Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 22

School is coming to an end, thankfully, and I'll have more time to post regularly in a couple of weeks. For now, I'm going to continue this series, because I'm halfway through the last book and I want to get it finished.

So, page 22 gives us a patron encounter table. And the first one on the list is...an arsonist. Really? So...the PCs can get hired to, what, start a fire? Actually, the whole first row of 'patrons' are nasty people. Arsonist, cutthroat, assassin, hijacker, smuggler, and terrorist. So, don't roll a '1' for the first patron roll, unless your crew is comprised primarily of 'Other' careerists.

The 6-6 entry on the table is 'rumors,' which is basically no patron, just some information that might be useful in starting an adventure. The rest of the patrons are a mixed bunch, with peasants all the way to nobles, diplomats and officers, governors and scouts, etc. Lots of variety, and sure to inspire some sort of adventure seeds.

Next up are some details on employees and hirelings. Basically, if you want them, you have to find them. The players tell the ref who they are looking for (in general terms: crew members, mercenaries, etc.), and the referee tells them who is available and looking for work. The 'interview' basically means rolling up the NPC to see what they can do, and the PCs can hire them or not, depending on whether the hireling suits their needs.

Next up is nobility, and we get titles for those high social standing scores. An 11 is a knight/dame, followed by baron, marquis, count, and duke at 15. This is an interesting sidelight in the game; instead of an enlightened, democratic 'federation of planets,' we've got imperial nobles and feudalist titles. I like it. The titles are hereditary and show high standing; even for non-governmental roles, nobles matter. They might even have ancestral lands and fiefs, and some of them do rule. There are princes and kings, even emperors, but you're not rolling one up.

Finally, we have non-player character reactions when encountering the PCs, which are just two-dice rolls that may or may not be modified. Rolls of 2 and 12 don't get modified; anything else does, which can push them above 12 or below 2 sometimes. However, the section ends before giving us the DMs or the table, so that will have to wait for the next page.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 21

Back after a school-and-work-induced delay. We're not quite halfway through this book, so let's continue.

On this page we have some tables. Two of them: The Random Person Encounter table, and the Weapons table. The random person encounter table uses the previously-seen 'roll two dice and read them in order' routine to generate 36 different results instead of the normal twelve. The last six, however, are blank, as mentioned on a previous page.

So, who can we run into in these random encounters? Here's the list; the numbers in parentheses are the number of times the entry appears on the table.

Peasants (2), workers, rowdies, thugs (2), soldiers (3), police (2), Marines, naval troops, adventurers, noble with retinue (2), hunters, tourists, researchers, fugitives (3), vigilantes, bandits, brigands, merchants, traders, religious group (2), and guards.

So, you're more likely to run into a nobleman in the streets than you are workers. Interesting. The separate listings usually have different numbers appearing and weapons, so there's a variety in running into some of these groups. I find it very interesting, though, that there are a lot of low-tech weapons on this list. Clubs, cudgels, daggers, swords, spears...if it wasn't for the firearms on the table, this could work as a fantasy encounter table, too.

Some of them have vehicles as well, but not as many as you might think. The vehicle is left undefined; the tech and terrain will be the determining factors in that. Some of them have armor as well, although nothing extreme (no battle dress).

The Weapons table was mentioned on the last page; you roll a die, and if you get a weapon on the first column, you use that weapon. If not, move to the next column. The first column is laser rifles and auto rifles; a 3-6 on the roll means you move to column 2. That column has shotguns, carbines, and revolvers, the latter two of which can be found in the regular weapons table as well. 4-6 means go to column 3, which has broadsword, sword, halberd, cutlass, and foil. Every one of these is already on the encounter table to begin with, so they aren't exactly 'special' weapons.

The table is mostly low-tech, no more than tech-level 6. Except for the laser rifle, all the weapons are things that we have access to today; in fact, they had access to them all in 1977. Even the guards have halberds and daggers. Hell, the Marines have revolvers and cutlasses. The vigilantes are better armed than the soldiers, with rifles and carbines (the soldiers have submachine guns).

So, these tables are a bit underwhelming. Obviously, they can be modified to suit the referee's campaign, but the feel of this is very much in the pulp style, with men running around with swords and revolvers instead of lightsabers and blasters. I would expect to add more variety to the weapons, though. Get some higher-tech stuff in there, at least. 

And there is a note that weaponry may be altered to conform to law level or technology index. Oh, that's a good point; some cultures have law levels restricting weapons, some of them restricting ALL weapons. So, that will have an impact on the table. At the same time, I find the notion of a high-tech city including hunters who carry rifles and spears. For a good visual of that, watch Jesus Christ Superstar (the movie version), which has Roman soldiers doing exactly that: carrying spears and rifles.

