2300 vs the Vilani

[Murph]

As I ended my 2300 campaign, I had introduced the characters to the Vilani which were posited as the scouts of a multi-system Empire (the Viru Sirka). Somewhat higher tech than the players, but not horribly so. Think 1960's tech vs 1990's tech. They managed to bushwhack the Vilani on a scouting mission and turn it over to the Texan Government, who in turn let the rest of the world know what was coming. At the end they were getting prepped to decypher the computer systems, and starship tech. Aparently the Vilani were able to go 20 light years before dropping out of "warp" to discharge. IM2300U I allowed a 10 LY range.

Bayern was being refitted for a mission to the Vilani, with some fast recon ships in range but under stealth to see what happened. The characters were acting under the auspices of the Texas Government at the time so the Texans got first info on this. Which caused Alarms and Panic on Terra. The kafer having just been eliminated as a threat, the militaries of the sphere were still dispursed and weak due to losses.

The Vilani for their part were looking for raw materials, and such, not really on a scout mission to find and explore strange new worlds, find new life, and subjugate them at this time. However when the scoutship turns up missing, you know that the Vilani will send a second mission. Also the Vilani ships were spherical due to the requirements of the Contra-grav systems.

Main tech differences:
Computers; 1960 vs 1990 systems
Contra-Grav; Vilani have it, we do not
Sensors: 1960's vs 1990's
Weapons: Lasers, PBWs, GRASERS, Missiles 1960 vs 1990
Shields: Better, but not super powered
Med Tech: about the same
Propulsion systems: about 25% faster on average with an average of warp speed being 5.0
Powerplants: 1960's vs 1990's tech

The characters managed to bushwhack the three scouts on the ground, and then get transport themselves in the Vilani shuttle to the scoutship, and then they killed the six remaining crew in a gunfight which damaged the Vilani Scout somewhat. It was a good plan, and I let them play it out.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

Sounds good. Interstellar wars and 2300AD are a great cross-over.

 

[Murph]

Yeah the only issue is dealing with the different Tech levels on Vilani vs Terrans.

Sounds good. Interstellar wars and 2300AD are a great cross-over.

 

[Mithras]

Go on.... you know you want to give the Vilani their trademark jump drive!!!

 

[shield]

I would give the Terran's better medical knowledge & equipment, especially as they are trading with the pentapods. Vilani were always a bit weak in this field.

 

[kafka47]

I like it...it could be the Vietnam War all over again...with the Terrans playing the role of the Vietnamese.

Whenever, I played a crossover, it was that the Vilani were doing reconnaissance to find out where Terra/Earth resided - thus it was more BSG (even before the Cylons looked like us -nuBSG).

 

[Murph]

I like it...it could be the Vietnam War all over again...with the Terrans playing the role of the Vietnamese.

Whenever, I played a crossover, it was that the Vilani were doing reconnaissance to find out where Terra/Earth resided - thus it was more BSG (even before the Cylons looked like us -nuBSG).

Except there is no soviet union providing support and weapons.

 

[Murph]

I would give the Terran's better medical knowledge & equipment, especially as they are trading with the pentapods. Vilani were always a bit weak in this field.

Agreed. The Terrans do have better medical knowledge. It would have been a great campaign.

 

[sayatmenace]

I've also thought about this (well, gloated and grinned about it), and actually did sort-of implement it.

However, the 2300AD universe I was basing it on was a variant or 'reboot' of the one we all know and love, and the Vilani lurking in the background were not quite the Vilani we all know and hate.(*) It was all rather more Lovecraftian in tone, and the purpose of the whole exercise was a setting for a xenoarcheological-mystery-exploration-swashbuckling kind of campaign.

(* For the record, I actually like the Vilani. I think I do, anyway. They're not very well written, and inconsistently across canon, so it's hard to say how much is enjoying what's actually written vs. enjoying what I'm making up to fill in the blanks.)

 

[Max_Writer]

However, the 2300AD universe I was basing it on was a variant or 'reboot' of the one we all know and love, and the Vilani lurking in the background were not quite the Vilani we all know and hate.

Okay - who were those Vilani? I don't remember anything like them at all.

 

[Murph]

The Vilani had functional hand laser pistols, better plasma guns, standard gauss weapons, and access to better body armor. Also they had developed "collapsium" armor (See H. Beam Piper for further), which made their ships very tough. Plasma cannon for starships as a short ranged weapon, and better X-ray laser warheads. I was torn between the 2300 stutterwarp, and giving them the traditional traveller "Jump" drive as Mithras stated, but at that time stuck with stutterwarp.

I had started working on the Vilani ruling about 10,000 worlds ranging from high pop/high tech worlds to outposts. Decadent, cosmopolitan, effete, but very deadly to the Terrans if not handled carefully.

 

[sayatmenace]

Max_Writer, the "Vilani we all love to hate" that I meant were those described in passing, over the years, as the intensely hierarchical, rule-bound, bureaucratic, smugly inefficient (dare I say Dilbertese?) imperialists running around Known Space in their really sucky but unfairly successful due to head start and numerical superiority starships and tech, exploiting wildly and stupidly, enforcing cultural assimilation -- and faced with any resistance whatsoever, responding with mass nuclear barrages from orbit and general genocidal/democidal Evulz, saddled with a "caste" based society (whatever that meant; fill in the Evulz to taste) that repressed individuality and genius. In other words (and IMO) a slowly-accrued hodgepodge of all the bugbears and hobgoblins of contemporary Anglo-American (i.e., generally right-anarchist/libertarian-to-conservative, technofetishistic, hacker-and/or-hipster-culture-oriented) SF.

