but if you are going to visit GEN CON this year we still
might be able to make a deal if you are willing to meet us face to face
:-)  Consider this and call now!

Thomas Biskup
Webmaster Fantasy En'Counter

Note that he says that he won't mail it to NA! Waaah! And as much as
I'd love one of these babies, I ain't going to GenCon to get one...

Thomas, have mercy! Please, say you'll ship to Canada at least!
BTW, 250 marks is about $190 CAD or $137 USD - wow! Er, then
again Thomas, don't worry... I'll go buy a new couch instead.

Ethan
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:28:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ethan Henry <ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com>
Subject: Star Frontiers...

Actually, this is mroe about the Star Frontiers mailing list really...
Anyways, for those who remember this reasoanbly-decent game from
TSR, there's a mailing list at:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~roymeo/StarFron/listserv.html
which is actually a web page with instructions and an archive
of the material. I skimmed a couple months of postings yesterday 
and was amused at the topics they were discussing...

 - how exactly does the handwaving interstellar drive work?
 - say, couldn't you just drop a big rock real fast on a planet
    instead of using expensive troops, bombs, etc?
 - say, how do those damn maneuver drives work without reaction mass?

etc, etc. Luckily for them were only ever a handful of Star Frontiers
books published (and I think I have most of them, oddly enough...) so
they don't get to enjoy long debates on what is and isn't "canon".

Anyways, the only other item of note was the presence of one 
Pierre Savoie (did I spell that right?) who may be familiar to
readers of rec.games.frp.misc, but I don't think I'll get into
that...

Anyways, kind of interesting, but of course, Traveller is way
cooler. ;)

Gossip-boy
- -- 
ehenry@magma.ca                                  http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:31:09 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Psioncs, Droyne, and M0

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> >Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:18:37 +0000
> >From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@pop.goodnet.com>
> >Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes
> >
> >> 2. Why are the Droyne missing from the alien effects table?
> >
> >Because its a Milieu 0 sourcebook. The Droyne are unknown in that
> >era.
> >
> >Suz
> >
> 
> Looking at GDW's AM 5: Droyne, I find SS N of Dagudashag, and in SS J of
> Massilia are Droyne worlds... Really close to the borders of M0 Imperial
> Space. A MAJOR oversight there...

But GDW's AM 5 is set in 1100. Were those worlds Droyne worlds in Year
0, or were they colonized later?

Or maybe those worlds in M:0 were filled with Chirpers who received
coyns and casted later?

Or maybe no one bothered to check who's living on those worlds, or even
realized that Droyne were anything more than a minor race?

Or they didn't even realize the Dagudashag Droyne and the Massilia
Droyne were the same species?

- -- Glenn Hoppe

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:32:13 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Holidays

Eamon Patrick Watters wrote:
> 
> How about 'Jump Day' celebrating the first time a 'foolhardy' Villani
> made a Jump to one of their STL-Colonized worlds?

Somehow, a holiday on which Vilani celebrate technological advancement
doesn't feel right. Vilani are too technologically conservative.

> 'Contact Day' when the Villani met their first sentient aliens?

That's a good one. I'm sure that most, if not all, races have their own
"Contact Day" celebrations.

> Also, seeing that the Third Imperium sets great stock from being
> descended from the First and Second Imperiums - 'First Imperium Holiday'
> and 'Second Imperium Holiday'.

The Vilani could well have a holiday celebrating the founding of Ziru
Sirka. I'm sure they'd rather forget the Ramshackle Empire.

I bet many Vilani at the founding of the "Third" Imperium, actually call
it the "Second". Ultra-orthadox Vilani don't recognize it as being a
successor to the First at all.

> I can already see the fights breaking out between the Villani and
> Solomani PC's - joy!

The Vilani, being on the whole a traditional lot, may have many holidays
of varying importance. Maybe every day is some holiday or day of
reflection upon some aspect of Vilani tradition. On most, work goes on
as usual. Some holidays are specific to a particular trade or social
class. Each individual may have personal days of celebration and
reflection.

Galanglic translation often omits the word "day", or prefixes the word
with "day of". In the Vilani language either an affix or a tone denotes
whether the word refers to the day or the concept. Here are some of the
most important Vilani holidays, in roughly decending order of
importance:

General Holidays (Celebrated by Most)

(Day of) Founding - One of the most important Vilani holidays,
Celebrating the founding of the Bureaux.

Contact - The day upon which Vilani reflect upon the awe and wonder of
discovering that they are not alone.

Shugili - A day of reflection and comemmoration of the most influential
class of workers, without whom the Vilani people would have surely
perished.

Memorial - A day of remembrance of those who gave their lives for the
good of the Vilani people. Perhaps each war has its day of remembrance.

Ziru Sirka - The founding of the first interstellar empire is an
important source of cultural pride.

Gods' Death - The actual day is lost in antiquity, but the
tradition-minded Vilani are sure to comemmorate the day upon which the
machines which menaced early Vilani finally ground to a halt.


Trade Specific (Celebrated by a Trade)

First Worker - Celebrates the mythical or semi-mythical first
practitioner of the trade.

Many other holidays celebrating important people or events in the
practice of the trade. (A "Jump Day" might fall here for the Engineering
profession)


Personal Holidays (Celebrated by the Individual, and his circle of
friends and relatives)

Vocation - More important than any other day in a Vilani's life is the
day s/he chose a Vocation, the lifelong commitment to a trade.

Birthday - (Why not?)

Other various day celebrating Parents, Children, Ancestors (in general),
specific famous Ancestors, the Family, etc.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:40:38 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: Land Grants

> I can envision this folding nicely into PE, especially for balkanized
> worlds....
> 
> >1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? 
> 
> What I would prefer to see is a range of possibilities.  Farm land,
> grazing land, ore producing mountains, rivers filled with fresh water
> fish.  
> 
> >2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?
> 
> It would be cool to see something akin to an empire building game.
> Improvement would depend upon terrain type. In effect, the noble could
> become a governor, or maybe choose credits instead?
> 
> Grasslands > Farmlands > irrigation for instance
> 
> Other Improvements:
> Roads/Subways/Maglev
> Library/College/University/Military Academy
> Powerplants
> Factories/Manufacturing Plant
> Spaceport
> Labs
> Hospitals
> Fortress/Military Complex
> 
> >3. How many hexes do other nobles get?
> 
> Should depend on relative worth of the planet involved.  
> 
> Worth would be based on:
> Distance from Core
> Distance from Main Corridor (Jump1)
> Population (Less land on more populated world)
> Tech (Less land for higher tech level)
> The capability for population (More land on a asteroid, for example)
> Indigenous, unique life forms
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Scott
> 
> knyghte@msn.com
> 
> 
> 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:38 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

>For example Baron Dinsha is waiting for the Emperor's permission to colonise
>a new planet (or whatever), he sends a message asking for the Emperors
>permission that he knows will arrive on a certain date. The baron assumes
>that he will gain the Emperors permissions and so starts his colonisation
>a few days after the Emperor received the message.
>Legal? yes.
>Wise? Well, what if the Emperor finds out about the what the baron did,
>I wouldn't be happy if I was emperor and a lowly baron had the nerve to
>assume that I would give him permission.

The clever bastard Norris did just that when dubbing himself archduke
despite Strephon hadn't yet done so. The Strephon assassination came in
between and Norris simply igored the error.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:56:16 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Local Years

>Why am I concerned about this? Well, I like to add a bit of seasonal variance
>in climate (weather hazards) whenever possible. If this is already covered in
>a previously released book, please forgive me. It's not in any that I own.
>
>Thanks!
>\_/
>DED

I calculate the length of the year for each planet/moon (act tually my
HyperCard stack does it for me - Mac users wanting it can drop me a line).
Then I calculate the planetary positions based on Year 1000 with a random
0-360 degrees added and noted to give each planet a consistent year. I
generally calculate planetary positions not for seasons but for travel time
and tactical considerations during intrasystem travel.

Referees new to this should bear in mind that while being realistic it
takes away some plotline freedom (Jung managed to flee in an old chemical
rocket OTV as the planets at the time were in perfect Hohmann positions).
The advantage is that it gives more realsim and continuity to Traveller and
by adding constraints to me (the ref) it actually adds plotline hooks (the
PCs enter a system and find that most planets line up towards the sun - The
ref starts spinning on Doomsayers cults running rampant on the world
hindering starport traffic etc).


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:47:33 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).
> 
> 1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
> km?
> 

In your example you imply that knights (soc = 11) get income. I don't
think this is the case. Are knights awarded fiefdoms?

In the old Trillion Credit Squadron book there were rules on calculating
the tax revenue generated by a planet. Unfortunately I'm at work 
(and, strangely enough, don't have my Traveller stuff here). I remember
that the revenue came down to a simple formula. I've always thought
that system was elegant.

I suggest implementing a similar system. How about a formula like this:

    Annual Income Per Hex = size x hydro x pop x gov x TL x (soc - 11)

where the first five variables are from the UWP and soc is the noble's
social standing.

For example, if I'm a Baron (SS = 12) on a world with UWP A867987-8, my
annual income amounts to Cr32,256.

Here is my logic, strange as it may seem.

Size, hydro and pop are variables because they directly affect the 
population density, which must affect revenue generated for a hex.
Tech Level is there because higher TL worlds should generate more
revenue per hex than lower ones would.

Government is present because, arguably, lower governments have less of
a "need" for nobles and will be less inclined to pay for one. I find
it easier to believe that a charismatic dictatorship would pay for a
noble (maybe just to pay him to never visit and to mind his own 
business) than a company/corporation.

Social standing is a factor so that higher level nobles get more money.

I'm sure there is room for improvement in this formula, so my TL15
fireproof Battle Dress is on now.

> 2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?
> 

The TL factor included in the above formula takes this into account.

> 3. How many hexes do other nobles get?
> 

How about:

	B doesn't get hexes because knights, ASAIK, don't get fiefdoms.
	C gets one hex.
	D gets 10 hexes.
	E gets 100 hexes.
	F gets 1000 hexes.

> I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
> Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
> have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
> surveyed (and developed) etc.
> 

Excellent idea. To extend this further: once surveyed, the land may
still not generate revenue. If it is unpopulated, it must be developed
first. If it is populated, there should be a chance that force may 
be necessary to convince the local population that they need a noble.
Hmmm, adventure thread.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:15:52 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

Correction to my previous post.  I got the exchange backwards or something.
The price for the Alien compilation is $137 USD.

Expensive, but much better than $450.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:19:56 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: re: Catholic church

There has been married priests, popes etc.

During the Renaissance, it was quite common

Then the church finally decided to start obeying its own  rules

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:10:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen

In a message dated 97-07-18 11:56:31 EDT, you write:

<< 
 The aging rules, too, can cause problems, as in 1.25 terms, you can gain 5
 skills/atts, and lose up to 3 to 4 points. All the way out. And, at 35-39,
 the aging save is 3+??? Really??? I think not steep enough for play
 ballance. T4's aging rules, while providing good expected ages, need a cap
 on how much you can per unit time per attribute and/or skill, not caps on
 skill levels.
  >>

The draft aging table from T41:

AGING
Age	34+	50+	66+
Strength	-1 if 7-	-1 if 8-	-2 if 8-
Dexterity	-1 if 6-	-1 if 7-	-2 if 8-
Endurance	-1 if 7-	-1 if 8-	-2 if 8-
Intelligence	--	--	-1 if 8-
	Education and Social Standing are unaffected by aging.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:23:26 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

>In a message dated 97-07-18 09:05:59 EDT, you write:
>
><< >The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:
> >
> >  Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML
>
>     Marc Speaking Ex Cathedra elsewhere?

So if Marc is in the Cathedral it doesn't count?


:)

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:13:09 -0400
From: "Peter H. Brenton" <brenton@psfc.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

>Thomas told me that the store where he is webmaster has a limited
>quantity of the Limited Edition Traveller Aliens Hardbound (discussed
>on the list a while ago) which collects all the alien modules and
>alien realms as well. It was published with a worldwide total limit
>of 200 issues, all singed (ah, signed ;-) by MM himself.
>For more info surf to the above website. Don't worry the relevant
>part is in English as well.

Thanks for the info Volker, but to save a little bandwidth, the item goes
for 250 German Marks, which, using an exchange rate of 1.79 (last time I
checked) gives USD $447.50.

It is also important to note that, unless you are attending GenCon, they
will not ship outside Europe.  There is a note that, since they will be at
GenCon, a deal can be made to meet up there.  I suppose anyone willing to
spend $450 on a game supplement would be going to GenCon...or would spend
the extra $220 or so for an airline ticket.

That said, the book contains all the alien modules from Classic Traveller
(8 in all) plus Alien Realms.  Each is about $12 cover and more like
$20-$30 for the rare ones, so if you got them all the 'hard way' you'd
likely  pay well over $150 USD or so after much searching, if you could
find them all.

Pete

Peter H. Brenton
"Shiela-X where are you"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 97 18:08 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: ATTN: MARC MILLER (Re: T4 Character Gen MkII)

In-Reply-To: <memo.401243@cix.compulink.co.uk>

[AOL is being very choosy about who it wants to listen to ATM, but you seem to be 
getting the TML OK, so I'm posting this here in case you didn't get it direct]

> > File a.
> >  
> > 1. Heroism Awards comment is out of date
> >  
> > File b.
> >  
> > 1. WHOAH! The EDU equivalents table is *very* wrong. An *average* EDU is 
> > equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree? I don't think so! Change to:
> >  
> > Value   Edu
> > 0   Instinctual
> > 1   Illiterate
> > 2   Basic Reading
> > 3   Grade School
> > 4   Ed Certificate
> > 5
> > 6   High School
> > 7
> > 8   Associate
> > 9   Bachelors
> > A   Masters
> > B   
> > C   Doctorate
> > D   
> > E   
> > F       
> >  
> > 2. Some school prerequisites are too low:
> >  
> > University: increase EDU to 8+
> > Naval A: increase EDU to 7+
> >  
> > Don't forget, 7 is the *average* EDU; universities only accept people educated 
> > enough to understand the course. 
> >  
> > 3. Waivers: roll is far too easy. Increase to *at least* 2.5D. If anyone can 
> > easily get a waiver, what's the point of having entry requirements in the first 
> > place?
> >  
> > 4. Military Heroism Awards: not enough different medals (most militaries have 
> > at least half a dozen), and civilians should be eligible too. Suggestion:
> >  
> > roll  military            civilian
> >  8    x Campain Medal[1]
> >  9    s Combat Medal[2]
> > 10    MCUF[3]
> > 11    MCG[4]              letter of commendation from Sector Duke[6]
> > 12    SEH[5]              Cleon Cross[7]
> >  
> > Notes:
> >  
> > [1] Indicates that the PC's unit/ship took part in a military campaign, whether 
> > or not he actually saw combat. All other decoration results award this as well. 
> > Prefixed by the name of the campaign (usually the name of a planet), eg 
> > Medishvlaas Campaign Medal.
> >  
> > [2] Indicates that the PC actually saw combat. Prefixed by service, eg Marine 
> > Combat Medal.
> >  
> > [3] The PC took part in one or more notable actions in a combat situation.
> >  
> > [4] The PC committed a single act of bravery in a combat situation.
> >  
> > [5] The PC committed a single act of extreme heroism in a combat situation. 
> > Whenever possible, the decoration is awarded by the Emperor in person. The PC 
> > will (2D years later) have a Naval warship named after him (and will be invited 
> > to the launching ceremony). Many SEHs are awarded posthumously.
> >  
> > [6] The (civilian) PC committed a single act of bravery.
> >  
> > [7] The (civilian) PC committed a single act of extreme heroismWhenever 
> > possible, the decoration is awarded by the Emperor in person. The PC will (2D 
> > years later) have an Imperial building named after him (and will be invited to 
> > the naming ceremony). Many CCs are awarded posthumously.
> >  
> > SEH and CC may also confer a +1 Soc (or a knighthood?).
> >  
> > The above should add interesting background detail to a character, and the 
> > Player is encouraged to give the Referee a description of the actual event(s).
> >  
> > 5. Scouts can now win medals - isn't this a change to CT/MT?
> >  
> > File c.
> >  
> > File d.
> >  
> > 1. School EDU increase. *Far* too low (see above). Add "or +1, whichever is 
> > higher".
> >  
> > 2. (also other places) change RM back to DM - you'll just confuse everyone 
> > otherwise.
> >  
> > 3. (N)OTC. Shouldn't one or both of these get you into the Marines?
> >  
> > File e.
> >  
> > 1. Military/Navy Academy. Shouldn't one or both of these get you into the 
> > Marines?
> >  
> > 2. ED4 Cert. Comment says Edu 6-, should be 3-.
> >  
> > File g.
> >  
> > 1. Nobles hold be able to automatically enlist (as officer) in Army, Navy, 
> > Marines, and later return to the Noble 'career' at any point (similar to 
> > Rogues).
> >  
> > File n.
> >  
> > 1. Instead of Det Duty Scouts losing all m/o rolls, at least give them a roll 
> > on the cash table. You expect a PC to begin with no money and just the clothes 
> > he's wearing? He'd have to sell the ship or starve!
> >  
> > File q.
> >  
> > 1. Birthdate charts. For God's sake, get rid of these! People are quite capable 
> > of picking a number from 1 to 365 without needing a chart - this isn't D&D, you 
> > know :-)
> >  
> > 2. 365 days isn't arbitrary, it's the Terran and Sylean year length (near 
> > enough).
> >  
> > 3. Thanksgiving. What are they giving thanks for?
> >  
> > 4. Emperor's Birthday. Say when Cleon's is.
> >  
> > File u.
> >  
> > 1. Space Cadets. The jury's still out on this one...

______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1579
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1580



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Crispy on the Outside, Alien on the Inside
Re: Sword Worlds Navy
Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...
Re: 
Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL
Re: Star Frontiers...
Re: Ultimately official sources
Re: Spreading Technology
Nobles and Fiefs
Calender stuff
ammonia for Refueling 
Re: Catholic church
RE: Star Frontiers...
Noble Lands
Re: RoM TL Vote
Re: Character Generation and Aging Rolls
Re Munchkins and T4 CGen
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Noble Lands

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:30:25 -0700
From: scharlto@ifsna.com
Subject: Crispy on the Outside, Alien on the Inside

I'm glad you corrected that, Volker; I had this image of Marc Miller,
hunched over a pile of books in his garage, dutifully running a butane
torch across each cover...

>It (Aliens Archive compilation) was published with a worldwide total limit
>of 200 issues, all singed (ah, signed ;-) by MM himself.
>For more info surf to the above website.

Steve Charlton

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:38:05 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Sword Worlds Navy

Mark Urbin wrote:


>The Sword Worlds do not have a unified military.  It's a loose
>confederation.  The member worlds support their own Naval & ground
forces.

>Expect slight variations in uniforms, gear, and rank.


Actually, that's true, but there's more to it than that. Observe the
following quote from MT library data on the Sword Worlds:


"In peacetime, the Confederation government maintains a pool of high
ranking military officers (selected from the military forces of all
member worlds) who are trained in large unit command and staff
operations. 


"During time of war, all military forces are confederalized and placed
under a single unified command. For ground forces, divisions will be
commanded by generals from the individual worlds, corps, and higher
organisations by Confederation officers. The component forces of a
division will be from the same world whenever possible. For naval
forces, individual ships are under the command of local officers,
squadrons and fleets by Confederation officers."


The Sword Worlds military is separate and yet unified. Disunity would
be even less of a problem in the New Era. The only remaining "free"
Sword Worlds in 1202 are those who were members of the Narsil-dominated
state. While disunity may not be a problem, however, resources and
diminished military strength will be. Thus, any attempt at liberating
their occupied comrades will best be accomplished by guerilla tactics.
That doesn't mean, however, that some degree of conventional war won't
be used.



Best,


Chris Griffen


===================================================

Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.


http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189

Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452

NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:46:33 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: The Travlang List seems to have some problems...

CardSharks wrote:

>Please tell me how to subscribe to the TravLang List?
>

An email to <TravLang@earth.execnet.com> with "subscribe TravLang <your
name>" should do the job, IIRC.  Be warned, though, the traffic is pretty
much nonexistent these days.  I'll try and post an updated sketch of Vilani
morphology late this weekend, though.

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:45:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Macpherson <john35@wharton.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: 

 
 
> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 04:13:11 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Spreading Technology
> 
<snip> 
>   For examples, take a look at the trade patterns of any large
> industrialized country today (Europe, North America, Japan).  The majority
> of their trade, both import and export, is with other industrialized
> nations, not the third world.

	Thank you Mark, I was just getting ready to make precisely this 
point.  U.S. trading partners in order of volume are Europe, Canada, 
Japan, and Mexico.  Note that the first three are all the same TL as the 
U.S.  While standard economic texts describe the engine of trade to be 
"comparative advantage" (I grow cheap rice you grow cheap corn, let's 
swap) in the modern world this is often not the case.  Germany, U.S., and 
Japan are all wealthy industrialized nations and as such they all produce 
cars.  By the logic of comparative advantage, they have no reason to 
trade.  But in fact the trade in automobiles between these three nations 
is quite brisk.
	If you want to look at the _growth_ in trade, then developing 
countries definitely jump to the top of the list.  But that growth come 
precisely because their economies are rapidly growing as they catch up in 
levels of technology and infrastructure.  

>   Now, what this means for Traveller tech levels, I haven't a clue, but I
> think most folks would agree that Traveller tech level variations between
> planets is one of the odder things about the game.  Must be some
> explanation other than economics, esp. for M1100.

	If TL means the TL of locally produced goods, then it may be that 
the world has no reason to invest in higher tech production because of 
the ease with which it can import high tech goods from elsewhere?  Maybe 
some worlds stay backwaters because all their best and brightest leave 
for the high-tech worlds, the resulting brain-drain leaving the 
homeworld ill-prepared for serious TL advance?  Most likely its just an 
artifact of the world generation system.  In any case, its not nearly as 
bad as the hi-pop hell-hole adjacent to the low-pop garden world problem.

- -JM

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:42:37 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Rule of Man/Terran Confederation TL

From this discussion, I have settled on *MY* RoM TL as primarily TL 12,
with (probably) TL 14 Environment/Medical tech, and (possibly) TL 11
Gravitics (i.e., Land/Water/Air Transport).  I'll probably change my
mind about the details, though.

I very much like the "Vilani bias" idea, and also agree it might be
worthwhile rethinking the tech categories before the (hypothetical)
sequel to WBH comes out.  The lack of a "Materials" category has become
particularly painful with the arrival of Pocket Empires...
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:00:50 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Star Frontiers...

At 11:28 AM 7/18/97 -0400, you wrote:

>Anyways, the only other item of note was the presence of one 
>Pierre Savoie (did I spell that right?) who may be familiar to
>readers of rec.games.frp.misc, but I don't think I'll get into
>that...

Aiiieeee!!!!!! Not He Who Must Not Be Named!!!!!!!!  I was sure he had been
either murdered or committed by now....
- --

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|    Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
|           http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/        |
|-------------------------------------------------|
| Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that |
|  part about letting just any old yokel vote.    |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

  

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:26:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Ultimately official sources

> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:06:47 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> 
>  >The Great Chain of Traveller Canon, from highest to lowest:
>  >
>  >  Marc speaking ex cathedra on the TML
> 
>      Marc Speaking Ex Cathedra elsewhere?

*grin* OK, amend that to simply "Marc speaking ex cathedra."  As this was
my personal list, and I've received most of your ex cathedra
pronouncements via the TML, I over-specified this a bit. 

You know, we should really all pitch in and buy you some vestments... :)

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:31:38 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

>  Now, what this means for Traveller tech levels, I haven't a clue, but I
>think most folks would agree that Traveller tech level variations between
>planets is one of the odder things about the game.  Must be some
>explanation other than economics, esp. for M1100.  Perhaps resource
>exhaustion, but with fusion recycling is so much easier than flying to
>another system in an expensive starship and buying new ingredients.

It's not neccesarily odd, if you see the Imperium as a governing body with
only very loose control over the "territory" it lays claim to, and if you
keep the parrallel between the Imperium and European Empires of the 17th,
18th and 19th century, then technological disparity becomes an issue of
logistics and control. The Imperium has enough on its hands to try and keep
a reliable and regular communications route (and then only along the main
lines of travel), enforce the peace in interstellar space (and then only in
the most serious and important circumstances), maintain a presence on key
worlds, and continue the exploration and cataloging of "what's out there."
Technology transfer is neither high on its list of priorities nor
neccesarily in its best interests. The level of involvement and connection
each world has to the interstellar community is highly variable, and as a
result, their technological development is also widely divergent.

Not everybody wants to "catch up." Surely there are plenty of cultures
which would just rather "tune-out."



Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:49:36 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Nobles and Fiefs

>I'd like input on
>
>1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
>km?
>
>2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

World Tamer's Handbook (GDW, for TNE) has some good rules about improvement
and land values for production. (mine is buried at the moment, but if my
FLGS is any clue, there should be some copies lying about.

That said, I run (in M1100) that most fiefs are in the extrality zones, and
that 1/3rd of income gets passed up to one's immediate lord. Barons and
Viscounts who have high volume starports  in their fiefs can make QUITE a
killing. more opn that when the M1100 setup starts, or I get demands for
more.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 97 14:10:39 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Calender stuff

>> If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
>> promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
>> authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
>> evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

>I would say yes -- the action is in fact authorized by the proper 
>authority, even if the person is not aware of that fact.   
>Authorization is the key, not knowledge, IMO.

Problems like this can pop up today. The church where I went as a kid,
is about 300 yrs old.  There is a debate going, on when did the church
actually start.  The church is in Connecticut in the US, which used to
be an English colony, so the church needed permission from the King of
England to start up. Did it start
when they asked for a charter, when the king granted the charter, or
when the church got the charter.  

The only reason this is actually being debated is because they wanted
to know when to start the birthday celebration, in the end they
compromised and are going to have a three year long celebration to
cover all possible dates. :)

Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:56:47 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: ammonia for Refueling 

Completely ignoring the use of ammonia for the ship, you can run your
ground vehicles off it.  One of the nifty things my dad did during his
stint in the US Army Corps of Engineers was alternate fuel research.  He
and another engineer modified a Chevy pickup, with off the shelf parts, to
run off liquid ammonia.
  Now while this can be done, I remember that some of what came out of the
exhaust system made fossil fuel systems look eco friendly.  But hey, if
you're only staying on the planet a short time...and it's not your planet...


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/  Opinions Mine!
"Driving a Hudson Hornet on the disinformation triple bypass: cruising for 
burgers & garage sales.  Hooks baited, lines entangled, roadkill cooked" 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:02:14 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Catholic church

Glenn Crawford wrote:
> 
> There has been married priests, popes etc.
> 
> During the Renaissance, it was quite common
> 
> Then the church finally decided to start obeying its own  rules

From what I remember in a university course, the church used to
allow priests to marry and have children. Then the families of
said priests began getting a little too powerful for the pope's
liking, since the priest's children would often become priests too.
So, one of the pope's simply declared that priests couldn't marry
and that ended the "problem".

I took that course several years ago and my memory may be faulty.
I just remember it because it was the first time that I ever thought
of the Catholic church as just another institution where internal
politics ended up dictating external actions.

If I offended any Catholics, it was purely unintentional. Feel free
to correct me if my memory is hooped.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 12:01:03 -0700
From: Jeff Cornish <JCornish@appiangraphics.com>
Subject: RE: Star Frontiers...

Ah, <glimmer>  I remember SF fondly </glimmer>

The Star Frontiers FTL driver worked in this handwave manner:

1.  accelerate to 10% of the speed of light.
2.  engage drive. ("Enter 'The Void'")
3.  decelerate into target system.

It's a 'true' jump drive--near instantaneous travel, but requires about
a week of acceleration per LY or so.  The Void is the StarFrontiers
version of J-space--somewhat unpleasant to travel through (nasuea, et
al).

Star Frontiers didn't let much science get in the way.  Starships used
nuclear fission drives (that's right, fission) that 'burned' fuel
pellets.  Larger ships used an entire pellet in a voyage, smaller ones
could make several jumps with the same about of fuel.

As for dropping rocks instead of using troops...

*SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP*

That's for putting all of those poor United Planetary Force ground
troops, the arms manufacturers and the hypercort manufacturing industry
out of work.   Besides, the Sathar have a HUGE military budget to spend
too, and near-cee rocks are just too unglamorous a weapon to get
procured...

Finally, reaction mass??  Why, all of the reaction drives on the
frontier use those fancy Vrusk-Dralasite designed drives that uses
unobtainioum whiz-bang sprockets.  Yep, pour in whatever you
want--kerosene, H20, H2, He3, CH3CH2OH-- and watch that baby go.
Seriously, you could make Star Frontiers as gear head as you wanted to.
The blanks were not filled in.

Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks (the coolest name for a space combat
system, I still think) used 3 kinds of STL drives:  Chemical, Nuclear
and Ion.  Chemical drives need lotsa fuel, although it was never really
stated what.  Nuclear drives used something, I'm sure, but again it was
never really stated beyond the "Fuel Pellets".  Ion drives were said to
be able to use just about anything that could be powdered (Mercury,
Carbon, bits of asteroid--seriously!!).

Ah and the weapons-- there were Assault Rockets (unguided missles fired
at ships 10000km away) and Torpedos (ICBMs in space), Electron and
Proton cannons, Laser batteries and laser cannons... sigh.

Unrealistic as you could get, but spaceship combat was pretty simple.



> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ethan Henry [SMTP:ehenry@mag1.magmacom.com]
> Sent:	Friday, July 18, 1997 8:29 AM
> To:	traveller@MPGN.COM
> Subject:	Star Frontiers...
> 
> 
> Actually, this is mroe about the Star Frontiers mailing list really...
> Anyways, for those who remember this reasoanbly-decent game from
> TSR, there's a mailing list at:
> http://www.public.iastate.edu/~roymeo/StarFron/listserv.html
> which is actually a web page with instructions and an archive
> of the material. I skimmed a couple months of postings yesterday 
> and was amused at the topics they were discussing...
> 
>  - how exactly does the handwaving interstellar drive work?
>  - say, couldn't you just drop a big rock real fast on a planet
>     instead of using expensive troops, bombs, etc?
>  - say, how do those damn maneuver drives work without reaction mass?
> 
> etc, etc. Luckily for them were only ever a handful of Star Frontiers
> books published (and I think I have most of them, oddly enough...) so
> they don't get to enjoy long debates on what is and isn't "canon".
> 
> Anyways, the only other item of note was the presence of one 
> Pierre Savoie (did I spell that right?) who may be familiar to
> readers of rec.games.frp.misc, but I don't think I'll get into
> that...
> 
> Anyways, kind of interesting, but of course, Traveller is way
> cooler. ;)
> 
> Gossip-boy
> -- 
> ehenry@magma.ca
> http://www.magma.ca/~ehenry [Jeff Cornish]
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> .
> 
> 
> Jeffrey Cornish
> Appian Graphics Technical Support
> 6640 185th Ave NE
> Redmond, WA 98052
> 
> Ph: 	(800) 422-7369  8am to 5pm PST
> 	(425) 867-5610
> Fx:	(425) 867-5600
> BBS:	(425) 867-5619  <-- for Rendition & Renegade drivers
> 
> *for more info*
> HTTP://www.appiangraphics.com
> 
> *for latest drivers*
> FTP://ftp.appiangraphics.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:06:29 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Noble Lands

I've always had landless nobles as well.  Ok, their lands my consist of a
large townhouse type affair in Capital, plus a small estate in burbs.  I
call these "Court Nobles."  Families that have been involved in the top
levels of the Imperial government from the git-go, who have been awarded
titles.

One of the major NPCs in my campain (Party Patron) is a third son of such a
Noble.


- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/  Opinions Mine!
"Meatspace" - The physical world (as opposed to the virtual world), also 
"carbon community."
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 97 20:34 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: RoM TL Vote

In-Reply-To: <l03102800aff4b7943961@[207.194.197.112]>

> Waitaminit Andrew, when you posted your question you asked for the
> *maximum* TL achieved by the RoM, not the average. The average TL would be
> completely different from the average of suggested maximums.

I was just giving an average of the answers I received, ie a compromise.

> And if this is the way you decide what the TL should be what's to stop

*I'm* not *deciding* anything.

> certain people from voting for a TL of 33 to get an "average" of 15?

I would treat such votes with the respect they deserved...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 97 20:34 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Character Generation and Aging Rolls

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970716084311.006aa620@athens.net>

Paul,

> While fixing a bug in my chargen program, I've found that it is really
> damn hard to keep a character from living forever if you are determined
> to do so. Much thanks to Roderick Elliott for noticing this while creating
> a character that bore an amazing resemblance to Yaskodray's mythical
> Lost Grandchild :)  in an effort to see if you could really die from aging.

Not quite related to your problem, but IMHO there should be DMs based on TL 
and Soc. A peasant on a stone age world will die a lot sooner than a Noble 
with the best medical care TL13 can provide.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 16:56:04 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re Munchkins and T4 CGen

To William Hostman and any other interested parties:

Thank you for your thoughts on chargen! I will be getting around to
discussing your ideas, but in Real Life(tm) I am very busy at work
right now and don't have the time to do more than quickly scan through
the digests and mark things I want to come back to. In another coupla
days things should get better. 

The next version of Beginnings, my T4 Chargen program is also on
hold until this is over, but should be out early next week. A number
of bug fixes are in place, and it should be complete up to the point
of mustering out.

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:35:43 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, Anders Backman wrote:

> >For example Baron Dinsha is waiting for the Emperor's permission to colonise
> >a new planet (or whatever), he sends a message asking for the Emperors
> >permission that he knows will arrive on a certain date. The baron assumes
> >that he will gain the Emperors permissions and so starts his colonisation
> >a few days after the Emperor received the message.
> >Legal? yes.
> >Wise? Well, what if the Emperor finds out about the what the baron did,
> >I wouldn't be happy if I was emperor and a lowly baron had the nerve to
> >assume that I would give him permission.
> 
> The clever bastard Norris did just that when dubbing himself archduke
> despite Strephon hadn't yet done so. The Strephon assassination came in
> between and Norris simply igored the error.

Actually, Norris had one of those blank "The bearer of this document has
done all that he has done by my hand" kinda blank checks that bit Cardinal
Richelieu so badly...

He was ALSO acting on his foreknowledge that Strephon had been
assasinated.

Finally, he got away with it...which is the final arbiter of the extent
of _any_ use of authority.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:36:08 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

Marc Miller wrote
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> Subject: Noble Lands
> 
> This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).

If the Imperium does not own its member worlds but merely controls the
spaces between them, as was the case in Milieu 1100, how can it give
away these lands ?  Is the Imperium merely giving out feudal control,
including the power of taxation, over lands which are owned/controlled
by the people/governments of the planets or do the nobles actually
receive ownership of the land ?  

> Size     Diameter   Circumference   Hex     HexArea
> 0        -       	-       	-       -
> 1        1,600   	5,027   	144     15,469
> 2        3,200   	10,053          287     61,876
> 3        4,800   	15,080          431     139,222
> 4        6,400   	20,106          574     247,505
> 5        8,000   	25,133          718     386,727
> 6        9,600   	30,159          862     556,886
> 7        11,200       35,186          1,005   757,984
> 8        12,800       40,212          1,149   990,020
> 9        14,400       45,239          1,293   1,252,995
> 10       16,000       50,265          1,436   1,546,907

One hex is a _lot_ of land.  In my map from Invasion Earth 1 hex of land
on Earth is approximately equal to the following areas - France & the
low countries, Iberia, Japan, 15% of the contiguous USA, half of Alaska,
etc.  A lot of valuable areas are much less than half a hex the British
Isles being a prime example.  Some valuable areas are too small to even
see on this scale such as Manhatten Island, Hong Kong, etc.

> Social B or Higher      Knight
> Social C        Baron, Baroness
> Social D        Count, Countess

In the past Soc D  has been a Maruqis in Traveller.

> Social E        Marquis, Marquesa

In the past Soc E has been a Count in Traveller.  Are you reversing
these titles ?

> Social F        Duke, Duchess
> 
> B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex      > generates an income.

It is a lot easier for a PC to begin as or become a Knight than a higher
noble, are you sure you want a system that will give a Knight such a
valuable fief (and thereby taking away an improtant reason to
adventure)  perhaps Knights should receive a "token" fief of value MCr 1
or so, its physical size would vary based on the value of the land in
the area).  On another note I was always under the Impression that there
were (relatively) a lot of Knights in the Imperium.  Are there really so
few Knights that each one can have a fief this big ? 

My suggestion would be that
Knights (Soc B) may get a small fief worth not more than MCr 1 ( a few
sq km perhaps), some Knights will not have a fief.

Barons (Soc C) get a fief of 1 hex, or maybe 1,000,000 sq km to make it
simple. They also have a Knightly fief.
  
Marquis (Soc D) have a fief of an entire planet and receive income from
all the Barons and Knights under them. They also have Baronial and
Knightly fiefs.

Counts (Soc E) have a fief of several worlds and receive income from the
Marquis under them.  They also have Marquis, Baronial, and Knightly
fiefs.

Dukes have a fief of one subsector and recieve income from the Counts
under them.  The also have Counts, Marquis, Baronial, and Knightly
fiefs.

> C gets a barony (of several) hexes and an income from those hexes.


> D+ gets an override from knights and baronies under him/her.

I was always under the impression that nobles with high titles also had
all the lesser titles.  In Milieu 1100 Norris was Archduke of the Domain
of Deneb, Duke of Regina, Count Aledon, Marquis of Regina, Baron Yori,
and Knight OEG, OC, ODM. (Regency SB pg 9) If the higher nobles have the
lesser titles too they shoulg get the income from them _and_ an override
from the lesser nobles under them this may more properly reflect the
income they will receive.

> I'd like input on
> 
> 1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
> km?

Does the noble have feudal ownership of the land or just the right to
tax it ?  If he owns it and can sell it he can make a _great_ deal of
money.

The real question is what is on the land.  If you are the noble holding
the hex that includes a large and wealthy city (Tokyo, New York, Los
Angeles, etc) than some parts of your land are going to be worth
hundreds of thousands of credits an acre or more (1 sq km = aprox 250
acres).  Therefore each km square would be worth Mcr 50 or so.  If the
noble taxed this land at a rate of 10 mils (1% of value/ year) this
would bring in an income of MCr 0.5 per sq km. 

If the land does not include a city it is still valuable.  On a size 8
world a Knight (or if my suggestion is implemented, a Baron) will have a
fief of about 1,000,000 sq km.  If its land had an average value of even
Cr 10 per acre (pretty cheap) this equals Cr 2,500 per square km or Mcr
2,500 for the whole fief if the noble owns it.  If the noble merely has
the right to tax it, and does so at a rate of 1% per anum he/she will be
earning Mcr 25 per year.  I begin to see how those nobles can afford to
buy their yachts.

> 2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

This really sounds like the start of a Pocket Empires tie in.  How about
saying something like "You can use Pocket Empires to cover the fiefs of
Nobles within the Imperium, as well as Pocket Empires without it, by
simply saying that one half (or one third ?) of all the income produced
by the territory goes to higher nobles and the Imperium itself."  If
this material is going to go in the T4.1 book that would probably be
enough, 

> 3. How many hexes do other nobles get?

See above.

> I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
> Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
> have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
> surveyed (and developed) etc.

If this planet is uninhabited this sounds perfect but if this planet has
a population I'm not so sure this will work.  If a Noble were to show up
on a planet not in the Empire and tell its people "This is my planet,
you owe me money." they would not react very well.  (For a real world
example see the British Empire).  If the Empire was to say something
like "When this planet enters the Empire you will be the Marquis of it,
go persuade it to join." this would have a lot of benefits

1) It will increase the rate of growth of the Empire
2) It will get ambitious Nobles off of Sylea where they might start a
treasonous plot.
3) It will discourage them from leaving to start their own Pocket
Empire, which the Empire will just have to conquer/absorb in 100 years
or so anyway.

4)  It would make a really great adventure !

Does anyone out there want to write up an adventure for Milieu 0, which
would require Traveller 4.1, the redone Milieu 0, the NYR Nobles book
and Pocket Empires, maybe for release in March 98 or so ?  This
adventure would be set circa year 20 and would have a party of 5
charecters or so. They would be the Noble (a noble) , her husband (a
Noble, Diplomat, or Merchant), their ner do well son (a Noble or Naval
officer), the Nobles chief political advisor (a Diplomat), and the
Nobles chief Military advisor (a retired Marine officer) ? For the truly
adventureous there could be a rival pary of adventurors representing the
current government of the world. I have some ideas but this would be a
bit much for me.

> Ideas. Thoughts. Comments?

This is just the sort of thing I love to see in Traveller.

> Marc

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1580
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Friday, July 18 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1581



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Catholic church
Re: Noble Lands
The TravLang list
Re: Noble Lands
[T97#1578] Noble Lands
A fresh traveller player asking some questions
Re: Noble Lands
Catholic Church

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:27:23 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

At 11:25 PM 7/17/97 -0400, Marc wrote:
....
>So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on 098-198 on
>Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
>to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine inheritance?

I rule that all inheritance is done by a strict and formal procedure which
does not pay much attention to the actual time and order of death, unless
certain rare invalidating conditions happen.  (Example: Imperial
displeasure, legal hanky panky.)

A primary reason for this is that the succession on a world in the fringes
_cannot_ wait a year while the patent is confirmed.  There must be a way to
either confirm it in advance, or to allow the noble to act before
confirmation.  Further, the death of a high noble cannot bring things to a
halt while the successor journeys to Core.  (Being absent for a month is
one thing - some fringe nobility might be absent for two years on such a
trip.  If the noble can be gone that long, then they do not really control
much of anything.)

For example, Alven is married to Brit.  Alven has child Xavier, while Brit
has child Yolande, both by previous marriage.

Alven is a Count, while Brit is the associated Countess.  I festoon a noble
title with several associated single generation titles, thus the Count has
several associated Baronial titles which represents his recognized heirs,
and which have a noted and specific order of succession.  Further, the
Countess becomes a Surviving Countess as soon as the Count dies.  This
title will not pass, but will allow her to retain her social standing.
Surviving Countess titles do not have any other associated titles, just
like she had no associated titles when Count Alven was still alive.

The Count's heir is a Baron, thus Xavier will usually be titled Baron
Xavier as soon as Count Alven decides on him as his heir.  When Xavier
inherits, he will become Count Xavier, and the Baron title will lie fallow
until such time as he chooses or begats an heir.

Now, life gets interesting - you do not want just one heir, as heirs die.
For important titles, say a Count or a Marquis, you want to have at least
three or four, plus an algorithm for finding more.  You may have,
therefore, several such Baron and Knight titles to hand out to your
kinfolk.  Since it is really difficult to take back a title, you might want
to give a "third in line" title to you chosen heir, and leave first and
second fallow until you are "sure."  Adventure hook - someone else claims,
rightly or wrongly, to have a higher title than the recognized heir.
Preventing this is why a wise Noble designates a real heir early, and if
they get out of line, has them shot.  Most nobles are not this cold blooded
at this early date.  Give them a few generations.

Lets stir the pot a bit more - Brit is a Baroness in her own right, which
is not related to her marriage to Alven.  Brit likely has a knighthood or
two to give out to recognize her heirs, though the titles are not as high,
and the benefits are not nearly as good as those her husband the Count
controls.  Regardless, she may have titled Yolande as Sir Yolande.

Finally, what happens if Alven makes Brit an heir by giving his wife a
title in the succession line?  Well, the obvious.  If Alven dies and Brit
has the highest title, then she becomes the Countess, not a Surviving
Countess.  She may choose to retitle Xavier in favor of Yolande, which
might involve disowning Xavier entirely, or giving him a demotion.  Neither
is going to make Xavier happy, even if she leaves him in the succession.

Most would look a bit askance at her passing the Countess title to Yolande
in favor of Xavier, but they would let it pass, as if the Count had not
wanted it that way, he should not have titled Brit as a higher heir than
Xavier.

It would be considered quite rude for Brit to pass her Barony out of the
family, unless it was joining a higher title.  Swapping Yolande and
Xavier's positions would not go over well.

It would be considered quite legit and reasonable for her to make Baron
Xavier her heir as well, and thus concentrate the power of the two titles.
Were Xavier her own child as well as Count Alven's, this would even be
considered the most appropriate thing to do by a fair number of people.
That this leaves Yolande out in the cold is the stuff of good adventures.
It would also be considered quite reasonable for her to leave her title in
her own bloodline.

Assume Alven dies, and Brit inherits.  She then does the title swap, such
that Yolande gets the County, and Xavier gets the Barony.  Because this is
surprising, it is going to come under scrutiny, and thus exactly when she
got the power to do this becomes important.  Primarily, it depends on the
time of official notification.  I use the OCC as the official event timers
of the Imperium, and thus the arbiters of such events.  The second part of
your post relates to this:

One other point - the Emperor has the power to cast down nobles under
certain circumstances, while the Moot can refuse that noble the right to
sit in the Moot.  When a title inherits, though, if it follows the usual
paths, and the Emperor has had time to act on the titles given to the
offspring which made them the heir, then it becomes very difficult
politically for the Emperor to prevent inheritance.

>If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
>promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
>authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
>evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

Any authority or power within a region is centered on the title seat.  Your
authority is derived from that place, and changes in your authority are
determined from when the declaration of those changes reaches the seat, not
when it is proclaimed.  The official time lag is determined by an official
transit time, as determined by the OCC.  Note that as long as a message is
sent, you do not have to receive it for it to have power.

This can be important, because if you have a high jump ship, you can get
word of what is coming before you officially are told.  OTOH, if the
message is lost, you can get in big trouble exercising authority you no
longer have.

One final point - certain messages bear a warrant, and it is their arrival
which transmits the orders to you.  These are unusual, and are done only
for a few reasons, like treason.

Example: Count Alven's domain is 30pc from Sylea.  The OCC uses an official
speed of roughly J2.5, with a far more complicated pattern based on mains
and official word.  Since the Xboat net does not yet exist, the pattern is
really up to the OCC, and various courier ships sent out with official
notification.  As a result, a message from the Moot or the Emperor
officially takes something like 12 jumps, or 18 weeks.

On 001-300, the Emperor names Alven commander of a fleet in the area in the
Emperor's name, and directs him to take command immediately.  126 days
later, the Emperor will assume that Alven has taken charge.  If, on
110-300, Alven takes over, the Emperor will be a bit displeased.  Alven
might choose, assuming some kind of power vacuum, to try some kind of self
appointed acting command, which earns no Imperial Ire, as long as the
Emperors will has not been made clear yet.  On 110, it has not been.

If he has not taken command on or about 128-300, the Emperor will be a tad
displeased.  Some slack is allowed, as that noble might just be off planet
at the time.

Now, let's say the noble in question is sitting in the moot.  If the
Emperor uses his Imperial rank and oath of fealty to order the noble to
take a command,  the noble will take command on the date that the order
reaches his domain seat.    The Emperor will usually put an "earliest
convenience" notation on the order, so if he gets the message a week
earlier, he can name himself an acting commander pending official orders.
He might even have the official orders in his possession, but they do not
go into effect until 128 days have passed.

This convention, by the way, is completely separate from what the Emperor
can order as the head of the armed forces - he can immediately order
someone to be placed in charge, with none of this acting nonsense.  On the
other hand, the force is then that of military courtesy, not feudal power.

All nobles are really two people - the noble who owes fealty to the
Emperor, and the person who might be subject to various other restrictions.
 A soldier ordered by the commander must act as soon as the orders are
given, while a noble tasked with something by the Emperor is responsible
for doing it when the orders reach the seat of power.  On the other hand,
if those two personae conflict, the noble must settle it correctly.  In the
eyes of the Emperor, this means going with feudal authority.  Courts tend
to go with the Emperor on such issues.

Why is there a difference?

Nobles are acting as representatives of Imperial might, and their authority
comes from the Emperor himself.  Honor becomes very important under these
circumstances, as they represent the Emperor, and he has a public image of
honorability.  For example, if the Emperor orders a Count to take charge of
a squadron and to harass the enemy, the noble should feel like he has a
mandate.  If the same Count is placed in command of the same squadron
through official Naval channels, then he does not have an Imperial mandate.

This is why nobles will stay primarily at their title seat, rather than at
the moot - if you sit in the moot, then a power given to you may not be
exercised for quite some time after you first hear of it, and people have a
chance to work against you.  Further, you are a long way from the events
that supposedly give you power.  Admittedly, they have just as long if you
are home as if you are at the moot, but the orders you work under do not
have a delay that affects you when you are on your home world.

To prevent the moot from being entirely a Sylean affair, important nobles
can recognize an heir with the "direct succession" title.  For example, if
Count Alven wants to sit in the moot, he will name Xavier the Baron, will
recognize him as Count in Waiting, and will then board ship for Sylea.

By doing this, he loses much direct control over his finances.  The Count
in Waiting keeps essential control of the resources of the County until the
title is revoked, or the Count sends an official notification of his
desires and intentions.  By convention, these notifications are short and
vague, as the Emperor does not want the Imperium run entirely from Sylea,
but he does want more than figureheads in the moot.

In this way, experienced nobles who do not thrive on the daily exercise of
power will migrate to Sylea, where they help set the overall course of
Imperial policy.

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:08:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Catholic church

   Hi.

   This post has absolutely nothing to do with Traveller, but I feel a
   need to correct a common misconception that Glenn stated here
   earlier.

> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:19:56 -0400
> From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com

> There has been married priests, popes etc.

   True.  There still are.

> During the Renaissance, it was quite common

   Not true.  By the renaissance, practically all clergy were required
   to take oaths of celibacy before ordination.  These requirements were
   made nearly universal by the Cluniac Reforms, and made marriage
   impossible for clergymen who took the oath.  (Keep in mind that
   Catholics make a distinction between marriage and cohabitation. 
   While an outlaw cleric may have a lover; that is not the same thing
   as having a wife.  An oath of celibacy will render invalid any
   attempt at a marriage.)

> Then the church finally decided to start obeying its own  rules

   That comment sounded a little snide to me.  These rules have changed
   with time and place, and have made married clergy more and less
   common depending on era and location.  Few fair-minded persons
   believe that changing a rule constitutes `finally deciding to start
   obeying' it.

   -Rob

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 14:31:05 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

Wow! real economics stuff ! Prepare yourself for about 5 gazillion
_different_ answers, Marc!

On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).
> Social B or Higher	Knight
> Social C	Baron, Baroness
> Social D	Count, Countess
> Social E	Marquis, Marquesa
> Social F	Duke, Duchess
> 
> B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex generates an
> income.
> C gets a barony (of several) hexes and an income from those hexes.
> D+ gets an override from knights and baronies under him/her.
> 
> I'd like input on 
> 
> 1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
> km?

That will depend enTIREly on what those km's do...1 square km of , say
Hong Kong can generate a LOT more income than 1 square km of Montana. It
also depends on what is generating those Cr's. Are they sales taxes,
grazing fees, selling the water rights, mineral rights, rent? If rent are
you doing a residential or commercial development? Are you establishing a
mine? Are the lands already occupied by people who _might_ not appreciate
a new landlord?
 
> 2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

Of course, this is standard real estate rules, you own land..want to get
more out of it? Develop it. The exact rules will depend on the 'quality'
of the hexes in question. Arid land on a low-tl planet with few mineral
resources with no water isn't going to be worth squat.

> 3. How many hexes do other nobles get?

More to the point, how are these hexes allocated...Obviously if all nobles
of a certain level get X hexes, some are more equal than others....

> I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
> Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
> have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
> surveyed (and developed) etc.

Well _that's_ great way to get people out of your hair...Cleon: "I
pronounce you Sir Lancelot. You now have a fiefdom 45 parsecs away from
Sylea...go tend your property, Sir Knight!" What with the costs of
surveying and development, you'll keep 'em too busy to foment palace
troubles...

If you want to be REAL sadistic, set up a system like feudal Japan..."The
Emperor wishes your presence at court for X months of the year, that He
might enjoy your counsel", but you have huge development projects going on
four different planets...You either have to have very good subordinates,
or spend a lot on commuting costs.

This can be a giant problem, and possibly a very lucrative business, if
you have a number of nominally wealthy (in land) nobles, without the
resources to do the developments...a developer with a bit of capital could
clean up exploiting the fiefdoms of nobles who can't otherwise capitalize
on their fiefs. 

> Ideas. Thoughts. Comments?


Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 22:23:48 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: The TravLang list

The idea behind the TravLang list was to do the kind of
development for Traveller's languages that the Klingon Language
Institute does for the Klingon Language (coincidentally invented
by another Marc - Marc Okrand).  It's been rather quiet of late,
but I'm hoping to find enough time to reinvigorate it in the near
future.  We've (mostly Kenji) done some groundwork on Vilani;
there was recently a short thread on whether the list should be
expanded to encompass discussion and development of culture as
well (my opinion as listowner is that I think it's a good idea;
culture and language are interrelated and influence each other).

To subscribe, send a message to maiser@earth.execnet.com with a
body of=20

subscribe travlang Your Name

Remember to keep the message that you get in response; it
contains all sorts of useful information.

Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 17:50:30 -0500
From: Tom Lane <deadeye@ebicom.net>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

> > I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
> > Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
> > have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
> > surveyed (and developed) etc.
>

The real wealth of the Imperium comes from the overlooked "controls the
space between the inhabited worlds."  IF the Imperium owns the trade
routes and all those nice semi-unclaimed raw materials floating around
out there, that is a lot of MCr.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:12:07 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: [T97#1578] Noble Lands

On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 11:00:16 -0400, CardSharks@aol.com (Marc
Miller) wrote:

>This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the =
Imperium).
>
>Size	Diameter	Circumference	Hex 	 HexArea=20
>0	 	-   	 	-   	 		-   	 -  =20
>1	 	1,600 	 	5,027 	 		144 	 15,469=20
>2	 	3,200 	 	10,053 	 		287 	 61,876=20
>3	 	4,800 	 	15,080 	 		431 	 139,222=20
>4	 	6,400 	 	20,106 	 		574 	 247,505=20
>5	 	8,000 	 	25,133 	 		718 	 386,727=20
>6	 	9,600 	 	30,159 	 		862 	 556,886=20
>7	 	11,200 	 	35,186 	 		1,005 	 757,984=20
>8	 	12,800 	 	40,212 	 		1,149 	 990,020=20
>9	 	14,400 	 	45,239 	 		1,293 	 1,252,995=20
>10	 	16,000 	 	50,265 	 		1,436 	 1,546,907
>
>Social B or Higher	Knight
>Social C	Baron, Baroness
>Social D	Count, Countess
>Social E	Marquis, Marquesa
>Social F	Duke, Duchess
>
>B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex =
generates an
>income.
>C gets a barony (of several) hexes and an income from those hexes.
>D+ gets an override from knights and baronies under him/her.
>
>I'd like input on=20
>
>1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 =
per sq
>km?

This is where something like the Pocket Empires economic stuff
will come into play.  Productivity of land is going to be a
function of (in PE terms) population and infrastructure (and
possibly other labor-multiplying factors as well) - a hex of
vacant land on a pop-0 world is not going to generate as much
income as a hex containing New York City.

Note that we ignore the _type_ of income (agricultural products,
information, tax revenue, tithe or kind); we're interested in
only the value.

>2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

Absolutely; development in this case means infrastructure, and
infrastructure is a multiplier - a farmer with a certain amount
of TL8 infrastructure will get a higher yield for less labor than
a subsistence farmer at TL2 on the same land, for example.  The
story of civilization is really nothing more than the story of
the creation of multipliers, so that one person could support
more than just himself.


>3. How many hexes do other nobles get?

It's a little difficult to judge; the Traveller system doesn't
quite match up to any real-world system with which I am familiar.
I've taken Traveller "count" as British "viscount" and Traveller
"marquis" as British "earl".

Traveller Estates (Knight's fief) typically consist of one hex;
in cases where the income is particularly rich or poor, it may
consist of partial or multiple hexes.  Regardless of physical
size, the income from an Estate is guaranteed to be sufficient to
provide an override to the Baron, and thence to maintain the
knight as befits his station.

Traveller Baronies consist of roughly two dozen Estates.  The
Baron will directly hold one of them, usually the one that is
most centrally located in terms of transportation/ accessibility
not terrain.  A Barony's income from overrides is guaranteed to
be not less than the greater of total income of the richest
Estate it encompasses or sufficient to provide an override to the
Count, and thence to maintain the Baron as befits his station.

Traveller Counties consist of roughly two dozen Baronies,
regardless of income.  The Count of a County will also directly
hold one of the Baronies within it, which may or may not be the
most prestigious or generate the highest income.  A County is
guaranteed to have a total income from overrides of the greater
of no less than twice the income of the Barony that generates the
highest income or sufficient to provide an override to the
Marquis, and thence to maintain the Count as befits his station.

Traveller Marquisates should be _no_more_ than an entire world,
and most will be less; a world generating average income should
probably have around two dozen Marquisates.  The income of
Marquisates has no fixed relationship with the number or income
of its subordinate Counties.  The Marquis of a Marquisate will
also directly hold one of the subordinate Counties; generally,
this will be the one with the highest income or prestige.  Some
Marquises prefer the title "Earl" or "Lord".  A proper Marquisate
should generate sufficient income to provide an override to the
Duke, and thence to maintain the Marquis as befits his station,
but "white elephant" Marquisates have been known to exist.

Traveller Duchies should _never_ be less than an entire world,
and may be more; the importance of the fief should be
proportional to its income.  While a Duchy will be composed of
several Marquisates, there is no fixed relationship between the
number or income of the Marquisates and that of the Duchy.  The
Duke of a Duchy will also directly hold one of the subordinate
Marquisates; this will _always_ be the one with the highest
income or prestige.  During expansionistic periods in Imperial
history, the Governor of an absorbed/colonized planet was
typically the seneschal of the Duke to whom the planet was
awarded.  A proper Duchy should generate sufficient income to
provide an override to the Archduke/Emperor, and thence to
maintain the Duke as befits his station; as with Marquisates,
there are some "white elephant" Duchies.



=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 01:27:03 +0200
From: "Einar Mogen" <nord.staernes@rollag.mail.telia.com>
Subject: A fresh traveller player asking some questions

Hi,

I'm new on this list, and also very new to Traveller. I actually bought TNE
(NOT T4) some days ago, and I am wondering about some of the rules. I well
aware of that many of my questions are rather stupid, but anyway I haven't
figured it out by myself yet.

First, there's the damage/penetration rules. If a weapon which do 4(D6)
damage has a pen.val. of 2-nil, is it right that 2D6 damage get through if
it hits flak jacket at short range? I guess so.

If the above is right, does this mean that all plasma-weapons do no damage
at short/normal range if they hit AV 1? This seems a little odd to me, and
I wondered if I just missed something.

Are there many changes in the system between TNE and T4? If there is a list
or an upgrade to the TNE rules or something I would really want to get it.
You can send it to me personally.

In the book it says that strangles can be blocked. Does this mean that they
can be blocked each round, or just until the attacker succeds in a strangle
(and therefore "holding" the target)? I would think that when one
successful strangle has been done, the only way for the defender is to do
an escape.

Well, that's it. I'm sorry for my stupid questions, but I guess you could
be just the right guys to ask.

Einar Mogen

(I'm afraid I will ask more later...)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 17:35:58 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

At 10:30 AM 7/18/97 -0400, Marc wrote:
>This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).

Good!  This has been an area that Traveller left a bit vague previously.  I
am glad to see you address it.

We need the answers to three questions before we can address the
lands/income issue.

1.  What fraction of the population is noble
2.  What fraction of the land is held in fiefdoms
3.  What fraction of the income is given to the noble to spend

According to character generation, roughly 1/12th of the population is
noble.  Of those nobles, the majority are knights which do not have an
explicit fief.

According to my most recent almanac from the UK, they have roughly 0.1% of
the population ennobled - of the millions of people in the UK, there are
several thousand nobles, all listed.

This means that on Sylea, the thirty billion people will result in
something like 30 million nobles on Sylea alone.

This does not seem to be the way people think about nobles in Traveller,
thus we need a better model.  If they are more like the members of the
Forbes 500 list than people making more than US$112,000, then we might have
something.

Assume: wealth and nobility are not always related, but often are.  Nobles
above the rank of knight represent the upper 0.001% of society, thus Sylea
has 300,000 nobles whose rank is above knight.  If we use this model,
anyone above the rank of knight is clearly in the idle rich category, with
the equivalent of millions of dollars a year of income.  Knights are in the
CEO of major corporation range, if my us dept. of census numbers are any
indication.

There might be millions of knights, but this is less of a problem, as they
do not require land, and they likely do not get the respect that others do.
 For example, I allow local masters of orders of knighthoods to award
memberships in their orders without having to clear it with the Emperor
first.  I realize this is a break from canon, but the alternative has the
Emperor just assigning titles all day long.  (As an exercise, work out how
many nobles the Emperor must confirm in a day, assuming several million
nobles in the Imperium, and an average life span of 80 years.)

It does seem like the total number of nobles should either be proportional
to wealth, or to population, and of those, I like population.  Smaller
planets should not lead to nobles with smaller fiefs directly, only through
population.  This is, of course, just my opinion.

>Size	 Diameter 	 Circumference 	 Hex 	 HexArea 
>0	 -   	 -   	 -   	 -   
>1	 1,600 	 5,027 	 144 	 15,469
....

I would rather state that a noble gets an area of economic importance
roughly in proportion to his or her rank.  I suspect this should be divided
into two categories - developed and undeveloped.  A noble willing, or
forced, to take a domain beyond the borders will get a fairly large chunk
of land.  Nobles with fiefs in settled, developed areas, will get much
smaller ones.

I suggest against basing it on the size of the planet, since population and
value are not really based on that.   is not correlated with planet size in
the present rules.  Instead, it should be likely be either a flat land grant.

The Imperium taxes the planets directly, and I suspect the nobles.

Nobles give up 1/3 of their income to their superiors.

>B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex generates an
>income.

If we instead say that a C-grade noble is in charge of one major city and
the surrounding area to 50 km., OR gets an undeveloped grant of 1000km,
then it seems more reasonable.  This should produce an income of a GCr or
so, of which most has to be given up or plowed back in.

A D-grade noble might get 500Km, or a continent on an undeveloped planet.

E gets a cut from everyone below, or might own an entire planet outright.
Of course, they might have to support numerous lesser nobles on that planet.

F is much the same, but might have interests on several planets in the
system, with some of that taken up by lesser nobles who owe fealty to them.

Note: this is assuming a feudal system.  If everyone owes allegiance
directly to the Emperor, then the fiefs will likely not be very different
in size - any rank of Baron or above owns a 100Km estate, but the higher
the grade, the better developed it is.

>1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
>km?

A hell of a lot.  Supposedly, land goes for hundreds to thousands a square
foot  per month in downtown areas.  On the other hand, an unimproved square
km of dirt with some kind of resources could bring in (in Nevada oil
country) $50K/month, assuming a dozen wells, and only one hit.

Land used only for crops is less obvious, but still should be bringing in
at least a few thousand dollars per square km, else it is hard to justify.

Once we know what it is worth and how much it brings in, we have to decide
how big the noble's take is.

>2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

Probably.  I am working on some rules for my own happiness, but those are
going slowly - too many other projects.

>I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
>Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
>have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
>surveyed (and developed) etc.

Yep.  This would be how the nobles get divided.  One problem, of course, is
that those nobles are then unavailable to do ruling things on Sylea.  As
the Empire matures, it will need to give land grants locally to nobles
brought in.

>Ideas. Thoughts. Comments?

Looks like you are on the right track.  Do be sure to figure out what
income level each rank should have in general, and then we can likely work
out how many of them there are, and how big an estate they have.

Scott

Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 10:56:55 +0000
From: aspqrz@curie.dialix.com.au
Subject: Catholic Church

> From:          owner-traveller-digest@MPGN.COM (Traveller-digest)
> To:            traveller-digest@Phaser.ShowCase.MPGN.COM
> Subject:       Traveller-digest V1997 #1580

> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 13:02:14 -0600
> From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
> Subject: Re: Catholic church
> 
> Glenn Crawford wrote:
> > 
> > There has been married priests, popes etc.
> > During the Renaissance, it was quite common
> > Then the church finally decided to start obeying its own  rules
> 
> >From what I remember in a university course, the church used to
> allow priests to marry and have children. Then the families of
> said priests began getting a little too powerful for the pope's
> liking, since the priest's children would often become priests too.
> So, one of the pope's simply declared that priests couldn't marry
> and that ended the "problem".

No, it was much more basic than that (he says, remembering his 
Medieval History courses twenty odd, some of them *very* odd, years 
ago). The church very early on cottoned on to the idea that one's 
stay in Purgatory (or access to heaven, depending on the period) 
could *theoretically* be reduced/increased by "buying" help -- extra 
masses said in ones name, charitable deeds done (through the local 
church, of course) to counterbalance the nasties etc. Since the dark 
Ages and Middle Ages were relatively cash poor, this inevitably 
meant that a lot of the offerings made were in the form of *land*.

Now, you're a Priest and you have a family -- when you do, you want 
to provide for them after your death. There the problem arises, was 
the land left to you *personally*, and therefore could be left to 
your offspring, or was it left to the church as a whole (i.e. the 
local Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal, Pope etc.) and therefore *not* 
your property and not inheritable.

Needless to say, the upper levels of the church hierarchy took the 
(understandable, given the milieu) attitude that it was *theirs*. 
This undoubtedly caused a great deal of ill-feeling and opposition -- 
so one of the easiest ways to do away with it was to require that all 
Priests be celibate and not marry ... and take a vow of poverty (in 
theory) so they could not alienate property that the church believed 
rightly belonged to *it*.

This was made easier by the fact that the church (Orthodox, Catholic, 
and other variations) had rapidly become very anti-woman after its 
split from Judaism, and women were seen as corrupters of men and 
inherently evil (especially outside of wedlock), so there was a long 
tradition of unmarried priests being somehow more "holy" than the 
married ones.

