What are the BIG differences in your Traveler universe

[SimonAce]

Thought I'd toss this out there.

The biggest difference in mine are the Solmani. the Terrans as they call themselves.

Instead of the kind of creepy East Germany vibe, Earth becomes a balkanized world based a bit on Traveller 2300

There is a unified defense force, the TDF Terran Defense Force but beyond seeing Imperials as Less Human (I kept the bigotry and xenophobia) because of Vilani blood, there is little joint effort outside this sphere. Little direct war either

Socially its quite different with several blocks (The Asian "Co Property Sphere", the Commonwealth, The European Union, Pan Africa and South American Alliance) and fewer nobles though Terran Nobles do have contact with their Imperial counterparts and reciprocate courtesies . They are often Diplomats, Envoys and sometimes Spies PC material basically

Now technology is a bit different, taking from some old supplement on the Solmani I assume that Terran ships are a bit submarine like, less comfortable than Imperial ones and a bit claustrophobic. Passenger space and the like is 10% smaller.

The planets tech is TL14 mostly with TDF ships being TL15 (recent espionage)

Also Terra is far more advanced in computers than the Imperium, having hit TL11 Computers (aka Smart Phones) way back during TL8 . Its about Tl17 in this area or so with Computers and Robots everywhere and a few TL16 knowledge innovations as well .

This along with vastly better firing solutions allows the smaller Solmani forces to pack a heavy punch even with TL14 material science, swarms of robot operated asteroid monitors or AKV's are cheap and quite nasty and its possible for a ship to Jump Drop an automated factory and just swarm and area with robots. Now if it came to an open war, the vastly bigger Imperium would win but the ending setting would be more like the New Era only worse. Neither side wants that, so no outright war

lastly Psionics, there is less fear of psis on Terra, they aren't common and some abilities are licensed when trained but as efficient as surveillance gear at TL14 is, few people worry about the privacy implications. Also Psi screens are pretty cheap.Psi's are basically just folks, a bit feared the way people are leery of cops , spies or special forces guys but respected

This makes Terra a juicy target for Zhodanic operatives but in that case local Xenophobia keeps that in check. The Zho aren't even close to human to Terrans

Adventures in the Solmani Rim are a little more 2300 than standard Traveller but trader with Imperials, spying, and any of the other kind of adventure are possible and there are a few exchange programs here more monarchical societies (Thailand, the UK, others) share contact and personal with the Imperials

Whew, well that's that.

So whats different IYTU ?

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

I was going to set an adventure in the Trojan Reach and wanted some historical background details. So I worked out a map of the Reach around -2200 when various Vilani fleets began settling down there, with half a dozen native populations, including the Troiani, a minor human race living on a suitable world. I had a Vilani fleet arrive at Troia and take over, giving them a solid industrial base. I then worked out a map for every 30 year thereafter with die rolls to see if in the intervening years a world near a world with interstellar capability had gotten an outpost, an outpost had grown into a colony, or a colony had become a mainworld. I also took misjump colonies into account. I had pocket empires meet and fight. I had the Troiani/Vilani expand and grow into an empire (The Glorious Empire, natch) that spanned most of the sector. The Aslans arrived around -1000 and slowly crept corewards. The Glorious Empire had civil wars and fractured. One remnant became that Glorious Empire that still existed, a pale shadow of its orginal self, in 1100. Another became the Freedom League (alignment code 'Fl'). Troia itself balkanized and got another name. It was the most detailed bit of background development I'd done until that date.

And a couple of months later the issue of TD with the writeup of the Trojan Reach was published...

On a smaller scale I once took the adventure Night of Conquest and set it on Mewey, changing the J'aadje and the K'tring into two different sets of human settlers, the Ajabarans from around the fall of the Long Night and the Katri from around the dawn of the Third Imperium. (When BtC was published I moved them to Borite in the Trojan Reach, btw..)

Once, long ago (back in 1992) I worked with a few others to create a frontier for the Imperium in the Beyond sector. We used as much of the existing background as possible, but there's no denying that this is alternate universe

Eventually the project faded away, but we managed to get quite a bit done.

Here is a recap I wrote when I tried to revive the project back in 1997:

The area involved is Foreven, Beyond and Vanguard Reaches Sectors. The Beyond and Vanguard Reaches starmaps (from Paranoia Press) retains very little except the star positions and a few of the names. The starmap in _Vilani & Vargr_ of Foreven Sector were enlarged enough to make out which hex what star belongs to. Some mistakes were made (A map of Foreven was recently published in 'Imperial Lines'), but as quite a lot of work has already been done, I'd like to keep it that way. The political boundaries shown on the V&V map were worked out as well as possible. There's one 90-world realm stretching across 5 or 6 subsectors that is now known to be the 'Avalar Consulate', a client state of the Zhos. Paranoia Press had called their part of it 'Die Weltbund' (bad German for 'Federation of Worlds' (it should be 'Die Weltenbund')), and that's what we'll stick to. (A neutral 90-world state would have a lot less impact on the Spinward Marches than a Zhodani-friendly one). This federation is the 'staging area', the civilized provider of technology, R&R and patrons. We have a rough idea of the first 3 centuries of settlement (2nd to 4th after the Imperial Calendar), a sketchy timeline, names and UPPs for some of the worlds and some ideas about the dominant culture.