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Review

Okay, I finally watched this one with my wife and son last night. It was a lot of fun, like I remember, and while it has been a long time, it was good to see the differences between this version and the album I reviewed a while back. Obviously, a movie and an old vinyl recording won't be the same. But the differences in the music itself are striking, nonetheless.

First of all, Ted Neeley was born for this role. He is absolutely amazing as Jesus, hitting the right mixture of all-knowing, all-wise mentor to the disciples, resignation to his ultimate fate, and his show-stopping performance of Gethsemane, pleading his case to know why God is about to allow him to be destroyed in the most horrible way imaginable. It's beautiful to watch.

Neeley is complemented by Carl Anderson, who plays Judas. I'll admit, when I first saw this movie, the notion of a black Judas threw me off; everyone knows the Apostles were Jewish, and they weren't black-skinned. But that's a stylistic casting choice, and it certainly works; Anderson's Judas is torn from the very beginning, trying desperately to hold back the landslide that he is sure is about to strike them all. In the original text of the gospels, of course, Judas is not what you would describe as a sympathetic character; he's a first-class, no-good rotten traitor who hands over the Son of God to be persecuted and crucified. But in this version, Judas gets some motivation beyond being a lousy traitor. He's scared, like the Pharisees, that Jesus' actions are going to bring down the wrath of the Romans upon them all, since the crowds are calling him the Messiah, ready to name him King, which the Romans would disapprove of in very explicit and strenuous terms.

There is more music in this version than in the album; a song called 'Then We Are Decided' is slipped in between 'Strange Thing, Mystifying' and 'Everything's All Right', providing a nice break from the scenes with Jesus and the Apostles. In the album, Caiphas and the rest of the priests don't show up for the first four scenes; this gives them an earlier introduction and provides a good explanation as to why Caiphas is so adamant that Jesus has to die.

The second new song is 'Could We Start Again, Please', which appears after King Herod's song as Jesus is being led back to Pilate for the fourth part of his trial. Mary and Peter sing a duet about how Jesus has gone beyond the bounds of reason to prove his message. It's a wistful song that fits nicely, and as I understand it became a permanent fixture of the stage play, unlike the other new song, which only appears in this movie (and on the soundtrack, of course).

Other songs have more to them than they did on the album, such as extra lines in the Trial Before Pilate, and I'm pretty sure there is at least one more verse in the Hosanna song. I'd have to go back and check the original, though.

Most of the cast from the Broadway show ends up in the movie; Neeley and Anderson, of course, both started out on the stage version. Two of them, Yvonne Elliman (Mary) and Barry Deneen (Pilate) were on the original album, as well. All are excellent in their roles, especially in those long-forgotten days before auto-tune was all the rage.

Now, for the one part of the movie my wife and son could not wrap their heads around: The setting for the movie. Sure, you've got Jesus wandering around in a simple shepherd's robe, and Mary is looking suitably Biblical in her attire, but you've also got most of the disciples wearing jeans or other 1970s' clothing. You've got Roman soldiers wearing purple wife-beaters and camo pants, carrying spears and machine guns at the same time. And you've got tanks. And fighter jets doing a fly-by over Judas after he's agreed to betray Jesus to the Pharisees. It's very, very surreal and weird. And yet, it works. Webber always intended for the play to have a modern feel, and Norman Jewison, who directed the movie, obviously agreed. The juxtaposition of the ancient and modern elements is silently explained during the overture, as a bus shows up with the entire cast aboard in their regular clothes. They actually take the props for the movie off the bus roof, change into their costumes right outside the bus (in the middle of the road in an Israeli desert; the 1970s were friggin' weird, man), before starting the actual movie.

So, why the tanks and machine guns? Why not? In the famous song 'Superstar,' which Judas sings after he's hanged himself from a tree in shame for what he did, Judas basically asks Jesus a bunch of questions about why he did what he did when he did it. 'Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication,' he reminds Jesus while glammed-up dancers do the most 70s routines you've ever seen behind him. Why did Jesus live then, and not in today's world where his message would have been instantly broadcast around the world? Of course, the movie doesn't answer that; it just moves on to Jesus' death on the cross, which is told in a much tamer manner than Mel Gibson did.