Of course, there were a lot of other factors involved -- for 
example, the Orthodox churches have never had the same attitude 
towards married priests *at the low end of the scale*. They 
*expected* Village Priests to be married (to help prevent them from 
sinning), but required those wishing to pursue higher office to be 
unmarried (or, at least, celibate). Most of the Nestorian and other 
breakaway heretical churches had similar attitudes as well.

Phil
- ----------------------

> I took that course several years ago and my memory may be faulty.
> I just remember it because it was the first time that I ever thought
> of the Catholic church as just another institution where internal
> politics ended up dictating external actions.
> 
> If I offended any Catholics, it was purely unintentional. Feel free
> to correct me if my memory is hooped.
> 
Phil McGregor | aspqrz@curie.dialix.oz.au
Author, Rigger Black Book (FASA)
Co-Author, Space Opera (FGU)

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1581
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 19 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1582



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)
Re: Holidays of the Imperium & schools
Quark
Imperial Revenue Service (Long~110 lines)
Contact...
Re: Noble Lands
Nobility and Stuff
Re: Special offer for Traveller
Re: Noble Lands
Sword World Navy Composition on 1107
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1577
THUDDD 5 reminder
RE: Star Frontiers...
Re: Religions in space
Re: Re : Refueling Question
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Volker Greimann's site
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Nobility and Stuff
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:04:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: The Scouts (was Scout Uniforms)

In a message dated 97-07-15 07:41:14 EDT, you write:

<<  Well in
 the naval service, I can think of at least 6 uniforms that I owned; 2
 dress, 2 working dress, 1 Utility , and 1 engineering smock/coveralls( a
 shipboard only uniform. ). I do agree that in their off duty time they
 would wear something else.
 
 Jeff >>
That's exactly what I'm talking about.  I doubt they would need more than a
couple though, since they are typical small units.  If you are Navy then you
can certainly understand my meaning, that's what I was basing my idea on.
 Spent a couple of weeks aboard ship for a "Fleet Exercise" as a Air Force
planner.

Todd

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:10:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: Holidays of the Imperium & schools

In a message dated 97-07-15 09:32:28 EDT, you write:

<< As to school years, you see the great problems for calendar reform across
 interstellar distances. The Imperium dictates few things, but calendar
reform
 is one of them. For those in the Imperium, this IS how they do things. At
 least, this IS how the reports are filled out on Sylea. Locally, I'm sure
the
 principals and administrators just do as they always have and then date the
 diplomas 328-XXX.
 
 Initially there will be conservative resistance to change. But a school year
 needs to be about a year long. A system with a physical year half as long
 would probably have twice as many grades teaching half as much each.
 
 Just like a kid finishing High School a semester early and having to wait to
 June for the diploma. Or someone in independent study having to wait until
 the standardized tests are administered before he can actually get credit.
 Schools are built around bureaucracies rather than for the needs of students
 to get on with their lives.
  >>
I am curious why the Imperium is setting the school year?  Heck the school
year is different from state to state and country to country in todays
society.

Todd

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:46:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Quark

> Was that the summer replacement series of (way too many years ago) with
> Richard Benjamin as the captain of a garbage colletor ship?
>
> Bruce Johnson

Yep. And Hans Conreid as the voice of "The Source" (read ForceTM). 

"Trust me...take the door to the left. No, no,  _my_ left...trust me..."

Loren Wiseman
     GDW Emeritus

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:59:57 -0400
From: Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net>
Subject: Imperial Revenue Service (Long~110 lines)

>The real wealth of the Imperium comes from the overlooked "controls the
>space between the inhabited worlds."  IF the Imperium owns the trade
>routes and all those nice semi-unclaimed raw materials floating around
>out there, that is a lot of MCr.

There are other factors associated with empty space that must be
considered as well.

The Milky Way consists of perhaps a 5000 LY thick galactic disk 
populated not only with stars, but star stuff.  Gas and dust nebulae, 
protostars, possibly even a very large number of brown dwarfs.  Rifts 
are actually regions of nebulosity, not stellar deserts (contrary to 
canonical Traveller's definition). There are even stars inside of them, 
hidden or obscured by the gas and dust, occuring with perhaps no less 
than the normal frequency.  So why would these regions be obstacles if 
there are still stars there?  Because they aren't easily charted and 
explored.  Hence, they aren't astrogatable.  Visible wavelengths are 
greatly attenuated, requiring the use of elaborate and expensive sensor 
apparatus to penetrate the rifts to obtain necessary astrometric and 
gravimetric data (this from motion studies of the target system, not 
gravitometer readings).

My guess is that a fast expanding civilization will grow around rift regions 
rather than through them, and only after time and great effort will they be 
finally charted.

Worlds not-catalogued would be a different matter.  The target
system would have to be analyzed extensively by the ship's sensor suite, 
not only for such as electromagnetic phenomena and gravitic factors. 

Now, the basis assumptions of jump drive are that you enter jumpspace
and about 168 hours later, exit the same at your destination.  The actual 
physics of this matter have yet to be examined in excruciating detail, 
but I'll take a shot in another post if anyone's interested.

Obviously, gravity has a big effect on the quality and outcome
of the basic jump.  Not just initial and terminal gravity, but 
gravitational shear stresses between origin and destination.  There 
would also be effects from non-local disruptions along a given jump 
"route."  Additionally, not all stars are moving at zero velocity
with respect to our region's "Local Standard of Rest."  In fact,
none of them are.  So your destination could be going a a considerable
fraction of the speed of light relative to your origin.  Ooops!
There's definitely a need for big maneuver drives and elaborate
velocity matching maneuvers both prior to and after jump.  (ie., lots
of maneuver time).  This velocity shear is even a problem with 
stutterwarp units (which would all retain the initial velocity of 
the system of their construction with respect to the local frame of 
rest).

One of the basic services provided by the IISS would be the assembly 
(and sale) of an extensive jump astrogation database ("Navigation 
Programs 1-6?").  Such a tool would allow safe astrogation between 
most of its catalogued worlds.   Rift penetration routes and Rift 
"corridors" (regions of relative transparency amid opaque nebulae) 
would be closely guarded military secrets or commercial bottlenecks.  
Of course, the Scouts can't do much about the velocity shear problem, 
except to encourage big M-drives). The astrogation data would be 
quite valuable to commercial and private interests not willing to 
outfit ships with elaborate sensor apparatus.  It is my opinion 
that this subtle tool, this commercial incentive, is the true means 
by which the Imperium attracts worlds and encourages trade.  The 
Imperium builds high quality roads, establishes commercial sea routes 
and protects them, and voila! - trade ensues, and the Imperium 
taxes the trade as much as it can without strangling it.  Nothing 
is ever new under the sun, even if the sun is Sylea's.

Another consideration for the "Imperial Revenue Service":

In the region that will eventually become the 3I, there are actually 
more than 11,000 stars.  A lot more, at least an order of magnitude
more.  To give you an idea, the Near Star Map of 2300AD (derived 
from the Gliese catalog) incorporated roughly 771 star systems within 
50 LY of earth.  This data is a low count of the near stars, that is, 
it does not and cannot account for stars too dim to be seen even 
though they are quite close (ie. we could have very close neighbors 
that are effectively invisible.)

Assuming standard canonical dimensions, the old Near Star Map roughly 
approximates the extent of the Solomani Rim Sector (although it's about
10-15 LY too small in radius). 

Extrapolating based on the assumption that average stellar densities 
in the Local Fluff hold throughout the Local Bubble and Loop I region 
that comprises the Imperium, there are perhaps 210,000 stars in 
within 100PC of earth (again, this is a low estimate). The Local Bubble 
extends about 120 PC out from Sol (about 390 LY).  This is roughly 
half the region covered by the Imperium and effectively bounds the 
Solomani Sphere.   

A similar "Vilani Sphere" comprises the nucleus of the Coreward extents 
of the Imperium, with its center roughly at "Reference".  These regions 
are of similar volumes, noting that the Vilani Sphere does not incorporate 
the Ley, Empty Quarter, Antares, Lishuun, Vland, Amdukan, Mendan, and 
Meshan regions of prior Vilani settlement.  As a rough estimate, the 3I 
may incorporate well in excess of 450,000 star systems.  My best guess 
(at this moment) places the actual number of systems at close to 600,000 
star systems. Maybe more, maybe less considering stellar densities, clusters,
and error in observable data and initial assumptions.

And most of these systems are rocks.  All except for 11,000 of them or so.
Dull, boring lifeless...empty...empty of everything except debris.  Valuable 
debris.  Heavy and light metals.  Fissile materials.  Rocks.  Antimatter 
rocks.  Intelligent semiconductor rocks.  And the Imperium owns all of these 
lifeless systems that don't qualify as "worlds."  After all, if the IISS
finds it and decides: 

	"Wot?!...Why that's not a world, its an exploitation zone!" 

Who is to argue?

Sternmetal Horizons and LSP and company will be very pleased and even eager 
to cough up the cash to pay for exploitation rights.  Except unlike Uncle 
Sam, Uncle Cleon probably won't give this sort of thing away.  The taxation 
credits alone will buy thousands of TL16++ RoM Dreadnoughts.

- -Dan Lane

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 22:14:42 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Contact...

	... is actually a semi-intelligent SF movie.  Some holes in the
ending, but aside from that reasonably well done.  My girlfriend really
liked it; the American flagwaving and incessant harping about religion were
kinda annoying, but other than that, we enjoyed.

	And to put things into perspective, when you get home after seeing
it, if you live in North America, go outsidearound midnight or so and look
straight up.  Vega is the bright blue-white one near the zenith.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 22:41:09 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

	My take on the nobility is that they are very rarely landowners.
If you look at todays' European nobility, while relatively wealthy, they're
just nowhere near as rich as your average industrialist.  Modes of
production shift; while several generations ago real estate (immoveable
property) was the primary source of wealth, these days incorporeal
immoveables (corporate securities and so forth; chunks of society's
economic engine) are the primary source of wealth.

	My take on the nobility of the 3I is that in many cases they just
have _fantastic_ stock portfolios; like the landowners in mediaeval times,
they simply control most of the major means of production.  This doesn't
mean that I don't see them holding land... just that relatively speaking,
their importance comes more from their importance as shareholders in the
megacorps and other corporations.  Let's face it... between rent from 100
peasants and a chunk of Microsoft, I'll take the chunk of Microsoft; it's
probably worth more, will probably increase in value, and is more easily
transferable.

	So basically, you don't want to look at how much land a noble holds
to determine her net worth; you want to figure out where her ancestors put
their money, and how much of Tukera does she own.

	An interesting idea here would be that much of a noble family's
wealth is tied up in bulletproof perpetual trusts; any given generation
gets income from it, and can pump some money back into it, but can't blow
it all on wine, pretty boys, and Famille Spofulam MegaYachts and grav
bikes.  I have this vision of noble families' wealth being these vast
accumulations of capital that almost have a life of their own, and in
relation to which the nobles themselves are almost subservient; their
primary purpose from an economic point of view is simply to provide
titularies to all this wealth...  The noble himself doesn't really matter;
what does matter is that the astronomical sums belonging to him have
someone to attach to.

	Comments?


Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:49:32 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Nobility and Stuff

All this stuff about Noble Fiefs and so on is off the track I think,
because the Imperium does not own worlds, it owns the space between 
the worlds. It may recognize a landowning individual with a title,
or the Emperor may "let out" part of his personal lands in a feudal
contract, but the Imperium per se should not own much land on it's member
planets.

The exception is Imperial Installations such as starports. This could be
a compromise - the Imperial land grants are starport facilities ...

A second exception could be the Imperium accepting land in lieu of
taxes, and then choosing to grant those lands in a feudal/profit
sharing basis. This raises the thorny issue of Imperial taxes ... I
assume the Imperium sets a tax rate as a proportion of GWP, and
independantly audits GWPs thru MoJ or someone. The Navy etc would then
contract with corporations to buy starships and so on, hire people to
work for them, pay pensions etc, which would serve to return the income
to the member worlds of the Imperium.

I guess I can summarize the issue in the question "Are Nobles rich because
they are nobles, or a Nobles noble becasue they are rich ?".

If it is the first, how does the Imperium (which does not claim to own
worlds) make it's Nobility rich ? If the second, then how does the 
Emporer judge who to make noble (I guess two out of good character,
rich and great deeds would do it).

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:14:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Special offer for Traveller

In a message dated 97-07-18 15:54:05 EDT, you write:

<< This won't make any sense to you all, so i'll explain....
 Thomas told me that the store where he is webmaster has a limited 
 quantity of the Limited Edition Traveller Aliens Hardbound (discussed 
 on the list a while ago) which collects all the alien modules and 
 alien realms as well. It was published with a worldwide total limit 
 of 200 issues, all singed (ah, signed ;-) by MM himself.
 For more info surf to the above website. Don't worry the relevant 
 part is in English as well. 
 So if this little treasure is stil missing in your collection, get it 
 while supplies last (i already placed an order ;-)
  >>

IDR or IBR made arrangements to produce this piece and I even signed the
pages, and then they disappeared, never sent me the copies they were supposed
to, never replied to my letters. Where are they now?

Marc Miller

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:14:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-18 19:42:31 EDT, you write:

<< 
 If the Imperium does not own its member worlds but merely controls the
 spaces between them,  how can it give way these lands ? 

*** The Imperium is saying: "You have vowed loyalty to me (and the Empire).
Here is your patent that says you are a feudal vassal. Now go out there and
win worlds for the Imperium! BTW, you have authority to govern in OUR name
this much land/territory."

Now its up to the Baron (and several other Barons) to make this world shape
up. Actually, the Imperium gives these out quite liberally, and then lets the
person decide on where the grant can be applied (within some limits). It is
taxation power/ruling power rather than ownership. Or is it ownership with
the power to grant leases?
 
 
 One hex is a _lot_ of land.

*** and how much of it a baron, etc may develop depends on lots of things. He
may not develop all of it right away, or ever.
 
 > Social B or Higher      Knight
 > Social C        Baron, Baroness
 > Social D        Count, Countess
 
 In the past Soc D  has been a Maruqis in Traveller.
Are you reversing these titles ?
 
 *** No. BTW, it is listed this way in CharGen 41 and no one has caught it
yet.

 It is a lot easier for a PC to begin as or become a Knight than a higher
 noble, are you sure you want a system that will give a Knight such a
 valuable fief (and thereby taking away an improtant reason to
 adventure)  perhaps Knights should receive a "token" fief of value MCr 1
 or so, its physical size would vary based on the value of the land in
 the area).  On another note I was always under the Impression that there
 were (relatively) a lot of Knights in the Imperium.  Are there really so
 few Knights that each one can have a fief this big ?

Some won't get Lands as a MO benefit. 
 
 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:56:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: Sword World Navy Composition on 1107

Reply to Chris Geffen:
   Ahhh, from the database of the Imperial Navy (Fifth Frontier War), here is
some background concerning the Order of Battle for the Sword World Navy at
the onset of the Fifth Frontier War.
    The Sword World Confederation Navy (SWCN) was organized as stated by
others of the TML, member world navies confederated during a time of crisis.
 In the case of the FFW, it was organized at times in up to no more than  two
fleets (Joyeuse and Gram).  The admirals, in order of seniority, were Admiral
Riksdattar (4+1), Eyolfsson (4+2), and Tryggvesson (2+2), with the latter
(junior) admirals seemingly more capable.  The Sword Worlds contributed six
plus corps of troops for ground action.  Its naval order of battle consisted
of one tanker, and two assault transport squadrons. Its bite consisted of 4
frontline (for the Sword Worlders) and two other batrons, and seven lightly
armed crurons.
    It should be noted that the Sword Worlders suffered technologically as
well versus both its Imperial Colonial, and regualr Imperial Navy
counterparts.
    The Sword World Navy initated action in the FFW shortly after the initial
Zhodani incursion into the Regina sector.  While the Imperial response was
mobilizing, the SWCN performed an act of "perfidious" betrayal by attacking
Lanth, and even threatening Rhylanor.  This threat, however, was rather
short-lived as the 193rd Imperial Fleet dealt a severe blow to a Sword World
fleet attempting to land troops on Lanth (001-1108).  Lanth would be
threatened again by the SWCN, but was once again crushed by the 193rd
Imperial Fleet on 096-1109.  The worlds of Gram and Joyeuse, leaders of the
faction favoring war against the Imperium, were crushed by the losses, and as
the coalition collapsed, the Sowrd Worlds settled for peace under Imperial
terms, withdrawing from the Outworld Coalition.
   Just a little history.
    FYI.. the SWCN symbol is a downward pointing sowrd crossed by two sword,
one with its blade pointed to the left, the other to the right.

Charles

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 01:32:36 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1577

Traveller-digest wrote:

> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 00:49:34 -0600
> From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
> Subject: Re: Dark Ages Trade
>
> On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 01:20:23 -0700 (PDT)
> Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> writes:

> (Snip)
>
> Dr. Clark,
>
>    J.P. asked me to relay a post.
>
> (Second snip of some facts and some conjecture).
>
> Leroy for J.P.,
>
> Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
>  University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
>  Class of '98


Leroy,

One thing bothers me. For monthes I've been reading about "J.P.
said...". How come he knows so much but doesn't write for himself? ;^)

Mike for Mike

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:08:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5 reminder

Remember that the THUDDD 5 (Yacht) entry deadline is tomorrow night,
Saturday July 19 at midnight PDT.  I only have a handful of entries so
far...so this may be your chance to win big! :)

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 09:07:24 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: RE: Star Frontiers...

...About Star Frontiers

On 18 Jul 97 at 12:01, Jeff Cornish wrote:

> Unrealistic as you could get, but spaceship combat was pretty
> simple.

	Simple enough, I remember playing Knight Hawks with my 10-year old 
brother (when I was 13). At that age, lack of detail didn't bother 
one bit. :)  Sometimes I wish Traveller was that simple, or that I 
could happily ignore everything scientific and just have fun with the 
game.

	This occurred to me when I (again) started wondering what "real" 
stars (mostly big, bright ones) might be in the Neworld sector (my 
campaign location). When I realized Aldebaran must be about 100 
light-years too close to Earth I nearly panicked and started thinking 
about a three-dimensional map of Traveller universe with every star 
accurately in place... And ended up with a migraine.

	Which approach do people on the list like better? Canonical 
("Aldebaran is the next sector Rimward of Solomani Rim"), Scientific 
("Aldebaran _is_ 260 light-years from Earth, so it's one whole sector 
too close") or Conspiratorial approach ("I know Aldebaran is too 
close to Earth. So do they. But if I don't tell them I know maybe 
they keep their mouths shut too.")?

	Where's my "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space"?!

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 08:19:21 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Religions in space

> o There are certain activities (slavery, murder) which are always 
>   unacceptable and wrong
>

I have moved my initial response to a "P.S." at the end of this 
message, as it got a bit non-TML, so this has become a TL/trade issue!

One commodity that low tech worlds can offer is people - a Filipino 
nanny, or a Bangladeshi road sweeper.  A society on one world may 
consider robot domestic help unacceptable, and prefer to employ women 
(or men, let's be equal opportunity) as nannies, gardeners, chauffeurs 
and so on - it may be cheaper, more prestigious or both.

I don't recall the exact figures, but I remember an article in Time 
magazine (or a similar publication) in the 80's that looked at the 
importance of expatriate workers to the economies of the Philipines, 
Bangladesh and several other countries.  Even Britain made it onto the 
league table (as a supplier of expats to richer countries).



Simon




Slavery is a relative term IMO.  I would consider the jobs of Filipino 
nannies in many (mainly) Arab families to be modern slavery; some of 
the slaves in ancient Rome quite liked their "jobs", I believe.

A few decades before the UK and US ended slavery, there were relatively 
few people in those countries who considered slavery unacceptable.

If murder is "always" unacceptable, can we find a rational explanation 
for the Police-run death squads that killed street children (to "tidy 
up" the streets) in the run up to the World Economic Summit a few years 
ago.

replies to this section via e-mail sre@taz.cix.co.uk
Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 08:19:25 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

> > The FF&S draft gives 0.01 MW to purify 1 m^3 LH2 in 6 hours at TL8. 

That is the same as FFS version 1
  
If we take Andy's figures (and they look OK to me), we have a factor of 
33 between FFS and Andy.

Let us start handwaving.  The FFS data could be taken to refer to 
purifying fuel from a gas giant, and the plant needs either (1) 33 x 
more time, or (2) 33 x more power for ocean refuling.

FFS 0.01 MW x 6 h = .06MWh / kl
x33 = 2 MWh/kl = 28 MWh/T

This gives us a few options, I will consider only two:

(1) Refueling at a GG is the way to go - it typically needs 6 hours to 
purify the fuel = time to fly to 100 Diameters anyway.  Ocean refuling 
takes 200 hours (8 days) - curse those ship designers!

(2) The purifaction plant can take 33 x more power when needed.  
Unfortunately the power requiremnet is so high for ocean refueling that 
the ship cannot actually fly and purify at the same time ... you can 
lay on the beach while the water is split into H2 and O2, or wait until 
you are in orbit and do it there.


Let us take the Lintula Sunrise, from "Long Way Home", UK printing:

Power = 400 MW
Fuel purification = 10 T/h

10 T/h x 28 MWh/T = 280 MW ... quite a large part of the 400 MW 
available.

I will use option (2), as I've always pictures the ship lying 
helplessly in the water during refuelling (one of the reasons I always 
liked the cover of the MT Referee's Companion, with the tentacles of a 
huge sea creature reaching for that hapless crew member)

Once again, science leads to more adventure possibilities!


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 08:19:23 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

> but with fusion recycling is so much easier than flying to
> another system in an expensive starship and buying new ingredients.
>

I suspect that shipping raw materials will make perfect economic sense 
in the Imperium.  

(1) Even if your fusion recycler acts like a vast mass spectrometer 
that separates all of the component atoms out neatly, what are you 
going to do with them on a green, high tech, non-industrial world?

(2) on a high tech industrial world, it may still be cheaper to bring 
in raw materials and chemical intermediates than collect everything to 
a central recycling facility and then re-distribute the recovered 
material - just look at the poor recycling of tin, aluminium and other 
"easy" materials now.

Sure, some worlds will be good recyclers, but I'll bet that there are 
plenty of profligate worlds.

Here in the UK, our coal mining industry is virtually non-existant in 
1997 - it is cheaper to get most of our energy from oil, gas and cheap 
imported coal (open cast instead of deep mined).  If we can use 
multi-million Credit tankers to sail for weeks between the oil fields 
and the end-users, I'm sure our high tech counterparts can use 
starships in a similar way.

Besides, those raw materials will be very cheap, because the low tech 
world will be desperately trying to pay for those high-tech imports.  
(Psst!  Anyone want to buy some UN food aid so I can get guns?) 


Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 11:50:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Volker Greimann's site

Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de> wrote:

<<I just chose the title to signify my preferenctial region for
Traveller. Briefly before i called it Domain of VAG,, but figured
that nobody would know what it meant...>>

In the UK VAG stands for something like Volkswagen-Audi Group... so it's a
car sales home page?

;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 11:48:19 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>:

 << Now, what this means for Traveller tech levels, I haven't a clue, but I
think most folks would agree that Traveller tech level variations between
planets is one of the odder things about the game.  Must be some
explanation other than economics, esp. for M1100.  >>

It's almost as if someone had roled a D6 and added a bunch of modifiers...

;-)


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 06:26:14 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Nobility and Stuff

> If it is the first, how does the Imperium (which does not claim to own
> worlds) make it's Nobility rich ? If the second, then how does the
> Emporer judge who to make noble (I guess two out of good character,
> rich and great deeds would do it).
> 
> Ian Whitchurch


The Imperium does not lay claim to the inhabited worlds-much like the
percent of nobles that is about .01% of all the rocks out there. There
are literally billions of rocks it does own.  Planetary government
doesn't leave the surface of the worlds, so space and those empty rocks
ARE the Imperium.  They obtain and parcel out the "new lands" to the
noble and corporate exploiter alike.

Sort of like the US Forest Service selling trees off its land, but I'm
sure the Imperium always makes a huge profit.  I see this as one of its
major  sources of income.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:29:23 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>
>> I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
>> (ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.
>
> Why not use SI prefixes?
>
> hour equivalent = decisol
> minute = millisol
> second = microsol

Because 10 is a *lousy* divisor for setting up shifts and the like.

I expect that the number of "local hours" will vary from world to
world, but certain numbers are far more likely than others.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1582
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Saturday, July 19 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1583



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: Local Years
Re: Calendar and timekeeping
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Nobility and Stuff
Re: Re : Refueling Question
Re: RoM and TL's (long)
Re: Noble Lands
Additional Comments on Nobility and fiefs
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Sword World Navy Composition on 1107
Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:36:03 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

In mail you write:

> At 06:32 pm 07/16/97 PST, you wrote:
>>I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
>>(ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.
>
>         Decisol, centisol, etc. Why become hung up on the 1/24th division of
> Earth's day that's just a leftover from some ancient culture or the other
> (Babylonians?).

We've kept the 24 (and 60) divisions because they are *useful*. They
are much easier to divide up into smaller chunks than base 10.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 23:29:50 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Local Years

In mail you write:

> With all the talk going on about the Imperial Calendar, I was wondering how
> everyone deals with local "years." Obviously, only a few worlds are going to
> orbit their sun(s) in 365 days. If we are to use our own solar system as a
> guide, then we can take those values appropriately, i.e. All worlds in orbit
> 3 (Earth) orbit their star(s) in 365 days (rounding off) while those in orbit
> 1 (Mercury) orbit their star(s) in 88 days (if my memory is still working).

Sorry, but the orbital period depends not only on the size of the orbit
but also on the mass of the star. There are formulas for this in the
supplements that go in for detailing star systems.

> Why am I concerned about this? Well, I like to add a bit of seasonal variance
> in climate (weather hazards) whenever possible. If this is already covered in
> a previously released book, please forgive me. It's not in any that I own. 

It should be in Book 6 Scouts, Grand Survey, etc. 

You need the star size and type as well as the orbital radius.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:59:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Calendar and timekeeping

In mail you write:

> I second that emotion. When the Julian Calendar was replaced by the
> Gregorian calendar in the early 18th century here in Britain and Ireland
> there were massive demonstrations and even civil disturbances. Country
> dwellers felt that the city dwellers and parliaments were imposing a
> calendar that bore no relation to the rythms of their lives - replacing
> popular holidays, market days, and festivals that were an established part
> of rural life.
>      There are even stories - largely apocryphal, but often reported by
> less careful historians - that there were riots in Dublin, Ireland, because
> less educated memebers of the public were convinced that the calendar
> adjustment had actually robbed them of 11 days of their lives. Imagine the
> chaos that could ensue from this kind of misconception and the trouble the
> Imperium would have clearing up the confusion (and the debris).

Actually, as I heard it, there were *real* grounds for rioting. The
landlords were charging a full quarter's rent even though it was 11
days short.

>
>
>
>
- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 22:36:26 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

In mail you write:

> In a message dated 97-07-17 21:58:48 EDT, you write:
>
> <<   `Simultaneous' is not meaningless for widely separated events if they
>    >>
> This entire thread is the fabric of which adventures and stories are made.
> What other science fiction universe is discussing this sort of thing in
> detail?

Well, you may not want to get into it either.

> So, if Baron Dinsha dies on 098-198 on Sylea and his wife dies on 098-198 on
> Darkhamaar many many parsecs away, isn't it important for the probate court
> to know who died first (even by a second) in order to determine inheritance?

Trouble is, how do you get the times synchronized that well? Assuming
that there *is* some means of synchronization, then the authorities
would go by the Imperial Date and Imperial Standard Time.

> If the Imperial proclamation giving Baron Dinsha authority to do something is
> promulgated on 098-198 (I'm in a rut here) and he does something within that
> authority after that date, is it legal even if he hasn't received the
> evidence of his authority (and he doesn't know he has that authority yet)?

We'd need to check some legal precedents from the age of sail. We do
have things like the battle of New Orleans being fought *after* the
peace treaty had been signed, but before the combatants had gotten word
of it.

Personally, I'd say that that the Baron does not have the autority
until he receives his copy of the proclamation. That produces the
maximum consistency in the way things work. Otherwise you have
officials using authority that they *hoped* had been granted by that
time. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 09:14:04 +0000
From: twolf@unix.tfs.net
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

> Now its up to the Baron (and several other Barons) to make this world shape
> up. Actually, the Imperium gives these out quite liberally, and then lets the
> person decide on where the grant can be applied (within some limits). It is
> taxation power/ruling power rather than ownership. Or is it ownership with
> the power to grant leases?
>  
>  
>  One hex is a _lot_ of land.
> 
> *** and how much of it a baron, etc may develop depends on lots of things. He
> may not develop all of it right away, or ever.
>  
What about the second, third, etc children of a noble?  Do all of 
them get a fief? or only the first Child? I have always thought of 
adventurers being the other children of nobles that don't receive 
land but only the title and an inheritance.

Back to your question about land.  I don't think a typical knight 
would have anything close to a hex.  How about shifting you table 
down one level.  Knights get a fractural hex, Barons a hex, etc.

This is personal fiefs that they actually own.  Most nobles will have 
other assets as well.  You might want to add additional tables for 
Dwellings (castle, keep, royal reserve, etc), Corporate or Capital 
Assets (factories, transportation lines, etc), Political table 
(allies, enemies) , Taxation table (Noble receives a percent from 
special taxes) , and maybe a military table (household guard, lift 
regiment, etc).  A noble would get a number of rolls on these tables 
equal to (something like):
Knight d6-4
Baron d6
Count d6+2
Marquis 2d6
Duke  3d6

Each of the tables (land, dwelling, etc) would have a DM depending on 
the noble's rank. Knights -3, Barons -1, Marquis +1 and Duke +3.  
This way a Baronary might be larger than a Count's fief, this would 
reflect that the ancestors of the Baron has managed their estate 
better than the Count's.

Just some ideas.  Who is writing the Nobles books?  Stu and Joe?

JD
Twolf

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 10:46:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

In a message dated 97-07-19 02:42:28 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Finally, he got away with it...which is the final arbiter of the extent
 of _any_ use of authority.
 
  >>
That gets around any calendar problems.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 10:16:59 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

Since lots of things will be pretty relative out there, I think the only
"universal" reference for time/navigation will be pulsars.  Preferably
local ones to prevent problems with distorted spactime geometries.  

Several are available, such as the Vela pulsar, 1919+21 and Cygnus x-1.
We even have Geminga within 200ly.  A triangulation on these nice
definate sources could provide position, and calibraton of known spin
rates and deceleration could provide an accurate time elapsed.  

Otherwise the Imperium could start a long range "zulu" time broadcast
from Reference, giving a solid date/time (hour/minute/second group) to
all its worlds within 50 years of IOC.  By the time of Strephon's
Imperium this program would provide coordinated time throughout the 3I,
very similar to the Longbow/Empress wavefront. Of couse, corrections
would need to be made for relative velocities and gravitational
anomalies, but I'll bet this is the closest you can get to "universal"
reference time without using psionics.  Even then, who's to say if that
would work?

Speaking form the end of the 20th century, this sounds resonable and
accomplishable.  Commentary and crossfire?

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 08:26:18 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Nobility and Stuff

On Sat, 19 Jul 1997, Ian or Katts wrote:

> All this stuff about Noble Fiefs and so on is off the track I think,
> because the Imperium does not own worlds, it owns the space between 
> the worlds. It may recognize a landowning individual with a title,
> or the Emperor may "let out" part of his personal lands in a feudal
> contract, but the Imperium per se should not own much land on it's member
> planets.

The key word here is 'member'. The Emperor doesn't give land grants one
MEMBER worlds. Outside the Imperium, the situation is entirely different.
That's where these grants of nobility are coming from; for inhabited
worlds, the nobles are typically co-opted from the ledership of that
world, or as someone else has said in this vein recently, the emperor
probably makes the ruling noble out of the person who brings the system
into the Imperial fold.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 08:38:19 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

On Sat, 19 Jul 1997, Simon Early wrote:

> > > The FF&S draft gives 0.01 MW to purify 1 m^3 LH2 in 6 hours at TL8. 
> 
> That is the same as FFS version 1
>   
> If we take Andy's figures (and they look OK to me), we have a factor of 
> 33 between FFS and Andy.
> 
> Let us start handwaving.  The FFS data could be taken to refer to 
> purifying fuel from a gas giant, and the plant needs either (1) 33 x 
> more time, or (2) 33 x more power for ocean refuling.
>

Where is this 33 figure coming from? Electrolysis of water is trivially
easy, and with a MW of power, you can easily electrolyse a lot of water,
very quickly. Electrolysis of water ALSO gains you a great advantage over
scooping gas giant...it is a greatly purifying step, particularly if
you're distilling it first, again a trivial matter if  you have a spare
MW. The cost in power and time for 'fuel purification' IMO, is in
separating out the trace impurities. With water, those impurities will
be quite different from the hydrogen, salts and oxygen mainly, and the
electrolysis takes care of the oxygen. With scooped fuel, you have a
mixture of gases with quite similar physical properties; distilling
hydrogen from a mixture of hydrogen, helium, and a host of other trace
gases is difficult and time consuming.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 09:03:26 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: RoM and TL's (long)

>Why should the RoM be TL 13? All previous incarnations of Traveller
>were set in or after the late 3rd Imperium; a period during which it matters
>little in game and background terms whether the RoM achieved TL 12, 13,
>14 or 15.

I think the RoM should remain TL 12. It matters greatly in Milieu 0 what
tech level the RoM achieved because the Third Imperium is a direct
descendant of the RoM. Sylea was a major system in the RoM and any
technology it had Sylea would have access to. Other posters have made this
point in much more detail than I am able to, pointing out inconsistencies
of a high RoM TL with CT, MT, Triplanetary, the Frontier Wars, and many
other cases. Obviously claiming the RoM had widely achieved TL 13 will have
major canon-breaking effects. Moreover, it is totally unnecessary to make
this claim.

>Because the
>overall thrust of the background for M:0 is that the RoM was superior to
>the early 3rd Imperium (clearly and unequivically stated as TL 12). Now
>it is possible to simply state that all the material published for M:0 is
>wrong
>and the RoM was not superior; but this material, like or not, is now also
>canon and so therefore whatever is done canon is going to be invalidated.

Not exactly true; the overall thrust of the background for M:0 is that
OUTSIDE TECHNOLOGY was superior to the early 3rd Imperium. It is possible
for published material and M:0 to remain consistent, so long as you
remember that the data published in M:1100 has one thousand years of
historical, technological, and cultural research over M:0 behind it.
According to T4 canon, there are caches of TL 14+ equipment which are
attributed to the RoM. From the M:1100 perspective, the RoM had an overall
TL of 12. These can both be valid if we assume that the TL 14+ equipment in
M:0 was actually from a different civilization which no longer exists in
M:1100.

>Therefore, in my oh so humble opinion, the best option is to reconcile the
>new M:0 material with the older M:1100 material in the most believable
>fashion with the minimum of change to either body of material.

I agree. In my humble opinion the best way to do this is propose another
planet which, like Sylea, was colonized by Terrans during the RoM but,
unlike Sylea, did not regress technologically during the Long Night. Over
the centuries it was able, perhaps with Ancient relics to study, to advance
to TL 14 by M:0. As the Third Imperium expands into the remnants of the RoM
it uncovers evidence of this advanced planet. The only point of similarity
between Sylea and the advanced planet are their common RoM heritage.
Therefore, the Third Imperium identifies them as evidence of a
high-technology RoM.

>The conflicts it doesn't address (that I'm aware of) are the TL 14+ weapons
>in EA, the current manufacture TL 13 equipment in CSC; and lastly, the
>dreaded EVA-14 in CSC and Anomolies

True, the theory that the RoM achieved TL 13 does not explain these. But
neither does the claim that the RoM achieved TL 14 or even TL 15. As you
point out, the TL 13 equipment in CSC is of current manufacture and not
from the RoM. The TL 14 equipment in Anomalies are not thousand-year old
relics, they are new, working technology. The seals are fresh, the
consumable material uncontaminated, the power packs newly charged. As other
posters have pointed out they are contemporary and cannot be from the RoM.
However, my theory explains all these weapons, manufacture, and anomalies.

>The Dreaded and Infamous EVA-14 (also known as the TL 14 vacc suit):
>This is harder yet, in fact my solution is down right inelegant and requires
>suspension of disbelief.
>
>During the Long Night a pocket empire briefly achieved TL 14, I'll call
>it the Diaz-Ek'Mkana Empire. Explorers from this Empire roamed
>through much of the former RoM during it's brief accendancy.

How about a slightly more elegant solution. During the RoM, entire sectors
are thrust into political and economic chaos as the Terrans destroy the
cultural and economic infrastructure of millenia. As interstellar commerce
collapses from the onslaught of pirates and renegade Terran warships,
planets are cut off from their supplies and information. Fusion reactors
and jump drives are cannibalized for spare parts, then fall into disrepair
as replacement parts and technical information no longer arrives.
Technological development slows, then reverses. Planets all over the RoM
slide into the Long Night.

Except one.

One planet, perhaps due to distance, cultural isolation, or advanced
infrastructure, survives the fall of the RoM. Not only does it survive the
Long Night, it prospers. It has the technology and resources not only to
survive the loss of contact with other planets, but to progress. With a
population in the tens of billions, over many centuries it is able to make
the staggering investments necessary to increase to TL 14. For a variety of
reasons, such as a lack of worthwhile worlds nearby and a democratic
government which cannot be responsive to distant colonies, it is not
expansionistic and never becomes a pocket empire (or any form of empire).
However, it does mount the occasional long-range exploration expedition and
resuppy base (my explaination of 'Lock and Loot').

The Third Imperium's first contact with this secret enclave is the
occasional scout report of mystery starships maneuvering at 5 Gs and rare
advanced artifacts with Terran markings found by far-travelling free
traders. At first these are explained as relics of an advanced RoM.
However, the evidence of recent manufacture and inconsistencies in the
reports spawn new theories: theories of an advanced pocket empire; of
secret technology under development far from Imperial news media; that the
RoM never fell and still surrounds the tiny Third Imperium; of a mysterious
'shadow planet' of high technology; that Sylea itself is being manipulated
by an advanced alien race which follows its own version of the "Zhunastu
School of Contact"; or a malevolent 'parallel Imperium' run by opponents of
Cleon who base their power on control of high technology rather than the
nobility.

Any one of these alternatives is far more interesting and has more campaign
potential than "The RoM left a bunch of self-repairing high-tech toys for
dungeon delvers to find and then disappeared". My personal favorite is the
'shadow planet' theory, not only because it explains all the anomalies
without breaking canon, but because it addresses my biggest complaint with
Milieu 0.

Milieu 0 is disappointingly unoriginal. All the themes and background
details; the Third Imperium, the Ancients, Psionic Institutes, Pocket
Empires, TL 15 relics, have all been done before by other Traveller
products. However, in no earlier version of Traveller did the Third
Imperium face an opponent of significantly greater technological
development. The Zhodani, Sword Worlds, Solomani Confederation, and so on
were all of comparable technology. The Ancients and Darrians were not
strictly opponents. Adding a single, highly controlled source of technology
significantly in advance of Imperial norms can add an element of
originality to M:0, if done carefully.

Making only a single planet, rather than an entire pocket empire, have high
technology also allows the setting to have some interesting features. All
the interstellar governments in traveller are authoritarian, presumably
because of the necessity to retain control over places with a significant
communications lag. If the high-technology enclave is a single planet it
can be run by a government type, like an athenian democracy, inappropriate
to a large empire. In fact this is very likely, explaining why the enclave
did not expand into space significantly. Since the Third Imperium did not
achieve TL 14 itself for many centuries we know there could not have been
significant trade or communication between the early Imperium and the
high-technology planet. Also, no matter how imposing they may have seemed
in M:0, we know that by M:1100 this single powerful planet had no
significant effect on the Third Imperium and is probably known only to
historians.

Currently in my campaign my players have encountered no functioning
advanced-tech relics. I felt they were too cliche and unbalanced the game.
However, I realize they are now canon and made my best attempt to explain
them in a logical fasion which adds new campaign adveture potential. A
single TL 14 planet existing in M:0 explains the high-tech equipment and
anomalies, is consistent with canon, and provides campaign potential which
makes M:0 a unique campaign setting.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 18:03:17 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

Here are some of my thoughts on nobles.

When a plant joins the Imperium, one of the ways it can pay for things 
is by land grants.  A few million sq km of virgin territory can be 
exchanged for access to technology (the Imperial Data Package in 
M:1100) or for a cut of the taxes from mining the asteroid belt - the 
land is worth little to the low tech plant, but hard currency from 
Belters is worth having.

These land grants can then be turned over for exploitation by 
Megacorporations or Nobles.  Imagine a noble being given a land grant 
of virgin territory.

(1) He might offer exploration and mineral rights to SternMetal 
Horizons and others, as was done to exploit the north sea oil and gas 
reserves.  In return, the noble is given a % of the value of extracted 
minerals (either as cash or stocks & shares)

(2) The new monorail link between city A and B could pass through the 
nobles lands.  The noble, an avid fan of SimCity 5431, decides to set 
aside a large tract of his land as the route for the monorail in 
exchange for stock in the start-up consortium bidding to build the 
monorail link.  (compare withe the Channel Tunnel project).

(3) Trake grows very well here, with the likelyhood of some vintage 
years.  The noble offers his land to the sons of a local vineyard so 
that they can start up their own business.  The noble arranges for high 
tech earth-movers to be shipped in for the six-months irrigation 
project.  Again, the noble owns a percentage of the vineyard.

.. you get the idea.


Now, each square km of land may produce nothing or (in an urban area) a 
MCr or more of rental income - if the noble owns the houses / offices / 
etc.  A new noble is likely to be given "untouched land", which 
provides him with no income.  He can use that land, in the ways given 
above, to generate income or as a place to invest his own money.

Take TAS membership as a reference point for investmnet:
TAS membership = 1 MCr = 50,000 Cr/year in High passage and intangible 
benefits = 5%.  (I know High passage is "worth" Cr 10,000, but past 
debate has settled on this 5% figure I believe).

Allow investment in a nobles own land to provide a higher (average) 
level of income - say 2D6% per year?

Allow the noble to sell exploitation rights to others, which will net 
him income based on the following table:

Agri-investment:
     Investment Level (by others)
     1-2 = low      2-3 = Med      4-6 = high
     ========================================
y1   1 per km2      1 per km2      nil
y2   5              10             nil
y3+  10             20             50

Industrial Investment
     Investment Level (by others)
     1-2 = low      2-3 = Med      4-6 = high
     ========================================
y1-3 nil            nil            nil
y4-8 20             20             nil
y9+  50             50             200

After 20 years the industrial investment income may be reduced if old 
plants are not replaces (beacuse it's cheaper on that new barony two 
planets away).

either: Roll 3- for each km2 for plant to shut down,
or: assume 5% reduction each year on large industrial areas.

There might be a limit of (say) 1000 km2 for industrialisation in any 
world hex.

Resource Exploitation Investment (sell rights to others)
     Resouce Richness Level
     1-2 = low      2-3 = Med      4-6 = high
     ========================================
y1-3 nil            nil            nil
y4-8 nil             50            100
y9+  nil            100           1000

After 20 years the resources may start to run out.

either Roll 4- for each world hex for income to cease.

I favour working in either km2 or in 20 km (346 km2) "mapping hexes" 
used in World Tamers and world mapping threads passim.



If the players want even more detail than this, give them a copy of the 
Wolrd Tamers Handbook from TNE which considers colony management in 
monthly turns. 


PS: Marc, your km2 per world hex is slightly different from the figures 
in World Tamers handbook, p20.  But I believe that "Marc on the TML" 
has higher ranking canon than TNE data :-)




Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 18:21:41 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Additional Comments on Nobility and fiefs

=46irst, as others have pointed out, Knights don't _necessarily_
get an Estate.  I take it that many will, as traditionally,
feudal relationships required provision of armed forces to the
superior by the subordinate; there was sometimes a requirement
that a knight bring with him a levy of several ordinary
men-at-arms.  In the Traveller context, levies would be handled
(generally) on a world-wide basis, by the "civil government"
rather than the feudal hierarchy - although the noble will be the
head of that level of the civil government as well, thus blurring
the distinction.  In many cases, the noble fief will not be "real
land", but rather the right to tax the inhabitants thereof.

Second, there are actually two classes of nobles in the Imperium:
Those who are recognized by the Imperium, and those who are not.
The Soc code in the UPP doesn't distinguish between these. =20

Those who are not recognized by the Imperium may be locally
enfeoffed nobles (i.e., Joe Bftsplk is the Bigyump of Podunkia;
on the planet of Moosylvania, a Bigyump occupies the social
position of a Baron, but the title is not recognized off-planet),
or they may be socially/politically prominent citizens who are
otherwise untitled (i.e., Donald Trump is probably at the same
level of social pecking order as a Count; the Kennedys that have
gone into politics (most of the men) are probably the equivalent
of Marquises or better; Bill Gates is probably an American
"Duke").  When one of these nobles/pseudonobles travels
off-planet, their perceived Soc _may_ change - it depends on how
they act while they're in a given area - if Bill Gates goes to
Sylea, and behaves as is expected of a Count, and can maintain
himself as befits a Count, he will probably be treated as a Count
in terms of the social circles he moves in, and the respect
accorded him - even though he holds no seat in the Moot, and
lacks many of the traditional privileges of a Count.  The vast
majority of "noble" ranks probably fall into this category -
i.e., they are not recognized by the Imperium.

The remaining minority are those who _are_ recognized by the
Imperium - the ones who actually hold a seat in the Moot (whether
they actually go to Sylea and vote it or not).  These are the
nobles who receive the fiefs that have been discussed elsewhere
in this skein.  These are the nobles whose titles are recognized
and valid wheresoever shall run the authority of the Emperor of
the Third Imperium Restoring the Rule of Man over a Grand Empire
of the Stars.  These are the nobles who, other than knights,
should probably be _DAMN_ rare as adventurers, because they'll
have obligations to their fiefs and to the Imperium that will
probably take up most of their time.

Jeff Zeitlin
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 14:25:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-19 10:53:45 EDT, you write:

<< Just some ideas.  Who is writing the Nobles books?  Stu and Joe?>>
Marc is figuring out the Lands MO benefit for T41.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 14:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-19 14:27:18 EDT, you write:

<< 
 PS: Marc, your km2 per world hex is slightly different from the figures 
 in World Tamers handbook, p20.  But I believe that "Marc on the TML" 
 has higher ranking canon than TNE data :-)>>

I'll look it up. My formula was:

World Size in Miles times 1.6 for Diameter in Kilometers.
Diameter in Kilometers times 3.14159 for Circumference.
Circumference divided by 35 for hex size (diameter) edge to edge.
A hex is composed of six equilateral triangles with side equal to diameter/2.
And its area is equal to 3 times (diameter/2) squared.

There are 492 hexes on a world (of which 20 are really pentagons).

Is that right?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 11:27:15 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Sword World Navy Composition on 1107

At 12:56 AM 7/19/97 -0400, you wrote:

> In the case of the FFW, it was organized at times in up to no more than
>two fleets (Joyeuse and Gram).

IIRC, The Spinward Marches Campaign showed two additional fleets, one of
which invaded Lunion, the other probing ineffectivly against the Darriens.

>The admirals, in order of seniority, were Admiral Riksdattar (4+1),
>Eyolfsson (4+2), and Tryggvesson (2+2), with the latter (junior) admirals
>seemingly more capable.

This caused me so many headaches.. I'd get Tryggvesson to pin down
Santocheev somewhere, and the Gram Fleet would show up with that pompus
fool Riksdatter in charge!  

Wasn't there an Imperial admiral who was 0+3?

>    It should be noted that the Sword Worlders suffered technologically as
>well versus both its Imperial Colonial, and regualr Imperial Navy
>counterparts.

Their aveage troop TL was 10-11, so I imagine their ship's were about the
same.

>    FYI.. the SWCN symbol is a downward pointing sowrd crossed by two sword,
>one with its blade pointed to the left, the other to the right.

           
           *
          ***
           *   *
      ************
           *   *
           *
       *   *
     ************
       *   *
           *

Something like that....
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 15:21:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Shionthy Belt and ultimately official sources

In a message dated 97-07-19 14:21:06 EDT, you write:

<< So if Marc is in the Cathedral it doesn't count? >>
Sometimes he says the wrong thing and it is pointed out to him. Then he has
the cathedral torn down and rebuilt.

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1583
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Sunday, July 20 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1584



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Re : Refueling Question
Droyne
Re: Catholic Church
Re: Next Ship?
Nobility
Traveller IRC
Re:  Noble Lands
Re: TTA autoshotgun design
Re : Re : Re : Refueling Question
More about land grants
Re: Land grants

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 21:10:33 +0100
From: Simon Early <sre@taz.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

> Where is this 33 figure coming from?

That was the factor between Andy Brick's calculation of the power 
requirements to make 1 T H2 by electrolysis and the power given in 
Fire, Fusion & Steel (version 1).



Simon

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:32:03 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Droyne

Glenn respondeth to myself
>> Looking at GDW's AM 5: Droyne, I find SS N of Dagudashag, and in SS J of
>> Massilia are Droyne worlds... Really close to the borders of M0 Imperial
>> Space. A MAJOR oversight there...
>
>But GDW's AM 5 is set in 1100. Were those worlds Droyne worlds in Year
>0, or were they colonized later?
>
>Or maybe those worlds in M:0 were filled with Chirpers who received
>coyns and casted later?

doubtful to both. Droyne, according to AM5 tend not to be interested in
colonization, and even less so in contact with other droyne worlds.

>Or maybe no one bothered to check who's living on those worlds, or even
>realized that Droyne were anything more than a minor race?
>
>Or they didn't even realize the Dagudashag Droyne and the Massilia
>Droyne were the same species?

I couldn't give a rat's ass whether they are recognized by M0's
inhabitants. I'm upset for a twofold purpose:

1) There are droyne in the vicinity, and Psionics doesn't list them, but
does list hivers and k'kree, and Zho's......

2) The book sabatoges those who want to use it for OTHER THAN M0.

C'mon, guys... don't sabatoge those who DON'T use M0. Because of two
errors, I won't buy Psionic Institutes; I borrowed it to see whether it was
worth spending money on. (Error #1 was not labelling psionic and target on
the alien interaction table.)

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 12:32:17 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re: Catholic Church

>Subject: Re: Catholic church
>
>Glenn Crawford wrote:
>>
>> There has been married priests, popes etc.
>>
>> During the Renaissance, it was quite common
>>
>> Then the church finally decided to start obeying its own  rules
>
>From what I remember in a university course, the church used to
>allow priests to marry and have children. Then the families of
>said priests began getting a little too powerful for the pope's
>liking, since the priest's children would often become priests too.
>So, one of the pope's simply declared that priests couldn't marry
>and that ended the "problem".
>
>I took that course several years ago and my memory may be faulty.
>I just remember it because it was the first time that I ever thought
>of the Catholic church as just another institution where internal
>politics ended up dictating external actions.
>
>If I offended any Catholics, it was purely unintentional. Feel free
>to correct me if my memory is hooped.

That declaration was somewhere around 1200 AD, and applied only to the
"western church" (the Roman Rite); the Byzantines never stopped, nor did
the Maronites (in what is not Iran and Iraq, mostly Iraq), nor the Coptics,
nor the ... (etc....)


And it came to a head (according to church sources) when a particular
priest's sons claimed the parish as familial property, even though they
WERN'T priests (er even deacons) themselves.

The pope didn't remove/suspend anyone's faculties, just barred ordaining
any more married men. In the 1970's. the Pope allowed ordaining married
(permanent) Deacons in the Roman Rite; My dad is one.

Note also, that even though the Byzantine rite as a whole never barred
married clergy, within the US, they stopped in the 1850's or so, due to
pressure from the Roman Rite bishops. They are now starting to reverse that
trend. The Ukranian Rite refused to give up THEIR married priesthood at
about the same time.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 19:30:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Macpherson <john35@wharton.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: Next Ship?

Derek Stanley said (on the TNE list): 
> How about an SDB contest?
> 
> I'm looking at designing an SDB for my campaign so perhaps I'll just put
> it out to tender.
> 
> Here's the deal on the SDB.  
> 1)- TL12 for all components except JD (if you want to include one) which
> can be no higher than TL11 unless it's relic, and TL13 for laser
> weapons.  
> 2)- The SDB must be no larger than 500DT and no smaller than 150DT's.
> 3)- The ship must have no less than 80 G-Turns.
> 4)- The ship must be able to crack it's own fuel in 15 hours or less.
> 5)- The ship can use any of the relic components available from a single
> TL15 S-Class Scout.
> 
> The design contest is a, best bang for your buck, contest.  The most
> capable design, at the lowest price would be the most desirable.

	Whether this is going to be the next design contest, I thought I'd
design one. 

Medusa-class System Defense Boat

General Data
	Displacement: 500 tons		Hull Armor: 120
	Length: 24 meters		Volume:	7000m^3
	Price:  355.06MCr		Target Size: S
	Configuration: Sphere SL	Tech Level: 12
	Mass:  7,704

Engineering Data
	Power Plant:  1692 MW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration
	Jump Performance: 0
	G-rating:  4 (250MW/G), Contra-Grav lifters (50MW)
	G-turns:  100 (31.25m^3 each)
	Maint:  155
	
Electronics
	Computer: 1xTL-15 Mod St Computer (Relic), 1xTL-12 Mod Fib Computer
	Commo: 1x1000AU Maser (TL-15 Relic), 300,000km Radio (TL-15 Relic)
	Avionics: TL8+ Avionics
	Sensors: PEMS 150,000km folding array (5 hexes) (4 hexes folded) 
		 (TL-15 Relic), 
		 AEMS 300,000km (10 hexes, 15MW) (TL-15 Relic)
	ECM/ECCM: EMM (7 MW), Decoy Dispenser w/ 100AEMS, 100PEMS, and 
		  50Ladar decoys
	Controls: Bridge with 7xBridge Workstations, plus 8 other Workstations

Armament
	Offensive: 1xTL-12 250Mj Spinal PAW (Arcs: 1; 6.94MW; 1 crew)
		   10xTL-13 650Mj X-Ray Laser Barbettes (Loc:10,11; Arcs: All 
		   5.55MW, 1 crew ea.)
 	Defensive: 6xTL-12 Sandcasers, 1d10x5 per hit
	Master Fire Directors: 2xTL-12 MFDs (4DMs; 1.3MW ea; 1 crew ea.)

			Short	    Medium	Long	   Extreme
650Mj X-Ray Laser Barb	10:1/20-64  20:1/10-32  40:1/5-16  80:1/3-8	
250Mj Spinal PAW	2:80	    4:40	8:20	   16:10

Accomodations
	Life Support: Extended (1.4MW), Gravitic Comp (3G; 35MW)
	Crew: 50: 4xEngineering, 1xElectronics, 1xManeuvering, 17xGunnery, 
		  3xMaintenance, 2xFlight Crew, 5xCommand, 1xStewards,
	Crew Accomodations: 6xSSR (single); 22xSSR (double)
	Passenger Accomodations: None
	Other Facilities: None
	Cargo: 161m^3 (11.5 tons); 1 small cargo hatch
	Small Craft and Launch Facilities: Docking Ring for
					   10-ton Launch
	Air Locks: 5

Design Notes:
	No Fuel Purification machinery because no j-drive is installed.
	Fuel scoops can capture a full tank of fuel in one turn.

	In keeping with the mythological nomenclature for SDBs, this ship 
class has been named Medusa because the "gaze" of its spinal PAW disables 
vessels without fiber-optic computers.  The ship is intended for customs 
and system defense work.  The PAW is not really intended as a serious 
combat weapon, but for disabling ships that do not respond to 
communications without having to destroy them.  The Medusa carries a 
squad of Marines and 2 Virus specialists which can then ferry across to 
the target vessel to inspect it.  The Marines and Virus specialists can 
also be used to inspect incoming trading vessels that may be harboring 
Virus or carrying more mundane contraband.
	The ship is by no means a mere customs cutter.  It carries 10 
powerful 650Mj X-Ray laser barbettes.  Each one does nearly as much 
damage as a blast from a 200 kiloton detonation laser and at short range 
can cut through the armor of even battleships.  The ship is also 
well defended by a 120AV which will limit the damage from turret lasers 
to only minor hits.  The Medusa's 6 sandcasters provide even further 
protection.
	It was decided that the Medusa should be as large as the design
specs would allow so as to conserve on the valuable relic technology used
in its construction.  The relic sensors provide the ship with excellent
coverage; the relic computer is necessary for the use of the sensors and
reduces the required crew.  The backup TL-12 computer is fiber optic so
that the Medusa does not become a victim of its own ploy.  The launch is 
likewise equipped with a fiberoptic computer.  

- -JM

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:32:11 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Nobility

Bruce Jonhson wrote :

"The key word here is 'member'. The Emperor doesn't give land grants one
MEMBER worlds. Outside the Imperium, the situation is entirely different.
That's where these grants of nobility are coming from; for inhabited
worlds, the nobles are typically co-opted from the ledership of that
world, or as someone else has said in this vein recently, the emperor
probably makes the ruling noble out of the person who brings the system
into the Imperial fold."

OK, so the Imperium doesnt grant noble estates, but recognises non-noble
estates ... "Nobles dont become rich, rich people become nobles"


Dan Lane wrote :

"And most of these systems are rocks.  All except for 11,000 of them or so.
Dull, boring lifeless...empty...empty of everything except debris. Valuable
debris.  Heavy and light metals.  Fissile materials.  Rocks.  Antimatter
rocks.  Intelligent semiconductor rocks.  And the Imperium owns all of these
lifeless systems that don't qualify as "worlds."  After all, if the IISS finds
it and decides:

        "Wot?!...Why that's not a world, its an exploitation zone!"

Who is to argue?

Sternmetal Horizons and LSP and company will be very pleased and even eager
to cough up the cash to pay for exploitation rights.  Except unlike Uncle
Sam, Uncle Cleon probably won't give this sort of thing away.  The taxation
credits alone will buy thousands of TL16++ RoM Dreadnoughts."

Problem :

Joe Belter and friends are in the system with their tacky little fission
powerplant, their 50-person extended-life support system and a couple
of Seekers sans Jump Engines that someone freighted into the system for
them. They possibly got an advanced copy of the IISS draft report before
it got out to IISS HQ - lots of scouts become belters and vice-versa.

They say "Oh, hi. I guess this is our world, and since Aunt Jane is
living on that one thats our too. And Cousin Helmut is on that one.
And we've surveyed these, and the Ring Council has put ownership
markers on them".

Joe Belter, not being stupid, also cut in Slater and Brzyk Attorneys-
at-Law(Sylea) in for 10% of the net, who are currently working a
request for membership through the Imperial bureaucracy.

In short, a world is somewhere with people living on it. And if you 
can get there and it is at all worthwhile (which could just include
elbow room and no-one telling you how to live your life), people
will settle it.

Colonization is cheap in Traveller ... power plants are cheap,
extended life support in FFS2 is cheap and transport is cheap
(do the numbers on Cattle Class - bunks and low-grade food is 
almost as cheap as low passage). Oh yeah, life is cheap too *grin*.

Ian Whitchurch

PS Colonise everywhere in PE. It costs 2 RU and your infra-2 small
colony produces income equal to (on average) half their resource
value minus infrasructure (two) in RU in Resource Export income.
Call the system resources five, thats 1.5 RU - 7500 Megacredits
per annum. Pretty good for 500 people huh *grin*. A quick fix is
to multiply colonisation costs by the Infrastructure Atmosphere
Modifier plus one. Or just trash the Resource Trade rules, or
require that Resources Imported = Resources Exported, within a
Free Trade Zone.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 17:40:10 -0700
From: "Eric Jackson" <Alric@SpryNet.Com>
Subject: Traveller IRC

Good Day,

I have been mulling over the possibility of running a Traveller IRC game. 

It would be using T4 rules, set at sometime in some subsector (undecided
right now).

I am an experienced GM but new to IRC, so expect a learning curve.

I could run it pretty much anytime on the weekends and after 8 on weekdays
(the exact time and day will be decided by the player's schedules).

I will create the characters based on what each player wants (if you want a
30 year old pilot I will make sure that's what you get).

Players must not have read or played "Memory Alpha", the adventure in the
GM's screen. Unfamiliarity with the old classic traveller adventures is a
plus, I will probably run some of them.

I'm looking for 3 or 4 players to start out with.

If your interested send me an e-mail with a general description of the type
of character you would want and when you would be free to play.

Eric J
Alric@SpryNet.Com

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 21:35:00 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re:  Noble Lands

>I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
>Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
>have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
>surveyed (and developed) etc.

I personally don't envision nobles getting "land grants" at all. I thought
the Third Imperium only ruled the space between planets and the member
worlds ruled themselves. If this is the case, the only way nobles are going
to get land is by buying it. This is not unlikely, though, since I always
envisioned nobles getting their wealth from corporate ownership. Isn't that
the way Cleon got his wealth? Milieu 0 describes Cleaon's businesses and
shares in megacorporations, it doesn't mention his land holdings. I'm sure
he has them, they just aren't where he gets his money or power.

In my campaign, nobles' power is economic, and comes from their positions
as major shareholders and members of corporate boards.

>	An interesting idea here would be that much of a noble family's
>wealth is tied up in bulletproof perpetual trusts; any given generation
>gets income from it, and can pump some money back into it, but can't blow
>it all on wine, pretty boys, and Famille Spofulam MegaYachts and grav
>bikes.  I have this vision of noble families' wealth being these vast
>accumulations of capital that almost have a life of their own, and in
>relation to which the nobles themselves are almost subservient; their
>primary purpose from an economic point of view is simply to provide
>titularies to all this wealth...  The noble himself doesn't really matter;
>what does matter is that the astronomical sums belonging to him have
>someone to attach to.
>
>Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

Brilliant idea, Roderick. Wealth tied up in non-liquid investments like
starships , starports, and corporations on distant planets could have this
effect. They may also hve considerable funds tied up in long-term contracts
and multi-century leasing arrangements. I like this.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 07:13:39 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: TTA autoshotgun design

At 22:05 -0400 7/19/97, Derek Wildstar wrote:
>At 12:41 PM 7/4/97 -0400, Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote:
>>1) text is unclear as to whether you can combine recoil compensators and
>>muzzle brakes.  I assumed you can.
>
>No, you can't.  They both deflect gasses from the barrel to reduce the
>recoil (or the effect of the recoil).  If you install a compensator, then
>the muzzle brake is useless (because the compensator comes before the
>brake, and uses the gas that the brake would need to work).


	Gotcha...


>
[snipppage]
>>This means that one could presumably play skeet with starships;
>
>Nope.  ANY vehicle hull is sufficient to stop the Damage 1 pellets; even a
>car door and probably even windshield glass (though the glass would probably
>be damaged, cracked and crazed enough that you couldn't see through it
>anymore).


	Thanks.  Gotcha.  Just out of curiosity, what are the actual,
official definitions of damage and pen?  Pen I can see as being x cm of
material y penetrated, but how do you get damage from this?  Is pen damage?
What does 1 point of damage represent?  How do you go from a given amount
of pen to a point of damage?

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 07:32:12 -0400
From: Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re : Re : Re : Refueling Question

Hi All,

Bruce Johnson wrote -

> Where is this 33 figure coming from? Electrolysis of water is trivially=

> easy, and with a MW of power, you can easily electrolyse a lot of water=
,
> very quickly.

Yes, electrolysis is very easy. But 1 MW doesn't get you very far -
1 MW will convert 1000kg (1m3) of pure water into H2 and O2 in =

about three hours, which is not what FF&S states. See my =

earlier post for why.

> Electrolysis of water ALSO gains you a great advantage over
> scooping gas giant...it is a greatly purifying step, particularly if
> you're distilling it first, again a trivial matter if  you have a spare=

> MW.

Yep.

> The cost in power and time for 'fuel purification' IMO, is in
> separating out the trace impurities. With water, those impurities will
> be quite different from the hydrogen, salts and oxygen mainly, and the
> electrolysis takes care of the oxygen. With scooped fuel, you have a
> mixture of gases with quite similar physical properties; distilling
> hydrogen from a mixture of hydrogen, helium, and a host of other trace
> gases is difficult and time consuming.

Every cubic metre of GG atmosphere above the cloud tops
on Jupiter yields about 21 g of hydrogen, which means you only have
to scoop for about 3km to get enough H2 for 1m3 as liquid. If you are
travelling at say, 300 metres per second, then that's 10 seconds flight
time.
Gathering the atmosphere is thus easy.

Purifying it is not so simple. 90% of each cubic metre of "raw" atmospher=
e =

is H2, but the rest is mostly Helium. Since H2 and He have similar
diffusion
rates, you have to fractionally distillate the atmosphere to get the H2.
That
takes time and energy.

For ocean refuelling, electrolysis neatly handles most impurities except
those that discharge at the electrode more readily than H2 and O2.

Andy Brick
exeus@compuserve.com
http://www.caco.demon.co.uk/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 15:05:17 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: More about land grants

Erwin Fritz writes:
>In your example you imply that knights (soc = 11) get income. I don't
>think this is the case. Are knights awarded fiefdoms?

Depends on what country and what age you're talking about. In a true feudal 
society some knights would have fiefs (the origin of knights were people who
owned enough land to maintain a horse and armor), others would be maintained 
by a higher noble. In other kinds of setup a knighthood could merely be an 
honor bestowed on someone without the need for upkeep. In post-feudal England, 
for example, a landed knight is called a baronet.

- ------------------------------

Peter Newman writes:

>My suggestion would be that Knights (Soc B) may get a small fief worth not 
>more than MCr 1 (a few sq km perhaps), 

A few square km on a planet several subsectors from the Imperial border
might not be worth anywhere near as much as that.

>some Knights will not have a fief.

Those given knighthoods merely to fit them into Imperial society would not get 
anything. Those given knighthoods to reward them for something might get a 
lifetime income of, say, Crimp20,000.

>>I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
>>Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it (or
>>have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; once
>>surveyed (and developed) etc.
>
>If this planet is uninhabited this sounds perfect but if this planet has
>a population I'm not so sure this will work.  