The maximum TL of Weltenbund is 13. We're working on the size of their fleet, and are considering various dodges to keep it smaller that TCS would have it.

As for the unknown frontier, the governments of roughly 7 subsectors of Vanguard Reaches and Beyond have been wiped out and THE NOMADS inflicted on them:

NOMAD DOMAIN: Area roughly comprised of subsectors H, K and L of VANGUARD REACHES and subsectors E, F, G and I of BEYOND. The area is dominated by a unique starfaring nomadic culture. Seven _hordes_ have divided the area's systems between them and lives by exhorting what they need from the planetary populations. If they encounter resistance they bomb a part of the offending planet down to TL 0, which usually makes the rest of the planet toe the line. They stay for a year or two in each system, and then continue on to the next system. Before they leave a system they destroy as much of the local manufacturing capacity as possible, to ensure that the system will not grow strong enough to defy them when they return in 15 or 20 years. Rumour has it that in the few cases where a planet has succeeded in keeping a horde at bay, word has been sent to other hordes which thereupon have sent their own ships to help, resulting in the complete defeat and rape of the planet in question.

HISTORY: The history of the Nomad Domain is not known in details. The area is believed to have been settled during the Ramshakle Empire and to have lost all knowledge of jump technology when the Long Night fell. Sometime in the First Century one planet must have regained jump capability and started to explore the neighbouring worlds. Somehow some starships must have fallen into the hands of a primitive nomad tribe which used them to subjugate and plunder the original planet. They took slaves, and these slaves were forced to maintain the ships and build more.

An alternate theory has it that the nomads are the descendants of a beaten mercenary fleet from some unknown place that arrived in the area just as one or two planets were reaching TL 9. [Last update: 134-934]

The nomad jump technology is 11, enough to build jump-2 ships. Their military hardware TL is 12. They have BIG motherships that serves as home for family and slaves and as jump-tenders for their fighting ships, the "Claws". The motherships have TL 10 jump-1 engines (easier to maintain) and fuel tankage enough to make two consecutive jumps. The Claws are 10.000 T TL 12 non-starships. A third type of vessel is the 2000 T scouts with jump-2 and double tankage. These are the ones that make it hazardous to travel in the systems that the horde fleet is not in at the moment. They also raid the borders of their civilized neighbours occasionally.

The nomads must maintain a delicate balance. They need industrialized worlds to "milk", but they can't afford to let them get too industrialized. There's no reason, in fact, why worlds can't have a fairly high "cottage industry" TL. Worlds with low population and/or low TL would not be made the victims of a visit from the main fleet since they would not be able to provide what the fleet needs (These worlds would be subject to raids by the scout ships though). On the other hand, each world would be on it's own, so they would need a minimum number of people to make a viable population. Population level 5 perhaps?

The Domain will be opened by having Weltenbund (aided by the Imperium) trap and destroy most of the nomad fighting ships. Sufficient ships will survive to be able to trouble Weltenbund and PCs for many a year, but the intrepid merchant (or survey team) will be able to penetrate where no non-nomad has flown for a millennium. Furthermore, the nomads have served a a barrier to contact with the systems on the other side (the rest of Vanguard Reaches). Some knowledge has seeped around the edges, of course, but those systems are pretty much terra (or terras incognita. With the breaking of the nomads, merchants suddenly become interested in knowing about them.

Steve didn't like the Imperium involvement, but I need it in order to get my players involved. They are playing the crew of an Imperial Naval vessel.

We have a _very_ vague idea of making the Other Side into a kind of interstellar India, with TL 9-12 "natives" and East India Company type corporations maintaining their own military forces out there playing off one "native prince" against another, warring with rival corporations and bringing back wealth to the Imperium from "halfway across the world". (Bringing back what? I'll have to be valuable with a capital V to be worth sending ships on year-long trips...)

Hans

[Drifter]

I have to say I don't have too many differences from the OTU, and run it mostly "out of the box". Its so big I can get away with that, and most of the material is pretty good quality, or at least better than I can come up with myself.

Mapping is one thing I do different. The standard hex map is an abstraction of what jump space distance represents, rather than a one-for-one map. There is some correlation, but not all that much.

Some of the aliens I do differently. Droyne aren't the low powered schmucks they seem to have morphed into over the years. Warriors are deadly, Leaders are smarter than humans, etc. They're just quiet and reserved, as a race. I can't say that I enjoyed the GURPS treatment of them, at least some of the color sections, but I guess that was because it just synthesized previous canon all into one spot.

Otherwise, not to exciting on the differences front. I like the OTU too much.

