[Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

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[Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

James_Nostack 05 Jan 2010 04:32

I have a question about the genre assumptions of Traveller. Is it pretty much military fiction set in space, with the assumption that Viet Nam didn't happen?

That seems to have been the default assumption of the three Traveller games I've played in, and I didn't come into the game knowing this. In hindsight, coupled with the fact that the game is based on 1940's and 1950's "galactic empire" fiction, that seems like what I was missing.

It's kind of a big deal because Viet Nam (for a lot of people) really did some damage to a romanticized view of the military and its place in the world.

I'm thinking that The Forever War isn't the reference point I was hoping it was. So what takes its place?

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Invincible Overlord 05 Jan 2010 04:46

You're over-interpreting. The Third Imperium setting was designed to get out of the way (my new catchphrase, I'm in negotiations for a talkshow). So people can and have played all sorts of games against its beige backdrop. There is a military vibe, though soldier-of-fortune is its more normal manifestation.

But did you get one of my phat DVDs with lots of traveller stuff? By far the easiest way to absorb the default gestalt is by skimming game products.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Greengoat 05 Jan 2010 06:02

Yes, at least where all things military are concerned for Traveller.

Even though it was written in the 70's, the game takes almost all of it's cues from the "big" sci-fi of the 50's and earlier. Asimov's Foundation and Empire books being the main model it seems to me.
New wave, Forever War a good example, is not yet on the radar for the game. Indeed almost all sci-fi RPGs stop taking their cues from science fiction after the 60's. Thereby keeping the play experience more like a genre of a fantasy game than anything to do with speculative fiction.

Playing in Traveller, I sort of get the same feeling I have when I think of the detailed school reports on space colonization with O'Niell Cylinders I did when I was in the fifth grade and the subsequent feeling of having my projected future ripped off.

But hey, at least its real easy to download porn off of the internet.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

TavisAllison 05 Jan 2010 12:43

the game is based on 1940's and 1950's "galactic empire" fiction

I think this is an overstatement. Without reviewing the entire Traveller recommended reading list, it seems clear to me that guys like A. Bertram Chandler and Poul Anderson are super-important to the concept of the Imperium, and although they started writing in the '40s they were still going strong when Traveller was published. I'd bet you dollars to donuts that both Mark Miller and Gary Gygax read Forever War when it came out, because it came out in 1974, close enough to the era where if you were a SF/fantasy fan you could and did read everything that was published each year 'cause otherwise there wasn't enough to feed your jones. But I think it's revisionist to say that it was obvious that this, or the New Wave, or whatever was the future of SF; the vein Miller was tapping into arguably better represented where a majority of fans were at at the time.

From another thread:

Why is the Imperium the unquestioned good?

Because it holds back the darkness. Remember, Poul Anderson is the guy who gave us the Law/Chaos alignment axis.

All SF is intrinsically and essentially pro-nerd. (Sometimes, as with social warning novels, this is harder to see because it devotes itself to internecine nerd-war; hippie ecology nerds good, warmongering physics nerds bad or farsighted SF-writing nerds good, well-fed industrialist nerds bad). Barbarians are thus always the enemy because they burn books. Even a New Waver, anti-"there will be war," making-fun-of-space-empires guy like Harry Harrison gets misty-eyed when he thinks about how the Dark Ages swallowed up the learning of the ancient world.

Why the Traveller aliens symbolize the barbarians at the gate doesn't make sense, exactly, but aliens are always the Other and barbarians (and, thankfully, not women, or men with cultural/ethnic differences, or likely-homosexual men who oppose the necessary fascist rise to power) are the kind of other Traveller's sources are concerned with.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Quendalon 05 Jan 2010 13:40

The archetypical Traveller novel is C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, which was written in 1981. Yes, I know that's four years after Traveller came out. It's still the most Traveller-like fiction around.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

James_Nostack 05 Jan 2010 14:30

But did you get one of my phat DVDs with lots of traveller stuff? By far the easiest way to absorb the default gestalt is by skimming game products.

