Mike--
By the way, in my failed search over the weekend to find what kind of ship
Sandman was (I want to say Midu Agashaam, but would prefer to be accurate
than self-indulgent) I came across the 2004 COTI "Ask Dave." I saw that
"daryen" was one of the guys asking questions, and in looking at my reply,
was concerned that I had treated you brusquely. I am sorry for treating
you that way. Not as excuse, but explanation, there were four or five of
those, "why are you keeping this from us?" questions and they were wearing
me out. Also, all of those anonymous handles made it difficult to tell who
were the people who would push me into traffic if given the chance, and
who were the TNE fans.
Similarly, it is possible at that time that you were irritated with me,
from the POV that you had hoped to hear what I had in mind, then you heard
the "Dave swore us all to secrecy" thing, so were understandably miffed.
You probably saw my note a few weeks back saying, "by the way, that was
never true," but back in 2004 it was still to early and I was not going to
blow anyone's cover, and having to "take a hit for the team" would not
have improved my mood.
In looking over the document I was surprised by all that I laid out, some
of it I had completely forgotten that I had. Also surprised at how
forthcoming I was in the face of what I clearly perceived as a hostile,
anonymous audience, and which it to a considerable extent was (definitely
anonymous). At the time I didn't get someone's "Are you Aramis?" joke, but
I do now.
Anyway, if I did treat you roughly back then, you didn't let it get in the
way of getting along over here, and I appreciate that.
> The reason for the difference is that the "Caddocourt" one came from my
> iPad, and the "Mike West" one came from my desktop (like this one). And,
> yes, I am "daryen" on both Mongoose and CotI, though I have not frequented
> either board much recently.
>
>
>
> On the "wild Hivers", it was the discoverers (presumably humans) that
> would
> be in for the rude shock. I toyed with the idea of one survivor living
> long
> enough to discover their progeny and attempting a ridiculous manipulation
> from shear boredom, or having all of the survivors die off before hand,
> meaning the "wild Hivers" would completely develop on their own. Either
> way,
> they would be low-tech, self-sufficient, and *not* timid. Instead, they
> would be "civilized savages" that not only were not cowards, but actively
> engaged in conflict when deemed necessary.
>
>
>
> Or, just to be truly divergent, the long-lived survivor was an Ithklur
> guard, not a Hiver. So, this Ithklur intentionally taught his young
> charges
> the Ithklur culture, not the Hiver culture. He should be able to live long
> enough to train up a half-dozen or so batches of "wild Hivers" before he
> died somehow. (Preferably in some sacrificial way in order to further
> inspire his charges in the ways of combat!) They would be his legacy: a
> giant metaphorical middle finger back to the Hivers.
>
>
>
> I also figure that once the Hivers found about it, they would be on a
> single-minded mission to sterilize the world before the "wild Hivers" ever
> left the planet. They would be both horrified at how divergent the "wild
> Hivers" are from the norm and also fundamentally ashamed that any Hivers
> were successfully manipulated by their insane subjects. The humans would
> end
> up having to defend them from possible Hiver aggression. The Ithklur would
> probably laugh their butts off, if they ever found out about it. I could
> even see the Ithklur refusing to fight the "wild Hivers", as "wild Hivers"
> are still Hivers, and the Ithklur never fight the Hivers .
>
>
>
> It was/is a fun thought exercise, but it still takes a lot of more effort
> to
> pick the world, set up the timeline, fit it into the history, then write
> it
> all down. I do need to do it, though.
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
> From: []
> On Behalf Of
> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 12:38 AM
> To:
> Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] Dawn League naivete, or, sorry for all the
> posts but...
>
>
>
>
>
> Mike--
>
> Interesting. Even though both posts came from the same account
> (), the earlier one put the alias "Caddocourt" in the
> "From" column, but this most recent one put "Mike West."
>
> Ah, the secret lives of electrons.
>
> I assume that's you as daryen over on the Mongoose lists. I was trying to
> remember what kind of ship was Sandman in Vampire Fleets, and Googling it
> took me all over the place. Never did find out what type ship it was,
> either. Don't remember what you said, all those aliases blur together. I
> did recognize Gypsy Comet as Jim Kundert, though.
