Hi vk, This is all from memory, so forgive any lapses involved. Anthony I'm sure can give you a far better overview than this, but what the heck ;)
The Traveller Universe has roughly 4 major periods in time. The first is the Precursors, and that is knowledge that few, if any in the Traveller Universe truly understand (read that as GM controlled knowledge). They had a major falling out, pretty much destroyed each other, and vanished from the stage as it were (well, mostly vanished). Before their reign was over, they had transported some humans off of Earth and moved them to another world that would eventually become home to the Zhodani empire. Another group of humans were transported elsewhere to become the Villani empire. The other "races" such as the Hivers, Bwapps, Aslans, etc - are truly alien races. First Imperium (IIRC) is that of the Villani. They eventually control a large area/volume of space, but become a very rigid empire that has expanded to the limits of its abilities before coming in contact with the edge of space inhabited by the Terrans. The Interstellar war sourcebook details the conflict arising from this. War after peace after war after peace until later historians call it the Nth interstellar war sees one side prevailing over the other. This leads into... The Second Imperium or "The ramshackle empire". As the name suggests, it doesn't last nearly as long as the 1st Imperium or the Third Imperium, and a long period of "dark ages" descends upon the planets of mankind until the birth of... The Third Imperium... This was the most detailed portion of the Traveller Universe - no less than 3 major game system incarnation of TRAVELLER plus a 4th game system that details the REBELLION (and presumably the end of the 3rd Imperium). Yet another game system details the aftermath of the 3rd Imperium (Traveller the new Era) in which mankind faces the danger of virus laden computer systems (but that's another story entirely). Classic Traveller: The little black books, details the 3rd Imperium up to about 1100 or so (1,100 years after the start of the 3rd Imperium). It details the time period of the 5th Frontier War as well as a bit of time afterwards. Megatraveller: the next incarnation of Traveller, and details the dissolution of the 3rd Imperium as civil war rends it from end to end. TRAVELER THE NEW ERA: This is the Game Designer's Workshop version of GURPS to a minor extent in that they used this game engine from TWILIGHT: 2000. This details the end of the Civil war and the total destruction and slide into a new dark ages of history. TRAVELLER 4: an entirely new game system set in the beginning of the 3rd Imperium's history. The game system unfortunately didn't seem to stick around very long... GURPS TRAVELLER: details the period of time in an alternative history line where the Rebellion/civil war of MEGATRAVELLER fame didn't occur. TRAVELLER D20: I'm not too familiar with when exactly this time period exists or which "Traveller" universe it inhabits (ie the original or the alternative universe of its own making or what have you). Unless I'm off my rocker, the material presented in the D20 version of Traveller's Aide #7 Imperial Navy was what was originally presented for consideration for GURPS IMPERIAL NAVY before it appeared that SJGames was no longer interested in it. I could be wrong on that however, because I don't have ALL of the facts... INTERSTELLAR WARS: this details the time period when Mankind first encounters the 1st Imperium and struggles in its various wars to come out on top. Per the material written for the 3rd Imperium, this is a time period known as the Nth interstellar Wars (historians can't count exactly how many cease fires, resumption of war, etc to be able to say whether it was the 20th, 21st, or even 30th or such war). Needless to state - this is entirely "VIRGIN" territory when it comes to what has been written by previous Traveller editions. One "benefit" of using this timeframe from my perspective is that it limits the number of world technology levels. Traveller had a technological progression that permits the following: TTL (Traveller Tech level) --------------------------- 09 Jump drive 1 11 Jump drive 2 12 Jump drive 3 13 Jump drive 4 14 Jump drive 5 15 Jump drive 6 By limiting the Traveller Tech to 11 or 12, you limit some of the issues that arise with an expanded jump capability. (See http://home.earthlink.net/~ngc5139/HG/Book5.html for data on the original Traveller ship building rules for Classic Traveller) If you ever get a chance to pick up IMPERIUM from ebay, you might want to give it a shot. It makes for some fun games <g> where losing the war helps you to win the peace as they say. If you have any other questions, you may want to consider joining the TML (Traveller Mailing List). It is a very active list however - take that warning as you see fit. I will state however, that Anthony is one of the saner individuals there and well worth cultivating as a reasonable authority on Traveller <g>. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
