Re: [Traveller_TNE] TNE: author of flavor text in "Path of Tears"?

 

I know we are blessed to have Dave N. and some other old GDW hands on this list, so perhaps one of you, or just anyone who knows the secret histories better than me, can answer this question:

Today I was over on a Facebook Traveller group, evangelizing for TNE, and I repeated my opinion that the flavor text (or box text, or interstitial, or whatever you choose to call it) in the opening pages of "Path of Tears" does a pretty good job of distilling the essentials of the Reformation Coalition into a few words and vivid images. 

So who wrote that flavor text? I had always assumed Dave Nilsen, but then again, I never asked until now...

Cheers,

Davis

Oh, and here it is, quoted for the people who can't remember a minor RPG book from a soon-to-be-defunct publishing house more than 20 years ago.   ;)

"After her re-fit. the old 'Brannamaar Victrix' was loaded with electronics and still had great legs, which made her a perfect deep penetration ship. She was crowded as hell, though, and our SAG team had to hot bunk it, even though there weren't many more than a dozen of us. 

Dum-Dum Stajner was our team leader. Dum-Dum got his name from his preference for certain types of small arms ammunition, not from any deficiency of his intellect. In the brains department, Dum-Dum was anything but, which is why the third day out from Aubaine he got pulled away to a skull session with the ship's captain over dinner. He'd messed with us  every night until then, so when everyone had pretty much finished eating, we all looked around for a second. Big Meg Enders was the one who said, "Bongo, I think you're Senior."

So I was. Between it being a small team and Dum-Dum away with the Navy, I was Senior at Table for the first time ever, which is no big deal except you have to offer the toast. In some services I've heard that the junior rank present offers the toast, but for us it's always been Senior. It's always the same toast; how many hundred times have I heard it? How many hundred dinners? So I stood up, cleared my throat, and started the toast.

'Brothers and sisters-- to..." And then I stopped, because all of a sudden I couldn't say anything around the knot in my throat. I couldn't see very well either. I'd seen others choke up giving the toast, but they were all old farts. Not like me. 

How the hell did I get here? How was I Senior at this table? Where were all the others? All the people who'd taught me, watched over me, helped me live this long? Some were still alive, still whole, but not enough of them. Not nearly enough. On over a dozen worlds I'd left behind friends and pieces of friends until it was my turn to stand up and give the toast, because there wasn't anybody else here who'd lasted this long. If you live long enough, I remembered someone saying, you lose everything.

I started again. "Brothers and sisters-- to absent friends.'"