Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition - Intermission, Part 2

Okay, let's finish off the construction of the Scheherazade, Bard Conley's favorite starship. Last time, there was a problem with space; the engineering section was too big. So, I'm going to retool the engineering section to make it fit. Let's see how it works this time.

Once again, we have a 200-ton ship. The maneuvering drive will remain at E level; I want the ship to be fast in normal space, and reducing it wouldn't save that much space. However, I'm going to drop the Power Plant to a C (saving 6 tons and 16 million Credits), and the Jump drive to a B, saving 10 million credits and 5 tons. It's also going to dramatically reduce the fuel requirements.

So, time to recalculate. 200 tons, which will cost 20 million credits just for the hull. The drives and power plant are 10+9+15, or 34 tons, and 24+20+20 or 64 million credits. I'm up to 84 million, and 166 tons of space left. The bridge is another million (85 total) and 20 tons (leaving 146) for the standard configuration. The Computer can stay at a level 3, for 18 million credits and 3 tons of space (103 million and 143 tons left). Add a ton of allocation for the fire control equipment, and that's 142 tons of hull space remaining.

Oh yes, the staterooms. For six staterooms, that makes 24 tons and 3 million credits. Cost, 106 million, and 118 tons left. I'm still not putting the death freezers in.

Now, back to the fuel calculation. With the reduced power plant, I'm only requiring 30 tons of fuel for the power plant and maneuvering drive. That's a lot better than the 50 I needed previously. The jump drive requirement is 0.1MJn, or 10% of the ship's mass (200) times the Jump drive number, which is 2. The new fuel requirement is 40 tons, so having a fuel tank that holds 70 tons means the ship can fuel up for one trip at a time. Well, that's 40 tons less than the last time, so I'll take it. Fuel costs a mere 500 Credits per ton, or 35,000, which is a drop in the bucket compared to how much building the thing costs in the first place.

Okay, so now we move on to the hardpoints. I'm only putting one weapon system on the ship, a missile launcher. That means one turret, which costs 100,000 credits and doesn't actually give me a tonnage requirement. Is that an oversight, or did I miss something? The missile launcher itself costs 750,000, so I'm going to include the fuel and the turret and round it up to a million more credits, which puts me to 107 million and still at 118 tons.

It's time to get my computer programs. I get 2 million credits free for this, so let's get the basics. I want Maneuver/Evade 5. but that costs 5 million right off the bat. Let's start smaller. Maneuver, Jump 2, Library, Navigation, and Anti-Hijack gets me to 1.2 million, so I've still got 800,000 free credits to work with. Oh, look...Generate takes up that exact amount. Yay! So, I've got all the routine programs I need. Now to deal with the fighting stuff. Gunner Interact, Target, and Launch are basic requirements, which cost a total of 4 million Credits. On defense, I'm still getting M/E 5, to give Jazon the maximum benefit for his skills, as well as Auto/Evade and ECM. That's another 9.5 million credits. Return Fire and Anti-Missile are both laser-based systems, so I'm not going to use them. I will, however, add Selective 1, just because it gives Bard a better chance to hit what he wants. And it rounds up the cost of the computer software to an even 14 million credits. And you though Apple overcharges! These programs don't take up tonnage, so we're at 121 million credits and still sitting comfortably at 118 tons.

I'm going to include Atmospheric Streamlining, because...well, look at the picture below. That's another 2 million credits; 123 and counting.

I'm also going to include a ship's boat, which is 30 tons and 16 million credits, bringing us to 148 tons and 139 million credits. That leaves me with 52 tons of space to work with; that's a lot of cargo space, maybe a bit more than I really want to work with. The Scheherazade isn't a merchant ship, after all. You know, I could actually drop the ship's size to 150 tons, which would save a bunch of money, and reduce the fuel requirements by 10 tons as well, leaving me with 12 tons of cargo space. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, I'll go with that.

Alright, let's take a look at the ship's Data Card, then.

Scheherazade (custom build)

1. M-Drive (E, 5G)                                        Model/3
2. J-Drive (B, Jump-2)                                   CPU = 5
3. Power Plant (C)                                          Storage = 9      1-Selective-1                3-ECM
4. Fuel (60)                                                     1-Target           1-Auto/Evade               2-Generate
5. Hold (12 tons, plus Ship's boat)                 1-Launch         2-Maneuver/Evade-5    1-Maneuver
6. Bridge                                                         1-Predict-1      2-Jump-2                      1-Anti-Hijack
7. T-1 (M) Gunner, 10 missiles aboard          1-Navigation    1-Gunner Interact        1-Library

Alright, that's not a bad looking ship. It's got a pretty sweet package of software to help it do what it needs to do, and it's fast enough to outrun just about anything it runs into. 10 missiles isn't a lot, but it's enough to do the job. All in all, I'm happy with the way the rules come together. The only question is how much space does the missile launcher actually take up. If someone can explain that part, it would be greatly appreciated.

Otherwise, that's it for this one. I'm going to take a day or two off from Traveller, then continue with book 3, Worlds and Adventures. Once again, if you'd like to read about the adventures of the Scheherazade and her intrepid crew, check out Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System and see how the ship handles itself.

Is Opera Still a Thing?

Well, yes, it is. One of the courses I'm taking this term is on opera. Why am I taking it? Partly because I love classical music, partly because it's valuable credits for my degree, and partly because opera has a lot to do with history. And today, we actually watched an opera as a class, over Zoom.

Now, I had been thinking we were going to watching Mozart's The Magic Flute, which I would very much like to watch with Tanner, my twelve-year-old. Magic, monsters, fantasy...it's right down both our alleys. Instead, though, we watched Verdi's La Traviata, which combines the child-friendly subjects of prostitution, betrayal, and tragic death by consumption (aka tuberculosis). Quite the shift in expectations there.

Watching a movie over Zoom isn't really something I would recommend, unless you've got fantastic wi-fi. Which, being on a farm on Prince Edward Island, I do not possess. It's decent wi-fi, certainly, but not that good. So, I got to watch the stop-motion version for parts of it, as a series of still images that were supposed to be moving. The sound was good for the most part, so I got most of the singing. I just couldn't get the subtitles to link up because the video was slow.

So, why am I talking about opera? Because it relates to writing, of course. Opera is a synthesis of different arts: writing (the libretto, or play), music, and visual arts. Opera isn't something you should just listen to. It needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. It doesn't matter how fantastic the music is; it's part of a story that is meant to be seen as well as heard. When the composer and writer put together the words and the music, they can't actually show you the story without the visual component. And it's that visual component that draws people into the world of the opera, a visual component that can change the entire meaning of the story if done right.

For example, the opera we saw, La Traviata, is based on a story written by Alexander Dumas (the same guy who wrote The Three Musketeers), which was based on his own life experiences. When it was first composed, Verdi had to change the setting of the play from the mid-19th century to the early 18th century so as to distance the social commentary in the novel, play and opera from what was actually going on at the time. But the version we saw is set in the 19th century, which gives it a different feel. The costumes are closer to what people wear today, as opposed to having wigs and such.

In writing, though, we don't have that visual component to work with. In fact, all we have are the words on the page, and the reader's imagination to fill in the rest. It's both a blessing and a curse, because today's reading audiences have been conditioned to see their stories, whether in movies, television shows, or video games. It's tougher to engage the mind when all you have is words.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, of course. And that's why I mentioned a few posts ago that the toughest part of writing for me is the descriptions. But those descriptions are what make it possible for the reader to visualize the story in more concrete terms. The more clear the description, the better the connection the reader can make with the story. Opera uses the music and the scenery as shortcuts. That's not a bad thing, of course; opera is still very popular today among a lot of people, and you can see most of the great operas on DVD or on YouTube if you want. It's not the same as a live performance, of course, which is something I would very much like to see at some point. Assuming we're ever allowed to live normal lives again.

I plan to use my course in opera to help me bridge that gap between where my descriptions are now and where I want them to be. Any genre will do, although I prefer the happier and more mythic stories to the tragic, 'socially-relevant' ones. But then, I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Intermission - Starship Design

Alright, I'm going to make a valiant attempt to recreate the Scheherazade from my Bard Conley stories, using the rules from Book 2, Starships. I've gone over these rules in my read-through, but now I'm going to put them to work and see how it goes. The Scheherazade, as I mentioned, is a small ship with a crew of four. This will be a custom build, so I'm starting from scratch. The rules focus more on function rather than form, so I don't have to be a naval architect to do this. And I'll keep track of the costs, too.