>
> I've read some reviews of RSB that slam me for the small point size. In
> terms of "pretty presentation" vs. "more information," I never see any
> contest. Do you buy books for information, or for some meaningless
> experience that is easy on your eyes? That's what I thought. I wasn't
> allowed to up the page count, so that's what I ended up doing. Ideally, we
> would have upped the page count and increased the price to cover it.
> Probably the ordering solicitations had already gone out so we were locked
> in at a guaranteed price.
>
> Thanks again for the RSB compliments, I truly appreciate them. You
> mentioned some of those before, and the reason you know that I am not
> scolding you for repeating yourself is because I am the God of Repeating
> Himself. Frank used to get on me sometimes that I was "too subtle." Odd
> that I could be both that and also have a writing style that torqued off
> so many people. I figure I'm about as subtle as a hammer, but it probably
> also depended on what voice I was trying to write in.
>
> I saw a review of RSB on Amazon that loved the poem in there about keeping
> the flame, said it was very evocative, and set the feel of the setting
> very well. Whenever I did stuff like that I felt some people might hate
> the departure from the traditional Traveller Joe Friday voice, but I also
> felt that we're trying to write about a future world with real people in
> it, and people in that world would do things like wrote poetry, so I gave
> it a try. I'm reminded of P.T. Barnum and how they extended that thought
> at MST3K: "We don't worry about who will get the joke, we know the right
> people will get the joke." I look at lots of stuff I did, from TNE to
> Phase Line Smash, and I see that there are lots of people who really "get
> it," and others who don't. Would I trade that for a product that would
> make 100% of people go, "meh?" Someone could make the point, and I would
> take it seriously, that if my writing in a different way could have made
> TNE more successful and saved GDW then I should have. Well, I'm not sure
> what that way is, in general one can only do what one can in the moment
> with the wits one has, and that's past changing anyway.
>
> I assume, for example, that part of the reason MJD was taken with TNE was
> the way it was written. Water several times over the dam, anyway.
>
> Also, I like the wild Hiver idea as well. One question, though: when you
> say, "when they were found a century later it was quite a shock," do you
> mean by other Hivers, or humans? Also, and I think this is what you were
> getting at, did the larvae grow up without adult Hivers to teach them
> Hiver culture, i.e., the adults died or went away and the larval Hivers
> evolved their own new Hiver society? If so, what did you have in mind?
>
>> Yes that was me. Depending on the forum or list, I am called either
>>
>> "daryen", "caddocourt", or "Mike West". I dunno how exactly that
>>
>> "caddocourt" gets in there, but, whatever.
>>
>>
>>
>> I worked with Martin on the 1248 stuff, particularly on the Spinward
>>
>> States. He even let me help direct what happened there. (No spoilers
>>
>> here.) It was pretty cool.
>>
>>
>>
>> In order to work on the Spinward States, I had to study the Regency
>>
>> Source Book thoroughly. The more I read it, the more impressed I
>>
>> became. Not only did you pack in the information (to the point where
>>
>> some pages had reduced font sizes to make it fit!), but you packed
>>
>> in a whole lot of stuff *between* the lines. That was impressive. I
>>
>> know I misread some of that "between the lines" stuff, but even so
>>
>> the fact that it was there to be read (or misread) was really
> impressive.
>>
>>
>>
>> My favorite "between the lines" was Norris and his personal life. It
>>
>> is explicitly stated that he "never found love", but, in fact, most
> definitely
>>
>> did! I am still trying to learn how to write things that well.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition, you set up a lot of loose threads that I had fun drawing
>>
>> out and expanding. In particular, I had fun taking the Kiskii incident
>>
>> and turning that ultimate tragedy into a long term benefit for the
> Regency.
>>
>> Trin did not die in vain!
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for making a book that I had to read over and over worth
>>
>> the effort to do so.
>>
>>
>>
>> Mike West
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From:
> []
>> On Behalf Of
>> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 5:38 PM
>> To:
>> Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Dawn League naivete, or, sorry for all the
> posts but...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Caddocourt--
>>
>> (I'm doing really well on the whole, "that's the last of me for today"
> thing.)
