Low Power Adventures in Fiction

My copy has this cover, from here

Between Robert Weaver's excellent series on high powered Traveller play and most recent post, I thought of the Venus sequence in Heinlein's Space Cadet. I got my 1992 printing in 1995 or 1996, and it has stayed around me ever since. It is an excellent example of low powered play. The characters have few skills useful in this setting, and are mostly relying on their personalities and inherent wits.

The characters have landed a small spacecraft, tail sitting as God and the Lieutenant intended, in a swamp on Venus.Their 'Jeep', a short duration craft that sounds rather like a Launch or Ship's Boat , ends up rolling over into the swamp with the contents of the ship's locker. The skill sets the men have, standard shipboard skills with each one having a specialty, with Oscar having Electronics, Matt Navigation, Tex Engineering, and the leader, Lieutenant Thurlow Gunnery. All are useless for the most part in the story, with primitive electronics repair and rigging a camp stove as the only real skill usage I read. The most important skills the men have are Oscar's cultural competency, and a determination  to do the right thing. The cadets former classmate, Burke, is as close to a murder-hobo a Heinlein could get; self-centered morality, and willing to do anything to make a profit. He even attempts to bribe the heroes. The skills they use are largely soft skills like persuasion and cultural knowledge. The climatic scene in chapter 15, where Oscar persuades the City Mother to treat the stranded cadets as people should be a way to think about social setting in adventure. One character, with the right knowledge, hits the right buttons to get out from between a rock and a hard place.

From there, it's all about tying up the loose ends to me. The old space ship Astarte, being in the area is a nice little deus ex machina, to get them home after two other spacecraft are ruined by the pests of tropical Venus. While the "Venus is a jungle world" trope is better suited for Space: 1889 than Traveller, but it can still be applied to visiting a world with a hot climate from an extended system generation. Each one contributes something to the recovery, but it was from building a relationship with an alien people, something Heinlein notes repeatedly that we as humans will identify as a group when faced with outside intelligences.

But what really makes it low power is how the highest position any character has is the leader of a small town. There's no reason to avoid the occasional low power scenario in most games. A situation like this, where the role playing is mostly on completing peaceful goals, and getting home, should be the players goals. A goal in a RPG should be to get the players thinking about how to get their problems solved, as having a good time. I am reminded about Marc Miller's example of play in Space Gamer #40,  where shooting only happens at the end, as the players hightail it out of a group of cannibals. And at the end of the novel, it turns out the man whose wits were vital to their survival, has been promoted for his efforts, and is with a return expedition, part of the making your own reputation in the universe, and providing a bridge into high-level play.

Also, I found a really nice review of the novel at Every Day Should Be Tuesday.It seems like a nice fiction blog I'll be looking at more often.

Rest In Peace, Dr. Pournelle

Word has come out that Jerry Pournelle has passed away at the age of 84. A review of King David's Spaceship, last summer got me to write my own post in response as a list of books. This winter, I read and reviewed The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand. Both books provided great ideas for Traveller gaming. In some ways, Pournelle and Niven are the last of their generation, writing ideas forward, and fully embracing having the story first. To write fiction half as well as he did would be a great thing.

Now, he's another star watching down on us, in the Galaxiad.

What do You Mean it isn't Just a Liner: Armed Merchant Cruisers

By Source, Fair use, 

I recently re-read David Weber's Honor Harrington up to Honor Among Enemies, and I thought the idea of and use of Armed Merchant Cruisers in the Official Traveller Universe. Armed Merchant Cruisers are a type of auxiliary warship, converted from merchant ships. Generally, they would be equipped with older weapons, and feature limited fire control with no armor.

These ships come about because of commerce raiding as both the wolves and the sheepdogs around helpless merchants. The predatory ones, like the German Auxiliary Cruisers such as Von Luckner's SMS Seeadler. These ships operate under false flags, which are theoretically replaced with the real one to give the victim a chance to surrender. The other reason, like the ill-fated HMS Jervis Bay, are built to be readily available escorts and protection. Q-ships were a subset of these, smaller ships equipped to trap commerce raiders, submarines usually, with a hidden armament.

Thus, an Armed Merchant Cruiser exists because purpose built warships are for some reason unable to complete either commerce raiding or commerce protection and patrol duties. In some cases, you could find a peace time force of such auxiliary ships, especially in Navies looking to ensure a knowledge continuity in unusual craft, or as aggressors. A Naval Depot could include a few as part of it's defense and exercise force, or as part of a Convoy operations school that can be re-tasked in a time of war.

There is a couple of official designs for a Q-ship, also useful as an Armed Merchant Cruiser. First, in SJ Games Deckplan 3: Empress Marava-Class Far Trader, there's the Empress Arbellatara class variant, that replaces the cargo space with Rampart fighters. Another is provided on page 71 of Mongoose Publishing's Traders and Gunboats, based on the Type R "Fat Trader". These are both common enough designs a competent referee could set them on the players as a joker if the PC's have become a bit too ethically challenged. More may be in other books I do not own.