On deciding the hull size, I'm starting out by looking over the crew requirements. The reason? Because I know how many people are on board; it's four. So, let's meet them.

First, there's Bard Conley himself, former Marine Sergeant who is the son of an Earth-born naval officer and a Capellan woman. The Capella system in the Bard Conley universe includes one habitable planet that is very heavy-gravity, so the natives are short, squat, and seriously strong. Bard is oversized for a human, with a Capellan body structure; he makes Ah-nold look like Pee Wee Herman. He's the captain of the ship, and controls the weapons from the captain's chair.

Next up is his cousin, Titania, who is a full-blooded Capellan. So, she's short and stocky. She's the ship's engineer, as well as a field medic, but not a full doctor.

The ship's pilot doubles as the navigator. He's Jazon, and he's pretty laid-back. He's also really good at his job, and knows every asteroid in the solar system by its first name.

Finally, there's Liam, who is the ship's comm specialist and computer wizard. He's not a total geek, though; he's actually cultured and has refined tastes in entertainment.

Okay, looking at the crew requirements page, the Scheherazade only has one engineer, so it's not going to have a lot of engines. If the ship is over 200 tons, it should have a navigator. Steward? No. There's one gunner, which means one weapon. I'm looking at a ship no greater than 200 tons here. I'm going to go with the 200 ton hull for now; I reserve the right to change that if I need to. That's going to be a hefty 8,000,000 Cr to get us started.

Now, the engine compartment can handle up to 15 tons. That presents me with a problem; if I'm going to include a Jump Drive, Maneuver Drive, and Power Plant (which I pretty much have to), I'm going to have to go with Type A for all three, since they add up to 15 tons. That's going to be a slow ship. What's the point of offering options that won't fit in the compartment?

Oh, that's right. I'm customizing this thing. Okay, so let's pump up the volume on the engineering section a bit. This ship has to be fast; there are chase scenes involving starships. But it's not going to be making the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, so let's go with Type E maneuvering drive, Type E power plant, and a type C Jump Drive. According to the chart, that's 9+16+20 tons, or 45 tons. Triple the size of a standard hull's capacity for the Engineering section. I'm fine with that. It also means that my price for the hull just jumped from 8 to 20 million credits. Ouch. I add the costs for the drives and power plant, and I get 20+40+30, or 90...how do these prices work, again? Is it 100,000 times the price, or a million times? It doesn't actually say.

Nope, there it is in the next section. It's millions. So, just to make the ship go Vroom is going to cost an additional 90 million credits. I'm up to 110 million, and I don't even have a bridge yet.

So, the Scheherazade has a maximum acceleration of 5 Gs. That seems about right. The Jump drive gives us a range of 3 for interstellar jumping, and the power plant size rating is 5. So far, so good.

And the bridge is half a million per one hundred tons of ship, so I'm getting a bargain at a mere million more credits. 111 million and counting.

Next up is the computer, and I want one that can handle the stresses of starship combat, especially since I know there's going to be combat. The mass isn't going to be an issue; it's the cost, as usual. If I go with a Model-3 computer, that gives me enough CPU power to run five simultaneous programs, with nine in storage at once. That seems reasonable for a smaller ship. There's another 18 million credits. 129 million so far. It also takes up 3 tons of space, so counting the 20 for the bridge and the 45 in the Engineering section, I'm up to 68 tons of my 200 used up.

I'll hold off on the software for now; let's look at fire control. The Scheherazade isn't a warship; it's more of a privateer. It has one missile weapon system, and no lasers. Why no lasers? Because I didn't include them when I wrote the book, that's why. So, that means I need to commit one ton of displacement for the missile launcher. And there's no sand on this ship, so don't ask.

Staterooms. there are four crew, each of whom can have their own cabin. I'm also going to add two more cabins just in case; sometimes they pick up passengers. That's a mere 3 million credits and 24 tons of space, bringing us to totals of 132 million Cr and 92 tons.

Low Passage Berths? Screw that; I'm not killing people on board. No death freezers on my ship.

Fuel! I'll have to calculate that out, so let's jump back to that part of the book. And holy crap, I'm out of room. Just for a single jump trip I'm going to need 60 tons for the necessary fuel, plus 50 more for the power plant and maneuvering drive. That puts me to 202 tons, which is too much. Time to recalculate...

I'll think about it and come back to it. Obviously, I'm going to have to reduce the jump drive and power plant. I want to keep the maneuverability, though. I'll tweak it for the next post.

If you want to read about the intrepid crew of the Scheherazade, check out Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, available in e-book or paperback at an Amazon dealer near you!

A Fantastic Find

Oh, I've been waiting for this moment for twenty years...

I haven't made an eBay purchase in quite a few years now, but I took the plunge when I found something I've been wanting to get for two decades now. It's a complete set of Sir Richard Burton's English translation of the Arabian Nights, a sixteen-volume set. I bought it a couple of weeks ago, anticipating an arrival in early February, or later because PEI takes longer for everything.

Well, they arrived today, and they are beautiful. Check it out:

I know, I know...they look really old and worn, don't they? Well, that's because they ARE old. 135 years old, in fact. Yes, this is the ORIGINAL, limited edition printing of the Thousand Nights and a Night, from 1885. Don't believe me? Feast your eyes!

That's right, and it's fantastic! I've already started reading it, beginning with the Translator's Foreword, and I've started the introduction to the stories. And wow, I'm ten pages in, and I'll never be able to watch Disney's Aladdin the same way again. I'm definitely not going to be reading these to my kids. Not until they're much older, anyway.

See, my initial exposure to the Arabian Nights stories was in the children's versions, such as Andrew Lang or the aforementioned Disney movie. Little did I know that those were very much the bowdlerized versions of the stories. The 'naughty bits' were glossed over or just edited out altogether. Not so with Sir Richard Burton; he is, after all, the man who brought the Kama Sutra to England a couple of years before publishing this. That was available in a limited edition, too. In fact, you couldn't buy these books in a bookstore; it was, as you can see below, only available to 'subscribers.'

'Private subscribers only' was because the British censors deemed the books pornography. And while Burton's translation is nothing compared to what we can find with a Google search these days, it certainly isn't going to make the children's section of the library, either. As I said, I'm ten pages in so far, and I've already run into adultery, voyeurism, two orgies, and murderous revenge. And Scheherazade hasn't even shown up in the book yet.

Still, it's a beautiful set, and while it's not kid-friendly, it's definitely chock-full of adventure, magic, genies, romance, and heroics. I'm there. And the cool part is, I know how long it will take me to read the first ten volumes: 1,001 days! The last six are supplemental stories, and that's where I'll find the Ali Baba and Aladdin stories; they weren't part of the original Arabian Nights, but everyone assumes they are.

Here's what the inside looks like. It's got a lot of art like this, with the translucent leaf overtop of it (which I've moved out of the way so you can see the text on the other side as well).

That art is tame compared to some of the pictures; at least those girls are clothed.

Now, for a certain class of people, this book ranks right up there with Mein Kampf as a tome of pure horror. Why? Because it was published in 1885 by a man who would have outright laughed at the notion of political correctness while picking his teeth with an elephant tusk and talking about the backward cultures he had visited around the world. If you are offended by old terms used to describe people of a certain color, then this is not the book series for you. Burton considered this to be a work of anthropology, not literature, and he has the typical Victorian-era British attitudes toward non-European (or just non-British) people around the world: They are backward, half-savage at best, and almost impossible to properly civilize. He doesn't hide it, he doesn't sugar-coat it, and he doesn't give a damn.

Burton himself is quite the character; he was, without a doubt, a man's man of Victorian England. An explorer, adventurer, and spy, he spoke a bunch of languages (as many as 29 according to some counts), and among his exploits are a trip to Mecca in disguise (when Europeans were forbidden on pain of death to go), and being among the first Europeans to find the Great Lakes of Africa while searching for the source of the Nile. He served in the Crimean War and in India, explored the East Coast of Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. He got around, and he truly lived. Controversial even in his own time, he nonetheless is a man to be admired for what he accomplished.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to keep reading. And no, I'm not doing a review or a Let's Read of this series. That would just be weird, and take forever.

