Traveller-digest    Saturday, September 11 1999    Volume 1999 : Number 1088



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: WoTC
[none]
Re: WoTC
Re: WotC & Hasbro
Naff, Smeg, @ Frak, Attorneies at Law
Re: WoTC
Re: 5FW: 1st Fleet?
Re: Bad Players
Re: WotC and Hasbro
re: WotC & Hasbro
Re: WoTC
Re: MT Deckplan queries
Re: MT Deckplan queries
Re: Acceptable Battle Losses
Re: 
Re: ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Grand Tour
Re: FW: Starship miniatures
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1080
Re: Standards of Beauty

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 00:09:41 -0400
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: WoTC

- -----Original Message-----
From: Kurtis Rodgers <kurtis@fastlane.net>
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: Friday, September 10, 1999 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: WoTC


>I thought it interesting that FASA didn't make your list, but I guess that
>just depends on the 'major' criteria.  Still, FASA's Shadowrun is still in
>production and widely available.


You're absolutely right. I had it in mind when I was typing up my list, but
I just forgot to put it on by the end. I'm going to chalk it up to my
starting school for the semester. ;)

>I would also like to offer up Holistic's Fading Suns for at least an
>honorable mention.


Yep, I thought about that one, but I still really haven't seen a real broad
base around here. I think it's destined to be at least a middling player,
but I think it's still finding its audience.

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 00:14:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

Not exactly TML material, but of interest considering latest Hasbro/WOTC stuff
>Subject: [RPGANEWS-L] Work available
>To: RPGANEWS-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
>
>(This is not directly related to RPGA, but could be of interest to a few of
>you).
>
>Dynasty is expanding, which means hiring new people.  For some reason I
>can find enough people?  What's up with that?  Just five years ago you
>could shake a tree and people wanting in the industry would fall all
>over the place-(
>
>Anyway, i know you know a few gammers always looking for work-)  Anyway
>if you can mention it to a few people (or the RPGA network). i would
>appreciate it.
>
>I need to find an Office Manager (someone who is organized and can do a
>little book keeping)  and a Web Person (nothing in programing, just
>someone who know basic HTML and can use a program like Dream weaver or
>GO Live).
>
>They can fax, mail or e-mail me a resume.
>
>Thanx,
>Ken Whitman
>
>
>Dynasty presentations, inc.
>PO BOX 221
>Lake Geneva, WI 53147
>PH: 414-249-1505
>FAX: 414-249-9456
>e-mail: whitman@genevaonline.com
>

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:06:19 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: WoTC

>From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Re: WoTC
...
>>  *aka "Pudding Workshop"
>
>I'd play WFRP over AD&D 2ed anytime... and I do own and have played both.
>But I'd play Elric! over WFRP..

  I've considered "Elric!" but prefer the lower fantasy approach in WFRP
(the OTT stuff mostly came in the later tabletop wargames).

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:06:44 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: WotC & Hasbro

>From: GypsyComet@aol.com
...
>A chat with my local FLGS owner turned up other ugliness. Apparently WotC is 
...
>threat of GW moving in and doing the same thing (this is California, so they 
>haven't yet...) we have the potential to lose a lot of stores and a lot of 
>product exposure in a very short period of time...

  FWIW, it appears that GW's recent expansion of their mail-order parts
service to Canada entailed something similar. I can order bits & pieces
from GW and pay S&H on top of everything, or I can order it direct from
a local non-GW hobby store. GW doesn't offer a mail-order discount (and
they are in fact the most expensive place for me to buy their regular
merchandise over the counter), and at least by going through the hobby
store I save the S&H charge.

  _But_ - it certainly appears that GW doesn't want to make it easy for
the retailers to use the service, including suspiciously long delays in
getting the orders. FWIW, the retailer I use has a great advantage - he
has a $US GW mail-order price list - which GW would/could not supply him
(_I_ got one from them easily, but their competitors^h^h business
associates couldn't?).

  At this point, I don't buy directly from GW for less than a 50% discount,
and where an alternative product comes close to filling a role then I buy
that to avoid helping the rat-bastards...

