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rfmcdonaldUntil recently, one of the biggest flaws in the history of the vast, sprawlling Traveller roleplaying game universe lay in the unlikely nature of Terra's introduction to galactic society. In the late 2090s, an American deep-space exploration ship using the newly-developed faster-than-light jump drive travelled to Barnard's Star. There, to the immense surprise of everyone back on Earth, the Americans encountered an outpost of the Ziru Sirka, a vast and ancient empire of ten thousand planetary systems dominated by the Vilani, a verifiably human culture that had developed since prehistory on the distant world of Vland and had developed to the point that, as a RPGnet reviewer notes, were "setting up interstellar colonies at the same time earth's civilizations were running around building the ancient pyramids." In the two centuries after Terran-Vilani contact, Traveller canon has it that the Terrans not only managed to united to form the Terran Confederation, but that this Confederation managed to conquer the Ziru Sirka. This success seems a bit much for a single planet pitted against ten thousand, even excluding the fact that, at the moment of first contact, Terra was rather more backwards than any of the major worlds of the Ziru Sirka. I like my world, I really do, but on its face this history is just a bit too rah-rah Terracentric.
Fortunately, good writers have been able to give this unlikely outcome a reasonably plausible history. Ziegler outlined this series of events in his GURPS Traveller: Rim of Fire, the Traveller sourcebook detailing the sector of inhabited space around Earth. Now, joining with Drye and Wiseman, we have the GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars to give a much fuller description of this history that has the added virtue of being plausible. The structure of the Ziru Sirka and the nature of Vilani society is described in detail for perhaps the first time, for instance. It turns out that the failure of the Vilani to conquer Terra in the First Interstellar War can be explained by Vilani conservatism, by a principled devotion to a constantly regulated steady-state empire that simply couldn't adjust quickly enough to the threat posed by the dynamic Terrans. The easy assimilation of Terra's early conquests is explained by the presence of the kimashargur, a dissident Vilani culture resentful of its lost independence and eager to ally with its Terran liberators. The apparent unity of Terran civilization under the Confederation is explained, in the chapter devoted to the Terrans, to be a mere façade covering great power alliances and nationalist resentments. Going on from this needed clarifications, Interstellar Wars goes on to provide all the information that anyone could want for a complete set of adventures in this milieu. Known space is described in detail, for instance, though I'm bit disappointed that, as the book's Wikipedia entry suggests, hints of a map showing all of known space circa the mid-22nd century weren't followed up. Systems are provided for the generation of trade routes and subsectors of space, descriptions and blueprints of spacecraft given, and adventure seeds provided.
In the space of Interstellar Wars' 240 pages, the authors manage to create an impressively complete and reasonably plausible near-future science fiction setting, capable of standing separately from the Traveller canon on its own merits. I rather like this book, and see no reason why other people interested in settings like this one would disagree.
Fortunately, good writers have been able to give this unlikely outcome a reasonably plausible history. Ziegler outlined this series of events in his GURPS Traveller: Rim of Fire, the Traveller sourcebook detailing the sector of inhabited space around Earth. Now, joining with Drye and Wiseman, we have the GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars to give a much fuller description of this history that has the added virtue of being plausible. The structure of the Ziru Sirka and the nature of Vilani society is described in detail for perhaps the first time, for instance. It turns out that the failure of the Vilani to conquer Terra in the First Interstellar War can be explained by Vilani conservatism, by a principled devotion to a constantly regulated steady-state empire that simply couldn't adjust quickly enough to the threat posed by the dynamic Terrans. The easy assimilation of Terra's early conquests is explained by the presence of the kimashargur, a dissident Vilani culture resentful of its lost independence and eager to ally with its Terran liberators. The apparent unity of Terran civilization under the Confederation is explained, in the chapter devoted to the Terrans, to be a mere façade covering great power alliances and nationalist resentments. Going on from this needed clarifications, Interstellar Wars goes on to provide all the information that anyone could want for a complete set of adventures in this milieu. Known space is described in detail, for instance, though I'm bit disappointed that, as the book's Wikipedia entry suggests, hints of a map showing all of known space circa the mid-22nd century weren't followed up. Systems are provided for the generation of trade routes and subsectors of space, descriptions and blueprints of spacecraft given, and adventure seeds provided.
In the space of Interstellar Wars' 240 pages, the authors manage to create an impressively complete and reasonably plausible near-future science fiction setting, capable of standing separately from the Traveller canon on its own merits. I rather like this book, and see no reason why other people interested in settings like this one would disagree.