Introducing...the Scheherazade

Now that I've finished with the Starships book from Traveller, I'm going to build a starship using the rules in that book. I'm going to use the starship I came up with for the Bard Conley stories, collecting in Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System. While the stories in that collection do not use interstellar travel (since all ten stories happen in our own solar system), the existence of faster-than-light travel is clearly established, so I'm going to use the Traveller jump system for this exercise.

But first, a little bit of an introduction for this fine, stalwart vessel, which takes a bit of a beating in the book but comes out shining through. Spoiler alert: The good guys win in the end. Hey, it's pulp science fiction; what else do you expect?

Anyway, the Scheherazade gets its name from the famous Arabian Nights stories, where the doomed queen Scheherazade, scheduled to be killed the morning after her wedding night like many other women before her, tells a story to the Prince, but leaves it unfinished before going to sleep. Determined to hear the rest of the story, the Prince lets her live another day. She continues (but doesn't finish) the story the next night, and once again he lets her live. When she finally does finish the story, she starts another one, and so on, and so on, until three years (and 1,001 nights) have gone by, and he stops promising to kill her.

That's the extremely condensed version. Anyway, the name Scheherazade speaks of many stories to be told, stories of excitement, adventure, and romance. It's the perfect name for a starship, and thus it became one of the integral parts of my stories about the intrepid hero and his faithful crew.

I'm going to include the only existing picture of the Scheherazade from the cover of the Bard Conley book. Here it is:

Beautiful, isn't it? Sure, it's not the 'typical' starship, but let's be honest: What is? Every science fiction book, show and movie has come up with its own designs. This one is credited to Alex Lechev, aka the Grey Ghost on fiverr.com, who I have used for three book covers (and will soon, again). It's got a very sleek design that works in the atmosphere but also in space, which is perfect for this ship and its crew, who do get around. The whole solar system, in fact, from Mercury to Pluto and back.

So, it's not a huge ship, carrying a crew of four (with room for some passengers if need be), a missile weapon system, and good speed and maneuverability. I'm not going to use a stock design from the book, but rather start from scratch and make it something spiffy, using the rules from Book 2 only. No later supplements, no house rules. Just what's in the book. Let's see how that works out...next time.

Writing Weaknesses

There are very few world-class writers who can handle every aspect of writing well. Most writers are lacking in one or more areas. Some writers struggle with plots, others with character development, and still others with dialogue. They could shine in other areas, but there is always that one ingredient that they can't get a grip on, and it's not hard to spot if you've been reading for a long time.

My issue is description. Whether it's simply describing a person, or setting the scene for the upcoming action, I struggle with creating vivid, memorable descriptions. I've found myself writing an entire page of nothing but dialogue between two or three characters, and having to go back to interject some sort of description outside of the quote marks. Not because it's difficult to tell the speakers apart; I've gotten pretty good at differentiating people's voices so it's easy for the reader to figure out who is speaking what line. But sometimes they might as well be two nondescript people in an empty room, for all the description I've given them.

It's something I've always had a hard time with; I like getting to the action, and getting bogged down in describing things doesn't interest me. I trace it back to when I first read Lord of the Rings, whose author, J.R.R. Tolkien, is one of those world-class writers I mentioned at the beginning. He told a great story, his characters were memorable and realistic, he wrote dramatic action and dialogue filled with hooks. And he described everything. And I do mean, everything. I remember snarkily commenting more than once that Tolkien took the opportunity to describe every blade of grass and puddle the heroes stepped on. Frankly, it bored me. But looking back at it now, it really was an immersion into the world he had created. The next time I read through it, I'm going to pay more attention to the descriptions he gives.

I mention this because I've been going over my new mystery, Spoiled Ballot. And yes, I gave it that name long before the U.S. Election. I just didn't finish writing it until now. But the biggest issue I have with it is the lack of description. Thinking about it, I don't know if I've ever described Bill and Cameron so that people can visualize them. I'll have to re-read the first couple of books to see. It's weird; I can picture them in my head, I just have a hard time writing that picture down. So, with the new one, I'm going to try to add some more descriptions to give the readers more to work with. And to hide the clues better, of course. That's part of the fun, hiding the clues that will lead to the murderer.

So, while you're waiting for that book, might I suggest you take a look at some other Cameron Vail mysteries, such as the second one I wrote (but the third chronologically), The Missing Magnate? It's got family drama, new characters, and a very well-hidden murderer. It's available in e-book format on Amazon, so check it out.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 44

We've arrived at the final page! And, in true old-school gaming style, it's just one long table. It's the Trade and Speculation Table, with all the goodies you can buy and sell with your insanely-expensive cargo starship!

So, as previously mentioned, the table uses a 10s-1s dice roll system, where a roll of 1 and 1 is an 11, not a 2. In general, the higher your second die is, the pricier the item you find will be. The items aren't really grouped in a particular way, but there are some patterns. The 30s are mostly agricultural or consumables; the 20s are basically metals. Here, I'll just list them.

11-16: Textiles, Polymers, Liquor, Wood, Crystals, Radioactives.

21-26: Steel, Copper, Aluminum, Tin, Silver, Special Alloys.

31-36: Petrochemicals, Grain, Meat, Spices, Fruit, Pharmaceuticals.

41-46: Gems, Firearms, Ammunition, Blades, Tools, Body Armor.

51-56: Aircraft, Air/Raft, Computers, ATV, AFV, Farm Machinery.

61-66: Electronics Parts, Mechanical Parts, Cybernetic Parts, Computer Parts, Machine Tools, Vacc Suits

Note that the 51-56 items are individual, not by tonnage. Everything else is tonnage.

So, the priciest item on the list is the computer, at a whopping 10,000,000 Cr. Compare that with Steel, at 500 Cr/ton, or Grain, which is 300/ton. I can't see anyone making anything whatsoever with grain as their cargo. All of the items in the 50s (except Farm Machinery), as well as Gems and Radioactives, all top a cool million credits (individually or by the ton). The two I mentioned earlier (Steel and grain) are the only ones under 1000 Cr/ton. So, unless you specialize in transporting computers, gems and radioactives, you're going to be struggling to make ends meet flying a merchant ship.

Okay, the next two columns are the DMs, one for purchasing and one for selling. Most of them are no worse than a +/-3 to the roll, but some of these DMs are pretty huge. If you're on an agricultural world, your Textiles, Wood and Liquor are going to be very, very cheap to buy; Textiles get a -7(!) DM, and that's just to start. Gems, on the other hand, get a -8 to buy if you're on a non-industrial world. In the other direction, Radioactives get a +7 DM if you're buying them on an industrial world, and an additional +5 if you buy them on a rich world. That's a +12 on a rich, industrial world. Minimum roll: 14, or 300%. Nobody in their right mind would EVER buy Radioactives from that world. But that +7 on industrial worlds is interesting. Does that mean that it's cheaper to buy plutonium on a non-industrial world? That would be nice. Vacc-suits are pretty cheap with a -5 to buy them on non-agricultural worlds. I guess that makes sense; more developed worlds (or ones that can't support agriculture) would have more use for a vacc suit.

On the other side of the equation, the resale DMs have just as big a jump in some cases. Like the purchase DMs, most fall in the 1-3 range. But don't try selling farm machinery on a non-agricultural world; you'll get a -8 DM to your sale price. And if you're carrying gems, you want to find a Rich world, because they get a +8 DM for resale. Those are the most extreme, although there are a few 5s and 6s in there.

The last column is for quantities. These range from a lowly 1D for things like Radioactives, Gems, and all the 50s, to as much as 5Dx10 for aluminum. That's a lot of tons, up to 300. How many ships have that much carrying capacity to begin with? I'm sure there are some. If you've got a ship with a hull size of 1000 tons, you could manage that, but you're not going to want to be carrying aluminum at a mere 1000 Cr/ton; you'll want silver, or even tin, which has a 3Dx10 for quantity, but costs nine times as much as the aluminum.

So, there's a lot of stuff to absorb on this page. It's a wide variety of trade goods, with a lot of opportunities for serious profits. Of course, if your ship is carrying computers or five tons of gemstones or radioactives on board, you'd best hope that you kept that transaction really, really quiet, or you can be sure the pirates will be showing up at some point to help you share the burden.