>>
>> I apologize, but it's hard for me to keep names straight over the long
> periods of time on this list with e-mail addresses that don't
> necessarily
>> show them (mine doesn't either). Are you they guy who threw himself in
> front of me saying, "Dave don't listen, you don't want to hear this"?
> That
>> was very considerate of you, and I recall it fondly.
>>
>>> "I have always wanted to finish them and put them out there, but just
>> never got the chance."
>>
>> I would say, "my former life in a nutshell," but that would be
> incomplete.
>> To make it complete, I have to add, "my ex-wife remarried and they live
> across the street from Marc Miller." THAT completes my former life in a
> nutshell.
>>
>> And speaking of, "just never got the chance" if I were as smart as I
> like
>> to believe I am, after all this time I would admit that none of that TNE
> stuff is ever going to happen, erase those brain cells, and use them for
> something else. I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm just too fond of
> all of the little unwritten stories.
>>
>>> Back when I did the Spinward States sourcebook for 1248, I had
>> desperately
>>> want to make an otherwise barren garden world the surprise home of some
>> mutant Hivers. They would have been the result of the crash of a wide
> ranging Embassy ship that got stranded by the Civil War. The survivors,
> not understanding either the ecology of the world they were on or the
> interstellar situation just waited for rescue. By the time reality set
> in,
>>> they were already doomed, but they had already made lots of
>> 'handshaking'.
>>> With no (or not effective enough) predators on the world, the 'babies'
>> went on to run wild. The survivors never knew what they had unleashed.
>>> And when these 'wild Hivers' we're found over a century later, it was
>> quit
>>> he shock.
>>> Unfortunately, I just couldn't get them to fit in, so left them out. I
>> have always wanted to finish them and put them out there, but just never
> got the chance.
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> On Mar 23, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Master Uxi <> wrote:
> I did have an idea for a colony of Hivers that were evangelized and
> formed human style nuclear-esque families near Turin.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
By the way, in my failed search over the weekend to find what kind of ship
Sandman was (I want to say Midu Agashaam, but would prefer to be accurate
than self-indulgent) I came across the 2004 COTI "Ask Dave." I saw that
"daryen" was one of the guys asking questions, and in looking at my reply,
was concerned that I had treated you brusquely. I am sorry for treating
you that way. Not as excuse, but explanation, there were four or five of
those, "why are you keeping this from us?" questions and they were wearing
me out. Also, all of those anonymous handles made it difficult to tell who
were the people who would push me into traffic if given the chance, and
who were the TNE fans.
Similarly, it is possible at that time that you were irritated with me,
from the POV that you had hoped to hear what I had in mind, then you heard
the "Dave swore us all to secrecy" thing, so were understandably miffed.
You probably saw my note a few weeks back saying, "by the way, that was
never true," but back in 2004 it was still to early and I was not going to
blow anyone's cover, and having to "take a hit for the team" would not
have improved my mood.
In looking over the document I was surprised by all that I laid out, some
of it I had completely forgotten that I had. Also surprised at how
forthcoming I was in the face of what I clearly perceived as a hostile,
anonymous audience, and which it to a considerable extent was (definitely
anonymous). At the time I didn't get someone's "Are you Aramis?" joke, but
I do now.
Anyway, if I did treat you roughly back then, you didn't let it get in the
way of getting along over here, and I appreciate that.
> The reason for the difference is that the "Caddocourt" one came from my
> iPad, and the "Mike West" one came from my desktop (like this one). And,
> yes, I am "daryen" on both Mongoose and CotI, though I have not frequented
> either board much recently.
>
>
>
> On the "wild Hivers", it was the discoverers (presumably humans) that
> would
> be in for the rude shock. I toyed with the idea of one survivor living
> long
> enough to discover their progeny and attempting a ridiculous manipulation
> from shear boredom, or having all of the survivors die off before hand,
> meaning the "wild Hivers" would completely develop on their own. Either
> way,
> they would be low-tech, self-sufficient, and *not* timid. Instead, they
> would be "civilized savages" that not only were not cowards, but actively
> engaged in conflict when deemed necessary.
