Before the OTU...

[aramis]

Cryton and I have been doing a little "setting archaeology"...

The 3I setting doesn't exist until, essentially, Book 5 High Guard, in 1979.

Before 1979, there is no reference to the 3rd Imperium ...

1979 has 3 "setting" mentioning books, 1978 has 1...
1978 is Book 4 (1E) - it mentions "the Imperium"
1979 gives us Supplements 3 (Spinward Marches) and 4 (Citizens of the Imperium) - both of which mention "the Imperium". Sup 3 also gives us the names (but not generation for) the Zhodani, Sword Worlders, Darrians, and Vargr. (The Federation of Arden doesn't exist, just for reference)
1979 also gives us High Guard 1E... and Kinunir - which uses Bk 5 systems.
1980 gives us "The Emperors of the 3rd Imperium" - and the first reference I can find to the "Third Imperium".

The major aliens, including Vilani, Solomani, and Zhodani, are mentioned in a June 1980 draft published for authors. It mentions "The Imperium".

Looking at Kinunir and Leviathan, they are interesting...

Kinunir uses HG 79 items in the design, but not the full HG-79 USP. And it's using a draft of HG (based upon the tech and time)...

Leviathan is using Bk 2 designs, but obfuscating the drive letters (JD X & W, MD Y & W, PP Y) and computer model numbers (Models 7 and 5). Fuel is 580 Td - that's J3 + PP4 under book 2... then it goes on to list 300 days consumables. For which I can find no data. It's not a standard Book 2 hull. But it's a TL 15 design under Book 2/book 3...

So, looking at a pre-HG "Imperium" -
TL 9 can build a J4 military courier - but the real combat ships are 400 Td J2 and 600 Td J1...

There are no designated fighters, but there are launches... so we get 30Td "fighters"... the 30 Ton Ship's Boat.

20	bridge
15	JD B
04	PP A
01	MD A
40	JF 1j4
10	PP Fuel
04	Stateroom
02	Model 2/bis
98	Total

The Far Trader is a viable TL 9 design. The Type T is a viable TL 10 cruiser.
Smaller computers can do the trick...

The TL 9 ships 100Td J4 (barely), 200Td J3, 400Td J2, 600 Td J1

TL 10 ships add 200 Ton J5 couriers (with 1G and 7 tons cargo), 600, 800 and 1000 Td J2, 400Td J4... still no J6 200 - because Bk2-77 cannot build one.

TL 10 J5:

200	Hull
020	Bridge
030	JD E=5
001	MD A=1
004	PP A=1
100	Fuel 1J5
010	Fuel P1
002	model 2/bis
002	Turrets
024	6 SR (Crew PNEMGG)
007	Cargo

The TL-11 ships don't look much different, except that there's a 400Td J5, and a 600Td J3, and a 2000Td J1...
But they're also big enough to carry a Ship's Boat...

So, ignoring all which comes out after Bk5 1st version... we get a J3 trade at TL 12 or so, and it becomes really competitive at TL 15...

The texture is VERY different from the HG inspired OTU.

 

[Redcap]

Interesting, but not really that much of a surprise; I don't recall any RPG of the seventies having even a rough background for referees to draw from for their adventures ; CT was, and remains, something of a standards setter and ground breaker, in that regard. As to the inconsistencies in ship design, have a look at the differences in the rules sets from the first edition through to the Traveller Starter Set!

 

[flykiller]

Before the OTU...

... the gaming world was formless and void. and marc miller said, "let there be jump". and there was ... WHOA, LOOK AT IT GO!

 

[Supplement Four]

What about JTAS? How influential where the articles in developing the Imperium?

Not a lot, iirc.

 

[creativehum]

The texture is VERY different from the HG inspired OTU.

Without doubt. It's one of the reasons I'm content to use only Book 2.

I always considered Book 5 to be a toolkit, as much as the other four Books. One could use Book 5 to create the "small ship" universe found in the first three years of Traveller products.

It always struck me as odd that soon after Book 5's publication the size of ships ballooned as if because there were rules for larger ships now all ships by definition would be huge.

This of course also defined the tech level of the default setting in a specific way. Again not want particularly fond of. I'm quite content with TL 11 and the ships and jumps that are offered.

