H. Beam Piper Sector

[Timerover51]

Hokas are from Earthman's Burden (and a couple of sequels). Groaci are the Soviets to the Corps Diplomatique Terrestienne's USA in Keith Laumer's Retief books.


Hans

As I have not read any of that series, and the Wikipedia simply mentioned that the books were written by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson, I still have no idea as to what a "Hoka" is. The Soviet Union does not exist in the Piper Future History universe, as it was destroyed in the Atomic Wars.

 

[SpaceBadger]

As I have not read any of that series, and the Wikipedia simply mentioned that the books were written by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson, I still have no idea as to what a "Hoka" is. The Soviet Union does not exist in the Piper Future History universe, as it was destroyed in the Atomic Wars.

Hokas are an intelligent bear-like species (or maybe more like koalas) who have a disposition to become enthusiastic about some aspect of human culture (usually historical or fictional) and become obsessive about recreating it. The stories are mostly humorous, although I remember one in which a Hoka became convinced that he was Napoleon Bonaparte and convinced enough other Hokas to play along that they had a real war going.

While it is true that the Soviet Union does not exist in Piper's future history, neither does the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, nor the USA. Hans's mention of the Soviet Union and USA were analogies to the roles played by the Groaci Empire and the CDT in Keith Laumer's Retief stories.

This is an example of thread drift, which is allowed by forum rules. You started a thread about porting in some aspects of one fictional universe, and others have broadened the discussion to other fictional universes they'd like to see in Traveller.

 

[Timerover51]

Next time, I will keep my ideas to myself.

 

[HiverLord]

Next time, I will keep my ideas to myself.

Are you kidding???
Interesting questions, interesting discussions, good/great ideas, and occassionally new information.
A little thread drift is well worth it.
Keep 'em coming!

 

[whitedalek]

sorry for the drift, guys...

classic sci-fi worlds... <shrug> "so many campaign ideas... so little time"


and found this page again
http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10119

 

[robject]

I was thinking more of using Piper's planets as a background for Traveller, adapting things as needed. If I used all of his material, it would mean designing a new game, and adapting what bits and pieces of Traveller as I can. I am not sure that I want to do that. His direct conversion of nuclear energy to electricity and the mass converter are so different as to make that pretty much mandatory. I do like his hyperdrive, as if a star system is farther away, it takes longer to get there.

Yeah, no direct mass-conversion. Maybe you can just get away with using Power Plants? And the neat collapsium hull metal is un-Traveller, too (although it could also just be hand-waved away as starship hull material...)

There is a Not As Fast As Light drive for Traveller; it could be 'hopped up' a bit to serve as a proper FTL drive.

 

[JimMarn]

The Groaci are talking crustaceans that love to use their blasters on other people, against ships, and against planets. Unless they want the planet, then they take it over and disappear the inhabitants.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I really liked Timerover51's original idea of interpreting various worlds from H. Beam Piper's novels for Traveller, and hoped to see more of that. Attempting to practice what I preach, how about Uller and Niflheim?

Piper's book "Uller Uprising" includes an essay by John D. Clark with physical details on the star systems of both Uller and Niflheim, including especially the chemistries of the two named planets.

Niflheim could be dropped in anywhere as a world with an Insidious atmosphere which is nevertheless the site of efforts to mine valuable minerals. This world has an atmosphere of fluorine and various fluoride gasses, which defeats all efforts at completely closing it out of exploratory/mining vessels. The book has one chapter describing the efforts of a group of Terrans (plus one Ulleran observer) to mine deeply-buried metals using nuclear explosives to bring all the good stuff up to the surface - extreme strip-mining, but nobody likes the place enough to protest (the name of this planet is used as a swear word in other novels by Piper).

Uller could be used just as it is in the novel, with substitution of the Third Imperium or alternate interstellar government in place of the Terran Federation. The physically interesting thing about Uller is that its lifeforms are based on silicon rather than carbon. More interesting, however, is the native sapient species invented by Piper, and the relationship of different cultures within that species to the humans of the Chartered Uller Company, which has exclusive rights to explore and exploit the planet. The novel tells the story of an uprising by most of the native Ulleran population against the humans and some Ullerans who remain allied with them; a great adventure setting, whether you choose the time period before, during, or after the uprising. Another option would be to use Uller as a setting long after the uprising, when the world is developed and the Ullerans are part of interstellar civilization, although this would require a lot more work and speculation.