An Open Armed Merchant Cruiser would be operating as a Navy unit in all respects, squawking a Navy Transponder code, and operating as a normal patrol ship or as the escort for a convoy. In some ways, a converted merchant hull would make sense, as it would have similar performance to the ships it is escorting. On patrol operations, it could be set up for a longer duration operation (in-system performance).

The piratical LCDR Tom Dodge in "Down Periscope"

A Hidden Armed Merchant Cruiser would be looking more like a scruffy tramp or fat trader, and suckering in unsuspecting prey of a variety of sources. It wouldn't act Navy in any fashion, until it's too late for it's enemy to escape. In many ways, it's a completely legal pirate. It's a sucker punch like a System Defense Boat wing in the gas giant killing fuel skimmers.

Of course, these could be working together, where an open Armed Merchant Cruiser is 'escorting' a convoy of hidden ones, Most commerce raiders might consider turning tail when the entire convoy starts spitting nukes, and a large group of fighters are being launched.

In my view of the Official Traveller Universe, the Imperium is big and powerful, but just can't be everywhere. In many cases, local Dukes are unable to get the effective ships commerce protection, even in peace time, from the Imperial Navy, or else a world finds its commerce is under attack, and need mildly combatant starship of its own to ensure fewer merchants are lost. As I see it, the Imperium is more willing to give them Armed Merchant Cruisers than 'real warships', as they are not as emphatically Navy as a Patrol Cruiser, or a Destroyer. In some cases, along the lines of various other vessels navies have in war time, but prefer to get rid of as they are not part of the 'proper fleet' and offer opportunities for junior officers to show up their seniors. The subsectors and systems near the Vargr Extents (Coreward frontier of the Imperium) will have Armed Merchant Cruisers on their permanent Navy Lists, while those on the interior will normally see few if any.

Navies might not be the only operators of Armed Merchant Cruisers. A shipping line of type R's or A2's may buy an Armed Merchant Cruiser based on their fleet hull, as a way to ensure their cargoes get through. An mercenary Armed Merchant Cruiser could operate beyond the Imperium, supporting various small states against both pirates and rival small powers, particularly in the Extents.

In a campaign, an Armed Merchant Cruiser would be a different way to run a war, and to keep it at the players scale. A group of middle aged spacers looking to get out of a boring retirement would be a very skilled crew for one. Former Navy and Scouts would be the crew, boarding parties for Marine and Army characters, a Merchant type would add believably to the ruse of being a trader. Reformed pirate types would be useful as well; for understanding the piratical mindset better than some stuffy Navy type. Encounters would help the referee determine the course of the war. Successes help move the front along, but failures lead to losing the war. It can also be a mechanism to draft the party into the Navy, "Since you have been successful in this, we're promoting you, and sending you to a new cruiser," could be the response they get from success. It helps keep it at the Adventure Class ships level, where it's all smaller ships, and the PC's make the important decisions. The fleet units are escorting the Megafreighters, while the small Armed Merchant Cruisers are stuck herding cats forming Free Traders into a convoy.

Adventure Review: The Kinunir

A snip of the Kinunir from p. 14 of the adventure for review purposes

Adventure 1 The Kinunir was the first official adventure published for Traveller in 1979, two years after the release of Classic Traveller. It's an interesting read, and it has some ideas. But here's what I got from it

For running, it's a very bare bones set up. There's three entry points, and it's largely up to the referee to get the characters from the entry to the adventure itself. It's a more bare bones approach than the current ideas on how to write an adventure. This is less the modern adventure with everything scripted out, more of a frame work to build into your universe.

In a fundamental difference, the Imperium is not as pleasant in this incarnation as it is later on. The Imperium disappears politicians it doesn't like and locks them in prison hulks. They ruthlessly use Ancients technology and Anagathics for the ruling class, and make it difficult for lesser nobles and players to get access to it.

Warships are built with imported components. The scrapped Adda Dubsar lays on its ways on Regina, a TL A world, fitted for a Model 7 computer. At least for its own purposes, the setting is implicitly allowing for equipment on a world to be produced outside of it's stated tech level. It can either be a plot point or something like current era ships built in China but fitted with Western weapons and sensors. I see "Tech Level" as mostly relating to what is commonly available on the world.

Also, we begin to see information about the wider setting. Somewhere in this Imperium is a Vegan Autonomous District-this won't be detailed until 1982 when Solomani Rim is released. For a J-4 ship presumably built in the Spinward Marches, it's a long journey in the Official Traveller Universe. There's also mention of the Fourth Frontier War, and Express Boats. It's starting to merge the small ships of the initial release into the large ships of High Guard and later editions. Also, Strephon and Iolanthe are mentioned, complete with UPP's.

Generally, this is an interesting addition to any Traveller collection, and a fodder for ideas as well. The Kinunir and similar ships can make give your Free Traders a real threat with out a big ship, or be Big Daddy for merc campaigns, especially if the Marines are deployed. It's setting neutral for the most part, and easily adapted. A lost starship is a great adventure hook in any science fiction setting.