Even if the planet is uninhabited there will be problems. It costs money to
develop a planet. Thus any noble given an uninhabited planet would need to
own a lot somewhere else in order to finance it (Mind you, this is not meant
as an objection; on the contrary, such a setup would be perfect for a PE- or
WTH-style campaign. I merely point out that if someone has _only_ the planet 
then he has problems (Hmm... I suppose he could borrow money at high interest 
rates...)).

- ------------------------------

Scott Ellsworth writes:
>According to character generation, roughly 1/12th of the population is
>noble.  Of those nobles, the majority are knights which do not have an
>explicit fief.
>
>According to my most recent almanac from the UK, they have roughly 0.1% of
>the population ennobled - of the millions of people in the UK, there are
>several thousand nobles, all listed.
>
>This means that on Sylea, the thirty billion people will result in
>something like 30 million nobles on Sylea alone.

This line of reasoning is the prime reason why I worked out the house rules
described in another post. The notion of having 2-3 nobles in each averaged 
sized scool class dosen't appeal to me. Remember that nobles 'enjoy high 
standing in their home community'. That wouldn't be the case if they were as 
common as 1 in 12. ("Hey! Don't throw that brick, you're bound to hit a 
noble!" "So what?")

>It does seem like the total number of nobles should either be proportional
>to wealth, or to population, and of those, I like population.  Smaller
>planets should not lead to nobles with smaller fiefs directly, only through
>population.  This is, of course, just my opinion.

I agree 100% The true source of power and income is people. Land and factories
are only worth anything if you have people to work them. Mind you, the
relationship is not 1-to-1. Unemployed people is a drain rather than a source.
But on the level of abstraction we're dealing with in connection with Imperial
nobles, people is a pretty good measure of power (and TL, of course; and
infrastructure...)

>The Imperium taxes the planets directly, and I suspect the nobles.

I once had a notion that I'd like to bring forward here: That the main income
of the Imperium comes from the companies they licence for interstellar trade.
Simply put, the price of getting a Limited Interstellar Charter is to give
the Emperor a 2% share of the company (with no compensation; the Emperor can,
and often does, buy more stock in promising companies, but the 2% is for 
free). This is called "The Emperor's Share" and is almost never sold (Of all
the companies and corporations I've seen where stock ownership has been 
detailed, only one has not had at least 2% owned by the Imperial family).
Anyway, the dividend the Emperor recieves from all these companies would pay
for a lot of Imperial functions. That means the Emperor dosen't need to get
money from his vassals; all he needs is they govern well in his name.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 15:02:18 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Land grants

Marc Miller writes:
>This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the Imperium).
>
>Social B or Higher      Knight

I believe the female equivalent of a Knight is a Dame.


Are you determined to stick to Social C to H being Imperial titles? After all,
in the original rules it was clear that the titles PCs got from the CharGen
system were planetary titles (there were two more levels above duke, prince 
and king, and these were used by actual rulers of worlds). I always considered
it a mistake when that changed. First of all, the gap between the lowest serf 
in the Imperium and the Emperor is IMO much too great to be spanned by a mere 
17 social classes  -  particularily when the non-nobles take up the first ten. 
It creates an overlap between local planet-bound nobles and Imperial nobles.
There's an entire slice of society left out of the system. It leaps directly 
from the upper middle class to the Imperial knight with no room for minor 
nobles. Because an Imperial noble is not a minor one. Well, possibly some
Imperial knights are more minor than others. But an Imperial baron on a high-
population world can easily rule more people than an Old Earth emperor. And
never forget that any player who rolls a high starting social status has a 
good chance of winding up as social status D or E (given a judicious choice 
of career and average luck with the die rolls). I don't know about you, but I
don't really think that Imperial dukes make for proper PCs, unless you play
them as behaving most un-duke-like. I can think of a lot of Traveller
adventures that wouldn't work with a PC that had a dozen loyal retainers and
I can't really think of a single one (except perhaps for the mercenary
tickets ;-) that would work for someone with a few hundred henchmen. To me an
Imperial noble is a patron, not an adventurer. (_Generally_ speaking. Of
course there can be exceptions. But how many Imperial dukes would you expect
to be bumming around on Free Traders on any given day? Not many...).

I wrote an article on this subject that was published in _The Traveller
Chronicle_ #9. You're welcome to mine it for ideas, if you like, or even to 
lift from it directly. If you don't have a copy, I can send you an ascii 
version. It's too long to post here, but I can give you the gist.

Basically, it claimed that it can be very difficult to compare the precedence
of powerful men from different worlds because 1) comparable levels may easily  
have different names on different worlds (Grand Director, Speaker for All the 
Tribes, Commander of a Thousand Sails, Lord High Syndic, etc.), 2) the same 
titles can indicated vastly different power levels on different worlds (Duke 
of Troura, sovereign a ruler of a few thousand square kilometers of Tirem, 
Duke Lionel du Nord, Regent of the Rheltan Highlands, powerful vassal of the 
King of Caledonia, Duke of Regina, Duke of Deneb, etc.), and 3) some names can 
be misleading (Captain of Alell, ruler of a planet, the Astrogator, his Heir 
Apparent, the Purser, Minister of Agriculture, etc.). It then went on:

"The Imperium had solved this problem by creating the Imperial Office of Arms
(IOA). This was ostensibly an Imperial department for the registration of
heraldic coats of arms and equivalent devices, but in reality their most
important function was to evaluate local titles, offices, and positions and 
translate them into equivalent Imperial social positions. On the
recommendation of the IOA the holder of a given title, office, or position
automatically recieved a knighthood in an appropiate Imperial order. This
just as automatically gave him or her a fitting position in Imperial society.

There were a large number of Imperial orders of knighthood. Some of these,
like the Most Valorous Order of the Emperor's Guard (E.G.), the Most Courtly
Order of the Starship and Crown (S.C.), the Most Illustrious Order of the 
Arrow (O.A.), and the various orders of the domains were used to reward 
individuals for service to the Imperium; they were not normally used just 
to grade local planetary dignitaries. For this purpose the most commonly 
used were the Most Excellent Order of the Third Imperium (T.I.), the Most 
Distinguished Order of the Golden Sun (G.S.), and the Most Exalted Order of 
the Star of Sylea (S.S.) (The last should not to be confused with the Most 
Noble Order of the Domain of Sylea (D.S.))."

There was some more about just how the IOA graded a position (The most
important factor was how many people a noble "represented") and some guide-
lines for character generation and for adapting existing characters to the 
system. I'll include the tables to give you the main idea:

Approximate                    Social   UPP    Old Terran      Imperial Order
Description                   Standing  code   Equivalent      of knighthood

							       3RD IMPERIUM

Near-noble (Gentry)              12      C     Squire          Member
Appointed noble                  13      D     Knight          Officer
Very rich/powerful non-noble     14      E     Magnate         Commander
Hereditary noble, no base        15      F     Banneret        Knight Cmdr.
Town-sized base (1000)           16      G     Baron           Grand Cross

							       GOLDEN SUN

County-sized base (10,000)       17      H     Count/Earl      Companion
Region-sized base (100,000)      18      J     Marquis/Duke    Knight Cmdr.
Province-sized base (1 million)  19      K     Archduke/Prince Grand Cross 

							       STAR OF SYLEA

Country-sized base (10 million)  20      L     King            Companion
Empire-sized base (100 million)  21      M     Emperor         Grand Companion
Continent-sized base (1 billion) 22      N     -               Knight Cmdr.
World-sized base (10 billion)    23      P     -               Grand Cross

Sovereign ruler                  +1
Elected or appointed official    -1
Heir to position                 -1
Younger children                 -2

Pre-industrial society           -4
Industrial society               -2
Pre-stellar society              -1
Early Stellar society             0
Average Stellar society          +1
High Stellar society             +2

Minor non-human race             -1

All modifications are guidelines only. Positions that reach 24 and above will 
almost invariably recieve an Imperial noble title (So the ruler of a planet 
with billions of citizens and a High Stellar technology would be at least an 
Imperial marquis, propably more).

For comparison here are the ranks of some other Imperial knighthoods and of
Imperial nobles:

Knight Bachelor                  14      E

Knight of the Arrow              15      F
Companion of the Arrow           16      G
Knight Commander of the Arrow    17      H

Knight of the Emperor's Guard    18      J
Knight-lieutenant of the EG      19      K
Knight-captain of the EG         20      L
Commander of the EG              21      M

Companion of the Starship&Crown  21      M
Knight Commander of the S&C      22      N
Knight Grand Cross of the S&C    23      P

Knight of a domain               15      F
Knight Superior of a domain      16      G
Officer of a domain              17      H
Companion of a domain            18      J
Knight Commander of a domain     19      K
Knight Grand Cross of a domain   20      L

Baron                            24      Q
Marquis                          25      R
Freeholder                       26      S
Count                            27      T
Scion                            28      U
Duke                             29      V
Senior Duke                      30      W
Archduke/Prince                  31      X
Crown Prince                     32      Y
Emperor                          33      Z

(I introduced 'Freeholder' and 'Scion' (with explanations of why they were
hardly ever used) so that if people wanted to stick to the official 17 classes 
of Social Standing, they could still use the material by simply halving the 
numbers (rounding up). That would cause Imperial nobles to have the correct 
Social Standing according to the official system. People would still have to 
device some new way to roll Social Standing for their characters, since now 
the minor nobles would occupy the levels from 7 to 11, so if they rolled SS 
with two dice, they'd have a society with more than half of the population 
nobles.)
	  
>1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
>km?

There's an old area measure called a barrel of land. It was, IIRC, the amount
of land needed to produce one barrel of wheat (or something). Estates were
measured in barrels of land for tax purposes. The thing is, a barrel of land
measured differently in counties with lean, sandy earth than in counties with 
fat, moist loam. The value of land depends on what you can get out of it (Or
what you can sell it for, but that depends on what the buyer expects to be
able to get out of it, so in the end it comes down to the same thing). And I
expect there will be plenty of Industrial and Merchant nobles with very little
land but huge stock portfolios. 

I suggest you turn the question around and decide on the income of the noble 
first. To use the system I propose above, take a nobleman with Social 16, the
lowest level with a true fief. He would have a 'base' of 1000 to 9000 people, 
say 5000 on the average. Say the average yearly production of a person is 
10,000 credits. That would make 5000 people produce about 50,000,000 credits 
pa. Say further that a noble gets about 1% of the production on 'his' fief
(wether in the form of direct taxes, dividends, rents, apanage, or whatever). 
That would give him 500,000 credits pa, which is about 50 times more than 
an average income. Does that sound reasonable?

Looking at the social levels below 16, an income of 10 times the average for
a squire (SL 12) sounds appropiate. The levels in between (13, 14, and 15) 
would then get 20, 30, and 40 times the average.

Then let's say that solid, low-risk investments like land and gilt-edge bonds
gives a return of 2% pa. That means a noble's fief, wether it be farmland,
tennement buildings, factories, Megacorporation stock, or whatever, is worth 
50 times his annual income. Afterwards you can decide just what form these 
holdings take, be it a borough of a big Sylean city or an entire planet in the
back of beyond, but the basic value would be about the same.

Of course, not all nobles would have the precise average holding. Some would
be poorer than their peers and others would be richer. How about rolling 2D-2? 
On a result of 1 to 9 the noble gets a fief and income equal to the number 
rolled multiplied by the amounts listed with his social level on the table 
below. On a 0 he rolls again and multiplies by the amounts listed with the 
next lower social level. Similarily a result of 10 lets him throw again at the 
next higher level (Theoretically you could keep going up and down on the table 
as long as you kept rolling 2's and 12's, but in practise only a few rolls 
would be necessary).

	    Yearly     Value of
	    income       fief 

SL 12        20,000       1 MCr
SL 13        40,000       2 MCr
SL 14        60,000       3 MCr
SL 15        80,000       4 MCr
SL 16       100,000       5 MCr
SL 17       200,000      10 MCr
SL 18       400,000      20 MCr
SL 19       800,000      40 MCr
SL 20       1.6 MCr      80 MCr
SL 21       3.2 MCr     160 MCr
SL 22       6.4 MCr     320 MCr
SL 23      12.8 MCr     640 MCr

The reason why the numbers only double with each level above SL 16 is that
the (for example) 10,000 people of a SL 17 noble's fief has to support not
only him, but a number of SL 16 nobles as well.

>2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

An abstract system would just allow a noble to invest some of his yearly
income. A noble with a 20 MCr fief would get 400,000 credit. If he only used
half for his expenses, he could invest 200,000 credits and get 404,000 credits
the next year. A more detailed system a la _World Tamer's Handbook_ would give
the basis of some great campaigns.

>3. How many hexes do other nobles get?
>
>I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
>Imperial borders, and the noble needing to go to that grant and survey it 
>(or have someone survey it). Until surveyed, the land produces no income; 
>once surveyed (and developed) etc.

I think we are all still too influenced by the classic European concept of 
feudalism, where land was the direct source of power. There's only two ways a
land grant on a faraway world can be immidiately valuable: If the land already
has people living on it (and there are big moral and practical problems if 
that is the case) or if there is a quick, cheap way of getting people to work 
the land. Don't forget that moving people between star-systems is a non-
trivial expense.

The crucial question seems to me to be just what kind of feudal system the 
Imperium is. A classic feudal system gives vassals power, in the form of land,
in exchange for fealthy. A feudal technocracy would give vassals power, in the
form of industrial holdings, in exchange for fealthy. But whatever form it
takes, the main point is that the overlord _owns_ whatever it is that gives
the power and the vassal merely administers it (Which is why a feudal system
tends to run into problems when the vassal's family has been in possesion
long enough to think he owns it). Anyway, what kind of power does the Emperor 
give his vassals in exchange for fealthy?

I suggest that it is the power of government. And if that is the case, we get
around the problem of ownership of land or stock for Imperial nobles. An
imperial noble isn't rich because he is a noble, he has been made a noble
because he was rich. And his 'fief' is the governance of a continent or a
planet or several planets, not the continent or the planets themselves. That
is what the Emperor has given him and what he can take back again, if he so
chooses.

Of course, the system is unlikely to be quite than clear-cut. Any planet may
have a nobility of it's own that _is_ based on land or industry ownership and
any noble given the governance of a planet is apt to invest heavily in that
planet, so established nobles would propably have extensive holdings in their
areas. And then there is the question of public lands. If a noble is given the
governance of a brand new planet then the distinction between govenment lands
and his own private lands is apt to become _very_ blurred. However, land alone
is only worth anything if someone is willing to buy it from you, and with all
the real estate lying around in M:0, unworked land is not going to be worth
anything as much as it is on Earth today.

Finally, there are three whole other groups of nobles than the one that gets
the power in exchange for fealthy. There are the Court Nobles, who are given
a noble title in order to give them some standing with other nobles, and the
Reward Nobles, who get a pat on the back for long and faithful service. 
Granted, most of these would be in the form of knighthoods, but people like 
the Emperor's closest advisers would propably get noble titles. And then there 
are the relatives of a 'real' noble who gets an empty title because their 
parent or spouse is a noble (This class, especially younger children, would be 
the most likely source of Imperial noble travellers, but even they would be 
rare. Remember, Imperial nobles are the equivalent or more of Old Earth 
emperors, and children, even younger children, of emperors seldom bum around 
on tramp ships.)

Anyway, Court Nobles would have an income from the job they were performing,
Reward Nobles would propably get a lifetime pension, but no fief, and
relatives wouldn't get anything.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1584
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Sunday, July 20 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1585



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Holidays, Important Dates
Re: Adventure postings
Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items
Re: Religions in space
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: Clocks and Calendars in Known Space
Re: Catholic Church
Re: Catholic Church
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
Re: Noble Lands
Catholic Church in M0
Re: Re Psionic Institutes
Re: Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land
Re: Starter Traveller
Re: Imperial Anthem
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re:  Sword World and FFW
Re: Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Noble Lands
Land Grants, Titles, Nobles, et. al. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 14:17 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Holidays, Important Dates

In-Reply-To: <33CA9208.21B@GLJA.com>

Erwin,

> The way I see it (YMMV), the Imperium has a "hands-off" policy to
> local planetary culture, as long as the security of the realm isn't
> threatened. Therefore there should be very few dictated holidays
> from the Iridium Throne.

People *like* holidays - the more excuses the Emperor gives them for 
avoiding work and having a party, the more they'll love him (up to a 
point, obviously).
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 14:17 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

In-Reply-To: <l03020903aff01435c2f5@[194.119.133.197]>

SD,

> >> ... by having the players escort a 'box' on a liner, and have other
> >> passengers 'murdered', whilst the box slowly appeared to be a Psionic
> >> computer... and it was all a candid camera set up. Wouldn't work on their
> >> own ship though, unless you turned it around so they were paid to pull the
> >> prank...
> >
> >That was an *evil* scenario, and I nearly got lynched for running it..:-)
>  
> I got the same reaction...

Had your PCs been filmed committing a huge number of crimes (including 
possession of obscene firepower and use of illegal psionic powers)? It must be 
10 years since I ran it, but IIRC they tried to murder the host of the show...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 10:39:31 +0100
From: Niko Wieleba <scarab1@pacbell.net>
Subject: Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items

Hi Folks:

Over the last few local cons I have collected a few extra versions of 
some MT and CT items.  I've listed them below, and I can give them up for 
my cost plus postage.  Email me privately so I don't cause the wastage of 
more bandwidth, please!

Book 4 Mercenary G  $4
Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium VG  $4
Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium F  $4
Supplement 1 1001 Characters VG  $4
Flaming Eye F  $20
MT Player's Manual VG  $5
MT Imperial Encyclopedia VG  $5
MT Imperial Encyclopedia F  $5
MT Referee's Manual VG  $5

Thanks,

Niko
scarab1@pacbell.net

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:46:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Religions in space

  I can't speak for the United Kingdom, but widespread opposition to
slavery in the USA dates to well over 100 years prior to its formal
abolition in 1865 (last in the Northern states like Delaware that still
had slavery, by the way, since the Emancipation Proclamation freed those
in the defeated Confederacy before the Constitution was amended to
prohibit slavery).  Most Northern states had either ended slavery or
provided for gradual abolition (by purchase or making all those born after
a certain date free) around the time of the American Revolution.

  Northern states constituted a majority of the population as well - the
oddities of American government organization on the national level
prevented that from being decisive (each state gets the same number of
votes in the Senate, the upper legislative body, regardless of
population).

  Now, it is correct to say that most Americans did not believe that
Blacks were equal to Whites even in 1865 - we've still got some oddball
scientists saying that now.  However, slavery was opposed on moral and
religeous grounds well before the Civil War - it was sectional politics
and the oddities of the American Constitution that preserved it for as
long as it lasted. 

  Now, as for the general question of slavery in the Imperium, well, we
have "canonical" references in this regard (getting tired of that word). 
Question is, why does the Imperium oppose it?  Opposition to slavery on
our own planet is recent and comes from a specific group - Europeans of
the Christian persuasion.  One might note that more slaves were exported
from Africa to the middle east than to the Americas - it was to end the
African slave trade that the British first established the Atlantic
blocade and then joined with other European nations in the carving up of
Africa in the 19th century.  Imperialism in Africa was sold to the public
back at home as a way to end the slave trade, particularly the overland
route to the Middle East. 

  This has some interesting implications for M0, I think - this might be a
nice way for Cleon to sell his policy.  "Those planets that fell victum to
the Long Night have degenerated so far that they even have resorted to
_SLAVERY_!  The Horror!"  Great way to whip up a moral crusade to go out
and expand the Empire, don't you think?

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:03:31 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

At 08:26 am 07/18/97 -0400, you wrote:
>	Not neccessarily.  People have this habit of finding strange and
>unusual ways of dying in circumstances that beggar belief and really
>complicate things for their legal representatives and cause endless
>hilarity to law students (ask me about _Trans-Quebec Helicopters_ v. _Heirs
>of Lee_ or Hydro-Quebec_ v. _Girouard_ sometime).  So, the civil law (I

	So, tell me a little something about "Trans-Quebec Helicopters v. Heirs of
Lee," please...

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:26:23 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

At 09:29 pm 07/18/97 PST, you wrote:
>In mail you write:
>
>> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>>
>>> I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
>>> (ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.
>>
>> Why not use SI prefixes?
>>
>> hour equivalent = decisol
>> minute = millisol
>> second = microsol
>
>Because 10 is a *lousy* divisor for setting up shifts and the like.

	Why? Midshift is 0 to 0.25, dayshift is 0.25 to 0.5, etc. 
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:55:28 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Clocks and Calendars in Known Space

At 12:06 pm 07/18/97 +1000, you wrote:
>>NOTE: The two unknown sources were actually the same; I
>>distinctly recall seeing _something_ that had all of the
>>calendars laid out graphically, side by side, and provided useful
>>information about all of them.  My recollection says that it was
>>a GDW publication, for either CT or MT.
>
>
>MT Referees Companion? (or whatever it was called - I don't own it, I've
>just borrowed a copy before. I do remember it had something like what you
>describe in it).

	I've got an extra copy ... anybody interested?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:35:54 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church

At 12:32 pm 07/19/97 -0800, you wrote:
>The pope didn't remove/suspend anyone's faculties, just barred ordaining
>any more married men. In the 1970's. the Pope allowed ordaining married
>(permanent) Deacons in the Roman Rite; My dad is one.

	I remember reading a few years ago about a special dispensation or some
such for North America where the Pope allowed ordaining married Priest
here. It was very limited and specific--if an ordained Episcopalian priest
or Lutheran pastor who was married converted to Catholicism, he could be
ordained as a fully-functional Catholic priest, except he wouldn't be
required to make a vow of celibacy. The reasoning behind this was
supposedly trouble getting enough priests.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:35:54 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church

At 12:32 pm 07/19/97 -0800, you wrote:
>The pope didn't remove/suspend anyone's faculties, just barred ordaining
>any more married men. In the 1970's. the Pope allowed ordaining married
>(permanent) Deacons in the Roman Rite; My dad is one.

	I remember reading a few years ago about a special dispensation or some
such for North America where the Pope allowed ordaining married Priest
here. It was very limited and specific--if an ordained Episcopalian priest
or Lutheran pastor who was married converted to Catholicism, he could be
ordained as a fully-functional Catholic priest, except he wouldn't be
required to make a vow of celibacy. The reasoning behind this was
supposedly trouble getting enough priests.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:09:49 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

At 01:13 pm 07/18/97 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>>Thomas told me that the store where he is webmaster has a limited
>>quantity of the Limited Edition Traveller Aliens Hardbound (discussed
>>on the list a while ago) which collects all the alien modules and
>>alien realms as well. It was published with a worldwide total limit
>>of 200 issues, all singed (ah, signed ;-) by MM himself.
>>For more info surf to the above website. Don't worry the relevant
>>part is in English as well.
>
>Thanks for the info Volker, but to save a little bandwidth, the item goes
>for 250 German Marks, which, using an exchange rate of 1.79 (last time I
>checked) gives USD $447.50.
>
	Erk! You've got that backwards--it's DM1.79 per $1, so the price is $140
... still too much for me.

	When, oh when, will the Holy Grail of Traveller be published (the CD with
electronic versions of everything GDW and DGP printed)?

- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:21:16 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

At 01:36 pm 07/18/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Marc Miller wrote
>> From: CardSharks@aol.com
>> Subject: Noble Lands
>> 
>> This is to open a discussion about the lands a Noble holds (in the
Imperium).
>
>If the Imperium does not own its member worlds but merely controls the
>spaces between them, as was the case in Milieu 1100, how can it give
>away these lands ?  Is the Imperium merely giving out feudal control,
>including the power of taxation, over lands which are owned/controlled
>by the people/governments of the planets or do the nobles actually
>receive ownership of the land ?  

	How about giving away the authority to establish and control an
extraterritorial area on a world's surface or in orbit for the purposes of
fomenting and encouraging interstellar trade (i.e. the starport)! A fiefdom
of the Regina Downport will probably generate quite a bit of revenue,
whereas the fiefdom of Glisten significantly less so.

	And you have to decide how much the traffic will bear... too high a tax,
and you're _discouraging_ trade instead of encouraging.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 17:43:00 GMT 
From: s.johnson107@genie.com
Subject: Catholic Church in M0

> Why not go the whole distance and instead of basing the archbishop
> on Tim Curry in "The three musketeers" (hated that one) base the
> Archbishop on Tim Curry in Ridley Scotts "The Legend" - now that's
> an archvillain!
    No, no, NO!  If you want a proper Richelieu think Charleton Heston! ;) Now
THAT's a menacing religious figure.  Besides, for my money the three Salkind
movies with Charleton Heston, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlin,
Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welsh and Christopher Lee.  Were the best adaptions of
Dumas's novels ever made IMO! ;) Go rent them if you don't already have them in
your video library.

Stephen

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:35 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Re Psionic Institutes

In-Reply-To: <v01540a00aff4164393e5@[198.70.218.35]>

William,

> 4. There is no entry for READING a hiver's mind. Hivers are not psionic,
> but can be affected by psionics (Hiver and Ithklur, p. 44-45). Also implied
> in AM7, Hivers.

I always got the impression that their minds were too alien to read.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:35 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Pocket Universes in Fuzzy land

In-Reply-To: <970717232755_-1811645405@emout03.mail.aol.com>

> In a message dated 97-07-17 21:16:42 EDT, you write:
>  
> << 
>  My one sure rule for Ancient encounters - the Ancients do NOT make any kind
>  of sense, and they should stay that way.
>  
>   >>
> Great rule. 
>  
> Marc

Rule 1: There are no rules.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:35 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Starter Traveller

In-Reply-To: <l03102801afef235aac11@[207.194.197.159]>

> >I always felt insulted and patronised by "Starter Editions", the
> >implication being that I was too young and/or stupid to understand the
> >real thing. YMMV, of course.
>  
> Perhaps the problem is your perception that a starter edition was not the
> "real thing". What exactly is your distinction between a "Starter Edition"
> and the "real thing"? Is the T4 rule book alone a "Starter Edition"? How
> about the main rules plus all the supplements? Or do you need all the
> adventures and JTAS articles to have the "real thing"? How much money do
> you have to spend before you no longer feel insulted?

The T4 rulebook is the "real thing" (how do I know? It doesn't say "Starte 
Edition" on the front...) An SE would lose most or all of the character, 
world, and ship design rules, replacing them with a few examples instead. 
Presentation would be better (not a bad thing), but there'd be less depth.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:34 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Imperial Anthem

In-Reply-To: <199707042216.AAA23948@cicero.cybercity.dk>

Mark,

> All in all, I think both Traveller and this mailing list has a tendency to
> display not only ethnocentricity, but also 'chronocentricity' (just
> invented the word). This is not to preach political correctness - heck, my
> campaigns too are populated by dominantly white/caucasian/whatever people,
> because that is my frame of reference. It's just that I sometimes catch
> myself in taking such thing for granted, which is actually completely
> unrealistic. It's a damn shame, because I think the game could get much
> more exotic and give a much better SF feel if you could avoid this. Anyone
> else feel they have this problem? What do you do about it?

The main problem with Traveller (probably the one thing I'd change if I 
could), is that it's set too far in the future. Not just a few hundred years 
- - like Star Trek, B5, 2300, etc - but a few *thousand*. Technology and 
society will most likely have changed more than we can imagine. 
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:35 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

In-Reply-To: <199707160117.DAA00401@Mail.Baldakinen.Umea.SE>

Jonas,

> On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the 
> Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the 
> Pedantically Bureaucratic Vilani, and the Recklessly Hasty Solomani, 
> but how about others? (And are my two samples really the likely 
> stereotypes for said groups?)

Zhodani Nobles: arrogant, no sense of humour.

Vargr: certifiably insane party animals! Will generally f*ck, steal, or 
blow up anything that's not nailed down. No taste in clothes.

Scouts: see above :-)

Aslan males: stupid, even less sense of humour than the Zho's, and 
*dangerous* (quote: "The Aslan just shredded the Engineer." "Why?" "He 
finally found out what 'psychotic' means..."

Imperial Nobles: upper-class twits with more money than brains.

Imperial Marines: [sound of battle dress, followed by fusion gun]

Hivers: Just too damn sneaky and devious.

Droyne: Cute, but usually impossible to understand.

INI/SolSec/MoJ: MIBs. Avoid at all costs.

IRIS: As above, only more so.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 19:35 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

In-Reply-To: <970717231715_818249756@emout02.mail.aol.com>

>  034  Imperial Forces Day.
>       On which we give thanks to all the brave members of the Imperial
>       Forces (Army, Navy, Marines, and Scouts), and remember those who died 
>       in the service of the Emperor.
>  
> *** Why this date?

Why not? I think I just slotted it into a 'hole' in the calendar.

>  121  Workers' Day.
>       On which we remember the workers - the tiny cogs who keep the great
>       Imperial machine running smoothly.
>  
> *** But this name sounds so communist, almost like Workers' and Peasants'
> Day.

Well, that'll cancel out all the Americanisms everywhere else :-) 
I'm sure the Vilani would appreciate something like this.

> I object to a standard Religous Holiday. I think the religious calendar is a
> separate consideration. If you instituted such a day, how many religions
> would actually use it? Would Jews decide to celebrate passover on that day?
> Probably not. Would Christians decide that Easter now fell on 181? Probably
> not. What about Ramadan?  Probably not.

How many 'Christians' now celebrate Christmas/Easter for religious reasons, and 
how many as an excuse to eat and drink too much?

> From a game standpoint, I am ignoring most of religion. From a government
> standpoint, I think Cleon knows better than to open that bag of worms and
> risk rejection of his calendar.

Fairy nuff. I can understand that.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 16:00:29 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

On 07/20/97 at 07:35 PM,  aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
said:

>>  121  Workers' Day.
>>       On which we remember the workers - the tiny cogs who keep the great
>>       Imperial machine running smoothly.
>>  
>> *** But this name sounds so communist, almost like Workers' and Peasants'
>> Day.

121 would be around May 1..<g>

Actually, I suggest "Labour Day" to honor all those that labour in support
of our glorious Imperium.  It combines the Terrian traditions of "May Day"
and the Vilani "Day of Caste" into one unified holiday.

Eris,
    notice I made it non-American by adding the extra "u"..<g>  -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:17:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: ImpGrAdmrl@aol.com
Subject: Re:  Sword World and FFW

Doug:  That Imperial 0+3 Admiral was named Goolanzoon... I don't think that's
Vargr. Has anyone tried playing FFW as a PBM game?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:18:06 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items

Hello!

On 20 Jul 97 at 10:39, Niko Wieleba wrote:

> Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium VG  $4
> Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium F  $4

	I'm missing Supplement 4 from my library - if nobody else has 
grabbed the copies you have for sale, I'd be more than interested. F 
will be just fine if the VG is already sold.

	I think you could send the book as an ordinary letter, but I have no 
idea how much postage would cost. If you let me know how much you 
want for stamps, I'll wrap up the $4 plus whatever it costs.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 23:09 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970720110949.033e89f4@mail.pcisys.net>

David,

> When, oh when, will the Holy Grail of Traveller be published (the CD with
> electronic versions of everything GDW and DGP printed)?

And the special editions, with a scan of Marc's signature on...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 23:10 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen

In-Reply-To: <970718131011_-789645309@emout12.mail.aol.com>

> The draft aging table from T41:
>  
> AGING
> Age          34+      50+      66+
> Strength  -1 if 7- -1 if 8- -2 if 8-
> Dexterity -1 if 6- -1 if 7- -2 if 8-
> Endurance -1 if 7- -1 if 8- -2 if 8-
> Intelligence -- -- -1 if 8-

How about:

DMs: +1 if Soc or Homeworld TL 10+
     -1 if Soc or Homeworld TL 4-
     
>  Education and Social Standing are unaffected by aging.

Actually, thinking about it the other night, how about having Edu affected as 
per Int (to represent memory loss)? 
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 23:09 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970718173558.007b7330@mail.deltanet.com>

Scott,

> I would rather state that a noble gets an area of economic importance
> roughly in proportion to his or her rank.  I suspect this should be divided
> into two categories - developed and undeveloped.  A noble willing, or
> forced, to take a domain beyond the borders will get a fairly large chunk
> of land.  Nobles with fiefs in settled, developed areas, will get much
> smaller ones.

I rather like the idea of basing it on area - that way, you can give some 
Baron you don't like a bit of a barren desert world, and honestly say he got 
the same as that friend of yours who owns a plot outside Sylea Down...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 97 23:09 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In-Reply-To: <970718103023_-759371592@emout19.mail.aol.com>

> B gets one hex (based on some world selection process). That hex generates an
> income.
> C gets a barony (of several) hexes and an income from those hexes.
> D+ gets an override from knights and baronies under him/her.

As others have said, land grants should begin at C.

ICBW, but the way I've always run it is that a Noble gets a plot of land, which 
he *owns* and can exploit as he wishes, plus a larger area (usually 1 or more 
worlds), which he oversees (in the name of the Emperor) and represents in the 
Moot. These worlds should also be determined here (one or more of them will 
contain his estate(s)).

> 1. How much income does a hex produce to a noble? Cr1 per sq km? Cr10 per sq
> km?

Work out GDP as per PE. Divide by no. of hexes. Allow 1%(?) of this to be kept 
by the Noble.

> 2. Can that income be enhanced by development, etc? How?

See PE :-)

> 3. How many hexes do other nobles get?

C = 1
D = 5
E = 25
F = 125
G = 625
H = 3125

> I envision many land grants being given to nobles on worlds well beyond the
> Imperial borders,

What right does the Emperor have to grant land *outside* the Imperium?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 22:38:32 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Land Grants, Titles, Nobles, et. al. 

How about a radical departure from tradition (:> Since a basic assumption in
Traveller is that everything is driven by Economics, instead of Nobles and
Titles, how about using the Social Status as an exponent for family assets?

Soc 2  = 10^2 or 100 credits for family assets (dirt poor)
Soc a  = 10^10 or 10,000 Mcr for family assets 
                        (major financial force on a planet)
Soc F  = 10^15 or 1,000,000 Mcr for family assets 
                        (major financial player in a sector)

Where the real resource producing the value is can be anywhere; stocks in
general, real estate, resources, wholly owned industries or businesses.

That someone decided to use archic titles to quantitfy measures of wealth is
a happenstance. Like the Kentucky 'Colonels' who never held military rank,
but always seem to have financial resources.
 
Making someone a Knight of the Imperium would then entail transferring
assets valued at 10,000 MCr to Knight. Those assets may be in stock in
Imperial Business Machines or in a title to a 5 square km area in the
business district on Regina, either way, the Knight is rewarded, and may be
contractually bound by the trasnfer agreement as to what s/he can or must do
with the assets in question.

If you have enough wealth to buy every square kilometer of a planet and then
charge the inhabitants rent to live there, you are as much a Baron as the
medivel varity that got 'rents' from everyone, free or serf, within the
boundaries of their land.

Garry

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1585
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 21 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1586



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re:  Sword World and FFW
Re : Refueling Question
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Nobility, Landgrants and the Imperial Government
some grain of truth
Re: Noble Lands
Origins Report
Re: Noble Lands
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen
Argh! (was: Re: Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items)
Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen
Re: Holidays
Starter Editions
Hivers and Telepathy
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Religions in space
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573
Re: Volker Greimann's site
Torontonians on the TML
ROM Tech
Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 15:57:20 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re:  Sword World and FFW

At 05:17 PM 7/20/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Doug:  That Imperial 0+3 Admiral was named Goolanzoon... I don't think that's
>Vargr. Has anyone tried playing FFW as a PBM game?

Hmmm. that would be fun...

Doug Berry dberry@hooked.net
<this post is too small for me to inflict the .sig on it>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:27:47 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re : Refueling Question

Andy Brick wrote:

>Every cubic metre of GG atmosphere above the cloud tops
>on Jupiter yields about 21 g of hydrogen, which means you only have
>to scoop for about 3km to get enough H2 for 1m3 as liquid. If you are
>travelling at say, 300 metres per second, then that's 10 seconds flight
>time.
>Gathering the atmosphere is thus easy.

But your processing system has to dump the waste (unwanted material) faster
(*) than you scoop it, or you will over-pressure the fuel tanks, and
"bang".

So you may be able to scoop very fast, but all the other gases have to be
accounted for in a buffer store. How do you process this separation in
time? A slower rate may be preferable to avoid problems associated with the
.


(*) or at least as fast.

Just thinking about the practicalities of scooping large volumes of gas
giant atmosphere in short periods, and processing them. It may be
completely off track.

Dom


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 20:52:22 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

David J. Golden wrote:

>
>At 08:26 am 07/18/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>	Not neccessarily.  People have this habit of finding strange and
>>unusual ways of dying in circumstances that beggar belief and really
>>complicate things for their legal representatives and cause endless
>>hilarity to law students (ask me about _Trans-Quebec Helicopters_ v. _Heir=
s
>>of Lee_ or Hydro-Quebec_ v. _Girouard_ sometime).  So, the civil law (I
>
>	So, tell me a little something about "Trans-Quebec Helicopters v.
>Heirs of
>Lee," please...


	Ok... back in 1971, David Lee was a McGill engineering undergrad.
He got a summer job working for a company that did soil sampling, who had
contracted with Hydro-Qu=E9bec, Quebec's hydro-electric utility, to do some
work on a massive hydro-electric project up north in James Bay.

	Mr. Lee's and the crew he was part of were based at this base camp
way hellandgone up in the boonies.  Every day, helicopters belonging to
another Hydro contractor, Trans-Quebec Helicopters, would fly them out to
the various sampling sites, they'd take soil samples, and at the end of the
day be flown back to base camp.

	Anyhow, late one afternoon, the soil samples having been taken, Mr.
Lee, with a backpack loaded with samples, headed towards the waiting
helicopter, whose rotors were turning, to be ferried back to base camp.  He
approached the helicopter from the rear, ducked under the tail boom, and
somehow managed to stick his head into the tail rotor.  Poor Mr. Lee was
instantly decapitated.

	However, he had been wearing a hard-hat.  And his hard-hat-encased
head severely damaged the helicopter; it was out of service for several
weeks.  So Trans-Quebec Helicopters sued Mr. Lee's estate for the damage to
the helicopter and lost profits while it was out of service.

	 They won.  Basically, they established that Mr. Lee had acted
faultily, ignoring basic safety precautions and several previous warnings,
and that his negligence had caused the damage to the helicopter.  In Quebec
civil law, civil liability is not tort-based; you just have to prove fault,
damage, and a causal link between the two (sort've like the tort of
negligence, IIRC).  So they collected.

	It makes brilliant sense, although intuitively, the whole thing is
kinda horrible...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 22:35:55 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Nobility, Landgrants and the Imperial Government

The question of how the Imperium handles land grants is trickier than it
first appears, for several reasons. On the game mechanics side there is
the question of whether players should be allowed to roll up characters
as powerful as Imperial Nobility. Then, in game terms, there is the
mechanism the Imperium (or the Emperor) grants land, and how much is
granted.
Last there is where does the land come from, and I feel this part of the
question relates t how the Imperium is governed.

On the game mechanics, I handle nobility in my campaigns in two way,.
"working" nobility, that is nobility actually involved in the government
are ALWAYS NPC's. The power inherent in that category is not meant for
human players (at least not mine!). These characters cannot be rolled up
by players, and a PC's Soc. score doesn't elevate the character to this
occupation. PC's that are rolled as Nobility (CT) or that receive a Soc.
score granting noble rank are 1) the issue of 'working' nobles, in line
to receive the title, 2) Younger issue of 'working' nobles, not directly
in line for the titles, but you never know... The titles issued to these
PC's are "honorary", they carry respect, sometimes awe, but not real
authority. "mustering out" benefits are either allowances, or (in the
case of younger issue) can be inheritances. Land grants are not an issue
in these cases.

A third type of PC noble is the "dispossessed", possibly by some action
in the PC's past or by political intrigue. In these cases the benefits
received are  "what they got away with". The titles aren't real, but
SPACE is big and... well, you get it. Land grants aren't a consideration
in this case either.

I have mentioned the above on the assumption that Marc asked the
original question about land grants with the idea of a Character
Generation System for Nobles in mind. As you can see, if this is the
case, I oppose full blooded, working PC Nobles. I think that any
character with the power of a "working" noble doesn't belong in
Traveller, may be a game played on a grander scale ( a take off of
Pocket Empires?) or something, but in a normal PC party see it as being
totally unbalancing.

Now to more important issues, how does it really work in the Imperium!

How does the Imperium govern 1000's of worlds, each with it's own form
of government? Does an Imperial noble or governor issue orders to the
elected president of a world (Gov. # 4) or to the CEO of the controlling
comany/corperation (Gov. # 1), who odes he give the orders to if there
is no government (Gov. # 0)? If the Imperial nobles are doing this then
all of the Government numbers on the UWP's should be changed to 6-
Captive.

In my conception of the Third Imperium the Imperial government operates
in a "hands-off" fashion as far as the planet's internal governance. The
Imperium's concern is the space between worlds and the traffic through
it. That requires a fleet to police and protect. Fleets cost money, and
lots of it. Therefore when a planet enters the Imperium it agrees to be
taxed to support the Imperium. That is the responsibility of the
Nobility, to see that the Imperial government receives the taxes it
needs.

When a noble receives a "grant" he/she receives a specified territory
over which he or she has the responsibility of assessing and levying the
proper taxes. The local government, if there is one, has the
responsibility of collecting the actual taxes and delivering them into
the nobles hands. In the case of a lack of local government, the noble
must maintain his/her own tax collectors. Naturally the noble's
authority to assess the tax rate is backed up by the Emperor (and the
Empire's Fleets). In return for this the noble receives a specified
percentage of the levy to maintain himself (herself), his/her staff, and
family. Obviously it is in the interest of the noble to see that the
territory of his/her grant is productive!

In the rare cases that a noble overtaxes a territory several things can
happen. The local government can petition to next highest ranking noble,
someone higher in the chain can discover that the noble is collecting a
higher percentage than his/her grant allows, civil unrest in the
territory, or the productivity of the area can fall off. Any of these
things can cause the unpleasant occurrence of an Imperial "fact finding"
investigation, with the unpleasant repercussions that usually follows.

So the grant isn't actually a land grant, it's more like an
administrative region. The Emporer (or His/Her representitive) issues
the grant, specifying the extent of the territory, and the percentage of
income.

With this in mind the extent of the territories are flexable. Typically
I use the following guidelines:

Knight/Dame = typically a several thousand square kilometers, villages,
states or, possibly countries depending ofn the governmental make-up on
an agricultural planet, a city or two on an industrail planet.
Baron/Baroness = can call a continent to a planet his fief, dependant on
the wealth of the territory involved.
Count/Countessa = usually a multi-Baronial system or and extremely rich
planet.
Marquis/Marquese = control the taxation of sub-sectors, or VERY rich
solar systems.
Duke/Duchess = sectors are the feif for a noble of this rank, on
occation, usually if there is a MAJOR trade route involved, a
Duke/Duchess will receive a sub-sector as a grant.
Archduke/Archduchess = are in charge of non-specific territories,
typical very wealthy, important or hard to control areas that require
special attention.

An interesting side line to this system is the absentee grant holder. In
a number of cases the noble receives his or her grant, forms a staff of
trusted administrators and sends them to the granted territory. In the
meanwhile the noble stays near the Imperial court and collects his/her
grant.

A noble's "household" will consist of a large number of administrators
and accountants. Most will have a bodyguard contigient, as would any
rich person, as well as personal staff, maids, butlers, cooks, etc.

Well, that's how I see it. Thanks for listening.

Mike Peters

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 22:40:48 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: some grain of truth

>Anyways, the only other item of note was the presence of one 
>Pierre Savoie (did I spell that right?) who may be familiar to
>readers of rec.games.frp.misc, but I don't think I'll get into
>that...

  I only paid attention to small part of this thread on r.g.f.m, but I did
see this guy get nailed, even when he supplied *exactly* what his attackers
called for in the way of proof.  One case in point being Tipper Gore's
published views on the Satanic connections to RPGs.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
It was a typical net.exercise -- a screaming mob pounding on a greasy spot 
on the pavement, where used to lie the carcass of a dead horse.
                 http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:27:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-20 01:18:53 EDT, you write:

<< I thought
 the Third Imperium only ruled the space between planets and the member
 worlds ruled themselves. >>

The Imperium directly rules the space between the stars. Its vassal states
rule the worlds. Just as there is a local town government in 19th century
England, there is also the local baron etc. One is local government; the
other is the representative to the Imperium (although not all nobles go to
the moot).

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:32:46 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Origins Report

I attended Origins on Thursday and Friday this year (I had also
planned on going Saturday, but circumstances did not permit it).  I
ended up sitting in on a Babylon 5 demo, played in a massive Diplomacy
tournament, and played a bit of Traveller.

   The convention was well attended, and is the second largest such
event in the U.S., GenCon being the largest.  The facilities at the
Columbus, Ohio site were superior in many respects to those at GenCon,
particularly when it came to the gaming areas.  The vendor area was
somewhat smaller than GenCon's, though it was not insignificant by any
means.  All of the major game producers had some kind of booth, and
there were a number of smaller producers on hand as well.  My
understanding is that the organizers of Origins have committed to be in
Columbus every year until at least 2002, for those who would like to
attend next year.

   IG did not have an official prescence at the convention, nor were
there any IG staff present (at least I didn't encounter any).  There was
one Traveller game on the schedule.  The referee used the T4 mechanics
with some modifications to run a post-Collapse scenario.  Everyone
participating had fun.

   I think it would be to IG's advantage to send someone to this
convention next year.  I'm puzzled as to why they didn't this time
around, since the convention is so large.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:09:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-20 20:57:15 EDT, you write:

<< What right does the Emperor have to grant land *outside* the Imperium?
  >>
The same right the Pope, or the King of <insert name here> did. In the
expectation that the grantee would bring that territory into the fold, so to
speak.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:09:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

In a message dated 97-07-20 16:51:21 EDT, you write:

<< > On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the 
 > Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the ...>>

What about the greatest of all.. the Major Race / Minor Race thing?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:09:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen

In a message dated 97-07-20 22:55:34 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Actually, thinking about it the other night, how about having Edu affected
as 
 per Int (to represent memory loss)? 
  >>

Now that Edu is decoupled from degrees and documentation of Edu, that makes a
certain amount of sense.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:02:11 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Argh! (was: Re: Traveller Pre-Con Sale Items)

	Think I shouldn't send any email when I'm too tired, I replied to 
the Traveller Pre-Con Sale notice publicly. :/ Sorry for wasting 
bandwidth.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:18:29 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Re Munchins and T4 CGen

At 12:09 am 07/21/97 -0400, you wrote:

>Now that Edu is decoupled from degrees and documentation of Edu, that makes a
>certain amount of sense.

	Hooray!
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:17:42 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Holidays

>Somehow, a holiday on which Vilani celebrate technological advancement
>doesn't feel right. Vilani are too technologically conservative.

It is (IMHO of course) typical for the technologically conservative to
celebrate their first j-drive millenia ago.

Remember that the Vilani has had jump so long that most people doesn't
think about jump-drives as technology anymore. Do you think book/reading
celebrations to be tech celebrations - they are you know, we just don't
think of books as tech anymore.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:52:49 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Starter Editions

Everyone keeps bashing "Starter Editions"; I recall the Starter Edition of
Black Box era was the same content as the 3 LBBs and The Traveller Book;
just laid out in two booklets, with two good adventures in a third booklet,
as well as a sector map, and the material from "BkO: Introduction to
Traveller". I don't recall if it had more than just Regina sub-sector...
but it was playable as it was, and was laid out for ease of learning
(Charts and tables in one book, rules in the other, so you could look at
both at the same time).

Some t4.1 product like this would appeal to me. A full rules edition, with
rules in one booklet, Charts, Tables, etc in another, and a third with a
decent introduction to Traveller, a couple of GOOD t4.1 compliant
adventures (CLEANED UP FAR BETTER THAN T4's adventures in the hardcover),
and a starter subsector or two, with a price tag of $20. Yes, make them all
the cheapest damned things you can put out, but in a NICE box, and include
the required number of dice, and a few blank character sheets. Maybe a
sheet of "Cardboard Heros", too! (1 sheet, 8.5x11" cardstock, 4-color
printing, 1 sided. Makes up for minis.)

THIS would sell. It would be nice enough for players, and really useful for
novice GM's, as they'd be flipping through a much smaller book of tables.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:52:43 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Hivers and Telepathy

Andrew,
>William,
>
>> 4. There is no entry for READING a hiver's mind. Hivers are not psionic,
>> but can be affected by psionics (Hiver and Ithklur, p. 44-45). Also implied
>> in AM7, Hivers.
>
>I always got the impression that their minds were too alien to read.
>______________________________________________________________________
I quote from  page 44-45 of Hiver and Ithklur, the section on telepathy vs
hivers (note, TNE mechanics; HTML Tags used to indicate items I cannot send
via email, namely, bold and italics; all such emphases GDW's). This should
be sufficiently explicit for even the most die-hard cannon-mongers.

<quote>
<b>Telepathic Skills:</b>Any human or Ithklur psionic attempting to use
Telempathy, Project Emotion, Project Thought, or Probe on a hiver
automatically subtracts two stages of success. This is due to the
difficulty in understanding a mind that has developed along a very alien
evolutionary path (see page 249 of the basic rules).
<i>telempathy:</i>other than the loss of two stages of success, this skill
works with hivers as describe on pages 249-250 of the basic rules.
<i>Project THought:</i>other than the loss of two stages of success, this
skill works with hivers as describe on page 250 of the basic rules.
<i>Willpower Drain</i>this skill works with hivers as described on page 251
of the basic rules.
<i>Life Detection</i>this skill works with hivers as described on page 251
of the basic rules.
<i>Shield</i> Since hivers have no psi powers they may shield themselves
only by artificial means (electromagnetic psi shields).
<i>Probe:</i> Psions attempting a probe of a Hiver's mind will encounter
the same difficulties in understanding an alien mind as are involved in
Telempathic Contact and must subtract two stages of success.
<i>Assault:</i> Assaults do not require the sophistication of probes, and
need not take the alien nature of the mind into account. This skill works
with hivers as described on pages 251-252 of the basic rules.
</quote>

Since it shows that two stages of success are lost, effectively, it
increases the difficulty. It does not prevent the attempt. In fact, it
explicitely ALLOWS the use of telepath against Hivers.


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:47:36 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

>I rather like the idea of basing it on area - that way, you can give some
>Baron you don't like a bit of a barren desert world, and honestly say he got
>the same as that friend of yours who owns a plot outside Sylea Down...

Nobody but a male Aslan noble would appreciate that ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:54:27 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Religions in space

>  Now, as for the general question of slavery in the Imperium, well, we
>have "canonical" references in this regard (getting tired of that word).
>Question is, why does the Imperium oppose it?  Opposition to slavery on
>our own planet is recent and comes from a specific group - Europeans of
>the Christian persuasion.  One might note that more slaves were exported
>from Africa to the middle east than to the Americas - it was to end the
>African slave trade that the British first established the Atlantic
>blocade and then joined with other European nations in the carving up of
>Africa in the 19th century.  Imperialism in Africa was sold to the public
>back at home as a way to end the slave trade, particularly the overland
>route to the Middle East.
>
>  This has some interesting implications for M0, I think - this might be a
>nice way for Cleon to sell his policy.  "Those planets that fell victum to
>the Long Night have degenerated so far that they even have resorted to
>_SLAVERY_!  The Horror!"  Great way to whip up a moral crusade to go out
>and expand the Empire, don't you think?

In order to get minor nonhuman races into the Imperium I think the absolute
conviction that slavery is wrong sends a strong message from the Imperium.
Think about it from an alien perspective: The green skinned licard kings
come in their migthy spaceships and ask us (with a slight undertone of
threat) to join their glorious empire. All their emperors have been humans
but they say they'll be nice to you. Your younger population has read a lot
of pulp-SF and warns against the ensuing slavery but the Imperium at least
upholds the absolute principle of NO slavery.

Think about it; Would you want to join an interstellar empire totally alien
to you that says slavery is a local matter that has to be decided on a case
base case basis - I think not.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:02:58 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

>It's almost as if someone had roled a D6 and added a bunch of modifiers...
>
>;-)

One of the sickest comments on the list. Do you even for a moment believe
that the creators of our universe has resorted to such crude methods?
Bring on the blueshifted asteroids, accelerated with heplars and
thrusterplates with american flags all over them created at TL 17 by RoM.
On the other hand - those frac-c rocks might be pretty harmless as you'll
get no more than 3D6 of damage from them - the rest is blowthrough ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:38:57 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Pocket universe per Traveller-digest V1997 #1573

- -> Herr Greimann and my other TML compatriots:
Been done already, so i leave it to that which the others have said!
- -> How can I use this "artifact" for an adventure?
A good example is the adventure "secret of the ancients"
- -> 
- -> VAG:  You mention additional locations in the Regina subsector of the 
- -> Spinward Marches.  Might you provide your listing of Ancient sites
- -> and associated Pocket Universes?
Yes, you can read all about it on my www-page. I could also post the 
info to the list, but that wouldn 't do much good as i am constantly 
updating this info!
 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:50:30 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Volker Greimann's site

- -> <<I just chose the title to signify my preferenctial region for
- -> Traveller. Briefly before i called it Domain of VAG,, but figured
- -> that nobody would know what it meant...>>
- -> 
- -> In the UK VAG stands for something like Volkswagen-Audi Group... so it's a
- -> car sales home page?
- -> 
- -> ;-)
Stands for the same thing in Germany, but i don't mean that!
It's just my initials (Hey, not everybody has famous initials!!)
 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:45:22 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Torontonians on the TML

Just picked up some old Traveller stuff (Knightfall, Solomani and Aslan) in
near-mint condition for $10 apiece. I forgot how good some of the old stuff
really was. I think I will go back and get the kinda ruff copy of Invasion:
Earth too

No news, just gloating

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:55:12 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: ROM Tech

I say the ROM Tech Level was 1. Everything else was borrowed from the
Vilani.
Who built the pyramids; Vilani
Who built the other six wonders; Vilani
Who taught the Terrans reading and writing; Vilani
Then due to a misfiling, the knowledge of the Terran primitives was
misremembered. When the colony was rediscovered, their long separation from
civilization had driven them insane. The Vilani allowed them to feel as if
they had conquered civilization in order to reintegrate them. It was when
they were informed of their true status that they went permanently insane.
This was the cause of the ROM.
Their own self-developed tech was never more than 1.

Brought to you by the Vilani High Committee for the Revealing of the Truth
about the So-Called Rule of Man (qv Ramshackle Empire) and the Issue of
Terran Success 
(aka TVHCFTROTTATS-CROM(QRE)ATIOTS) or blanintuten in Vilani

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 06:42:00 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)

1) What is the difference between Basic and Standard Life Support?

Basic life support: lights, heat, canned air/filtering. Short-duration
Standard life support: Basic life support, plus the ability to purify
and recycle both air and water. Moderate duration (weeks).  I am told
there will be an Extended Life Support/More variety of life support in
FF&S.

2) Do you need life support if you are in a G-Tank?

Yes. All the habitable spaces of a ship must be provided with life
support; it's not "included" in the G-tank or anything else. Most
standard designs simply provide life support for the entire volume of
the hull.

Someone else responded: "Only if you want to stay alive." :)

3) How many lasers can you put in one turret? (Couldn't you put up to 3
in a turret before?)

One. 

Another another was, create your own in FF&S and stick as many in a
turret as you can.


4) Why does armor take up internal volume?

Because armor consists of matter, and all matter occupies volume. You
pick
an overall volume for the hull, and everything goes inside it. 

	If you choose, you can put the armor on the outside, but then
the overall
volume of the hull goes up and you have to recalculate everything,
because
jump drives and maneuver drives depend on the TOTAL volume of the hull.
We
considered an idea like this during FF&S2 design, but it's much simpler
the
other way. 

5) A suggestion on finding the Armor Rating:  According to the Errata
at: 
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/Errata.html, 

	Both SSDS and CSC are superseded by FF&S2. Sorry, folks, but
there were
some major disconnects between the two systems which could NOT be fixed
without invalidating something. SSDS armor was created for the
abominable
ship combat system created for the original T4. CSC's armor rating
system
was irreparably broken, and couldn't be salvaged either. Guy Garnett did
some fancy magic to keep penetration and armor values the same for
personal
equipment, but FF&S2 uses a linear armor system similar to FF&S.

Note:  The different material toughness factors are already figured into
the volume factor.  So, TL 14-16 hulls are assumed to be made out of
Bonded SD.

 
6) Are there more efficient thrusters for later tech levels (15+)?

Not in SSDS nor in the first volume of FF&S2

Another answer was "Ask the Ancients." :)
 
7) What does the Accomodation: bunk allow for?

Just that--a bunk and a small storage area for personal effects.
 
8) When would you need launch tubes?

	If you wanted to rapidly launch ships out of a hangar. A normal
launch
port (IIRC) can only launch one ship every so often. You could put lots
and
lots of launch ports on the ship, but that eats up all your surface
area. A
launch tube is optimised for pumping out lots of ships.

Another answer was:

	Launch tubes allow you to launch fighters or whatnot faster than

a simple launch port.  In Traveller: The New Era, you could launch one 
ship per half-hour from a launch port and 10 from a launch tube (IIRC).

A third answer was:
Launch Ports: 1 boat per round.
Launch Tubes: 40 boats per turn.
Source T4.0 rule book page 119.



9) How would you create a fixed arc laser (sort of like a spinal mount
laser)? 

	Buy FF&S2 <G>. Or pull out your copy of FF&S--all the weapons in
SSDS were
designed using FF&S, and FF&S2 is heavily derived from FF&S, although we
tried to add a *few* improvements without adding too many more bugs.
 
>10) Can you fire a ship's weapon multiple times/round?

	Most weapons already fire multiple times in a *ship* combat
round. For
simplicity, you don't roll for each shot, the combat systems (all of
them,
I think) assume that multiple shots give you a better chance of having
at
least one shot hit. The Rate of Fire, or ROF, for a weapon is the number
of
shots it fires in a 30-minute combat round.

Another answer was:
	Your weapon is already firing multiple times/round.  If you mean

can it fire at more than one target, that depends on the combat system 
you're using.


And last, but not least, some comments:

As an SSDS Newbie, I think I need to warn you of a few things:
	- SSDS was created EXTREMELY quickly. The GDW-Beta list was only
given a
single week, and playtesting was severely lacking.
	- Other early T4 works broke the ground rules under which SSDS
and future
design systems were supposed to be created, hence the disconnect between
SSDS and CSC (for example)
	- FF&S2 should be available Real Soon Now, and tries to create a
single,
consistent design system for all vehicles, whether land, air or space.


One last thing(really this time!), a couple of examples of figuring
ships armor:

  Lets take the example of a TL12 200td Streamlined disc with an armour
value of 40.

  Volume Factor: 0.77
  Armour Level:  40
  Material Cost: 0.014
  Mat. Density:  15.0

  Armour Vol= 0.77*40 = 30.8 m^3
  Armour Mass= 30.8 * 15 = 462 t
  Armour Cost= 30.8 * 0.014 = 0.4312 MCr

  This of course has to be added to the internal structure figures
(which are
calculated the same way) and airlocks to get the hull cost, mass and
volume.

  Now, for comparison, lets take a TL8 version of the same hull.

  Volume Factor: 1.80 (Note the difference to the figure above)
  Armour Level:  40
  Material Cost: 0.008
  Mat. Density:  8.0

  Armour Vol= 1.80*40 = 72 m^3
  Armour Mass= 72 * 8.0 = 576 t
  Armour Cost= 72 * 0.008 = 0.576 MCr

  Then we have to get the USP. Look up the USP table. A value of 40
translates to a base USP of 2. Multiply this by 10, and we have a final
USP of 20.

  So what have we got. An armour with a USP of 20 at TL12 (Superdense)
weighs 
25% less and costs 34% less than its TL8 (Composite Laminate)
equivalent. The 
TL8 version will also have less room for 'stuff' in the final hull.


Thanks to everyone that sent me answers! 
Scott

knyghte@msn.com

  

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1586
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 21 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1587



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Tech Level
A little ride
Strange design/drive question
RE: Strange design/drive question
Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu
Re: Strange design/drive question
Re: A little ride
Re: Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)
Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)
Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
Re: some grain of truth
Re: Religions in space
Re: Contact...
Re: Noble Lands
Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!
Re: Noble Lands
Re: A little ride
FFW
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:59:12 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Tech Level

From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

Now, what this means for Traveller tech levels, I haven't a clue, but I
think most folks would agree that Traveller tech level variations between
planets is one of the odder things about the game.  Must be some
explanation other than economics, esp. for M1100.  >>

It's almost as if someone had roled a D6 and added a bunch of modifiers...

Now THAT is just too weird to even think about. That's like reducing
people's lives to four year slots, with receipt of promotions determined
randomly (although most militaries appear to actually be doing this.
hmmmm............)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:28:19 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: A little ride

Hi,

	I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.

	What I'm trying to do is come up with a small scenario where the players
have to put the wrong fuel into their vehicle; can it be done that their
vehicle would suddenly start to go much faster, or behave in erratic ways
yet still eventually get them to their destination? I guess there must be
quite a few variations of this, so what combination of fuel and vehicle
could cause these effects? Cheers.

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:48:44 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: Strange design/drive question

What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?

For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.

Possibilities:

1) Ship explodes
2) Second jump drive jumps without ship
3) The jump number increases exponentially.  While this wouldn't have an
affect in this test (1x1 = 1), if using two jump 3 drives, you'd get a
jump-9
4) Nothing
5) Jump time halved

Comments invited/desired!

Scott

knyghte@msn.com
Shadowblinder, Truthfinder

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:28:00 -0400
From: Bill Prankard <BPRANKARD@theiia.org>
Subject: RE: Strange design/drive question

>----------
>From: Scott Foster
>To: BPRANKARD; 'ISBA'
>Cc: 'Trav'
>Subject: Strange design/drive question
>Date: Monday, July 21, 1997 9:48AM

>FROM:    Scott Foster (SMTP:scottfo@MICROSOFT.com)

>TO:      'ISBA' (SMTP:isba@goldinc.com)
>CC:      'Trav' (SMTP:traveller@MPGN.COM)

>SUBJECT: Strange design/drive question

>---------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 ---

>What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?

The Commander nearly gags on his 'Green' when he hears this question.
"You mean the Bonehead Maneuver?"

>For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
>The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.

"Why in the blazes would you want to do that!"

>Possibilities:

>1) Ship explodes

"99.9% of the time, definitely!"

>2) Second jump drive jumps without ship

"Could happen..."

>3) The jump number increases exponentially.  While this wouldn't have an
>affect in this test (1x1 = 1), if using two jump 3 drives, you'd get a
>jump-9

"In Theory, this could work.  Then again IN THEORY, Communism was a good 
idea on ancient Terra!"

>4) Nothing

"Unlikey!"

>5) Jump time halved

"Possible, but improbable"

>Comments invited/desired!

"Kid, don't be messing around with j-drives!  They be a finiky piece of 
hardware to be gambelin' yer lives over!"

>Scott

>knyghte@msn.com
>Shadowblinder, Truthfinder

(And now the guy from behind the curtain comes out, The Immage of the 
Commander disappears as the hologram is shut off)
<OOC MODE ON>

Ok, so you want to know what happens when you jump in jump.  This question 
has baffled the minds of Old Fogies and relative newcomers alike.  Basic 
answer is this:

GM's Perogative or 'When the GM Smiles it's Already Too Late!'

This is where the GM can have some fun, J-space is mostly unknown ground, 
damn little cannononical references to how 'exactly' jumpsapce works and 
what it is.  It is only known that j-drives work.  Although MT's Starship 
Operators Handbook does give an interesting description of J-space, but it 
does state that not even the best J-space physicist understands what exactly 
is going on, one reason why there is the J-6 limmit?

Anyway, when you fatutz(good Yiddish word, means to screw arround with) with 
the  drive, however it is done, you are inviting a misjump.  You can have 
the standard CT/MT effect of a missjump: BOOM!, Jump 6d6 parsecs in a random 
direction, or arrive ealier or later than expected.  There are also other 
'wierder' X-Files,MIB,FNORD! Effects you can whip up.  ;->  (The GM is 
smiling!  We're doomed!)

Sure, have the effects exponent themselves.  The PC's discover a new Jump 
meathod.  Unfortuneately, it was a fluke, and cannot be repeated in any lab. 
 An unkown variable (power, grid configuration, a small particle of 
'something' hit the grid at some time, whatever) was what caused the 
success.  You can be realy E-vil and have the ship go boom next time they 
try the experiment.

How about they open a rift to one of Grandads Pocket Dimensions?  And they 
have to find a way out, but not they way they came!

One word: Wormhole

Two Words: Time Travel!  This I actualy did to a smartass engineer character 
who did exactly what you stated, he hooked up 2 j-drives together. 
 Unfortuneately the year was 1137 and the world was Trin...

Neadless to say the virus got into his j-drive and caused a massive 
missjump, he jumped to j-3 space, then to j-9 space then to j-27...etc...The 
virus program caused a recursive loop that just sucked more fuel from the 
HePlar Tanks untill the time barrier was broken.  And soon he was slingshot 
70 years into the future.

Hey, I know this was handwavy, but what better and spectacular way could you 
have old MT characters come into your new TNE game?

You sure you dont want to play in my up and comming (eventualy) IRC game? 
 The Planet X Adventure? ;->

Commander X
Shipbuilder, gearhead, and Demonic Gamemaster  );-{>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 09:17:56 -0700
From: Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu

s.johnson107@genie.com wrote:

>Subject: Catholic Church in M0
>
>> Why not go the whole distance and instead of basing the archbishop
>> on Tim Curry in "The three musketeers" (hated that one) base the
>> Archbishop on Tim Curry in Ridley Scotts "The Legend" - now that's
>> an archvillain!
>    No, no, NO!  If you want a proper Richelieu think Charleton Heston! ;) Now
>THAT's a menacing religious figure.  Besides, for my money the three Salkind
>movies with Charleton Heston, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlin,
>Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welsh and Christopher Lee.  Were the best adaptions of
>Dumas's novels ever made IMO! ;) Go rent them if you don't already have
>them in
>your video library.