All in all, this is probably my favorite version, not the least of which because I like the new songs. The whole production, while it looks like it was done on the cheap, still shines. Regardless of the controversy about the story and how it's told in the movie/play, this is still a fantastic rendition of the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's a great movie, and I recommend it without reservation. And, as I said earlier, Ted Neeley absolutely nails the passionate Gethsemane song, and I'm sorry to any Ian Gillan fans out there, Neeley was better.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 20

We continue with the 'random' encounters section. After determining the clone-characteristics of the group encountered, there is a chance on the weapons table that there will be some special weapons. It's a bit convoluted, and I haven't seen the table to see how it works yet, but basically you roll on the weapons table, first column, and if you get a number, someone in the group has the weapon that corresponds to that number; if you don't, you roll again on the second column, and so on. Anyone with one of these weapons is considered to have skill level 1 with that weapon.

The encounter table has six blanks, which are to be treated as 'no encounter' results, although they can be filled in later at the referee's option to customize the table.

After the random encounter is actually encountered, reactions are checked to see what they think of the PCs. They might be hostile, in which case combat may erupt, although the procedures from Book One will sometimes allow one party to escape the other without conflict. But where's the fun in that?

Ah, looting the bodies! The most classic of role-playing tropes. That's why people usually play, isn't it? To kill things (or people) and take their stuff? Well, this is actually the first mention of that in Traveller. But yes, when you have a combat encounter and emerge victorious, the spoils of war (i.e., whatever the other side was carrying) are yours for the taking. That's comforting to know.

And that ends the random encounters; next up: Patrons!

This section starts out by telling us that an adventurer's primary and recurring goal in the game is to find someone rich who can help them get rich and famous. Patrons, then, are people who hire the PCs for a specific job. Best of all, if they hire you, they pay your expenses. Within reason, but I've not yet met a player whose definition of 'reasonable expenses' wasn't stretched to the breaking point.

So, these patrons hire the PCs to do their dirty work; it might be something routine, like guarding someone or something, or it might be riskier, like assassinating a target, for example, or stealing something valuable, or just exploring a recently-discovered planet and seeing if the place is worth setting up a colony of some sort. And if they do hire you to get something, they only expect to receive the something at the end of the job; anything else acquired in the process belongs to the PCs, not the patron. Sweet deal.

The patron system seems to be a pretty significant part of the expected style of play. You can look for one patron a week, through the usual channels: bars, taverns, etc. You get one die roll a week, and a 5 or 6 means you found a likely patron. More dice then determine what kind of patron you've found, and what they want. Oh, and they get a reaction roll, too. It doesn't matter if they are in dire need of adventurers to save their planet from a giant amoeba in space; if they don't like you, they'll wait for someone else to come along.

Once the patron is established, it's up the referee to get the details of what they actually want the PCs to do, and what obstacles might get in the way. So, patrons are basically quest-givers, and the referee has to figure out the rest himself. Well, it's not like that hasn't been a staple of gaming since the very beginning.

So, an interesting page. Obviously, patrons are going to be a big part of any game. It's actually a part of the D&D game that gets glossed over for the most part. I mean, most adventures have a 'patron' handing out the mission, sure, but random patrons? That's something new and different. I like it.

And that wraps up this page. More to come!

A Very Special Anniversary

March 17, 2007. A date that I will never forget, in more ways than one. Fourteen years ago today, I met the woman that would prove to be the love of my life, the woman of my dreams, and the mother of my children. It was a semi-blind date, and it was one of the best nights of my life.

I call it a semi-blind date because we met online a few weeks earlier, through E-Harmony. Yes, it works. I was living in Barrie, Ontario, and I had signed up at the end of February, and was matched with 31 women from further than I'd expected (one of them was in Pennsylvania). I sent out feelers to all 31, and received three replies. One was in Orillia, half an hour from Barrie; one was the aformentioned Pennsylvanian; and the third was from a town called Wallaceburg, a town I had to look up on a map because I'd never heard of it before.

It didn't take us long to realize that we had found someone special. We racked up eighty hours on the phone in two weeks, and we arranged to meet on St. Patrick's Day in Hamilton, at her friend's house. By then, I already knew that she was the woman I would marry; I'd already known it for a week.

We met, and we had a really great time. I met her four-year-old son, Ashton, and gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine book as a gift. We went to Kelsey's for dinner, and then to see Music & Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It's a great movie, although my view of it might be a bit biased considering the evening in general.

I dropped her off at her friend's house afterward, and ended up driving home at about two in the morning. I was on Cloud Nine the whole way home. She obviously agreed that things went well, and we made arrangements to visit each other even though we lived nearly four hours apart. They say long-distance relationships never work out, so we arranged to change that, too; three months later, I packed up and moved to Wallaceburg after proposing to her at the piano recital. And that's a story for another time.