 

[flykiller]

I'm quite content with TL 11 and the ships and jumps that are offered.

think of it as the player character tu.

 

[creativehum]

think of it as the player character tu.

Well, yes. That's pretty much my thesis.

 

[aramis]

Interesting, but not really that much of a surprise; I don't recall any RPG of the seventies having even a rough background for referees to draw from for their adventures ; CT was, and remains, something of a standards setter and ground breaker, in that regard. As to the inconsistencies in ship design, have a look at the differences in the rules sets from the first edition through to the Traveller Starter Set!

I can name several: Bunnies and Burrows (explicitly unlicensed Watership Down), Starships & Spacemen (just different enough from ST TOS to not get sued), Tekumel, just to start the list.

ProtoTraveller as a concept ignores everything from Atlas on, and usually ignores book 5...

Cryton and I were looking at it from a "what was the early, nascent, pre-HG OTU like"...
An Imperium, but not the Third Imperium.
Edict 97 and Imperial Warrants. Agents of the Imperium with broad powers.
No armor.
No fighters. (unless one had the '78 edition of Mayday)
Small Craft with limited fuel. (Mayday turns are 1.666 hours... giving the fighter 5 hours endurance at full thrust.)

 

[mike wightman]

Imperium: The lmperium is a strong interstellar government encompassing 281
subsectors and approximately 11,000 worlds. Approximately 1100 years old, it
is the third human empire to control this area, the oldest, and the strongest. Nevertheless,
it is under strong pressure from its neighboring interstellar governments,
and does not have the strength nor the power which it once had.

Spinward Marches library data - there's your first mention of the third Imperium.

 

[aramis]

Without doubt. It's one of the reasons I'm content to use only Book 2.

I was considered Book 5 to be a toolkit, as much as the other four Books. One could use Book 5 to create the "small ship" universe found in the first three years of Traveller products.

It always struck me as odd that soon after Book 5's publication the size of ships ballooned as if because there were rules for larger ships now all ships by definition would be huge.

This of course also defined the tech level of the default setting in a specific way. Again not want particularly fond of. I'm quite content with TL 11 and the ships and jumps that are offered.

Let's make 4 categories:
Small: ≤5,000Td
Medium ≤25,000 Td
Big: ≤1,000,000 Td
Huge: bigger

Look at the Sci-Fi of 77-79 popular media.
Star Wars - we see a big ship universe.
BSG - also a big ship universe
Battle Beyond the Stars - looks to be a small ship universe.
Star Trek: TMP - medium ship universe (published sizes put the Enterprise around 18 KTd, and it's one of the largest ships in the fleet). VGer, however, is huge.
Close Encounters: only one ship seen, looks to be in the mid-range
Alien: looks to be medium
The Black Hole: big ship
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato; Star Blazers - Borderline small/medium
Space 1999 - Small Ship universe -but also an accidentally warping moon.
Buck Rogers TV show- Big ship fighter-dominant universe.
Star Crash - (I've no idea)
The War in Space - (I've no idea)

The era's visual effort was pushing for larger ships for filming reasons. On big ships, you don't need to "fit the set into the hull". Take Star Trek, for example...
we have essentially one soundstage of sets.
Standing sets (according to the stage 9 blueprints for Journey to Babel):

• Bridge
• 4 rooms of sick bay
• 1 transporter room
• 1 rec room
• 1 two room quarters set
• 1 brig cell
• 1 engineering set.
• hallway connecting all but the bridge

Only one really has to conform to the hull shape - the bridge.
Meanwhile, the Millenium Falcon, a small ship, we have very much limited sets by the shape of the hull. (only two small ships with walking space appear in the OT - The Falcon and the Lambda Class shuttle.)

It is no surprise that given a more flexible design sequence, people scaled it up.

 

[flykiller]

there's also the "monkeyspace" issue. primitive caveman groups / gaming groups max out at about 7. the crew for a 200 dton j2 ship comes up at about 7 - pilot, navigator, engineer, engineer, gunner, gunner, steward. smaller ships are quite possible but larger ships start requiring large numbers of npc's which most gamers don't want to deal with. so, the "small ship otu" is the players' universe. anything larger than that has issues.

