Why there are no Aliens in my Traveller Setting

 Simple answer: I don't need them. What purpose do aliens serve? To produce other-worldliness? To remind the players that they aren't in New Jersey? To give PCs cool new powers & abilities? To be a faceless enemy that Travellers can slaughter without qualm?

Rubber Forehead Aliens, now with AI!

I don't need aliens to do those things. Note this is not me saying that aliens are badwrongthink. The Traveller Book does mention aliens in passing, and says that any character can be of any race. Beyond that is up to the Referee and the players.

As a human and a Christian, I believe that God became Man in the person Jesus Christ. By his literal physical death and Resurrection He provided mankind salvation, the way back to Paradise, communion with God. He healed and restored the Image of God in man. That man bears the image and likeness of God is part of the Christian creed. This makes us distinct from animals, plants and rocks.

Does that make mankind unique in the universe? I don't know. The Church does not claim to know whether there are other image-bearers in the cosmos. So here, in my fictional future setting we find no other image-bearing races. I have chosen to leave that question unanswered.

Yes, I have the Ursas and neo-dogs. Both of these arose from Terran animals. We know that they do not bear the Image. The Church views them as living beings worthy of respect, but not as potential members of the Church. Also, the Ursas and Neo's don't see the point; they are materialists.

I have read many sci-fi pulp stories, the kind of literature that inspired Traveller. The ones set in our solar system often have native races from Venus, Mars and Mercury, and sometimes the outer planets too. Every author has a different vision of what a Martian looks like.

What they have in common is this: they are different cultures from the Terrans. Language, dress, and social practice set them apart. For the sake of story-telling they all can communicate with Terrans. There is some form of common language that all the planets have and know. 

Not Human at all: Ursas!

What would your PCs do, if they arrived at a Class-E port on some frozen dead end world, and discovered that this character:

"Stan", E7D776  Army, 2 terms Lieutenant

was the Port Authority? The Ursas appeared several hundred years ago; and other than the fact that they came from Earth, their origins are more legend than fact. The Ursas themselves cannot say who uplifted them. They don't think about it that much. They are here, deal with it.

Ursas are intelligent to a level comparable with humans, and some are quite smart. It is unwise to think of them as large, furry humans.  Ursas's motivations are hunger, desire for territory (see point 1), self-preservation or reproduction. Ursas that live in human society have chosen to adopt human means of sating these desires. Working for pay to buy food negates hunger and the need for territory.  Cooperation with humans provides security and the opportunity to find other Ursas to address that last drive.

Ursas are not aggressive, unless they sense a threat. They know that they can intimidate humans with their size and will do so if it helps their goals.  They will fight if facing a threat to themselves, their territory, their cubs, or any character the Ursa considers important to protect. Ursas in the Army can wear armor and carry heavy weapons. Think about that for a minute.

Animal Encounter - White Apes of Barsoom

John Carter - ruling Barsoom like a Boss.

 I am having a heckuva good time reading the John Carter novels. I'm into the fourth book (Thuvia, Maid of Mars) now, and ERB has not disappointed.

Barsoom is vividly described and each book has introduced new and strange people, places and things. Today I'd like to share one of the creatures of Mars as a Traveller animal encounter. This is how John Carter describes them upon his first meeting, in A Princess of Mars:

“The creatures were about ten or fifteen feet tall, standing erect, and had,  like the green Martians, an intermediary set of arms or legs, midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes were close together and non protruding; their ears were high set, but more laterally located than those of the Martians, while their snouts and teeth were strikingly like those of our African gorilla. Altogether they were not unlovely when viewed in comparison with the green Martians.”  (chapter  6)

Here he describes them at the opening of The Gods of Mars:

"They stand fifteen feet in height and walk erect upon their hind feet. Like the green Martians, they have an intermediary set of arms midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes are very close set, but do not protrude as do those of the green men of Mars; their ears are high set, but more laterally located than are the green men's, while their snouts and teeth are much like those of our African gorilla. Upon their heads grows an enormous shock of bristly hair". (chapter 2).

They are, of course, the great White Apes of Barsoom.

Making a few assumptions, I take their Traveller animal stats to be as follows:

Carnivore Killer 

1600kg 8D/3D [28/10]  Claws/teeth  (+4 to hit due to size) Dmg 6D+2 

Armor: Mesh  A2 F8 S3  2 attacks/round   Number appearing: 1D

They are big,(1600 kg) they are aggressive,(Attack 2+) and they are fast (Speed: 3). Even Travellers armed with guns should have a difficult time with these beasties. When they attack, they will move at best speed to Close range and use their claws, which are more deadly than shotguns or laser rifles. PCs with melee weapons can use their skill to parry (-DM) but the apes massive size & strength gives them a big advantage. Carter, who probably has Sword-5 plus the strength bonus was able to fend them off, but most PCs won't be that capable.
 