And now for a "me too" post: Stephen's right on this one. The early 70s
versions of the Three Musketeers were excellent. I nearly wretched when I
saw the cast for the Disney remake a few years back. When Chris O'Donnell,
who played D'Artagnan in the remake, was asked if he had read Dumas' novel,
The Three Musketeers, he replied, "No, but I love the candy bar." There
went my respect for him.

Related topic: I had a history professor in college who referred to
historical figures by the actors who played them in movies as sort of an in
joke. I recall suppressing my laughter as some of the students struggled to
find any references to "Cardinal Charlton Heston" in their European History
texts! <g>

Best,

Chris Griffen

===================================================
Keeper of the Flame. Traveller player since 1980.

http://www.cris.com/~Cgriffen/traveller/deneb.shtml



- --------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher Griffen                      Phone: (408) 527-7189
Cisco Systems, Inc.                      Fax:   (408) 527-0452
NMBU Technical Publications              cgriffen@cisco.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:41:07 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

Scott Foster wrote:
> 
> What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
> For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives. The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.


The ships jspace bubble suffers and imbalance and breach due to hull
grid asymmetry, allow a dreaded JUMPSPACE INCURSION.  Mutations occur,
causing one of the crew to turn into a monster who then terrorizes the
rest of the crew.  They finally kill the monster by activating the 2nd
jump drive with said monster on top of it.  Or by electrity. 

They decide not to try that again;)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:34:21 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

Bruce E J Lewis wrote:
>I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.

High grade aviation fuel is known as JetA in the biz, with an additive
called PRIST thrown in for anti-icing for temperqatures in the 40,000'
range of -50F.  It is basically kerosene with additives, and from what I
remember that doesn't work too well in an internal combustion engine.

However, in every airplane I've flown, there are provisions for
so-called  alternate and "emergency" fuels.  These are always petroleum
based, and are usually avgas or even common automotive gasoline.  Even
the big jets can fly on these for limited periods of time.  However
there are side effects.

Primarily the damn stuff may not light off or may have odd effects on
start(read "engine torch" or explosion.)  Once you have the engine
going, it may not burn the fuel evenly because the fuel density is
different and it isn't the stuff the fuel control was designed to meter.
You are also susceptible to flameout due to poor performance, especially
during throttle changes, and due to the fuel icing up because you forgot
to poor a can of PRIST in with the stuff.  These fuels also foul the
engine after extended periods of usage.  

As for kerosene in cars, I dunno.  However if the car is powered by a
jet turbine or like device (THX1138) it will probably perform like
above.  The root problem is the fuel control system isn't designed to
use any fuel-it must have "its" fuel for peak performance.  Even an
inherantly more energetic fuel probably will just make the thing work
worse-it can't harness the extra energy cause the hardware isn't
designed to.

BTW, as I understand it, avgas and gasoline are A LOT more refined than
Jet A or JP8(current USAF fuel.)  Any other suggestions from the
braintrust of the TML?

Deadeye

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:24:44 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)

Scott Foster wrote:
> 
> 1) What is the difference between Basic and Standard Life Support?
> 
> Basic life support: lights, heat, canned air/filtering. Short-duration
> Standard life support: Basic life support, plus the ability to purify
> and recycle both air and water. Moderate duration (weeks).  I am told
> there will be an Extended Life Support/More variety of life support in
> FF&S.
> 

Doesn't Standard life support include artificial gravity?

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:41:03 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)

Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>:

> Nick Munn wrote -
> 
> > Energy taken to release the H2 is minimal compared to fusion
> > powerplant output per mol: energy of an O-H bond in H2O is roughly
> > 428 kJ/mol, so it takes twice that to dissociate an H2O molecule. If
> > we assume we get no energy back from the 2H -> H2 and 2O -> O2
> > processes (i.e. we only get heat, not work), then 1 mol H requires
> > 428 kJ to produce.  =
> 
> 
> You've made a few errors here, as far as I can see.
> 
> You split water in hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis.

Um, well, I was looking at an upper bound for thermal splitting, but 
electrolysis is probably easier...

> Using decade-old A level chemistry I worked out the
> following -
> 
> One Faraday is equivalent to 96487 Joules.

Well, *this* decade Faraday's constant F = 96485 C / mol -- it's the 
charge carried by 1 mole of electrons.

The energy consumed in an electrochemical reaction is therefore:

number of moles x F x energy per coulomb

the latter term of course being the electrode potential for the 
reaction i.e. the voltage you need to slap across the cell to get 
your reaction to go.  If you use the autoionisation of water to help 
you, you can get away with 0.4 V potential, I believe, if you use a 
standard hydrogen electrode and a sensible cathode at which to do

4OH- -> 2H20 + O2 + 4e-   (E\std = 0.4 V)

OTOH, standard enthalpy of formation of water = -285.83 kJ / mol
(at 298K, 1 atm, admittedly)

i.e. Delta H for H2 (g) + 1/2 O2 (g) -> H20 (l)

so if we just assume a 100% efficient reaction (ha!) at 1 MW for 6 
hours, amount of H2 n is

n = 10^6 J/s * (6 * 60 * 60) s / 285.83 x 10^3 J/mol

  = (2.16 x 10^10 / 2.8583 x 10^5) mol

  =  7.557 x 10^4 mol H2

  = 152.3 kg H2

  = 2.1 m^3 of L-hyd/6 MW-hours


> > In an hour a 1 MW powerplant produces 3600 MJ =3D
> > 8500 mol (say) =3D 8.5 tonnes of H2.
> 
> No way ! 8500 moles of Hydrogen is not 8.5 tonnes. =

*cough* No, it isn't, is it?  Oooops.  Sorry, TML.


> > The FF&S draft gives 0.01 MW to purify 1 m^3 LH2 in 6 hours at TL8.

I now make that 1/2.13 = 0.469 MW.  And this is, please note, the 
absolute minimum energy for the reaction, assuming it all comes from 
the powerplant.  It'll work better at higher temperatures/lower 
pressures.



> Is this correct ? Can FF&S ][ be so wrong ? If so, I will think long
> and hard before buying it.

No-one's ever noticed it before, because we've all blithely assumed 
that since the energy gained from fusing hydrogen >> energy to 
electrolyse it, power won't be a problem.  How embarassing.

If we consider a H2/O2 fuel cell which does this reversibly, it would 
require 6*2.13 m^3 H2 per MW-hour output; FF&S 2 has a TL7 hydrocarbon 
fuel cell use 3 m^3 of (much denser) hydrocarbon per MW-hour, which 
is very much in the same ballpark.



There is a possible way out.  If we assume really, really good 
catalysts, you might be able to do this kind of thing at the 
temperature of (say) your fusion powerplant cooling system.  But then 
we've just invented a fuel cell which can be charged by the hot 
fusion exhaust...


Your thoughts invited!

Nick


Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:48:12 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Victor J. Raymond" <RAYMOND@macalester.edu>
Subject: Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu

 
I don't suppose anyone on this list _knows_ where to order videotapes of the Salkind/Lester productions of the Three Musketeers and the Four Musketeers?  I would dearly kill to have that info (or not engage in homicide, as the case may be).
 
Victor Raymond

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:10:22 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

At 11:09 PM 7/20/97 BST-1, Andrew wrote:

>> When, oh when, will the Holy Grail of Traveller be published (the CD with
>> electronic versions of everything GDW and DGP printed)?
>
>And the special editions, with a scan of Marc's signature on...

I'm holding out for the audio track with Marc and Loren singing "In the
Year 2525"...

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:08:47 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: some grain of truth

At 10:40 PM 7/20/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>Anyways, the only other item of note was the presence of one 
>>Pierre Savoie (did I spell that right?) who may be familiar to
>>readers of rec.games.frp.misc, but I don't think I'll get into
>>that...
>
>  I only paid attention to small part of this thread on r.g.f.m, but I did
>see this guy get nailed, even when he supplied *exactly* what his attackers
>called for in the way of proof.  One case in point being Tipper Gore's
>published views on the Satanic connections to RPGs.

While Drac made the occasional point, he went far beyond just complaining
about the fundies and misinformation.  He attacked anyone who professed
even the slightest religious belief, made false claims of harassment to
ISPs, and called for a purging of religious players from gaming.  

As anyone who reads r.g.f.m knows, I enjoy a good flame war, but Savoie
went beyond the bounds of anyone's acceptable behavoir.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:06 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Religions in space

In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.96.970720102617.18080A-100000@internet.oit.edu>

> I can't speak for the United Kingdom, but widespread opposition to
> slavery in the USA dates to well over 100 years prior to its formal
> abolition in 1865 

The British Empire abolished slavery in ~1830; presumably there was 
widespread opposition to it for some time before then.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Contact...

In-Reply-To: <l03020901aff5d2de92e7@[198.168.189.92]>

Roderick,

> ... is actually a semi-intelligent SF movie.  Some holes in the
> ending, but aside from that reasonably well done.  My girlfriend really
> liked it; the American flagwaving and incessant harping about religion were
> kinda annoying, but other than that, we enjoyed.

How does it compare to the book? I thought that was okay, but rather 
derivative (specifically, of /A For Andromeda/ and some of the bits that ACC 
left out of /2001/ (see /The Lost Worlds of 2001/)).
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In-Reply-To: <l03020902aff5d5a63a4b@[198.168.189.92]>

> My take on the nobility is that they are very rarely landowners.
> If you look at todays' European nobility, while relatively wealthy, they're
> just nowhere near as rich as your average industrialist.  

Some are, some aren't. The Prince of Wales makes a fairly comfortable income 
from the Duchy of Cornwall. I *think* his mother is still the world's richest 
woman.

One point you're ignoring is *why* give them land? Money. A noble keeps a 
fraction of the tax generated by his land. If he wants more money, the 
easiest way is to develop the land. Both he *and the Emperor* then receive 
more money. Plus, jobs are created, trade improves, and the Imperium grows a 
little bit more powerful.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!

In-Reply-To: <01BC9311.78909680@douglas@teleport.com>

> I thought of sending this on the humor list, but really it's more appro to our group!
>  
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -oOo- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> The Martian Consulate, L.L.C. offers a unique 
> novelty gift: a land claim on the planet Mars! 
> Not a believer? Check us out -- *WE ARE FOR REAL*!
>  
> http://www.martianconsulate.com/ 
>  
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -oOo- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

See also http://www.moonshop.com/ - they sell property on the Moon and Mars (the 
deeds to my Lunar estate are hanging on the wall now...)

I heard on the news today(!) that somebody is selling Pluto, too.

Actually, I think the TML should buy up the whole solar system!

Hey, Marc, if you're reading this, how about IG doing a deal with them and giving 
away something like this as competition prizes?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In-Reply-To: <33CFE1C8.72B3@alaska.net>

Peter,

> If the Imperium does not own its member worlds but merely controls the
> spaces between them, as was the case in Milieu 1100, how can it give
> away these lands ?  

Presumably, one condition of joining the Imperium is that a world turns 
over a fraction of it's surface to Imperial control.

> One hex is a _lot_ of land.  In my map from Invasion Earth 1 hex of land
> on Earth is approximately equal to the following areas - France & the
> low countries, Iberia, Japan, 15% of the contiguous USA, half of Alaska,
> etc.  A lot of valuable areas are much less than half a hex the British
> Isles being a prime example.  Some valuable areas are too small to even
> see on this scale such as Manhatten Island, Hong Kong, etc.

True, but then Terra is an above-average world - larger, Rich, and HiPop. 
An average world is size 5, thin atmosphere, with a pop of 500,000 and not 
much of a Starport. Much less desirable.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:35:08 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: A little ride

On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, Bruce E J Lewis wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> 	I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
> what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
> hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.
> 

Hee hee hee! This reminds me of a "I swear it's true' story of a friend of
mine. He and his brother owned this old crapped out Ford station wagon
with a flathead engine (this dates it to about the early to mid-60's).
Along comes an idiot, wants to drag race them for pink slips. Why not,
thinks my friend. That night he and his brother dump a copuple of boxes of
mothballs into the gas tank of their old wagon, giving it enough time to
dissolve.

The next day they go to the race, and lo and behold, thier old flat has
become this fire breathing (literally) monster drag car. They got the
idiots car, sold this 'amazing' hotrod for $500, and got the hell out of
there. They later heard that the engine died comletely about a half mile
later. 

All it had to do was last a quarter mile...;-) 

Jet fuel, however is another story entirely. since it's closer to kerosene
than gasoline, dumping it into an IC engine of the wrong type means it
won't run at all. You might be able to get a diesel to run on it, and
almost certainly get a two stroke to run (I have done this), but a modern
4-stroke is right out. 

Dropping high test Aviation gasoline into a car is another thing entirely.
If it is a high performance vehicle that naturally liks high octane fuel,
it may well do ok, as there's little difference between this and stuff
like 120, 130 and 150 octane racing gas. In a normal car you'll probably
have severe precombustion problems, and in worst cases you'ld probably
blow your heads pretty quickly.

Dropping diesel into a gasoline powered car is a way to completly $@#!$ up
your fuel system, as a number of angry customers of a gas station near me
found out, when a tanker operator accidentally put diesel into the
unleaded tank at the station.

Cost that tanker company thousands and thousands of dollars.

There have been attempts, notably by the military, to develop a
'universal' fuel, with varying results. They had one, called JP-8, I
believe (or maybe it was only a universal aviation fuel, but I'm pretty
sure they were running trucks on it, too) which has some nasty lung
toxicity associated with the inhaled vapors.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:06:26 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: FFW

If anyone fancies running a FFW PBEM I'd be very interested....

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:05:29 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>How many 'Christians' now celebrate Christmas/Easter for religious
>reasons, and
>how many as an excuse to eat and drink too much?

Speaking as a practising (trying hard ;-) !) Christian, I've always found
Easter is a more 'religious' festival than Christmas, which has become an
orgy of consumption and commercialism.

(Decorations up in the stores in *October*?!)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:41:05 -0700
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <gmgoffin@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

>Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:09:37 -0400 (EDT)
>From: CardSharks@aol.com

<< > On a related topic, what ethnical/racial stereotypes exist in the 
 > Imperium? (Both Milieu 0 and later.) Some are obvious, like the ...>>
>
>What about the greatest of all.. the Major Race / Minor Race thing?

The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
gizmos, etc.

- --Glenn

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1587
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Monday, July 21 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1588



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Adventure postings
Re: Catholic Church
Re: Religions in space and Slavery
Trans-Quebec Helicopters
Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller
Expansion of the Imperium
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Adventure postings
ROM Tech
jump in jump
Re: Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)
Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!
Noble lands --- fiefs
Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu
"So, Where's My Damn Air Raft!"
Re: A little ride
Re: ROM Tech
Major/Minor Races
Re: Noble Lands
Psionics & Society: Right of Reply
Test
Re: "So, Where's My Damn Air Raft!"
Re: Strange design/drive question
Re: Psionics & Society: Right of Reply
T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:59:16 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

Andrew Boulton wrote:


>> >That was an *evil* scenario, and I nearly got lynched for running it..:-)
>>
>> I got the same reaction...
>
>Had your PCs been filmed committing a huge number of crimes (including
>possession of obscene firepower and use of illegal psionic powers)? It
>must be
>10 years since I ran it, but IIRC they tried to murder the host of the show...

Not quite the charge sheet you describe - I think the charges were
'extortion', 'attempted murder', 'conspiracy to commit an act of piracy' oh
yes - criminal damage....... but not the psionics. In 14 years of playing
Traveller, I've only had one or two psionic players... (strange but true!).

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:02:19 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Catholic Church

Dave Golden wrote:

>I remember reading a few years ago about a special dispensation or some
>such for North America where the Pope allowed ordaining married Priest
>here. It was very limited and specific--if an ordained Episcopalian priest
>or Lutheran pastor who was married converted to Catholicism, he could be
>ordained as a fully-functional Catholic priest, except he wouldn't be
>required to make a vow of celibacy. The reasoning behind this was
>supposedly trouble getting enough priests.

In the UK this is happening at present (since the Church of England Synod
voted to allow women priests). Several members of the Anglican Clergy have
been accepted into the RC faith since, and are married.

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:48:41 -0700
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <gmgoffin@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Religions in space and Slavery

>Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:54:27 +0100
>From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)

>>  Now, as for the general question of slavery in the Imperium, well, we
>>have "canonical" references in this regard (getting tired of that word).
>>Question is, why does the Imperium oppose it?  Opposition to slavery on
>>our own planet is recent and comes from a specific group - Europeans of
>>the Christian persuasion.  One might note that more slaves were exported

Slavery was bad for business and the new economy based on heavy industry
and wage relationships, rather than agriculture and reciprocal work
relationships.  For this reason, the industrializing nations led the
movement to abolish slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.  

- --Glenn

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:36:17 -0700
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <gmgoffin@pacbell.net>
Subject: Trans-Quebec Helicopters

>Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 20:52:22 -0400
>From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
>Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

>        Ok... back in 1971, David Lee was a McGill engineering undergrad.
>
>helicopter, whose rotors were turning, to be ferried back to base camp.  He
>approached the helicopter from the rear, ducked under the tail boom, and
>somehow managed to stick his head into the tail rotor.  Poor Mr. Lee was

>        However, he had been wearing a hard-hat.  And his hard-hat-encased
>head severely damaged the helicopter; it was out of service for several

>         They won.  Basically, they established that Mr. Lee had acted
>faultily, ignoring basic safety precautions and several previous warnings,

I'd expect the same result under the common law of negligence.  

- --Glenn

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:17:03 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Traveller

- -> >> When, oh when, will the Holy Grail of Traveller be published (the CD with
- -> >> electronic versions of everything GDW and DGP printed)?
- -> >
- -> >And the special editions, with a scan of Marc's signature on...
- -> 
- -> I'm holding out for the audio track with Marc and Loren singing "In the
- -> Year 2525"...
Hey, this could actually sell ;-)

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 00:49:05 -0800
From: Evyn MacDude <wmacdude@concentric.net>
Subject: Expansion of the Imperium

> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 00:09:34 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Noble Lands
> 
> In a message dated 97-07-20 20:57:15 EDT, you write:
> 
> << What right does the Emperor have to grant land *outside* the Imperium?
>   >>
> The same right the Pope, or the King of <insert name here> did. In the
> expectation that the grantee would bring that territory into the fold, so to
> speak.
> 
> Marc

Marc, COOL, now I can use one of my Favorite lines from history.

I don't rember the the source, but it comes from the expansion
into the "New World".

"No peace beyond the line"

Yea, thats right I am a Pirate at heart. Run up the red flag of
war.

Evyn
- -- 

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.

But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

		Legionnaire Alan Seeger
		KIA the Somme
		AD 1916

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:22:20 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, SD Mooney wrote:

> 
> Speaking as a practising (trying hard ;-) !) Christian, I've always found
> Easter is a more 'religious' festival than Christmas, which has become an
> orgy of consumption and commercialism.
> 
> (Decorations up in the stores in *October*?!)

Where do you live????I want to move there...they wait 'till OCTOBER to
start??? (Last year I saw one place start putting up Christmas stuff in
August...and this year Hallmark is starting national ads for their
Christmas ornaments NOW!)

Egad, it's getting so that the Cristmas and NHL seasons are the same
length ;-)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:20:47 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

SD Mooney wrote:
> 
> Andrew Boulton wrote:
> 
> 
> Not quite the charge sheet you describe - I think the charges were
> 'extortion', 'attempted murder', 'conspiracy to commit an act of piracy' oh
> yes - criminal damage....... but not the psionics. In 14 years of playing
> Traveller, I've only had one or two psionic players... (strange but true!).

Same here. I've been playing since 1981 and have seen exactly one
psionic character. That one was an NPC I deliberately threw into a
scenario. She was stuck in a jail with the PC's and teleported
out. Imagine the look on their faces when they saw that!

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 13:29:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: ROM Tech

Who built the Pyramids?

	Elvis!

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:39:17 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: jump in jump

From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>

What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump? For
example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives. The
ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
(possible resultsn clipped)

or ship vanishes into another dimension as far from J-space as j-space is
from ours

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 14:55:49 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)

On 07/21/97 at 05:41 PM,  "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk> said:

>> Using decade-old A level chemistry I worked out the
>> following -
>> 
>> One Faraday is equivalent to 96487 Joules.

>Well, *this* decade Faraday's constant F = 96485 C / mo 

Isn't that interesting!  In my copy of the CRC handbook, a Faraday *is*
listed as 96487 C / mol (+/- 16 to the 3rd std dev).

Of course, my copy is the 48th edition...ie 1968. :->  I take it there have
been refinements in the meantime?

I haven't looked at the rest of you post yet, but I will.

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 16:18:24 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!

>See also http://www.moonshop.com/ - they sell property on the Moon and
Mars >the deeds to my Lunar estate are hanging on the wall now...)

>Hey, Marc, if you're reading this, how about IG doing a deal with them
and ><giving away something like this as competition prizes?

Why waste money on these things, they are just a joke, they have
absolutely no legal bearing, instead of paying someone else, just print
it up on a laser printer and pass them out to your friends.  

Its the same thing with paying some company to name a star after
yourself, No one is ever going to call it that, so why pay someone else
do it for you, just do it yourself.


Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:46:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Noble lands --- fiefs

   Hi.

> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
> From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)

>> If the Imperium does not own its member worlds but merely controls the
>> spaces between them, as was the case in Milieu 1100, how can it give
>> away these lands ?  

> Presumably, one condition of joining the Imperium is that a world turns 
> over a fraction of it's surface to Imperial control.

   I've always handled this discrepancy by saying that fiefs are
   actually starports.  The noble then gets his income by taxing trade
   that passes through that starport.  The fief's income is then used
   to:

   A) Maintain the starport and all its many facilities.
   B) Keep up a government bureaucacy at the starport offices/manor.
   C) Maintain some armed forces as per the lord's feudal obligation
   	obligations to his liege.
   D) Provide a personal salary to the lord, which varies according to
   	his rank.

   I like this arrangement because it gives the noble character some
   real power, but keeps it in a fairly limited sphere (inside the
   extrality line) so that he is not all-powerful everywhere he goes. 
   It also gives the character some significant resources, but keeps
   them tied up in the starport's infrastructure. (His liege may take a
   dim view of his requisitioning starport military personel and
   equipment for `adventures'.)  So outside the starport, the lord's
   wealth is limited to his salary and whatever other private monies and
   goods he owns.

   This arrangement works very well in my adventure campaign.  I
   recommend it to any referee who doesn't know what to do with his
   players' noble characters.

   -Rob

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 14:38:33 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu

On 07/21/97 at 09:17 AM,  Chris Griffen <cgriffen@cisco.com> said:

>>    No, no, NO!  If you want a proper Richelieu think Charleton Heston! ;) Now
>>THAT's a menacing religious figure.  Besides, for my money the three Salkind
>>movies with Charleton Heston, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlin,
>>Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welsh and Christopher Lee.  Were the best adaptions of
>>Dumas's novels ever made IMO! ;) 

>And now for a "me too" post: Stephen's right on this one. The early 70s
>versions of the Three Musketeers were excellent.

I agree with Stephen and Chris that the Heston/York/Reed/Welsh/etc version
was the best I've seen, but I also think Curry did a very good job as
Richelieu in the Disney version.  Of course, when was the last time Disney
ever didn't screw up a story's plot.

Eris

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:05:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: "So, Where's My Damn Air Raft!"

  In this week's _Aviation Week & Space Review_, there was a short piece
about NASA reserch - the agency is sponsoring stuff in speculative
physics, like FTL travel and the like. 

  If that was not enough to make every Trekkie cream his/her pants, well,
the other section on current research will.  Seems NASA is sponsoring
current research on gravitation, specifically methods to "issolate objects
from the effects of gravity."  Cool, huh - seems that that air raft might
be just around the corner after all.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:35:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: VolantZep@aol.com
Subject: Re: A little ride

In a message dated 97-07-21 13:48:24 EDT, you write:

<< 
 	I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
 what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
 hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion
engine.
  >>
Well I'm not an engineer either but from what I understand it would either
not ignite because the pressure in the car engine isn't high enough to get it
to burn or it would burn too hot and cause damage to the engine componants
and eventually result in the engine fusing and burning up.

Some jet fuel has such a high flash point that you could drop a lighted match
on it and it wouldn't burn.  Has to be under pressure to ignite.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 14:45:06 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: ROM Tech

On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, Mark Clark wrote:

> 
> Who built the Pyramids?
> 
> 	Elvis!

The Bermuda triangle??

Elvis needs boats! Elvis needs boats!

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:47:07 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Major/Minor Races

I think the great major/minor question was resolved with the Aslan attitude:

Look at us, our empire, our accomplishments, and then call us minor.  We
were once the greatest threat the Imperium ever faced. We have the second
largest empire in charted space. And we did not have an existing structure
to build on, like the Terrans when they beat the Vilani, and that the Third
Empire built itself on.  We were not seeded to the stars before
civilization, we got there through our efforts. We started from scratch (no
dewclaw puns, please) and did better than the so-called major races.  Yes,
we copied J-drive from a Terran ship, but we were able to understand it,
copy it and improve it. The rest of the inventions we did ourselves
If you consider us minor, then so be it. These are the words of barbarians
anyway. They mean nothing to us.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 15:27:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-20 01:18:53 EDT, you write:
>
> I thought
> the Third Imperium only ruled the space between planets and the member
> worlds ruled themselves.

This is more of a slogan that discribes the Imperium approach
rather than a consistutional rule to be applied to every
situation.


____________________________
Summers@Alum.MIT.edu

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:47:58 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Psionics & Society: Right of Reply

To the producers,
"Psionics and Society" (programme 3 in the series "Psionic Institutes"),
first broadcast 023-044 at 16:30IST on the IG EduTainment Channel:

Dear sirs,

While I appreciate your efforts in bringing the vexing Psionic Question
to the attention of a largely-oblivious Imperial public, I must protest
most strongly about the biased nature of this programme.  The
EduTainment Channel's charter specifies that it must "make every effort
to [...] present a balanced picture"; your presentation failed to
conform to this policy.  In particular I would like to bring to your
attention the following points:

1. The 4 1/2 minute "History of Psionics" section early in the program
   was blatantly pro-psionic.  This is self-evident; the final sentence,
   stating "The promise that psionics holds is bright, and the benefit
   to mankind, without end", is just one example of many.

   This in itself is fine, provided that other views are given equal
   standing.  *However*, labelling the response "An Alternative View"
   and allocating it only 3 minutes clearly demonstrates the true
   intention of the programme makers.

2. This response - the *only* anti-psionic piece given significant
   airtime - was chosen from pre-recorded works of a radical fringe
   group.  The Thought Protection League does *not* represent the
   opinions of the normal, rational majority who oppose psionics.  I can
   only conclude that the programme makers chose this piece in order to
   set up a "straw sophont" position, since they considered their pro-
   psionic arguments too weak to defeat a rational opponent.

   Please note that no material was presented from the viewpoint of
   Psionics Now!, your own extremist wing, which could have made the
   pro-psionic position look bad.

3. Why does Shela Jeshop continue to be invited on these programmes as
   an objective authority in these matters?  Her own bias should be
   obvious, for instance when she says of the Psionics Club's attempts
   to promote psionics, "*Unfortunately*, [...] progress has been very
   slow." [Emphasis mine]

   Her accusations of Psilence "spin-doctoring" to present only negative
   views of psionics are particularly ironic, given the overwhelmingly
   pro-psionic slant of the media today.

4. Towards the end of the programme a brief piece on "the Psychological
   Effects of Accepting Psionics" was presented.  I have a great deal of
   respect for Dr. Cycyowski, and sympathise with the frustration he
   must have felt as his article was butchered on air in an attempt to
   squeeze it into less than a minute.  I was not surprised to see that
   no mention was made of his later works, wherein he presented the
   results of further research demonstrating the vanishingly small
   chance of so-called "balanced" societies developing.

If necessary I can present a more detailed list for your perusal.  I
hope that the remaining programmes in the series will redress the
balance, but I am not hopeful.

I remain,

Yours faithfully,

Dr. G. Nisaka

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:46:42 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Test

<tap, tap>

Is this thing on?

<feedback squeal>

Uh . . . CQ, CQ . . .  this is . . uh . . Hello?

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 16:53:18 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: "So, Where's My Damn Air Raft!"

On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, Mark Clark wrote:

> 
>   In this week's _Aviation Week & Space Review_, there was a short piece
> about NASA reserch - the agency is sponsoring stuff in speculative
> physics, like FTL travel and the like. 
> 
>   If that was not enough to make every Trekkie cream his/her pants, well,
> the other section on current research will.  Seems NASA is sponsoring
> current research on gravitation, specifically methods to "issolate objects
> from the effects of gravity."  Cool, huh - seems that that air raft might
> be just around the corner after all.
> 
More truth is stranger than Traveller stuff

Couple that with this months scientific american...there's an article in
there about guiding lightning to earth using lasers. It actually should
work, but man oh man what a James Bond-ish toy. Just wait 'till Blofeld
gets his hands on that one.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:51:51 +0000
From: Garry Ward <Garry.E.Ward@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

At 02:48 PM 7/21/97 +0000, Scott wrote:
>What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
>
>For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
>The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
>
>Possibilities:
>
>1) Ship explodes
>2) Second jump drive jumps without ship
>3) The jump number increases exponentially.  While this wouldn't have an
>affect in this test (1x1 = 1), if using two jump 3 drives, you'd get a
>jump-9
>4) Nothing
>5) Jump time halved
>
>Comments invited/desired!
>
>Scott
>
>knyghte@msn.com
>Shadowblinder, Truthfinder
>

I passed this question to to Professor Davros. His response was that, most
likely, the artificial gravitational anomaly producing the first jump effect
would stablize such that the effect would become self sustaining. He called
it 'pocketing'.

The other result, of lesser probability, is that the second jump effect
would simply move whatever is inside it to some random location totally
irrelevant to either the initiation or termination points. 'Wheresoever the
theoretical gods so will it'.


Garry

  



 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:29:20 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Psionics & Society: Right of Reply

At 10:47 PM 7/21/97 +0100, you wrote:
>To the producers,
>"Psionics and Society" (programme 3 in the series "Psionic Institutes"),
>first broadcast 023-044 at 16:30IST on the IG EduTainment Channel:

<snip>

That sounded just like one of the rants produced by the anti-zionists on
alt.conspiracy.. well done!
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:34:32 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)

Having just completed a set of characters using the new T4.1 Character
Generation table, I feel that I am able to say that I have changed my
mind about the utility of skills breaking the 6 barrier.

Without using the current task system (or the proposed one) yet, I'm not
sure that the system will balance but the range increase is ideal.

We used to play traveller as having 6 as a skill max and so being an
expert was not too hard and you could still be well rounded with plenty
of highish (range 2 to 4) skills.

Now, however, we find that 10 or higher is the _BEST_ you can be and
that the 2 to 4 range is still fairly common.  This seems to mean that
previously players tended to be expert in one or two fields (and I mean
expert) with a few at a professional level.  Meaning that they could get
jobs doing these things (A really Good Engineer could often hire on a
perfectly adequate Pilot).

Now an expert tends to be restricted to one area and may be professional
quality at one ot two other things but tend towards adequate for
personal use at ecerything else.  Meaning a really Good Engineer could
fly a ship but would find his piloting qualifications lacking in the
open job market.  He can fly perfectly well but is not really job
quality in a competitive sense.  Of course, nothing stops him from being
hired because he interviews well (sigh!) because he can fly well.

To use a generated example we rolled up a Doctor/Merchant using T4.1

After Attending University and Medical School this doctor had a skill of
10 in medical, 3 in computer and a smattering of other skills.
Attending Technical School (which maybe should be called Advanced
Engineering College or something) saw a few point of electronics and
some other stuff.

Just using the skills I have mentioned, Computer 3, Electronics 3, and
medical 10 we can see that this guy is a really Good Doctor but is not a
computer programmer in a comercial sense but he can certainly cut code
and try the odd hack.  His electronics skill means he could be expected
to build and repair prostetic devices (even Cyberware) but would make
the finest cyber eye available (merely a well implanted one).

As an aside, it would be nice to see a set of rules (ah la Space Opera)
that gave good guidelines to using teams to develop or build devices.
After all because a Cyber Eye is available at TL X doesn't mean that
one's been built yet (take Fusion Plus as an example) or that they are
commercially available.  While a medical 10 character can't build one he
might be able to enlist the aid of a high Electronics professional to
gain assistance.

Brody Dunn
(the rambler)

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1588
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1589



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Contact...
Drac/Savoie?
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
Re: A little ride
Re: ROM Tech
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)
Vargr Sterotypes
Imperial Calendar
Re: A little ride
Re: Religions in space
Re: A little ride
Re: A little ride
Re: A little ride
RE: Catholic Church
Re: Adventure postings
Multi-Jumping
RE: T4.1 Character Generation

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:47:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

In a message dated 97-07-21 21:33:57 EDT, you write:

<< 
 The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
 humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
 gizmos, etc.
>>

I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:37:47 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Contact...

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>
>> ... is actually a semi-intelligent SF movie.  Some holes in the
>> ending, but aside from that reasonably well done.  My girlfriend really
>> liked it; the American flagwaving and incessant harping about religion were
>> kinda annoying, but other than that, we enjoyed.
>
>How does it compare to the book? I thought that was okay, but rather
>derivative (specifically, of /A For Andromeda/ and some of the bits that ACC
>left out of /2001/ (see /The Lost Worlds of 2001/)).

	From what I recall of the book, it's pretty close; it survived the
dreaded Hollywoodium radiation without too much mutation or brain damage.
As for A for Andromeda and LWo2001, I haven't a clue.  Never seen/read
either.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:35:41 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Drac/Savoie?

Doug Berry wrote:

>
>While Drac made the occasional point, he went far beyond just complaining
>about the fundies and misinformation.  He attacked anyone who professed
>even the slightest religious belief, made false claims of harassment to
>ISPs, and called for a purging of religious players from gaming.
>
>As anyone who reads r.g.f.m knows, I enjoy a good flame war, but Savoie
>went beyond the bounds of anyone's acceptable behavoir.

	This may be reaching it, but is "Drac" short for "Draconian"?  If
so, I may have encountered this dude in an earlier
white-supremacist/neo-nazi based out of Toronto incarnation on WWIV a few
years ago...

	From what I read about this Savoie dude; the francophone name
indicates CDN origin, and the handle seems to fit...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:33:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: fcain@st6000.sct.edu (Franklin W. Cain)
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

> From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
> Subject: Origins Report
> 
>    IG did not have an official prescence at the convention, nor were
> there any IG staff present (at least I didn't encounter any).  There was
> one Traveller game on the schedule.  The referee used the T4 mechanics
> with some modifications to run a post-Collapse scenario.  Everyone
> participating had fun.
> 
>    I think it would be to IG's advantage to send someone to this
> convention next year.  I'm puzzled as to why they didn't this time
> around, since the convention is so large.
> 
> Harold

They didn't show up at Dragon*Con either.  Dragon*Con is the *largest* 
sci-fi convention in the Southeast US, with the *best* publicity (i.e., 
*highest* amount of media coverage).  It's been advertised/covered in 
newspapers, magazines, and radio.  It's attendance is measured in the
*thousands* (about 8k, last time I asked them).  

The funny thing is, when I sent a message to IG asking if they'd be here,
they said "Yes."  

Franklin

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:34:46 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: A little ride

Deadeye wrote:

>
>
> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 11:34:21 -0500
> From: deadeye@ebicom.net
> Subject: Re: A little ride
>
> Bruce E J Lewis wrote:
> >I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can
> tell me what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put
> something like hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a
> standard combustion engine.
>
> High grade aviation fuel is known as JetA in the biz, with an additive
>
> called PRIST thrown in for anti-icing for temperqatures in the 40,000'
>
> range of -50F.  It is basically kerosene with additives, and from what
> I
> remember that doesn't work too well in an internal combustion engine.
>
> However, in every airplane I've flown, there are provisions for
> so-called  alternate and "emergency" fuels.  These are always
> petroleum
> based, and are usually avgas or even common automotive gasoline.  Even
>
> the big jets can fly on these for limited periods of time.  However
> there are side effects.
>
> Primarily the damn stuff may not light off or may have odd effects on
> start(read "engine torch" or explosion.)  Once you have the engine
> going, it may not burn the fuel evenly because the fuel density is
> different and it isn't the stuff the fuel control was designed to
> meter.
> You are also susceptible to flameout due to poor performance,
> especially
> during throttle changes, and due to the fuel icing up because you
> forgot
> to poor a can of PRIST in with the stuff.  These fuels also foul the
> engine after extended periods of usage.
>
> As for kerosene in cars, I dunno.  However if the car is powered by a
> jet turbine or like device (THX1138) it will probably perform like
> above.  The root problem is the fuel control system isn't designed to
> use any fuel-it must have "its" fuel for peak performance.  Even an
> inherantly more energetic fuel probably will just make the thing work
> worse-it can't harness the extra energy cause the hardware isn't
> designed to.
>
> BTW, as I understand it, avgas and gasoline are A LOT more refined
> than
> Jet A or JP8(current USAF fuel.)  Any other suggestions from the
> braintrust of the TML?
>
> Deadeye
>

In part you are right Deadeye, JetA or JP8 is kerosene with a number of
additive, but there is also a High grade aviation fuel for reciprocating
engines (props). In the case of Jet a standard automotive engine
probably wouldn't run, spark plugs don't fire hot enough to start
combustion, a deisil engine on the other hand would probably run
alright. In teh case of aviation fuel (prop type), a normal auto engine
will run, VERY well... for a short time. Then it'll need to be torn down
for an overhaul. At the least the valves will be burnt, probably you'll
find pistons with holes n them, bearing problems etc. Av fuel burns much
hotter than normal gasoline.

Mike Peters
Reliability Engineer, Rotating Equipment Specialist, Mobil Oil
Corperation, Paulsboro Refinery

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 21:44:20 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: ROM Tech

On 07/21/97 at 01:29 PM,  Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> said:


>Who built the Pyramids?

>	Elvis!

No!  No!  You *almost* have it right, the time travelling aliens did spirit
"The King" away, but the Pyramids were built by Jim Morrison, not Elvis. 
They were supposed to be large breasts, but he got carried away and
couldn't stop.  Ancient Egyptian teenagers kept sneaking into them to make
out, so he stuck a few dead bodies in them an spread the mummy rumors. 
Elvis, OTOH, went into genetic research.  He's the one who developed the
modern banana, as to what it represented...well, no comment.  ;->

Say, is this the In Nomie mailing list? ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:39:06 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

At 07:05 pm 07/21/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Andrew Boulton wrote:
>
>>How many 'Christians' now celebrate Christmas/Easter for religious
>>reasons, and
>>how many as an excuse to eat and drink too much?
>
>Speaking as a practising (trying hard ;-) !) Christian, I've always found
>Easter is a more 'religious' festival than Christmas, which has become an
>orgy of consumption and commercialism.
>
>(Decorations up in the stores in *October*?!)

	Wow! They wait until October to start playing Christmas tunes where you live?
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:34:07 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: Results to SSDS Newbie Questions (Long)

At 10:24 am 07/21/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Scott Foster wrote:
>> 
>> 1) What is the difference between Basic and Standard Life Support?
>> 
>> Basic life support: lights, heat, canned air/filtering. Short-duration
>> Standard life support: Basic life support, plus the ability to purify
>> and recycle both air and water. Moderate duration (weeks).  I am told
>> there will be an Extended Life Support/More variety of life support in
>> FF&S.
>> 
>
>Doesn't Standard life support include artificial gravity?

	Nope. Artificial gravity is added separately, if desired.
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:15:17 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

At 10:33 pm 07/21/97 -0400, you wrote:
>> From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
>> Subject: Origins Report
>> 
>>    I think it would be to IG's advantage to send someone to this
>> convention next year.  I'm puzzled as to why they didn't this time
>> around, since the convention is so large.
>> 
>> Harold
>
>They didn't show up at Dragon*Con either.  Dragon*Con is the *largest* 
>sci-fi convention in the Southeast US, with the *best* publicity (i.e., 

	Just remember--not only does con attendance cost money, but every person
who attends a con is one person who is NOT slaving away on the upcoming
T4.1 revision ...
- -- Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj --
   goldendj@pcisys.net                       finger for PGP key
    *** USE OF THE ABOVE EMAIL FOR SOLICITATION PROHIBITED ***

 "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his
  enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes
  a precedent that will reach to himself" -- Thomas Paine

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:08:21 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)

Disclaimer, I don't have all the errata and don't know what T4.1 is,
although I get the T4 part, so if any of my comments below are factually
wrong, please forgive me.

Brody Dunn wrote:

> Having just completed a set of characters using the new T4.1 Character
>
> Generation table, I feel that I am able to say that I have changed my
> mind about the utility of skills breaking the 6 barrier.
>
> Without using the current task system (or the proposed one) yet, I'm
> not
> sure that the system will balance but the range increase is ideal.
>
> We used to play traveller as having 6 as a skill max and so being an
> expert was not too hard and you could still be well rounded with
> plenty
> of highish (range 2 to 4) skills.

I think this is still a good rule of thumb.  If Med-3 is a doctor, Med-6
is super-ER-trauma-brain surgeon.

> Now, however, we find that 10 or higher is the _BEST_ you can be and
> that the 2 to 4 range is still fairly common.  This seems to mean that
>
> previously players tended to be expert in one or two fields (and I
> mean
> expert) with a few at a professional level.  Meaning that they could
> get
> jobs doing these things (A really Good Engineer could often hire on a
> perfectly adequate Pilot).

I tend to disagree, albeit slightly.  In using the task system in the T4
book with the campaign I started last week, high characteristisc trump
high skills.  The guy with a C stat and skill-1 is more likely to be
succesful at difficult tasks than the guy with a 7 stat and a skill-4.

> After Attending University and Medical School this doctor had a skill
> of
> 10 in medical, 3 in computer and a smattering of other skills.
> Attending Technical School (which maybe should be called Advanced
> Engineering College or something) saw a few point of electronics and
> some other stuff.

Ok, I'm new to the list, and I don't know exactly what T4.1 is (is that
T4 plus errata?) but I don't see you you can get Med 10, even if picking
your skills in college and med school.     Medical is a Science cluster
skill.  Unavailable as a background skill.  College give 4 skills, which
could all be Med, giving Med-4.  Medical School gives 4 skills, which
could all be Med, resulting in Med-7.
     The Med benefit of "Minimum Medical-3 skill" is a _minimum_ for med
school greaduates.  My interpretation of that means, that anyone who
graduates Med school gets Med-3, i.e., they are a competent doctor, even
if that character did not roll (or pick) Med skill as part of their "one
per year" skills.  This means that you could get 4 non-Med skills
(spread between Research and Administration) and still get Med-3.
However, I think this benefit should only accrue to those who roll their
skills, otherwise players would pick 4 non-Med skills and end up with
Med-3 anyway.  Sure, if you roll Med 4 times, you might think you
'wasted' three rolls, but thats the danger and benefit of rolling
(potentially, Med-3 Research-2 Admin-2, potentially, Med-4).

> Just using the skills I have mentioned, Computer 3, Electronics 3, and
>
> medical 10 we can see that this guy is a really Good Doctor but is not
> a
> computer programmer in a comercial sense but he can certainly cut
> codeand try the odd hack.

Again, by my interpretation of the Med School benefit, this isn't
possible.  All university and med school slots would have to be Medical
and while Computer-5 is conceivable from background skill and common
skills, nowhere is there any potential for a technical skill like
electronics.

[snip rest]

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:34:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Vargr Sterotypes

> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
> gizmos, etc.

There is no truth to the rumor that Vargr like to drive cars with their heads
sticking out the window.

Loren Wiseman

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:34:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Imperial Calendar

Here=92s my current take on holidays and important dates.

IMPORTANT DATES
Date	Event
	001	Holiday. First Day Of Year.
	009	School Year Starts. At least, the Imperial Academies and Universitie=
s.
	090	Armed Forces Day. Parades. Commemoration of the dead.
	181	Mid-Year Break. Often joined with local holidays. 181 is the officia=
l
day. Often extended to the full week.
	271	Thanksgiving (NOT=20
	328	School Year Ends (Graduation)
	356	Year End Break (to 365). Christmas (for those of us who care) is on =
359.

	varies	The Emperor=92s Birthday.

There are still other holidays (religious, cultural) but they are not
mandated by the Imperium.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:43:22 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

> Some jet fuel has such a high flash point that you could drop a lighted match
> on it and it wouldn't burn.  Has to be under pressure to ignite.

That would be JP-7, SR-71 fuel.  Sort of thick.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:50:58 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Religions in space

Someone wrote:

> I can't speak for the United Kingdom, but widespread opposition to
> slavery in the USA dates to well over 100 years prior to its formal
> abolition in 1865 

   Incorrect.  True enough, attempts were made to restrict the growth of
slavery throughout American history (the articles creating the Northwest
Territories, constitutionally mandated ending of the Slave trade with
Africa in 1800, the Compromise of 1850), and some states did ban slavery
within their borders.  **However**, the vast majority of people in the
North (the Northeast and Midwest U.S.) had no particular problem with
someone in the South (Southeast and South Central U.S.) owning slaves. 
As far as the majority of the population of the South was concerned,
slavery was a Constitutionally guaranteed right (true, which is why a
Constitutional amendment had to be passed later to abolish it), and
slaves the personal property of their masters which could not be
deprived from them by the central government.

   Widespread opposition to the institution of slavery in the U.S. dates
from the release of the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher
Stowe in 1852.  The book thrust into the public eye the worst of the
abuses that were occurring to slaves at the time.  While its "Oliver
Stone" treatment of the issue has since been criticized, it drove the
point home for many people in the North that slavery, regardless of its
justifications or where it was being practiced, was wrong.  After 1852,
abolitionists grew dramatically in political power, frightening
Southerns and causing further division within the country.  With the
election of Abraham Lincoln, a known abolitionist, to the U.S.
Presidency in 1860, the South concluded that in order to protect slavery
(the basis for much of its agriculture-based economy), it had to attempt
secession from the U.S.  The result was the American Civil War.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:59:17 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

Michael D. Peters wrote:

> In part you are right Deadeye, JetA or JP8 is kerosene with a number of
> additive, but there is also a High grade aviation fuel for reciprocating


Amazing the folks you meet on this list.  I've got a problem-our T-37's
keep flaming out during the winter months due to fuel control problems.
It is titanically dangerous, because depending on the phase of flight
you can end up dead( especially with a no nothing solo student alone and
unafraid when he/she/it should be.  The tweet's ejection seats ain't to
great, and I was wondering if you had a take on the JP-8 problem.  Right
now guidance has us retard only one of our throttles below 65% at a
time, just in case one dies:/

In my understanding, the flamout/relight problem occurs because JP-8's
flash point is higher than JP-4.  It also causes smoke on start up that
occasionally causes our crew chiefs to mutate into hideous monsters. 
Which we despose of with jump drives.  And electricity.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:05:19 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

> Mike Peters
> Reliability Engineer, Rotating Equipment Specialist, Mobil Oil
> Corperation, Paulsboro Refinery


He is an engineer.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:02:09 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

Why don't we use avgas for standard reciprocating props BTW?  I assume
your were talking about the 100-130 LL varieties of fuel that burn
hotter.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:42:38 -0700
From: "Makens, Brian" <bjm@dsc.com>
Subject: RE: Catholic Church

- ----------
SD MOONEY WROTE
>Dave Golden wrote:

>>I remember reading a few years ago about a special dispensation or 
some
>>such for North America where the Pope allowed ordaining married 
Priest
>>here. It was very limited and specific--if an ordained Episcopalian 
priest
>>or Lutheran pastor who was married converted to Catholicism, he 
could be
>>ordained as a fully-functional Catholic priest, except he wouldn't 
be
>>required to make a vow of celibacy. The reasoning behind this was
>>supposedly trouble getting enough priests.

>In the UK this is happening at present (since the Church of England 
Synod
>voted to allow women priests). Several members of the Anglican Clergy 
have
>been accepted into the RC faith since, and are married.


A little clarification here,  Catholic Church has a sub-organization 
called rites,
vast  majority of  Catholics you encounter are latin-rite, with 
celibate priests.
However, there are other rites such as Ukrainian, Marionite(as in 
Lebanon)
and one in Iraq, whose name escapes me at the moment,(basically 
orthodox
in ritual, Catholic in  theology) that have always had married 
priests. To handle
married  former  Anglican/Episcopalian  priests, and a few parishes 
that
defected over the last decade or so, a special "Anglican" rite was 
created,
that allows for a married priesthood in that rite.

Getting back to traveller,   Depending on  how the 19th Vatican 
Council came
down on the issue of Non-Solomani Human Salvation, there could be a 
Vland
Rite, with rituals more meaningful to Vilani.

Of course, if the  later Council of Dragusharr,  came out in favor of 
the possible
salvation of  all  sophonts,  we might even have a Vargr Rite,  which 
brings to
mind an open midnight mass under a FULL moon, with gregorian chanting 
 taking
a whole new direction-----   :-)

Brian Makens

A visitor to Rome during the Third Imperium remarked,.. "Since the 
rather
remarkable success of  the missionary effort among the Newts, the 
local
Vatican Congregations and Offices have been flooded with thousands of 
new
energetic and dedicated convert  Newt priests and theological scholars 
expounding
to any unfortunate human they encounter, about every nuance on canon 
law
and encyclicals that has occurred in the last 30000 years. Local 
Romans,now
refer to the Vatican as "Newt Hill" "

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:10:30 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

On 21 Jul 97 at 18:59, SD Mooney wrote:

> In 14 years of playing Traveller, I've only had one or two psionic
> players... (strange but true!).

	*Nod* In 10 years of playing Traveller, I've had only one psionic PC 
in my group - and even he was only a mere Telepathy-6 or something. 
Came handy in one adventure though.

	He was playing hide and seek in an abandoned farmhouse against 3
crack hitmen (armed with ACRS IIRC), and he only had his 9mm Magnum
and 6 rounds. Too bad for the bad guys, he used psionics to detect
lifeforms, then pinpoint them, and shot them in the head one by one, 
right through walls.

	That was ugly. :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:14:14 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Multi-Jumping

>What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
>
>For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
>The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
>
>Possibilities:
>
>1) Ship explodes
>2) Second jump drive jumps without ship
>3) The jump number increases exponentially.  While this wouldn't have an
>affect in this test (1x1 = 1), if using two jump 3 drives, you'd get a
>jump-9
>4) Nothing
>5) Jump time halved
>
>Comments invited/desired!

None of the above. Fuel is expended, and ship misjumps badly. At best, it
totals the second JDrive.

According to MTJ, anything which jumps from within a ship in J-Space
catastrophically misjumps, never to be found again.

Now, linking them together, amking a Staggering Engineering/Computer task,
and triggering them together, you'd get J3... (EFG) (each is 2% of hull; J3
is 4%)


William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:17:32 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: T4.1 Character Generation

On Tuesday, 22 July 1997 15:08, Steve Daniels [SMTP:blueboy@bu.edu]
wrote:
> Disclaimer, I don't have all the errata and don't know what T4.1 is,
> although I get the T4 part, so if any of my comments below are
factually
> wrong, please forgive me.

T4.1 is a beta set of documents that Marc Miller has made available to
be play tested by members of the TML.
 
> I think this is still a good rule of thumb.  If Med-3 is a doctor,
Med-6
> is super-ER-trauma-brain surgeon.

I used to agree completely but having a longer range for experienced
enables a professional rating to be attained without being one or two
levels of the best possible.  An open ended range may cause Munkinism
but also allows the creation of those special exceptional characters
with very high skills in something (the famous for it type) while still
letting normal people succeed when they try harder stuff too.
 
> I tend to disagree, albeit slightly.  In using the task system in the
T4
> book with the campaign I started last week, high characteristisc trump
> high skills.  The guy with a C stat and skill-1 is more likely to be
> succesful at difficult tasks than the guy with a 7 stat and a skill-4.

Yeah - Stats should not rule skills - but thats another thread and I do
_NOT_ want to get involved.  I want to keep what little support I can
get :)

> Ok, I'm new to the list, and I don't know exactly what T4.1 is (is
that
> T4 plus errata?) but I don't see you you can get Med 10, even if
picking
> your skills in college and med school.     Medical is a Science
cluster
> skill.  Unavailable as a background skill.  College give 4 skills,
which
> could all be Med, giving Med-4.  Medical School gives 4 skills, which
> could all be Med, resulting in Med-7.

The new Med school in T4.1 gives a level of Med every year of attendance
(5 years) and also has medical appear three times or so in the skill
rolls table.  So it certainly is very different from the original T4.

> Again, by my interpretation of the Med School benefit, this isn't
> possible.  All university and med school slots would have to be
Medical
> and while Computer-5 is conceivable from background skill and common
> skills, nowhere is there any potential for a technical skill like
> electronics.

Medical School and University are different in T4.1 (Better? - I do not
know but I think so) The electronics skill came from a quick visit to
Technical School (which requires a BSc or BA to attend - Should be
called something else) which is predominantly technical type skills.

Brody

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1589
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1590



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Nobles - Titles and Land (Pretty Long)
Re: A little ride
Re: A little ride
Riots at Colonisation Inc's AGM
Re: Religions in space
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
Re: A little ride
Re: Vargr Sterotypes
Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller
Re: Major/Minor Races
Refueling and fusion power
Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)
Re: Slavery
Re: Noble Lands
Noble lands
Re : Re : Re : Refueling question ( corrections )
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Re : Re : Re : Refueling Question
Re: Calendars and simultaneity

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:59:52 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: Nobles - Titles and Land (Pretty Long)

Nobles are a curly one.  After all what is too much and what is too
little.

The idea of players tending towards being Honour Nobles seems best
(especially at the start of a campaign) but the rewards of serving the
Imperium can be great.

And being an Honour noble still makes you part of the Imperial Nobles so
some form of Income or reward is deserved even for these Honour Nobles.

Part of all Nobles responsibilities should be the Imperium itself.  The
worst sin a Noble can commit is to let the side down (Actually to be
caught letting it down).

As these are Imperial Nobles I think that should be held seperate from
the Constitutional Monarchies and the such that rule worlds themselves
(although they me be a part of such but not in their Imperial Capacity -
i.e. the King of Such and Such is also an Imperial Baron).

As Archdukes control (or administer) an entire domain a Duke should be
responsible for perhaps the administration of a subsector and be
responsible for the collection of Imperial Taxes and Levies (somebody
has to) in his region.  This is a responsiblity passed down to his
Counts, Marquis, Barions and Knights of the subsector.  The senior Duke
in a Sector is also the Sector Duke and has additional duties such as
the overseeing of the Imperial Navy Sector Fleet.  These Nobles incomes
would be fairly large but they have to pay for lots of stuff themselves
and pass a fairly large portion of the tax take up the line.

An Honour Noble may be provided with a stipend of Cr5,000 per month
times [Soc - 9] to maintain standards and be required to pledge
alliegience to the Emperor and perform some ceremonial duties as
required (not too onerous - it is the next to ultimate reward the
imperium can bestow).

An Imperial Noble has to collect taxes and levies for the Imperium.
Each level of Imperial Noble is assigned a fief based on
population(tax).
A knight may have a fief thats a portion of a planet (or a local
government on a balkanised world) with a population around 5 or 6.
While a Baron's fief may have an entire world with 1/2 of it subdivided
into Knights fiefs and the remained administered by him, with a
population of around 7 or 8.
A Marquis may have two worlds, or one larger world of pop 9 and would
have some Barons and Knights Subinfeudinated under him.
A Count would have a large pop 10 world or two or three pop 9 worlds.
The Duke Personally holds the same as a Count but also takes
responsibilty for the entire subsector.
The Sector Duke(senior subsector duke (in terms of fief or Imperial fiat
- - not age)) and Domain Archduke are responsible for administering
Imperial Funds (at the direction of the Emperor) and funding all
Imperial requirments.

Factored all costs in and simplifying I woudl think that Imperial (or
Landed) Nobles would get in the pocket as it were around 0.1% of the Tax
take of the fief(excluding sub fiefs) to spend on their own adgenda.  A
formula based on POP digit and TL would be best if Pocket Empires isn't
used. 

With regards to pocket empires,over time the Noble ranking of a lord
will increase as his fief increases in population.  In fact each major
holding could be considered a pocket Empire with a portion of it's tax
take being syphioned off to Imperial Funds and personal pockets of the
Noble (fractions of an RU personally normally).  The Imperium is able to
supply money to a fief for units or facilities that are to be imperial
at no extra cost for off planet investment.

SUMMARY

Imperial Nobles are collectors of Imperial Tax and administrators of
Imperial Power.  Each to their own but all have at least the
responsibility to collect Imperial Levies as set by the Emperor in their
fiefs.  Usually, their cut is sufficient to live a life of luxury and
often they have significant lands and properties on their fiefs.  This
is not required and their personal holdings may be spread over several
worlds and subsectors.  However their responsibility is not spread at
all unless they hold other fiefs.

Count Halth may hold two Baronies, three knighthoods and Honour Noble
Duke status earned in the Imperial Navy in addition to his countship.

Depending on his current duties he would have different titles.  With
any of his land holdings (Countship, Barony, of Knighthood) he would be
known as Count Halth.  However for public events such as Grand Balls and
the such he would be Duke Halth.

The trick of course, is to know what title to use and keeping upto date
as a Noble can bestow a title he holds onto another either in perpetuity
(or until stripped by a council of peers) or just for the life, or
duration of appointment, of the holder.

Remember the Imperium is going to get pretty damn big and the Emperor
just doesn't have the time to administer all the little bits so he will
have to parcel it out to underlings.  The final arbiter of all Noble
Titles and the only creator of such things would be the Emperor (perhaps
along the lines of "Archduke....create two thousand knighthoods in your
domain...reserve 500 for me to dispense and dispose of the others
yourself." - perhaps not.)



The life of a minor noble can be tricky indeed.

I've looked at a series of simply formula's but they get pretty complex
to keep a Dukes Income relatively low (say MCr 200 per year) while a
Knight can earn a reasonable living ( say MCr 0.35 per year).

Any Comments......

Anybody get down this far

Brody Dunn
bdunn@ihug.co.nz

Have a Day :|

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:17:30 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Re: A little ride

Bruce wrote:
>	I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
>what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
>hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.

Neither do I, but I had a friend of mine who knows someone... who put
GasOil (the one which smell awful and waste carbon dirt everywhere, usually
used for trucks) instead of regular Unleaded fuel. Sure the car didn't
start, and he had to purge and clean all the engin before restarting, which
took several hours and cost money. The engin wasn't damage. 

Personnally I would say that
1- The car isn't starting at all. See example above.
2- It works but not very efficient, and will damage your engin if you use
it for a too long time.
3- Wreck you engin (blow the cylinders, and crush the valves...)


>	What I'm trying to do is come up with a small scenario where the players
>have to put the wrong fuel into their vehicle; can it be done that their
>vehicle would suddenly start to go much faster, or behave in erratic ways
>yet still eventually get them to their destination? I guess there must be
>quite a few variations of this, so what combination of fuel and vehicle
>could cause these effects? Cheers.

IMO this is very unpropable. If you said you've put some improoved dragster
fuel is my small car, I would not turn the key. And if you said you've put
it in your car, I would certainly run away the faster I can...
- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 18:28:52 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Re: A little ride

Bruce wrote:
>	I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
>what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
>hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.

Neither do I, but I had a friend of mine who knows someone... who put
GasOil (the one which smell awful and waste carbon dirt everywhere, usually
used for trucks) instead of regular Unleaded fuel. Sure the car didn't
start, and he had to purge and clean all the engin before restarting, which
took several hours and cost money. The engin wasn't damage. 

Personnally I would say that
1- The car isn't starting at all. See example above.
2- It works but not very efficient, and will damage your engin if you use
it for a too long time.
3- Wreck you engin (blow the cylinders, and crush the valves...)


>	What I'm trying to do is come up with a small scenario where the players
>have to put the wrong fuel into their vehicle; can it be done that their
>vehicle would suddenly start to go much faster, or behave in erratic ways
>yet still eventually get them to their destination? I guess there must be
>quite a few variations of this, so what combination of fuel and vehicle
>could cause these effects? Cheers.

IMO this is very unpropable. If you said you've put some improoved dragster
fuel is my small car, I would not turn the key. And if you said you've put
it in your car, I would certainly run away the faster I can...
- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:14:22 -0700
From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>
Subject: Riots at Colonisation Inc's AGM

After a short but brisk shareholders meeting, the entire Board of
Colonisation Inc have agreed to resign over their negligence concerning
the prospectus for a number of commercially-oriented startup colonies. 
They have further agreed to reimburse shareholders for losses incurred
following the crash in Colonisation Inc's share price.

The directors assumed that Resource Exports fed directly into GWP,
however, further research indicates that Resource Exports increase
Resources Available beyond the limit otherwise imposed, as page 37
of PE makes clear.

Ian Whitchurch

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:26:28 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Religions in space

aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton) writes:

> > I can't speak for the United Kingdom, but widespread opposition to
> > slavery in the USA dates to well over 100 years prior to its formal
> > abolition in 1865 
> 
> The British Empire abolished slavery in ~1830; presumably there was 
> widespread opposition to it for some time before then.

The abolition of slavery in the British Empire, while not actually 
trivial, came at a time when slavery was relatively uncommon in 
Britain itself and <cynicism> called other things elsewhere in the 
Empire </cynicism>.  It was more important that the ban extended to 
dealing in slaves, thus making it illegal to supply e.g. the US 
market.

The individual whose name is associated with the abolition, William 
Wilberforce, was one of the notable Christian social reformers of the 
19th century in Britain.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 03:32:19 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

On 07/21/97 at 10:33 PM,  fcain@st6000.sct.edu (Franklin W. Cain) said:

Re: Origins...
>>    I think it would be to IG's advantage to send someone to this
>> convention next year.  I'm puzzled as to why they didn't this time
>> around, since the convention is so large.

>They didn't show up at Dragon*Con either.  Dragon*Con is the *largest* 
>sci-fi convention in the Southeast US, with the *best* publicity (i.e., 
>*highest* amount of media coverage).  It's been advertised/covered in 
>newspapers, magazines, and radio.  It's attendance is measured in the
>*thousands* (about 8k, last time I asked them).  

Folks, 

I'm not much of a conventioneer, but what do you think of picking some
medium sized convention next summer for us to focus on?  Really, have a
strong Traveller presence?  GenCon is too big and so is Origins, but
something like Dragon*Con might be about the right size.

What do you think?

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 03:42:09 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: A little ride

On 07/21/97 at 10:59 PM,  deadeye@ebicom.net said:

>Amazing the folks you meet on this list.  I've got a problem-our T-37's
>keep flaming out during the winter months due to fuel control problems. It
>is titanically dangerous, because depending on the phase of flight you can
>end up dead( especially with a no nothing solo student alone and unafraid
>when he/she/it should be.  

Where abouts you deal with those T-37, Deadeye? 

Eris,
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 03:38:01 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Vargr Sterotypes

On 07/21/97 at 11:34 PM,  GDWGAMES@aol.com said:

>> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
>> gizmos, etc.

>There is no truth to the rumor that Vargr like to drive cars with their
>heads sticking out the window.

Ha! I know *humans* that like to stick their heads out of the window while
driving...I don't ride with them, but I *know* 'em. ;->

Now, tell me how the Vargr knew the water in the toliet was colder than
water from the tap? ;->

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:45:14 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Important Dates - Marc Miller

SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>:

> Andrew Boulton wrote:
> 
> >How many 'Christians' now celebrate Christmas/Easter for religious
> >reasons, and
> >how many as an excuse to eat and drink too much?

At least one ;-)

I don't seem to need that kind of excuse to eat and drink too much, 
anyway 8-(

> Speaking as a practising (trying hard ;-) !) Christian, I've always found
> Easter is a more 'religious' festival than Christmas, which has become an
> orgy of consumption and commercialism.

However, that's not saying much for Easter, really, is it?

Still, it could be worse: no-one's suggested a Pentecost Barbecue 
yet.  (Actually better for St, Lawrence's day, whenever that is: St. 
L. was allegely martyred on a griddle, his final words being "This 
side is done, turn me over and eat!"  Apocryphal but a wonderful 
line.)

Ash Wednesday is usually fairly religious, if downbeat...

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:15:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

In a message dated 97-07-21 23:25:37 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Look at us, our empire, our accomplishments, and then call us minor.  We
 were once the greatest threat the Imperium ever faced. We have the second
 largest empire in charted space. And we did not have an existing structure
 to build on, like the Terrans when they beat the Vilani, and that the Third
 Empire built itself on.  We were not seeded to the stars before
 civilization, we got there through our efforts. We started from scratch (no
 dewclaw puns, please) and did better than the so-called major races.  Yes,
 we copied J-drive from a Terran ship, but we were able to understand it,
 copy it and improve it. The rest of the inventions we did ourselves
 If you consider us minor, then so be it. These are the words of barbarians
 anyway. They mean nothing to us.
 
  >>
This after they were caught hiding (covering up) the fact that they copied
the J-drive, and once they knew about the prevailing opinion, continued to
cover it up until finally some humans came along and found them out. Geonee
and Suerrat and others also copied the J-drive, understood it, and improved
it.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:16:47 +0100
From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: Refueling and fusion power

A question related to the refueling thread:

Can anyone tell me why there is such great disparity between sci-fi games
on the amount of fuel required to power a fusion reaction? Gurps for
instance includes the fuel for a fusion reactor in the volume of the
reactor and rules that this is sufficient to power full output for a period
of 200 years. Traveller, as we all know, rules that starships require huge
tanks of LHyd to power a reactor for a relatively short period of time.
     Which version is more scientifically accurate? And are there any
real-world formulae or scientific laws that enable us to work out the fuel
required to power a deuterium -helium fusion reaction for a given output?
Be gentle with me, now, I'm a technical writer not a scientist.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:10:02 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re : Refueling Question (corrections!)

eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)

> On 07/21/97 at 05:41 PM,  "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk> said:

> >Well, *this* decade Faraday's constant F = 96485 C / mo 
> 
> Isn't that interesting!  In my copy of the CRC handbook, a Faraday *is*
> listed as 96487 C / mol (+/- 16 to the 3rd std dev).
> 
> Of course, my copy is the 48th edition...ie 1968. :->  I take it there have
> been refinements in the meantime?