The e-book "Uller Uprising" by H. Beam Piper, including the essay by John D. Clark, is available in full on Project Gutenberg.



BONUS: While googling for the Gutenberg link, I found this Enderra blog with notes on the blogger's attempt to map the worlds of H. Beam Piper. Haven't read it yet myself, but first paragraph looks promising.


*

 

[rancke]

I ran the adventure from Four Day Planet at one point. I chose 875-496/Five Sisters as Fenris (the locals called it Janus after its two-faced nature -- night and day). I copied the whole society lock, stock and barrel.


Hans

 

[SpaceBadger]

I ran the adventure from Four Day Planet at one point. I chose 875-496/Five Sisters as Fenris (the locals called it Janus after its two-faced nature -- night and day). I copied the whole society lock, stock and barrel.

I would have enjoyed playing in that, even though it would require a lot of separation of player knowledge from character knowledge!

 

[madmike]

I had always thought the a one off adventure centred on Lone Star Planet would have been a load of fun to either referee or be a player in. Quick substitution for the s'Srauff to Vagr would be all that was needed.

 

[Timerover51]

I had always thought the a one off adventure centred on Lone Star Planet would have been a load of fun to either referee or be a player in. Quick substitution for the s'Srauff to Vagr would be all that was needed.

I do keep wondering if Marc got the idea for the Vargr from the s'Srauff. Although Howard Pyle wrote and illustrated a lot of stories in the early 1900s with Foxes that remind me of the Vargr.

I am still picking and choosing Piper's worlds, as some do not work in a sort of Traveller universe. A lot of Norton's do, and Witch World physics would be fun. Piper really does not have psionics, while Norton has a range of possibilities.

 

[rancke]

I do keep wondering if Marc got the idea for the Vargr from the s'Srauff. Although Howard Pyle wrote and illustrated a lot of stories in the early 1900s with Foxes that remind me of the Vargr.

Or he could have gotten the idea from A.B. Chandler or from someone else who had written about wolf- or dog-people.

Or he could have gotten the idea all on his own. People do get original ideas that other people have had before, you know.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

Or he could have gotten the idea from A.B. Chandler or from someone else who had written about wolf- or dog-people.

Or he could have gotten the idea all on his own. People do get original ideas that other people have had before, you know.


Hans

Hans, I am not particularly interested in getting into an argument with you, as those tend to go on for a long time. I am aware that people have original ideas. I even get them sometimes. Not often, but occasionally I do get them.

 

[BlackBat242]

I am still picking and choosing Piper's worlds, as some do not work in a sort of Traveller universe. A lot of Norton's do, and Witch World physics would be fun. Piper really does not have psionics, while Norton has a range of possibilities.

I've incorporated the Zacathans, multiple Forerunner civilizations (while throwing out the OTU Ancients and "god-father... er... grandfather" completely), and several other things.

I also wrote up a Hyperdrive as an alternate drive to Jump... it is slower, but requires less fuel, a H-drive is larger per number than a J-drive, along with a few other differences. For example, range is the same if the fuel % onboard is the same... all engine size determines is how fast you cover that distance, not how far you go before returning to normal space. A H-1 drive moves you along at 10 days per parsec, using 7.5%Xship's displacement fuel per parsec. You enter hyper and stay in hyper for as long as you have fuel, or until your preset flight program drops you out, whichever comes first (Hyper does not require presence of a mass-point for drop-out, but drop-out can be altered by the presence of a mass at or very near to the drop-out point). A H-2 drive does the same, but at 7 days per parsec, and H-3 = 4 days. H-3 is normally the fastest developed, as H-drives are usually replaced by J-drives by TL12-13 at the latest (H-drives appear at TL9, with H2 at TL 10 & H-1 at TL 11).

 

[Timerover51]

Not sure about picking up the Zacathans, but it is a thought for consideration. I would have to go over Star Rangers a bit. As for other earlier space-faring races, the Forerunners and the Bald Space Rovers are in, along with the ancient computer/planetary controller in Star Hunter and the ruins in Catseye.