We were married two years later; it was supposed to be one year, but actions have consequences, and our consequence is now twelve years old. She didn't want to be trying on wedding dresses when she was six months pregnant, so we put the wedding off and accepted the scolding from our priest. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, on this awesome and wonderful anniversary, I want to thank the most amazing, beautiful, special, fantastic woman I've ever known or ever will know, for fourteen years that weren't always highs, but were rarely lows. I wouldn't trade these last fourteen years for anything; I'm a better man because of her, and she's always supported me even when I did crazy things like sell life insurance or write books. She's a great cook, a fantastic mother, and a wonderful wife, with a tremendous faith in God and the most caring heart I've ever seen. My life is immeasurably better with her in it.

Happy Anniversary, Honey Bunny. I hope we celebrate a lot more together.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 18-19

Yes, I'm back with the gaming goodness. And I just saw that page 18 is very small, so I'm going to add page 19 as well.

Page 18 finishes off the vehicles with a short bit on water vehicles. Bigger vessels require crews, smaller ones can be handled by a single person. The options are small steamships (tech-4), motor boats (tech-5), and submarines (tech-6). No aircraft carriers or battleships, though. No cruise ships, either. There's nothing special about these boats, they're what you would expect them to be. They don't even get weapons options.

So, we move on to page 19. And thus begins...the Encounters! Ah, yes...the actual 'adventuring' part of adventures. We are introduced to the concept of NPCs, characters controlled by the referee (everyone that isn't controlled by the players). There are three types of encounters in Traveller: Ordinary/routine encounters, random encounters, and encounters with patrons. Who are patrons, I wonder? Sounds like 'quest-givers' to me. But then, I've played quite a few computer games in my time.

For any of these encounters, the identity or occupation of the person in question needs to be determined, then what they think of the PCs (reaction table roll, of course, because this is old-school gaming), and then the response from the PCs. These encounters can be informative, combative, or deceptive, depending on the nature of the character and, occasionally, the needs of the adventure.

Routine Encounters are just that: routine. Normal, ordinary people that you see every day and never notice. The villagers at the beginning of the Disney Beauty and the Beast fit the bill; people living their lives and just trying to get along. A store clerk is an example given; they're doing their job and that's the extent of it. Characters like that don't need a full write-up, just a sentence or two, if that, depending on the point of the encounter.

Random Encounters are different. These are people who are doing more important jobs, things that might involve the PCs in some way, whether as antagonists or complementary, depending again on the situation.

Interestingly, the Traveller version of 'random encounters' is far, far different from that in games such as Dungeons & Dragons. You don't roll these on a table; these aren't necessarily people who just happen to be in the neighborhood. A guard patrol at a building the PCs are trying to break into is an example of a random encounter. It's not routine, and it might lead to conflict. And combat. We are informed that the referee can always add these types of encounters to further the adventure, and sometimes, they are required to do so.

Ah, then we get to literal random encounters, where you do roll on a table. Once per day, roll a die, and if you get a 5 or 6 there is a random encounter of some sort. This is with people, not animals (those come up later). Cool, we are going to get alien wildlife here, too.

And yes, we get a random encounter table to determine what kind of person is being encountered. It's a two-die roll, reading the two numbers individually to get a result on the matrix (which isn't on this page). This table gives a basic description or identity, a dice range for how many there are, and other information that might be pertinent to, say, a pitched combat in the middle of a space station.

These characters also get the fundamental combat stats: strength, dexterity and endurance. But these people will generally be clones of each other (generate one set of stats and use it for all the people in the encounter). Later, if necessary, the other stats (intelligence, education, social standing) can be generated.

And that takes us to page 20, which we will look at next time. So far, so good.

Bringing Home Some Hot Chicks

So, we're definitely doing this farming thing. Yesterday we started planting some veggies; today, we brought home some baby chicks.

Those are marbles in the water dish; that's to keep them from falling in and drowning. You'll notice the dark feathers; these are called Cemani chickens. They are all-black birds. Their feathers, their skin, their meat, their internal organs...black all the way through. Naturally, the eggs are cream-colored. Because...I have no idea. But they are.

We are hoping that we got two hens and a rooster; we're going to be adding more birds eventually, but this is a start. They were supposed to be living in the house for the next few weeks to stay warm and grow, but the heat lamp was melting the plastic in the dog cage we were going to keep them in. So, they're in the garage, in a wooden crate. Ashton assembled the heat lamp while we were on our way home with the chirping critters, and they're currently having a grand old time exploring their square box.

Garrett is excited; I told him I had a surprise for him in the garage, and he came out to take a look. He was mesmerized by the little birds, pointing at them and smiling away. He's going to have a great time on the farm.