Haven't the faintest idea... if so, they would be refinements on the 
charge of the electron, presumably:  F = e N_A which Atkins Physical 
Chemistry 3rd Edition (1986) -- and the 4th edition IIRC -- give as

e = 1.60219 x 10^-19 C
N_A = 6.02205 x 10^23 /mol

and F = 96 484.6 C/mol

which is (broadly) consistent.

> I haven't looked at the rest of you post yet, but I will.

Ta.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 02:17:30 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Slavery

>Slavery was bad for business and the new economy based on heavy industry
>and wage relationships, rather than agriculture and reciprocal work
>relationships.  For this reason, the industrializing nations led the
>movement to abolish slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.  

  This seems a bit optimistic. By no stretch was there significant
public outcry against slavery until after the Napoleonic Wars. Slavery
was determined to be illegal under British law _in the UK_ in 1772,
but there was no outcry against the American South or Russia, etc.,
until much later.

  The connection between modes of production and slavery seems
forced. Slavery is hardly a reciprocal relationship, and there
is little evidence to suggest that most aspects of an early 
manufacturing economy couldn't be run using slaves. The Russian
move to eliminate serfdom was part of broader economic reforms
and political maneuvering. Relatively skilled heavy industry
would not have to be the underpinnings of an export economy
in this period.

        Yours truly,
                Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:15:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-21 23:24:34 EDT, you write:

<< 
 This is more of a slogan that discribes the Imperium approach
 rather than a constitutional rule to be applied to every situation.
>>

So, a new world cedes to the Imperium perhaps 1% (5 hexes) of the mainworld
surface, 20% of each of the secondary worlds (either specifically, or as
options if the worlds are unsurveyed or unsettled). It gets half of each
planetoid belt.

The Imperium doesn't want all. It does want some, so that when it encourages
development, other areas are developed as well. There is enough incentive for
everyone.

Ceding land can be as

Starport. The holder is the ultimate owner/stockholder for the local Starport
authority.

Land. The holder actually owns the land. I expect feifs like this can't be
sold, but can be leased long-term.

Fees in lieu of taxes. The land generates fees (property taxes that go to the
holder) which are then use for maintenance, support of the holder, and some
to the Imperium.

Rights. Mineral or exploitation rights that can also be sold or leased out.

The precise mix is negotiable depending on local circumstances.

Not every noble has lands. And some lands aren't worth very much. And the
idea is that most nobles will work to improve or exploit their lands and
everyone (locals, the noble, the Imperium) will benefit.


Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:43:47 +0100
From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: Noble lands

RE: the granting of lands on member worlds by the emperor -
     The absorbtion of new worlds by the imperium in M0 and the enoblement
of their leaders may work like the policy of Surrender and Regrant, pursued
by late Tudor government in Ireland as a means of bringing the Gaelic
nobles into the British fold.
     Basically, Surrender and Regrant worked like this - O'Neill of Ulster
is a Gaelic lord, ruling large tracts of land and with many vassals owing
him fealty under Irish Brehon law. Elizabeth I wants to subdue Ulster and
reign as sovereign, and the easiest way of doing this is to make a deal
with O'Neill. The deal is, if O'Neill presents himself at court, renounces
his title as 'The O'Neill' of Ulster and the Gaelic system under which he
held that position, and swears fealty to Elizabeth and all of her heirs and
successors, she will make him Earl of Ulster under her legal system and
regrant him all of the lands he currently rules over under her sufferance.
     O'Neill has avoided inevitable conflict with an overwhelming military
power and Elizabeth has gained Ulster with a minimum of cost and bloodshed.

Footnote: This is not the way things turned out in 16th/17th century
Ulster. There was much cost incurred and blood shed by both the Gaels and
the Englishry before O'Neill and others submitted to Surrender and Regrant.
O'Neill and the other Gaelic nobles then chaffed under the constraints
imposed on them under English law and in the end they fled to Europe never
to return - this was romantically labelled 'the flight of the earls'. The
English immediately brought in their own nobles and citizens to colonize
Ulster (this was known as the Ulster Plantation).

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:43:39 -0400
From: Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re : Re : Re : Refueling question ( corrections )

Hi All

Nick Munn wrote -

> Um, well, I was looking at an upper bound for thermal splitting, but =

> electrolysis is probably easier...

You had the disassociation energy for a single O-H bond.

> Well, *this* decade Faraday's constant F =3D 96485 C / mol -- it's the =

> charge carried by 1 mole of electrons.

Odd, the reference I checked was published <quote>*this* decade</quote> =

too. In any case, what's two joules between friends ? It doesn't =

make much difference - FF&S is still wrong ...

> The energy consumed in an electrochemical reaction is therefore:
> 2.1 m^3 of L-hyd/6 MW-hours

Or, 1 MW does 1 m3 in 2.95 hours, which is what I got. We appear to be
agreeing ( of course, we both assumed 100% efficiency ... )

> *cough* No, it isn't, is it?  Oooops.  Sorry, TML.

You should see some of the mathematical quagmires I occassionally
get into. At least you were only 1000 out.

> I now make that 1/2.13 =3D 0.469 MW.  And this is, please note, the =

> absolute minimum energy for the reaction, assuming it all comes from =

> the powerplant.  It'll work better at higher temperatures/lower =

> pressures.

Cool. BTW, what's the effect of higher temps/ lower pressures ?

> No-one's ever noticed it before, because we've all blithely assumed =

> that since the energy gained from fusing hydrogen >> energy to =

> electrolyse it, power won't be a problem.  How embarassing.

Makes me wonder how good the other figures in FF&S ( 1 or 2 ) are.

> If we consider a H2/O2 fuel cell which does this reversibly, it would =

> require 6*2.13 m^3 H2 per MW-hour output; FF&S 2 has a TL7 hydrocarbon =

> fuel cell use 3 m^3 of (much denser) hydrocarbon per MW-hour, which =

> is very much in the same ballpark.

A 1 MW fuel cell needs 44 kg H2 and 352 kg O2 per hour ( about 0.95 m3 of=

fuel ) at 85% efficiency.

> There is a possible way out.  If we assume really, really good =

> catalysts, you might be able to do this kind of thing at the =

> temperature of (say) your fusion powerplant cooling system.  But then =

> we've just invented a fuel cell which can be charged by the hot =

> fusion exhaust...

What catalyses electrolysis ? =


And as for fuel cells that can be charged by fusion exhausts, I say thee
nay, nay and thrice nay !

> Your thoughts invited!

I hope they arrived safely :-)

Andy Brick
exeus@compuserve.com
http://www.caco.demon.co.uk/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:28:12 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In mail you write:

> In a message dated 97-07-19 14:27:18 EDT, you write:
>
> << 
>  PS: Marc, your km2 per world hex is slightly different from the figures 
>  in World Tamers handbook, p20.  But I believe that "Marc on the TML" 
>  has higher ranking canon than TNE data :-)
>  
>   >>
> I'll look it up. My formula was:
>
> World Size in Miles times 1.6 for Diameter in Kilometers.
> Diameter in Kilometers times 3.14159 for Circumference.

If you use 3.14159 for pi, then you should use 1.60934 for the miles to
km conversion.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:19:21 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Re : Re : Re : Refueling Question

In mail you write:

> Purifying it is not so simple. 90% of each cubic metre of "raw"
> atmosphere is H2, but the rest is mostly Helium. Since H2 and He have
> similar diffusion rates, you have to fractionally distillate the
> atmosphere to get the H2.  That takes time and energy.

Diffusion rates in *what*? I've read of purifying tritium after long
storage by diffusing it thru palladium. That seperates the tritium from
the He3 formed by decay.

> For ocean refuelling, electrolysis neatly handles most impurities except
> those that discharge at the electrode more readily than H2 and O2.

Like chlorine? NaCl solution electrolyzes into H2 and Cl2 leaving
behind NaOH. Other salts will do similar things.


- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:30:26 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

In mail you write:

> Otherwise the Imperium could start a long range "zulu" time broadcast
> from Reference, giving a solid date/time (hour/minute/second group) to
> all its worlds within 50 years of IOC.  By the time of Strephon's
> Imperium this program would provide coordinated time throughout the 3I,
> very similar to the Longbow/Empress wavefront. Of couse, corrections
> would need to be made for relative velocities and gravitational
> anomalies, but I'll bet this is the closest you can get to "universal"
> reference time without using psionics.  Even then, who's to say if that
> would work?
>
> Speaking form the end of the 20th century, this sounds resonable and
> accomplishable.  Commentary and crossfire?

Well, signal strength gets to be a big issue. I figure that you'd need
"repeaters" at least every sector or so. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1590
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1591



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Re : Refueling Question
Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)
Re: A little ride
Re: Re : Refueling Question
Elvis: did he just go home, or..?
Re: Trans-Quebec Helicopters
Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!
EMS Jammers
Psionic Institutes
re: Refueling and fusion power
Vargr lies
re: other minor races
Re: Religions in Space
Re : Refueling question ( corrections )
Re: A little ride
Possible reason for "fuel" for Jump Drives
Re: Calendars and simultaneity
Re: Vargr Stereotypes
T4.1 Character Generation
Air Fuel Leak
Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: Re : Refueling question ( corrections )
Re: T4.1 Character Generation
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:54:16 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

In mail you write:

> Andy Brick wrote:
>
>>Every cubic metre of GG atmosphere above the cloud tops
>>on Jupiter yields about 21 g of hydrogen, which means you only have
>>to scoop for about 3km to get enough H2 for 1m3 as liquid. If you are
>>travelling at say, 300 metres per second, then that's 10 seconds flight
>>time.
>>Gathering the atmosphere is thus easy.
>
> But your processing system has to dump the waste (unwanted material) faster
> (*) than you scoop it, or you will over-pressure the fuel tanks, and
> "bang".

If you use the fact that hydrogen will diffuse thru *solid* materials
(especially under pressure), you can likely have a scoop that narrows
to a throat where a high pressure is reached (encouraging diffusion)
and then widens out again letting the gasses escape. 

You'll have a constant flow of hydrogen and *no* buildup of other gasses.
The flow rate of hydrogen will depend on the pressure, and the
diffusion rate (which can be pretty high for some materials. The fact
that the gasses in the channel get heated by the compression (and thus
heat the walls of the channel) will *help* the diffusion!

Y'know, I think I've just come up with a *workable* scoop design!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:15:30 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Imperial Calender (was Re: Ideas of 1 Page of Chart in T4)

In mail you write:

> At 09:29 pm 07/18/97 PST, you wrote:
>>In mail you write:
>>
>>> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm still looking for a good term to use for the subdivisions of a sol
>>>> (ie the equivalent of hours). Feel free to make suggestions.
>>>
>>> Why not use SI prefixes?
>>>
>>> hour equivalent = decisol
>>> minute = millisol
>>> second = microsol

I've decided to use "lun" (pronounced "loon"). It stands for "Local
UNit" but also makes one think of "lunar" the way "sol" makes you think
of "solar". True, the size relationship is backwards, but it still
makes for a memory aid.

That gives us this these units:

Imperial	local
- --------	------
year		ano
month		month
day		sol
hour		lun
min		centilun or minute which works better
sec		sec

Since there are no scientific or engineering units based on month, it's
ok to have the meaning be uncertain. But year, day, hour, and second
are all apt to cause *real* trouble if the sizes aren't fixed.

>>Because 10 is a *lousy* divisor for setting up shifts and the like.
>
>         Why? Midshift is 0 to 0.25, dayshift is 0.25 to 0.5, etc. 

And if the length of the local day is such that *three* shifts make the
most sense? Or six? Those get messy. 

Being able to pick the number of luns in a sol makes it easier to match
local conditions. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:55:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: A little ride

In mail you write:

> Hi,
>
>   I'm no expert on vehicle propulsion systems, so maybe someone can tell me
> what would happen if my characters had no choice but to put something like
> hi-grade aeroplane fuel into a current car with a standard combustion engine.

At best it'd knock like crazy (the fuel will "pre-detonate", that is,
explode while the piston is still mocving up on the compression
stroke). You might even break it. It'll also run a lot hotter. Which
will overload the cooling system.

>      What I'm trying to do is come up with a small scenario where the players
> have to put the wrong fuel into their vehicle; can it be done that their
> vehicle would suddenly start to go much faster, or behave in erratic ways
> yet still eventually get them to their destination? I guess there must be
> quite a few variations of this, so what combination of fuel and vehicle
> could cause these effects? Cheers.

Internal combustion engines are *very* picky about fuel. One trick that
*will* work, but that your players may not know about is that household
heating oil and diesel fuel are the same thing! Several times we ran
out of heating oil at one house and had to go buy a couple of ten
gallon cans at the service station to hold us over until the oil
company could refill the tank.

If you get a little diesel mixed with your gasoline, the engine will
smoke badly and run poorly if at all. Also tends to put bad carbon
deposits in the engine.

External combustion engines (steam) are less picky. Ditto for
turbines. As long as the fuel "injectors" are adjustable enough to
handle the fuel, it'll work.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 20:37:04 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

In mail you write:

> Where is this 33 figure coming from? Electrolysis of water is trivially
> easy, and with a MW of power, you can easily electrolyse a lot of water,
> very quickly. Electrolysis of water ALSO gains you a great advantage over
> scooping gas giant...it is a greatly purifying step, particularly if
> you're distilling it first, again a trivial matter if  you have a spare
> MW.

Heck, if you have a "hot fusion" reactor, you can *thermally* "crack"
water into hydrogen and oxygen. Use the water as a step in cooling the
reactor and at even *low* plasma temps water dissociates.

> The cost in power and time for 'fuel purification' IMO, is in
> separating out the trace impurities. With water, those impurities will
> be quite different from the hydrogen, salts and oxygen mainly, and the
> electrolysis takes care of the oxygen.

Actually, electrolyzing water that has a significant amount of salt in
it gets you hydrogen and *chlorine* with NaOH being left behind! That
can be a *real* pain to deal with, as you wind up with a *solid* (or at
least *highly* concentrated solution).

> With scooped fuel, you have a
> mixture of gases with quite similar physical properties; distilling
> hydrogen from a mixture of hydrogen, helium, and a host of other trace
> gases is difficult and time consuming.

Not really. For example, there is a ceramic that acts as a *solid*
electrolyte, and passes oxygen *through* itself, generating electricity
in the process. You can purify hydrogen letting it diffuse thru
palladium. Heat the palladium a bit, pump a vacuum on one side and have
the gas mixture on the other. The hydrogen will diffuse thru.

I'm sure that something that does this fairly rapidly can be found.
Heck, a lot of the research into storing hydrogen in zeolites and the
like amounts to discovering materials that'll do just this!

So getting the hydrogen seperated is easy. Seperating the isotopes
could be handled by repeated diffusion (protium will diffuse fastest,
tritium slowest)

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:46:59 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Elvis: did he just go home, or..?

Bruce Johnson wrote:

>
>>
>> Who built the Pyramids?
>>
>> 	Elvis!
>
>The Bermuda triangle??
>
>Elvis needs boats! Elvis needs boats!

	D'you think there might be an Elvis-Templars link?  Or worse, might
Elvis actually have been Yaskodray?  Think about it...

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:47:33 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Trans-Quebec Helicopters

Glenn M. Goffin wrote:

>
>>        Ok... back in 1971, David Lee was a McGill engineering undergrad.
>>
>>helicopter, whose rotors were turning, to be ferried back to base camp.  He
>>approached the helicopter from the rear, ducked under the tail boom, and
>>somehow managed to stick his head into the tail rotor.  Poor Mr. Lee was
>
>>        However, he had been wearing a hard-hat.  And his hard-hat-encased
>>head severely damaged the helicopter; it was out of service for several
>
>>         They won.  Basically, they established that Mr. Lee had acted
>>faultily, ignoring basic safety precautions and several previous warnings,
>
>I'd expect the same result under the common law of negligence.
>
>- --Glenn


	Well, yeah.  Exactly.  Civil law civil liability works much like
common law negligence writ large; assault, trespass, and so forth are all
seen as being faulty, or ngeligent, behaviour and the fine distinctions
between them are seen as basically irrelevant.  Legal niceties aside, I've
found that laypeople tend to be either horrified or amused by that one...
My classmates and I got no end of laughs out of it :).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:04:06 +0100
From: Bruce E J Lewis <bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk>
Subject: Re: FW: Stake your claim on MARS -- REALLY!!!

At 16:18 21/07/97 -0400, Lewis Roberts wrote:
>>See also http://www.moonshop.com/ - they sell property on the Moon and
>Mars >the deeds to my Lunar estate are hanging on the wall now...)
>
>>Hey, Marc, if you're reading this, how about IG doing a deal with them
>and ><giving away something like this as competition prizes?
>
>Why waste money on these things, they are just a joke, they have
>absolutely no legal bearing, instead of paying someone else, just print
>it up on a laser printer and pass them out to your friends.  
>
>Its the same thing with paying some company to name a star after
>yourself, No one is ever going to call it that, so why pay someone else
>do it for you, just do it yourself.
>
	I agree (bad netiquette I know) How can someone lay claim to these astral
bodies in the first place when they haven't even been there yet? One's
government should lay to waste these perpetrators of such a con. Then again
if anyone is stupid enough to actually believe it, then good luck to these
con-men! Now, I own the rest of the universe, anyone wanna buy some of it
from me?

	See ya...


Bruce E J Lewis - mailto:bruce@legend.ftech.co.uk
Telephone - 0956-506527

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:27:40 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: EMS Jammers

I was wondering what jammers can jam.

IIRC, EMS jammers can jam AEMS, Radar. But can they jam radio and PEMS, HRT?

Further more, Can one jammer jam several AEMS or Radars, and what would be
the effect of multiple jamming instead of unique jamming (would it be much
more efficient)?

In case of Ground combat, how would you jam a (also grounded) PEMS or AEMS

Thanks for help



- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:47:33 +0100 (BST)
From: "mark.wilkin" <aa4mwi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk>
Subject: Psionic Institutes

Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of 
it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on 
the list.

thanks
mark wilkin

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 05:46:51 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Refueling and fusion power

>Can anyone tell me why there is such great disparity between sci-fi games
>on the amount of fuel required to power a fusion reaction? Gurps for
>instance includes the fuel for a fusion reactor in the volume of the
>reactor and rules that this is sufficient to power full output for a period
>of 200 years. Traveller, as we all know, rules that starships require huge
>tanks of LHyd to power a reactor for a relatively short period of time.

Actually, by the time we reach the TNE/T4 era, Traveller starships require
only moderate amounts of fuel (tens of cubic meters) to power starship
plants for a few years. This is certainly more reasonable than the CT/MT
requirements, which were very very very large. Whether it's more accurate
than GURPS depends on the details of your fusion reactor and how 
efficient it is - though GURPS values seem too low even for perfect fusion
reactors.

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:53:11 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Vargr lies

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:34:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Vargr Sterotypes

> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
> gizmos, etc.

There is no truth to the rumor that Vargr like to drive cars with their heads
sticking out the window.

This is simply not true...there is a picture from megatraveller (I don't
have all my books at work) which shows a couple vargr in a air/raft. The
Puppy is sitting with his hands folded in his lap looking very cute and one
adult is leaning out the side with his tongue hanging out...it's canon, you
can't argue with it, so nyah!

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:03:03 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: re: other minor races

Marc says:
This after they were caught hiding (covering up) the fact that they copied
the J-drive, and once they knew about the prevailing opinion, continued to
cover it up until finally some humans came along and found them out. Geonee
and Suerrat and others also copied the J-drive, understood it, and improved
it.

Glenn replies:
They didn't hide it. They just never bothered to tell anyone. The two main
clans forgot (TD17) and when it was revealed, the Aslan expressed the above
(not quoted, paraphrased). Some clans wanted to hide it (mainly older
established clans). The younger ones don't care
As far as the Suerrat and Geonee, the Aslan would break into uncontrolled
snickering. Controlling a few worlds, but ruled by another race? NOT major.
Jump drive is just a thing. To the Aslan, culture determines greatness, land
determines greatness, reputation determines greatness. Everything else is
just icing. The Aslan would see the major race thing is as "a major race is
a race that has its own empire of more than one lousy sector, and can kick
the crap out of just about anyone" (no, sorry, that's the Vargr definition)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 06:10:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Religions in Space

  I was the one who posted on widespread opposition to slavery before the
1850s.  While it is true that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was a major literary
success, popular opposition to slavery dates to well before it's
publication.  Note that the American Constitution contains a clause that 
forbids the Congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years, a cluase
inserted at the insistance of Southern delegates - when the time limit was
up, the trade was immediatly banned.

  Now, the question here is how do we define "widespread."  Given that
debates about the expansion of slavery were central to American political
life from 1800 on, I'd have to say that opposition to the institution of
slavery was widespread in the North (and to a lesser extent in the South
early in the 19th C, before social pressure silenced opposition).

  Now, as to how Northerners felt about slavery in the South, well, that's
a harder one to answer.  Since we don't have opinion data from polling,
It's hard to say exactly, but given the extrordinary efforts made by those
in the South to prevent debate (censorship of abolishionist literature, a
gag rule about the discussion of slavery in the Congress, and so on), it
seems there was a strong strand of anti-slavery sentiment that Southerners
thought would lead to the banning of slavery thoughout the USA.

  It is correct to say that radical opposition to slavery increases in the
1850s, due to revelations about the conditions of slavery, but to say that
this is the first evidence of such popular opposition is clearly wrong.

  To get back to Traveller, this has a couple of applications.  First, as
far as history goes, there is always room for interpretation.  When you
tell your players about Imperial history, make sure that they all don't
see things the same way, or that they come across folks who see the past
in a different light.  Was the Rule of Man good or bad?  How exatly did
the Terrans defeat the First Empire?  Making the answers multiple and
subject to discussion makes for a more rounded view of the setting, and
more importantly allows room for conflict and character definition.

  Second, the mention of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ sets up the idea of the use
of literature and motion pictures in the game.  How nice to change society
not by the sword but by the pen, and having a character expose some great
evil by portraying it in a work of fiction sounds like a nice plot twist.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:26:18 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: Re : Refueling question ( corrections )

Andy Brick <exeus@compuserve.com>:

> > Um, well, I was looking at an upper bound for thermal splitting, but
> > electrolysis is probably easier...
> 
> You had the disassociation energy for a single O-H bond.

Yes, isn't that a reasonable upper bound for the cost of splitting 
out a mole of H from H2O, assuming you don't get back any of the 
energy from cleaving the bond in a usable form?

> > Well, *this* decade Faraday's constant F = 96485 C / mol -- it's the =
> > charge carried by 1 mole of electrons.
> 
> Odd, the reference I checked was published <quote>*this*
> decade</quote> too. In any case, what's two joules between friends
> ? It doesn't make much difference - FF&S is still wrong ...

It makes all the difference in the world - they are different
quantities!  96485 J is the energy required to pass a mole of 
electrons through a potential difference of 1 volt.  

Oh, perhaps you mean the difference between 96485 and 96487 -- yes, 
that *is* pretty negligible, as you say.


> > The energy consumed in an electrochemical reaction is therefore:
> > 2.1 m^3 of L-hyd/6 MW-hours
> 
> Or, 1 MW does 1 m3 in 2.95 hours, which is what I got. We appear to be
> agreeing ( of course, we both assumed 100% efficiency ... )

Well, I'm not sure how we come to agree, but fine.

> > I now make that 1/2.13 =3D 0.469 MW.  And this is, please note,
> > the absolute minimum energy for the reaction, assuming it all
> > comes from the powerplant.  It'll work better at higher 
> > temperatures/lower pressures.

> Cool. BTW, what's the effect of higher temps/ lower pressures ?

Higher temp. increases the entropy of H2 and O2 gases over liquid 
water, which in turn decreases the EMF needed for the electrolysis.
Assuming one lets the H2 and O2 bubble away, pressure won't be a 
factor.

I was actually thinking of a thermal cracking of water at this point, 
since electrolysis is so darned expensive in power.


> > If we consider a H2/O2 fuel cell which does this reversibly, it
> > would require 6*2.13 m^3 H2 per MW-hour output; FF&S 2 has a TL7
> > hydrocarbon fuel cell use 3 m^3 of (much denser) hydrocarbon per
> > MW-hour, which is very much in the same ballpark.
> 
> A 1 MW fuel cell needs 44 kg H2 and 352 kg O2 per hour ( about 0.95 m3 of=
> fuel ) at 85% efficiency.

Perhaps I meant 1/6 * 2.13 m^3, actually...

> > There is a possible way out.  If we assume really, really good =
> > catalysts, you might be able to do this kind of thing at the =
> > temperature of (say) your fusion powerplant cooling system.  But then =
> > we've just invented a fuel cell which can be charged by the hot =
> > fusion exhaust...
> 
> What catalyses electrolysis ? =

Oh, you're still talking about electrolysis.  Um, well, what you use 
as an electrode can rather alter the EMF of a half-cell, which is why 
electrode potentials should be given with the electrode type.

But I was thinking solid-state, pass-it-over-and-maybe-heat-it-a-bit
catalytic cracking.

> And as for fuel cells that can be charged by fusion exhausts, I say thee
> nay, nay and thrice nay !

I dunno, we're always looking at ways of cooling ship emissions and I 
reckon the technology's achievable (which you won't hear from me very 
often)... 

Full analysis to follow.

Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:00:48 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

E
> Where abouts you deal with those T-37, Deadeye?

In the great, steamy storm-ridden state of Mississippi, which currently
just got deluged by a wayward tropical storm remnant.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:01:39 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: Possible reason for "fuel" for Jump Drives

I was thinking about this last night, and one of the other answers to my
post on Jump-within-jump sparked an idea of why so much "fuel" is
required for a jump.

A possible theory is that is not used for fuel at all. It is used to
create a NormalSpace bubble in JumpSpace.  If we assume some sort of
attraction/repulsion (N-Space is attracted to N-Space), the bubble is
pulled back into N-Space a week after entering J-Space.  You would have
to have more material to go farther in J-Space.  (The material would
lose cohesion over time maybe?)

I'm picturing something like a thrown football, with the ship basically
inside the ball. :)

Comments invited/implored!
Scott

knyghte@msn.com
Shadowblinder, Truthfinder

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:10:56 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Calendars and simultaneity

> > Speaking form the end of the 20th century, this sounds resonable and
> > accomplishable.  Commentary and crossfire?
> 
> Well, signal strength gets to be a big issue. I figure that you'd need
> "repeaters" at least every sector or so.
> Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)

This is a great adventure hook.  Anybody know what the secret of GPS,
the Global Positioning System, is?  Its accurate timekeeping.  The
system would be usless without some of the best clocks ever built.  It
may be relative but it is relative to US.  And therefore not
meaningless.

Controlling an accurate, non-drifting time source information is
critical to commerce and war.  Technologically everything runs off it,
so your "prime source" had better be a good one.  

My Traveller campaign, we originally used Reference as the focus. 
However, Reference was not the DGP version, rather a very young pulsar
(less than 2000 years old.)  It had a definate spindown rate, albeit
small, and was used as a central 3D astrographic pint as well as a
timeclock.  No better signal than that.

Otherwise the Imperial Standard time broadcast with heavily defended/not
so well defended repeaters could be used.  

Now, what about spectral shift of the signal due to relative stellar
velocities?  That would affect its time component, skewing the
"universal" time.  Any suggestions?

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:53:56 -0400
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: Re: Vargr Stereotypes

Hey Loren!

I heard that the Imperium finally hit on a solution to the Vargr raids...a
ring of fire hydrants 10 parsecs deep all around the Imperium's border.
slowed'em down enough that the Imperial fleet was able to catch up to them....

Allen

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:02:07 -0400
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: T4.1 Character Generation

I've seen people referring to the character generation charts for T4.1 and
testing them. I assume this was published on the TML, and somehow I missed
it. Would some kind soul please send me a copy of this? I'd like to take a
look at it. Thanks.

Allen

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:54:31 +0200
From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
Subject: Air Fuel Leak

Imagine this situation:

A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking
her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader.

Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But
in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(

So as a GM I'm very embarassed in letting a AirAir missile hit the starship
of my players. 

Would it be reasonnable to say that the fuel leaks out of the ship and
explodes in great ball of fire, but the ship, protected from the hull
shell, isn't too much damaged. 

What do you think about it?
Thank for advice!

- -----------
Nicolas LEJEUNE
   Engineer, Paris, France
   Traveller (TNE), and WhiteWolf RPG
   Mailto:nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:17:20 +0000
From: "Suzette C. Dollar" <suzd@goodnet.com>
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

> Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of 
> it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on 
> the list.

Personally, I'm hoping this means that everyone likes it.  TML is  
usually so vocal in its dislikes and objections.... <G>

Suz

 

#Traveller Channel Manager
suzd@goodnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:45:42 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling question ( corrections )

>I dunno, we're always looking at ways of cooling ship emissions and I 
reckon the technology's achievable (which you won't hear from me very 
often)... 

What about using solid/liquid matter as a heat sink and then dumping it?
Seems inefficient, but might do the job in addition to pure radiation.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:49:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation

In a message dated 97-07-22 05:55:33 EDT, you write:

<< Brody
 
 
  >>
You did very well answering the questions from Steve Daniels
[SMTP:blueboy@bu.edu].
Good job.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

In-Reply-To: <33D39F31.3E8E@pacbell.net>

Glenn,

> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
> gizmos, etc.

But it's *true!* :-)
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1591
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1592



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: hiwg - Origins Report
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu
Re: Starter Editions
Re: Air Fuel Leak
Re: Adventure postings
Re: Strange design/drive question
Re: Drac/Savoie?
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Air Fuel Leak
Re: Vargr lies
Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Noble Lands
PE Questions
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1591
Re: Possible reason for "fuel" for Jump Drives
Re: Air Fuel Leak
Re: Air Fuel Leak
Fuel Scooping Query
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: Noble Lands
Torontonians on the TML
T4.1 rewrite
re: T4.1 Character Generation

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:05 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: hiwg - Origins Report

In-Reply-To: <33D2D85E.C56@siscom.net>

Harold,

> I think it would be to IG's advantage to send someone to this
> convention next year.  I'm puzzled as to why they didn't this time
> around, since the convention is so large.

Maybe they were all too busy proofreading and playtesting the new 
stuff...?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:06 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

In-Reply-To: <v02140b03aff8f1a0de41@[192.121.125.201]>

Anders,

> >It's almost as if someone had roled a D6 and added a bunch of modifiers...
> >
> >;-)
>  
> One of the sickest comments on the list. Do you even for a moment believe
> that the creators of our universe has resorted to such crude methods?

What did Einstein say? "God does not play dice with the Universe"?
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:04 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Charlton Heston as Richelieu

In-Reply-To: <01ILHX3BMJKC001U58@macalester.edu>

Victor,

> I don't suppose anyone on this list _knows_ where to order videotapes of the 
> Salkind/Lester productions of the Three Musketeers and the Four Musketeers?  
> I would dearly kill to have that info (or not engage in homicide, as the case 
> may be).

T4M was on one of the satellite stations over here last night...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:06 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Starter Editions

In-Reply-To: <v01540a02aff8c3765f30@[198.70.218.41]>

William,

> Some t4.1 product like this would appeal to me. A full rules edition, with
> rules in one booklet, Charts, Tables, etc in another, and a third with a
> decent introduction to Traveller, a couple of GOOD t4.1 compliant
> adventures (CLEANED UP FAR BETTER THAN T4's adventures in the hardcover),
> and a starter subsector or two, with a price tag of $20. Yes, make them all
> the cheapest damned things you can put out, but in a NICE box, and include
> the required number of dice, and a few blank character sheets. Maybe a
> sheet of "Cardboard Heros", too! (1 sheet, 8.5x11" cardstock, 4-color
> printing, 1 sided. Makes up for minis.)

Call it "Deluxe Edition", and I'd buy it...
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:08:40 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Leak

Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:
> A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader. Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(
> 
> So as a GM I'm very embarassed in letting a AirAir missile hit the starship of my players.
> 
> Would it be reasonnable to say that the fuel leaks out of the ship and
> explodes in great ball of fire, but the ship, protected from the hull
> shell, isn't too much damaged.
> 

Challenger's fuel was LHyd.  The hull didn't help them much:(

Realistically, current space vehicles actually have relatively thin
hulls to save on weight.  I'd guess a ship that can survive gas giant
refueling pressures can easily survive a large explosive pressure wave.
That's what I've assumed in gameplay.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:07 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Adventure postings

In-Reply-To: <l03020901aff9530b306b@[194.119.133.32]>

SD,

> yes - criminal damage....... but not the psionics. In 14 years of playing
> Traveller, I've only had one or two psionic players... (strange but true!).

I've been too generous with psionics in my campaign.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:06 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

In-Reply-To: <F13FF084044DCF11938600805F68826201672B78@LCC-01-MSG.dns.microsoft.com>

Scott,

> What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
>  
> For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
> The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
>  
> Possibilities:
>  
> 1) Ship explodes

2) Ship misjumps, then explodes
3) Ship explodes, then misjumps
4) the crew throw the captain out of the airlock before he can give the 
order
5) All of the above
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:59:35 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Drac/Savoie?

At 08:35 PM 7/21/97 -0400, Rod wrote:

>	This may be reaching it, but is "Drac" short for "Draconian"?  If
>so, I may have encountered this dude in an earlier
>white-supremacist/neo-nazi based out of Toronto incarnation on WWIV a few
>years ago...
>
>	From what I read about this Savoie dude; the francophone name
>indicates CDN origin, and the handle seems to fit...

That may be him.. I know that he lives in/near Toronto, and the style seems
similar.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:57:23 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

At 09:47 PM 7/21/97 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 97-07-21 21:33:57 EDT, you write:
>
><< 
> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
> gizmos, etc.
>>>
>
>I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.
>
>Marc

VROOP! VROOP!  CANON ALERT! CANON ALERT!

MARC HAS STATED IN PUBLIC THAT THE VARGR HAVE NO TASTE.  THIS FUFILS THE
RCCC REQUIREMENTS FOR CANON.  PLEASE ADJUST YOUR REALITY ACCORDINGLY.


- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:17:25 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Leak

Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:
> 
> Imagine this situation:
> 
> A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking
> her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader.
> 
> Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But
> in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
> ....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(

The missile hits the hull, explodes and creates a hole. If the world's
atmosphere contains significant portions of oxygen, then the fuel
tank section would be exposed to that oxygen and to the energy created
by the explosion.

The liquid hydrogen would be heated to gaseous temperature (assuming,
of course, that the ambient temperature is high enough) and would
react explosively with the oxygen. However, because the fuel tank has
baffles (that's why you only lose 10%, not all of your fuel), the
explosion would be relatively small and would quickly fizzle as the
hydrogen is consumed.

I'd say that the result would be intense flames, a scorched hull
and perhaps a slight alteration in ship course.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:13:49 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Vargr lies

At 08:53 AM 7/22/97 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:34:26 -0400 (EDT)
>From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
>Subject: Vargr Sterotypes
>
>> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
>> gizmos, etc.
>
>There is no truth to the rumor that Vargr like to drive cars with their
>heads
>sticking out the window.
>
>This is simply not true...there is a picture from megatraveller (I don't
>have all my books at work) which shows a couple vargr in a air/raft. The
>Puppy is sitting with his hands folded in his lap looking very cute and one
>adult is leaning out the side with his tongue hanging out...it's canon, you
>can't argue with it, so nyah!

I had an artist friend do some illustrations for my old MT game, mostly
equipment/ship illos.  I gave the stats/description for a Vargr warship,
and he bvrought me the drawing the next week.  When I enquired what a
blister on the side of the ship was, he replied that's where the pilot
sticks his head out the window!

I kept it.
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 10:07:47 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

At 08:17 AM 7/22/97 +0000, you wrote:
>> Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of 
>> it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on 
>> the list.
>
>Personally, I'm hoping this means that everyone likes it.  TML is  
>usually so vocal in its dislikes and objections.... <G>

it's wonderful! amazing! It cured my gout, and gave me winning lottery
numbers!

You will know peace and happiness from reading this book, and will achieve
oneness.  If you have already achieved oneness, this will help you along
with achieving twoness.

Pilgrams will come to your door on the rumor you possess this book, your
players will not kvetch about buying your sodas, and will put up with the
triple pepperoni pizza you are so fond of.

Oh, and it's also one of the best looks at the people behind the whole
psionics question, along with some interesting essays, good rules, and
Chris Foss artwork.  (3 out of 4 ain't bad)

See you tomorrow Suz.... :)
- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|     Inquistor Magnus, Royal Commission for     |
|               Canon Correctness                |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
| "I believe in my heart that all astromoners    |
|  should be forced to go outside on summer      |
|  nights, just to admire the sky."  -Carl Sagan |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:40:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-22 12:08:46 EDT, you write:

<< 
 If you use 3.14159 for pi, then you should use 1.60934 for the miles to
 km conversion.
  >>
Good point. However, I haven't memorized 1.60934.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:42:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-22 12:08:46 EDT, you write:

<< 
 If you use 3.14159 for pi, then you should use 1.60934 for the miles to
 km conversion.
 
  >>
or does my saying that (above) make 1.6 km per mile canon?

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:34:43 -0500
From: Sam Thomas <sinbad@dfw.net>
Subject: PE Questions

I have some questions on some issues in PE.

Example:
The target world is balkanized world, you wish to take over control.

1.If you attack it using Military Meta task do you attack each government
separately?

2.To subdue the planet do you have to have troops subduing each government?

3.It states that if you take over a world you get half of its resources
immediately, but later in the book it states that you have to wait two years?
page 88 and page 66

4.If world is taken by the Tech Offensive do you have to take each
government as in the balkanized example.

5.If a world is taken using the Tech offensive Meta Task what is the Target
world's government code the same as before or what like a six?

6.Under the Technology Offensive page 73 under Special Conditions:
This meta task can only be attempted if the TPE is atleast 2 levels lower
than that of the PE, or if the TW Tech Level is at least 4 levels lower
than that of the PE.

This refers to TPE(Target Pocket Empire) and TW (Target World) but the
results are all referring to TW. From the above quote it would seem that
you could use a PE of say one world and attempt a take over of a TPE of say
3 worlds.

8.What effect would the TPE Tech level have on a task against a single
world in that TPE?

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
(c)1997 Sam Thomas  |Email:sinbad@dfw.net|
Sinbad Sam, Owner and Operator of Sinbad Sam's Saloon 
Chief Weapons Designer For Reddkneck Arms and Munitions
- -----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:42:50 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

- -> > >It's almost as if someone had roled a D6 and added a bunch of modifiers...
- -> > >
- -> > >;-)
- -> >  
- -> > One of the sickest comments on the list. Do you even for a moment believe
- -> > that the creators of our universe has resorted to such crude methods?
- -> 
- -> What did Einstein say? "God does not play dice with the Universe"?
Noo, it's life is a crap-shoot!
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:14:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: lee@uansv2.Vanderbilt.Edu (Mike Lee)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1591

Hey-
>
>Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:54:31 +0200
>From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
>Subject: Air Fuel Leak
>
>Imagine this situation:
>
>A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking
>her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader.
>
>Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But
>in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
>....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(
>
>So as a GM I'm very embarassed in letting a AirAir missile hit the starship
>of my players. 
>
>Would it be reasonnable to say that the fuel leaks out of the ship and
>explodes in great ball of fire, but the ship, protected from the hull
>shell, isn't too much damaged. 
>
>What do you think about it?

        I think that a direct hit would lead to an explosion at the point of
impact, which would be the skin of the target- er, trader.  The result would
be a lot of expensive hardware scattered across many miles of planetary
surface.  There wouldn't be a leak, per se- the explosive force would hole
the tank, then heat, oxygen, and hydrogen would mix- and boom, all in a
millisecond or so.
        I can see one way around the problem.  AAM's often have proximity
fuses, detonating the warhead within a certain distance of the target.
(There is a British AAM designed specifically to detonate on proximity, then
the explosion drives a number of steel darts into the target in a
shotgun-like pattern.)  The proximity fusing allows for an increased chance
of getting a hit with the missle, and damages the target with concussion,
shrapnel, and heat.
        Suppose then, that the wild trader in question only receives a
proximity hit.  Shrapnel could hole the tank (with a lessened chance of
detonating the fuel), or it might simply sever the fuel feeds (leading to a
very rapid leak of pressurized fuel).  Alternately, the concussion of a near
hit might rupture one or more fuel seals, which begin to leak under
pressure.  If you wanted to be especially cruel, the seals could be inside
the hull, leading to pressurized hydrogen leaking INTO the ship's spaces.
Not to mention the fun of keeping the ship under control while flying in an
atmosphere.

Mike Lee

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:04:08 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Possible reason for "fuel" for Jump Drives

Scott Foster wrote:
> 
> I was thinking about this last night, and one of the other answers to my
> post on Jump-within-jump sparked an idea of why so much "fuel" is
> required for a jump.
> 
> A possible theory is that is not used for fuel at all. It is used to
> create a NormalSpace bubble in JumpSpace.  If we assume some sort of
> attraction/repulsion (N-Space is attracted to N-Space), the bubble is
> pulled back into N-Space a week after entering J-Space.  You would have
> to have more material to go farther in J-Space.  (The material would
> lose cohesion over time maybe?)

It's amazing how many people independently came up with that
explanation. It must be a good one :)

There was a thread a while back called "Hydrogen Bubbles" which
discussed this theory. Check the TML archives or email me for details.

If I ever get any <expletive deleted> spare time, I'll update my
Jumpspace site to include this theory, because I think it's a good
explanation for the vast fuel usage, and the requirement for Hydrogen.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:39:33 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Leak

deadeye@ebicom.net wrote:
> 
> > So as a GM I'm very embarassed in letting a AirAir missile hit the starship of my players.
> >
> > Would it be reasonnable to say that the fuel leaks out of the ship and
> > explodes in great ball of fire, but the ship, protected from the hull
> > shell, isn't too much damaged.
> >
> 
> Challenger's fuel was LHyd.  The hull didn't help them much:(
> 

The Challenger's hull was nowhere near as strong as a Traveller
starship hull. A standard Traveller starship hull takes 40 hits
(MT rules) before a breach. That's 40d6! The Shuttle, after all,
ain't made of bonded superdense alloys!

Besides, the Challenger didn't explode. It was engulfed in a fireball,
yes, but that's an entirely different thing from a physics point of
view. If you engulf your Traveller starship in a firewall, you could
hold contests to see which crewmember stops yawning first!

> Realistically, current space vehicles actually have relatively thin
> hulls to save on weight.  I'd guess a ship that can survive gas giant
> refueling pressures can easily survive a large explosive pressure wave.
> That's what I've assumed in gameplay.

Agreed!

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:50:52 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Leak

On Tue, 22 Jul 1997 deadeye@ebicom.net wrote:
 
> > Would it be reasonnable to say that the fuel leaks out of the ship and
> > explodes in great ball of fire, but the ship, protected from the hull
> > shell, isn't too much damaged.
> > 
> 
> Challenger's fuel was LHyd.  The hull didn't help them much:(
> 
> Realistically, current space vehicles actually have relatively thin
> hulls to save on weight.  I'd guess a ship that can survive gas giant
> refueling pressures can easily survive a large explosive pressure wave.
> That's what I've assumed in gameplay.
> 

Well, to be fair, Challenger's LHyd was sitting next to a LOx tank that
got punctured at about the same time, with two giant solid-fuel torches
strapped to the side for good measure.

Much of what happens is dependent on the speed at which the starship is
flying, and the altitude at which they are flying. If the tank is simply
holed by the AAM, you'll have a huge leak of H2 into the atmosphere, which
still needs an ignition source to set it off. Near the leak, the H2
concentration is too high, it won't ignite until enough air has diffused
into the H2 stream to reach combustible levels.

Of course once that's set off you'll have a giant torch in the sky, but as
long as the ship can keep flying faster than the flame front, it won't
explode.

If the tank explosively decompresses,, on the other hand, the structure
of the ship is probably damaged to the point of it's being unable to fly.

In any case, I'd much rather NOT be on that ship ;-)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:11:00 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Fuel Scooping Query

Andy/Nick/anyone else!

Does the scooping of fuel at the rates suggested in Traveller present a
problem requiring enormous buffer storage between the gaseous form and
lhyd? Would you process the mix into pure fuel before or after you
liquified it?

Dom


- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:52:47 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

Douglas E. Berry wrote:
> 
> At 09:47 PM 7/21/97 -0400, you wrote:
> >In a message dated 97-07-21 21:33:57 EDT, you write:
> >
> ><<
> > The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
> > humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
> > gizmos, etc.
> >>>
> >
> >I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.
> >
> >Marc
> 
> VROOP! VROOP!  CANON ALERT! CANON ALERT!
> 
> MARC HAS STATED IN PUBLIC THAT THE VARGR HAVE NO TASTE.  THIS FUFILS THE
> RCCC REQUIREMENTS FOR CANON.  PLEASE ADJUST YOUR REALITY ACCORDINGLY.

BWAHAHAHA!!! 

For the second time in as many minutes fun is poked at the Canon
Orthodoxy.

Well done! Good use of Irony and Satire.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:52:53 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

CardSharks@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-07-22 12:08:46 EDT, you write:
> 
> <<
>  If you use 3.14159 for pi, then you should use 1.60934 for the miles to
>  km conversion.
> 
>   >>
> or does my saying that (above) make 1.6 km per mile canon?
> 
> Marc

LOL!!!

It must feel funny to have 200+ fans hanging on every word, waiting for
canon pronouncements from on high...

Call me a heretic, but even though Marc is the orginator of Traveller, I
have gotten the impression that he does not want the entire
responsibility of hammering out the Traveller universe to rest on his
shoulders. I give his comments the same weight as any other published
source...

I applaud his efforts to encourage feedback on what he's working on, and
the manner in which he allows fan written and supported material to be
disseminated without hoary copyright lawyers breathing down our necks.

Glenn Hoppe

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:28:41 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Torontonians on the TML

Grey Legion on Yonge has got a few Traveller books in...
Near Mint Citizens of the Imperium
Good (generous) Fighting Ships (supplement 9)
Number of issues of Challenge and some other Traveller stuff I cannot recall
2300 books (variety)
And a fair (at best) copy of Invasion: Earth (also missing unit counters,
otherwise intact)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:31:05 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: T4.1 rewrite

Marc,

When you finalise the T4.1 release can you put in a few pages on conversion
of current T4 characters to the rules? It should make things a lot easier
for any new refs who have just started playing, and want to use the new
rules, but don't want to change/abandon existing  player characters.

A section on converting from CT/MT and TNE would be nice too... ;-)

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:27:43 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: T4.1 Character Generation

Allen Shock wrote:

<<I've seen people referring to the character generation charts for T4.1 and
testing them. I assume this was published on the TML, and somehow I missed
it. Would some kind soul please send me a copy of this? I'd like to take a
look at it. Thanks.>>

You didn't miss it. Marc said that he'd post it to anyone interested, but
it was a WFW97 file. Me, I've asked several times if someone will convert
it to RTF or Word 6 so my Mac will read it, but no luck so far. :-(

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1592
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1593



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

RE: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive
FFW as a PBM game?
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: A little ride
LHyd Boom Boom
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
Re: Air Fuel Leak
Re: T4.1 Character Generation
Re: Torontonians on the TML
Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Riots at Colonisation Inc's AGM
Re: Religions in space
Nebula Design Contest Winner....
T4.1 Char Gen Stuff - Where can I get?
Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)
Re: Re : Refueling Question
Eris',  "How Jump Drives Work"
Re: Strange design/drive question
FTL Commo?
THUDDD 5 Entries (1/3)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:30:29 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: RE: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive

<If I ever get any <expletive deleted> spare time, I'll update my
Jumpspace site to include this theory, because I think it's a good
explanation for the vast fuel usage, and the requirement for Hydrogen.>


Wild tangent-Lets go with the theory that jumping in JumpSpace takes you
to a different JumpSpace.  The likely cause for explosion is that you
don't have a sufficient "Bubble of Matter" to protect you.  Instead of
Hydrogen, maybe a different type of material is necessary for cohesion
in this separate realm?

If this is the case, here's a jump scenario:

1) Activate Jump-3 engine (Hydrogen bubble is created)
2) Activate second Jump-3 engine
  a) Material X bubble is created
    -Option 1) More of Material X is required (has to cover the volume
of the H2 bubble)
  b) Second H2 bubble is created
    -Option 2) H2 bubble has to be recreated upon re-entering
(normal)JumpSpace. (Or else ship is shredded wheat.)

We can extrapolate that since JumpSpace^2 is further from NormalSpace,
it would have the effect of squaring the Jump number. (A jump 3 becomes
a jump 9, jump 4-Jump 16, etc)

Scott

Knyghe@msn.com
Shadowblinder, Truthfinder

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 22:35:50 +0100
From: David Scott <Snail@dircon.co.uk>
Subject: FFW as a PBM game?

>Has anyone tried playing FFW as a PBM game?

Yes it works very well, I PBM it just after it came out. However our 
first game went on for 18 months...

David

mailto:Snail@dircon.co.uk
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~snail/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 15:54:30 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

On 07/22/97 at 05:15 AM,  CardSharks@aol.com said:

>This after they were caught hiding (covering up) the fact that they copied
>the J-drive, and once they knew about the prevailing opinion, continued to
>cover it up until finally some humans came along and found them out.
>Geonee and Suerrat and others also copied the J-drive, understood it, and
>improved it.

Marc,

We've been discussing the possibility for some time that *all* the human
races copied the J-Drive from Ancient artifacts.  Of course, the truth is
buried in time, or shallow graves to hear our conspircey theorists tell it. 
;-> 

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 16:23:55 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: A little ride

On 07/22/97 at 09:00 AM,  deadeye@ebicom.net said:

>> Where abouts you deal with those T-37, Deadeye?

>In the great, steamy storm-ridden state of Mississippi, which currently
>just got deluged by a wayward tropical storm remnant.

Oh, Danny Boy! 
The rains, the rains are falling! 
On Mobile Bay, and all around the gulf.

I live about 20 miles southeast of Whiting Field, in Pace Florida, so I
shared in your rain...to paraphrase our fearless leader. ;->

From your description of students with no solo time flying T-37's, I
figured you were down here somewhere. It would have had to be what..Corpus,
Gulfport or Whiting..right? 

Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:31:47 -0700
From: Scott Ellsworth <Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu>
Subject: LHyd Boom Boom

At 02:14 PM 7/22/97 -0500, Mike Lee wrote:
>Hey-
>>Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:54:31 +0200
>>From: Nicolas LEJEUNE <nlejeune@suresnes.marben.fr>
>>A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking
>>her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader.
>>
>>Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But
>>in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
>>....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(

>        I think that a direct hit would lead to an explosion at the point of
>impact, which would be the skin of the target- er, trader.  The result would
>be a lot of expensive hardware scattered across many miles of planetary
>surface.  There wouldn't be a leak, per se- the explosive force would hole
>the tank, then heat, oxygen, and hydrogen would mix- and boom, all in a
>millisecond or so.

I disagree, mostly because of play balance.

In space combat, a laser blast certainly has as much oomph at point of
contact as a AA missile would.  It likely has a heck of a lot more, so it
is not unreasonable to assume that fuel breaches into the inside happen
regularly.  (Note: a civilian laser turret is a 75Mj laser, which is
something like 75 times a tank's main gun!)

If the hull could not protect, at least partially, from such a blast, then
almost any fuel hit would be a disaster for the vessel.  For whatever
reason, they are considered more of a free hit, so we need to come up with
a reason for that to be the case.  I have two possibilities:

1.  The LHyd is stored in a gelatinous matrix that can release it
reasonably fast, but not immediately.  As a result, a fuel tank hit leaks
out to space over the course of minutes.  In addition, the matrix prevents
the tank from getting any air in it.

In atmosphere, therefore, a hit would produce a hell of a plume, some
serious scorching, and a flare visible for miles.  It could damage the
ship, and if it was a big hole, it might release enough to cause a good bang.

Alternative 2:  When the fuel leaks out, it is not mixed with air.  It will
mix fairly rapidly, but the ship is (hopefully) moving fast enough to avoid
at least some of the fuel-air explosive effects.  After all, if I recall,
you can escape the area of effect of a propane tank valve blowing off, as
long as you are in a vehicle moving away when it is touched off.  IIRC,
FAEs are not big on overpressure at any given point, but do produce a wide
area of effect at a reasonably high pressure (anyone know for sure?), so
the blast would cause a serious jolt, significant scorching, but not ship
destroying concussion.

Alternative 2.5: the armor is mostly inside the fuel tank to prevent this,
so everyone inside gets pummelled severely, but the ship will survive. 

Scott
Scott_Ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu   http://users.deltanet.com/~fuz
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:15:31 -0400
From: "Nathan & Terri Mezel" <hotchip@oeonline.com>
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

In TML #1589 Dave Golden wrote:	
>Just remember--not only does con attendance cost money, but every person
>who attends a con is one person who is NOT slaving away on the upcoming
>T4.1 revision ...

The money spent attending a con should be considered an investment.  If 10
new people get interested in buying T4 products then the convention trip
should be worth while.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:47:37 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Air Fuel Leak

Bruce Johnson wrote:
> 
> Of course once that's set off you'll have a giant torch in the sky, but as
> long as the ship can keep flying faster than the flame front, it won't
> explode.
> 

Why would the presence of a large flame make the ship explode? Are ships
that delicate? Remember that the ship will be in the flame for a second
or two at most, since it's flying forward, so I expect there to be
some charring and that's about it.

> If the tank explosively decompresses,, on the other hand, the structure
> of the ship is probably damaged to the point of it's being unable to fly.

If the section of the fuel tank that was hit explosively decompresses,
the ship will jerk (Newton's Third Law) as the hydrogen vents.
I doubt that would cause structural damage.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:19:04 -0500
From: Matt McLaughlin <mkm@umr.edu>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation

I just got back on the list, so I missed the post.  If you (or someone)
can e-mail me the Word 7 file, I'll convert and e-mail it to you.

Matt McL.


SD Mooney wrote:
> 
[snip]
> 
> You didn't miss it. Marc said that he'd post it to anyone interested, but
> it was a WFW97 file. Me, I've asked several times if someone will convert
> it to RTF or Word 6 so my Mac will read it, but no luck so far. :-(
> 
> Dom
> 
> ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
> "Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
> "Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost"

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:29:17 -0400
From: Shalom Zaidfeld <yu145850@yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: Torontonians on the TML

> Grey Legion on Yonge has got a few Traveller books in...

Where is Grey Legion located?  (major intersections)

	...Shalom

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:37:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Ayers <mark@bbic.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)

I've been too busy. Can someone point me at the T4.1 character generation
checklist we are testing?

- ----------
Mark Ayers
Net Admin for the Book and Bean Internet Cafe: <admin@bbic.com>
Traveller Referee for Seattle Metro Gamers  <mark@bbic.com>
- ----------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:20:11 -0700
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <gmgoffin@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

>From: CardSharks@aol.com
<< 
 The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>>
>
>I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.
>
>Marc

>From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
>
>> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>
>There is no truth to the rumor that Vargr like to drive cars with their heads
>sticking out the window.
>
>Loren Wiseman

It's moments like these that make me realize that, indeed, Traveller has
been the right hobby to absorb my interest for nearly 20 years, and that
no one outside it will ever understand.

- --Glenn

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:31:56 -0700
From: "Glenn M. Goffin, Esq." <gmgoffin@pacbell.net>
Subject: Riots at Colonisation Inc's AGM

>From: Ian or Katts <ianw@zed.com.au>

>After a short but brisk shareholders meeting, the entire Board of
>Colonisation Inc have agreed to resign over their negligence concerning
>the prospectus for a number of commercially-oriented startup colonies. 
>They have further agreed to reimburse shareholders for losses incurred
>following the crash in Colonisation Inc's share price.

Plaintiffs' lawyers have filed a class action suit on behalf of
themselves against the directors for interfering with their business
relations with defrauded but reimbursed shareholders.  "This is
outrageous conduct!" thundered Viliring Lurragch, senior partner at the
Mirilgreb Vrais' law firm, which was formed by retirees from the
Kforuzeng.  "We won't stand for it.  If it means war, it's war."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:55:13 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: Religions in space

Harold Hale wrote:

> Someone wrote:
>
> > I can't speak for the United Kingdom, but widespread opposition to
> > slavery in the USA dates to well over 100 years prior to its formal
> > abolition in 1865
>
>    Incorrect.

[snip]

>     Widespread opposition to the institution of slavery in the U.S.
> dates
> from the release of the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher
> Stowe in 1852.

Of course everything depends on how you define "widespread opposition."
To be polite about it, and its difficult, I think that the above view is
overly-narrow and superficial.  There have been abolitionists in North
America since the 1600s.  How "widespread" their "opposition" was is
subject to wide lattitudes of interpretation.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:41:26 -0400
From: Lewis Roberts <lewis@chara.gsu.edu>
Subject: Nebula Design Contest Winner....

The creators of the various designs are:

Athenian Class Trader 			Eamon Watters
Iguana class Far Trader			Chris Lloyd
Pandora Class Freighter			Derek Stanley
Sojourner Wilds Trader			Lewis Roberts
Tycoon Class Modular Wilds Trader 	Franklin Cain
Virtue Class Upgradable Wilds Trader    Franklin Cain
 
7 people voted: Idiot/Savant, Jon Goff, John Macphearson, Chirs Lloyd,
Jyrki Paajanen, Eamon Watters and myself.

I totaled up the votes for each ship and divided by the number of
voters, to account for the fact that the designers didn't vote for
their own ships. First place got one point, and 6th place got 6 points,
and who ever got the lowest score won.

The totals are:

Athenian Class Trader                      2.17
Iguana class Far Trader                    3.0
Pandora Class Freighter                    5.14
Sojourner Wilds Trader                     1.0
Tycoon Class Modular Wilds Trader          4
Virtue Class Upgradable Wilds Trader       4.14
 
So the winnner is the Sojourner by Me.  Hmmm that looks funny,  with me
being the vote counter and all. I didn't cheat, but it might look funny
to someone else.  I have all the votes if anyone wants to look at them.
 In the next contest, I could take my ship out of voting contention if
anyone wants.  

All in all, I think the contest went pretty well, we got some pretty
neat ships out of it.  It wasn't alot of work, so I am willing to keep
on doing it until people get sick of it.  I don't think we will start
the next one for a few weeks to give people a break. 

I think the rules did pretty well, the only rule I'd like to add is
that designer's should send me the ship in pure ASCII, I can read MIME
encrypted Word files, but it is a pain in the neck. Also Franklin Cain
sent in two designs, and I figured since we had so few designs, it
wouldn't matter, but does anyone have a problem with that.  

Well  I'll get the designs up on the BARD pages soon, I have just the
Virtue and the Tycoon to turn into HTML.  If anyone has any comments
about the voting feel free to send them to me.

Lewis Roberts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Q:What is round and dangerous?  
A:A vicious circle.            

lewis@chara.gsu.edu
http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/roberts.html
- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:59:48 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: T4.1 Char Gen Stuff - Where can I get?

It has been suggested to me by Brother Broady Dunn to plea for a copy of
the revised/proposed/beta T4.1 Character Generator materials.

Color me begging.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:05:04 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation(longish and rambly)

Suzette C. Dollar wrote:

> Steve,
>
> You are jumping into the middle of an ongoing discussion begun by
> postings by Marc Miller to the list.

Boy did I ever!  Consider this an apology to the whole maillist.  I
forgot to check how deep the water was and jumped in head first.  Doh!
Perhaps I'll lurk a bit.

Thanks for the info Suz and Broady

Bloo (aka Steve)

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:05:20 -0400
From: Thomas Walter Trelenberg <tomt@scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Re : Refueling Question

************************************
If you use the fact that hydrogen will diffuse thru *solid* materials
(especially under pressure), you can likely have a scoop that narrows
to a throat where a high pressure is reached (encouraging diffusion)
and then widens out again letting the gasses escape. 

You'll have a constant flow of hydrogen and *no* buildup of other
gasses.
The flow rate of hydrogen will depend on the pressure, and the
diffusion rate (which can be pretty high for some materials. The fact
that the gasses in the channel get heated by the compression (and thus
heat the walls of the channel) will *help* the diffusion!

Y'know, I think I've just come up with a *workable* scoop design!
************************************

The device you described: wide mouth, narrow throat, widening exhaust is
known as a venturi.  Unfortunately (at least as far as what you
said--the real life venturi has a myriad of uses) a venturi LOWERS the
pressure in the throat--however the velocity of the gas passing through
increases.

Sorry

TT

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 18:10:51 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Eris',  "How Jump Drives Work"

On 07/22/97 at 07:01 AM,  Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com> said:

>I was thinking about this last night, and one of the other answers to my
>post on Jump-within-jump sparked an idea of why so much "fuel" is required
>for a jump.

>A possible theory is that is not used for fuel at all. It is used to
>create a NormalSpace bubble in JumpSpace.  

Scott, that's pretty much the way I play it.  Some people hold out for the
"jump fuel" being used in a fusion reaction, but others of us see it as
injection material.

>If we assume some sort of attraction/repulsion (N-Space is attracted to
>N-Space), the bubble is pulled back into N-Space a week after entering
>J-Space.

Over the course of approximately a week the injection material dissipates,
and the cohesion of the bubble collapses popping the ship back into normal
space.  I have the ship actually change position instantaneously, but it's
trapped in "j-space" until the bubble collapses.

>You would have to have more material to go farther in J-Space. 

Well, my take on how this all works goes like this.  

First, what is refined "jump fuel," and why should you use it?

Refined jump fuel is *pure* hydrogen with all impurities filtered out.
Unrefined jump fuel is hydrogen that hasn't been completely filtered.
Actually, ANY material will work as jump fuel, but because of the way it is
going to be used you want a very uniform homogeneous gas, and hydrogen is
what jump drives are tuned to use.  If you don't have a completely
homogeneous injection fluid, ie impurities, you will have problems with
random "clumping", "hot spots", and alignment problems with the ship's
controls, and will risk various kinds of misjumps.

What is the "jump process?"

The ship injects the "jump fuel" through a jump coil located at the nose of
the ship.  This injection medium forms an American/Canadian/Rugby football
shaped jump bubble around the ship closed by the "jump ring" located at the
ship's stern.  This isn't a bubble of N-space, it's a bubble of J-space. 
The ship, itself, is protected within it's jump grid, described below.

As the ship continues to pump "jump fuel" through the coil a gravity lens
is formed in front of the ship within the bubble.  The Astrogator uses
special sensors to look through the lens and locate the jump coordinates of
the ship's destination, locks a gravity pulse generator on those
coordinates and emits a strong pulse at the target destination. This forms
a small temporary wormhole just large enough for the ship and it's
surrounding bubble to fit through.  The injection material of the lens
deforms into an elongated tube (or fold if you think about it a different
way) extending from the present location to the destination. The ship's
jump bubble inverts through the wormhole translating the ship
instantaneously from here to there.  When the inversion occurs the bubble
exists totally outside of N-space, and is invisible to all N-space sensors. 
The amount of "jump fuel" needed depends on the volume of the bubble needed
to enclose the ship's volume and the distance of the tube through the
wormhole.  Conveniently this works out to whatever version of the rules you
happen to be using.  ;-> The injection material dissipates at random along
the path such that after approximately a week there is too little of it to
maintain the bubble and the the ship pops back into N-space, along with the
rest of the jump fuel, in a blinding flash and a big jog on any nearby
gravity sensor or densometor.

While the ship is in J-space it must maintain power to the "jump grid"
located in the hull of the ship.  The jump grid creates a bubble of N-space
within the bubble of J-space.  Loss of this jump grid means that J-space
intrudes into the ship proper with deadly effects.

Powering the jump grid, the jump coil and ring and the gravity pulse all
takes electrical energy drawn from the ship's powerplant.  In my version,
none of the jump fuel supplies power and there is no separate "jump drive
power plant."  

Where can you jump from and to, and how do you figure it out?

To jump out, your ship has to be in a very low gravity environment, or
beyond what I call the "hyperlimit" (minimum 100 diameters from any massive
object), in order for the jump bubble, gravity lens and wormhole to form. 
Trying to jump inside the hyperlimit results in unpredictable results
ranging from wasted fuel and energy, to misjumps, to various levels of
destruction of equipment.

When you jump in, your ship will appear at the destination's
"hyperlimit."  Minor misjumps could put you closer or farther away.
Extremely good jumpmaps, high astrogation skill, and good rolls could allow
you to position your exit closer to your destination, and of course, the
opposite is also true.  

Because of the restrictions on where you can jump from, microjumps within a
system range from hopeless to impossible to perform, and jumps to truly
empty locations are not possible.  Jumps to "empty hexes" are actually to
dark bodies located in those hexes.  These dark bodies are *extremely* hard
to sense, develop coordinates for, or even lock onto if you already have
their coordinates, so jumping to "empty hexes" isn't a common occurrence.
Under special circumstances can be done.

Jump coordinates are determined from "The Book" of jump maps, and/or from
analysis of sensor readings by the Astrogator.  The jump coordinates of
bodies in "charted space" change fairly quickly, so "The Book" has to be
updated every year or so to avoid misjumps.  A book that is several years
out of date is next to useless.

Uncharted systems require time and Astrogation skill to determine jump
coordinates, and can only be done while the ship is in a jump bubble. This
means that explorers will go through the jump process up to, but not
including emitting the gravity pulse, and use the Astrogational sensors to
read the coordinates of various gravity sources.  Greater distances take
longer to accurately read and require better sensors to make the readings.

Obviously, better jump sensors also allow locking onto sources at greater
distances. Therefore it is the quality of these sensors that really
determine jump-ratings, ie jump 1, 2, 3, etc.  

Doing this sort of charting means that a ship will be stuck in j-space for
a week after making these readings.  The ship will have to expend another
dose of injection material next week to actually make the jump, and see if
their readings were correct.  This makes survey work slow and somewhat
dangerous.  And it has to be done continually, even within charted space to
keep The Book up-to-date.