As Mongoose Traveller has a hyperdrive, I suspect that I am going to use that, as I want the planets spread out to allow for travel time, although that means reworking some of the starship economics. I need to break out some of my game design hex sheets and start figuring out distances.

One thing about Piper's and Norton's planets is that they are all pretty much inhabitable without major problems, except maybe Uller and a couple in Cosmic Computer. One could argue over Fenris. So I probably will add some other star systems that are not as attractive, but provide possible exploration adventures, and of course, the obligatory pirate hangout.

Right now, I am leaning towards putting this to Rimward of the Solomani Sphere, as that is less charted, plus I could pull in A. Bertram Chandler's concept of odd things happen at the Rim. Then I could pull Witch World in. Need to debate including High Halleck as part of Witch World.

 

[Timerover51]

I have finally started reading the Retief stories by Keith Laumer, and he does have some good planets, and I now know who the Groaci are. I am just not sure about working some of them in. They are good stories and a number of the can be found on Project Gutenberg.

I have settled on a variant of Cepheus Engine to use for the basic rules system, and have figured out a way to balance Jump Drive with a couple of modified versions of Piper's hyperdrive. There are Space Vikings, but they have a much wider range of ships that in the Piper book, with some being around 400 to 800 tons, and some of the big planetary supported groups having much larger ships, with longer range using my Hyperdrive-2, covering a parsec a week, but with life support for several months if needed.

There are also traces of the Krell around, along with the Bald Space Rovers. aka Baldies, from Norton's Time Trader series. They collected groups of humans for use as low-tech workers so there are some abandoned or died-off colonies of humans as well as a few where the humans are still around, with no sense of how they got to the planet. The Krell collected a lot of Terran creatures and stocked some worlds with them, so Terran creatures are not unusual, except the Krell did their collecting about 200,000 years ago, so mammoths, mastodons, giant ground slothes, Dire wolves, and sabertooths can be found. Ditto with respect to Tasmanian wolves and Quagga and some other now extinct creatures. The University of Baldur loves to conduct studies of them and makes a ton of money on Terran biologists coming to study the Ice Age creatures.

 

[Timerover51]

Well, after going through the online Library of Congress copyright data base, it looks like James Schmitz's Witches of Karres is out of copyright and is now public domain. Several writers have written follow-on books to Witches of Karres recently. So it looks like, when it comes to the Iverdahl system, I can use the description of Karres given in the book as a starting point.

After a brief study Karres could be distinguished easily enough by the fact that it moved counterclockwise to all the other planets of the Iverdahl System.

Well, it would, the captain thought.

No communicator signals reached them, and no other ships showed up to look them over. Karres, in fact, had the appearance of a completely uninhabited world. There were a large number of seas, too big to be called lakes and too small to be oceans, scattered over its surface. There was one enormously towering ridge of mountains which ran from pole to pole, and any number of lesser chains. There were two good-sized ice caps; and the southern section of the planet was speckled with intermittent stretches of snow. Almost all of it seemed to be dense forest.

Then add in some of the species of wildlife, and the question of whether or not it is there at all, could make for a fun planet. I need to go back to my sector planning sheet and do some work.

 

[Timerover51]

I need to get back to work on this. The Krell definitely seeded a fair number of worlds with terrestrial fauna and flora, so things like the Stellar Sea Cow, the Dugong, and the various Manatees are around. Then you have some examples of similar creatures as well, like the Armored Crushjaws of El Paso, much sought after by sport fishermen. They resemble the Dunkleosteus of the Earth's Devonian Period. Look up the Seven Deadliest Seas for some of my other inspiration.

Edit Note: What I also need to do is pull all of my ideas together into one thread, so as to be a tiny bit consistent.

 

[Timerover51]

I found my other major thread about the Piper-Norton Sector in the Cepheus Engine forum. It really helps when you check the threads that you are watching. (the best I could come up with to a face-palm). That thread can be found here. https://www.travellerrpg.com/index.php?threads/cepheus-engine-piper-norton-sector.39544/

@mike wightman I apologize for getting side tracked on this, as I greatly appreciated your interest and comments. Thirty lashed with a wet noodle to me. Keelhauling might be a bit too drastic, and interfere with continued comments.

Also, it looks like some of the links in the Cepheus Engine thread no longer work, which means I have to figure out what I posted there. Bummer.