 

[aramis]

Spinward Marches library data - there's your first mention of the third Imperium.

Not as such. Third human empire isn't of need a "3rd Imperium" - it leaves open the 1st and 2nd governments to not have been Imperiums. It's a seed, certainly... but given the different presentation in the early corpus of works, presuming the Imperium to have been the third imperium is dubious.

Imperium is itself an interesting term, as it implies an autocratic military state... noting the sci-fi use as opposed to the Roman, where it's merely the right of military leadership.

It's used in Dune... as a synonym for the government of the Padisha Empire.
It's used in Star Wars.
It's used by Laumer in his Imperium setting.
It's part of the latin name for the Holy Roman Empire.
It's used by Lucas in his writing about the Empire in Star Wars; it's not used on screen, however.

 

[mike wightman]

It says third human empire.

One of the definitions of Imperium is empire, therefore empire can mean Imperium.

Since this is the first instance of the Imperium being the third human empire it stands to reason that this is where the concept of the third Imperium came from.

The OTU could have become a more interesting setting if the two earlier empires had been some alternative non-Imperial setting, but at some point the decision was taken to retcon the Imperium boardgame into being a historical setting for the Traveller universe of the far future and hence the first empire became the first Imperium.

Imagine if instead the first empire was built by humans from earth colonising near space (almost a T2300 setting perhaps), this empire eventually fails and breaks up into smaller polities.

A second empire eventually arises - perhaps a commonwealth or confederation - only for it to also fail, and then finally a hereditary feudal system is established and we get the Imperium.

The first to be called an Imperium but the third human empire.

 

[creativehum]

Lots of stuff about movies.

Oh, absolutely.

My note to myself years ago was,

"What happened Traveller?"
"Star Wars."

My point was LBBs 1-3 implied a certain kind of setting. And that setting was consistent with the other published materials for the first couple of years. And I liked that setting. And it was a setting that is not Star Wars but something else.

So, I understand the motivation to alter the setting that I like so much. (Star Wars is cool!) My only point is the implied Traveller setting was different than Star Wars and I like having the option. Not all things have to be one thing. And because something is shiny doesn't mean we have to act because of it.

But I absolutely agree with your post.

 

[Condottiere]

Warship enthusiasts and the players who had access to anime would be inclined towards large numbers of largish ships. or just large numbers.

 

[aramis]

Oh, absolutely.

My note to myself years ago was,

"What happened Traveller?"
"Star Wars."

My point was LBBs 1-3 implied a certain kind of setting. And that setting was consistent with the other published materials for the first couple of years. And I liked that setting. And it was a setting that is not Star Wars but something else.

So, I understand the motivation to alter the setting that I like so much. (Star Wars is cool!) My only point is the implied Traveller setting was different than Star Wars and I like having the option. Not all things have to be one thing. And because something is shiny doesn't mean we have to act because of it.

But I absolutely agree with your post.

The first couple years meaning Bk 4 and supplements 1&2, and the articles in White Dwarf and issue 1-2 of JTAS; Bk 5 version 1 (in '79, tho' due to GW articles, obviously drafts sent their way in 1978) is where things go big. The Imperium of Bk 1-4, Sup 3 and A1 & A3 is more Niven/Pournelle CoDo in feel than the later version... it's another case of an Imperium which is the third polity to claim an area, but not a third Imperium, let alone the Third Imperium.^①

'79 brings us a big ship universe in all its gory...^②. The Emperors of the 3rd Imperium, several key articles, as well, that make implications. The Asteroid Mining establishes bits of the legal mode. (No claims without physically planting a beacon is probably the earliest example of Men not Contracts but not the full Men not Laws of later 3I...

The real irony is that Bk 1-4 makes for an excellent flesh-out for either the CoDo (which is pretty much the same tech as TL 10-12 in the early CoDo), or for Starship Troopers.

In looking at the tech paradigm, and presuming one takes generate at face value as generating the course plot internally (and not being able to store it in a handy jump course cassette), and that navigate and Jx programs are required to both be running to use a course (stored either in the Generate or in a cassette)... we get an interesting dynamic for certain ships, too.

The hulls and TL requirements (noting the errata that TL9 is drives A-D)...