  Hmm, IIRC, there's a web-site that includes a "GW Auto-Basher" applet...

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 01:09:00 +0000
From: MICHAEL FOY <musashi3@home.com>
Subject: Naff, Smeg, @ Frak, Attorneies at Law

It's amazing, at least in the circle of friends my wife and I have known
since the early eighties, how those little swear words from 'Battlestar
Galactica' have permanently incorporated themselves into our everyday
language. My wife and I have used 'Poogies, Frak, Felgercarb' et al so
much that our eight year old daughter (who btw loves my Traveller and
GURPS books) uses them as a semi-acceptable substitute for the
seven-dirty(+) words that will get suspended from school. We've warned
her about 'frak', it sounds too much like another word entirely. She's
has been watching over the summer our tape collection of B-5 and
Battlestar Galactica so this's only reinforcing things (in addition
turning her into a geekette at an early age).

And she still looks like Dittsie Spoofulam with the corresponding temper
to boot. Her favourite bedtime toy? A three-foot tall stuffed Totoro and
a little Spawn of Cthulu (courtesy of Chaosium). Cthulu recently ate her
stuffed Teletubbies (and she doesn't know about COC or the Mythos, at
least not yet). The tooth-fairy obviously is a MiGo.

My 70 year old scottish father-in-law has been using 'naff' as a cuss
word for the last 15 years I've known him, and I'm quite sure he's never
seen the program that spawned it. He told me that it was a derogatory
reference to the 'naavies' during World War II (ask Capt. Peacock on
'Are You Being Served' about them). It seems they were in a permanent
state of S.N.A.F.U. and were soldier/sailor wannabees.


ObTraveller: Like Star Trek IV, what obscenities and colourful idioms
have survived into the Far Future of the 3I in Traveller? Or have they
incorporated foreign c-words and morphed Anglic into something we cannot
recognize. Shakespeare's dirty words are either no longer obscene or
extinct from modern english. Remember at one time F*CK was not as
obscene as it is now (although Chris Rock uses it as his prime
adjective/verb!) Quite seriously, how about we invent new idiomatics for
Traveller? This'll be more fun than 'Relativistic Rocks'!


Musashi

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 22:35:52 -0700
From: shudson@lightspeed.bc.ca (Steven Hudson)
Subject: Re: WoTC

>From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@aracnet.com>
...
>>   *aka "Pudding Workshop"
>
>Isn't their RPG currently being published by Hogshead Games?  They would be
>a logical candidate for anything new, but their quality has been steadily
>going down hill since at least '92.

  AFAIK Hogshead Publishing has the license, and they're making a serious
effort to put out a quality (and value-priced!) product. PW itself has
put out less and less material of serious quality over the years; legend
has it that once upon a time they really did publish innovative rules that
required only small amounts of errata or tweaking...

  If you feel an urge to get someone into an F-RPG then take a look at the 
WFRP book first - it's all in that one rulebook for ~$30 US, and there's a
steady stream of generally high-quality adventures and sourcebooks being 
either re-printed or commisioned as original works.

        Steven Hudson

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 03:13:48 EDT
From: Clifford N Linehan <cnl.rubicon@juno.com>
Subject: Re: 5FW: 1st Fleet?

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 16:34:50 +0200 (METDST) From: Hans Rancke-Madsen
<rancke@diku.dk>
>There's very little information, but there is some. It comes from
_Spinward
>Marches Campaign_.

Thanks for the info. :)

>>The 1018th is the reserve fleet for Lanth.
>Not according to any canonical information that I know of. AFAIK there
is
>no canonical information about the numbers of specific subsector fleets.
>And unless the Imperium changes the number of a subsector fleet when the
>subsector gets a new regular fleet assigned, the odds that the two fleet
>numbers would correspond are not good.

Good point, I did not take that into account. I do hope that the GT:
Imperial Navy book will deal with fleet locations. (This is a BIG HINT to
SJ Games).