>
>
>
> Or, just to be truly divergent, the long-lived survivor was an Ithklur
> guard, not a Hiver. So, this Ithklur intentionally taught his young
> charges
> the Ithklur culture, not the Hiver culture. He should be able to live long
> enough to train up a half-dozen or so batches of "wild Hivers" before he
> died somehow. (Preferably in some sacrificial way in order to further
> inspire his charges in the ways of combat!) They would be his legacy: a
> giant metaphorical middle finger back to the Hivers.
>
>
>
> I also figure that once the Hivers found about it, they would be on a
> single-minded mission to sterilize the world before the "wild Hivers" ever
> left the planet. They would be both horrified at how divergent the "wild
> Hivers" are from the norm and also fundamentally ashamed that any Hivers
> were successfully manipulated by their insane subjects. The humans would
> end
> up having to defend them from possible Hiver aggression. The Ithklur would
> probably laugh their butts off, if they ever found out about it. I could
> even see the Ithklur refusing to fight the "wild Hivers", as "wild Hivers"
> are still Hivers, and the Ithklur never fight the Hivers .
>
>
>
> It was/is a fun thought exercise, but it still takes a lot of more effort
> to
> pick the world, set up the timeline, fit it into the history, then write
> it
> all down. I do need to do it, though.
>
>
>
> Mike West
>
>
>
>
>
> From: []
> On Behalf Of
> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 12:38 AM
> To:
> Subject: RE: [Traveller_TNE] Dawn League naivete, or, sorry for all the
> posts but...
>
>
>
>
>
> Mike--
>
> Interesting. Even though both posts came from the same account
> (), the earlier one put the alias "Caddocourt" in the
> "From" column, but this most recent one put "Mike West."
>
> Ah, the secret lives of electrons.
>
> I assume that's you as daryen over on the Mongoose lists. I was trying to
> remember what kind of ship was Sandman in Vampire Fleets, and Googling it
> took me all over the place. Never did find out what type ship it was,
> either. Don't remember what you said, all those aliases blur together. I
> did recognize Gypsy Comet as Jim Kundert, though.
>
> I've read some reviews of RSB that slam me for the small point size. In
> terms of "pretty presentation" vs. "more information," I never see any
> contest. Do you buy books for information, or for some meaningless
> experience that is easy on your eyes? That's what I thought. I wasn't
> allowed to up the page count, so that's what I ended up doing. Ideally, we
> would have upped the page count and increased the price to cover it.
> Probably the ordering solicitations had already gone out so we were locked
> in at a guaranteed price.
>
> Thanks again for the RSB compliments, I truly appreciate them. You
> mentioned some of those before, and the reason you know that I am not
> scolding you for repeating yourself is because I am the God of Repeating
> Himself. Frank used to get on me sometimes that I was "too subtle." Odd
> that I could be both that and also have a writing style that torqued off
> so many people. I figure I'm about as subtle as a hammer, but it probably
> also depended on what voice I was trying to write in.
>
> I saw a review of RSB on Amazon that loved the poem in there about keeping
> the flame, said it was very evocative, and set the feel of the setting
> very well. Whenever I did stuff like that I felt some people might hate
> the departure from the traditional Traveller Joe Friday voice, but I also
> felt that we're trying to write about a future world with real people in
> it, and people in that world would do things like wrote poetry, so I gave
> it a try. I'm reminded of P.T. Barnum and how they extended that thought
> at MST3K: "We don't worry about who will get the joke, we know the right
> people will get the joke." I look at lots of stuff I did, from TNE to
> Phase Line Smash, and I see that there are lots of people who really "get
> it," and others who don't. Would I trade that for a product that would
> make 100% of people go, "meh?" Someone could make the point, and I would
> take it seriously, that if my writing in a different way could have made
> TNE more successful and saved GDW then I should have. Well, I'm not sure
> what that way is, in general one can only do what one can in the moment
> with the wits one has, and that's past changing anyway.
>
> I assume, for example, that part of the reason MJD was taken with TNE was
> the way it was written. Water several times over the dam, anyway.