The interesting thing, though, is that you have no guarantee that you'll have a valuable cargo available to trek across the stars; you might get stuck with a shipment of grain, which even at the maximum 8Dx5 roll is 240 tons, at 300 Cr/ton that works out to 72,000 Cr for the entire shipment, assuming you get an average roll for your Actual Value Table roll. On the other hand, you could luck out with a shipment of Air/Raft vehicles, which are 6 million credits each. Of course, you still have to pay for them...

I imagine that the trade routes for certain goods in a region will be pretty well mapped out; the poor agricultural world will be selling liquor, wood and foodstuffs to the industrial worlds, while the industrial world will be selling them farm machinery in return (at substantial profits). Note that non-industrial does not necessarily mean agricultural, nor does non-agricultural mean industrial. Poor planets are going to be pretty good for selling things, not so great for buying them (although buying gems on a poor planet and selling them on a rich one is a great way to get rich in a hurry, with a difference of 11 between their modifiers).

So, that wraps up the Starships book! I'm going to take a brief interlude before getting into Book 3. I think I'd like to design a starship myself, so I'll try doing that before starting the next book.

Book Finished!

Yes, another book has been completed. It's the fifth Cameron Vail mystery, Spoiled Ballot. It's not available to buy yet; I finished it early this morning and sent it off to my reader. I've already thought of a couple of things I need to fix in it, but I'll see what she thinks of it before I muck around with the book.

This one is the biggest Cameron Vail book so far, filling out almost 40,000 words. There are returning characters, of course, and not just Cameron and Bill.

Some people might wonder why I've gone through five books and have never named the city they live in. That was a conscious decision on my part, since I don't actually live in a big American city. When I first started writing Final Exam back in university (thirty years ago), I was setting it in the city I did live in at the time, which was Toronto, Ontario. But when I came back to it last year, I wasn't living there anymore, and I didn't want to get bogged down in looking up details that would have changed in that span of years.

So, the city can be whatever city you, the reader, want it to be. The names are all made up anyway, so it's not like anyone in particular is being described; there are no allegories to real-world events or people. I'm just trying to write entertaining stories.

This one actually took a long time to write; not as long as Final Exam, but I did take a several-month break because of the move and adjusting to the new home. But I really pushed hard this week to get it done; my goal is to have it published on Amazon by the end of the month. It's going to be a tight deadline, but I'll get it done.

So, if you've already read Final Exam, there are three other mysteries to read to get you ready for this one. The second one is called Cold Star, and it's also about a murder mystery they solve while still in college. Check it out, and enjoy.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 43

The penultimate page! We're just about finished with this book, which is exciting. I'm really looking forward to the book on world creation, but first...Trade and Commerce modifiers!

When last we met, we had a cliffhanger about the modifiers that would be used to determine the value of a potential cargo. These include character skill, broker services, and the world itself. We begin with...Broker DMs!

I know, way too many exclamation points.

So, there are four different types of brokers available to help you sell things when you bring them to a new world. There's nothing fancy about them; each type of broker gets 5% for every +1 they give to the value table modifier. The maximum is a +4 broker, who gets paid 20% of the sale price as commission. And you can only use one guy. I think the +4 guy is a bit risky unless you know you're going to get a high roll anyway, because he's expensive.

Math check! Okay, so let's say you're trying to sell a cargo on a planet. You paid 80% of its actual value. You have no special skill, and this world isn't anything special, either. So, your profit depends entirely on the broker (no other DMs to the roll). You roll a 7 on the die. If you hired the +1 guy, he bumps that to an 8, and you would sell the cargo at 110% of the purchase price. But Broker-Man gets 5%, so you are at 105% percent, or a 25% profit. Not bad.

Now we make the same deal with Super-Broker-Man, who is a +4 on the roll. Again, a 7 is rolled, modified to an 11. Now you're up to 150% of the actual value, less his cut of 20%, so 130%. Okay, that's pretty sweet. I retract my previous concern; Super-Broker-Man is totally worth it. Unless you bomb your roll, in which case you're probably going to be lucky to break even on the deal. Well, trade is a gamble.

Character skills can be applied, but only certain ones. You can't use your Navigation or Forward Observer skill to get a better deal, but if you have Bribery or Administration, those are modifiers you can use. Too bad Rifle isn't an applicable skill: "Are you sure you can't make me a better offer?" *click*

World Types. Ah, good! Now we get some idea of the breakdown of how worlds are classified, even if it's only for trade purposes. So, there are six world types mentioned here: Agricultural, Non-Agricultural, Industrial, Non-Industrial, Rich, and Poor. These are not exclusive categories; you can have an agricultural, non-industrial, rich world. Or can you? Let's take a look.

It looks like the world types are graded from 0-9. I see rankings for atmosphere, hydrographic (how wet is the planet; Earth would be at 65-70%, which I'm going to guess would be a 6 or 7 on this scale), population, and government type. Government types are ranked from 0 to 9? Interesting.

Okay, let's do it this way. Tables are old-school to the core, right? So, instead of just listing off the requirements as it's done in the book, let's visualize it with a table. Hmm...I just realized that this is going to be a three-dimensional table, since there are multiple variables. Let's simplify it a bit. Three tables. One for Agricultural Y/N, Industrial Y/N, and R/P. Yeah, that should work. The zero only comes into play in one specific instance. The tables are going to be rough, since I'm not all that familiar with Blogger's interface for this.

AGRICULTURAL

1. Atmo    Hydro     Pop
   
1.              N           N          N
   
2.              N           N          N
   
3.              N           N          N
   
4.              Y           Y          N
   
5.              Y           Y          Y
   
6.              Y           Y          Y
   
7.              Y           Y          Y
   
8.              Y           Y          N
   
9.              Y           N          N
   

So, that's a pretty narrow range for an agricultural world. You have to get a Y in all three columns to qualify as an agricultural world.

INDUSTRIAL

I don't actually need to do a full table here, since the two variables are population and atmosphere. If you've got an atmosphere of 9 or higher (so, it goes higher than I thought), you might have an industrial world, depending on the atmosphere. So, it works like this, and it's a weird breakdown.

Atmosphere of 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, or 9 means you qualify for an industrial world. That, coupled with the population requirement, means that you cannot have a world that is both agricultural and industrial; either you have too many people for ag, or not enough for industry.

RICH/POOR

This table actually has different requirements for R/P; they only share one characteristic, population.

1. Gov   Atmo    Pop    Hydro
   
1.                                                P
   
2.                        P                      P
   
3.                        P                      P
   
4.              R       P
   
5.              R       P
   
6.              R       R         R
   
7.              R                  R
   
8.              R       R         R
   
9.              R

We're only about halfway down the page, too.

Okay, so to be a rich or poor world, you have to qualify in all three (or two) categories. So, a world with an atmosphere of 2 and a hydrographic of 6 isn't poor; likewise, a planet with a government of 7, atmosphere of 6, and population 9 is NOT a rich world. So, unlike the first two categories, it's not an either/or situation. Your planet can be middle-class.

We get another tease for the trade goods table, which is on the next page. We're told that the goods listed are abstract, not specific; a cargo of 'Firearms' can be anything from flintlock replicas to laser carbines. That would help to explain the price fluctuations, too; some things in a category will be more valuable than others in the same category. We're also told this so that characters can do some judicious 'pilfering' of the cargo...not that upstanding characters would ever do such a thing, even if there was a massive mortgage payment due at the end of the month. Smuggling? No, no. Wouldn't dream of it.

The cost of the individual items (should they be known) can be used to calculate how many of an item are actually in the cargo. The example given is shotguns; a ton of shotguns (150 Cr/gun) costs 30,000 Cr. That works out to 200 guns. However, a ton of shotguns would be 266 guns (based on their individual weight). Instead of an extra 66 guns (there are no wholesale prices here, apparently), you get the difference in packing materials, crates, etc.

We're also reminded that some of the items on the list are individual, not crates. But that's it for this page! Sigh...well, next time (hopefully tomorrow), we will be done with this book as we take a look at the Trade Goods Table, which is on the last page of the book.

And don't forget to check out my science fiction book on Amazon, Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, if you want pulpy, action-adventure science fiction to get you in the Traveller mood.