>John Banagan is not a recognized canonical source. (Though he seems to
>have done a fairly good job of extrapolation). I must admit that the
other
>site looks awe-inspiringly official. But is it? Is it Marc Miller's own
>official website? If so, I must bow to his greater authority (while
still
>maintaining that he may have failed to think all the implications fully
>through).

Sorry, I always had the impression that the Missouri Archive was all
canon material, my mistake.
No, the Imperial Navy Archives website is not run by Marc Miller.

>No, because the 18th was stationed elsewhere at the time, since the 1st
was
>stationed in Lanth.

<Humor Mode>

(Salute) Sir, Yes, Sir.

</Humor Mode>


Clifford Linehan
cnl.rubicon@juno.com
One man's magic is another man's engineering.
IMTU tc+ tm+ ?tn- ?t4- tg++ ?tt to ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt au st+ ls pi+ ta he+
kk hi as va dr so zh+ vi da sy

___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:17:30 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Bad Players

In mail you write:

>> Kiri have you by any chance read any of Lois Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan
>> adventures?  [Insert plug for writer with more novel Hugo's & Nebulas
>> than anyone else still writing] In her second most recent book,
>> Komarr, the character Ekaterin uses this bit "at least he doesn't beat
>> me" bit to defend her not so charming husband.
>> 
> I should read those.  Everyone says so.

Now is a good time to start as they've re-released the first two books
("Shard's of Honor" and "Barrayar") in a single volume as "Cordelia's
Honor". And it's now out in paperback. I'm going to buy a copy to loan
to friends.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:26:23 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: WotC and Hasbro

In mail you write:

> Among my many exciting (hah) real-life characters, I am an avid GI Joe
> collector,

Ok, I have to ask. I used to own an original GI Joe "Mercury Capsule".
The Capsule, Spacesuit, tether & backpack. Alas, thanks to my kid
brother it disappeared years ago. :-(

What would it be worth? (or what would it cost to replace it?)

<cringing in advance>

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 11:57:20 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: re: WotC & Hasbro

GypsyComet@aol.com writes:

>A chat with my local FLGS owner turned up other ugliness. Apparently WotC is
>pursuing a direct-distribution scheme

<snip>

It isn't surprising.

The US *distribution* system for RPGs is absolutely lousy at the moment and
is probably doing more damage to the market in a long term basis than CCGs
did in the short term.

They do not return calls, and are disorganised and poor at handling
products in. This is from experience - BITS tried to just *talk* to the
distrubutors in the US to establish what they wanted from us.

WoTC are making a rational decision if they establish their own
distribution chain. Much like SJG having warehouse23.

It's a shame that the FLGS are being hammered, but WoTC (as an OEM) wants
to shift units of their product. A secure chain helps this. :-/

Dom

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 12:05:34 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: WoTC

rboleyn@paradise.net.nz writes:

>Chivalry & Sorcery is still around It's coming up for edition 3.1 after
>problems with the publisher of 3rd edition. The original authors don't
>have full control of the copyrights, and the old publisher went belly
>up, etc, etc (sound familiar?). However they've found a new publisher
>and a new, improved version is being written, and new stuff is being
>published, so it's atill alive.

C&S Lite is out already, and reintroduces some of the material missed out
in the 3rd ed. ISTR that once existing stocks of 3rd expire the 3.1 release
will come out. The Knight's companion is out (a collection of background
material on knights through the ages). A caveat to this - I do not lay or
own C&S - BITS just shared a stand with Britannia Game Designs at GenCon.
Steve & Sue Turner have done some excellent work in clearing up the look of
the game, and making a clear path through the rules... if I could overcome
the fear of the rules I'd probably get a copy...