And this is them checking out their supper. We had to tilt the plate, because they couldn't get out of the food; the sides of the plate were slippery and steep. So, they can leave if they want to now. And that's a rolled-up towel which will serve as a nest.

All in all, it's a pretty exciting day. We're going to be building a chicken tractor next week, so that when they are ready (and when the ground is no longer inspiring a Bing Crosby song), we can get them out in the field, safe from the foxes and other predators. Then we're going to build a proper coop in the barn so they have a winter home as well.

It's a crazy lifestyle change from what I'm used to, but I'm looking forward to it.

Planting the Seeds of the Future

Well, we've had a couple of warm days lately, and a lot of the snow has melted away. Not all of it; it's only March on Prince Edward Island, after all. And the temperature's dropped again, so the water has turned back into ice.

But, today was a very important day for the Sprigg family as we took the first steps toward our spring gardening. We planted some seeds in a mini-greenhouse in the living room. Leeks, parsley, and hot peppers. We're using one of those Jiffy Greenhouse planters, where we've got the seeds planted in little soaked tablets of peat and covered. There's a grow-lamp over them as well, and this batch should be ready in time for May when the frost is expected to be gone. In a couple of weeks, we'll plant some more.

The best part of it was that it was a family affair; Ashton, our oldest, went out and bought them with Mom. I soaked the peat and put the seeds in the peat cakes, and Tanner made sure they were to the right depth and covered up. It's good for the kids to be involved with this now. Ashton will always be involved; he wants to farm the land anyway. But doing small stuff like this is good, especially doing it together.

We've got plenty of seeds left to plant, and we're starting to collect some seeds ourselves from the kitchen scraps. We've got green pepper seeds already, so that should be exciting to get them planted in a few weeks.

It's an exciting time, and while it's still just baby steps, it's a good start to what will be our family hobby farm for years to come.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 17

So, we continue with vehicles. Actually, we have a brief section on how to use land vehicles. No driver's license is included, however. Basically, you have to roll to see if the vehicle has some sort of breakdown; a base 11+ throw means something's broken, although there are DMs for driving skill, the terrain, and the overall condition of the vehicle. The same 11+ throw can be used for any terrain difficulties, or you can just use animal encounter tables from (I assume) later in the book. Oh, and the local law level also applies to getting caught in speed traps or with traffic violations. All ground vehicles can be refueled from a starship's power plant; I guess they don't use enough to worry about draining the ship's tanks.

Next up, Air Vehicles. The rules mention (briefly) primitive stuff like gliders and hot air balloons, as unique local things on low-tech worlds. Your character's Air/Raft skill can be used to pilot the rest of the air vehicles listed here. Without that skill, you're not flying anything.

The first air vehicle on the list is the 'primitive biplane.' World War I technology, basically, tech level 4. It's...well, it's a biplane. It's not going to last long in a dogfight against anything else except a hot air balloon.

Fixed-Wing Aircraft are next (tech-5). This is the jet-version, which can fly at...600 km/h. Come on; that's not even Mach 1. There are mentions of seaplane versions, hardpoints for ordnance or auto-cannon, or larger versions. Still, that's a lame speed for this kind of plane.

Helicopters (tech-6) are next. They, like the fixed-wing craft, cost a cool million credits and do what you would expect a helicopter to do. You can get a twin-engine version for twice the price, and these things fly up to 250 km/h with a range of 600 km.

Then there's the Air/Raft (tech-8), or 'flier.' This one uses 'solid state null gravity modules' for lift and propulsion. It's got four of these (which cost a million credits each). The craft itself costs 6 million, and while it's limited to 100 km/hour, it's got unlimited range and endurance. They are usually open-top fliers, although you can get pressurized versions, and they take weapons and other optional extras.

Last, there's the gravity belt (tech-12/C). It's a personal version of the Air/Raft, with the same speeds and restrictions. But it only costs a million credits. Yay. Still, it's a very familiar (to pulp readers, at least) technology for science fiction.

Like the land vehicles, the air vehicles have to make regular maintenance checks at 11+, with a -1 DM for missed maintenance.

And that wraps up this page; we'll continue with more vehicles next time.

Winter Wonderland

There aren't any sleigh bells, but there's a whole bunch of snow glistening in the lane. And on the lawn. And on the roof. And on the cars... And it's March. Welcome to Prince Edward Island...

I know, we've been here almost six months now. Time flies when you're having fun. And we are having fun, despite the weather. It's a great island, tucked away between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and there would be a whole bunch of stuff to do if everything wasn't shut down due to COVID-19.