TL	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
Drives available	A-D	A-H	A-K	A-N	A-Q	A-U	A-Z
Max Comp	≤3	4	5	6	7	7†	7†
100	4*/6	4*/6	4*6	4*/6	4*/6	4*6	4*/6
200	4	6	6	6	6	6	6
400	2	4	5	6	6	6	6
600	1	2	3	4	5	6	6
800	—	2	2	3	3	4	6
1000	—	1	2	2	3	3	6
2000	—	—	1	1	1	1	5
3000	—	—	—	—	1	1	4
4000	—	—	—	—	—	—	3
5000	—	—	—	—	—	—	2

[tc=6]* 100 Td can only make J4; J5 is impossible in a 100Td hull
†Higher are easily enough extrapolated, but the book only goes to model 7.[/tc]

[tr]

Also note: an express boat in this edition can get away with being J4 M2 P2... if one dodges the bullet and allows only 2 weeks fuel installed.

100	Hull
20	Bridge
1	1/bis
15	JD B=4
1	MD A=2
4	PP A=2
10	PP Fuel for 2 weeks
40	J Fuel 1J4
8	Required staterooms PE
1	cargo

So, while there's no mention of the X-boat net, those who want it can have one with actual maneuver drives!

Between Mayday and the corebook:
Merchant A (Mayday Free Trader)
Subsidized Merchant R (Mayday Transport)
Subsidized Merchant M
Mayday Armed Merchant (400Td, Model 2, lifeboat)
Mayday Scout and Courier and Escort (differing only in armaments)
Mayday Destroyer (400Td - similar to Patrol Cutter)
Cruiser Type C
Mayday Colonial Cruiser (800Td, 2 fighters, lifeboat, 2G, model 3)
Corsair (400Td 2G, model 2, pinnace)
Lifeboat
Ship's Boat
Pinnace
Cutter
Shuttle
Fighter

Note that Mayday designs don't mention their jump ratings, and the fighter's tonnage is missing...
So we have performance but not tonnage.

①Mote makes reference to other polities besides the Imperial Government in the past; The Falkenberg side shows us the CoDo and the beginnings of the intermediate one... but whether it was really a polity or just a collection of independent local worlds is quite arguable; I have read what I can of the series, but the middle years of the CoDo setting are a bit empty of books as far as I can tell. It's kind of like Traveller in 1980 - late 3I and late 1I - but nothing fleshed out in between.
②Yes, I'm making a bad linguistic play by leaving out the l of Glory

 

[creativehum]

The first couple years meaning Bk 4 and supplements 1&2, and the articles in White Dwarf and issue 1-2 of JTAS; Bk 5 version 1 (in '79, tho' due to GW articles, obviously drafts sent their way in 1978) is where things go big. The Imperium of Bk 1-4, Sup 3 and A1 & A3 is more Niven/Pournelle CoDo in feel than the later version... it's another case of an Imperium which is the third polity to claim an area, but not a third Imperium, let alone the Third Imperium.^①

'79 brings us a big ship universe in all its gory...^②. The Emperors of the 3rd Imperium, several key articles, as well, that make implications. The Asteroid Mining establishes bits of the legal mode. (No claims without physically planting a beacon is probably the earliest example of Men not Contracts but not the full Men not Laws of later 3I...

"First couple of years" meant, to me, everything from the summer of '77 to the mid-ish '79 published by GDW. (This is your exercise, however, so you'll rope in WD in if you wish. I'm not arguing the point!)

Whether or not bits of Highguard came out earlier, the book itself was published in 1980. But that's not my main point. My point is, like the tech level chart, there was no reason to assume that everything at hand in Bk5 was a nominal part of the setting. That is, even though Referee's could have huge ships, it was a toolkit choice,. This is how the Kinunir could be built with Book 5 rules, come in at 1200 tons, and still be called a battle cruiser. Because up until the summer of '79 in the implied setting, using the information from the published books, 1200 tons was a big ship. The shift occurs a while after Bk5 gets published when a 1200 ton ship gets dwarfed in size in the same setting and no one can explain why such a ship was called a battlecruiser in the first place.*

JTAS #4 (with the Emperors of the Third Imperium) came out in early 1980. There was nothing setting specific in issue #1, in my view. But the News Service bulletins started in the second issue (second half of '79). And this, along with the S3: Spinward Marches, is where GDW first really plants the flag for their OTU. Before that, again, for the two years starting with the selling of the first set, there was nothing but setting-implied details (there is, no matter what, some sort of star-spanninggovernment with military forces.) Which in my view is different than a concrete setting.