Dom

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 05:01:39 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MT Deckplan queries

In mail you write:

>> Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 22:26:42 -0700
>> From: "Tom" <tbergman@brawleyonline.com>
>> Subject: Re: MT Deckplan queries
>> 
>> IRL, military ships don't bother with cosmetic things like false
>> ceilings/floors/bulkheads to cover up the wiring, piping, and duct work.
>> The exceptions to the lack of "finished" spaces are the
>> Captain's/XO's/Admiral's/VIP's cabins.
>
> Actually, aboard submarines (probably the best rl model for starships) the
> situation is almost but not quite like this.  Pipes and conduits do wind
> around overhead, under the ceiling but above head level, but the walls
> tend to be mostly smooth metal access plates, covering electrical gear and
> other stuff underneath.  All such plates are prominently and colorfully
> labeled as to the function of what they cover.
>
> The idea is that exposed equipment invites accidental damage, ranging from
> just snagging on your sleeve while sprinting down a passageway up to
> spilling your coffee into a power bus.  But all the equipment needs to be
> very easily found and accessed for emergency repairs during battle or
> other extreme conditions, so the equipment isn't hard to reach or
> disguised like in an office building.
>
> So my mental picture of a passageway aboard a military ship -- or off
> passenger decks aboard many civilian ships -- is a somewhat narrow tunnel,
> brightly lit, with pipes and cable ducts snaking around up in the shadows
> behind the lights, lots of neutral-gray boxes and cabinets making up the
> walls, most with ventillation ducts, and all bearing large, bright,
> colorful labels.  A few would have simple display panels on the front of
> the access plate, usually just a few green/yellow/red status telltales or
> a single numeric readout.  Hanging from the wall at one end or another one
> would probably find a maintenance log, either a clipboard with lots of
> dog-eared paper or a computer slate tied into the ship's computer.  You
> might also find a basic tool kit, first aid kit, and flashlight clipped to
> the wall.

My images have been based on the factory I used to work in. The main
corridor had wall panels that were *screwed* into place. They weren't
removed often, but they were designed so they could be if it proved
necessary. 

Most of the "stuff" ran overhead. Layer after layer of piping and
electrical conduit. All labelled, often with arrows indicating flow
direction. Packed tightly in some ways, but kind of loose in others.

Basicly, they'd do stuff like have six related pipes/conduits on the
same "hanger", then a gap on one side and space above so that you could
get at them to work on them. 

One other thing this got across to me. The corridor was *huge*, about
20" wide and 10" to the lower pipes. Why? Because they needed to be
able to move just about *any* piecew of equipment in the factory (or at
least the largest parts of them) along that corridor!

This makes sense on medium to large ships. Any ship where there's more
than one bulkhead between majot chunks of equipment and the outside is
going *need* internal passages big enough to move sub-assemblies of the
various weapons, drives, power plants, etc through. It beats the heck
out of cutting thru multiple presure bulkheads and then patching them
later. 

It also means it's possible to have *big* battles inside larger ships.
I rather expect that you could drive *tanks* down the main passages in
a battleship. 

Naturally, there'd have to be pressure doors along the length of these.
But I think it'd make damage control easier, because you can just yank
a car sized subassembly from something and have a spare dragged down to
you. You can worry about digging out the 50 cent component that failed
*after* the battle. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 05:30:29 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MT Deckplan queries

In mail you write:

>>>What happens when you
>>>have more people in a ship than you have 'paid for' in terms of quarters.
> I
>>>mean, if life support is based on hull volume, how can it be applicable to
>>>how many quarters you have.
>
>>  If you have a sudden, and hopefully temporary, overflow of people onboard
>>you have two choices as Captain: pay the per-trip costs for each actual
>>person, allowing them to exist  somewhat above abject misery; or pay the
>>usual per-stateroom cost and pray these people aren't onboard for more than
>>one jump, since hunger and sanitation will become issues very quickly...
>
> RL example. When stationed on a US Frigate during the Haiti boat lift we had
> several hundred refugees picked up from unseaworthy craft on a ship designed
> for ~140 officers & crew.  They stayed on deck and crew members were not
> allowed above decks (due to possible disease infection).  Salt water showers
> were rigged up.  The smell was so bad that for weeks after there was no
> where on board that didn't stink of human waste, sweat and unwashed bodies.
>
> I can't even imagine how much worse it would have been in a sealed
> environment.