One of Ashton's favorite things to do here is go quadding; he's joined a club, and he's gone just about every Sunday. There was an 'outbreak' of COVID last week (something like six cases), so that wasn't happening last weekend. But he was back at it yesterday, so that's good to know. Life is almost normal here on the Island, except for seeing masks everywhere.

We're getting ready to plant seeds indoors to get ready for the spring planting. Right now, the spot we plan to dig our gardens is under two feet of snow, so we're going to wait on that for a while. We still haven't tapped the trees for maple syrup yet; we're just waiting for the spouts to arrive, and for the temperature to get to the right point. It's still a bit too cold yet.

I think one of the best parts of being out here is that it is so much more laid-back than Ontario is. Even in the small towns, Ontario feels ridiculously busy. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, or do something. Out here, though, there's time to relax and experience things. It's a great change of pace, and one I heartily recommend for everyone, especially the city-dwellers.

Thinking about it, it's obvious that we were meant to not only come to Prince Edward Island, but to this particular farmhouse. We'd been talking about moving for years, but we never made any concrete steps to actually doing it. Nobody believed we'd ever leave, really. But when we started looking here, we found this house almost right away. And it had only been on the realtor website for a month or so. This was the house God wanted us to move into. And I'm fine with that. It's a major adjustment, but it's a good one. I know I've made up my mind that I'll finally plant roots here, and not just the plant kind. This is the first time I can remember feeling like I'm actually home. Thankfully, the rest of the family feels the same way: This is our home, now and forever.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 15-16

More equipment! Now we've got the basics. Literally. Shelter and food. Hey, you can buy a tarp! It's tech-level 1, so anyone higher than 'caveman' can get this. Then there's the tent, the pressure tent, the pre-fab cabin, and the advanced base, which is tech-level 8 and holds up to 6 people. It's the Hab from The Martian, basically.

Next up is the food, which is not given any tech levels, thankfully. I mean, it's food. Even cavemen know how to acquire it. There's really not much to talk about on this page, frankly. So, I'm going to add another page, just because.

So, moving on to page 16, we get vehicles. Not the kinds we saw in Book 2, of course. We start out with primitive transportation (tech-levels 0-3). This is your wagons, sailing ships, etc. They can be expensive, depending on the local circumstances. You can also ride a primitive beast, and you can even store one in low passage for a long trip if you really want to ride it on another planet. I'd be calling the SPCA on that one.

Next up are land vehicles for higher tech levels (up to 7). Ground cars are level 5, and cost about 40,000 credits. That's actually pretty close to what they cost today. It can go up to 1000 km on a tank of fuel, which, again, isn't much better than today's cars can do. Oh, and they can go 150 km/hour. That works out to 94 mph. These ground cars aren't that impressive, are they? And, they're only worth using on the planet they were manufactured on, since they don't work very well on other planets.

ATVs are next, and holy crap, are they expensive. 3 million credits! 'Considerably more expensive,' says the book in a gross understatement. We bought an ATV a few months ago that only cost 14,000! Okay, so our ATV isn't designed to work in different atmospheres and gravities, but still. These will even protect you from an insidious atmosphere (the one that disintegrates your spacesuit), and can go for 5,000 km on a single tank of gas. They can only do 100 km/h, on a good road (half on bad terrain). It can hold eight people and has enough room for them to eat and sleep. So, it's a Winnebago. A souped-up Winnebago.

Next is the AFV, the Armored Fighting Vehicle. 7 million credits for this sucker; clearly, it's a government purchase. It's an ATV with guns, basically. Except that it doesn't double as a camper, and holds three people instead of eight.

Finally, there's the hovercraft. A bargain at 2 million credits, it's only good on worlds with an atmosphere of at least 4. They have the range of a regular car and the speed of an ATV, but they float. They can go over water as easily as land, and can handle a load of 15 passengers.

So, that's some pretty straightforward equipment. Next time...we'll see what's on the next page.

Public Domain

As a writer, the idea of copyright and public domain is a very interesting one. The copyright laws as they stand are pretty generous, anywhere in the world. Depending on where you live, your work can be protected from anywhere to fifty years after your death to seventy or even eighty; in the United States, the current law is 95 years from creation. That's a long time to continue to make money off of something you did years ago.

So, let's do some math. I wrote Final Exam and published it in January, 2020. If I live for another thirty years, that means that my heirs will have the rights to that book until 2120. That's thirty-one years before the NX-01 Enterprise launches, for you Star Trek fans. Time flies, doesn't it?