Book Review: The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand

A fan build model kit of the INSS MacArthur in the possession of Jerry Pournelle

This winter at the instigation of Ronald Stepp on my prior post, I read both The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand. While The Gripping Hand post dates the publication of Traveller by over a decade, Mote can be considered a forebearer, as it was written shortly before the release of Classic Traveller in 1977. Beowulf Shaeffer from Niven's Known Space stories was profiled in Supplement 1 from 1978, so I think it may be a good influence. The Mote in God's Eye is the first part, and The Gripping Hand is the after the break.

Fundamentally, Mote is a book about events, and not people. The Second Empire has arisen, and in the process of establishing it's rule. A daring action leads the dashing noble officer Roderick Blaine into command of the battle cruiser MacArthur. Heavily damaged in this pacification action, it is sent back home, with two important passengers, Lady Sandra young woman from a prominent family conducting field research, and Horace Bury, a merchant suspected of starting a revolt. It is the only starship on the scene as an unknown solar sail spacecraft appears, and disables the unknown ship. Finding out it's from a non Terrestrial race, and this is the first time chance for a First Contact, the MacArthur and its passengers are reassigned, to the first first contact with an alien intelligence.

And what an alien intelligence the Moties turn out to be. A biologically casted species, who must reproduce or die, they are an excellent foil to humanity. They understand the technology of Alderston Drive for interstellar travel, but do not have the Langston Shield that allows human ships to take more damage and even enter the photosphere of a star. Neither party really understands each other is hiding something, like the Imperial Battleship Lenin at the only Alderson point that leaves the system, or the Motie Warrior Caste. The Humanity is just as alien to the Moties psychologically, especially when the MacArthur's engineer meets them. Humanity's lack of specialization drives some of the Moties mad, as well as our reproductive biology. Locked into their star system, the Moties are in an eternal Malthusian Trap.

The characters are not particularly memorable, as they fill roles in the story, and are archetypes for the most part. The big character development moment is for Bury seeing a dead man's space suit filled with Watchmaker Moties causes him to radically change his position, from resentful of the Empire, to knowing it is the only force that defend humanity from the aliens. The final resolution involves a blockade being established at the request of one of the Motie mediators once the truth of the Moties is known. The book ends with Bury getting blackmailed into becoming an agent of the Empire with an officer, Kevin Renner formerly of the MacArthur, reactivated from getting out as his minder.

So, What Books Have Influenced Your Campaign?

Seeing how Appendix N from the original Dungeons and Dragons seems to be a thing, and this particular review of A Spaceship for the King, kind of got me an idea of what books are going to influence how I run this particular set of adventures. In no particular order at this point, other than what comes to mind.

• Space Cadet, Robert A. Heinlein. It's mostly a coming of age tale, but the how and why of "groundhogs" to "spacers" is a good idea for portraying the new recruit into the space service. Also, the various skill sets an officer must have, that don't involve anything to do with operating a space craft are covered. "I will eat pie with a fork," indeed.
• Starman Jones, Robert A. Heinlein. A workman like coming of age tale, the idea of a farmboy getting off planet and into a controlled profession is an excellent idea. The Earth described in this, with hereditary professions and high technology, could be applied to a high law level world in Traveller.
• Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein. It's the ur-example of powered armor. IMTU, this influences how Battle Dress operates.
• The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy. The techno-thriller postdates Traveller by several years, but this one offers a well paced story, and includes a very important enlisted man.
• Jerry Mitchell series, Larry Bond with Chris Carlson. A series of very accurate modern techno-thrillers about a submariner, covering his career, based on various tours of duty. It's a good way to get an idea for what a navy officer's career is like.
• Technic History, Poul Anderson. Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn are what your everyday group of Travellers are, while Dominic Flandry is an example of the adventures that can be had for serving officers.
• Casino Royale, Ian Flemming. A deftly written espionage story, with little of the gadgetry from the movies. Also, both sides can have the same goal for different purposes for one mission, yet remain adversaries.
• On Basilisk Station, David Weber. The initial outing in the long running Honor Harrington series, this first book is a good stand alone. A junior officer is shuffled off after embarassing the high and mighty, and manages to do her duty, above and beyond what is required.
• Horatio Hornblower series, C. S. Forester. This epic series is a classic of naval literature and adventure. It could be another campaign inspiration, or a possible NPC source. Both filmed adaptations, Gregory Peck and Ioan Griffud in the title role, are good enough.
• Foundation, Isaac Asimov. Really just the initial book and it's story. Psychohistory, a Long Night, and preserving the ideas of civilization. Does Strephon have pyschoistorians advising him? How well does pyschohistory work in my Traveller universe? Doesn't matter at the level I'm playing at, but some of the ideas on how cultures change and adapt are important, as well as who takes over when the Empire recedes.

And a bonus movie:

• The Sand Pebbles, directed by Robert Wise. In some ways, this is how I see a lot of Imperial Navy crews on the frontier. They can live the good life because of relatively high wages, and mistreat the locals. A few manage to break out of it, but most are content with their abuses. Junior officers are often finding themselves to make fateful decisions.

Questions, comments, and flames are nice, but venting spleen about the problems of the universe at me is not welcome.