Finishing up a Book

Man, it's been a while since I could write a post like this one. But I'm finally wrapping up the fifth Cameron Vail mystery, which is called Spoiled Ballot. It's been on the back burner for about five months now. No excuses; I just wasn't writing. Now, I'm diving back in and ready to get this puppy finished.

This one is going to be more of a Bill Potts book than a Cameron Vail book, since...well, I don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say that Bill does most of the work in this one while Cameron is...let's say he's incapacitated.

I know, I know...teasing the reader. But if I just say it outright, I'm giving away a big chunk of the plot, right? Bill has some pretty fun lines in this one. I certainly had fun coming up with them. But, as I've mentioned before, it's not like I sit and plan out these things; this one is coming off the top of my head as I write it. And I still don't know why the murder victim is dressed like--

Oh, never mind. Just wait until it comes out. I've got ten more days to get this done by the end of the month, so I'm going to try to wrap it up by the weekend so I can have my mystery reader go over it in time to get it up on Amazon by the end of the month.

It feels good to just get back to it and let the words just roll out like they did today. I've been working on another book this month, but I really wanted to get this one done; if nothing else, my mother's been waiting for quite a while to see this one finished. So, I just read over what I'd written before, made a couple of minor edits and fixed some typos, then dove right in. And I got three chapters done in a single day. I should be done by Friday, assuming all goes well tomorrow.

So, for those who are new, here's the quick rundown: Cameron Vail is the detective; Bill Potts is his friend, an aspiring reporter, who is also the narrator. These are classic-style puzzle mysteries; the clues you need to solve it are there, if you look closely enough. This is the fifth book starring these two, and they've all been a blast to write.

If science fiction and fantasy isn't doing it for you right now, check out the first book in the series, Final Exam, where Cameron and Bill solve a mystery on campus. It's available in e-book right now; the paperback edition will be out soon.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 42

I've had quite a few new readers (or returning ones) over the past couple of days, so I'm going to keep the Traveller love going.

Our last(?) section of this book is on Trade and Commerce. Well, that's related to starships, especially if you have a 40-year mortgage on one. We begin with a note that most commercial starships do the flat-rate per ton thing, which is both safe and boring. Much more entertaining is when you speculate in the buy-low-sell-high market. But you have to know the markets to do that, which is why it's a good idea to have star charts. It's also good to know what the markets are and how long it takes to get to them, but we'll have to wait for the next book for that.

We are promised a 'reasonably comprehensive' listing of trade goods and items on spec. In three pages? Okay, then. And we get a note that some of this stuff isn't worth carting around the galaxy, although it's still better than running with an empty cargo hold; operating at a loss sucks, but it's better than operating at a total loss.

So far, we aren't exactly getting a Masters in Economics and Business here.

Trade goods have a specified base price, yada yada. There's an 'Actual Value Table' that will modify that base price; higher is better if you're selling, but dear Lord, don't buy from someone who rolled a 12 or more. You will get so totally hosed. A 2 means the price is 40% of its base; 12 is 170%, and you can get as high as 15 for 400% price. 7 is average (100% of the base price). Man, buy it with a 2 and sell it with a 15, and you made 1000% profit! And that might cover the cost of fuel for the trip! *sob* How is it even possible to pay off the mortgage on these things?

How do you roll higher than a 12? So glad you asked. DMs, of course! No, not Dungeon Masters; that's the other game. But we won't get those ones until the next page. Instead, we get the Procedure for whether or not you find anything to buy in the first place.

To do that, you roll two dice, but you don't read them as normal; you read them as a number between 11 and 66. So, for those unfamiliar with that process, if the first die is a 4 and the second is a 2, you got a 42. A 2 and a 4 gives you 24, and so on. If you're on a world with a population of 9 or greater (I'm going to assume that's another level, like tech and law from before), you get a +1 to the first die roll. If it's small enough to warrant a 5 or less on the pop level, you get a -1 to the roll. You can't get lower than a 1 or higher than a 6 from these mods.

Whatever number you ended up with, that is the trade good you ended up with, or at least what is the best option you have. There's no indication of a second-best option, and you can only roll once per week. We'll have to wait until the next page to see what is on that table, though; the only table we have here is the Actual Value Table.

You then roll for the quantity of the item available; again, that should be on the forthcoming table. The quantities are in tons, except for the 51-56 range, which are individual items. Can't wait to see what those are. You can do a partial purchase if you want (maybe your cargo hold isn't big enough for the entire shipment), but you'll pay a 1% handling fee for splitting the load.

Then you use the Actual Value Table to find out how much it's going to cost you to buy it; again, the mods will be on the next page, but they come in three varieties: Character's skills, Brokers' services, and world characteristics.

See, that makes four references already to world characteristics; two in the Drugs section, and two here. I'm thinking that for clarity, it might have been better to put those two sections at the back of the third book. But, they're here, so we'll deal with them as they are.

Next up, the modifiers!

If Traveller is your jam, then perhaps you would like some peanut butter to go with it. My first science-fiction book is available at Amazon, in paperback or e-book format. It's called Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, and it's a fun, pulp-style science-fiction adventure book. Check it out!

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 41

Okay, let's continue with the Experience section, which isn't really 'experience' in the traditional RPG sense. We get an example of how the weapons training works. I'm reminded now that you get to work on two different weapons, one gun and one blade, at the same time. So, you can work on pistol and sword at the same time. Hey, I'm up for that. And to clarify how the skill improvement works, the example shows that a ½-point skill becomes a 1-point skill after the four years (a permanent improvement), while a full-point skill is only improved for the four-year studying cycle. If a second cycle is done, the newly-minted 1-point skill goes to 2 points, while the other one (revolver-3 in the example) continues to be improved to Revolver-4. After a second four-year cycle is completed, the Revolver skill improvement is permanent, but the other skill reverts to 1 point, since only four years was spent on getting it up to level 2.

Frankly, this seems like an awful lot of effort for what will be not a lot of reward. Sure, I know that skill levels on a 2D system are more significant than they are on a 3D or a d20 system, but still, that's a heck of a lot of time sunk to getting that small improvement.

Skill Improvement is the third method, and it works basically the same as Weapon Skill Improvement, except that you have to already have at least one skill level in the skill(s) you want to improve. You can do up to two of these improvements in a four-year training cycle, and just as with weapons, the increase is a temporary one unless you do a second four-year cycle to make them permanent.

Physical Fitness is the last option; dumb people will have a much harder time to complete this, with hefty DMs for low intelligence (making it a 12+ roll to continue if your intelligence is less than 6. If you do manage the roll, then you get a +1 in strength, endurance, and dexterity for the duration of the program. You can't make these improvements permanent, though. So, it looks like JR is going to have to get some jogging pants and a sweatband if he wants to be able to use his signature weapon. Well, so be it. Oh, and all the physical training in the universe isn't going to help you bump up any of those attributes over 15. Which is fine, because I can't imagine anyone actually needing to be that strong, agile, or hardy.

If you don't have the required materials handy (the appropriate weapons, for example, or a tutor for skill improvement), you can suspend your program temporarily, for up to three months before you lose the benefits altogether. That shouldn't be too hard with the weapons, since most people can lug them around as needed. Skill improvement, on the other hand, will basically require you to stay home and study, or bring the tutor along on the adventures with you, and good luck convincing a university professor to follow you around the galaxy and risk getting shot at just so you can improve your Navigation skill.

So, that's it for ordinary means of self-improvement. The rules do note that there might be more exotic methods of improving things, such as RNA implants, surgical alteration, military or mercenary training, etc. But anything along those lines is in the Referee's hands, and isn't in the scope of the rules. Well, fine, then.

Next up...the page with the Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. That's right, it's page 42!!!!

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 40

We're near the end; now we learn about Experience in the game. I'm not sure why this section is here instead of in, say, the Characters book. But here it is, so let's take a look at what we've got.

We start with a basic overview of what experience means in the context of the game; basically, it's just getting better at being whatever your character is.

I suppose that Experience in Traveller will be significantly different from other games, where your character starts out as a novice. Here, you're already retired from your career, and have a full slate of skills, retirement income, and maybe even a starship (the equivalent of a castle in a fantasy game). So, what is experience going to be worth?