But that's the future; it's time to look at the present, as well as the past. For those living in the United States, anything published up to December 31, 1925 is now public domain. That includes a huge number of silent movies, of course, but it also includes a whole bunch of classic pulp stories. The early Lovecraft, for example, is now in public domain. So is a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff, including the majority of the John Carter and Tarzan books. Or at least, the good ones.

But for those in other countries, the bounty of public domain is even bigger. Right now Canada has not yet ratified the new USMCA act, which will change the copyright to 70 years after death from the current 50. So, right now, anything that was written by someone who passed away prior to 1971 is now in the public domain in Canada. That is a lot of great stuff, including a whole bunch of classic pulp writers.

Now, even for the countries with 70-year time frames, the bounty this year is especially juicy. Because 1950 is the cut-off date for those countries, and that was a bumper crop of deceased super-writers. The following men passed away in 1950, which means that their work is now public domain in the vast majority of countries (excluding the US): George Orwell, Rafael Sabatini, George Bernard Shaw, Olaf Stapledon...and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yes, outside of the US, Tarzan is now public domain.

One of the writers I admire from the pulps is Abraham Merritt. He is a seminal force in the realm of fantastic fiction, having inspired Lovecraft, Howard, Gary Gygax (father of Dungeons & Dragons, for those who don't know), and many others. And he died in 1943, which means his work is public domain in a lot of countries. His first full novel, Conquest of the Moon Pool, was written in 1919, which means it is public domain everywhere, even in the USA.

So, why am I mentioning this? Because Merritt is someone who deserves to be far less obscure than he is now. Even as late as the 1970s, he was a force in fantasy, with his titles being on the spinner racks and book shelves right alongside Tolkien and Burroughs. But he disappeared quite a few years ago. And I want to help bring this gifted author's work back. So, I've been working on a special project: An Abraham Merritt Collection. I'm trying to get the original versions of his works (the ones first published in the pulps, not the edited versions that came later) into book form. Partly it's because I want to have them in hardcopy myself, but also because I'd like other people to see how awesome he was.

I'll have more details on this in the days to come, but the quick version is that I'm going to publish the first Merritt book, an anthology of his short fiction, in the next few days. That doesn't mean I'm not still writing my own stuff; but this is the level of awesome that I'm aspiring to reach through my own work. And I would like to do my part to make these more available to people. Some of his writings aren't available anywhere that I can find.

So, that's my 'secret project.' I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 14

We're continuing on with more personal devices, nothing too exciting. The inertial locator just tells you how far away you are from where you started; it's like a homing beacon for your home base. It's expensive, at 1200 Cr, and heavy at about three pounds.

The metal detector and Geiger counter are next; they're pretty much as advertised. So is the bull-horn, and it's noted that it's awkward and bulky. I especially like the 'hand calculator,' which has only one of the features of your own cell phone. Oh, and there's a 'hand computer' as well, which has most of the rest of the cell phone's functions. Here's a funny one: The hand computer is tech level 11. Yes, starships come before hand computers. That didn't age well at all, did it?

Ooh, a psionic shield helmet. I wonder if it's primarily made of aluminum foil. It's expensive, at 4,000 Cr, but you can get it at tech level 8. Yes, a psionic shield helmet is available in places hand computers aren't. Man, they were definitely not on the cutting edge of technology when they wrote this.

Handcuffs and wristwatches round out the personal devices. I have to think that this list got updated in one of the future editions of the game, because this stuff was available by the late 80s (except the hand computer, which has been around for about twenty years now).

Next up are Vision Aids, including binoculars, IR goggles, light-intensifying goggles, torches, electric torches, gas or oil lamps, and a cold-light lantern. That would be an LED, most likely. Nothing unusual or exciting here.

Next up are Tools, most of which you could find in your local hardware store. Carpentry tools, metalwork tools, chainsaw, mechanical tools, electronic tools...Oh, there's a lock pick set and a disguise kit, which probably won't be found at the local hardware store. Again, there's nothing special here.

Since this page is already done, I'm going to add a bit more to my subsector here. Let's take a quick peek at the E-port at 0101, which has no charted jump routes even though it's right next to a D-port world. It's profile is E6285694, which means a 6000-mile diameter world (a bit smaller than Earth), a very thin, tainted atmosphere, 80% water, a low population of 100,000, a captive government, no weapons allowed whatsoever, and tech-level 4, or roughly equal to the early 20th-century, say World War I era.

So, who's running the show? It's a colony or a conquered world, but there's no jump route here. Maybe it's a forgotten colony? That works; it's a colony that was run by a political entity that doesn't exist any longer, but there are still some holdouts from that polity (or its sycophants) who run things here as they used to be. The population is held in virtual bondage, unable to use any weapons against their oppressive overlords.