But, again, this is your exercise. I'm not arguing against your points. I'm just laying out my point of view on these things.

I'm actually really curious about where you're going with this. Could you walk me through the goal? Is it to find the moment or time or publication when the setting became "The Third Imperium"?

[EDITED TO ADD: In my view the real game changer in Book 5 is that ships can carry their own fuel purifiers. Without this rule frontier environments (like that presumed in the core books) retain a frontier, exploratory feel because start to travel is dangerous without easy access to purified fuel and A-Class startports providing fine fuel are rare in the subsectors generated by the rules for PCs to have adventures in. (It would be my assumption that back toward the heart of the centralized government A and B Class starports are more prevalent.) With this new rule in place ships and travel easily all throughout the stars, losing the lovely sense of geography and "terrain" limits on refined fuel provide. It changes a lot about the implied setting. For example the "remote centralized government" has easy access to most worlds within its domain. The authorities can show up and lay down the law as they wish. This feels very different to me than the implied setting found in Books 1-3. But this matter is most likely beyond the scope of this discussion.]

 

[kilemall]

[EDITED TO ADD: In my view the real game changer in Book 5 is that ships can carry their own fuel purifiers. Without this rule frontier environments (like that presumed in the core books) retain a frontier, exploratory feel because start to travel is dangerous without easy access to purified fuel and A-Class startports providing fine fuel are rare in the subsectors generated by the rules for PCs to have adventures in. (It would be my assumption that back toward the heart of the centralized government A and B Class starports are more prevalent.) With this new rule in place ships and travel easily all throughout the stars, losing the lovely sense of geography and "terrain" limits on refined fuel provide. It changes a lot about the implied setting. For example the "remote centralized government" has easy access to most worlds within its domain. The authorities can show up and lay down the law as they wish. This feels very different to me than the implied setting found in Books 1-3. But this matter is most likely beyond the scope of this discussion.]

To me the refinery hearkens back to the Imperium wargame and the refueling tankers that get ships through bottlenecks like Sirius (apparently no planets, gas or otherwise, so direct fuel capture from the star itself).

That game's frontier limits mechanism was maintenance of the size and complexity of the ships themselves.

Small simple scout ships, transports and fighters could be maintained on the frontier indefinitely without budgetary cost, destroyers largely so, but light cruisers on up became dicier to frontier maintain. It was more effective to pay full maintainance for the larger ships in the functional equivalent of starport A/B systems, the worlds, then move them up for the attack or defense.

So a different mechanism to achieve similar results, and perhaps something to think about recreating, so out there in the wilds you will only run into adventure class ships except in times of war or extreme piracy.

Hadn't thought about the reverse implications, but each ship in that game was actually a squadron of the type. Some leeway in what each ship would actually be valued, but if we take a simplistic approach and assume 1:1 numbers, scout ships go for 1 RU, destroyers 3 RU, cruisers typically in the 10-12 RU range, and dreadnoughts/battleships in 16-20 RU.

So the largest baddest battleship is 'only' 2000 tons or 20x30MCr or 600 MCr, depending on whether RU would be counting against tonnage or cost. Even if you say a scout squadron represents 8 scouts and a battleship squadron is 4, that only doubles the individual ships to 4000 tons/1200 MCr each.

Seems the original Traveller universe to me was a small ship one.

 

[aramis]

Whether or not bits of Highguard came out earlier, the book itself was published in 1980.

Nope; HG 2E was 1980. HG 1E was also big ships and published in 1979. The design sequence is only slightly different from HG 2E, tho' the rating and combat systems are significantly different.

The earliest articles clearly aimed at the 3I also are 79.

 

[creativehum]

Nope; HG 2E was 1980. HG 1E was also big ships and published in 1979. The design sequence is only slightly different from HG 2E, tho' the rating and combat systems are significantly different.

I apologize for the error in the date.

The earliest articles clearly aimed at the 3I also are 79.

Exactly. As stated in my previous post.