Well, in a spacecraft you have a *hard* limit in the form of air regen.
You can skimp on food for a long time. Heck, a healthy person can
survive a jump with *no* food. You can skimp on water. Healthy folks
*may* manage to make a jump on no water, but I wouldn't advise it. 

But you can't cut down air usage by much more than 50% (sedate all
non-essential personnel, and cut the O2 in that part of the ship to
only 1.5 to 2 psi. You don't *dare* drop it below 2 psi for the folks
who have to do physical work, or whose judgement has to remain
unimpaired. 

Likewise, you can't allow CO2 to build past a few percent.

It's possible to rig a setup that'll freeze the CO2 out of the air. So
that's not too bad. But I'd have to look up the amount of O2 humans use
per day. That's your limit for refugees. 

I seriously doubt that the "air limit" can be stretched much. Just
about any *practical* kludge will have already been built into the air
system. 

This may make a good way to present PCs with a dilemma. There are 200
refugees or disaster survivors or whatever. And their ship *can't* take
more than 50 and still have a chance of anybody being alive at the end
of the jump. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 17:16:20 +0100
From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Acceptable Battle Losses

Steven Hudson wrote:
>>From: Matt Clonfero <Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk>
>>Subject: Re: Acceptable Battle Losses (was: Re: Safety of low berths)
>...
>>INVINCIBLE, INDEFATIGABLE and QUEEN MARY were all battlecruisers, not
>>dreadnought battleships.
>
>  They were built using the same principles as their battleship stablemates
>and cost roughly the same; I've also seen them referred to as dreadnoughts.

Definition of a Dreadnought battleship: A ship with an `all big gun'
armament (i.e. a primary battery of a single calibre, with a possible
secondary battery of a smaller calibre); and armoured against those guns
(i.e. a 15" Dreadnought should be armoured against 15" shells).

Battlecruisers are defined as carrying the same or similar size primary
battery as contemporary battleships, but sacrificing armour for speed.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
- -- 
Matt Clonfero: Matt-C@aetherem.demon.co.uk    | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me.        |   -- Anon, ETPS.

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:15:24 -0600
From: "David J. Golden" <goldendj@pcisys.net>
Subject: Re: 

At 12:14 AM 9/11/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>They can fax, mail or e-mail me a resume.
>>
>>Thanx,
>>Ken Whitman

	This would be the Ken Whitman who was involved with T4 ...?
- -- ------------------------------------------------------------ --
   Dave Golden                  http://www.pcisys.net/~goldendj 

   Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they 
   did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:53:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>On 09/09/99 at 08:46 AM,  "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net> said:
>
>>So, like, does this mean that the FASA stuff won't be on the TravCD?
>>:-p
>
>That's probably what it means, unless some one has gotten permission from
>FASA to put there stuff on the TravCD.
>
>AFAIK, FASA still controls those copyrights, that is they weren't sold to
>Microsoft.

Actually, Seeker controls at least some of those copyrights, at least
according to a conversation I had with the owner of Seeker in 1991.

FASA had given me permission to distribute copies of the deckplans free,
which I was doing. Seeker asked me to stop, as they had acquired the rights.

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:53:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Grand Tour

>In a message dated 9/10/99 2:30:11 AM !!!First Boot!!!, j_pete@bellsouth.net
>writes:
>
><< I hope Tukera Lines doesn't claim this ship to be *unsinkable*. ;-)
> There's a story there somewheres methinks.
>  >>
>
>Gee, would that involve an uncharted planetoid and not having enough shuttles
>for all of the sentients onboard...:-) ?

Check out the Titanic ask listed in 101 Starships, too.

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:53:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: FW: Starship miniatures

>I love starship miniatures, but as the Traveller ones are so hard to get, I
>managed to obtain the SDB and Far Trader before the stockist ran out never
>to see any more, that I mainly use Silent Death and Full Thrust miniatures
>in MTU. For example my Outreach class armoured scout is based on the Silent
>Death Blackwidow class fighter. I even did a set of deck plans based on the
>configuration.
>Anybody else doing things like this?