Sounds like a place ripe for liberation, if PCs are interested in that sort of thing. I'm going to call it Dreyvan IV, just because. The reason for the name is lost to scholars, again, just because.

Next up, let's go down to its nearest neighbor at 0102. This world is called...Scartatile. I know, it's a weird name. I do that sometimes. Its profile is D4346693. Small world (Mars-sized), a very thin atmosphere, 40% water, population around 1,000,000, and another captive government that restricts all weapons. Interesting...

Okay, so Scartatile is part of the same ancient polity as Dreyvan IV. Like its neighbor to the north, it's a non-industrial world. But unlike Dreyvan IV, there's a jump route to a nearby world, a C-port. This jump route links to the hub of A-worlds in the middle, so this is going to be a part of that polity now. Which means that Scartatile was part of the ancient polity, but was conquered by the new guys on the block at some point. But why haven't they moved on to Dreyvan IV yet? Good question. Maybe because there's been some instability in the jump points in Dreyvan's system. Is that a thing in this game? It's about to be, anyway. Perhaps the Hub worlds are looking for a safe way to get to Dreyvan IV from Scartatile (the only world within a single hex).

But as for Scartatile itself, it's a conquered world. Maybe these people were exceptionally fierce fighters, and are now recruited as mercenaries. Possible PC origin world! Even with its very thin atmosphere, it's a decent little planet with a lot of land surface. The natives are slowly being assimilated into the Hub's society.

Okay, so that's a bit more on the Hub. Tune in next time when we look at more equipment and come up with a couple more worlds.

Album Review: Jesus Christ Superstar

I'm going to do a few reviews of the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera, in three different formats: The original concept album from 1970, the 1973 film, and the 2012 arena tour version. All are excellent in their own way, so I'll take them one at a time.

First, the album. Webber and Tim Rice wrote the music and lyrics for JCS in their early twenties; it was their second collaboration of importance (the first being Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). Unable to get backing to stage it, they instead recorded it as a concept album, getting Ian Gillan of Deep Purple to sing the lead role of Jesus, and Murray Head as Judas. Yvonne Elliman was tapped to sing the role of Mary Magdalene, a role she would later play on stage and in the 1973 movie.

The music is familiar to just about everyone; the famous intro to "Superstar" has been used for TV shows, for example, and anyone who hears the opening three notes can instantly complete the musical phrase. "I Don't Know How to Love Him" was the other single from the album, although it wasn't released until 1971 when Helen Reddy did her own version of it; both versions charted at the same time, which was a rare thing in those days.

This is a rock opera; the music is very much of its time, and yet a good chunk of the music is timeless. The repetitive riff of the opening number, "Heaven on their Minds", is a standout, as that riff just keeps going and going from the first measure until Judas is well into his soliloquy. And the riff is repeated later on during the "Trial Before Pilate", as Jesus is flogged by a Roman soldier keeping excellent time while Pilate counts off the thirty-nine lashes. The odd 5/4 rhythm of "Everything's Alright" sticks in your head for a while afterward, with Mary, Judas and Jesus playing off of each other in a scene that is tense even in music-only format.

But the standout song, and one of my candidates for Best Song Ever, is "Gethsemane". To be honest, though, I'm not a huge fan of Gillan's original version. The improvised high falsetto note that has become the song's signature moment is all Gillan, but the rest of the song just doesn't have the emotional impact that it should. Maybe I'm just missing something in his interpretation, but after he hits the high note, Jesus sounds completely dispassionate about what's about to happen. It's still a fantastic song, but I can see why Gillan's version wasn't ever released as a single despite the song's awesomeness. His version has the high note, but not a lot more than that.

I'm sure that any Deep Purple fans who read this will take me to task, but I'm tough enough to take it. It's music, it's subjective, and since this is my blog, my opinion is the one that matters.

The album is a bit shorter than the movie, which doesn't surprise me. However, the difference involves some quick cuts from song to song, as well as the removal of some non-musical scenes from the movie. One thing I noted was that a familiar line from the "Trial Before Pilate" doesn't actually appear in the original version. The songs "Then We Are Decided" and "Could We Start Again Please" aren't on the original album, either; they appeared in later versions.

Overall, I like the original album. Gillan does an excellent job, and he did set the standard for future performances (especially with "Gethsemane"). I'm not familiar with Murray Head's work outside of this, but he portrays Judas as a man torn by internal conflict and fears very well. Yvonne Elliman and Barry Dennen (Pilate) will appear in the film as well.