This is how *I* do things, anyway. Questions or comments?


Eris
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:21:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Andrew Boulton wrote:

> > What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
> >  
> > For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
> > The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
> >  
> > Possibilities:
> >  
> > 1) Ship explodes
> 
> 2) Ship misjumps, then explodes
> 3) Ship explodes, then misjumps
> 4) the crew throw the captain out of the airlock before he can give the 
>    order
> 5) All of the above

6) Due to the generated temporal anomaly, the ship explodes some months
   before anyone even thinks of trying this out.

"Well, Cap'n, all systems are ready, shall we lift?"

"Yes, by all means, take her--"

*BOOM*

Nobody ever has the faintest clue why.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:49:54 GMT
From: jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: FTL Commo?

.... well, the people who did the experiment that the New York
Times wrote about today (7/22/97) claim not, because of special
relativity - but the fact remains, there is at least one
phenomenon that is documented as propagating faster than light...

It seems that there was an experiment in Switzerland dealing with
"twinned" photons, separated by several miles (yes, folks, you
read that correctly - miles).  These "twinned" photons maintained
a "connection" of some sort; they did a "T"-maze kind of
experiment, where the direction that a photon would appear to
have gone when the wave function collapses was randomly
determined.  In every case, both "twins" chose the same direction
- - a 100% correlation - and to the limits of accuracy, the choices
happened simultaneously, to within time limits that could not
allow for slower-than-C transmission.  Regrettably, I left
today's paper on my desk at the precinct; I'll bring it home
tomorrow and post more detail - unless someone beats me to it.
But just imagine if it turns out that we _can_ manipulate one of
the "twins", and read the other... The entire basic idea of
Traveller (Commo no faster than go) goes down the tubes...

Jeff Zeitlin                                =
jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:39:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5 Entries (1/3)

                            THUDDD 5: July 1997
                                   Yacht
                                      
Timeline

  July  6 (Sunday)   Spec released, design phase begins
  July  8 (Tuesday)  Sample yacht design available
  July 19 (Saturday) Entry deadline
* July 21 (Monday)   Ballots released
  July 26 (Saturday) Voting deadline
  July 29 (Tuesday)  Results announced

Specifications

   (From an advertisement run in Sylean Aerospace Journal, Starship
   Weekly Observer, the ISBA newsletter, and other shipbuilding
   periodicals) 
   
   ISBA REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
   New THUDDD Competition Announced
   
   A syndicate of leading corporations offering goods and services to the
   exceedingly wealthy, in conjunction with the Imperial Ship Builders
   Association (ISBA), announces a new THUDDD ship-design competition.
   The winning entrant in this competition, and perhaps other entrants as
   well, will receive lucrative contracts to produce limited runs of
   their vessels over the coming decade; these vessels will serve in
   *highly* visible roles, and could potentially provide a good deal of
   free publicity for the firms involved.
   
   The vessel to be produced is a yacht, 300-500 dt, atmosphere-capable,
   minimum performance J2/M1, only minimal weaponry (or none at all).
   This is intended as a toy for the wealthy, or as a vessel of state for
   political or corporate leaders.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Notes and commentary
  
   The distinguishing feature of this THUDDD competition is that rather
   than the numeric design side, the emphasis will be on the textual
   description of the craft, exterior and interior. Create a vivid
   picture in the reader's mind of opulence and luxury; describe the
   spaces and how they connect to one another such that role players will
   feel that they have really been on board.
   
   The limit for this descriptive section is 2000 words. I had considered
   accepting graphical deckplans and other images, but in the end decided
   this would leave out those without the tools or skill to create them.
   However, you may embed links to such in the text of your entry, and I
   will make the links into operational HTML hyperlinks.
   
   Also, in the interests of fostering right-brain-oriented entries to
   this THUDDD, I have provided a sample 400 dt yacht with no
   description, which others are free to borrow, rename, possibly modify,
   and detail. Note that there is a more-than-ample cargo volume on my
   sample vessel, much of which could easily be reallocated to other uses
   in derived designs.
   
Winners

   To be announced July 29, 1997.
   
Entrants

   Sluce - Class Yacht   Kosher Shipyards   Giovanni
     Giovanni@bellatlantic.net FF&S
   Ludwig - Class Pleasure Yacht   Phobos Yards   Sebastien Normandin
     luckyj@microtec.net (Unspecified)
   Rising Star   Goodenuf Construction Company   Peter H. Brenton
     brenton@psfc.mit.edu SSDS (SAL)
   Imelda - Class Yacht   Famille Spofulam Yards   Roderick Darroch Elliott
     rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca SSDS (beta pdf)
   Xanadu 3 - Class Yacht   Earneau and Hao Tse, Ltd   Bill Ernoehazy
     blackwilliam@hotmail.com QSDS 1.5 + HTOH
   Roswell - Class Yacht (type P-300YL)   Phoenix Corp.   Andrew Moffatt-Vallance
     a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz QSDS 1.5
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Sluce - Class Yacht
  
   Designer: Giovanni Giovanni@bellatlantic.net
   Firm: Kosher Shipyards
   System: FF&S

Tons:   500 tons (disk AF)      Volume:    7000 m^3      Cost:   213.527
Crew:   5                       High pass: 10
Cargo:  1400 m^3                Controls:  D.L. W/bridge TL:12
Size:   Small

Atmospheric speed: 5300KPH      Safe NOE: 160


Crew Detail: 1 pilot, 1 astrogator, 1 sensors, 1 engineer, 1 steward/chef

Design data
                                Mass    Volume  Power   Price   S.A.
Disk AF Hull,500DT,AV30,SD      852.4   43.714          14.3207
Internal Structure              65.57   4.3714          .91799
Jump Drive, Jump 3              840     280             84      93.333
Jump fuel, for 3 parsec jump    98      1400            .049
Controlls, dynamic linked       .07     7       .5      .75
Work Stations (4), bridge       .8      56              .006
Imaging EMS                     .001    .001    .1      .25
Terrain-Following Avionics      .03     .1      .03     .014    .3
IGS Nav aid                     .001    .001    .01     .025
Computers (9) standard type     14.4    72      3.6     27
Laser comunicator, Range=AU1000 .1      .05     .3      .18     1
Radio Comunicator, R=AU1000     .2      .1      20      .15     200
Active EMS sensor, R=KM300,000  11      5.5     27.5    11      11
Passive EMS sensor, R=KM120,000 3       1.5     .15     3
        Passive EMS antena      1.5     1.5             1.5     30
Nuclear Damper Screen, KM30,000 75      75      15      1.95    7.5
Large cargo hatches (4)                                 .08     80
Cargo Storage space                     1400
Fuel bladderas, hold 1400 m^3   70      70              .14
Fusion Reactor (MW624)          1248    312             62.4
1 year of fusion fuel (Lhyd)    6.552   93.6            .00328
Heplar thrusters (10720 TT)     53.6    53.6    536     .536    53.6
Heplar fuel (30 G hours)        93.8    1340            .0469
Life suport                     29.46   29.456  .3682   1.841
Art. Grav, 3 G compensation     73.64   36.82   18.41   1.841
Small Staterooms (5)            10      140     .0025   .2
Large staterooms (10)           40      560     .01     1
Low Birth (for 24)              12      168     .006    .3
Air locks (5)                   1       15      .005    .025
                                =======================================
Totals                          3599.8  6165.3  621.99  213.377 416.73

   New to the industry, Kosher Shipyards hopes to build a long line of
   followers by offering products geared toward the more demanding
   consumer. In our first model, the Sluce yacht, we offer a solidly
   constructed craft, built on solid engineering. It hosts a certain
   amount of versatility in respect to travel, while still being properly
   refined. Join us, will you, on a tour of the Sluce, a proper
   gentelman's transport.
   
   As you first spot the Sluce winging its way in for the spaceport's
   runway, you are struck by the sleek appearance of its flowing swept
   wing design. As they taper out from the sleek stretched disk hull, the
   trailing edges of the wingtips extend well beyond the rear of the
   body. While it rolls to a stop on the tie down ramp It's flowingly
   grained metallic body seems to float effortlessly along the ground.
   
   As you enter the Sluce you are taken aback to find yourself on a glass
   encased fly bridge in the very belly of the craft. The entire interior
   of the bridge is worked in obsidian panels and teak trim with the
   seating encased in supple butter soft tan leather. The crew stand
   there, alert in all black uniforms with silver pinstriping, ready to
   meet you as you enter. It is here also, that you realize the windows
   of the craft are photo reactive. You next work your way up the
   stainless steel circular staircase to the passenger quarters. As you
   look down the long stained Hardwood floor of the corridor you notice
   five dark mahogany doors on each side and a stairway leading down at
   the rear. In the other direction is a stairwell leading up, widening
   as it goes.
   
   Your guide beckons you to enter one of the staterooms and you follow
   his suggestion. Inside the entire room is covered in solid tiger
   stripe maple panels over an inch thick each. The floor is covered in a
   single custom hand woven persian rug imported directly from the
   Solemani. As you peer into the private bath you discover the entire
   room to be carved from a single block of green marble with the
   fixtures of solid titanium almost seamlessly threaded into place.
   
   Your guide next beckons you up onto the promenade. You ask him what
   the doors to the rear are for and he waves it off saying, "Crew
   quarters, no more." As you proceed up the sprawling stair case and
   onto the promenade you realize that you stand atop a giant fish tank
   spanning the entire floor. As you look in you see an amazing
   assortment of exotic fish swimming along. You next notice the bar off
   to your right, formed in blued steel and black leather to match the
   rest of the furniture that surrounds you. Above lies the roof of the
   ship, all glass and now tuned black as welder's visor.
   
   Your guide leads you next through a steel door next to the bar and
   down a short hardwood stair case to the dining chamber. The oak
   hardwood that made up the stairs now lies out before you to form an
   oval room. The walls, upholstered in dark maroon leather, stretch half
   way up to meet the domed ceiling. It hovers majestically above you,
   layered with ceder slates and crossed with polished brass beams coming
   into a single point from which an ornate brass chandelier hangs. Below
   the chandelier is an extraordinary maple table with seating for
   twenty. Next to the table stands Peire, your chef in his spotless
   white suite.
   
   As you make your way to the sales office with the guide he mentions
   some of the nicer amenities of the ship in case they hadn't caught
   your eye. He talks about the stainless steel lined cargo bay for easy
   cleaning and how the state room's entertainment facilities are fitted
   directly into the ship's internal structure to maximize free space. He
   also mentions the cigar humidor's included in each stateroom and the
   built in galley wine rack, as well as the ceder lined closets.
   
    Designers comments:
    
     * I realize that FF&S is not intended to be the primary system here,
       however it's the only one that I'm familiar enough with to produce
       a craft (It's also the only I have at current) and I hope this
       design is satisfactorily wrought.
     * Why no weapons? Simple, this is a toy, not a raiding, trading or
       privateering vessel. That is why the only defensive system
       included is a nuclear damper screen. It was the only thing short
       of a sand caster that would be effective at this small of a size
       and still leave room for the needed luxuries. I opted against the
       sand caster for volume and ascetic purposes. I should note that I
       felt the biggest problem that a ship of this nature faces in
       defense is pirates, which is why the model comes with a defense
       locker carrying sixteen 10 gauge ETC semiautomatic shotguns as a
       mater of courtesy.
     * A maximum speed of 3 Gs was chosen because this is a luxury vessel
       and should not be able to exceed its G compensation rating.
     * The collapsible fuel tanks were included in the event that the
       owner would like to press out for a jump longer than 3 parsecs if
       they were not carrying to much cargo. In fact, if fuel is also
       pumped away from the HEPlaR supply and Fusion plant, up to three
       consecutive jumps up to 9 parsecs can be achieved (admittedly with
       highly exhausted reserves).
     * The reason for the excessive number of computers was to cut crew
       and reduce the number of maintenance points. The less crew and
       maintenance points the better. No rich man or woman want's to pay
       or house excess crew on his yacht. Also, when a person that
       wealthy want's to use their toy they certainly don't want to hear
       that it's undergoing it's annual inspection.
     * Why the sensors and communication suite I chose? The
       Communications suite has a AU1000 range because if these guys get
       in trouble they want to reach out and talk to some one. The laser
       com was just intended as a back up. The nav aids I simply figured
       would be useful in landing and the same goes for the TFA avionics.
       The passive EMS range of only KM120,000 was chosen because I felt
       that a yacht, a ship that should have proper aesthetic appearance,
       wouldn't look right with a folding array and I couldn't fit a
       larger system on without using one.
     * I opted against smaller craft on board because this one is capable
       of landing as it is. Any smaller craft the owner would likely want
       to use to move around the planet could probably fit and drive(or
       fly) nicely out of the cargo hold once the ship had landed.
     * I included the low births because accidents, misjumps and the
       such, happen and a properly equipped luxury vehicle should be
       equipped to deal with them.
     * I chose such a large cargo store for two reasons. In the first
       place, anyone who has driven around the country on long multi day
       trips knows that there is absolutely never enough space in the
       trunk/hatch/storage compartment. Fiends of mine have small cabin
       cruiser boats and they say the same thing. I figure the wealthy
       have this problem more than anyone because they have a heck of a
       lot more, and bigger in the case of vehicles, stuff to bring with
       them. Secondly, it allows for good versatility of trip duration
       when combined with the collapsible fuel bladders.
       
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Ludwig - Class Pleasure Yacht
  
   Designer: Sebastien Normandin luckyj@microtec.net
   Firm: Phobos Yards
   System: (Unspecified)

Tons:  300 Std (Closed Structure)  Volume:        4200m^3  Cost: 98.415MCr
Crew:  5                           High/Mid Pass: 10/0     Low:  0
Cargo: ~15 Std                     Controls: Std Civ (High-auto) (Bridge)
TL:    11

8 Size Rating                         J-2 Jump Drive (840 Std/Pc Fuel)
O Fire Control Rating                 1-G Maneuver (T-plates)
1 Lt. Laser (72kj)                    1.6 Power Plant (250 Mw)
                                      840 Fuel (Scoop n/a , Refine n/a)
                                          Sandcaster (24 Cans)
1x HangarFacility (Ship's Boat)  A1 P2 J0 Sensors
                                        0 Armor, 8 Structure

Crew Detail: 1 Command, 1 Engineer, 1 Pilot, 1 Navigator, 1 Steward.

300 ton Closed Structure
Not Streamlined
1-G Acceleration
No Armor
Jump-2

TL-11 Thruster Plates provide 3000  tonnes of thrust (1-G)

TL-11 (72mj) L.Laser
TL-11 Sandcaster

Standard Civilian Controls (Dynamic, High-Automation)
Sick Bay/Kitchen
Internal Hangar (30-ton Spacious)

TL-11 250 Mw Power Plant
Bridge (3 workstations)

6  Small Staterooms
10 Large Staterooms

   Assembled by the small Martian ship construction cooperative known as
   Phobos Yards, this custom designed pleasure yacht is a one of a kind
   original initially designed as a mobile home and office for the
   Marquis of Melanor. The hull of the ship is a small iron-based
   asteroid recovered from the nearby main belt in the Terran system.
   Perhaps the most interesting feature of the ship are the rooms and
   corridors where the original rough, irregular surfaces of the asteroid
   have been preserved. This was intentional and designed to evoke the
   dungeon-like feel of the strange and mysterious underground passages
   beneath the Terran Mad Ludwig's famous castle, which captured the
   Marquis' imagination when he first saw them. Hence the name of the
   ship class. The following areas have not been left "natural," for
   obvious reasons: Bridge, Engineering Deck, Cargo Hold, Sick Bay,
   Hangar, Crew Staterooms, and most access areas. The remainder of the
   ship, which includes most passageways, all the Staterooms, and the
   special custom rooms detailed below, are of tunneled out iron rock.
   Control panels, lights, fixtures, and other interfaces are tastefully
   set into the rock walls, and blend into the surroundings to heighten
   the effect.
   
   The Ludwig is a pleasure craft, wholly unsuited for travel in frontier
   environments. To begin with it is unstreamlined, and has no facilities
   for fuel scooping or purification. Access to a type A or B starport
   with refined fuel is almost a necessity. This serves the purposes of
   the ship's owner ideally, since he has no intention of using the
   vessel as anything other than a mobile base from which to entertain
   and conduct his business. Being a noble, his business rarely takes him
   out of the established spacelanes. For planetside landings, the Yacht
   carries in its spacious hangar a well appointed 30-ton Ship's Boat
   that sees to the Marquis' needs quite well. The ship is unarmored, and
   only very lightly armed with a light laser (fore) and sandcaster
   (aft). It has been designed using TL-11 technology, so that it can be
   repaired and maintained on the Marquis' home planet.
   
   There are two main features of the ship which stand out from regular
   vessels, and they are described below:
   
    Conference Room/Dining Hall/Ballroom
    
   Taking up the entire top deck of the ship (w/ the exception of the
   elevator which provides access) is a large room (30m x 20m). The walls
   (up to about 8') have been carved out of the rough iron of the
   asteroid, and the top of the room is a large, sealed dome, attached
   onto the "top" of the asteroid, which provides spectacular space
   vistas in all directions. The dome can be darkened when in Jumpspace.
   The room is used both as a Dining Hall and Ballroom (the solid wood
   floor is perfect for this purpose). (Ref's Note: The combination of
   spectacular vistas and the beautifully appointed antique surroundings
   provides a juxtaposition which should get just about any ref's
   descriptive juices flowing).
   
    Grotto
    
   One of the large staterooms has been converted into a beautiful
   secluded grotto, complete w/ small waterfall and pool (all connected
   to the ship's life support system). This area also has a large
   collection of tropical plants, and appropriate wildlife noises can be
   pumped through the intercom.
   
   The entire ship is decorated with splendid reproductions of Terran
   Baroque and Rococo furniture and art. The Dining Hall features an
   ornate dining table w/high backed chairs which seats up to 15 people
   comfortably. The Louis XIV style is dominant, but other items are also
   present. Mirrors and artwork decorate many of the rough-hewn walls,
   making the effect a most astonishing one. Sconces w/ flickering
   florescent flames adorn the walls of many passageways. The main
   stateroom features an ornate four poster bed and matching dresser made
   of cherry.
   
   There is a well appointed kitchen for serving special meals. (Design
   note: This is in lieu of the Sick Bay, which is little more than a
   workstation, automated medical assistant and medicine cabinet.)
   Needless to say, the crew are well taken care of and serve the Marquis
   with unquestioned loyalty.
   
   Finally, when not in use, the cargo bay can be converted into a small
   fencing venue, complete w/ spectator's seats and automated
   judging/scoring system.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1593
***********************************
Traveller-digest       Tuesday, July 22 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1594



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

THUDDD 5 ballots coming soon
THUDDD 5 Entries (3/3)
THUDDD 5 Entries (2/3)
Racial stereotyping

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:43:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5 ballots coming soon

Sorry for the delay -- THUDDD 5 ballots will be released later this
evening or tomorrow morning.  Note also that (as always) all current and
past THUDDD entries may be viewed via the THUDDD website at

  http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/thuddd.html

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:41:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5 Entries (3/3)

                                      
  Xanadu 3 - Class Yacht
  
   Designer: Bill Ernoehazy blackwilliam@hotmail.com
   Firm: Earneau and Hao Tse, Ltd
   System: QSDS 1.5 + HTOH

Tons:   400 Td (Cylinder S)     Volume:   5600 m3       Cost:   119.7 MCr**
Crew:   15                      Hi/Md P:  10            Low P:  0
Cargo:  38 Td                   Controls: Std/Bridge    TL:     12

Size:   8                              3 Jump (30% x ship disp/Pc Fuel)
                                      3G Maneuver (T-plate)
Weapons None                         2.1 Power Plant (2 200 MW + 1 20 MW)
                                  125 Td Fuel (scoops, TL12 plant refines 10 Td
 fuel/hr)
                                       0 Meson Screen
                                       0 Sandcasters
                                       0 Nuclear Damper
                                A2 P3 J0 Sensors (0 Stealth/Cloak)
                                      20 Armor         12 Structure
                                      61 Length (m)

Crew: 15 (2 elec 2 engr 2 mnvr 2 craft 2 cmd 4 stwd 1 medic;
          ship's captain has single small stateroom, medic stays in a
          small room just off sickbay, all others are in double-occupancy
          small staterooms.)

Facilities:  10 large staterooms, deluxe fittings, for guests
             1 bed sickbay
Min Hgr for: 1 x 20Td Ships's boat
             1 X 10Td airraft

**(custom interiors and fittings can raise the cost considerably,
depending on the buyer's desires and budget)

    Notes:
    
     Space is full of utterly beautiful sights...
     and now, you can own one of them.
     
   Xanadu... a star yacht like no other, blending graceful, sweeping
   lines, the newest jumpdrive technology, and unparalleled elegance in
   interior design.
   
   Xanadu... a ship that catches the eye as you first board her, and your
   heart after you've sailed aboard her.
   
   You enter her through huge, spacious locks port and starboard for'ard,
   specially designed for this class, which allow you to enter in comfort
   and grace, unlike the conventional cramped passenger locks of most
   run-of-the-mill vessels. Before you is the foyer, leading into the
   heart of luxury. Each Xanadu's internal appointments and decor are
   custom tailored to your esthetic; whether you love Erte or
   Yishmanaggu, Yoshinagu or Kinsolving, Wright or Hepplewight, the
   furnishings and fittings will be carefully crafted by artisans who
   will meet your every desire in the finest materials.
   
   From the foyer, your guests can go fore or aft, port or starboard.
   Whichever stateroom they choose, they will have luxurious furnishings,
   an outer stateroom with gorgeous views of space, and nearness to all
   the necessities of luxury travel. Stewards' spaces, stowage, wine
   racks, humidors, all these amenities have been placed in the
   centerline of the ship, to ensure that none of your friends need
   endure the indignity of an inner cabin.
   
   Your party will dine, socialize, and marvel forward... at the Grand
   Lounge, a gracious space 3 times the size of the grandest stateroom,
   whose forward face is a sweeping expanse of specially reinforced,
   transparent superdense hullplate. Your in-system parties can truly be
   held among the stars aboard Xanadu. (Jumpspace need hold no terrors;
   all ports aboard a Xanadu have an inner liquid-crystal sandwich layer,
   which can opaque the ports and provide any number of "views" when the
   outside is aesthetically unpleasant.)
   
   Your short-range travel needs await you amidships. Gleaming, spotless
   hangar bays can be found past guests' spaces, holding a specially
   designed ship's boat and air raft/skimmer, both of which have
   hulllines which evoke and echo those of the Xanadu. (Their basic cost
   is included in the purchase price.) The interior fittings are, like
   all the accomodations for your friends, custom designed to be
   reflections of your taste. Your souvenirs and sporting needs can be
   offloaded diectly into the cargo bay, aft of the hangar spaces. Your
   ship's crew spaces are conveniently located just sternwards of the
   cargo bay, so you can be sure that help with those bulky items is but
   a comm call away. (High-order automation interlinkages keep crewing at
   a minimum, so you and your guests can travel in greater comfort, room,
   and luxury.)
   
   If desired, our architects at E and HT will be pleased to discuss your
   personal needs for further customization of the Xanadu. More guests,
   at a lower jumpdrive rating? Perhaps some defensive capacity, in case
   you have...special security needs? Our staff loves a challenge... the
   challenge of meeting your needs, then exceeding your dreams.
   
   Xanadu... the Fast Yacht from Earneau and Hao Tse.
   
   You deserve yours.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Roswell - Class Yacht (type P-300YL)
  
   Designer: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz
   Firm: Phoenix Corp.
   System: QSDS 1.5

Tons: 300dT (Disk S)    Volume: 4200m^3        Cost: Mcr 93.3
Crew: 12                High/Mid Psg: 8/14     Low: 10
Cargo: 25.4dT           Controls: TL 12 civ    TL: 12

8 Size                            2 Jump Drive (30dt Fuel/Parsec)
Laser Battery (0) 2-0-0-0        1G Maneuver (T-Plate, 84Mw)
                               1.67 Power Plant (5 x 50Mw)
                                    Fuel 62.4dT (S120, R3)
                                  0 Meson Screen
                                  1 Sandcaster (30)
1 20dt Launch port                0 Nuclear Damper
20dT Cramped Hanger        A2 P3 J0 Sensors
  (no craft standard)            20 Armour 12 Structure

Crew: 1 Engineer, 1 Electronics, 2 Maneuver, 1 Gunnery, 1 Screens,
      5 Steward, 1 Command

    Notes:
    
   The Phoenix P-300YL is designed as a casual runabout for the descreet
   and discerning client. As with all Phoenix designs, the P-300YL is
   constructed using only tried and tested componentary using well
   established modular construction methods, married with individualised
   artistic flare; allowing the client to customise his or her vessel to
   their individual tastes. The P-300YL is specifically tailored to meets
   the needs of the up and coming young noble family who are unwilling to
   spend the extravegant sums required for other more traditional yachts.
   
   The P-300YL is fitted with a standard MCI 9000b/12 jump drive giving
   it a range of 2 parsecs and carries 60 tons of jump fuel internally.
   The P-300YL is fully streamlined permitting atmospheric operations and
   is capable of wilderness refueling from gas giants or local oceans;
   and it's onboard Mitre VML(ter) fuel purification plant permits a full
   load fuel to be processed in 20 hours 50 minutes (at a throughput rate
   of 3 tons per hour). In system maneuver is provided by six MCI TG62-a
   gravitic thruster units. Each unit provides up to 700 tons thrust
   giving a sustained acceleration of 1G. Power for these and other
   onboard systems is provided by a set of five coupled Simmens EG-Q27/i
   50Mw fusion reactors. The 2500 Kg of L-Hyd fuel dedicated to the
   reactors provides for up to one year's continuous operation.
   
   The P-300YL is fitted with a Matsui ASC-12bis integrated avionics,
   sensor and communication package. This provides civilian standard
   avionics, along with improved civilian standard sensors and
   communications. The ASC-12bis allows for any individual component to
   be removed and replaced should the need arise. The ASC-12bis features
   advanced avionics exceeding all civil aerospace regulations; AEMS and
   PEMS sensors; 30,000 km range radio; and a 1000AU range tight beam
   maser communicator. The advanced electronics of the P-300YL removes
   the need for a dedicated bridge.
   
   Given the nature of the likely persons to be carried, the P-300YL
   comes with a standard Phoenix PL(C)-2 laser turret and a Phoenix
   PS(C)-7 sandcaster turret; allowing for adequate self defence in the
   case of hostile encounters.
   
   The P-300YL is fitted with a hanger for the transport and launching of
   auxilary craft. However no craft are included with the design,
   allowing for the client to choose craft to meet their individual
   requirements. The hanger itself can carry any standard spacecraft or
   vehicle up to 20dT. Routine maintaince and repairs can be conducted so
   long as the total displacement of carried craft does not exceed 10
   tons. It is envisaged this this hanger will primarily be used for the
   transport of vehicles for the use on the worlds visited.
   
   The standard crew list for the P-300YL is as follows:
       Captain
       Purser
       Pilot
       Astrogator
       Engineer
       Electronics operator
       Chef
       Laser gunner
       Sandcaster gunner
       3 stewards

   The Captain and Purser are provided with large staterooms as befitting
   their status, whilst the remaining crew members are provided with
   comfortable small staterooms for the individual use. A 10 ton
   dedicated cargo area is also provided and if neccessary this can be
   augmented from the space allocated for customisation (up to a total of
   25.4 tons). The remainder of the ship is given over to the needs and
   comfort of it's passengers.
   
   Particular attention has been paid to asthesetic considerations
   throughout the P-300YL. The P-300YL's interior may be customised to
   the clients individual tastes. Several standard options are available
   (Pre-industrial Terran sailing ship, mid-Vilani classical, Sylean
   minimalist, Kuriish Modern etc.) and Phoenix has entered into a
   contract with Vierani of Ginna for the commission of individual
   designs to suit the needs of any client. Exotic natural fittings are
   used throughout the P-300YL such as panelling from the Taragi Tree of
   Daer Map, Crympolin leather upholstery, Bakerlight Turtle door
   fittings, Limbern Crystal chandoliers, Xustonwood flooring etc.
   
   The main personnel entry point to the P-300YL has been deliberately
   designed to be restrictive and cramped, opening on to a wide spacious
   corridor lined with artworks specially commissioned from leading
   artists such as Dev Anraki, Zonto u'Quer and Shariik Shankirlii (to
   name but a few), so as to create a dramatic contrast upon boarding.
   This corridor leads on to the formal reception area. This is designed
   as a classical library/study, with a small bar for the preperation of
   light refreshments for guests.
   
   Running off the reception area is a promanade. One side of this is
   fitted with broad windows allowing dramatic vistas of the vastness of
   space or local scenary (if the P-300YL is grounded). During jump these
   windows are shuttered by holographic screens, shielding occupants from
   exposure to jump space. A prominant feature of the promanade is a
   diverse collection of flora from the far corners of the Imperium.
   
   Both the promanade connects to the main recreation area of the
   P-300YL. This is tasteful designed and decorated (to the clients
   specifications) to allow for a wide variety of recreational pursuits.
   This area is ideal for entertaining guests in a formal or informal
   setting. It connects to both the formal dinning room and the fully
   equiped modern kitchen, allowing the host to hand over the running of
   social functions to the Purser and therefore freeing his or her mind
   from such distracting and tedious details. If it is required the
   partition between the recreation area and dinning room can be removed
   to allow for major functions.
   
   For their comfort passengers and guests are provided with individual
   accommodations. The P-300YL is fitted with six standard large
   staterooms and two larger double sized staterooms for the use of the
   owner and prominent guests. These staterooms are all individually
   designed and decorated by Vierani of Ginna and no two staterooms on
   any P-300YL will be alike. Again clients may select from a wide range
   of standard themes or specify a custom theme to suit their individual
   tastes. All staterooms (as well as the kitchen and Captain and
   Purser's staterooms) are connected by a pnuematic tube message system
   in addition to a descreet emergency intercom.
   
   In addition to these accommodations, no less than fourteen small
   staterooms are provided adjacent to the crew quarters for the
   accomodation of the valets maids, chauffers etc. of the passengers and
   guests. Further to this the P-300YL has ten low berths to allow for
   the transport of equestrian and sporting animals.
   
   To allow for individual clients requirements, 15.5 tons of space has
   been set aside for customisation. This space can be utilised to
   provide anything from additional accommodations, a formal ballroom,
   laboratories for clients to pursue academic interests, trophy rooms
   for safari's, or anything else the client might desire. (Please
   discuss your individual requirements with your local Phoenix
   represenative).
   
   The P-300YL comes with the modest price tag of Mcr 93.3 (including MCr
   3.75 for fittings and the suchlike), and requires 42 weeks to build.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:40:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: THUDDD 5 Entries (2/3)

                                      
  Rising Star
  
   Designer: Peter H. Brenton brenton@psfc.mit.edu
   Firm: Goodenuf Construction Company
   System: SSDS (SAL)

Tons:  500 std (SL Dome/Disc)  Volume:       7,000 m^3  Cost: 411.600 MCr (372.
440 MCr)
Crew:  13/13 (/HighAuto)       Psgrs Hi/Med: 8/0        Low:  0
Cargo: 30.0 std                Controls: Civilian Std (/Bridge)
TL:    12

8  Size Rating                      2 Jump Drive ( 50 std/pc fuel )
                                    3 Maneuver (Thruster, 375 Mw /No CG)
2xLaser Emitters (+4) 1/1-0-0-0     2 Power Plant Rating (2x250Mw)
1xLaser Battery (+4) 1/2-1-0-0    105 Fuel
                                    1 Sandcaster (30 cans)
                                    0 Nuclear Damper
                                    0 Meson Screen
                                    0 Black Globe
                             A1 P2 J0 Sensors
                                   10 Armor,  14 Structure

1xSick Bay ( 8 std )                        1xPool (12x8x3.5m) (35 std)
1xDining Salon (12x7x3m) (18 std)           1xRecreation Room (12x8x3.5m) (35 s
td)
1xExtra Large Kitchen (adds 40m^3) (3 std)  1xHot Tub (4x4x3.5m) (4 std)

1xMinimal Hangar (40 std craft)
1xVehicle Bay (12 std craft)

Crew Details: 1 cmd, 2 mvr, 1 elc, 4 gun, 0 scr, 1 eng, 0 mtn, 0 crf,
              0 trp, 0 sci, 3 stw, 0 brk, 1 med

   A standard 40 ton Pinnace is included in the price and adds MCr 20
   (From T4 Rulebook).
   
   Passengers sometimes choose to travel double occupancy, so
   theoretically the passenger capacity is 16.
   
   Options and appointment packages to be specified by buyer - an example
   of the class is given here. Price includes approx. Mcr 8 to construct
   and equip the Dining Salon, Kitchen, Rec. Room, Pool and Hot Tub
   chamber. There's also a few tons left over (40m^3 or so) which has
   been put to widening passeges, adding decorated alcoves, and generally
   making life more comfortable on board for the passengers.
   
    Wandering Star Charters
    
   Mail Code Sylea-Botania 38312
   
   Gentleperson,
   
   Thank you for your inquiry regarding our luxury charter craft.
   Currently we have available several vessels of the _Eastern Star_
   Class luxury Yacht built by the Goodenuf Construction Company of
   Sylea. The vessel which seems to fit your schedule is the _Rising
   Star_, a 500 ton luxury liner. I have appended a description below.
   Please contact me soon with your intentions since the liner's schedule
   must be set well in advance to assure our low prices.
   
   Speaking of prices, the _Rising Star_ is available, fully crewed, for
   a cost of Mcr 1 for each two weeks (Four week minimum, round trip
   required). There is a strict list of available destinations due to
   potential problems outside Cleon's Imperium, but any destination
   within the Imperium which has no travel restriction is quite
   acceptable.
   
      The Rising Star
      
   Built in the Year 26 by the Goodenuf Construction Company, the _Rising
   Star_ is truly a Jewel in the Wandering Star line of vessels. The
   custom package fitted in this vessel includes a multi-purpose
   recreation room, a specialized swimming pool which can be configured
   for constant flow lap swimming, a steamy hot tub, and a celestial main
   dining salon, with incredible views of the stars (while in normal
   space, of course). All staterooms are two rooms; a bedchamber and a
   parlor, and are luxuriously appointed.
   
      Layout and Configuration
      
   The ship's sleek lines have been commented on since the first of the
   class was built. The smooth manta-shaped body is equipped with a
   Starcaster(TM) maneuver drive capable of 3 standard gravities of
   acceleration, and the Mark II Quick-hop Hyperdrive carries the vessel
   2 parsecs per jump, and double redundant Zhunastu Fusion+(TM) power
   plants provide.
   
   The forward section of the vessel's hull reveals the now-famous Dining
   Salon observation windows on the lower half of the hull, with the
   Ship's bridge occupying a small bulge on the upper half. Two light
   laser turrets are mounted port and starboard of the center section on
   the upper hull towards the aft of the vessel, while the main armament,
   a single heavy laser emitter, is mounted flush with the dorsal hull in
   the center so as not to interfere with the ship's landing operations.
   
   Hull sections taper to either side of the main portion of the hull,
   acting as atmospheric control surfaces and giving the ship a
   streamlined look. A long tapering aft hull section contains drives and
   the 40 ton ship's boat hangar. An additional hangar for a vehicle of
   up to 12 tons is available for Guest's vehicles and can accommodate
   either ground or grav vehicles (A luxury speeder is also available for
   an additional fee). A 35 ton cargo bay with a ventral loading hatch is
   available for guest use, and can also accommodate vehicles.
   
   Internal accommodations justify the reputation of the vehicle class.
   Each passenger stateroom suite has two rooms, a bedchamber and parlor.
   The bedchambers are draped in rich fabrics from different sections of
   the Imperium, covering the walls and ceiling and giving the illusion
   that guests are in some noble mansion, rather than traveling through
   space. Oversized canopy beds are made up fresh daily (or more often if
   you wish). Deep-stained hardwoods make up the dressers, bedframe, and
   other furniture, while elegant flagstones and beautiful handmade rugs
   cover the floors.
   
   A stone fireplace adorns each parlor, along with large comfortable
   chairs and divans in a styles from Vilani times. The fireplace gives
   off a gentle warmth and flickering light of real flame, but requires
   no manual feeding. A wet bar gives instant access to whatever snack or
   beverage the guest wishes to have on hand, while a fully stocked bar
   and kitchen is available at all times in the main dining salon. Access
   terminals are ingeniously hidden until needed for work. A large oaken
   table is set against one wall which can be employed as work surface or
   dinner table if the guest takes meals in.
   
   We hope, though, that the guests will attend dinner in the main Dining
   Salon each night. Our expert Chef prepares an incredible meal each
   evening in his well appointed kitchen. The room in which this meal is
   served makes all occasions special. Up to 17 ebony high backed chairs
   (one for each passenger assuming double occupancy staterooms plus one
   for the Captain) can be set around the solid Obsidian table, on which
   the gleaming blue stylized tableware positively sparkles, and the
   solid crystalline glasses gleam with an inner light. the room is
   paneled with rare vlandian deep-rose quartz, and a gentle golden light
   is emitted from frosted-glass sconce fixtures around the room, as well
   as the electric blue crystalline chandelier overhead.
   
   Backlit glass cabinets along one wall of the room display the ships
   service; bowls of rare crystal, plates and flatware of different new
   and ancient style in materials that make the most jaded visitors gawk,
   serving dishes of the finest silver, rare liquors and fine vintage
   wines from all over the Imperium and beyond are displayed for your
   appreciation.
   
   What draws the eyes however, especially in orbit, is the wall of glass
   that makes up the front wall of the salon. Polarized crystal viewports
   look out on whatever vista is presently displayed, and can be
   conveniently blacked out in jumpspace or during a burningly bright
   reentry. The windows angle from your feet outward, giving a falling
   sensation any who stand by the glass. The view is broken only by
   narrow structural supports, necessary for safety reasons. Generally
   dinner is served by the light of the stars or the light reflected off
   the orb of whatever planet lies below. When this light enters the
   salon, the chandelier fractures it into a million beams which throw
   ever-changing beautiful patterns on the walls and ceiling of the
   chamber.
   
   When not dining, guests can still be entertained and kept in shape in
   the 12 meter by 6 meter exercise pool. In exercise pool mode a
   constantly adjusting current is maintained to keep the swimmer in
   place as she or he completes their desired distance swim. It can even
   be adjusted so that when the swimmer reaches the end of the 12 meter
   length of the pool they have actually swum a simulated Olympic sized
   pool length. At its deepest end, the pool is 2 meters deep.
   
   Near the pool is a hot tub, the relaxing heated tub provides a gentle
   means of easing muscles overworked in the exercise room just to
   starboard, and has the option of operating in zero gravity with a
   breathing apparatus, an experience that has to be felt to be believed.
   Aquatic scenes decorate the ceramic interior of the tub, hand painted
   and custom made for the ship.
   
   The aforementioned exercise room has many standard high tech
   resistance and weightlifting equipment, and a small games court which
   can be configured for a number of games (Some take the entire exercise
   room, and other equipment is stowed when used for this purpose).
   Gravity is fully adjustable, so those incredible slam dunks are now
   easy, no matter what shape you are in. And if you want a real workout,
   add 30% to the gravity and see how hard roto-ball can really be. This
   double height room is the mirror image of the pool section, and is at
   the same level as the bottom of the pool, but on the opposite side of
   the ship.
   
   A fully stocked sick bay staffed by a full time doctor is on board to
   meet any medical need. In addition we have spared no expense in making
   sure our passengers are delivered safely. Three laser and a defensive
   sandcaster are carried, and at 3G acceleration, there is only a very
   small likelihood that our well trained gunners would have anything to
   shoot at. Sensors, communications and other equipment are all
   state-of-the-art Imperial technology, not backwater imitations. Our
   components are manufactured for us to exacting specifications, not
   "cookie cutter" standard components which have been outsourced to
   who-knows-where. You will meet and get to know your captain during
   your journey, so you can be confident about how the ship is being
   handled. A full staff of 6 stewards and a chef see to your every need.
   
   We hope you will join us as we cruise among the stars of the Imperium!
   
    Design Notes
    
   Designed using SSDS by way of Andrew Akins design template (The
   "Starship Assembly Line").
   
   Obviously this ship is built for ambiance, not to make money (not the
   usual way, anyway).
   
   Glean what you can from the text regarding shape and layout. I
   envision a shape like a flattened horseshoe crab, with drive sections
   to either side of the ship's boat hangar, which sort of overhangs the
   stern cargo hatch. The reference to "atmospheric control surfaces" was
   more fanciful than factual since the vessel is streamlined only, not
   an airframe. The shape I envision does, however, somewhat resemble a
   flying wing.
   
   The pool and rec room each occupy 490 m^3 I would be interested to
   hear if anyone thinks this is insufficient. The hot tub is between the
   two and occupies 22m^3. It should also have an airlock, but the design
   does not include one. The dining salon occupies 252m^3 at the bow of
   the vessel. It should be considered a serious vulnerability in battle.
   I added 40m^3 to the Kitchen, theorizing that most shipboard galleys
   are tiny efficient little affairs unworthy of the attention of a chef.
   
   Gunners double as stewards (wouldn't the passengers love to hear
   that?) when not gunning. 3 stewards are also on the crew and are full
   time. They will all be able to cook, but one is the master chef (no
   extra salary is figured into the cost though). The doctor is also
   employed as a passenger liaison, and the Captain is expected to dine
   with the passengers.
   
   A standard (but well furnished) 40 ton pinnace is docked in a hangar
   on the aft dorsal portion of the craft. Forward of and beside this are
   crew quarters, with the bridge at the bow of the upper deck. To the
   right and left of this central "spine" are the oversized rec room and
   pool, with the hot tub room beneath the spine. Beneath the Bridge
   itself is the dining salon. Outboard, in front of, and behind the
   'big' rooms are the passenger staterooms which often have one square
   meter observation ports when possible.
   
   Each passenger stateroom is actually one large stateroom and one small
   stateroom. They are either single or double occupancy, as desired by
   passenger.
   
   This vessel costs almost 400,000 credits per week to operate
   (including mortgage)! Obviously this expense is either going to be
   paid by a very rich owner, or some profitable run must be found where
   the passengers pay 50,000 per week (single occupancy) for
   transportation, and the ship runs full all the time. I had the idea of
   a luxury charter service. This allows rich nobles to travel in style
   without actually buying a vessel. Rather than paying passage (and
   being unable to control what riffraff occupies the other staterooms),
   they rent the whole vessel by the month. In any case, low operating
   cost is obviously not a priority.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Imelda - Class Yacht
  
   Designer: Roderick Darroch Elliott rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca
   Firm: Famille Spofulam Yards
   System: SSDS (beta pdf)

Tons: 500 Std (A/F Saucer)    Volume: 7000 m^3                   Cost: 305 MCr
Crew: 14                      High/Mid Pass: 9                   Low: 0
Cargo: 20 Std                 Controls: TL-12 Hi auto (Bridge)   TL: 12

08 Size                               03 Jump Drive (150 Std/Pc Fuel)
                                      04 Maneuver (T-plate, 20,000 Tons Thrust)
01x 95 Mj Civ. Laser (0) 1/1-0-0-0    2.4 Power Plant (1x 600Mw)
                                      150 Fuel (Scoop 40, Refine 8.3)
                                      00 Meson Screen (0 Mw)
                                      01 Sandcasters (30 Cans)
01x Spacious Hangar (20 td launch)    00 Nuclear Damper
                                      A4 P4 J0 Sensors (0 Stealth/Cloak)
                                      10 Armor, 22 Structure

Crew Detail: 02 Command, 02 Sensors, 02 Gunners, 02 Engineer, 03 Steward,
             02 Flight Deck

Notes: Vessel is equipped with sickbay.

   News Item, Imperial Yacht Club Newsletter, IY 16-322:
   
    Famille Spofulam Yards Launches New Yacht
    
   Recently, I was given the opportunity of touring the first production
   model of Famille Spofulam's latest yacht offering. Greeted by Hengabar
   Spofulam at Famille Spofulam's orbital HQ, I was treated to the usual
   Spofulam wet bar and buffet before being ushered onto the antiseptic
   floor of Production Line #3 to tour the prototype, which is to be used
   as a corporate yacht by FSY.
   
   This reporter's first reaction upon viewing FSY's latest, sitting
   incongrously next to the hulking black form of a Bludgeon-class patrol
   cruiser, was: "It's a baby Caligula!". Indeed, the Imelda-class yacht
   (named after an ancient Terran queen renowned for her love of luxury
   and lavish tastes) is outwardly very similar to FSY's well-known
   1000-ton megayacht; it has an airframe saucer hull with prominent
   vertical stabilizers evoking early space-age Terran ground craft
   styling, in default hull colour settings of hot pink and chrome.
   Although the Imelda is somewhat sleeker than the Caligula, the family
   resemblance is pronounced.
   
   The Imelda's performance and specifications are pure Spofulam; 4G
   T-plate maneuver drives, a 3-parsec jump drive, a hull stressed to
   10G's for atmospheric operations and heavy armour are what we've come
   to expect from Hengabar's boys and girls. The only exception is the
   rather prosaic 95 Mj laser/sandcaster armament suite. Scoops, a
   purification plant and a hangar for a 20-ton launch reflect the
   Spofulam concern for spaceworthiness and functionality; the Imelda is
   capable of more than just the Highport to Highport run. In general,
   this is a fast, long-ranged and capable craft.
   
   While the exterior and performance specs are fairly standard for a
   Spofulam vessel. the interior decor reflects a new departure from
   FSY's trademark blond wood and indirect lighting motif. Rather than
   striving for simplicity, maximum ergonomic efficiency, and richness of
   material, FSY's interior designers have gone for all-out opulence in
   the newly popular Restoration style; an ornate fusion of First and
   Second Imperium motifs expressed in Sylean materials. The result, the
   product of months of work by noted designer Chonpohl Ghohltyeh, is
   stunning: the panelling is of burled green Lartsa-wood, with obsidian
   tile floors inlaid with green and white nephrite. Fixtures are crafted
   of Iridium-plated gold engraved with both Imperial Sunbursts and Ziru
   Sirkaa and Rule of Man heraldry, and the furnishings are upholstered
   in the finest butter-soft Noggah skin, dyed to match the panelling.
   Ghohltyeh's services are available for those wishing to create their
   own decors, albeit for an additional fee.
   
   Mr. Spofulam led me in through the hangar, as the passenger airlocks
   were not yet fully completed. The hangar is situated right aft,
   between the two vertical stabilizers. At the moment empty, the hangar
   is designed to accomodate an Imperial-standard 20td launch, with space
   enough to permit maximum ease of on-board service. After a perfunctory
   explanation of the hangar facilities, I was led forward, detouring
   through the somewhat smaller (20td) cargo hold, into the working areas
   of the ship, on the lower deck.
   
   The lower deck is laid out in a rather simple manner; right aft is the
   hangar, which connects to the cargo hold as well as to the central
   engineering area. A rather nice touch in the hangar area is the large
   and luxuriously appointed passenger grav shaft leading directly up to
   the main corridor on the passenger deck; this permits passengers to
   disembark in style and proceed to the passenger areas without having
   to tour through the working areas of the ship.
   
   Forward of the cargo bay lies the engineering spaces; the J-3 Famille
   Spofulams Subsystems Jump Drive hulks immaculately in the center in a
   large compartment, where the two engineering workstations are
   situated. Access hatches to the spaces containing the twin 10,000
   ton-rated Spofulam Gravitics maneuver drives (mounted aft, outboard of
   the vertical stabilizers) are situated at the rear of the jump drive
   compartment. Likewise, access hatches for the 600Mw Zhunastu Fusion
   Systems power plant (to portside of the jump drive compartment), and
   purification plant (to starboard of the jump drive compartment)
   radiate from the jump drive compartment.
   
   Forward of the jump drive compartment is an access hatch leading to a
   compartment holding a grav shaft to the passenger areas, and
   connecting to the sickbay and 5-workstation bridge. From here on,
   Ghohltyeh's hand became evident; the decor changed from workmanlike
   Spofulam engineering-area industrial chic to Restoration-style
   splendour; the sickbay is as much of a work of the desinger's creative
   mind as it is one of medical engineering. Like the sickbay, the bridge
   has Lartsa-wood panelling on all non-instrument surfaces, and is laid
   out around a massive owner's chair, with power swivel, an endless
   range of adjustments, a refreshment center in one arm and a
   comm/computer panel in the other, and upholstered in what must have
   been the hides of the softest baby Noggahs.
   
   Returning to the grav shaft in the hangar, Mr Spofulam led me up to
   the passenger deck. The grav shaft opens up onto a
   luxuriously-appointed corridor leading forwards. Discreet panels at
   the aftermost end of the main corridor lead to the crew quarters and
   galley and stewarding areas. The accomodations are luxurious, even for
   the crew; all crew save gunners and the two junior stewards have large
   staterooms to themselves. While not up to the standard of accomodation
   of the passenger areas, not even the most work-to-rule member of the
   Spacers Guild could find anything to complain of here: the staterooms
   are all done in traditional Spofulam blond wood and indirect lighting.
   After a brief tour of the crew areas, which connect to engineering via
   twin grav shafts to port and starboard, I was led back into the main
   corridor and into the passenger areas.
   
   The double-width doors at the end of the corridor open inwards, to the
   tune of Famille Spofulam's corporate anthem, to reveal an immense
   (300M^3) oval lounge divided into dining, recreational, and lounging
   areas by artfully placed and shaped planters filled with a variety of
   Terran, Sylean, and Vilani vegetation. The Imelda's passenger areas
   are centered around this space: eight staterooms are provided for the
   comfort of the owner's guests, five of which are standard 4td large
   staterooms, and three of which FSY has termed "MegaStaterooms"; vast
   and opulent 150M^3 spaces containing every possible amenity.
   
   Even these are beggared by the master's stateroom, which at 216 M^3,
   or 15 displacement tons, is quite simply immense, with huge panoramic
   viewports set in the ceiling. The furnishings are of course quite
   spectacular; a large canopied bed, sunken coversation pit, immense wet
   bar carved from a simple lump of black jade, and amazingly, a
   fireplace crowned with an actual working ancient Terran "Lava Lamp",
   one of only four known to be in existence. However, these are all
   minor details compared to the Imelda's most noteworthy feature; 66M^3
   of the master's stateroom are taken up by what has to be the single
   most gigantic 'fresher ever installed on a private vessel, situated
   dead forwards. Resembling more a tropical greenhouse than it does a
   sanitation facility, it holds a hot tub, a sauna, and several large
   planters filled with a variety of Sylean, Terran, and Vilani tropical
   plants. Terran bats and parrots and other exotic flying life forms fly
   from plant to plant, their cries echoing pleasantly from the walls.
   Most remarkable, however, is the massive alabaster-and-Iridium toilet,
   situated at the very front of the vessel, facing huge panoramic
   windows dead forwards.
   
   FSY expects to begin semi-custom production of the Imelda-class early
   next year, at the rate of "one or two" a year.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:26:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Racial stereotyping

> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 21:47:27 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> 
> << 
>  The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>  humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
>  gizmos, etc.
> >>
> 
> I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.

No more (or less) so than the stereotypes that men are taller and stronger
than women, or Tahitians more relaxed and less repressed than Swedes. 
Everything is a bell curve; I'm a tall guy, but there are many thousands
of women in the world taller than I am.  Nonetheless, if I imagine a
"generic" woman, she's much shorter than I am.  And 99% of the time, this
stereotype holds in reality. 

Similarly, there are probably Vargr who favor subtle Edwardian decor, wear
beige clothing, and couldn't care less about shiny gadgets...but they're
in a minority.  If a party knows nothing about an NPC they are to contact
other than that it's a Vargr, they will assume that said NPC will be
highly status-conscious, 'badly' dressed (in human terms!), and prone to
sudden enthusiasms and (perhaps) anger.  And again, a good portion of the
time they'll be right. 

That's why the human mind is so good at forming and applying stereotypes; 
it allows us to organize our experiences and make predictions quickly and
effortlessly, without a lot of conscious logic.  However, the downside is
that when the stereotypes fail, resulting damage can be great.  If the
party above decides to run a con on the Vargr involving a shiny,
impressive gadget that really does nothing useful, and the particular
Vargr is the sort I describe above...and, say, Electronics-4...the party
is in for a very rude awakening. 

It's really quite amazing the way stereotypes shape our society.  I
attended a small engineering college, which shared a large campus with
several specialized liberal-arts colleges.  Needless to say, we engineers
labored under a terrible weight of stereotyping as "the geeks" -- which
was to a large extent perfectly true, of course.  But one small cultural
response was fascinating.  It was taboo at my school to wear a calculator
on your belt.  Doing so would have been incredibly convenient at times --
you ended up needing one throughout the day, and putting it on your belt
would have meant one less thing in your backpack or hands.  However, this
was (by tacit but universal agreement) judged to be playing right into the
geek stereotype, so almost nobody did so...and those who did were
considered ubergeeks by us slightly-less-geeky geeks.

Pondering this makes me wonder whether Vargr (or other nonhumans) doing
business with the predominantly human 3I might not consciously adapt their
behavior toward human norms, just to prove they're not "those *crazy*
Vargr" (or whatever), but rather less unusual or threatening "acceptable"
members of an otherwise off-putting race.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1594
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 23 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1595



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Another reason not to do business with the Martian Consulate
Re: Drac/Savoie?
Re: Strange design/drive question
Psioncs Trivia (Was Re: Psionic Institutes)
Re: FTL Commo?
Re: Exploding H2 tanks
Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space
Re: other minor races
Re: T4.1 Character Generation
Tasteless Vargr
Grandfather Elvis
Re: FWD: Special offer for Travelle
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
IG and Origins
Re: A little ride
Re: Spreading Technology
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: Refueling and fusion power

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:36:49 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Another reason not to do business with the Martian Consulate

Above and beyond the questionable legality of their claims, I just got a
UCE spam from them.  

To make matters worse, they are using Spamford Wallace's Cyberpromo.

To dig themselves even deeper, they claim to use iemmc.org's removal lists.
 Since I could never get their removal page to work, I contacted their
webmaster, who I have email from stating that I'm on their removal list.
If I'm on the damn list, how come I continue to get UCE SPAM from people
claiming to use their lists?

Ob-Traveller:  I think it should be added to the law level codes, that UCE
Spammers in high law levels, are forces to wear a scarlet 'S' on their
foreheads.


- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/  Opinions Mine!
"The Court declares that Cyber Promotions does not have a right under the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution [...] to send unsolicited 
email advertisements over the Internet..." said Judge Charles R. Weiner, of 
the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in his ruling,
November 4, 1996
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:53:39 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Drac/Savoie?

	Doug Berry wrote:

>At 08:35 PM 7/21/97 -0400, Rod wrote:
>
>>	This may be reaching it, but is "Drac" short for "Draconian"?  If
>>so, I may have encountered this dude in an earlier
>>white-supremacist/neo-nazi based out of Toronto incarnation on WWIV a few
>>years ago...
>>
>>	From what I read about this Savoie dude; the francophone name
>>indicates CDN origin, and the handle seems to fit...
>
>That may be him.. I know that he lives in/near Toronto, and the style seems
>similar.


	Great...  IIRC, he's a real asshole.  What group did you say he was
on?   I might just swing by and toast his ass for old times sake :).

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:51:46 -0400
From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

Andrew Boulton wrote:

>Scott,
>
>> What would happen if you activated a jump drive while during a jump?
>>
>> For example, lets say we have a test vehicle that has two jump 1 drives.
>> The ship enters jumpspace, and then activates the second jump drive.
>>
>> Possibilities:
>>
>> 1) Ship explodes
>
>2) Ship misjumps, then explodes
>3) Ship explodes, then misjumps
>4) the crew throw the captain out of the airlock before he can give the
>order
>5) All of the above

	Ship re-enters normal space many parsecs away, several centuries
later, inverted in all three dimensions?

	Got that out of a book I'm reading right now called _Pheonix in
Flight_ by two people whose names I forget.   Kinda readable...

	Or... the second drive pinches a jump bubble out of the first
bubble... and a week later re-enters jumpspace way hellandgone out
somewhere, where there's no jump bubble to protect it.  Boom, and it
re-enters normal space as subatomic particles spread over parsecs...

	Or... it just pops the ship into yet another dimension where the
laws of physics/reality make jumpspace look staider and more normal than
your grandmother's wednesday night bridge game; the ship re-enters normal
space warped and totally buggered up on the subatomic scale with the crew
dead and distorted in strange and horrible ways, or just totally insane.

	Or... the ship jumps out of jumpspace; the jump bubble re-enters
our universe on schedule, but empty.  In some other dimension, ship and
crew become a new big bang; a brand new universe is suddenly created.  Over
billenia, galaxies form, life occurs, civilizations arise, the stuff of
infinite epic tales occurs, and entropy eventually rules as heat death
takes place.

Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:12:50 -0700
From: David Smart <dsmart@flash.net>
Subject: Psioncs Trivia (Was Re: Psionic Institutes)

Suz spake unto us:
>
>> Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of 
>> it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on 
>> the list.
>
> Personally, I'm hoping this means that everyone likes it.  TML is  
> usually so vocal in its dislikes and objections.... <G>

> Suz

PI, IMHO, is one of the best works yet by IG. It's given me insight not
only in M0 development of psionics but also helped in the development
of TNE Regency-based adventures _and_ brought home some of the problems
the Zhodani had to deal with. Yep, that's right, folks...I said the
Zhos.

There was a time in the ancient past (around -6800 in Zho years) in which
the Zhodani were ruled by _non-psionic_ nobility who had the upper hand
over psionic nobles. Check out GDW's Alien Module 4 (hey, Marc! Are
these AMs ever going to be republished?).

And now, a Traveller trivia question:
Which race dabbled with psionics _without_ Zhodani assistance?
A hint - this race has made at least one major contribution to the
background setting of Traveller.

Let's see if anyone can ID this race, state the source and proof of
the dabbling, and ID one of the major contributions.
It's a toughie, I'll admit.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 21:17:39 -0400
From: Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net>
Subject: Re: FTL Commo?

Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> 
> Traveller (Commo no faster than go) goes down the tubes...
> 
> ==========================================================================
> Jeff Zeitlin                                jeff.zeitlin@earth.execnet.com

This sounds like the Einstein-Rosen-Poldolsky "paradox" which has
generated a lot of controversy and theoretical research over the 
past 62 years (the original paper was published in 1935).

The controversy surrounds the exact nature of the "meaning" of
the experiment.  It apparently holds clues to the "quantum
interconnectedness" of the universe, whatever that means.  This,
along with multiple parallel universes are both rather hot topics
in theoretical physics today.  There also seems to be an interest in
exotic theory & technologies, like "gravitics," "vacuum energy,"
and FTL comms. (Some of this is new enough that it still is shrouded
in a lot of bad pseudoscience, but the legitimate research is there.
Cosmologists like Kip Thorne are actually designing time machines
using exotic matter and wormholes (both in short supply recently).  
We've had a "practical" design for a time machine since th 1930's
(practical as long as you have a handy infinitely long neutronium
cylinder spinning at c/2, that is...)

BTW, the EPR paradox forms the foundation of a quantum teleportation
theory advanced (for real) last year.

As an added note,

Back in 1995, a team of researchers transmitted Mozarts 40th symphony 
at 5.7 times the speed of light through the boundary layer of a
microwave 
waveguide. The effect is due to quantum tunneling.  

Still, nothing to indicate that the Traveller universe is anything less 
than feasible.

- -Dan Lane

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:32:15 -0500 (CDT)
From: Don Stark <stark@glacier.nrlssc.navy.mil>
Subject: Re: Exploding H2 tanks

> Nicolas LEJEUNE wrote:
> > 
> > Imagine this situation:
> > 
> > A starship as flying trough atmosphere, and an AirAir missile is striking
> > her. Assuming the startship is somekind of wild trader.
> > 
> > Usual hit result is Fuel. In space fuel is lost and is spread in void. But
> > in Atmosphere, this wouldn't be the same, A hole in the hull, LH2 leak and
> > ....booom ... bye bye 80MCr starship :-(
> 
There is actually a strong argument as to why there might be no explosion 
at all. A number of decades ago auto manufacturers started experimenting 
with hydrogen gas as an auto fuel. One of the first concerns was exactly the 
issue of the car becoming a huge fireball if it were in an accident. Anyway 
a chemist came up with a fairly lo-tech solution. My chemistry is a bit 
rusty, so bare with me -- if you put powdered metal hydride inside of the 
tank, the compound will inhibit the natural tendency of hydrogen to oxidize. 
I recall reading that the tanks survived being shot with incendiary rounds.
Now a natural question is why wasn't this done for the shuttle -- perhaps
weight or cost? I don't know the answer. The point is that it is possible to
chemically reduce the chance of a secondary hydrogen explosion provided the 
initial explosion doesn't completely tear apart the ship.


    
- -------------------------------------------------------------------- 
                                |                                   |
Don Stark                       |           ,/7_                    |
                                |          /   _`,                  |
Naval Research Lab, Code 7322   |         (.)\) \|_                 |
Bay St. Louis, MS 39529         |          0    /^~'                |
- --------------------------------|                                   |
e-mail: stark@nrlssc.navy.mil   |                                   |
- --------------------------------|                                   |
Phone: (601) 688-4151 work      |              ' )( `               |
       (601) 688-4759 fax       |   ~~~~~~~~~~~''  ``~~~~~~~~~~~~   |
- --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:48:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: <sigh> Was: Re: No yanks in space

In a message dated 97-07-22 16:41:04 EDT, you write:

<< 
 MARC HAS STATED IN PUBLIC THAT THE VARGR HAVE NO TASTE.  THIS FUFILS THE
 RCCC REQUIREMENTS FOR CANON.  PLEASE ADJUST YOUR REALITY ACCORDINGLY.
 
  >>
LOL

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:49:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: other minor races

Thanks for the discussion. We have hit on the reality of Traveller: Wheels
within Wheels.

Early on in Traveller, I believed (and promoted) the idea of Major/Minor
race. Later on, it became extremely enjoyable looking deeper into how things
really worked.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:49:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation

In a message dated 97-07-22 13:22:44 EDT, you write:

<< 
 I've seen people referring to the character generation charts for T4.1 and
 testing them. I assume this was published on the TML, and somehow I missed
 it. Would some kind soul please send me a copy of this? I'd like to take a
 look at it. Thanks.
 
 Allen
  >>

I am happy to email a zipped copy (for the PC) of the current charts for T41
Chargen to anyone who asks. Email your request to

FarFuture@aol.com

Marc Miller

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:55:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Tasteless Vargr

> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:57:23 -0700
> From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
> 
>>> The published literature is full of racial stereotyping of the vargr by
>>> humans -- they have cheap tastes, they like flashy colors and shiny
>>> gizmos, etc.
>>
>>I hadn't realized that that was stereotyping. I thought it was true.
>>
>>Marc
> 
> VROOP! VROOP!  CANON ALERT! CANON ALERT!
> 
> MARC HAS STATED IN PUBLIC THAT THE VARGR HAVE NO TASTE.  THIS FUFILS THE
> RCCC REQUIREMENTS FOR CANON.  PLEASE ADJUST YOUR REALITY ACCORDINGLY.

"'No taste?' Hardly.  A bit gamey, perhaps, and certainly in need of a
proper marinade, but overall quite satisfying, and *infinitely* better
than Aslan." 

	- Craig the Anti-K'Kree

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:29:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Grandfather Elvis

> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:46:59 -0400
> From: Roderick Darroch Elliott <rellio@po-box.mcgill.ca>
> 
> Bruce Johnson wrote:
> 
> >> Who built the Pyramids?
> >>
> >> 	Elvis!
> >
> >The Bermuda triangle??
> >
> >Elvis needs boats! Elvis needs boats!
> 
> 	D'you think there might be an Elvis-Templars link?  Or worse, might
> Elvis actually have been Yaskodray?  Think about it...

*click*

Suddenly, it all becomes clear.  The history of known space, past and
future, is encoded in the lyrics of Elvis (abbreviated Hebrew-Latin for
"God Sees") Presley ("Pres," for "prescient," and "ley" for law, as he is
the law-giver).  Thus, he is "The God Who Sees Future Law," that is, whose
view encompasses and defines what Shall Be. 

Consider:

"Hound Dog" - Clear documentation of the creation of the Vargr ("nothin'
but a hound dog"), whose constant complaining ("cryin' all the time") and
imperfect loyalty made them "no friend of mine [Yaskodray]." 

"Heartbreak Hotel" - Consider that merely by changing "baby" to "babies"
(and grandbabies), its opening verse

  Now since my baby left me I've found a new place to dwell:
  down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel.
  I'm so lonely, I'm so lonely,
  I'm so lonely that I could die.

perfectly and evocatively describes the aftermath of the Final War, with
Yaskodray finding "a new place to dwell" (his pocket universe) after his
babies leave him (having been on the receiving end of TL-30 weaponry).
Note the special poignancy in the fact that these "babies" were created by
him to relieve his loneliness, which has now returned.

"Viva Las Vegas" - Yaskodray's well-known penchant for planetary
modification -- and his boundless energy -- are well captured in the lines

  How I wish that there were more 
  Than the twenty-four hours in the day 
  'Cause even if there were forty more 
  I wouldn't sleep a minute away 

There is more, much more...just what ancient artifact is "Blue Suede
Shoes" warning us away from, and how significant is the parallel to the
Eden myth?...but I'd best stop now, as there is a mysterious knocking at
my door...

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:15:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: GDWGAMES@aol.com
Subject: Re: FWD: Special offer for Travelle

Volker A. Greimann:

>- -> >> When, oh when, will the Holy Grail of Traveller be published (the CD
with
>- -> >> electronic versions of everything GDW and DGP printed)?
>- -> >
>- -> >And the special editions, with a scan of Marc's signature on...
>- -> 
>- -> I'm holding out for the audio track with Marc and Loren singing "In the
>- -> Year 2525"...
>Hey, this could actually sell ;-)

You've never heard me sing, have you?