Meanwhile, the Zhodani are supposed to be the Evil Empire in canon Traveller lore... such a conflicted game!

 

[Max_Writer]

I was actually asking if anything resembling the Vilani appeared in any of the 2300 products. I don't remember them doing so ...

 

[aramis]

I was actually asking if anything resembling the Vilani appeared in any of the 2300 products. I don't remember them doing so ...

What's interesting is that at least one distributor solicited T2300 as the early history of the OTU. And all 3 of my FLGS at the time had the same misconception about it. So, while nothing terribly Vilani-esque appeared in T2300 canon, lots of us assumed they were present.

 

[Max_Writer]

Gotcha. I thought the same when it came out. It didn't take much reading to realize it wasn't - stutterwarp is not jump drive.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

[aramis]

Gotcha. I thought the same when it came out. It didn't take much reading to realize it wasn't - stutterwarp is not jump drive.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Stutterwarp is only about J2 speed... and 7.7 LY is 2.36Pc or so (rounded to 3 significant digits)...

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

If I'm recalling correctly, it might also be worthwhile to note that with stutterwarp you're still actually more or less in regular space and not an alternate space like jump space. And, when travelling through real space you can go in different directions. Or in other words, while using a stutterwarp you can do stuff like dog-legs around systems, etc as long as the total distance traveled is less than 7.7 light years. That way you can enter a system from the far side etc (if I am understanding correctly).

Regards

Pat

 

[aramis]

If I'm recalling correctly, it might also be worthwhile to note that with stutterwarp you're still actually more or less in regular space and not an alternate space like jump space. And, when travelling through real space you can go in different directions. Or in other words, while using a stutterwarp you can do stuff like dog-legs around systems, etc as long as the total distance traveled is less than 7.7 light years. That way you can enter a system from the far side etc (if I am understanding correctly).

Regards

Pat

Yep. But you can also be readily followed... also unlike jump (which per TNE's RegSB can be done, but it's not easily done).

From behind, you just rapidly appear to move away at FTL speed, but possibly without FTL blueshift.

But, anyone seeing you go can follow you... at least if they keep a sufficient tailing distance.

As you appear and then your EM signature appears to retreat back and fade.... separating from you at the point you drop below a pseudovelocity of C. Which is also the same point you "appear" locally for those in front of you.

Which also means it's possible to detect an arriving ship, and scan for it's backtrace, and see where it came in from.

 

[Murph]

One of the things I have been thinking about is just how big is the Ziru Sirka in the 2300 universe? It is harder to get a grasp on it in a 3d universe vs the traveller flat map.

 

[kafka47]

One of the things I have been thinking about is just how big is the Ziru Sirka in the 2300 universe? It is harder to get a grasp on it in a 3d universe vs the traveller flat map.

For me, I located the Vilani much further Coreward (in the Bernard's subsector of Massillia) giving the Terrans a Sector (Solomani Rim) as a base of operations but as much as the resources of an entire Sector, the Terrans were thinly populating the Sector, as they were limited a J-1.

Outer Veil

http://spicapublishing.co.uk/index.php/products/

is very close to my vision. This retains the CT history somewhat and how 2300AD can be accommodated. And, as I stated earlier the Vilani knew about the Terrans but used the 2300AD alien races to slow the Terrans down whilst analyze Earth society for weaknesses to take advantage of through a divide and rule stratagem. However, what hampered the Vilani was biological (the Viruses on Earth could wipe them out) and also there was not the exact knowledge of where Earth resided and there should be no point of bringing the might the Pax Vilanica to bear to knock out the wrong planet. Especially, as this minor race seems to have invented Jump Drive on their own accord.

Then there is the politics within highest circles of the First Imperium. Each of the bureaux have a different agenda and each Shadow Emperor is undecided how to deal with the Terrans. And, naturally the larger Vilani population is ignorant of the Terrans.

In the meantime, Terrans keep on plowing onward in all directions.

Scorecard

Vilani have thousands of years experience in space, on countless worlds and staggering amounts of resources including humans and other sophonts at their disposal. They also have the edge on weaponry and no moral qualms about using nuclear weapons. On the downside, because they are so large, it is virtually impossible to make a decision. And, given the Vilani proclivity toward conservatism and groupthink - even once a decision is made takes a long time for it to be implement them. So, they use the 2300AD milieu to fight shadow battles with the Terrans until -1776 when they are finally "discovered" by the Terrans.

Terrans/Earthlings still the new kids on the interstellar scene surrounded by mysterious and some potentially hostile aliens...huge tracts of space are good for resources but at Jump-1 takes a long time for things to be done with those resources. Furthermore, they have a low population compared to the space they occupy (however, I have the Terrans stumbling on the technology of creating crude clones - "Tanks"**). However, Terrans are adaptable and flexible but also internally divided by nation-states (although, that is beginning to recede as local worldism is taking hold plus the crude clones are corporate property not national). The Terrans believe that Vilani they have discovered remains of in the Kafer battlefield are Provulionists.

So, in my setting up the game (which ran for 2yrs), Manifest Destiny has been killed, the people of Earth have swarmed into Kafer space in a bloodlust rage committing xenocide on an unimaginable level to the point of even turning some of the 2300AD aliens against Earth even as they sided with Earth against the Kafers. Advanced Scouts have entered the Bernard's subsector and found a mining colony of humans...who are they? How did they get so far coreward? How do they possess a language that is akin to Ancient Sumerian?

**Yes, I admit that I am stealing from Space Above & Beyond and Bladerunner