Self-Improvement is up first; we get an immediate note that improvement is going to be limited in Traveller. Okay, but how? There are four ways to self-improve, only one can be done at a time. They are education, weapon expertise, other skills, and physical fitness. Hey, does that mean JR can get his Strength score high enough to carry his signature weapon? One can only hope...

"In each field, the character devotes himself to a four-year program--"

Four years?! Holy time sink, Batman! And there's more: "something like obsession, to the general end of self-improvement." So, you have to become a monomaniac to improving yourself in ONE area for four long years, and there's a chance that your character will already be middle-aged or older by then. And it gets better: Not everyone has what it takes to commit four stinkin' years to self-improvement, so you have to roll an 8 or better to succeed. There are no modifiers, unless you're doing a phys-ed program. The only mods you can get are bad ones, based on your intelligence. If you fail, then you have to wait a full year to try again.

So, for the Education aspect, you can improve your education score if it's lower than your intelligence score. You pay 50 Credits a week for tutoring, and you can take up to 2 sessions a week. After 50 sessions, your education score improves by one point. In four years, you can increase your education score a maximum of 6 points. These gains are permanent; however, if your education score is equal to or higher than your intelligence score, you can't improve it at all.

You also have an option to take a four-year sabbatical from adventuring and go to school to gain a single skill at level 2. The only reason I can think of to NOT do this with your character right off the bat (since it's almost the equivalent of taking another tour, without the chance of getting killed) is because it costs 70,000 credits to do it. Actually, 70,000 over four years might have seemed like a ton of money back in 1977...today, that's almost a bargain.

Next up is Weapon Expertise. You can temporarily(!) increase your skill with specific weapons. So, while you're taking the program (for four years), you'll increase your skill by 1 point for one gun and one blade weapon. If it's a skill where you only have 1/2 of a point (for PCs, that's a character who doesn't have the skill on his sheet yet), you can turn that into a permanent one point. So, if JR decided to spend four years working on his marksmanship with the Rifle, he could get it up to Rifle-3 for the duration of his training. If, however, he worked on improving his skill with a Pistol, he would then improve to Pistol-1 permanently.

To close out, we get a note that the skill increase (for pre-existing skills) is lost at the end of the program, unless you continue it for another four years. After the second four-year term, the increase becomes permanent. And you can start over with a new program to improve that skill yet again, or with a different weapon altogether.

So, at this point experience doesn't really apply in the traditional gaming sense; you're not getting experience for adventuring, you're just going to school again. It's a bit odd, but it definitely gives Traveller a different feel. Next time, we'll look at the other two options for self-improvement.

Sportsmanship

Tanner, my middle son, had his first basketball game the other night. He's never played before, and he was the last player to make the team. But he learned early on that working hard is the easiest way to make a team, and he did indeed work hard. He doesn't have the skill set yet, but he's got the determination.

So, they played a very weak team. And I do mean weak; by the end of the first quarter, they were up by about 30-5. The final score was 75-22; the coach didn't deliberately run up the score, which is good. He even instructed the starting players to stop taking easy lay-ups and shoot from the outside.

He also made sure that every player got a moment. In the third quarter, there were only two players on the team who hadn't scored. One of them was my son. So, when they were on the floor, the coach instructed the other players to feed them the ball as much as possible to give them a chance to score that basket. It was made easier by the fact that the other team didn't really grasp the concept of 'defense' for most of the game; there were a lot of wide-open shots for everyone.

Anyway, Tanner's friend was the other player who hadn't yet scored, and he got several opportunities before he finally got that first basket (he got two more in the game as well). Then, it was Tanner's turn. He got a couple of chances that were "just a bit outside" (a Major League reference for those in the know). But on the third try, he got the ball on a long down-court pass, and got the layup to drop. I cheered as loud as if I'd just watched the Montreal Canadiens score a game-seven overtime goal.

His teammates congratulated him, and he got to stay on the court to finish the game. He was hustling the whole time, and it showed. On defense, the player he was guarding never touched the ball until the last play of the game...and Tanner stole the ball and headed down-court. The final buzzer went off before he could shoot, but it was still a great effort.

As I said, the coach didn't run up the score; the talent difference was just that big that even with the starters spending most of the second half on the bench, they were dominant. I contrast that with Tanner's first experience with flag football from before we moved. On that team, the coach seemed to think he was coaching the 2007 Patriots, running up the score and keeping his best players on the field for almost the entire game, while the younger and smaller players got maybe half a quarter of playing time all day. We quit that team halfway through the season, since it was obvious that the only people enjoying themselves were the coach and the stars.

Sportsmanship matters; sure, it's great to win a trophy as a kid playing on a team, but it's not nearly as impressive if you didn't make any real contribution to the team. In 4 eight-minute quarters, Tanner got nearly fifteen minutes of playing time, almost half the game. That means a lot to a twelve-year-old, much more than having him sit on the bench for all but three minutes and telling him that cheering on the rest of the team counts as playing time.

More importantly, the other team didn't walk off the floor looking like German POWs from the siege of Stalingrad. Yes, they lost, but they didn't get utterly crushed and humiliated. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Tanner's team could have won by a hundred points. 75 may seem pretty high for a game that short, but it could easily have been a lot worse. Kudos to the coach for spreading the playing time around as well as he did, and giving every kid that moment on the scoreboard.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 39

Okay, we continue with the pharmaceutical section of the book. The last of the standard drugs (other than the psi-drug, which I guess comes later) is the Truth Drug. Pretty straightforward; it's good for two minutes of interrogation, after which the victim is knocked out for an hour and takes two dice of wounds. Ouch; that's a rough side-effect. I'm sure the CIA would approve.

Then there's a table that lists the drugs described and their effects, as well as the costs. Oh, and the 'technological index' that is needed to produce it. You also have a roll to see if the drug is even available; slow antidotes and Aganathics are the rarest, requiring a 10+. Aganathics wins the 'most expensive' award at 20,000 CR, which means that JR could have afforded them! Except that the 'tech' level is 15, which I guess is pretty high. There's a note that the tech index will be explained in the next book, so that's that.

There is one effect of the tech index that is explained here: If the world you're standing on has a high tech level, the drug's availability roll gets a +1 DM for every point of tech higher than the required amount. For example, the Slow Drug requires a tech-level of 8 and has an availability of 9+. So, if you're on a world that is tech-level 10, you get a +2 DM for the roll, making it a 7+ to get hold of it.

The medical stuff is the cheapest (Medical Slow and Medical are both 100 Cr), and the Psi drugs, of which three are teased in the table, are expensive as heck. The Anagathics, Truth Drug, and Psi-Drugs are the most expensive, all being over 1000 Cr.

Finally, we have a paragraph on the legality of the various drugs. It refers us to Book 3, which fully describes worlds and the chances that local law will prohibit or regulate drug possession and use. There's something called a 'law level,' which I suppose is related to the 'tech level.' Once you know the world's law level, roll two dice and hope you roll high; the higher the law level, the more restrictive it's going to be.

That last part seems a bit odd; sure, I can see how Combat drugs and Truth drugs might be restricted, but medical? Fast Drugs as standard gear in a ship's locker? Shouldn't this be more of a case-by-case thing based on the drug itself, rather than where you're buying it? On the other hand, that could make for an interesting societal quirk: The planet's culture believes that any drugs are evil and bad, and rely solely on natural healing and really primitive medicine: "Here, drink this and bite down hard on this stick while I repeatedly stab you with this needle and sew you up like a pair of jeans. Hey, Charlie! Pass me that hacksaw, will ya?"

The other thing that comes to mind is that the focus in Book 3 is going to be individual worlds being independent, rather than an overarching body politic. Sort of like the Greek city-states, bound together by a common culture but having little or nothing to do with each other outside of that, and even going to war with each other on a regular basis. I like that idea; I'm kind of tired of the whole 'intergalactic empire/republic that controls everything, even at a distance' shtick. Let's get small and local. He says, while discussing entire planets. It's all relative, folks.

Alright! Five pages to go, and we're done book 2! See you next time!

New Year Review and Plans

Okay, it's already the 12th of the month. What can I say? I'm on Prince Edward Island now, and time moves slower here. We take our time getting things done. But, it's time for a quick review of how the past year went, and what I'm hoping to accomplish in 2021. Not that anyone really knows what the heck is going to happen this year, because everything is so upside-down and crazy right now. So, naturally, this is the best time to make some big plans.