At the beginning of GoM, Carter and Tars Tarkas (who's 15 feet tall) are chased by a big gang of white apes, and can't outrun them. This leads to one of my favorite quotable exchanges from the whole series so far, which I shared here.

Go read A Princess of Mars, available from Project Gutenberg and as an audio book from Librivox.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Photos are in the public domain. 

Non-human Aliens and the Church, take two

A few months ago I was asked about the possibility of non-humans becoming part of the Church in my TU. Honestly, I punted. I chose at the start to not have intelligent non-terrestrial Beings in my TU, and thereby got around the question. But when the question was posed, I started to think about it more. In that post, I admitted that it is possible that there are other Beings in the universe who possess the Divine Image, but I know nothing about what that would look like.

I am fond of reading Fr. Dave's blog Blood of Prokopius. Although he writes mostly about fantasy gaming, he also has played Traveller and has written a number of posts that discuss it in relation to the Orthodox faith. I don't know why I hadn't spotted the post I quote from before, but it explains much better than I did what I wanted to say about aliens and God.

Non-humans in the Church in the Far Future?

I recently had a question put to me by a member over at the Citizens of the Imperium discussion board. He wanted to know whether I saw non-humans/aliens becoming part of the Orthodox Church in the Far Future. And that's a good question. 

I wish I had a good answer. 

Here's what I wrote in reply to the message:

EXTERMINATE!! Daleks as a Traveller Variant

I hope you've got your VRF Gauss Gun warmed up . . .

I am a fan of Doctor Who, and have been since high school. This past weekend we watched the 7^th Doctor serial Remembrance ofthe Daleks, one of my favorites. It's a nostalgia episode, as the Doctor revisits 1963 and the place where TV audiences first met him. But that's not what I'm on about. The episode got me to think about how well Daleks would work in the milieu of Traveller.

Raid on Stataorlai - Amber Zone Reviews # 34

Amber Zone: Raid on Stataorlai, by Keith Douglass

Check out the series introduction here.

 

Location: Stataorlai asteroid belt, (Kyaenka 0605, Dark Nebula)

Patron: The PCs are recruited by a representative of Clan Hweaolriya (hereafter H-clan), the clan to which the PCs belong.

Mission: The PC's clan is at war with the Aeahekihiykhiy clan (hereafter A-clan). H-clan leadership suspects A-clan is assembling a fleet to strike at them, but they do not know where. The PCs are hired to do strategic reconnaissance of the titular system, looking for actionable intelligence of the suspected military buildup.

Complications: The system the PCs are investigating is under the control of the Eakhtawa (hereafter E-clan) clan; officially neutral but favoring A-clan. If the PCs offend the E-clan it could bring them actively into the war, on A-clan's side. As such, the PCs have to avoid any hostility with E-clan that can be tied back to H-clan.

Payoff: Pay is not mentioned in the adventure. The PCs may be considered active duty military and as such do not undertake the adventure for pay. The PCs are provided with a ship for this mission, so maybe they will be allowed to keep it in exchange for being available for other missions.

Strong Points: This is the first Amber Zone written specifically for Aslan characters.

However, this adventure can easily be modified to work for human PCs. The situation calls for a lot of planning, subtlety and coordinated action. Towards the end, the PCs will be able to take more direct action, which should be very high-tension. If they succeed they could short-circuit A-clan's war plans, and give H-clan a real edge.

Weak Points: This is a very linear adventure, the author gives only one way to go about handling it. Any other ideas by the PCs will be completely off-script, meaning the referee has to make it up as it goes. As I read the text, there is about a 50-50 chance that the PCs will be discovered in the first week. If they're 'made' then the mission is over. The ships of E-clan will pursue any unidentified ships – the text states that E-clan ships are 'always hostile'. The PCs actions are pretty much scripted for them by the mission parameters - there's not much freedom to choose.

What I'd change: I would give the PC's the possibility of cracking coded communications between ships at a Lagrange Point aka Trojan Point which might avoid the need for direct action. I would allow the PCs to try stealthy things to change the odds of them being discovered.I would also sketch out the course of the clan war, and allow the PCs other scouting or combat opportunities; stretching this adventure out into a campaign.

In My Traveller Universe: I don't have many asteroid belt systems in my TU, and few are Independents between even minor powers. The best bet would be to locate this adventure in Sutter's Belt (Dothan-Talaveran 0103). Either the Stedhard Alliance or the Kassiran Defense League could be using the Belt, but neither side would want the Dothan Alliance getting in on their opponent's side.

Map: The most of this adventure takes place in titular asteroid belt, so the referee will want to sketch up the belt with its gas giants & their Trojan points.