Loren Wiseman
      GDW Emeritus

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:38:12 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

Franklin W. Cain writes:

>They didn't show up at Dragon*Con either.  Dragon*Con is the *largest* 
>sci-fi convention in the Southeast US, with the *best* publicity (i.e., 
>*highest* amount of media coverage).  It's been advertised/covered in 
>newspapers, magazines, and radio.  It's attendance is measured in the
>*thousands* (about 8k, last time I asked them).  
>
>The funny thing is, when I sent a message to IG asking if they'd be here,
>they said "Yes."  

   It appears that IG needs to hire a consultant to tell them which
conventions are worth attending and which ones aren't.  Anyone want to
volunteer?  :-)  Seriously, the overall inexperience of the IG
headquarters staff concerning these matters is showing.  I'm surprised
that those in a position to know didn't pass along the information
already.

David J. Golden writes:

>   Just remember--not only does con attendance cost money, but every person
>who attends a con is one person who is NOT slaving away on the upcoming
>T4.1 revision ...

   I was under the impression that Marc was handling the T4.1 revision. 
As for the cost, as they say, "you have to spend money to earn money."

Eris Reddoch writes:

>I'm not much of a conventioneer, but what do you think of picking some
>medium sized convention next summer for us to focus on?  Really, have a
>strong Traveller presence?  GenCon is too big and so is Origins, but
>something like Dragon*Con might be about the right size.
>
>What do you think?

   If I were a RPG game manufacturer, attendence both GenCon and Origins
would pretty much be mandatory.  I would also pick several of the
Dragon*Con-sized events to send representatives--you pretty much want to
make sure you hit each region of the country at least once.  As for
international events, that would depend upon my travel budget.  Going to
a convention in Europe can get very expensive.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:40:53 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: IG and Origins

Andrew Boulton wrote:

> Maybe they were all too busy proofreading and playtesting the new
> stuff...?

   Update: I was informed today by my friend John Muncy that he managed
to track down the IG booth on Saturday.  It was not there the two days I
looked through the vendor area (Thursday and Friday).

   He spoke with an individual, Matt Geisler, who tipped him to IG's
prescence.  Matt had contacted IG back before the convention and asked
them if they were going to be at Origins and if they would like him to
run a game there.  While they were positive about Matt running a game
(he was the one running the post-Collaspe, T4 mechanics game I told you
about in my last post), they were apparently fuzzy on one detail: they
didn't know what Origins was or when it was being held.  IG's
participation appears to have been organized at the last minute from
Matt's description.

   John spoke with two individuals at the IG booth on Saturday.  From
his description it was small but overall looked pretty good.  All the IG
published materials appeared to be on display.  The two individuals in
the booth answered some of his questions regarding T4, but didn't have
any responses to any of his more pointed remarks (John is a dedicated
TNEer who has just plain gotten tired of investing in new game
systems).  I don't believe he asked about T4.1, nor did the IG personnel
at the convention say anything about it (can't say I blame them there). 
His overall impression is that the IG personnel at Origins were the two
unfortunate individuals who happened to be standing around the water
cooler when Courtney came by looking for somebody to put on a plane to
Columbus.

   I wish I had been able to meet with the IG personnel on Saturday, but
like I said, circumstances did not permit it.  I may have made a special
trip to Columbus on Sunday morning had I known they were going to be
there--they certainly weren't listed in the on-site convention
literature, so I hold myself blameless.  Now that IG can find Origins on
a map, perhaps their presentation will be better next time around.

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:25:10 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: A little ride

Last night I made one of the (apparent) Cardinal Sins on this mailing
list. i made an off the top of my head post in reply to the discussion
about using non-optimuim fuels in relation to a Traveller vehicle. The
post was sloppy (no excuse, I just winged it without thinking :^(  !) At
any rate I did look at the books after the error of my ways was pointed
out to me and found a little information.

The following is quoted from the API (American Petroleum Institute)
Flyer entitled Facts About Oil
Page 28
"Gasoline

    Motor and aviation gasolines are blends of straight-run gasoline
(obtained by primary distillation), natural gasoline (one of the liquids
processed out of natural gas), cracked gasoline, reformed gasoline,
polymerized gasoline and alkyl ate.
    To these gasoline blends, refiners add a wide variety of chemicals,
called additives, to further improve the quality of the fuel.
    Antiknock compounds are one such gasoline additive. Their purpose is
to reduce or eliminate the "knock" or "ping" that occurs when the fuel
is not being properly burned in the engine. The measure of  gasoline's
resistant to engine knock is it's octane number. This is determined by
comparing a gasoline with fuels of known composition and knock
characteristics under specified conditions. Two different types of tests
conducted in single cylinder laboratory engine yield antiknock measures
calls Research or Motor Octane Number...
    The octane number found on gas station pumps is, "... derived by
adding the Research and the Motor Octane Numbers and then dividing by
two..." commonly expressed as (R+M)/2
        "...Over the years, the octane numbers of gasoline have
increased as automotive engineers have developed cars with higher
compression ratios. In 1935, regular-grade gasoline had a Research
Octane Number of 72. By 1976, it had risen to 93.3. Premium gasolines
rose during the same period from Research Octane of 78 to almost 100."
    "... And, because smaller cars can operate with lower octane
gasoline, octane numbers have moved downward..." since 1976.

Continuing from the same source...
Aviation Gasoline
    "... In 1918, specifications were set up for a suitable aviation
gasoline that was distinctly different from the fuel consumed in
automobiles..."
    After WW1, "... Researchers realized that the key was a standardized
fuel of high anti-knock characteristics. Refiners... developed an
aviation gasoline with an octane number of about 87. In 1934, an
aviation fuel of 200 octane was developed."

Continuing from the same source...
Jet Fuels
    " When research first began on jet fuels, commercially available
kerosene was used because of it's relatively low volatility... Today's
commercial jet airliners still depend on highly refined kerosene for
most of their fuel supply."
    " Military jets require a somewhat more complex fuel to withstand
the sever conditions... To meet the military's fuel requirements,
scientists have developed carefully compounded blends of kerosene and
gasoline."

Continuing
Diesel Fuels
    " In 1892, Dr. Rudolph Diesel of Germany patented the engine that is
today one of our most powerful workhorses.
    " The diesel engine is fundamentally different from the gasoline
engine. A diesel's ignition is caused by the heat of compressed air in a
cylinder, while the spark plug performs that function in a gasoline
engine.
    " Early diesel engines were massive, built to withstand tremendous
heat and pressures... and they used almost any oil as fuel.
    "...Just as modern diesel engines have become specialized, the
diesel fuels that run them are highly refined for their specialized
uses. Modern diesel fuels are manufactured in several grades, ranging
from heavy oils to light kerosene type oil."

Continuing
Fuel Oils
    "...Fuel Oils are generally classified as either distillates or
residuals.
    " Distillates are the lighter oils..." used for home heating.

Some of the properties of the various fuels...

Gasolines examples: Unleaded Gasoline (various grades), Straight Run
Gasoline, Aviation Gasoline
- -are volatile liquids
- -have a boiling range of approximately 24C (75F) to 221C (430F)
- -have a flash point of -40C (-40F)

Kerosene examples: Straight Run Kerosene, Light Gas Oil, Jet A, JP-5,
JP-8, Heating Oil No.1, Diesel Fuel No.1
- -is combustible and moderately volatile
- -has a boiling range between 160C (320F) and 290C (554F)
- -has a flash point generally above 38C (100F)

Distillates  examples: Intermediate Gas Oils, Light Catalytic Cracked
Distillate, Light Cracked Gas Oil, Diesel Fuel No.2, Marine Diesel Fuel,
Home Heating Oil No. 2
- -are combustible
- -have a boiling range of approximately 163C (325F) to 357C (675F)
- -have an flash point generally above 60C (140F)

    So if the engine of the vehicle is a standard automotive engine
Gasolines (including aviation gasoline) will run. Due to the high octane
of the aviation gasoline, unless it is cut with normal gasoline, the
engine  is tuned to operate on it (compression ratio, carburetors,
injectors etc. adjusted) it will operate at a higher horsepower, with
the adverse effects of increased heat, probable pre ignition, and long
term damage to the internal components of the engine.

    If it is a diesel engine either the kerosene family, or the
distillates will probably work. The various products will have an effect
on the horse power generated by the engine. Heavier fuels (in the
distillate family) may require that the fuel injector porting be
adjusted.

    Not yet mentioned are the various additives, Gasolines in particular
have a number of agents (proprietary to each refiner) that enhance the
self-cleaning abilities of the fuel. Straight Run gasolines (direct from
the refining process) will probably tend to foul fuel injectors and
spark plugs in the long run. Distillates will have the same tendency if
used in diesel engines, (as an aside the gentleman who spoke of using
kero in his home heater, this is expensive but probably a good thing,
the kero will tend to clean the ports in the heater's burner, and won't
clog the filters at anything near the same rate, but it costs, the price
of the additional refining steps, and supply and demand).

At any rate that's as much as I'm going to go into this tonight.
Specific (non-proprietary) details are available on request ;^). Hope it
helps.

Mike Peters
Reliability Engineer,
Rotating Equipment Specialist
Mobil il Corp.

PS. Any of the three fuels will operate quite nicely in a gas operating
turbine, providing the fuel injection is set up to atomize the liquid.
And I personally think that the Traveller vehicles will operate on
electrical motors, the will operate in anything but volatile atmosphere,
and considering fusion+ (hand wave) are probably more efficient for
exploration purpose. Now adapting those laser power packs to take the
place of that fuel cell, that's someone else's problem!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:34:46 -0500
From: Sebastien Normandin <luckyj@microtec.net>
Subject: Re: Spreading Technology

>What did Einstein say? "God does not play dice with the Universe"?

This comment was made in reference to the Uncertainty Principle and
Einstein's perception of the indeterminancy of quantum mechanics. He
supposedly said it so many times that Neils Bohr, who was more
philosophically inclined to accept the contradictions in modern physics
than Einstein, once became so exasperated that he admonished Einstein to
"stop telling God what to do!"




Sebastian Normandin

Luckyj@odyssee.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:41:25 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

On 22 Jul 97 at 5:15, CardSharks@aol.com wrote:

> This after they were caught hiding (covering up) the fact that they
> copied the J-drive, and once they knew about the prevailing opinion,
> continued to cover it up until finally some humans came along and
> found them out. Geonee and Suerrat and others also copied the
> J-drive, understood it, and improved it.

	In an earlier campaign I had the Aslan misinterpreting the meaning 
of some of the texts stamped on the side of the 'original' jump 
drive. Thinking they were poems of some sort or spells of fortune or 
something quite crucial to the operation of the ship (at least from a 
male Aslan viewpoint), they faithfully reproduced the inscriptions.

	The's why all Aslan military starships still have their jump drives 
made by "Boeing-Rockwell" in "Tycho City, Luna", in the year 2267.


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:51:59 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Refueling and fusion power

On 22 Jul 97 at 10:16, John_Wood@cbtsys.com wrote:


> Can anyone tell me why there is such great disparity between sci-fi
> games on the amount of fuel required to power a fusion reaction?
> Gurps for instance includes the fuel for a fusion reactor in the
> volume of the reactor and rules that this is sufficient to power
> full output for a period of 200 years. Traveller, as we all know,
> rules that starships require huge tanks of LHyd to power a reactor
> for a relatively short period of time. 
> Which version is more scientifically accurate? And are there any
> real-world formulae or scientific laws that enable us to work out
> the fuel required to power a deuterium -helium fusion reaction for
> a given output? Be gentle with me, now, I'm a technical writer not
> a scientist.

	I've interpreted the massive fuel requirements so that most of the 
"fuel" required by fusion reactors are not hydrogen, but liquid 
nitrogen, argon, etc. used as coolant, which needs to be replenished 
annually. Very little of actual fuel (deuterium) is needed.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1595
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Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 23 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1596



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Grandfather Elvis
Re: Religions in space
Re: A little ride
Re: Time units
Planning for Traveller Design
Re THUDDD, PBEM
Jump Fuel
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive
Re: Major/Minor Races
Boldly looking ...
Re: time machines
Re: Exploding H2 tanks
A Question of Culture
Re: Grandfather Elvis
Re: Jump Fuel
Low tech firearms
Ship Contructors Gazzette No 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 23:47:58 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis

On 07/22/97 at 07:29 PM,  Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net> said:

>There is more, much more...just what ancient artifact is "Blue Suede
>Shoes" warning us away from, 

Isn't there a blue glow coming from the maneuver drives.  Could this be
Elvis' veiled way of warning us to stay away from thruster plates and stick
with reaction drives.  Just what is the hidden dange of t-plates? Could
they have a hidden environmental impact? Could they be guiding some unknown
enemy riding on the Empress Wave toward our section of space?

Eris,

ps. Notice how my name has the 3 outlying letters of Elvis' holy name, and
includes the rolled 'r' in the center, the 'Rrrrr!' tied so strongly with
Elvis' chief prophet Roy Orbison.  Could there be a hidden meaning in my
very name?  -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 01:00:00 -0400
From: hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale)
Subject: Re: Religions in space

Mark Clark writes:

>  I was the one who posted on widespread opposition to slavery before the
>1850s.  While it is true that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was a major literary
>success, popular opposition to slavery dates to well before it's
>publication.  

   This depends upon the definition of 'popular'.  Yes, there were
people from the "masses" who campaigned against it, but they were a
minority.  A *loud* minority, but a minority.  Note that this is not the
same as saying that farmers in Ohio (a mid-Western state) would have
bought slaves if they could have afforded them.  Opposing slavery in
your region is not the same as being opposed to it as an institution
throughout the country.  Indeed, while people in the U.S. tend to think
nationally first today, this was not the case prior to the American
Civil War.  Remember, Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army to join
the Confederate Army because Virginia voted for secession.  He
considered himself a Virginian first and an American second.

>Note that the American Constitution contains a clause that 
>forbids the Congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years, a clause
>inserted at the insistance of Southern delegates - when the time limit was
>up, the trade was immediately banned.

   While it is true that some politicians hoped that slavery would die
out after the importation of slaves was banned (some were still smuggled
in, btw), the clause did nothing to prevent slave traders from buying
slaves in North Carolina (or any other slave state) and selling them in
another state or territory in which slavery was permitted.  It also
didn't address the issue of ownership, which went unquestioned.

>  Now, the question here is how do we define "widespread."  Given that
>debates about the expansion of slavery were central to American political
>life from 1800 on, I'd have to say that opposition to the institution of
>slavery was widespread in the North (and to a lesser extent in the South
>early in the 19th C, before social pressure silenced opposition).

   A young Abraham Lincoln had occasion to travel to the South (in the
mid-1840s if memory serves me correctly), and while there saw what
slavery was all about.  Like most people in Illinois he hadn't given
much thought to it, but after his return, he became an abolitionist.

   I don't define "widespread" as something that was debated amongst the
intellectual elite.  Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the
first (for the U.S.) Women's Rights Convention in 1848, but the masses
don't give the issue much thought for another 50 years.  Opposition to
the Vietnam War began almost as soon as it started, but it wasn't until
after the Tet Offensive that the opposition became widespread.  William
Lloyd Garrison may have begun publishing an abolitionist newspaper in
1831, but its circulation wasn't all that large outside of the local
region in which it was published.  It is important to remember that
there is a period of time (sometimes lengthy) between the appearance of
a movement and the moment when that movement becomes significant.

>  Now, as to how Northerners felt about slavery in the South, well, that's
>a harder one to answer.  Since we don't have opinion data from polling,
>It's hard to say exactly, but given the extrordinary efforts made by those
>in the South to prevent debate (censorship of abolishionist literature, a
>gag rule about the discussion of slavery in the Congress, and so on), it
>seems there was a strong strand of anti-slavery sentiment that Southerners
>thought would lead to the banning of slavery thoughout the USA.

   We know based upon the diaries, papers, and other primary evidence
from that era.  The South prior to 1850 is concerned with limitations
being placed on the spread of slavery.  Southerns in part supported the
Mexican War because of the prospect that it would open vast new areas of
land to the expansion of slavery.  After 1850, and particularly after
1852, the debate begins to shift toward the whole concept of slavery and
whether or not it should be allowed to continue.  That is why the other
steps you mention were put into place.

>  It is correct to say that radical opposition to slavery increases in the
>1850s, due to revelations about the conditions of slavery, but to say that
>this is the first evidence of such popular opposition is clearly wrong.

   See my comments above.  The appearance of a movement doesn't make it
widespread.

   One further note: I can approach the issue of slavery with the
detachment of a mostly Caucasian male whose ancestors have their roots
firmly planted in Appalachia and never owned slaves for a reason--I fit
the profile.  Slavery was an abomination that should have never been
allowed to take root and continue in a country that prided itself as a
beacon for freedom and liberty in a world that had little of either. 
Enough said.

>  To get back to Traveller, this has a couple of applications.  First, as
>far as history goes, there is always room for interpretation.  When you
>tell your players about Imperial history, make sure that they all don't
>see things the same way, or that they come across folks who see the past
>in a different light.

   There would be dramatic regional differences on how people both
inside and outside the early Third Imperium would view their place in
the universe and how history unfolded.  We still see this even in 1117
when Vilani and Solomani discuss the Rule of Man.

>  Second, the mention of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ sets up the idea of the use
>of literature and motion pictures in the game.  How nice to change society
>not by the sword but by the pen, and having a character expose some great
>evil by portraying it in a work of fiction sounds like a nice plot twist.

   The problem is, what internal evils confront the Third Imperium?  And
assuming that they exist, how do you expose them without fear of
reprisal?  Remember, the U.S. had the First Admendment--what does the
Third Imperium have?

Regards,

Harold

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 01:13:33 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

Ooops!  No offense taken at all.  Never had that happen before!  I think
you're referring to the "He is an engineer./kind of people you find on
the TML"  comment?  Actually that was meant to be taken in the context
of all the "Well I'm not an engineer, but" comments-humorously.  Of
which I fall into - I'm just an operator, and only know the basics of
operation.  You are an engineer and have a better grasp that than I do.  
Now I feel like crap-it was supposed to be humorous like you really are
the final word.  My comments were literal and serious-no undertones. 
Better breakout the smileys:) next time.

Now to undo the damage-where is Superman when you need him?  Sorry-I was
REALLY impressed someone could actually answer those questions better
than me.  It really goes to show what kind of folks the hobby attracts
for play and discussion.  Please correct me if the aforementioned is
wrong.  Public apologies are due!
Dumbeye

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:56:56 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re: Time units

>Imperial        local
>- --------      ------
>year            ano
>month           month
>day             sol
>hour            lun
>min             centilun or minute which works better
>sec             sec

How about
>sec            beats

Since not all local time units will be in convinient numbers of seconds.

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 01:02:07 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Planning for Traveller Design

I have played this game since the beginning.  I am surprised that nobody
ever challenged my statement that I have been a Traveller fan since 1974.

That was my first experience at role-playing, and I wanted a Sci-Fi
setting.  Needless to say, when Traveller was released, I was happy,
and bought a copy as soon as possible.  My first character was a
Baron, poor with few credits to his name.

I'm sure everyone remembers those first subsectors rolled up before
one appeared in print (Adventure 1: Kinunir?).  I even had friends
that rolled up neighboring Jewell or Lanth subsectors, only to "move"
when the rest of the Spinward Marches slowly appeared.

What's the point Leroy?

Well, most of my friends in gaming, from the University of Colorado's
Strategic Games Society (where I met J.P. in 1975), quickly learned a
strategy of adapting to Traveller.  Of course, I helped develop this
methodolgy.  It was very basic--read and buy all that you could, study,
study, and study.  Know the universe of Traveller inside and out.

Differing strategies were applied by different individuals, but we all
had one goal in mind--make our campaigns bullet-proof from having new
material "walk all over" the spare-time work we had done.  I even
killed off Strephon in 1109, as a means of trying to establish my own
interpretation of Traveller's universe.  I fractured the rimward areas
of the Third Imperium, and had factional fighting going on, with the
Domain of Sol a major player (4-5 years pre-MT).  Sound familiar?  <G>

The CUSGS spawned a number of Traveller campaigns.  I can think of
four without even trying.  The point of all of this is that we were
serious gamers.  In fact, when I read some of the things about Marc
and Frank's start at Bloomington, I felt an immediate sort of affinity
with these guys at GDW.  I was one of the first to order Triplanetary.
Some of you may remember the 4" x 4" x 30?" box it came in.

We got good at laying out our campaigns to allow us to stay in "synch"
with the published universe, yet had a degree of independence, so that
we were not waiting around for something new to come out and find out
that we had guessed wrong, or chose something that was going to be
published over, as it were.  This design philosophy works.

I am writing all of this because it took me awhile to reach an
understanding about why a few were so adamant about the notion of past
published evidence for a high tech level RoM.  It was (at first) a little
shocking to see the lengths which some would go to try and hush me up on
this subject.  I seldom encountered this on the HIWG list, but they are a
group of budding writers after all, and are always trying to figure new
angles on things.

When you are thinking about writing for the Traveller universe, there
is a rather cumbersome burden you might feel, about doing it right.  That
is why I have been so vocal about how I see just _how_ compatible the guys
doing T4 stuff are.  They have done a good job of backward compatibility
and should be commended for it.

In the earliest days, many people contributed to the development of the
Traveller Universe.  Ideas on background and technology surfaced and were
rewritten in different forms one or two supplements later.  Referee's had
to be quick on their feet, but it was good for the collective thinking
behind a consistent universe.  The creative ferment was thick with rich
ideas and worlds to conquer.  This time, now, is the same for T4.

The discussion over the past month, that I started on this list has shown me
that it is not a subject to be taken lightly, but at the same time, it is
something that can _not_ be done by consensus.  Perhaps TML has been
around as long as Traveller.  I've had e-mail for about 17 years now, but
I never ventured out onto the network until the past five or so years.

TML is a new experience for me, and I am glad I "came over" here.  Until
now, I had dealt only with people whose primary interest was chewing fat
over the "facts" of the Traveller universe, and do not take it personally
when you tell them, "Yeah, except that on page n of book Y, it says ..."
I tend to not like the condescending approach of telling someone, "Yes,
that is a really excellent point, but I do have a problem with the
interpretation that Jump fuel is not expended by the Jump drive."  I've
been around the game long enough to know when I'm being shortchanged on
the rules--you practically have to have that skill to referee.

In the past few years when I ventured out onto the net, I came to the
conclusion that there were a lot of people who did not let e-mail come
between their conclusion and yours, and so perhaps I expected a little
more rawhide from the TML.  I have to actually say that all those times
Doug Berry told me he was offended by something I wrote, that I figured
it was an emotional imbalance ruse.  If that was the case then so be it.
If that was not the case, I am truly sorry for any offense.

At the same time, I am not perfect either (surprise :).  One of my last
posts had forgotten a smiley face when I made the "Clinton, Hale, et al"
comparison.  That was from a joke that Harold apparently forgot from a
month ago when he intended to post his Netscape bookmarks of astronomy
references to the HIWG list.  Accidentally, his whole list went out,
but fortunately for Harold, only I and Bryan Borich know what was on
that list. :)  Anyway, was intended to be a reminder (for Harold) of a
really funny and somewhat recent moment, not an insult.  (Harold and I
think the same of Clinton, so I know how much it would offend him if I
had really meant to compare the two.)  For that slipup Harold, I do
apologize.  It was only intended as a joke and somehow that colon didn't
make it into the final version.

I never intended to come across as if I were "stomping on anyone's face."
But at the same time, when I focus on discussing Traveller, I really
concentrate on that and probably loose all manners.  Just let me say that
before you go finding offense in something I may have posted here, before
you go off "retaliating", remind yourself that I have no intention of doing
so, and while perception is a form of reality, you and I both know that it
is _only_ as real as we make it.  If you still persist in believing that I
am going out of my way to offend you, write me offline and point it out.
We can discuss it like gentlemen.

We can clear the air and get on with things.  I am approachable and (I
think) reasonable.  At the same time, don't blame me for what the game's rich
and diverse background has provided.  The intended outcome is the development
of a sense of wonder--the true, original spirit of Traveller.

Recently, a friend wrote me concerning what had transpired on TML about the
RoM TL discussion.  He was concerned that I was "canonizing" a high tech
for the RoM.  The Tech Level of the RoM has already been decided.  I am just
helping people to see a possible interpretation of the track record for the
facts that support this current, and in my opinion correct, background
revelation.  Many of you may have already established a precedence in your
campaigns for a lower tech level RoM.  The stuff referee's are made of is
explaining to players how the universe has changed, but not in so many words,
and not letting them know there was a change--just a change in _their_
perceptions.  If we do not allow a new writer (not necessarily me) to come
along, and fill in some holes, we are condemning our game to stagnation.

J.P. reminds me that his birthday, April 1st (why do I have two players with
that birthday?), became known as April Fool's Day (or All Fools Day) when
certain stick-in-the-muds refused to accept moving New Year's Day back
from April 1 to January 1 as part of the Gregorian Calendar reforms.  That is
what I was trying to show with my Edsel Gouch example.  We old Traveller
afficionados don't want to find ourselves in a similar position in
relationship to new changes in the game.

The friend offline informed me that he had read my JTAS articles as a
13-year old first learning Traveller.  (I will save him potential
embarassment by not mentioning his name, since I didn't permission to
quote him here.)  This reminded me of just how long I have been doing things
for this game and my campaign.  I have to try and remember that many of you
are not the friends I have played, discussed, argued, and shared a _love of
the game with_.  I am used to a lot of give and take in these kinds of
discussions, so please forgive me if I occasionally forget that I consider
issues about the game first.

If, and that is a big IF, I have a chance to develop a RoM sourcebook for
T4, my experiences and love of the game will be drawn entirely upon to try
and live up the spirit and attitude I have tried to share with you here.

There is an old Hiver proverb that goes, "If it can be insulted, it can be
manipulated."  I try very hard not to be manipulated, so my being insulted
is right out!


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:29:18 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Re THUDDD, PBEM

Once again, I'd like to voice an objection to PBEM and THUDD cluttering my
mailbox. Those of us on Digests can't even conviniently skip it by the
title.
>The following topics are covered in this digest:
>
>THUDDD 5 ballots coming soon
>THUDDD 5 Entries (3/3)
>THUDDD 5 Entries (2/3)
>Racial stereotyping
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
47 kb; THUDD was 40kb of it.

[this has been my quarterly objection to THUDDD and PBEM on TML. Thank you
for your patience]

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:29:11 -0800
From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
Subject: Jump Fuel

Regardless of Eris' Excellent presentation of "matter injection", DGP and
GDW both have cannonically established that Jump drives are very high
power, low duration, power plants.

When you look at the comparative volume, power, and space between Jump
Drives and PP's under CT and MT, you find that the fuel requirements for a
PP vs a JDrive are not too terribly different...

Under TNE, however, with it's 1stere per year fuel requirements for
scoutship PP's, such fuel useage indicates far TOO much energy if all JFuel
is burned in a PP like system, so it has to be used for something else.

Unfortunately, FF&S2 probably will propagate such a discrepancy, creating
logical fallacies for CT/MT cannonmongers who never accepted TNE as "Truly
Canon"... Like myself.

Per Imperium ad Astra! (through imperium to the stars!) (I use this as the
motto of the Imperial Navy)

William F. Hostman		
<Mailto:Aramis@asylumbbs.com>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 09:35:08 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

Marc writes:
> or does my saying that (above) make 1.6 km per mile canon?

If it does, could you make pi equal to 3.0 while you're at it?


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
  "Free speech gives a man the right to talk about the
'psycology' of an amoeba, but I don't have to listen".
                  Elihu Nivens in 'The Puppet Masters'

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:25:01 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive

Scott Foster wrote
> Subject: RE: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive
> 
> <If I ever get any <expletive deleted> spare time, I'll update my
> Jumpspace site to include this theory, because I think it's a good
> explanation for the vast fuel usage, and the requirement for Hydrogen.>
> 
> Wild tangent-Lets go with the theory that jumping in JumpSpace takes you
> to a different JumpSpace.  The likely cause for explosion is that you
> don't have a sufficient "Bubble of Matter" to protect you.  Instead of
> Hydrogen, maybe a different type of material is necessary for cohesion
> in this separate realm?
> 
> If this is the case, here's a jump scenario: 
> 1) Activate Jump-3 engine (Hydrogen bubble is created)
> 2) Activate second Jump-3 engine
>   a) Material X bubble is created
>     -Option 1) More of Material X is required (has to cover the volume
> of the H2 bubble)
>   b) Second H2 bubble is created
>     -Option 2) H2 bubble has to be recreated upon re-entering
> (normal)JumpSpace. (Or else ship is shredded wheat.)
> 
> We can extrapolate that since JumpSpace^2 is further from NormalSpace,
> it would have the effect of squaring the Jump number. (A jump 3 becomes
> a jump 9, jump 4-Jump 16, etc)

If we use this JumpSpace^2 theory we still will have a maximum distance
of Jump 36 (6^2), interestingly enough jump 36 is the maximum distance a
misjump may cover.  You may be on to something here, however it needs
further amplification to explain all those jump 11, jump 17, & other
strange jump numbers a misjump may produce.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:34:31 -0800
From: Peter Newman <pnewman@alaska.net>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

Eris Reddoch wrote
> Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

[snip]

> We've been discussing the possibility for some time that *all* the human
> races copied the J-Drive from Ancient artifacts.  Of course, the truth is
> buried in time, or shallow graves to hear our conspiracy theorists    > tell it. ;->

Your Grace thank you for inviting me to testify before this, the Moot
Commitee on UnImperial Activities.  At this time I would like to state
for the record that I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the
Conspiracy Theorists Party. I attribute these scurious and slanderous
statements that I am a conspiracy theorist to one or more of the plots
against me. :)

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 1997 10:14:34 +0100
From: Mark Samuels <Mark.Samuels@questintl.com>
Subject: Boldly looking ...

From: mark.samuels@questintl.com

WOW! My first posting to the list!  Are there any other English-speaking 
gamers living in the Netherlands?  There are limits to my Dutch; I wonder 
how to translate: "The dilythium crystals wonna take it anymore Cap'n."

I'm looking for MT literature on (i) robots, (ii) aliens and (iii) 
starships.  Anyone know of robot construction rules?  Info on Darrian?  
Rules about creating Vagr or Alsan characters?  A library or other listing 
of MT starships (those design rules take a *long* time ... )?  Anyone 
willing to sell or photocopy(!) any of this stuff?
     
Mark

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 02:26:39 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: time machines

>We've had a "practical" design for a time machine since th 1930's
>(practical as long as you have a handy infinitely long neutronium
>cylinder spinning at c/2, that is...)

  Apparently it's now believed to be possible with a merely
impractical length cylinder - a topologist impacted a theoretical
physicist at one of my games and they started discussing it. I
really value my decision not to run S-F with gear-head grads :)

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 02:26:29 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: Exploding H2 tanks

>tank, the compound will inhibit the natural tendency of hydrogen to oxidize. 
>I recall reading that the tanks survived being shot with incendiary rounds.
>Now a natural question is why wasn't this done for the shuttle -- perhaps
>weight or cost? I don't know the answer. The point is that it is possible to
>chemically reduce the chance of a secondary hydrogen explosion provided the 
>initial explosion doesn't completely tear apart the ship.

  IIRC, doesn't the hydride actually comprise the hydrogen all being
held as a non-volatile? If so, L-Hyd can't be packaged this way for
use in a high volume feed liquid fuel rocket. But I'm really rusty
on this too...

        Steven Hudson

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jul 1997 10:16:21 +0100
From: Mark Samuels <Mark.Samuels@questintl.com>
Subject: A Question of Culture

Travellers often deal with cultures on different planets and with different 
technologies.  Yet it's amazing how varied two cultures can be, despite 
being on the same planet and possessing the same technologies, e.g. Japan 
and America.  Certain cultures favour informality (e.g. Britain and, even 
more so, the Netherlands), others are more attached to authority and 
centralisation (Russia, much of Africa).  Some countries value the 
individual (USA, France), while others value the team (China, Hungary).

Here are a few ideas to help put together the makings of a culture that 
will excite and interest players: rituals; symbols; modes of education; the 
rules of 'savoir-vivre'; values; heroes; myths; religion ...

Various studies have classified cultural differences.  For example, the 
criteria of Masculinity-Femininity, i.e. the way by which a society 
structures the roles of men and women and, possibly more interestingly, the 
relative importance of "masculine values" (work, career, knowledge ... ) or 
"feminine values" (thoughtfulness, quality of life ... ).  Cultures with a 
high Masculinity include the USA, with its high work ethic but poor social 
security, and cultures with a high Femininity include the Netherlands, 
where there is a stronger emphasis on quality of life.  Other criteria 
include Power Distance (degree of hierarchy), the degree of Individualism 
and the degree of Uncertainty.  Alien behaviour from non-aliens may 
surprise players more than Vagr behaving badly.

Assuming your players aren't the PGMP-zapgun squad, you could stir interest 
by encouraging players to reduce incomprehension and non-violent conflict.  
Openness, curiosity, prudence and careful observation will aid adaptation to 
a new culture.  Learning to pay attention to and follow local customs and 
behaviours, before even attempting to understand them, may be an interesting 
subplot to an adventure.

I hope this sparks off a few ideas and responses,

Mark

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:44:52 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis

>Isn't there a blue glow coming from the maneuver drives.  Could this be
>Elvis' veiled way of warning us to stay away from thruster plates and stick
>with reaction drives.  Just what is the hidden dange of t-plates? Could
>they have a hidden environmental impact? Could they be guiding some unknown
>enemy riding on the Empress Wave toward our section of space?
>
>Eris,

They break the laws of energy conservation - the very laws Elvis as
god/grandfather/boss etc has written and he simply doesn't want those pesky
humans to make him look like a fool.


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 97 04:57:10 -0500
From: eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)
Subject: Re: Jump Fuel

On 07/22/97 at 11:29 PM,  aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman) said:

>Regardless of Eris' Excellent presentation of "matter injection", DGP and
>GDW both have cannonically established that Jump drives are very high
>power, low duration, power plants.

William,

As I said, this is *my* interpretation of how the jump drive works, and by
now you should know I care very little about "canonical" dogma when it
comes to things Traveller.  You are perfectly free to present the
establishment line anytime you want, but don't expect me to toe it.

Eris,
    the Heretic
- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch)    using MR/2 ICE #245
- -----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:42:37 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Low tech firearms

Recently there was some disscusion as to the practicality of producing
automatic weapons at late TL3/early TL4. So I sat down with G3G (since I
prefer it to the FF&S sequences for early weapons) and came up with the ENL
Libertad. Its a weapon which could be produced in late TL3, though its more
properly an early TL 4 weapon. The cartridge has a muzzle energy of 531j
(about the same as a modern 9mm parabellum). The biggest problems with it are
going to be the huge quantities of smoke it would produce during automatic
fire and the fouling caused by the black powder propellant. Despite its
difficulties, it would still come as a nasty suprise to complacent high tech
characters.

           The ENL Libertad
The Libertad is a unique weapon. It is manufactured in a variety of small
workshops on Jakob for the Ladian National Army (Ejercito Nacional de Ladia
or ENL) and is the closest this organisation comes to having a standard issue
weapon. Given the circumstances of it's manufacture, most examples show a
suprising degree of craftmanship and reliablity. The weapon itself is a
triumph of TL 3 engineering, the equal of many TL 5 or 6 designs. It is a
bullpup combat rifle firing 6mm cased black powder ammunition from a
detachable 40 round magazine. The Libertad can fire in either semiautomatic
or full cyclic (400rpm) modes, using a simple slam fire blowback action. The
coarse nature of it's black powder propellant leads to a considerable amount
of fouling. This problem is alleviated to a degree by the inclusion of deep
cleaning groves in the action. However the Libertad will still foul if used
for extended periods without adequate cleaning (decrease reliability by one
step for each 80 rounds fired without cleaning). It should also be remembered
that the black powder propellant will produce considerable amounts of smoke,
which will rapidly obsure visibility. This will be particularly noticeable
when using cyclic fire.

The Libertad is virtually unavailable off Jakob, where it's possession (or
that of any other firearm) is a summary capital offence. However it has been
estimated that several hundreds of thousands of these weapons have thus far
been manufactured and some have made it off world, were they command high
prices amongst collectors. It is rumoured that Konig Arms is intending to
start production of a reproduction in the near future to capitalise on this
market.

Weapon: ENL Libertad
Action: Blowback - singleshot, cyclic (400)
Ignition: Percussion
Tech Level: 3
Calibre: 6mm ENL cased
Penetration: 3
Range: short
Malfunction: reliable (see notes below)
Shots: 40
Mass: 3.4kg
Reloads: 0.5kg
Length: 72.8cm
Cost: Cr 160 (Cr 800 plus off world)
Incidentals: 40 rounds ball: Cr 3.6 (0.4kg)
             empty 40 round magazine: Cr 10 (0.1kg)

Whilst the Libertad is theoretically a reliable weapon, the nature of it's
manufacture leads to considerable variety in quality. For each weapon throw
1D; a 1, 2 or 3 indicates a reliable weapon, a 4 or 6 indicates an unreliable
weapon, whilst a 6 indicates a very unreliable weapon.

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:42:13 +1200
From: Andrew Moffatt-Vallance <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: Ship Contructors Gazzette No 2

Ship Constructors Gazzette, Issue 2, 180-20
   The official newsletter of the ISBA
   (a free service provided to the shipbuilding industry by the ISBA)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **Leader article**
The need for regulation of starship armarment

Much has been made recently of the efforts by the ISBA to develop a consitant
code of practice for the armarment of starship. Indeed some have decried it
as "an established cabel seeking to secure it's dominance" (Dame Sylia Lath,
104-20, as reported in the Times of Sylea). Others have asked why a new code
is required, claiming that the regulatins in place are adequate. In truth
neither of these views is accurate. The new code does nothing to assist those
currently in the market or hinder those who seek to enter it. In fact it will
assist the new players in the growing shipbuilding industry by giving them a
consistant and universal base to work from, nothing hinders entrenuprial
spirit more than uncertainty. And that is most assuredly what we have today,
a hodge podge of local regulations and limitiations which are a moras even
the most experianced lawyers and bureacrats struggle to understand. What is
legitimate and acceptable on one world may indeed be cause for criminal
prosecution on another. Currently there is nothing to stop an unscrupulous
ship owner from purchasing military control systems on one world and adding
sophisticated weaponry on another.

The new code of practice (shortly to be presented to the Moot for enactment
into Imperial law) acts to end the current illogical and confusing situation.
It sets out realistic and enforcable limits on the armarment of ships without
restricting those who have legitimate reason to need advanced and
sophisticated weapon systems. Let us ever forget that there are cases were
ships will require weaponry better than that which is required in the well
patrolled spacelanes within the Imperium; it would be a foolish Captain who
would venture into the lawless regions without the Imperium without adequate
precautions.

Therefore let us embrace these new regulations as a sign of the growing
maturity of the new Imperium. No longer do ships require massive firepower to
fend off the depredations of piracy. Now the Imperial Navy can guarantee the
security of the space lanes and must be regarded as the most effective weapon
carried by any civilian ship.

(The full text of the Draft Code of Practice is included as an addendum to
this issue of the newsletter)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **New Members**

The Board of the ISBA takes great pleasure in welcoming the latest concern to
join the ISBA:

 Earneau and Hao Tse, LIC
 Siobhan ni Cathail, Marketing Director
     [Bill Ernoehazy, blackwilliam@hotmail.com]

Earneay and Rao Tse, LIC is an up and coming company specialising in the
manufacture of smaller commercial vessels.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **News**

124-20: GSbAG announced today that its quarterly profit was up 4.2% on its
performance in the previous quarter. Shariik Harla, Vice President of GSbAG
attributed the strong growth to the rapidly expanding civilian market. "With
the increase in interstellar trade there has been noticeable growth in the
construction of merchant vessels. Our figures clearly reflect this, as do the
improved profit margins of many other companies. I think we can expect strong
growth in all areas associated with the shipbuilding industry for the
forseeable future."

137-20: The Phoenix Corporation today announced it was entering into a long
term purchasing contract for drive systems with Michaelson Coil and Impeller
LIC, for the supply of drive systems for ships constructed in Phoenix yards.
Phoenix, who had previously relied on Zimm Gravitics LIC drive systems,
strenously denied that the change of supplier had any relation to the ongoing
BSSHTS investigations into Zimm over the loss of the Tukera liner "Granier".
Sir Jermani Danjo CEO of Phoenix stated "We have always found Zimm products
to be of the highest quality and have no doubts as to the reliability of the
units already installed. The move to MCI drives is simply a commercial
decision, to put it bluntly, they came up with a better deal."

145-20: In resposne to wide spread industry debate, the  Civilian Disarmament
Committee of the ISBA issued it's prelimanary report on a unified code of
practice regarding the armarment of civilian vessels. The draft document (see
full text attached) calls for the division of both offensive and defensive
systems into four catergories based on the relative power of the weapons.
Whilst the code of practice has no legal standing as yet, it is widely
expected that they will soon be introduced to the Moot as the Civilian
Spaceways Safety Bill.

170-20: In a highly publicied accident today, an X-Tech reseach craft fitted
with an experimental plasma weapon system was destroyed during a test firing.
There have been no reports as to casualties as yet, but informed sources
indicate that the craft was an uncrewed robot drone. X-Tech has yet to
formally comment on the incident, but it is widely believed that they are
looking into the possibility of sabotage.

175-20: The board of the ISBA announced today a major upcoming event, the
First Core Secror Rally. Whilst remaining tightlipped as to the exact nature
of the event Sir Josph Califor, Coordinator of the ISBA stated "Whilst it is
still in the planning stages as yet, this will be an exciting opportunity for
the industry to show its new maturity and technical prowess. We at the ISBA
feel sure this event will capture the publics imagination as nothing before
and we hope to make the event a regular occurance".

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **Stockmarket report**

Most companies associated with the ship construction industry are making a
good showing in the market currently. Anylists attribute this to the
continuing growth of the sector. The recent announced aquisition programs by
the Imperial and several local Navies have seen significant gains for
companies heavily involved in military contracting. GSbAG's recently
announced strong second quarter profit growth is a good example of this and
has seen it climb 55 points over the last month alone. However, it is felt
the the success or failure of the industry ultimately rests on the civilain
sector. Most companies involved in this area have posted very healthy second
quarter profits, leading to Zirunkariish upgrading the credit rating of
several of the leading players over the past few months. Cautious investors
are still shying away from companies engaged in cutting edge technologies
such as X-Tech, but many feel that these offers exciting prospects for the
future and are now adding them to their portfolio's.

   Closing figures
Sylean All Ords    21379 (down 4)
Vland              45981 (up 13)
CISE              239367 (up 219)
Enylia              9836 (down 24)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **THUDDD designs**
(Since there have been two THUDDD competitions, two designs are included)

Tlaxcala class Patrol Cruiser
Ce Acatl's April THUDDD entry 
Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>

Ship/Class Name & Type: "Tlaxcala" class Patrol Cruiser         (QSDS 1.5)

Tons: 500 Std (Slab S)        Volume: 7000 m3        Cost: 519.8 MCr
Crew: 24                      Hi/Md P: 2             Low P: 0
Cargo: 4 Std                  Controls: Fib/Bridge   TL: 12
Size:   8                        2 Jump (50 Std/Pc Fuel)
                                 4 Maneuver (T-plate, 20000 T/Thr)
Lsr trt 2 x (+4) 1/2-0-0-0       8.6 Power Plant (2000 + 2x75 MW)
Lsr bay 1 x (+4) 1/6-6-6-5       123 Fuel (S 200 R 5)
Msl trt 1                        0 Meson Screen
Msl brb 0                        2 Sandcasters (60 cans)
MFD     1 x (+4) (4 ctrld)       0 Nuclear Damper
Msn gn  0                        A10 P4 J10 Sensors (0 Stealth/Cloak)
PA gun  0                        20 Armor 16 Structure
                                 66 Length (m)

Crew    24 ( 1 elec 4 engr 2 mnvr 4 gun 2 scrn 2 craft 4 troops
             3 cmd 1 stwd 1 medic )

Facilities: 1 sickbay (2 beds)
            1 missile armory (3 Std)

Min Hgr 1 x 20 Std craft
        (or any combination totaling 20 Std)

***

Ce Acatl Corporation is very pleased to submit its entry for the third ISBA
THUDDD Competition: the CP-5R "Tlaxcala" class Patrol Cruiser. Tlaxcala
(tlahsh-CAH-lah) was a region of prestellar Terra noted for its proud warrior
tradition; we have attempted to live up to this reputation with our vessel,
a worthy addition to any navy or corporate security force.

A patrol cruiser must be capable of fulfilling a wide variety of operational
roles.  Chief among these are:

* Commerce escort, customs, and anti-piracy duty
* Search and rescue
* Coordination with larger fleets in system defense and interdiction

The Tlaxcala performs admirably in each of these roles. In battle, this
vessel is both deadly and tough. Its primary armament is a devastating 1.3
gigawatt Thompson-Simmons bay laser, capable of crippling (or destroying
outright) most pirate vessels at multi-lightsecond ranges. As short range
backup offensive and point-defense weaponry, two independent 30 megawatt
T-S turret lasers provide that added measure of confidence any ship captain
going into combat desires. Twin Dohetti sandcasters and tough hull armor let
the Tlaxcala shrug off any fire from the bad guys. Finally, an industry
standard missile turret designed expressly for this vessel, linked to an
ample missile armory, gives the Tlaxcala the added punch to deal with larger
targets...and a fully integrated master fire director makes sure those
punches land *hard*. Finally, the standard crew complement includes four
ship's troops, to be employed as escorts during customs inspections, as 
boarders, or as security aboard prize vessels.

None of this does any good if you can't find the enemy, of course -- and
that's why the Tlaxcala mounts an advanced active/passive sensor suite
(conforming to Imperial Navy standards) to help you flush even the
stealthiest quarry from cover. This capability is an important asset in
search and rescue operations as well, as is the military-grade long-range
redundant commo suite -- critical for coordinating with larger fleets. If a
ship is in the system...lying in wait for helpless freighters, or drifting
with a blown powerplant and a malfunctioning radio...you'll find it in time
with the Tlaxcala.

And get there in time, too. With a CAC J2 drive, and 4G maneuver capability,
this ship has the legs to get you to the action fast enough to make a
difference.  Fuel scoops and an on-board purifier let you operate away from
civilization indefinitely, for those long patrols.

The Tlaxcala comes equipped with a two-bed state-of-the-art sickbay, to
handle both routine medical situations while on prolonged duty and
combat-related injuries. To stabilize more seriously traumatized patients for
transport to a hospital, a 4-person emergency low berth is also provided.

A minimal 20-Std hangar is provided, but no small craft are shipped with the
vessel. We suggest a 20-Std fast pinnace, two 10-Std launches or fighters, or
four 5-Std fighters. Our sales department will be happy to discuss the
options with you, and can provide assistance in arranging a coordinated
purchase plan that suits your needs.

With all three command crew in large staterooms, and the 21 other crew in
single-occupancy small staterooms, one large and one small stateroom remain
unoccupied. These can be used by visiting personnel, as additional storage
space, or as briefing rooms. More rooms can easily be freed up by imposing
double occupancy on some or all of the crew.

Finally, the price of the Tlaxcala is attractively low -- both in terms of
initial purchase price, and cost of ownership.  Ce Acatl Corporation is
committed to full compliance with Imperial and ISBA standards in ship design
and construction, and to the use of off-the-shelf standard components
wherever practical. This standardization benefits our customers in two ways:
Low vessel unit cost, and easy acquisition of replacement parts.
Additionally, the craft can be operated and maintained by any
Imperially-certified crew without special training.

The Ce Acatl "Tlaxcala" -- fast, versatile, powerful, inexpensive. Don't
launch your next patrol with anything less!

    **********

  Terrapin Exploratory Merchant Cruiser
  
   Designer: Douglas E. Berry dberry@hooked.net
   Firm: Gridlore Technologies
   System: SSDS/FFS

Tons: 2400 (Cylinder SL)   Volume: 33600 m3       Cost: 912.8974 MCr
Crew: 49                   High/Mid Pass: 10      Low Pass: 30
Cargo: 852 tons            Controls: Std(Bridge)  TL: 12

9 Size                          3 Jump Drive (240 tons/Pc Fuel)
4 Fire Control                  1G Maneuver (Thruster plate, 462 MW)
4x Laser Batteries (3x 95 Mj)   0.9 Power Plant (1057 MW)
(+1) 2-0-0-0                    731.3 Fuel (Scoop 1920, Refine 6)
                                2 Meson Screen (2 MW)
                                6 Sandcasters (180 cans)
1x spacious hangar (90-ton)     1 Nuclear Damper (15 MW)
2x Sick Bay                     10A 5P 4J Sensors
Machine/Electronic Shops        20 Armor, 16 Structure
Laboratory

Crew: 2 Maneuver, 3 Electronics, 4 Engineer, 10 Gunnery, 5 Maintenance,
      12 Ship's Troops, 3 Flight, 1 Medic, 4 Command, 5 Science

Accom: 34 small staterooms, 30 low berths

1x 90 ton "Terrapin Transit" 90t shuttle.

Inspired by Sir Arameth Gridlore's own legendary travels beyond Sylean space,
and drawing heavily on his experiences, Gridlore Technologies and Trans-C
Naval Architects are proud to introduce the -Terrapin- Class Exploratory
Trader.
   
The -Terrapin- is an 80m cylinder, flared slightly at the aft for better
control when wilderness refueling. The ship devotes over a third of its gross
displacement to cargo storage, enough to prove profitable on any run. But
there is more to the -Terrapin- than carrying freight!
   
The -Terrapin- is equipped with powerful Quinn-Arturo "Phase III" jump
drives, allowing jump 3. Standard thrusters grant constant acceleration of
1g, and can be overdriven for brief periods if necessary. Power is provided
by a custom-designed X-tek Fusion plant, and is fueled for one year's
operation at full load.
   
The electronics suite has been designed with the idea that most places the
- -Terrapin- travels will not have local travel control. Active EMS sensors are
accurate out to 10 LS, passive sensors to 5. This allows early detection of
any threat, to allow the maximum decision time for the Captain.
Communications are routed through either a .3 Mw maser array, or broadcast by
the 1 Mw radio system. Defensive EMS systems include a standard EMS jammer
(120k km radius) and a strong area jammer (90k km radius.)
   
If the worst comes, this turtle has teeth! Mounting twelve Isher Artifact
L-1013 95 Mj laser turrets, organized into four batteries by Navy standard
FDC-11A2 master fire direction centers, the ship can bring effective fire on
its enemies. (Note: no allowance has been made for direct turret control. All
weapons are operated from the MFC.) While these powerful beams slice at your
foe, you can feel secure, guarded by thick armor, 6 sand casters, a *15 Mw*
nuclear damper, and a 2 Mw meson screen. It isn't a warship, but the
- -Terrapin- can certainly hold her own in a fight.
   
Interface operations will normally be carried out be the -Terrapin Transit-
shuttle, included in the purchase price.

Terrapin Transit Shuttle
- -
Tons: 90 (Wedge AF)       Volume: 1260 m3        Cost: 28.45 MCr
Crew: 2                   High/Mid Pass: 0       Low Pass: 0
Cargo: 67 tons            Controls: Std          TL: 12

7 Size0                        No Jump drive
0 Fire Control                 3 Maneuver (Thruster plate, 51.975 MW)
                               1.6 Power Plant (74 MW)
                               0.8 Fuel (Scoop 36)
                               0 Meson Screen (0 MW)
                               0 Sandcasters (0 cans)
                               0 Nuclear Damper
                               2A 1P 0J Sensors
                               10 Armor, 7 Structure

Crew: 1 Maneuver, 1 Electronics
Accom: Seats Adequate x 55

The ship has a crew of 49, including a full squad of security personnel and
berths for a five person research/science section. The science section is
intended to include such personnel as linguistic sophontologists, historians,
and others to assist in making contact with worlds that may not have seen a
Starship since Twilight. -Terrapins- have ten small staterooms for
passengers. When no passengers are boarded, the spare rooms are designed to
be used for extra berthing space to relieve stress, or as crew recreation
facilities. Also standard are thirty low passage berths. Workshops are
provided, capable of fabricating any but the largest, most complex parts.
Technical specifications are provided in both computer and hard format to aid
repairs, and most systems having self-diagnostic/repair aid programs. A
general purpose laboratory can be found on "C" deck. This small facility is
not designed for in-depth research, but will suffice for most inquiries. The
ship's sick bay can accommodate up to 16 patients in a pinch, though 10 is
standard.
   
A word about cost. Many designers prefer to work with modular components,
accepting "close enough" as a substitute for workmanship, and then claim that
the savings in cost justifies the act. Don't be fooled. When you are 50pc
from the nearest help, close enough isn't good enough. Trans-C goes to the
trouble of designing to the most exacting tolerances because we feel your
life is worth it. Don't you agree?

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **Biography**

Sir Josphanoer Cailfor: Project Coordinator of ISBA
Lead Negotiator for Founder Ship Works
Home System Zimiin:
UWP:A331744-B

Terms:
Sylean University/Imperial College: -4--0
   BS Gravitics, with honors
Bureau for Installer Affairs  0-12
   Department of Technology Assessment
Unemployed 12-16
Founder Ship Works 16---

Description:

Of average height and Weight Josphanoer Cailfor graying hair shows that he
has reached middle age. Josph though is still quite physically fit due to his
daily exercise. He is considered handsome to most though it steams more form
his presence then his physical appearance his piercing blue eyes are just one
example of this.

Biography:

Born on the desert world of Zimiin of Donko and Cythan Cailfor, Josphanoer
Cailfor or Josph to friends was undisciplined child and teenager. Josph
though was not a thug--his rebellion was that of a thrill seeker. He took up
Grav Vehicle racing at an early age and hasn't stopped.

While in College Josph  bounced back and forth finally settling on studying
Gravitics, the key to his only love racing. In his junior year Josph began
work as a page for the Zimiin Representative to the Moot.It was during this
period that Josph first meet and worked for Djugasuili Lentuli. Upon his
graduation in year 0 he went to work for Lentuli in the Bureau for Installer
Affairs.

For 12 years he worked in the Department of Technology Assessment, of the BIA
being posted to several worlds to help with technology transfer problems
especially in Gravitics. In his 9th year Josph was shot in the back and
paralyzed while trying to help fellow hostages escape from anti Imperium
terrorist. For his actions he was knighted into the Order of the Cross of
Arlea and retired from the BIA. He spent three years recuperating from the
injury.

After leaving the BIA, Sir Josph applied his skills to the world of commerce,
and became a successful businessman, involved in numerious projects until he
was invited by Talili Reycal (CEO of the newly established Founder Ship
Works) to become the fleedling companies chief negotiator. During this
period, Sir Josph became convinced of the pressing need for greater
cooperation and organisation within the shipbuilding industry. The outcome of
which was the creation of the ISBA.

Currently Sir Josph remains as the chief negotiator of Founder Ship Works;
but he also holds the post of coordinator of the ISBA. Sir Josph retains his
love of grav racing and maintians his own highly successful team from his
private funds. He is also frequently seen on the amatuer circuit, were he has
won numerous trophies. He was a close freind of fellow racer Corlan Cardell
and was frequently seen with him before his tragic and untimely death 8
months ago.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     **Addendum - Report from the Civilian Disarmament Committee**

To: The Imperial Shipbuilders Association
From: Alyn, Baron Wardn, President of Aurelian Industries
Re:  Report from the Civilian Disarmament Committee

Honored Imperial Citizens, Fellow Shipbuilders, Competitors...

I bring to you this day the results of the two-week study by the Civilian
Disarmament Committee, chaired by my humble self.  My colleagues on the
committee went to great effort to accomodate your concerns and comments, and,
even though some of these comments were diametrically oppossed to each other,
we have tried to make this document reflect the will of the entire
organization.

The proposal, which my sources tell me will be introduced before the moot as
the Civilian Spaceways Safety Act, has been reviewed by our legal staff, and
even a few trustworthy interested parties outside of this august body. It
represents our one true chance to influence Imperial law in an area very
important to us all; influence in a manner that will allow our industry to
thrive, but will prevent chaos and destruction in the glorious spacelanes
of our Empire.

Class I - Unregulated Equipment
          Availability - This equipment is available without restriction to
any ship-owning Imperial Citizen or any Non-Citizen with valid entry papers
for his or her vessel. This equipment is also available to non-shipowning
persons, subject to the local laws governing such equipment.
          Transferrability - This equipment may be freely transferred within
the Imperium by the legitimate owner to any ship-owning Imperial Citizen or
any Non-Citizen with valid entry papers for his or her vessel, or to
non-shipowning persons, subject to the local laws governing such equipment.
This equipment may also be transferred freely outside of the Imperium,
subject to the local laws governing such equipment.

Class II - Regulated Equipment
          Availability - This equipment requires a permit, issued and
monitored by the Imperial Starport Authority. This permit requires an annual
fee equal to 1% of the purchase price of the permitted equipment. Each peice
of Regulated Equipment requires a separate permit, and each permit is subject
to an annual renewal. Ships with Regulated Equipment are subject to
spot-inspections by Imperial authorities to verify the status of the permits
and associated equipment. Permits for Regulated Equipment are available to
ship-owning Imperial Citizens with no Imperial convictions outstanding, or to
Non-Citizens with a ship with a valid registration from an Imperial
member-state or client-state. Permits are generally not issued for
non-shipowners.
          Transferrability - Regulated equipment may be transferred within
the Imperium to other ship-owning Imperial Citizens, but the transferee must
first obtain a permit for the transferred Regulated Equipment. Permit fees
are non-refundable. Regulated equipment may not be transferred to
non-Imperial citizens without a waiver from the Imperial Starport Authority.
Permit holders are accountable for Regulated Equipment, and face possible
jail terms and/or fines equal to up to ten times the value of the Regulated
Equipment if such equipment is illegally transferred or used in a crime
against the Imperium.

Class III - Registered Equipment
          Availability - This equipment requires a permit similar to the
Class II permits, but also requires the ship owner to obtain this permit from
the Imperial Navy. This process requires the permit-seeker to prove the
necessity of the equipment in question, and generally involves an extended
investigation by the Imperial Navy. Registered Equipment permits are
available ONLY to Imperial Citizens, and only those with spotless records
with the Imperium. Because of the additional invesitgation efforts the Navy
requires, these permits require an annual fee equal to 5% of the
purchase price of the permitted equipment.
          Transferrability - Registered Equipment may only be transferred to
the manufacturer or to an Imperial agency. Permit holders are accountable for
Registered Equipment, and are subject to imprisonment, large fines and/or
ship seizure if such equipment is illegally transferred or used in a crime
against the Imperium.

Class IV - Restricted Equipment
          Availability - This equipment is restricted to Imperial vessels,
and is otherwise available only via a Ducal or Imperial Warrant. In the
extremely rare instances where such allowances are made, the ship is
required to be registered as an Imperial Fleet Reserve Vessel (subject to
emergency callup), and the equipment in question must still have Class III
permits.
          Transferrability - This equipment may not be transferred.  As the
equipment is either part of an Imperial vessel or based on an Imperial
Warrant, misuse of the equipment would effectively be an act of treason,
and punishable by death.

Class V - Prohibited Weapons
           Availability - Unavailable to non-Imperial vessels or persons.
           Transferrability - Non-Transferrable to non-Imperial vessels or
persons.

Class I Equipment
- -----------------
Civilian Control Systems
Military Control Systems
All Non-Meson Communications Systems
Sandcasters
Lasers (non-Bay sized)

Class II Equipment
- ------------------
MFDs
Missiles
    (Non-nukes and/or "back-box" nuke lasers as discussed earlier)
Turrets or Barbettes greater than 1 per 100 tons
    (Separate from the turret/barbette CONTENTS)
Nuclear Dampers

Class III Equipment
- -------------------
Meson Communicators
    (experimental now; when more common will likely become Class II)
Laser Bay Weapons
Non-Standard Turrets/Barbettes
High Energy Weapons (non-Bay weapons)
Meson Screens
Stealth

Class IV Equipment
- ------------------
Meson Weapons
Spinal Mount weapons
Non-Laser Bay Weapons
EMM

Class V Equipment
- -----------------
Chemical Weapons
Biological Weapons
Nuclear Weapons
    (other than "Black-Box" missile nukes)


(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.
(The news items presented in this newsletter are unofficial and in no way
sanctioned by Imperium Games or FarFuture Enterprises)

********************************************************

  Andrew etc.
    a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz

****************************************************************************
The longest distance between two points is with children.
****************************************************************************

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1596
***********************************

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Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 23 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1597



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

psi institutes
conventions
PCs and nobles
Re: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive
Re: FTL Commo?
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions
Re: psi institutes
Re: Psioncs Trivia (Was Re: Psionic Institutes)
Re: Grandfather Elvis
Re: A Question of Culture
Re: Ship Contructors Gazzette No 2
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: Low tech firearms
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1596
Re: conventions
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: psi institutes
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1595
Re: Planning for Traveller Design
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Strange design/drive question
Bounty hunting
LHyd fuel

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:21:15 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: psi institutes

"mark.wilkin" <aa4mwi@zen.sunderland.ac.uk> wrote:
>Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of
>it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on
>the list.
Appeared briefly in Southampton's Virgin but I went to buy it yesterday and
they'd sold out.  No more for 2 weeks.  :-('s

Still, B5 returns tonight so that's something to look forward to!

tc

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:21:00 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: conventions

hdhale@siscom.net (Harold Hale) wrote:

>   If I were a RPG game manufacturer, attendence both GenCon and Origins
>would pretty much be mandatory.


You would have thought so wouldn't you?

>  I would also pick several of the
>Dragon*Con-sized events to send representatives--you pretty much want to
<make sure you hit each region of the country at least once.  As for
>international events, that would depend upon my travel budget.  Going to
>a convention in Europe can get very expensive.

Yes, but there are ways around this surely.

Andy Lilly seems to be doing a great job of promoting Traveller at the Euro
Gen Con last year and this year (yet to happen).

He also encourages BITS members to attend (and run Traveller games if
possible) many of the smaller events around the country.

Surely this could become a formalized arrangement if IG were serious about
representation but didn't want the expense?

(Actually, for all I know it may already be.  Sorry Andy - I'm sure you can
speak for yourself.)

tc
timothy.collinson@solent.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:22:21 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: PCs and nobles

Mike Peters wrote:

<snip three really excellent ways of having noble PCs - thanks>

>I have mentioned the above on the assumption that Marc asked the
>original question about land grants with the idea of a Character
>Generation System for Nobles in mind. As you can see, if this is the
>case, I oppose full blooded, working PC Nobles. I think that any
>character with the power of a "working" noble doesn't belong in
>Traveller, may be a game played on a grander scale ( a take off of
>Pocket Empires?) or something, but in a normal PC party see it as being
>totally unbalancing.

I think I can understand your sentiment here, ennobled, landed PCs are not
the stuff of Travelling tramp traders, mercenary Mercenaries and other
types of previously published adventures.

But Traveller is so much bigger than that.  I'm convinced that the range of
possible adventures (even within MWMs Imperium) has only just been
scratched.

That's one of the reasons I found Pocket Empires so refreshing - it was
Traveller on an entirely different scale - but still Traveller.  Just as
Trillion Credit Squadron allowed space battles on a different scale and
World Builder's Handbook took scouting to new levels, there are facets of
Traveller we've not yet explored.  (At least not in published rule books,
I'm not counting home brewed adventures).

How about _Megacorporations_ - a kind of Pocket Empires for the traders
amongs us?
Or _Sword and Blaster_ for the detailing of duels (perhaps an update to En
Garde? [1])
Or some detailing of computers and how they work in Traveller?
Or...

....I'm sure there's much more but limited imagination early in the morning
fails me!


I would certainly agree with you that landed nobles shouldn't become
regular parts of adventures all the time, but *an* element for use when the
mood strikes should be perfectly natural.

I'm all for the *option*.

tc


[1]  Am I right in thinking Marc wrote this?

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:27:52 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Possible Reason for "fuel" for Jump Drive

>If we use this JumpSpace^2 theory we still will have a maximum distance
>of Jump 36 (6^2), interestingly enough jump 36 is the maximum distance a
>misjump may cover.  You may be on to something here, however it needs
>further amplification to explain all those jump 11, jump 17, & other
>strange jump numbers a misjump may produce.

This might explaon why there are so many J1 designs floating around in
canon despite them being uneconomical: 1^1 = 1 so these buggers only
misjump the distance they were supposed to go the first place. ;););)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:45:08 +0100
From: anders.backman@aniware.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: FTL Commo?

>This sounds like the Einstein-Rosen-Poldolsky "paradox" which has
>generated a lot of controversy and theoretical research over the
>past 62 years (the original paper was published in 1935).

The EPR paradox is merely a paradox if one subscribes to the Copenhagen
interpretation of Quantum Mechanics but the Copenhagen interp. is only an
INTERPRETATION - it doesn't affect quantum mechanics math or physics one
iota.

>Back in 1995, a team of researchers transmitted Mozarts 40th symphony
>at 5.7 times the speed of light through the boundary layer of a
>microwave
>waveguide. The effect is due to quantum tunneling.

No they didn't.

They merely transmitted the Mozart this and that with a phase speed of 5.7
c. The communication speed was below c as usual. There has been some more
or less layman speculation about using phase speed as FTL commo but anybody
doing the math will see that it doesn't work.

Quick now; how fast does the "end" of a lightbeam travel that is emitted
from a lighthouse with a light rotating at 1 round per second? The speed
will be pi()*beamlength*2, the beam length is c*t - thus the beam end
travels at more then lightspeed after 1 second and will continue to
accelerate forever.