So, in the past year I published ten books and wrote over 500,000 original words. It's about half of what I wanted to do, but we did move, so that took a lot of time and energy. It's not an excuse, but it did have an effect on my production. Since we got here, I haven't given my writing the attention it needs. That has to change, and it's changing now.

The books I published included four mysteries: Final Exam, Cold Star, The Missing Magnate, and Best Served Cold; two fantasies: Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival and The Devil's Playground; one science fiction book: Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System; a mixed anthology: A Universe of Possibilities a superhero/steampunk anthology: Awakening, and a retelling of the first eleven chapters of the Bible, In the Beginning. It's an eclectic mix, but it was fun. I've got two other fantasy novels more-or-less finished that I need to publish, and a half-written mystery that I need to finish.

So, what are my goals for 2021? Finish the mystery, publish the two fantasy novels, and write a whole bunch more. I'm also finishing up my History degree, so that's going to take up a fair amount of time, as well. My goals aren't going to shrink, though; there's no reason why I can't push myself to accomplish what I set out to do last year. My goal for 2020 was 20 books and 100,000 words/month. That's still possible, so it's time to get it done.

One of the things I want to do is participate in the Blogging A to Z Challenge in April. For those who don't know about it, bloggers simply do a post every day except Sunday during the month of April, with each daily topic following the alphabet. There's a master list of participants, so it helps to drive blog traffic, which is something I would really like to see. I have my post topics figured out; they are related to the fantasy book I've already got published. And I want to get two more written and published before April in the same world, so I've got to get busy. That also means that I'll have to get my Traveller Let's Read series done before then, and I've still got a whole book to go.

So, that's my writing plan for the year: 20 books, 100,000 words per month. It's insane, I know. But I can do it, if I focus and push myself. It's all a matter of prioritizing and discipline. And stubbornness, which my wife can confirm I have in abundance.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 38

We're coming into the home stretch of this book, so let's move along. The next topic is 'Drugs,' as in pharmaceuticals, mostly for medicinal purposes. I'm not what that has to do with starships and space combat, but we'll just go with it.

Okay, so there are six classes of drugs described in Traveller. These are taken in one-dose pills, so I guess pharmaceutical companies aren't all that big of a deal in the Traveller universe. Must be nice. Oh, wait a moment...there's a seventh type: Psi-drugs. Psionics? In Traveller? Alrighty, then. My only exposure to psionics has been in the AD&D game and in superhero games where mentalists get airtime. This should be interesting.

But first...we begin with the Slow Drug. It accelerates the user's metabolism so everything around him seems to be slowed down. Great: Traveller is a cocaine hipster. I'm kidding. Maybe. I'm not sure; let's see what it does in game terms.

It takes less than a minute for this to go into effect (three firing rounds, or 45 seconds), and it lasts for 40 firing rounds. Basically, you get two turns for everyone else's one turn. Well, then. That's quite the combat boost, isn't it? There's a medical version of this drug that can also be used to heal faster. It knocks you right out for a whole day, but your body things that 30 days have gone by, with the equivalent amount of healing done.

Next up, we have the Fast Drug. So, this one makes everything else seem a LOT faster at a ratio of 60 to 1. It slows your aging and keeps you from needing things like air or food, so it's great if you're stuck in a drifting starship or lifeboat and need to make your supplies last. One dose lasts for 60 days, and there's an antidote that negates whatever time is still left on your dosage.

Then we have the Combat Drug, which just bumps strength and endurance by two points each, and lasts for 30 combat rounds. It's generally used by military personnel, but it's not exclusive. When it wears off, you take one die of wounds. So, it's great in the short term, but it is possible it could kill you if you got severely hurt in those 30 rounds of fighting. And in Traveller, that isn't difficult to do.

Next is the Medical Drug, which is a catch-all term for all the stuff in the medkits that helps you get better after getting beaten up or shot. Generally, you need the Medical skill to use this stuff, and it qualifies as actual medical treatment. I guess the pharmacies in the future are really good at fixing people in a hurry. I'd laugh if there were placebos in there, though, just to make people think they were getting better.

The last one on this page is Anagathics, anti-aging drugs. The Fast Drug does something similar, but this one doesn't accelerate the rest of the universe around you. This one is a monthly dose that lets you skip those annoying aging die throws in character creation. Well, that would have been nice to know about when I was rolling up Jamie Rollinson. I mean, sure, there's a note that Anagathics are super-rare and insanely expensive, and thus often unavailable, but my guy is connected! He's got high social rank! Surely he could have snagged enough of this stuff to skip a couple of those rolls.

Ah, well. We're done with this page, so we'll finish up the pharmacy section next time.

Rink Update and Other News

Well, it's a learning process. And I'm learning that a skating rink isn't easy to build. I think there's a leak in the tarp somewhere under the ice, because I spent three hours filling the rink the other day and it looks like I got nowhere. We're dealing with freezing rain now, so I'm going to wait until that clears up before doing anything else. I want to go down the road to a neighbor who has a much nicer rink up and running, and see if he's willing to take a look and see if we can salvage this year's attempt.

Not much of an update, I suppose. So, I'll talk about something else as well.

It feels good to be back to writing regularly. Since we moved here, I haven't been able to properly concentrate on writing, which is why I didn't get anything published since August. It's frustrating, but the move really affected me, as well as my family. It took some adjusting, but I'm feeling it again. I've started working on a new fantasy novel, a sequel to the two Meterra books. It's going to be called 'The Dark Swamp.' Okay, that's a working title; I might have a better one in mind.

As for my mystery...I still have to get the next one finished. But right now, I'm feeling the fantasy bug, so that's going to take up the next little bit of my writing focus. I'm not up to the time commitment I need to get back to, but I'm working my way up.

School is starting again, and I've got four courses lined up: Medieval Europe (which is going to be so bloody awesome), Britain and the Modern World (well, it's better than the Global History of Food), Literature and Censorship (an English course focusing almost entirely on the Soviet Union and Russian literature), and Opera. No, I'm not going to be singing.

So, a short entry today, but it's good to be writing this blog regularly again. More tomorrow.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 36-37

I know, I know...it's been a while. Life gets busy sometimes. I've got nine pages left in this book to go; let's get it done.

So, we finish off the Special Situations section. The Ship's Locker is next; my first thought was that a Locker would be like an Armory, carrying additional hand weapons and such. But this Ship's Locker carries survival gear, including cold-weather gear for when you land on Hoth. You can include weapons in it if you like, but they aren't standard issue. Basically, the Locker can be customized to suit whatever needs you think you might have. Be prepared, and help an old starship cross the system to earn your merit badge.

Finally, there's Strategic Movement, which just says that interstellar movement (jumps) will be dealt with in the next book. Okay, then.

Ah, an encounter table! There's nothing that says 'old-school' gaming quite as clearly as a random encounter table. So, when a ship first enters a new system, there's a chance you'll run into another ship. Could be merchants, could be pirates; the dice will determine your fate. The roll is on two dice, but the table results go up to 18; there are modifiers, my friends. The better the quality of the starport, the higher the roll. I think this is the first mention of starport classes; I can't remember if they were mentioned in the first book, but I don't think so. Anyway, the starport classes are A through E, and X. If your roll is 8 or less, you are all alone. 9-11 is a Free Trader, 12 is Pirates, 13 and 15 are Subsidized Merchants, which is a new term, 14 and 18 are Patrols, and 16-17 are Yachts. So, rich people get to drive their own ships in space. Because of course they do; that's part of the genre.

Anyway, Type A ports give you a +6 on the roll; Type X are -4. Which means that if you're in a Type X system, you're guaranteed to be alone; 12 - 4 = 8, which is no encounter. If you're in a Type A, you have company on anything other than a 2. Patrols and Pirate ships will be Type S Scout/Couriers (6 or less on 2 dice), Type C Cruisers on an 8 or more, and Armed Type Y Yachts on an exact roll of 7. Armed Yachts as patrols? That's just ostentatious.

Free Traders and Subsidized Merchants can be sources of local information; Patrols might be 'official' pirates, exacting tolls and such from passing ships.

The next section is just called 'Comments,' and I see that it also takes up half of the next page, ending this section of the book. So, I'm going to cover them both today.

