It always "felt" very much like the classic Traveller campaign to me, the
"ethically challenged merchant crew" going from world to world, picking up
whatever shady jobs they could find, having problems paying the bills. The
really big "feel" connection is the slug-throwers instead of ray guns.
That was one of the most salient "WTF?"s Traveller always got hit with,
and Firefly embraced that fully, with Jayne's armory looking like any
weapons list from CT, and Vera playing the role of the LAG.
That proves nothing, it's just what my gut tells me. The other SF games of
the era were much more stylized, with Traveller being the flagship generic
background. Nor would any of that prove that Whedon owed Marc money, as CT
lifted all that stuff from Tubb, Anderson, Piper, Asimov, etc., Whedon
could claim a direct lift without laundering it through Traveller.
All of the rest of the stuff, background, government, stellar map would
depend entirely on the ref who was running your campaign, as the grognards
well know. A lot of the "non-Traveller"-isms sort of emerged slowly. It
took a few episodes to realize that going to "hard burn" or whatever was
not jump drive, that they were not going through hyperspace, etc.,
although the long passage times between worlds is equivalent to the week
in J-space. It's a story-telling distinction without a difference, the
sort of "filing off the serial numbers" anyone in Joss's position would
have to do. The FTL commo, when it first became clear, was something of a
difference, although it also lagged so that the crew could try to stay
ahead of the news. So that's another DwoD although just as easily draws
from Star Trek's waiting on subspace responses.
All of the clarity about the multiple planetary systems around the
clustered stars only emerged gradually, and until it was laid out you
could be forgiven for not assuming it, given all of the non-realistic
tropes loose in SF generally. And of course that's all the rage now, they
supposedly established that in the BSG reboot as well. I'm not convinced
you'll get that much long-term stability with that much complex gravity
interaction, but whatever: who knows yet, not up to me, it doesn't matter,
it's a story-telling convention which is all that matters.
> The only "parallel" I can see is that it revolves around the crew of a
merchant ship that is trying to eke out a living in space - this is
hardly
> a concept that is unique to Traveller though (and isn't really a central
point of Traveller either since you could just as well be running a
Scout
> campaign or a Mercenary/Military campaign). The idea that the characters
may have had a past history of doing different careers is also not
unique
> to Traveller.
>
> Otherwise, the setting and the tech and the politics are totally
> different. The varying tech levels between the Frontier and Core worlds
could easily be a parallel to the more 'civilised39; towns that were
around
> in the civil war era vs the ones out in the frontier (and while the TLs
of worlds in Traveller varies, they don't do so with any consistency -
it's fairly likely that you'd find high tech frontier worlds and low
tech
> core worlds).
>
"ethically challenged merchant crew" going from world to world, picking up
whatever shady jobs they could find, having problems paying the bills. The
really big "feel" connection is the slug-throwers instead of ray guns.
That was one of the most salient "WTF?"s Traveller always got hit with,
and Firefly embraced that fully, with Jayne's armory looking like any
weapons list from CT, and Vera playing the role of the LAG.
That proves nothing, it's just what my gut tells me. The other SF games of
the era were much more stylized, with Traveller being the flagship generic
background. Nor would any of that prove that Whedon owed Marc money, as CT
lifted all that stuff from Tubb, Anderson, Piper, Asimov, etc., Whedon
could claim a direct lift without laundering it through Traveller.
All of the rest of the stuff, background, government, stellar map would
depend entirely on the ref who was running your campaign, as the grognards
well know. A lot of the "non-Traveller"-isms sort of emerged slowly. It
took a few episodes to realize that going to "hard burn" or whatever was
not jump drive, that they were not going through hyperspace, etc.,
although the long passage times between worlds is equivalent to the week
in J-space. It's a story-telling distinction without a difference, the
sort of "filing off the serial numbers" anyone in Joss's position would
have to do. The FTL commo, when it first became clear, was something of a
difference, although it also lagged so that the crew could try to stay
ahead of the news. So that's another DwoD although just as easily draws
from Star Trek's waiting on subspace responses.
All of the clarity about the multiple planetary systems around the
clustered stars only emerged gradually, and until it was laid out you
could be forgiven for not assuming it, given all of the non-realistic
tropes loose in SF generally. And of course that's all the rage now, they
supposedly established that in the BSG reboot as well. I'm not convinced
you'll get that much long-term stability with that much complex gravity
interaction, but whatever: who knows yet, not up to me, it doesn't matter,
it's a story-telling convention which is all that matters.
> The only "parallel" I can see is that it revolves around the crew of a
merchant ship that is trying to eke out a living in space - this is
hardly
> a concept that is unique to Traveller though (and isn't really a central
point of Traveller either since you could just as well be running a
Scout
> campaign or a Mercenary/Military campaign). The idea that the characters
may have had a past history of doing different careers is also not
unique
> to Traveller.
>
> Otherwise, the setting and the tech and the politics are totally
> different. The varying tech levels between the Frontier and Core worlds
could easily be a parallel to the more 'civilised39; towns that were
around
> in the civil war era vs the ones out in the frontier (and while the TLs
of worlds in Traveller varies, they don't do so with any consistency -
it's fairly likely that you'd find high tech frontier worlds and low
tech
> core worlds).
>