>
> Also, I like the wild Hiver idea as well. One question, though: when you
> say, "when they were found a century later it was quite a shock," do you
> mean by other Hivers, or humans? Also, and I think this is what you were
> getting at, did the larvae grow up without adult Hivers to teach them
> Hiver culture, i.e., the adults died or went away and the larval Hivers
> evolved their own new Hiver society? If so, what did you have in mind?
>
>> Yes that was me. Depending on the forum or list, I am called either
>>
>> "daryen", "caddocourt", or "Mike West". I dunno how exactly that
>>
>> "caddocourt" gets in there, but, whatever.
>>
>>
>>
>> I worked with Martin on the 1248 stuff, particularly on the Spinward
>>
>> States. He even let me help direct what happened there. (No spoilers
>>
>> here.) It was pretty cool.
>>
>>
>>
>> In order to work on the Spinward States, I had to study the Regency
>>
>> Source Book thoroughly. The more I read it, the more impressed I
>>
>> became. Not only did you pack in the information (to the point where
>>
>> some pages had reduced font sizes to make it fit!), but you packed
>>
>> in a whole lot of stuff *between* the lines. That was impressive. I
>>
>> know I misread some of that "between the lines" stuff, but even so
>>
>> the fact that it was there to be read (or misread) was really
> impressive.
>>
>>
>>
>> My favorite "between the lines" was Norris and his personal life. It
>>
>> is explicitly stated that he "never found love", but, in fact, most
> definitely
>>
>> did! I am still trying to learn how to write things that well.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition, you set up a lot of loose threads that I had fun drawing
>>
>> out and expanding. In particular, I had fun taking the Kiskii incident
>>
>> and turning that ultimate tragedy into a long term benefit for the
> Regency.
>>
>> Trin did not die in vain!
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for making a book that I had to read over and over worth
>>
>> the effort to do so.
>>
>>
>>
>> Mike West
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From:
> []
>> On Behalf Of
>> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 5:38 PM
>> To:
>> Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Dawn League naivete, or, sorry for all the
> posts but...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Caddocourt--
>>
>> (I'm doing really well on the whole, "that's the last of me for today"
> thing.)
>>
>> I apologize, but it's hard for me to keep names straight over the long
> periods of time on this list with e-mail addresses that don't
> necessarily
>> show them (mine doesn't either). Are you they guy who threw himself in
> front of me saying, "Dave don't listen, you don't want to hear this"?
> That
>> was very considerate of you, and I recall it fondly.
>>
>>> "I have always wanted to finish them and put them out there, but just
>> never got the chance."
>>
>> I would say, "my former life in a nutshell," but that would be
> incomplete.
>> To make it complete, I have to add, "my ex-wife remarried and they live
> across the street from Marc Miller." THAT completes my former life in a
> nutshell.
>>
>> And speaking of, "just never got the chance" if I were as smart as I
> like
>> to believe I am, after all this time I would admit that none of that TNE
> stuff is ever going to happen, erase those brain cells, and use them for
> something else. I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm just too fond of
> all of the little unwritten stories.
>>
>>> Back when I did the Spinward States sourcebook for 1248, I had
>> desperately
>>> want to make an otherwise barren garden world the surprise home of some
>> mutant Hivers. They would have been the result of the crash of a wide
> ranging Embassy ship that got stranded by the Civil War. The survivors,
> not understanding either the ecology of the world they were on or the
> interstellar situation just waited for rescue. By the time reality set
> in,
>>> they were already doomed, but they had already made lots of
>> 'handshaking'.
>>> With no (or not effective enough) predators on the world, the 'babies'
>> went on to run wild. The survivors never knew what they had unleashed.
>>> And when these 'wild Hivers' we're found over a century later, it was
>> quit
>>> he shock.
>>> Unfortunately, I just couldn't get them to fit in, so left them out. I
>> have always wanted to finish them and put them out there, but just never
> got the chance.
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> On Mar 23, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Master Uxi <> wrote:
> I did have an idea for a colony of Hivers that were evangelized and
> formed human style nuclear-esque families near Turin.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>