The stocklist ran out? Looks like I won't be posting my 20+ packs of
unpainted Traveller ships on eBay, then!

Actually, Rafm will do custom runs of stuff, if you order enough
miniarures. I think their current requirements are 250+ copies of the same
figure, with half payment required before they start the work. You could
write and ask. (Of course, their license may also have expired.)

Many of the Traveller ships live on as Silent Death miniatures (or some
other game starships, anyway).

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

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:53:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1080

>>From: "Bruce Macintosh" <bruce.macintosh@worldnet.att.net>
>...
>>It's very hard to design a general-purpose lens that will focus from 2 inches
>>in front of the lens all the way to infinity. What you want is a "macro"
>>lens,
>>specialized for closeup photography;
>>you can buy one for most SLR ("interchangeable lens") type cameras.
>>Even used such a lens might be fairly expensive, so what you might want
>
>  AFAIK, a Pentax 100mm macro runs something like $300 US; a Tamron 90mm
>may be cheaper, but Nikon pricing doesn't bear consideration :(  While
>you can probably find used lenses that say "macro" on them for awfully low
>prices you might consider that often you actually do get what you pay for,
>and that there quite likely is no return privilege with used items.

I had a nice Tokina telephoto zoom that had macro capability on it. Cost me
$300 Cdn in 1985. Nice sharp images and the macro could enlarge up to three
times. Unfortunately some ^&% nicked it a few years ago.

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

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:31:23 -0400
From: Thom Jones-Low <tjoneslo@together.net>
Subject: Re: Standards of Beauty

> 
> Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 22:01:30 PST
> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
> Subject: Re: Standards of Beauty
> 
> In mail you write:
> 
> >         While Vargar may be more smell oriented than humans, they still have
> > their visual requirements of beauty, like humans. I would think that the
> > Vargar beauty standards would always be most healthy, thick fur, bright
> > eyes, good teeth, etc.
> 
> Question: Do Vargyr females have hypertrophied breasts like Human
>           females? If so, then Vargyr males are going to expect 6 (or
>           is it 8 on dogs?)
> 
> Or did Grandfather reduce the tendency to litters? If so, the number of
> mammaries can be reduced.
> 
> This sort of thing will have a *major* effect on Vargr sexuality and
> "turn-ons".
> 

	IMTU, Granfather change as few of of the physical characteristics of
the Canis species as possible. Vargr females only go into heat once or
twice a year. and in groups of females, only the strongest does (like
wolves, only the alpha female goes into heat). And no, female vargr do
not have the exaggerated breasts of humans. This make telling (for
ignorant people any ways) male and female apart difficult. And makes for
some interesting encounters. 
	Vargr are much less interested in sex than dominance, because only the
dominate males & females have sex. For everyone else it's a non-issue.

> >         Another odd though. Because of the presence of odd alien proteins and
> > differing concentrations of minerals or metals, there would be worlds
> > where you would get some odd combinations like orange skin or green hair
> > or yellow eyes. And given the nobility's quest for the new standard of
> > beauty, wouldn't this introduce some strange dietary habits. Not that
> > aren't such strange diets already.
> 
> These aren't terribly likely. *Very* few animals on earth have
> collorations derived from what they eat. Pink Flamingoes are the only
> example I can think of. That's due to a pink compound in the shrimp
> they eat in the wild.
> 
> It *is* known that with sufficiently high dosages of carotene a human
> can become *quite* orange, with few or no ill effects. But this
> required really *dedicated* munching on carrots :-)

	Exactly. I know there are some other chemicals that have an equal
effect, usually not stuff you would want to eat. Given alien chemistry
and compounds there may be a few of these in the alternate diets
required on another world. 

	Just something to add color to your universe. 

	"They're all *what* color"
	"Bright green, like plants, but otherwise the look and act totally
human..."

> 
> - --
> Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
>  shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
> leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort
> 
- --
	Thomas Jones-Low
	tjoneslo@together.net

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1088
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