[jason taylor]

Most of my differences centered on making it a culture outside the Imperium rather then within. It could have been set in a member state but the plot includes actions that are ambiguous(not strictly hostile) to the Imperium's perceived interest, and the possibility of a treason charge was not a complication I felt like dealing with however interesting. It
is set in a client state however. More important, this setting made for a culture which is different from the pseudovictorian Imperial culture. However much of this fits in the system there being plenty of local variation anyway.

The biggest difference is the presence of unexplained phenomena that is probably closer to Science Fantasy on the heroes own homeworld. That and expanding the interstellar geography to include a lot of territory not covered by the Atlas(by tweaking a little and not thinking about it to much). This was needed to fit a planet me and my father told stories to each other about into TTU.

[malloyd]

Mostly I didn't so much change anything as ignore it as irrelevant. Maybe somewhere a couple sectors over there populations or ship tonnages can be properly counted in billions. Or maybe those are all just stories. Either way it's not going to matter out here on the fringes.

Much of the Traveller canon concerns the clashes of huge fleets, the ownership of giant corporations, the rulers of major worlds, or the destiny of entire species. None of that stuff is a particularly useful source of plots you can logically involve small groups of adventurers in.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Much of the Traveller canon concerns the clashes of huge fleets, the ownership of giant corporations, the rulers of major worlds, or the destiny of entire species. None of that stuff is a particularly useful source of plots you can logically involve small groups of adventurers in.

Some of these things could be useful to such a purpose.

A campaign I once proposed but never ran would have been called "Revenge of the G'naak". The idea was that one of those carniovorous species the K'Kree were always exterminating had slipped them a nice delayed action plague virus.

As the K'kree tumble towards extinction there would be all sorts of "land rush" behaviors as everyone in the vicinity tried to profit. Seizing territory, scavenging for valuables, grabbing derel8ict herd ships to refit into bulk freighters and fighting with everyone else trying to do the same things.

The 3I would finally have that Frontier for the Scouts to go to work on. :)

[David Johnston2]

I added Tschai, and therefore all of the species from Tschai. But that was because I had that copy of the Space Gamer.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I added Tschai, and therefore all of the species from Tschai. But that was because I had that copy of the Space Gamer.

I tried that, because I had that copy of Space Gamer, but decided it needed its own universe. There are waves and waves of aliens, not just species currently active on Tschai, that would make the universe very different.

Side note; Space Gamer at that time was really really good. Tschai, then Monty Python, wow! It had a BIG influence on my gaming.

[Centisteed]

I always like to do thought experiments and add a kitchen sink to MTU.

I've taken the primary Star Frontier races basically using their appearance but changing their names, culture, and everything else (filing off the serial numbers). I haven't decided whether to make them major or just minor races (probably doesn't matter that much as they likely wouldn't be spread out very far in from known Traveller space). Some other aliens I've been interested in adding to the menagerie are from Mass Effect as well as Fading Suns (the Vorox which I happen to own a PDF copy of).

For precursor races, I've added (or thought about adding) something along the lines of the movie Prometheus. Perhaps the Ancients and the Prometheans destroyed each other, leaving a lot of extremely dangerous artifacts in the galaxy (for fun and profit).

Chtorran Crossover. I own a copy of the GURPS book and wonder how Chtorrans would be handled in Traveller and how it would fit in a larger story arc. I haven't seen much of a reason in filing off the serial numbers for the Chtorr since there's so many different flora and fauna (it's a lifestyle). It would probably start out with a few worlds around Traveller-space being red-zoned and a few rumors, and then quietly spread to other locations for panic. Alliances would be fractured with each of the major races preferring to deal with the issue on their own (and within those interstellar govts decisions and plans would be further fractured by different special interest groups).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

I always like to do thought experiments and add a kitchen sink to MTU.

I've taken the primary Star Frontier races basically using their appearance but changing their names, culture, and everything else (filing off the serial numbers). I haven't decided whether to make them major or just minor races (probably doesn't matter that much as they likely wouldn't be spread out very far in from known Traveller space). Some other aliens I've been interested in adding to the menagerie are from Mass Effect as well as Fading Suns (the Vorox which I happen to own a PDF copy of).

For precursor races, I've added (or thought about adding) something along the lines of the movie Prometheus. Perhaps the Ancients and the Prometheans destroyed each other, leaving a lot of extremely dangerous artifacts in the galaxy (for fun and profit).

Chtorran Crossover. I own a copy of the GURPS book and wonder how Chtorrans would be handled in Traveller and how it would fit in a larger story arc. I haven't seen much of a reason in filing off the serial numbers for the Chtorr since there's so many different flora and fauna (it's a lifestyle). It would probably start out with a few worlds around Traveller-space being red-zoned and a few rumors, and then quietly spread to other locations for panic. Alliances would be fractured with each of the major races preferring to deal with the issue on their own (and within those interstellar govts decisions and plans would be further fractured by different special interest groups).

That sounds less like a crossover and more like making a threat of your own modeled on the Chtorr.