How come nobody finds this bit of trivia as interesting as the phasespeed
one quoted? They are more or less the same phenomena but the latter is
easier to understand.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit condescending but the above references are as
valid as the Roswell bullshit, cropcircles etc but tend to have followers
with slightly more schooling in science. They are perfect RPG props for
X-files adventures, GURPS atomic horrors etc but doesn't fit the hard SF
nature of Traveller (with thrusterplates, HEPLAR, gravfocussing and other
totally accurate scientific predictions ;)


/Anders Backman
Aniware AB
anders.backman@aniware.se

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:53:16 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

- ->     The's why all Aslan military starships still have their jump drives 
- -> made by "Boeing-Rockwell" in "Tycho City, Luna", in the year 2267.
I think you read that wrong: It should be "Airbus-Daimler" ;-) 
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:51:38 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: IG's (Non)Attendance at Conventions

- ->    If I were a RPG game manufacturer, attendence both GenCon and Origins
- -> would pretty much be mandatory.  I would also pick several of the
- -> Dragon*Con-sized events to send representatives--you pretty much want to
- -> make sure you hit each region of the country at least once.  As for
- -> international events, that would depend upon my travel budget.  Going to
- -> a convention in Europe can get very expensive.
But Essen would be a good optin to consider in Germany (Biggest Games 
Show in the World..)
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:09:04 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: psi institutes

- -> 
- -> Still, B5 returns tonight so that's something to look forward to!
Growl, Germany's station hasn't even started to plan for the return 
of Bab5, growl... 
Well, at least i've already got PsiIns
Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:01:59 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Psioncs Trivia (Was Re: Psionic Institutes)

- -> PI, IMHO, is one of the best works yet by IG. It's given me insight not
- -> only in M0 development of psionics but also helped in the development
I like it as well, but would have wished for it to be more Milieu-
indepentant.

- -> over psionic nobles. Check out GDW's Alien Module 4 (hey, Marc! Are
- -> these AMs ever going to be republished?).
They were, by a German publisher, in a hardbound edition, some years 
back. At the moment they are available from a German RPG- store at 
http://www.mag-net.de/FANEN   for 250 DM


Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:45:50 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis

	IIRC there was a mention in one _canonical_ source that there is St. 
Elvis, worshipped somewhere in the Solomani Rim. Survival Margin 
perhaps? Can't remember, it's one of those MT things I don't have in 
my library.

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:33:45 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: A Question of Culture

On 23 Jul 97 at 10:16, Mark Samuels wrote:

> Travellers often deal with cultures on different planets and with...

<massive SNIP>

> I hope this sparks off a few ideas and responses,

	I've found an old Travellers' Digest (issue 16 IIRC) to be of far 
greater help than WBH when detailing various cultures. The article 
"Aspects of Culture" features over a dozen "cultural statistics", 
such as equality of sexes, value of life (both human and alien), work 
ethic etc.. Actually I have copies of the pages tacked over my desk. 
Been there for years, yet prove themselves useful every single time 
we play. :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:37:56 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Ship Contructors Gazzette No 2

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

(Snip of awesome proportions)

>      **Addendum - Report from the Civilian Disarmament Committee**
> 
> To: The Imperial Shipbuilders Association
> From: Alyn, Baron Wardn, President of Aurelian Industries
> Re:  Report from the Civilian Disarmament Committee 

(Snip)
 
> Class II - Regulated Equipment
>           Availability - This equipment requires a permit, issued and
> monitored by the Imperial Starport Authority. This permit requires an annual
> fee equal to 1% of the purchase price of the permitted equipment. Each peice
> of Regulated Equipment requires a separate permit, and each permit is subject
> to an annual renewal. Ships with Regulated Equipment are subject to
> spot-inspections by Imperial authorities to verify the status of the permits
> and associated equipment. Permits for Regulated Equipment are available to
> ship-owning Imperial Citizens with no Imperial convictions outstanding, or to
> Non-Citizens with a ship with a valid registration from an Imperial
> member-state or client-state. Permits are generally not issued for
> non-shipowners.

What an absolutley wonderful idea. I'm sure the emperor will leap at 
this wonderful opportunity to fill his coffers with the monies from 
this really neat revenue gathering exercise. The Nobles and megacorps 
will be happy too, as these fees will put a lot of the more marginal 
small para-military operators out of business, thus increasing 
Mega-corporate influence in the imperial fringes.

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:49:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In a message dated 97-07-23 07:35:10 EDT, you write:

<< 
 If it does, could you make pi equal to 3.0 while you're at it?
  >>

Good idea. Make it so.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:47:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: CardSharks@aol.com
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

In a message dated 97-07-23 03:13:54 EDT, you write:

<< 
 We've been discussing the possibility for some time that *all* the human
 races copied the J-Drive from Ancient artifacts.  Of course, the truth is
 buried in time, or shallow graves to hear our conspircey theorists tell it. 

>>

That's a favorite topic of mine as well.

Marc

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:46:13 +1100
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Low tech firearms

Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:

> Recently there was some disscusion as to the practicality of producing
> automatic weapons at late TL3/early TL4. So I sat down with G3G (since I
> prefer it to the FF&S sequences for early weapons) and came up with the ENL
> Libertad. Its a weapon which could be produced in late TL3, though its more
> properly an early TL 4 weapon. The cartridge has a muzzle energy of 531j
> (about the same as a modern 9mm parabellum). The biggest problems with it are
> going to be the huge quantities of smoke it would produce during automatic
> fire and the fouling caused by the black powder propellant. Despite its
> difficulties, it would still come as a nasty suprise to complacent high tech
> characters.
> 
SNIP

> It is a bullpup combat rifle firing 6mm cased black powder ammunition from a
          ^^^^^^^
Given the excitement even modern TL8 bullpups can provide if they 
have a primer blowout, I think only the truely desperate or insane 
would willingly use this weapon :)

R. Boleyn <gtrupert@iconz.co.nz>

TNE to the Core

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:59:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.net>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1596

> From: Mark Samuels <Mark.Samuels@questintl.com>
> Subject: Boldly looking ...

> I'm looking for MT literature on (i) robots, (ii) aliens and (iii) 
> starships.  Anyone know of robot construction rules?  Info on Darrian?  
> Rules about creating Vagr or Alsan characters?  A library or other listing 
> of MT starships (those design rules take a *long* time ... )?

There was no published MT literature on robots.  I have somewhere in my
collection a playtest draft of MT robot rules, by Rob Prior (?) downloaded
from GEnie long ago.  Anyone know its copyright status?  I seem to recall
that it required use of the CT Book 8: Robots rules.  The main point in it
was an increase in programming cost for higher skill levels for robots,
and an integration of some of the MT vehicle design rules. 

On Aliens, there were two DGP alien books, _Solomani and Aslan_ and 
_Vilani and Vargr_ (known affectionately as Cats and Rats and Cogs and Dogs
respectively.)  There may have also been a few bits and pieces in the MT
Journal, but I don't remember much about them.  The CT Alien books are
fairly adaptable.  The CT Darrian book was one of the last CT products.

For MT ship designs (plus other vehicles) you can find the archives of my
old designs on Jo Grant's web page.  There were two or three hundred designs
of all sorts, from the electric bicycle to a million displacement ton
battleship.  Some of the ships wouldn't actually work very well in combat,
but I think that most of the merchant ship designs were pretty reasonable.
A fellow named Scott (2-G) Kellogg did a slew of designs, too, which can be
fished out of the TML ftp archive at the University of Western Ontario if
it still exists.  Has anyone copied over the old TML archives to some easily
accessed web site?

(Lucky I read the whole digest today...)

Rob Dean
(a TML dinosaur)
robdean@access.digex.net

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:14:55 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: conventions

	Less than two weeks to RoPeCon '97 , and I just got a call from one 
of the organizers: They want my four of my paintings to the Gaming 
Art Exhibition there... Won't stop me from running a Traveller game, 
though! :)

	FYI: RoPeCon'97 (http://www.hut.fi/~ropecon ... all Finnish page) is 
probably one of the biggest independent gaming events in Europe 
(around 2500 guests last year).

	I contacted IG months ago about the con, asking for some promo stuff
(poster or two etc.), to draw people's attention to Traveller (most
local gamers talk about Traveller in past tense these days, which
seems pretty alarming to me). Never heard from IG, though. Since
they can apparently overlook a (nearly) free contact of ~2500
potential new Traveller fans and potential customers... I hope they
know what they're doing. Putting $ into telemarketing instead of 
events isn't a exactly a good business decision, IMO.	Then again, 
what do I know, I've studied marketing for only 3 years. :P


	... now where's my mandatory "  panic.  " badge... :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:22:21 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

On 23 Jul 97 at 13:53, Volker A. Greimann wrote:

>      The's why all Aslan military starships still have their jump
> drives made by "Boeing-Rockwell" in "Tycho City, Luna", in the
> year 2267.

> I think you read that wrong: It should be "Airbus-Daimler" ;-)

	Nah, most likely it's going to be "Hyundai-Matsushita". Or some 
other Pacific Rim Megacorp...


/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:19:22 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: psi institutes

On 23 Jul 97 at 14:09, Volker A. Greimann wrote:

> -> 
> -> Still, B5 returns tonight so that's something to look forward to!
> Growl, Germany's station hasn't even started to plan for the return
> of Bab5, growl... Well, at least i've already got PsiIns Ad Astra,

	Lucky bastards... Around here B5 1st season starts late next month. 
I think. Fortunately the local SF-club swaps B5 videotapes so I've 
seen all episodes up to 6th of 4th season. :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 09:20:58 -0400
From: 34zbtxq@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Susan M. Shock)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1595

>>>	From what I read about this Savoie dude; the francophone name
>>>indicates CDN origin, and the handle seems to fit...
>>
>>That may be him.. I know that he lives in/near Toronto, and the style seems
>>similar.
>
>
>	Great...  IIRC, he's a real asshole.  What group did you say he was
>on?   I might just swing by and toast his ass for old times sake :).

He's on the Babylon Project mailing list, where he is continuing to be as
much of a jerk as ever.

Allen

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 06:47:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Planning for Traveller Design

<<<<<<Mass Snippage>>>>>

  Nicely put, I think - one of the things we have to deal with as
Traveller geeks is that things change over time, and that what is written
about the Traveller "past" often changes as new stuff comes along.

  However, I do think a certain degree of consistancy is in order.
Traveller today is very different from Traveller ten or twenty years ago -
the existance of that shared history and all that published stuff means
you don't have to make it up new every day like D&D - it's there already,
so you might as well use it.

  As for your comment about it being impossible to reach consensus on TML
or on some other forum, I have to disagree with you.  Some issues, like
the task debate, do have no ready resolution, but that often is because
the folks involved have fundmentally different assumptions (like should
skills or stats count for more?).  Other subjects do have a resolution,
because often we can point to one or another source that clears things up
to the point we can agree.  The Rule of Man tech level debate is an
example of that, I think - aside from yourself, we agreed that a tech
level of 12-low 13 was about right, with perhaps +1 in medical and
biotech.

  Now, if you mean consensus in the sense that _everyone_ agrees, well,
that might be hard, esp. since you seem convinced of your own
interpretation.  However, if we mean consensus in the sense of what _most_
or _almost all_ folks agree on, then I think we can achieve consensus -
just may not be one you or I specifically approve of.

  Central to my dislike of making the Rule of Man some really high tech
thing is that it makes M0 too much like TNE.  Don't get me wrong, I loved
TNE to death, Virus and all.  But chasing high-tech goodies works as a
plot-line once, and once only.  M0 should have its own flavor. 

   Anyway, those TL14 vac suits were an Anomaly, and they should stay that
way.

______________________________
Dr. Mark Clark
Oregon Institute of Technology

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:55:17 -0600
From: Erwin Fritz <efritz@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
> Marc writes:
> > or does my saying that (above) make 1.6 km per mile canon?
> 
> If it does, could you make pi equal to 3.0 while you're at it?
> 

He already has. That's why subsector and planetary maps uses hexes 
rather than circles. Food for thought.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:24:30 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Craig Berry wrote:

> 
> 6) Due to the generated temporal anomaly, the ship explodes some months
>    before anyone even thinks of trying this out.
> 
> "Well, Cap'n, all systems are ready, shall we lift?"
> 
> "Yes, by all means, take her--"
> 
> *BOOM*
> 
> Nobody ever has the faintest clue why.

Except, of course, for the bowl of petunias which suddenly pops into
exixtence a mile up in the atmosphere, which inexplicably thinks..."Oh,
no, not again!"

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:46:33 +0100
From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: Bounty hunting

I have been thinking about starting a campaign in which the players are
bounty hunters (agents). Given the maxim that the imperium rules the space
between the stars and not the member worlds, do people think there will be
a niche for bounty hunters fulfilling imperial arrest warrants by hunting
down fugitives taking refuge on member worlds? What sort of treaties and
legal constraints do you think will exist to address this area of law
enforcement/arrest evasion. And what do you see as the role of the Imperial
ministry of justice in all of this - do they license bounty hunters, or
issue arrest warrants for certain crimes that empower its agents to venture
outside the extrality fence into member worlds jurisdiction? Will there be
an analogue of the FBI or Interpol in the imperium? I'd appreciate any
thoughts you all may have and any references you can provide for material
on this subject.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:49:39 +0100
From: "Nick Munn" <N.S.Munn@sheffield.ac.uk>
Subject: LHyd fuel

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

> > Where is this 33 figure coming from? Electrolysis of water is trivially
> > easy, and with a MW of power, you can easily electrolyse a lot of water,
> > very quickly. Electrolysis of water ALSO gains you a great advantage over
> > scooping gas giant...it is a greatly purifying step, particularly if
> > you're distilling it first, again a trivial matter if  you have a spare
> > MW.
> 
> Heck, if you have a "hot fusion" reactor, you can *thermally* "crack"
> water into hydrogen and oxygen. Use the water as a step in cooling the
> reactor and at even *low* plasma temps water dissociates.

Actually, a MW-hour won't electrolyse that much hydrogen -- about .35 
m^3 is what I remember was calculated.

I did the calculations for the reaction

H2O(g) -> H2(g) + 1/2 O2 (g)

and assuming heat capacity at constant pressure is reasonably 
constant with temperature (didn't have enough data for water to do 
otherwise...) the temperature at which water spontaneously 
dissociates to H2 and O2 is a little under 4000K.  If anyone has an 
experimental number for this, I'd be really interested...

> Actually, electrolyzing water that has a significant amount of salt in
> it gets you hydrogen and *chlorine* with NaOH being left behind! That
> can be a *real* pain to deal with, as you wind up with a *solid* (or at
> least *highly* concentrated solution).

I suspect that scooped water would be distilled before purification 
proper would begin to eliminate this problem.


> Not really. For example, there is a ceramic that acts as a *solid*
> electrolyte, and passes oxygen *through* itself, generating electricity
> in the process. You can purify hydrogen letting it diffuse thru
> palladium. Heat the palladium a bit, pump a vacuum on one side and have
> the gas mixture on the other. The hydrogen will diffuse thru.

True AFAIK (although the other junk may clog up the surface of the 
palladium pretty quickly and inhibit the process).


> So getting the hydrogen seperated is easy. Seperating the isotopes
> could be handled by repeated diffusion (protium will diffuse fastest,
> tritium slowest)

I suspect that it's possible to use the different probabilities of 
adsorption of H2 and D2 on metal surfaces to do the same job.  (See 
N.S. Munn & D.C. Clary, J. Chem. Phys. 105 (1996) 5258.)

H2 diffusion in Pd is mentioned in Munn & Clary, Chem. Phys. Lett.
266 (1997) 437.  There are some references to experimental work in 
there somewhere...


Fuel scooping:

In response to Dom's question about needing an enormous buffer stage 
between fuel scoop and holding tanks, I would agree with Leonard that 
it's probably not necessary.  I would envisage the 
compression of fuel to be accomplished by the ship's velocity 
relative to the atmosphere -- got to be pretty fast to collect all 
that fuel -- and combined with venturi-like nozzles to provide Joule 
cooling.  You may not quite be able to get LHyd straight off, but I'm 
sure you can do a fair fraction of the work required.


Nick

Dr. Nick Munn, Dept. of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Tel. (0)114 222 2673, email n.s.munn@sheffield.ac.uk

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1597
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 23 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1598



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Please repost aging table
Re: Major/Minor Races
Re: Low tech firearms
Re: A little ride
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1596
Re: Major/Minor Races 
FBI in 3I
Elvis in Traveller
Re: FTL Commo?
Re: Planning Traveller Design
Re: Major/Minor Races and Airbus
Re: Noble Lands
Re: Psionic Institutes
Re: T4.1 Character Generation
Re: FTL Commo?
Beginnings v 0.92 ready!
Re: Planning for Traveller Design
Re: LHyd fuel related
Re: Psionic Institutes
Overwhelmed by the TML!
Re: Major/Minor Races and Airbus
Re: Grandfather Elvis
Re: Elvis in Traveller
Re: Strange design/drive question

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:55:51 -0700
From: Scott Foster <scottfo@MICROSOFT.com>
Subject: Please repost aging table

Someone had posted a table of modifiers for the aging roll based on
tech, race, etc a while ago.  I accidentally deleted it and would love
to have it again, or a pointer to it!

Thanks,
Scott

knyghte@msn.com
ShadowBlinder, TruthFinder

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 07:56:05 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Volker A. Greimann wrote:

> ->     The's why all Aslan military starships still have their jump drives 
> -> made by "Boeing-Rockwell" in "Tycho City, Luna", in the year 2267.
> I think you read that wrong: It should be "Airbus-Daimler" ;-) 

That's right, it came from a _crashed_ starship didn't it ;-)

(I just saw the (Wings?) show on 'glass cockpits'. One segment has footage
of the Airbus that crashed at the Paris Airshow some years back because
the plane wouldn't let the pilot pull the nose up out of the trees)

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:08:45 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Low tech firearms

Actually, since BP is such lower pressure than modern smokeless powder,
it's easy to construct this so a primer blowout wouldn't occur.

Jamming, on the other hand...

Also, black powder isn't as fouling as this post would indicate. one of
the tests that the Army conducted on BP Cartridge rifles in the 1870's
was a continuous fire test: firing the thing until you couldn't shoot it,
or 1000 rounds, whichever came first. The Sharps .45-70 lost out to the
Remington because the cartridge eventually jammed in the breech, and the
person conducting the test broke off the ejection lever. By grabbing the
stock of the gun, and sticking his boot under the ejection lever and
pushing.

However, this brings up the point that guns like this could get around
such problems by using 'caseless' ammo: paper cartriges were in very
common use from the early 1800's on through to the invention of brass
cased ammunition. No worries about jammed cartriges, and more importantly
for an underground insurrection, reloads can be made where ever you can
get some powder, paper and time.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

> 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:12:25 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: A little ride

Michael D. Peters wrote:
> 
> Last night I made one of the (apparent) Cardinal Sins on this mailing
> list. i made an off the top of my head post in reply to the discussion
> about using non-optimuim fuels in relation to a Traveller vehicle.

I want clarify this because my buffoonery in nettiquette gave the wrong
impression.  I completely agree with you. Sorry about the perceived
snip, but I couldn't get through on your email address to explain last
night.  

BTW, I like engineers and gearheads.  They are a lot better than
lawyers(exempt Traveller playing lawyers here:)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:13:55 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1596

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Rob Dean wrote:

> A fellow named Scott (2-G) Kellogg did a slew of designs, too, which can be
> fished out of the TML ftp archive at the University of Western Ontario if
> it still exists.  Has anyone copied over the old TML archives to some easily
> accessed web site?
> 
> (Lucky I read the whole digest today...)
> 
Those were called the TLxx and VDxx files, right? I think they're on Joe
Heck's site, but if nno one else has them I have tjem in both text and MS
Word form somewhere around here. If no one else can scrounge them up I'll
put one or the other on my web page.

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:15:16 +0100 (BST)
From: Eamon Patrick Watters <E.Watters@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races 

"Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de> sent:

- -> The's why all Aslan military starships still have their jump drives
- -> made by "Boeing-Rockwell" in "Tycho City, Luna", in the year 2267.

>I think you read that wrong: It should be "Airbus-Daimler" ;-)

Nope, "British Exospace" {8->

Eamon.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:19:32 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: FBI in 3I

From: John_Wood@cbtsys.com
Subject: Bounty hunting

There will be an Imperial "FBI", "CIA" etc. The Imperium probably is still
using local forces and integrating them at the time of proclamation. It will
be IRIS. 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:14:57 -0400
From: "Glenn Crawford" <glennc@nelvana.com>
Subject: Elvis in Traveller

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:45:50 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis

	IIRC there was a mention in one _canonical_ source that there is St. 
Elvis, worshipped somewhere in the Solomani Rim. Survival Margin  perhaps?
Can't remember, it's one of those MT things I don't have in  my library.

It was spoken by Strephon (!?!) in Survival Margin. He was referring to the
song Suspicious Minds. (about the rebellion, we're caught in a trap and we
can't get out) 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:16:00 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: FTL Commo?

> I'm sorry if I sound a bit condescending but the above references are as valid as the Roswell bullshit, cropcircles etc but tend to have followers with slightly more schooling in science. They are perfect RPG props for X-files adventures, GURPS atomic horrors etc but doesn't fit the hard SF nature of Traveller (with thrusterplates, HEPLAR, gravfocussing and other totally accurate scientific predictions ;)


Remember, although these little tidbits may sound like they don't hold
water, somewhere out there is the "blackbody radiation" problem of the
21st century. 

Experimental findings showed a discrete, stepped progression of
radiation from "black body" objects in the early 20th century, when
theory predicted a smooth output.  Gave rise to the basics of quanta,
the photon, if I recall right.

Better to explain what things mean rather than say "No, it doesn't." 
The actual results, math and meaning of many experiments are not
available to the layman, and misinterpretation often results.  As I
recall, this experiment was dealing with tunneling, and I considered it
a mathematical deal.  That doesn't mean something isn't happening we
don't have the "right angle" to pick up on, or use in the future.

If the "lighthouse" analogy is correct, then pusuit of the issue seems a
bit silly.  So why was it reported in magazines as being a sort of FTL?
Obviously someone thought something was there or was trying to gain
headlines(or grants.)  

We know all there is to know, all we need to work out is the details.
(paraphrase of an 19th century physicist who probably never existed)
deadeye

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:28:05 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Planning Traveller Design

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 06:47:44 -0700 (PDT)
Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> writes:
Subject: Re: Planning for Traveller Design
>
><<<<<<Mass Snippage>>>>>
>
>  Nicely put, I think - one of the things we have to deal with as
>Traveller geeks is that things change over time, and that what is written
>about the Traveller "past" often changes as new stuff comes along.

Thanks.

>  Now, if you mean consensus in the sense that _everyone_ agrees, well,
>that might be hard, esp. since you seem convinced of your own
>interpretation.

It is not my interpretation.  I just wanted to point out that there is
a way of looking at things to be consistent with T4.  I like using this
interpretation for playing T4 because "consistency is the bugaboo of good
pilots" as we used to say playing Fight in the Skies at the CUSGS.

>However, if we mean consensus in the sense of what _most_
>or _almost all_ folks agree on, then I think we can achieve consensus -
>just may not be one you or I specifically approve of.

Well, yes, but I don't see the expressions of online opinion to be a
representative sample, in a scientific polling sense.

>  Central to my dislike of making the Rule of Man some really high tech
>thing is that it makes M0 too much like TNE.  Don't get me wrong, I loved
>TNE to death, Virus and all.  But chasing high-tech goodies works as a
>plot-line once, and once only.  M0 should have its own flavor. 

Yeah, I used to worry about people's interpretations of all sorts of things.
Ultimately, we have to leave it for _anybody_ to decide what fun they have
doing what.

>   Anyway, those TL14 vac suits were an Anomaly, and they should stay that
>way.

100% agreement.  Sometimes, it is fun to throw an anomaly at the players--it
keeps them on their feet.

>Dr. Mark Clark
>


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:47:15 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races and Airbus

> (I just saw the (Wings?) show on 'glass cockpits'. One segment has footage of the Airbus that crashed at the Paris Airshow some years back because the plane wouldn't let the pilot pull the nose up out of the trees)


Yeah, one of the dangers inherent in a bad fly by wire code.  That was a
fairly complex safeguard put into the system, but basically amounted to
the airplane thinking it knew better than the pilot what to do in any
given situation.

Your aviation industry is going more towards this direction, and it is
not just Airbus.  The first F-22 test aircraft crashed due to an
overcontrolling FBW code problem.  Maybe pilots will be obsolete in the
future with AI systems, but until then I advise keeping one around just
in case with a set of manual controls:)

(Shameless plug for employablility above)

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 97 18:07 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Noble Lands

In-Reply-To: <970722134013_-856093880@emout12.mail.aol.com>

> << 
>  If you use 3.14159 for pi, then you should use 1.60934 for the miles to
>  km conversion.
>  
>   >>
> or does my saying that (above) make 1.6 km per mile canon?
>  
> Marc

:-)
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 97 18:06 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9707221328.A23400-0100000@zen.sunderland.ac.uk>

Mark.wilkin,

> Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy of 
> it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it on 
> the list.

My copy arrived a few weeks ago. It's good, but not great. If you intend to 
use psionics, it's useful to have, but not vital. No humongous 
canon-deviancies that I spotted.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:27:06 -0600
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Character Generation

SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com> wrote:
> 
> Allen Shock wrote:
> 
> <<I've seen people referring to the character generation charts for T4.1 and
> testing them. I assume this was published on the TML, and somehow I missed
> it. Would some kind soul please send me a copy of this? I'd like to take a
> look at it. Thanks.>>
> 
> You didn't miss it. Marc said that he'd post it to anyone interested, but
> it was a WFW97 file. Me, I've asked several times if someone will convert
> it to RTF or Word 6 so my Mac will read it, but no luck so far. :-(

Dom,

I used the MacLink Plus v8.1 Document Converter utility that came with
System 7.6.1, and that seemed to convert them fairly well to a Word 5.1
format for Mac.

If you are unable to convert them using your system software, I'd be
happy to pass along Word 5.1 versions for you. (It may not be until
tomorrow, as I'm taking in my new computer for a memory upgrade)

- -- Glenn Hoppe

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:02:46 -0400
From: Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net>
Subject: Re: FTL Commo?

Hi Anders,

> >Back in 1995, a team of researchers transmitted Mozarts 40th symphony
> >at 5.7 times the speed of light through the boundary layer of a
> >microwave waveguide. The effect is due to quantum tunneling.
> 
> No they didn't.

My apologies, but I must reiterate that they did, and I must add that
the effect is unrelated to phase speed and instead depends on the
instantaneous trasmission of information by quantum tunneling of
microwave photons through the inner waveguide boundary layer, not
through the waveguide cavity itself.  The experiment was repeated
several times with varying results.  As I am no longer current in
physics (I am a naval engineer), I'm afraid I can't tell too much more
without getting some facts wrong.  

But you are correct, the phase speed ideas are old and still effectively
useless for any sort of FTL communications.  That's why I didn't memtion
them.  This is something completely distinct and purely inexplicable as
far as classical physics is concerned.

> How come nobody finds this bit of trivia as interesting as the phasespeed one quoted? They are more or less the same phenomena but the latter is easier to understand.
> 
> I'm sorry if I sound a bit condescending but the above references are > as valid as the Roswell bullshit, cropcircles etc but tend to have > followers with slightly more schooling in science. They are perfect > RPG props for X-files adventures, GURPS atomic horrors etc but doesn't > fit the hard SF nature of Traveller (with thrusterplates, HEPLAR, > gravfocussing and other totally accurate scientific predictions ;)

Condescending, yes.  Correct, no.  Besides, the speed of light is
variable in vacuum depending upon the Casimir exclusion in effect in
that region (another surprise straight out of Quantum Mechanics.)

- -Dan Lane.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:21:58 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Beginnings v 0.92 ready!

Hey folks.

Now up on the Pan-Imperia web page is the newest version of Beginnings,
my Chargen program for T4. This is v0.92, and will take a character all the
way through mustering out. If y'all will give it a good test drive, kick the 
tires and all, and let me know about any bugs and such, I can get the code
firmed up and start working on prettying up the interface a lot, and then
get started roughing out some of the changes that The Boss has presented
to us in the T4.1 file.

The link on the page has the wrong file name listed, but it will get you the
correct file; I just haven't had time to update the page text yet.

New to version 0.92 :

        1) Fixes the "Immortality" bug in which aging rolls stopped after age
        75, and aging crises had no effect. Rolls now must be taken against
        Endurance with an assumed +2 modifier for medical help. I now
        guarantee the character will eventually die :)

        2) Re-enabled the ability to store a character as a disk file rather
        than only printing them out for those who like to import the character
        into a editor for formatting.

        3) Removed the ability to draft characters after the first term. This
        has helped with the "Immortality" problem.

        4) Have eliminated "automatic eligibility" for careers after the first
        term. This strikes me as more realistic, as the Army ain't gonna
        necessarily want you when your 42, as well as closing another loophole
        for the "Immortal Ensigns". 

        5) Finally came up with an official name for the program :) Welcome
        to "Beginnings."

        6) Characters can now only serve 7 (voluntary) terms *total* in any
        one service regardless of attempts at reenlistment. This prevents
        characters from serving 3 terms, leaving, re enlisting, serving 4
        terms, leaving, re enlisting, serving 3 more terms, etc., closing
        another immortality loophole.

        7) Characters may no longer reenlist in a career that they have been
        injured in or rejected in.
                       
        8) Fixed the bug crashing the program when the wrong type of input
        was given, e.g. typing a letter when a number was expected.

        9) Implemented the ability of Scholars to take a stint in college in
        lieu of a career term.

        10) Implemented rolls for mustering out.

        11) Variety of cosmetic fixes, color changes, etc.

Thanks in advance for testing it out, and I hope it's as much fun for y'all
to use as it was for me to code it!

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:58:43 -0600
From: lguatney@carbon.cudenver.edu (Leroy William Lu Guatney)
Subject: Re: Planning for Traveller Design

On Wed Jul 23 10:28:05 1997  (a fairly short time ago)
lguatney (Leroy William Lu Guatney) wrote:
>
>On Wed, 23 Jul 1997 06:47:44 -0700 (PDT)
>Mark Clark <clarkm@OIT.EDU> writes:
>Subject: Re: Planning for Traveller Design
>>
>>  Now, if you mean consensus in the sense that _everyone_ agrees, well,
>>that might be hard, esp. since you seem convinced of your own
>>interpretation.
>
>It is not my interpretation.  I just wanted to point out that there is
>a way of looking at things to be consistent with T4.  I like using this
>interpretation for playing T4 because "consistency is the bugaboo of good
>pilots" as we used to say playing Fight in the Skies at the CUSGS.

Interruptions should not be allowed while one is typing away at a console.

Strike that last paragraph above that I wrote.  It doesn't even make sense
to me.

Yes, it is my interpretation, but it is an interpretation made with the
experience of fact fitting.  I guess there are several passages in T4 that
seem _very_ clear to me, and not to others.  It is quite possible that I
am reading them with too much bias, _and_ it is quite possible that others
aren't reading them with enough bias, _or_ both is the case.

I will guarantee you all that if it ever becomes important enough for me
to _really_ know what the "truth" is, I will flat out ask Marc.  Please
don't take this as another call to Marc to post his opinion on the matter.
He _really_ is busy and it _really_ is not an important enough question to
ask at this time.

Let's look at it from another angle.  Until the Travellers' Digest adventures
took their little sidetrip to Kusyu, the Aslan were a Major Race.  If all of
these intriguing adventure ideas had been discussed in advance, I doubt that
anyone would have ever seen it in print.  Yet today, it is pretty much
canonical (I hate using that word now, and I am not trying to offend someone
who did not buy into that plot twist, I didn't for a long time.)

Again, I want to see more holes filled in.  I find it enjoyable that I can
meet someone new from somewhere else, and talk a consistent talk with them,
irrespective of their age (i.e. were they raised on CT, MT, TNE, or T4).

While perhaps things were off to a shaky start with IG, it is very clear to
me that their product is maturing.  Whenever I tell Marc that it bothers me
to see someone bashing T4, he says, "I bash T4."  Well that is fine, and
even makes sense.  Afterall, if he didn't think that way, he wouldn't be
doing his best to fix it.  I guess I have come out of the New Era into this
one with a realization that we have lucked out one more time, and someone
is publishing our game.

Time to get back to solving differential equations as applied to a leaky
sandbag (mass-spring systems).  (If anyone wants to tutor me over the next
two weeks until finals, I could post more often here. :)


Leroy Guatney - lwlg@usa.net
 University of Mars, NorthAm Campus
 Class of '98

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:12:20 -0500
From: deadeye@ebicom.net
Subject: Re: LHyd fuel related

> > So getting the hydrogen seperated is easy. Seperating the isotopes
> > could be handled by repeated diffusion (protium will diffuse fastest,
> > tritium slowest)


You are talking about a TL 10-13 electromagnetic reactor here.  At high
TL's the Imperium is able to make superdense materials-implying
manufaturing sources of VERY high artificial gravity.  Use a gravity
point, something like a singularity but not as deep, to just throw in
whatever you get out of the gas giant.  Use nuclear dampers to
strengthen the strong nuclear force.  The hydrogen will fuse, depending
on the gravity, and the rest wont.  Dump your exhaust overboard.  Using
the energy efficiently is another matter.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:08:29 +0100
From: John Wood <John@elvw.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Psionic Institutes

Someone wrote,
> Just wondering is this out yet? is it any good?? I'm sure I saw a copy
> of it in the London Virgin Megastore yet there's been nothing about it
> on the list.

Well, I just got it for my birthday (as well as LWH, The Babylon
Project, GURPS Mecha and GURPS Reign of Steel - an SFRPG bonanza 8-).
I'm about two-thirds of the way through it, and so far I'd rate it about
the same as Alien Archive - not quite as good as M0 or (my favourite)
PE, but better than any of the other supplements I've seen for T4.
YMMV.

Oh, it's not quite true to say there's been nothing about it on the
list - my "Psionics & Society: Right of Reply" was a veiled comment on
the third chapter.  I *really* like the way Traveller doesn't pretend to
offer an objective view of social/political matters!  The "alternative
view" sections are fun (if a more instant-gratificationist way of doing
things than the old days).  I did feel the anti-psionic view was poorly
represented, but (after an initial grump) I've decided that's fine - I
just read it as a pro-psionic media slant.  When we get to the Psionic
Suppressions, I will want to see some *reasoned* arguments against
psionics...partly because I can't think of many (other than the problems
of transition), and I want somebody else to do my thinking for me! ;-)

I'll try and comment some more when I've finished reading it.
 
John G. Wood  |  john@elvw.demon.co.uk  |  Oxford, United Kingdom

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:27:50 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Overwhelmed by the TML!

To everyone who sent me an rtf/Word6 copy of the T4.1 cgen rules, thank you!

I logged on this evening, to face a system crash - after upping the memory
allocated to Eudora and restarting I managed to download lots of copies of
the T4 cgen as attachments! After no initial response, I get loads of
copies... thanks! ;-) Need to up my memory to 36Mb from 20 now?

Dom

PS Please, no more copies?! ;-)

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:33:25 +2
From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
Subject: Re: Major/Minor Races and Airbus

On 23 Jul 97 at 11:47, deadeye@ebicom.net wrote:

> Yeah, one of the dangers inherent in a bad fly by wire code.  That
> was a fairly complex safeguard put into the system, but basically
> amounted to the airplane thinking it knew better than the pilot what
> to do in any given situation.

	Hehe. hehhee. Bwahahahaahaa!

	Somebody my gf knows from IRC works for the Finnish Air Force and 
slipped a military secret a while back fnord. He's one of the guys 
who customize F/A-18 Hornet (FAI's latest acquisition) fly-by-wire 
systems or weapon systems or something...

	Anyway, they go around from one hangar to the other, carrying their 
military-gray top-secret laptops... settle them on a table next to 
the plane to be updated... and boot Windows 95 !!!

	Just something you should be aware of when you read a 747 was shot 
down by a Finnish Hornet. It wasn't the pilot's fault, the software 
decided the big slow thing was trying to take over its airspace 
market share. :)

/RFXn     mlaakso@utu.fi        aka. Matti Laakso
 -Phone: +358-(0)2-237 9928       YO-Kyla 19 A 11
 -IRC: RFXn                       FIN-20540  TURKU
 -Talk: RFXn@delenn.yok.utu.fi    Finland

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:02:19 -0400
From: "Paul D. Owensby" <pauld@athens.net>
Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis

The most useful clue is in the "misspelling" on Elvis' "grave". Here, he
has left the sign pointing the way for the Illuminated to follow. Taking
the letters of Elvis Aron Presley (minus the first "A" in Aaron) and 
rearranging we get:

IR  VORN  SYLEA  SLEEP or "The Iridium King in Sylea Sleeps"

The naming of Ton Vorn, the "City of Kings" gives a further clue as to
where he may be found resting in his slumber beyond death; The Great
Presley/Yaskodray, aka Azathoth the "hunka hunka burning love", 
lying in wait for when the 11,000 stars are right for his awakening and
he can creep forth like a virus in the night.

Are those blue suede shoes peeking out behind the throne of Cleon?

**********************************************************
Paul Owensby (pauld@athens.net)                   
CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of ValuJump Lines
"So Economical, You'll Think You're Part of the Crew" (tm)
Pan-Imperia: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Owensby/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:02:38 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: Elvis in Traveller

Glenn Crawford wrote:

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:45:50 +2
> From: "RFXn" <mlaakso@utu.fi>
> Subject: Re: Grandfather Elvis
>
>         IIRC there was a mention in one _canonical_ source that there
> is St.
> Elvis, worshipped somewhere in the Solomani Rim.

You all know there's a real, yes, "real", church of Elvis in the US,
don't you?  Its in Nashville I think and started up about 4-5 years
ago.  Its actual name is something like "First Presbyterian Presly
Memorial Church" or something like that.  I kid you not.  Before it
opened up, I predicted, and still do, that one day there will be an
Elvis Presley University.  It will begin humbly as a music school, then
gradually expand into a full-bachelor-degree-granting-university, albeit
small.  Its motto will be TCB "Takin' Care of Business" and the symbol
will be a bolt of lightning with TCB on top.  The mascots will of course
be the Flying Elvi.  Precilla could buy a small college today and change
the name.

I want to read the future history of how the Solomani royal blood line
traces its roots to the Elvis.  Particularly messy were the infighting
between those descended from Lisa Marie versus those believeing that the
descendants of Michael Jackson and Lisa's first husband had the higher
claim because of the Salic Law principle that doesn't let women transmit
the heriditary claim.  (See Henry V).  I will omit any discussion about
links between Lisa Marie's  (and her First Husband's) membership in the
Church of Scientology and links to Feudal Technocracy ;-)  Suffice to
say that the Church of Elvis and the Church of Scientology didn't get
along very well.  Can you say "Jihad?"

Bloo
"Suede Shoes"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:13:50 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: Strange design/drive question

Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Craig Berry wrote:
>
> >
> > 6) Due to the generated temporal anomaly, the ship explodes some
> months
> >    before anyone even thinks of trying this out.
> >
> > "Well, Cap'n, all systems are ready, shall we lift?"
> >
> > "Yes, by all means, take her--"
> >
> > *BOOM*
> >
> > Nobody ever has the faintest clue why.
>
> Except, of course, for the bowl of petunias which suddenly pops into
> exixtence a mile up in the atmosphere, which inexplicably
> thinks..."Oh,
> no, not again!"
>
> Bruce Johnson
> University of Arizona
> College of Pharmacy
> Information Technology Group
>
> Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

There's a great short story, very short, by Greg Bear I think (in the
anthology Bears Make Fire or something like that) about the invention of
a ship that reaches light speed.  (Forgive the poor memory of physics if
I state this wrong).  So, as the ship reaches light speed, its mass
approaches infinity and the whole of the universe collapses on the ship,
creating a Big Bang.  "Again" it says.  :-)

Bloo

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1598
***********************************
Traveller-digest      Wednesday, July 23 1997      Volume 1997 : Number 1599



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Starter Editions
schools and mustering out in T4.1
Fusion Reactors
Re: THUDDD, PBEM
Re: Bounty hunting
Re: A little ride
Pi modification
Re: THUDDD, PBEM
Re: Elvis in Traveller
Re: PCs and nobles
Re: Refueling and fusion power
Re: Bounty hunting
re: Jump Fuel
Re: Bounty hunting
Re: FTL Commo?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:42:08 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: Starter Editions

Andrew Boulton wrote:

> In-Reply-To: <v01540a02aff8c3765f30@[198.70.218.41]>
>
> William,
>
> > Some t4.1 product like this would appeal to me. A full rules edition, with
> > rules in one booklet, Charts, Tables, etc in another, and a third with a
> > decent introduction to Traveller, a couple of GOOD t4.1 compliant
> > adventures (CLEANED UP FAR BETTER THAN T4's adventures in the hardcover),
> > and a starter subsector or two, with a price tag of $20. Yes, make them all
> > the cheapest damned things you can put out, but in a NICE box, and include
> > the required number of dice, and a few blank character sheets. Maybe a
> > sheet of "Cardboard Heros", too! (1 sheet, 8.5x11" cardstock, 4-color
> > printing, 1 sided. Makes up for minis.)
>
> Call it "Deluxe Edition", and I'd buy it...
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
>
>  "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

   I have to agree with this, basically.  However, I do have some
particular desires, but they may be peculiar to me and my players.

One basic traveller book is not enough.  I don't need/want multiple
copies of the info, but I need it broken up so that one person can
create a character while another equips his character and I review
encounter or combat rules.  What I would like to see is a group of books
(kind of like the old book/releases) that are regular 8.5" x 11" but on
the thin side, preferably with holes for three-ring binders, covering
separate areas:  character generation; star system/world generation;
starship design/combat; combat rules/equipment; regular equipment;
history/background/library data.

As it is, my 3 week old hardcover's spine is almost completely undone
and the supplements with the so-called "perfect-binding" are losing
pages.  Shortly, I am going to separate all pages from spines, run 'em
through the three-hole-punch and put them in separate small binders
(with errata included at appropriate places ;-)

"Cardboard Heroes" is also an excellent idea.  In fact, my players make
them already.

And why should I have to pay extra for a referee screen?  $12 US is too
much for too little.

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 97 21:14 BST-1
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: schools and mustering out in T4.1

Do schools count as terms served for the purposes of m/o?

On the face of it, no - after all, you don't start working for your employer 
until you finish school/uni/etc. OTOH, graduates start work on a higher salary 
than those without a degree, so they *should* leave with more money. And in the 
case of the academies, it could be said that you're working for them while you're 
there.
______________________________________________________________________
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:09:44 -0400
From: Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net>
Subject: Fusion Reactors

deadeye@ebicom.net wrote:
> 
> > > So getting the hydrogen seperated is easy. Seperating the isotopes
> > > could be handled by repeated diffusion (protium will diffuse fastest,
> > > tritium slowest)
> 
> You are talking about a TL 10-13 electromagnetic reactor here.  At high
> TL's the Imperium is able to make superdense materials-implying
> manufaturing sources of VERY high artificial gravity.  Use a gravity
> point, something like a singularity but not as deep, to just throw in
> whatever you get out of the gas giant.  Use nuclear dampers to
> strengthen the strong nuclear force.  The hydrogen will fuse, depending
> on the gravity, and the rest wont.  Dump your exhaust overboard.  Using
> the energy efficiently is another matter.

The concept is called "hadrogravitics" and utilizes compact, spherically 
(maybe cylindrically) symmetric gravitic fields to collapse a fusile 
bubble nearly to the point of fusion. Fusion is possible using gravitic 
compression alone, (almost like a nuclear powered diesel engine).  But 
the problem is ensuring that the fusion density profile is uniform 
throughout the containment field, otherwise fuel wastage and
innefficient 
parallel reactions occur.  These can be suppressed via design, alternate 
field geometries, and the use of nuclear damper nodes.  Damper nodes act
much like moderators and poisons in modern fission reactors to either 
enhance or retard the basic reaction.

Higher TLs allow for the production of even higher strength fields as
well as more effective nuclear damper initiation and damping.

How can the resulting fuson energy be harnessed?  Well, depending on
the TL:
							Maximum
							Thermal	
TL 	Cycle/Conversion System				Efficiency

6-8	Rankine and Brayton cycle heat engines. 	 40-55%

9-12    MHD and photoelectric arrays as "topping" 	 70%
	cycles at first with other supplemental 
	methods.  

13-15	At higher Imperial TLs (13+) possibly via 	 75%+
	direct conversion from energetic reacting 
	mass on a quantum vacuum (Heisenberg) level. 

Advanced designs allow the use of more energetic "advanced" fuel
cycles. Projected maxima for combined Rankine-MHD systems
are about 

It occurs to me that one of the frequenters of this list
ha an MIT Plasma Physics lab URL.  I really would welcome some
comments on this information.  


	-Hadronics-

Hadrons are the class of particles that participate in the strong
nuclear interaction.  They include both the mesons and baryons.  
Baryons are fermions that participate in the strong nuclear 
interaction, and fermions are elementary particles with an antisymmetric 
wave function and spin of one half.  Hadronics is the engineering 
discipline related to the study of these particles, their interactions,
and the practical applications of the same.  It is a subdiscipline of 
the Engineering and Physical science of Quantum Partonics.

Hadronic weapons utilize advancements in nuclear field manipulation 
and gravitic technologies to produce destructive effects.  Although
not weapons, the category of Hadronic devices also includes Nuclear
Resonance Dampers and Drivers along with their derivative devices. 
Under this criterion, some advanced TL 13+ fusion reactors can also be 
considered Hadronic devices.

The synergy of hadronic and gravitic technologies allows the creation 
of new classes of nuclear fusion reactors and weapons.  By 
generating enormous but localized spherically, symmetrical gravitational 
fields, these devices demonstrate the ability to compress advanced
fuels into stellar fusion parameters.  Additional manipulation of 
electron quantum states and nuclear field resonances transforms 
hadronic systems into nuclear fusion ignition devices.   Constructed
properly, the concept yields either a reactor or a detonation weapon
of unparalleled destructive potential given the simplicity and
resultant low cost.  Additionally, GH reactors can be configured to 
initiate catastrophic nuclear detonation, and require extensive 
safeguards to prevent this from occurring unintentionally.

- -Dan Lane

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:22:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, PBEM

> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:29:18 -0800
> From: aramis@asylumbbs.com (William F. Hostman)
> Subject: Re THUDDD, PBEM
> 
> Once again, I'd like to voice an objection to PBEM and THUDD cluttering my
> mailbox. Those of us on Digests can't even conviniently skip it by the
> title.
>
> >The following topics are covered in this digest:
> >
> >THUDDD 5 ballots coming soon
> >THUDDD 5 Entries (3/3)
> >THUDDD 5 Entries (2/3)
> >Racial stereotyping
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 47 kb; THUDD was 40kb of it.

Ah, yes, #1594, the "All Craig" issue of the TML Digest; that last "Racial
stereotyping" post was by me, also. :) 

> [this has been my quarterly objection to THUDDD and PBEM on TML. Thank you
> for your patience]

I wish I knew what to do about this.  Posting such huge quantities of data
via email offends my sensibilities as well; I consider my web-based
version of THUDDD (http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/thuddd.html) the
primary THUDDD resource, and in fact generated the email version by
"printing" the web page from Lynx and doing a tiny amount of editing on
the results.  My preference would be to place the ship designs on the web
only, and use email to the TML only for announcements, ballots, and
results.

I proposed exactly this when I took over the THUDDD last May; however,
several people on the TML apparently lack web access, and strongly
requested that the data appear on the TML.  For their benefit, I have
continued to post it.

Would it perhaps be better to go to web presentation of the data,
supplemented by direct email to anyone needing it, on request?  Would
anyone object to that?  I fear this might reduce the already smallish
response to the competitions -- is this fear justified?  Comments and
suggestions are more than welcome.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:25:20 -0500
From: Steve Daniels <blueboy@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: Bounty hunting

John_Wood@cbtsys.com wrote:

> I have been thinking about starting a campaign in which the players are
> bounty hunters (agents). Given the maxim that the imperium rules the space
> between the stars and not the member worlds, do people think there will be
> a niche for bounty hunters fulfilling imperial arrest warrants by hunting
> down fugitives taking refuge on member worlds? What sort of treaties and
> legal constraints do you think will exist to address this area of law
> enforcement/arrest evasion. And what do you see as the role of the Imperial
> ministry of justice in all of this - do they license bounty hunters, or
> issue arrest warrants for certain crimes that empower its agents to venture
> outside the extrality fence into member worlds jurisdiction? Will there be
> an analogue of the FBI or Interpol in the imperium? I'd appreciate any
>
> thoughts you all may have and any references you can provide for
> material
> on this subject.

   Interesting Topic.  I think you'd have 2 types of bounty hunters -
Imperially licensed and non-licensed because you'd have two types of
fugitives: fugitives from Imperial law and fugitives from member world
law.

Imperial warrants would issue (or an Imperial bounty would be available
for) fugitives from imperial law.  These are probably laws that either
interfere directly with the Arms of the Imperium (its agencies, etc.) or
that interfere with the Laws of Imperial Space (piracy, etc.).  I think
only an Imperially-licensed bounty hunter should be able to collect
rewards on these fugitives.  This license should give some protection
from or immunity to member world laws that might interfere with capture
of the fugitive, at least to whatever extent is "reasonably necessary to
effectuate capture."  [Can you tell I'm a law student?] :-P

Member-world bounties would normally have no standing on other member
worlds.  Thus, fugitives from one world may find refuge on another.
Same for bounty hunters; authority on one world doesn't translate to
another.  However, harboring fugitives might be bad for business for
most worlds, depending on the number and type of fugitives.  Some might
turn a blind-eye to both the fugitive and the bounty hunter, as long as
business isn't interfered with.  Some might actively work against the
bouty hunter.  In general, I think the higher the law level, the more
likely a member-world is to co-operate with the bouty hunter, although
the  weapons and methods allowed may be heavily restricted.  (A
very-high law world may not allow the bounty hunter to do anything but
wait for the domestic authorities to capture the fugitive).

Its conceiveable that the Imperium itself might 'harbor' fugitives from
the laws of a member-world, and a bounty hunter might be working against
the interests of the Imperium in trying to bring the fugitive to the
member-world's idea of justice.

I think a good thing to create for such a campaign, and all perhaps, is
a list of High Crimes that are forbidden on all member-worlds and in
Imperium Space.  Such things might include Genocide, Imperial Treason,
Mass Destruction (of a population center, say).

Bloo

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:19:56 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: A little ride

- --------------D5015256AF01CECFA7F1BCD5
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Traveller-digest wrote:

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 01:13:33 -0500
> From: deadeye@ebicom.net
> Subject: Re: A little ride
>
> Ooops!  No offense taken at all.  Never had that happen before!  I
> think
> you're referring to the "He is an engineer./kind of people you find on
>
> the TML"  comment?  Actually that was meant to be taken in the context
>
> of all the "Well I'm not an engineer, but" comments-humorously.  Of
> which I fall into - I'm just an operator, and only know the basics of
> operation.  You are an engineer and have a better grasp that than I
> do.
> Now I feel like crap-it was supposed to be humorous like you really
> are
> the final word.  My comments were literal and serious-no undertones.
> Better breakout the smileys:) next time.
>
>   Public apologies are due!
>

   Deadeye and the TML
I am the one that owes an apology. Admittedly I read your post, or part
of them as my server seems to have skipped some, as a more serious tone
than you obviously intended. The annoyance was meant at myself, however,
The original post was sloppy work and that is unforgivable. The TML,
since I have been following it for about 6 months, has an extremely high
percentage of intelligent and knowledgeable people in any number of area
of expertise. When posting on a subject in which one is supposed to be
an "expert" (if there is such a thing!) sloppy and incomplete answers
aren't the proper way to do things. I do apologize for that to all of
you!

P.S. the above obviously does NOT apply to MARC, since 'is 'oliness
would never say anything that is not TRUE CANON! ;^>
Humbly,
Mike Peters

- --------------D5015256AF01CECFA7F1BCD5
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
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<HTML>
Traveller-digest wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 01:13:33 -0500
<BR>From: deadeye@ebicom.net
<BR>Subject: Re: A little ride

<P>Ooops!&nbsp; No offense taken at all.&nbsp; Never had that happen before!&nbsp;
I think
<BR>you're referring to the "He is an engineer./kind of people you find
on
<BR>the TML"&nbsp; comment?&nbsp; Actually that was meant to be taken in
the context
<BR>of all the "Well I'm not an engineer, but" comments-humorously.&nbsp;
Of
<BR>which I fall into - I'm just an operator, and only know the basics
of
<BR>operation.&nbsp; You are an engineer and have a better grasp that than
I do.
<BR>Now I feel like crap-it was supposed to be humorous like you really
are
<BR>the final word.&nbsp; My comments were literal and serious-no undertones.
<BR>Better breakout the smileys:) next time.

<P>&nbsp; Public apologies are due!
<BR><A HREF="http://www.mpgn.com"></A>&nbsp;</BLOCKQUOTE>
&nbsp;&nbsp; Deadeye and the TML
<BR>I am the one that owes an apology. Admittedly I read your post, or
part of them as my server seems to have skipped some, as a more serious
tone than you obviously intended. The annoyance was meant at myself, however,
The original post was sloppy work and that is unforgivable. The TML, since
I have been following it for about 6 months, has an extremely high percentage
of intelligent and knowledgeable people in any number of area of expertise.
When posting on a subject in which one is supposed to be an "expert" (if
there is such a thing!) sloppy and incomplete answers aren't the proper
way to do things. I do apologize for that to all of you!

<P>P.S. the above obviously does NOT apply to MARC, since 'is 'oliness
would never say anything that is not TRUE CANON! ;^>
<BR>Humbly,
<BR>Mike Peters</HTML>

- --------------D5015256AF01CECFA7F1BCD5--

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 13:31:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Craig Berry <cberry@cinenet.net>
Subject: Pi modification

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:49:02 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CardSharks@aol.com
> 
> << 
>  If it does, could you make pi equal to 3.0 while you're at it?
>   >>
> 
> Good idea. Make it so.
> 
> Marc

Thereby providing a beautifully consistent and elegant reason why space is
measured out in *hexagons*!  Wow...Marc, you're a genius.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   |   Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
 --*--    Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
   |      Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/   
       "Every man and every woman is a star."

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:14:11 -0500
From: Matt McLaughlin <mkm@umr.edu>
Subject: Re: THUDDD, PBEM

Craig Berry wrote:
> 
[snip]

 
> Would it perhaps be better to go to web presentation of the data,
> supplemented by direct email to anyone needing it, on request?  Would
> anyone object to that?  I fear this might reduce the already smallish
> response to the competitions -- is this fear justified?  Comments and
> suggestions are more than welcome.
> 

Could you put it on and FTP server?  

Matt

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:35:39 -0700
From: kenji@accessone.com (Kenji Schwarz)
Subject: Re: Elvis in Traveller

Enough about Elvis!  Nothing but a Pink with a 'do, is what he was.
Templars?  Bah!  What about the bleeding head of Arnold Palmer?  Eh?  Is it
still on the run from the Trevinistas?  What happened to it after the
Rupture?

(Obviously, the so-called Empress Wave is merely the disruption caused by
"Connie" finding out about "Bob" and those young, taut little prairie
squids.  The Head, I assume, hasn't been launched again, or the universe
would look quite different.)

Anyone else out there ever thought about a SubTraveler setting?

Yours in Slack,

Kenji Schwarz
kenji@accessone.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:23:18 -0400
From: "Michael D. Peters" <Letterworks@Comten.com>
Subject: Re: PCs and nobles

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:22:21 +0100
> From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
> Subject: PCs and nobles
>
> Mike Peters wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> I think I can understand your sentiment here, ennobled, landed PCs are not
> the stuff of Travelling tramp traders, mercenary Mercenaries and other
> types of previously published adventures.
>
> But Traveller is so much bigger than that.  I'm convinced that the range of
> possible adventures (even within MWMs Imperium) has only just been
> scratched.
>
> That's one of the reasons I found Pocket Empires so refreshing - it was
> Traveller on an entirely different scale - but still Traveller.  Just as
> Trillion Credit Squadron allowed space battles on a different scale and
> World Builder's Handbook took scouting to new levels, there are facets of
> Traveller we've not yet explored.  (At least not in published rule books,
> I'm not counting home brewed adventures).
>
> How about _Megacorporations_ - a kind of Pocket Empires for the traders
> amongs us?
> Or _Sword and Blaster_ for the detailing of duels (perhaps an update to En
> Garde? [1])
> Or some detailing of computers and how they work in Traveller?
> Or...
>
> ....I'm sure there's much more but limited imagination early in the morning
> fails me!
>
>
> I would certainly agree with you that landed nobles shouldn't become
> regular parts of adventures all the time, but *an* element for use when the
> mood strikes should be perfectly natural.
>
> I'm all for the *option*.
>
> tc
>
  TC,

I guess my problem with rolling-up a Noble PC stems from the fact that I
see that more as a JOB than an adventure. As I said there are several
types of nobles that I can see in a traveller game, mostly "powerless"
ones, but a set of rules to roll them up should be available, but
limited. One a PC becomes a Landed noble the action moves to level that
takes it from a normal game group into something else.
I reffed games where a player managed to do some serious work (CT) with
the Merchant Prince rules and establish his characters in what amounted
to a Minor-Mega-Corp (!?). The character was used often after that as a
hook into other a adventures, and as an off stage patron, meanwhile the
player continued to uses the Merchant Prince info and a LOT of hand
waving by me, to play the character as the CEO of his corporation. We
had fun but I am sure that stock transactions would have bored the other
players to death.
On the other side I once played a character that became, through some
judicious use of fire power, the head of what amounted to a mafia
family. It bored me after a while because I wound up giving the other
players instructions, then they had the fun of carrying them out. My
character, admittedly, more by my view of his place n the scheme of
things, stayed back most of the time. Eventually I rolled up a thug and
let the GM have the character as an NPC.
I totally agree with you that some type of PE supplement can be a LOT of
fun, maybe when Nobles generation rules are created it could be a
supplement including high level rules for noble gaming (similar to
Trillion Credit Squadron or Merchant Prince's trade rules), (HINT! HINT!
HINT! subtle ain't I?). Of course, I'm also sure that the talent
involved in this game probably has any number of ways of fitting a Noble
in an on-going campaign, and it's just my personal prejudice showing. I
just felt the need to voice my opinion, (something I do more often than
I should, but not enough to satisfy me ;^) !)

Mike

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:42:06 -0800
From: Richard Hough <rdhough@orca.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Refueling and fusion power

>Can anyone tell me why there is such great disparity between sci-fi games
>on the amount of fuel required to power a fusion reaction?

Sci-fi games are games first, fiction second, and science is priority
number 1734 or so. Often the game or campaign effects of a technology are
decided first and the science is concocted afterward to explain the effects.

>Gurps for
>instance includes the fuel for a fusion reactor in the volume of the
>reactor and rules that this is sufficient to power full output for a period
>of 200 years. Traveller, as we all know, rules that starships require huge
>tanks of LHyd to power a reactor for a relatively short period of time.

GURPS has rules for a variety of different campaigns and science fiction
technologies. The "house" starship design system includes a large number of
modular components which can be assembled together. The advantage of this
method is that it is very easy to build a starship with only simple
calculations because each component has little effect on the performance of
other components. Also, GURPS Space adventures are usually
character-oriented in the sense that the technology and mechanics of the
campaign play a supporting and not central role. Since the power plant is
self-contained and does not require refueling, players can treat it as part
of the background and do not concern themselves with the minutae of its
behavior and operation.

Traveller, in comparison, is much more technically-oriented, with detailed
rules for the individual components of a starship which all have
interrelated mass/volume/power/surface area requirements. The advantage of
this method is that referees can customize the performance of ships for
specific purposes or constraints. Traveller adventures often involve an
amount of background detail, where players need to deal with things like
the maintenance and economics of their ships.

As an aside, I don't agree that starships in Traveller "require huge tanks
of LHyd to power a reactor for a relatively short period of time." While
jump drives require enormous amounts of fuel, power plants require only a
few cubic meters per year.

>     Which version is more scientifically accurate?

Scientific accuracy is a very dodgy thing in science fiction. First of all,
the principles in the story may be unknown to current science and therefore
not amenable to accuracy checks. Second, the principles are often described
vaguely enough so a variety of different scientific principles may be
invoked. For example, the GURPS reactor may use some form of mass
conversion technology, so a few kilograms of fuel could last years. On the
other hand, power plant inefficiency could increase fuel requirement by
orders of magnitude.

>And are there any
>real-world formulae or scientific laws that enable us to work out the fuel
>required to power a deuterium -helium fusion reaction for a given output?

A physics text could probably give you this information, however FF&S has a
general description of the relevant reactions in chapter 8. Remember that
the the equation for the nuclear reaction is only a small part of a fusion
power generation system. You also have to consider the proportion of
deuterium in the fuel, conversion to electrical power, the intensity or
variability ot the output, and the combined efficiencies of all the
component stages.

- --
Richard Hough
rdhough@orca.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:59:19 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Bounty hunting

John_Wood wrote:

>I have been thinking about starting a campaign in which the players are
>bounty hunters (agents). Given the maxim that the imperium rules the space
>between the stars and not the member worlds, do people think there will be
>a niche for bounty hunters fulfilling imperial arrest warrants by hunting
>down fugitives taking refuge on member worlds? What sort of treaties and
>legal constraints do you think will exist to address this area of law
>enforcement/arrest evasion. And what do you see as the role of the Imperial
>ministry of justice in all of this - do they license bounty hunters, or
>issue arrest warrants for certain crimes that empower its agents to venture
>outside the extrality fence into member worlds jurisdiction? Will there be
>an analogue of the FBI or Interpol in the imperium? I'd appreciate any
>thoughts you all may have and any references you can provide for material
>on this subject.

There is a good article in an early White dwarf (in the range 70 to 80) on
Bounty Hunting. (Not too hand unfortunately). It detailed bounty hunting as
a profession, and described that the process was enabled under a limited
form of Imperial Warrant.  Bounty Hunters also had their own ship (a type H
Hunter) which was a modified Type S with some interesting 'additions'.

Dom

- ------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com-------
"Omnia Mutantur Nihil Interit"  -  Sandman 'The Wake'
"Everything Changes, but nothing is truly lost" 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:04:39 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: re: Jump Fuel

>Unfortunately, FF&S2 probably will propagate [very low power plant fuel],
>creating
>logical fallacies for CT/MT cannonmongers who never accepted TNE as "Truly
>Canon"... Like myself.

One does have to admit that TNE/FFS2 fuel requirements are certainly much
more physically reasonable; the old-fashioned requirements for really, really
huge amounts of fuel were moderately ludicrous (ever try to calculate the
energy yield of fusing a tonne of hydrogen?)

And even in CT there was a pretty big discrepency between jump drive fuel
requirements and power plant; if one assumes jump drive built-in plants
and the main plant have the same fuel efficiencies (mass of fuel per unit
power), the jump plant is generating power 144 times as rapidly as a 
convential power plant. The discrepancy goes down if you assume jump plants
burn their fuel  even more inefficiently than normal plants, but one is 
then left wondering why you can't ever design a starship that uses a 
conventional power plant (or batteries!) to power its jump. And then there
are references in HG to the main power plant charging the capacitors for
jump...Jump-fuel-for-power is in the disputed, contradictory area of 
Canon. 

(And *please* don't mention the Annic Nova.)

Bruce

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:15:46 -0600 (MDT)
From: Marcus Teter <marcus@geminga.physics.montana.edu>
Subject: Re: Bounty hunting

Definately interesting,
	I was involved in a campaign in which we hunted a few individuals
from time to time.  It got very difficult when dealing with so many
different government types and law levels.  Admittedly, this was a M1100
campaign where the Referee was imposing some pre-Rebellion decay into the
Imperial system.  Most of the time, we would have to hide the fact that a
person was indeed our prisoner, leading to some funny role-playing
sessions.  A lot of our efforts were to conceal our work from the local
authorities, because very often local authority was corrupt.  The game was
not exclusively bounty-hunting, but we would occasionaly come across a
wanted individual; if we were heading in the right direction, we'd find a
way to capture the fugitive.  
	Once, we found a guy while heading the wrong direction.  We left
him on the world, then on our return (several weeks later) we still didn't 
to capture him.  It was kind of funny because we were dealing with the guy
like a good contact on the world.  We used him for this purpose until we
happened to be heading toward the world that the warrent was issued from;
then we captured him.
	I'm sorry that this post is a little vague, but it has been a long
time since the game.  But Bounty hunting can be a bunch of fun from the
players perspective.
      

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 16:23:40 -0700
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: FTL Commo?

Daniel Ray Lane <drlane@pinn.net> writes
Hi Anders,

> > >Back in 1995, a team of researchers transmitted Mozarts 40th symphony
> > >at 5.7 times the speed of light through the boundary layer of a
> > >microwave waveguide. The effect is due to quantum tunneling.
> > 
> > No they didn't.
>My apologies, but I must reiterate that they did, and I must add that
>the effect is unrelated to phase speed and instead depends on the
>instantaneous trasmission of information by quantum tunneling of
>microwave photons through the inner waveguide boundary layer, not
>through the waveguide cavity itself.  The experiment was repeated
>several times with varying results.  As I am no longer current in
>physics (I am a naval engineer), I'm afraid I can't tell too much more
>without getting some facts wrong.  

I agree with Anders - it's a neat result, but it doesn't demonstrate
FTL *communication*. It's not like they sent (for example) on-off binary
pulses at the speed of light; instead, they sent a part of a complex
signal (the symphony) that when recombined with the other part transmitted
normally, interefered to reproduce the symphony when the relative delays
were adjusted as is the FTL leg actually had travelled faster than light.
This is ambiguous for a whole bunch of reasons - not least because the
symphony is lacking in information at frequencies comparable to the 
travel times. It's certainly not clear that you could use this to send
information, but only to send a signal that only makes sense when you
recombine it with a signal that travels slower than light.

Most apparent FTL paradoxes are like this - like phase speeds, or 
Anders' lighthouse, or the EPR paradox; there are relatively straightforward
proofs that you can never use the EPR "action at a distance" to transmit
information - you can only notice the correlations when you compare the
results from both ends after the fact.

Bruce

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1599
***********************************