I appreciate all the effort that went into the compilation, but from skimming the material, what I came away with was:

• There's an Imperium
• The emperor's name is Strephon!
• The Zhodani are psychic Space Ruskies
• Space Dogs and Space Starfish
• There's a sector named Yasjlkjawer and another sector named Yajkljaser. Don't get them confused!
• In the Yasjlkjawer sector is the planet Vwklyq, which is interesting because B198234
• Space guns do 6d6 damage

I'm not knocking this setting: I'm just saying that I don't understand it because there's no elevator pitch. And if that was the pitch (or if I need to read several hundred pages of stuff exactly like this to deduce what's interesting about the setting) then I'm probably going to suck at playing the game. (And I do.)

The Third Imperium setting was designed to get out of the way (my new catchphrase, I'm in negotiations for a talkshow). So people can and have played all sorts of games against its beige backdrop.

So, I think "getting out of the way" is occasionally a good thing as applied to rules: certainly it's a good thing when rules are badly designed.

But I don't think "getting out of the way" is at all desirable when we're talking about the most basic possible expectations for what I should be doing at the table.

I say this because every time I ask people, "What's Traveller about?" they say, "Anything you want it to be, James … but oh God not that, you're doing it wrong." I feel guilty, but I literally don't know any better.

I'd be curious to see the 9-minute synopsis of a Traveller campaign if that's possible - it would be hugely helpful to me.

The archetypical Traveller novel is C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, which was written in 1981. Yes, I know that's four years after Traveller came out. It's still the most Traveller-like fiction around.

I will check it out very quickly, thank you! That's very helpful.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Quendalon 05 Jan 2010 14:45

I say this because every time I ask people, "What's Traveller about?" they say, "Anything you want it to be, James … but oh God not that, you're doing it wrong." I feel guilty, but I literally don't know any better.

As a system, Traveller is a bit like some sort of space GURPS. It's a quasi-generic setting which the individual GM uses as a platform for their own themes, and it's those themes that they use for the elevator pitch. If the GM doesn't give you an elevator pitch and then blames you for not reading their mind, that's their mistake.

If you want the elevator pitch for default Traveller, however, that's probably "Indiana Jones meets Cocoon — in space." A bunch of retirees meander through space, minding their own business (traditionally this is interstellar trade rather than Indy's archaeology), only to get entangled with something larger and more important than they are.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Oban 05 Jan 2010 14:50

I propose the Dumarest series is the archetypical Traveller inspiration. As much as I like Cherryh, Downbelow Station, 40,000 in Gehenna, et. al.

The Dumarest books started publication in the late 60's, well in advance of Miller's classic LBBs, and mention, among other things:

- High, medium, and low passage as means of interstellar transport, with low passage having the same percentange chance of death as in the Traveller rules.
- A low passage lottery.
- The "blade" as a weapon of choice of the protagonist.
- Air rafts and boats.
- Spacecraft jumps and journeys that take a couple of weeks.
- "Library data" as a specific computer providing information about cultures and planets exactly as laid out in Traveller.

Most important is the presentation of a universe teeming with so many planets and cultures that no one knows them all, and a culture of travelers moving between them looking for adventure, opportunity, or amusement.

The atmosphere of the traveller universe is pretty much lifted from these books, with the imperium/military emphasis added (I think) because pretty much all the other popular SF of the time (Asimov, Anderson, Chandler, etc.) had one.

Sadly, the 3-4 books of the series I have read so far are - in my opinion - really bad writing, with a lot of focus on silly logistical detail, little to no character development, a lot of "tell, don't show," and women who only homicidal harpies or helpless naifs. Both types instantly swoon and fall in love with the hero of course, just because.

I will bring a couple this weekend and hand them out to anyone with interest.

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

Quendalon 05 Jan 2010 14:54

I'm not familiar with the Dumarest cycle, but it looks like you've hit on a key primary source for Traveller. Well done!

Re: [Traveller] Is Traveller Pre-Viet Nam military fiction?

littleidiot 05 Jan 2010 16:00

I think the military slant of Traveller can be explained by the fact that Miller is ex-military. I think he was a marine.

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