So, Dimensions is first. We get a note that space combat in Traveller is handled in two dimensions; three would be much more complex. In fact, the word 'trigonometry' is thrown in to scare people away from trying to add three dimensions. Alright, then.

On to page 37, and Optional Acceleration Effects are next. You can make a more realistic acceleration vector by splitting the movement in half; the first half happens during the turn acceleration is applied, and full effect happens on the next turn. Meh, combat is abstract enough that this won't be an issue, I think.

Non-Miniature Battles are the final point in this section. It's the first time I've seen miniatures mentioned in the game; were there Traveller starship minis available back in the day? That would be cool, but the customization would make it difficult to account for the multiple variables.

If you really want to simplify starship combat, skip over the movement requirements, and just have the referee decree that X number of shots can be made before the range is too great. That's a bit too simple for me, but some games might warrant it if the focus is on a ground mission instead of a space battle.

Finally, you can just plot the progress of the battle on paper without bothering with miniatures. Yeah, I figured as much. Then you get to keep a permanent copy of the battle, in case you want to remove all doubts that you're a gamer geek. Sounds good to me.

Okay, so that covers two pages; tomorrow (I know, I know) we'll talk about...Drugs. No, not that kind. Medicinal stuff. Or so it says.

Heroes

Welcome to 2021! May it be more enjoyable than 2020 was. I know, that's like saying I hope that not getting kicked in the tenderloins on a daily basis is an improvement. 2020 was a rough one, wasn't it? But, the future is now, so let's look forward. And to do that, we're going to look backward for a moment.

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian. So, if you haven't watched it, or haven't finished it yet, STOP READING. Come back after you have watched the finale of Season 2. Trust me, you don't want to be spoiled on this one.

You're done watching it? Cool. How about that ending? Were you expecting it? Nobody was, were they? Or if they were, it was in a 'wouldn't it be awesome if...' kind of a way, without any real expectations that it would actually happen. Because we never see our childhood heroes like that on TV anymore, do we? Not even close.

I confess, I did not watch the entirety of The Last Jedi. I couldn't, which was the first time I could ever say that about a Star Wars movie. I even watched The Phantom Menace multiple times, and that was some seriously crappy and disappointing Star Wars. But The Last Jedi? That was the aforementioned high-speed collision between foot and groin. Luke Skywalker had become a bitter, worthless old fool who believed his entire life was a waste, who was hiding from the entire galaxy because of his failures, a galaxy that looked pretty much as bleak as it did when he first stepped out on the Tatooine desert to buy droids from some Jawas. And he wasn't the only one; despite the heroic efforts of the Rebellion, despite destroying two Death Stars and killing the Emperor, Luke and his friends had, somehow, made absolutely no difference in the galaxy.

Say what?

Was that the message we were supposed to take from the new trilogy of Star Wars movies? That life sucks, and no matter how much you work to change things, it's still going to suck? Even worse than that, the message we got was: "The people you looked up to when you were young? They all failed. Miserably. And they all know it. And now, so do you. Your heroes suck."

And they were heroes to us. Luke Skywalker, in particular, was my favorite. A lot of people I knew were big into Han Solo. He was cocky, cool, he got the girl and the great starship, not to mention a bunch of sweet lines. And he shot first. Everyone wanted to be Han.

But not me; I wanted to be Luke, not Han. Han was Clint Eastwood, but Luke was Clark Kent. A farm boy who grew up knowing he was meant for something bigger, then finding out his true parentage and being thrust into a role that only he could perform. He was the superhero for an entire generation of kids who watched him face the biggest evil imaginable...and step away from the temptations of the Dark Side, redeeming his father's soul in the process. THAT is a hero: Noble, self-sacrificing, steadfast and true, unflinching in the most epic dangers imaginable. And that is what we were all bouncing in our seats waiting to see when the new movies came out.

The Force Awakens was bad enough; Luke appears in a silent cameo at the very end of the movie. No lines, no actions, nothing. He was just there, like that was supposed to make us happy. But the warning signs were there all through the movie: He was in hiding, he had changed...he wasn't really Luke Skywalker anymore. But we still wanted to believe in our hero.

But then The Last Jedi came out, and it was a nightmare. Even Mark Hamill admitted that he hated playing the role as the story demanded, because he knew, just as we all did, that he wasn't playing Luke Skywalker; he was playing a warped, twisted version that he derisively called 'Jake Skywalker.' I stopped watching halfway through the movie, because it was unbearable. And I never even watched a trailer for the last movie. What would have been the point? I wasn't going to watch it anyway.

And so, for two years, our hero, the hero of a generation, was gone. And make no mistake, that was the intent of the producers of those abominable movies. They wanted us to reject the heroes of our youth an embrace new 'heroes' that showed no heroic qualities whatsoever, heroes who did nothing to earn our approbation or admiration, heroes that demanded to be recognized just 'cause. And we refused.

Oh, sure, a lot of people went to see the last movie, but almost nobody went more than once. It was more a case of 'let's just finish the story and get it over with' for a lot of fans who did sit through The Rise of Skywalker. The heartbreak was real, and it felt more like a mercy-killing than a satisfactory conclusion to an epic, thrilling, generational saga.

And that was it; Star Wars was dead to a lot of people.

Fast-forward to 2019, and the Mandalorian series. I've watched most of the first season with my son now, and it's pretty good. It's got a strong Western vibe, and the Mandalorian seems like a typically good Western hero. I like it. But three weeks ago, the only thing I knew about the series was Baby Yoda. And I didn't care.

So, what changed my mind? The last fifteen minutes of the last episode, Chapter 16: The Rescue. I truly wish I hadn't seen the spoilers, because I would have dearly loved to have been surprised. But I'm doing my best to give my son the chance to feel that surprise; maybe I'll videotape it when we get to that episode.

I'm not going to break down the entire episode; I haven't actually seen it, yet. But I do know that when the story's heroes are at the bleakest point, the point of certain death...a hero arrived. THE hero, the one we'd been waiting for since 1983 and Return of the Jedi. Yes, Luke Skywalker was back. But the way it was handled...it was epic.

The heroes are trapped in a room, with several robotic Dark Troopers (one of which is almost too much for the Mandalorian and his friends to fight) punching their way through the reinforced blast doors. It's a hopeless situation, and they all know it. But then, a lone fighter, an X-wing, flies in. The heroes watch as the ship's pilot, in Jedi robes, starts cutting through the Dark Troopers like a buzzsaw. Throughout the entire battle, we never see the Jedi's face, but almost everyone watching it knew, immediately or gradually, what was happening. Finally, we do see his face, and it's him. Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Master the likes of which we had been begging to see in the new trilogy.

As I said, I haven't watched the episode, and I don't know what leads up to it, other than what I can infer. But what got me wasn't that Luke showed up; it was how people reacted to it. On my YouTube feed, I saw a few recommendations about people's reactions to the last episode of the Mandalorian, and Luke Skywalker's return. I couldn't believe it. But I checked them out, because I had to know if it was real.

Here's what I saw in every single video: Shock, disbelief, terror that it was an illusion...and then, sheer joy. Screams of rapture, and tears of pure happiness. It was incredible. The hero of an entire generation finally got the return he deserved. One of the common comments people made about that scene was that 'this is what I wanted to see in The Last Jedi.' Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master at the peak of his powers, tearing through thirty Terminator-like robots like they were little more than an inconvenience. That is the hero we needed back, especially after the year we just went through.

These reaction videos were so powerful that Mark Hamill retweeted them, thanking everyone for the love and support. Because he knew. Without a doubt, he understood exactly what we were feeling. And he felt it, too.

Because we have a primal need for heroes in our lives. Real heroes, not the manufactured ones that Hollywood pushes on us today as if to say 'heroism is what we say it is'. It isn't, and it never was. We decide who the heroes are. That's why stories of Hercules, King Arthur, Tarzan, and Superman still resonate today, because they represent what we want in our heroes. And yes, that includes the girls, too. We all want our heroes to be masculine and stalwart, not mincing and miserable. There's nothing heroic about mincing and miserable, and there never will be.

So, I'm not expecting Disney to take the right lesson from this; their history shows otherwise. But at least for the moment, we can sit back and savor this truly beautiful and epic moment that gave us back, even for just those few short minutes, the chance to believe in heroes once again.