Spinward Traveller (T.V. Pilot) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/d20e/spinward-traveller-tv-pilot Spinward Traveller is based on the award winning role-playing game. Launch your imagination into the Traveller universe at Jump 6.
View on www.kickstarter.com https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/d20e/spinward-traveller-tv-pilot
Preview by Yahoo
So instead of focusing on gaming stuff he is devoting time/engergy to this?
Yeah, I saw this about 2 months ago and thought it was so awful I ignored
it in hopes it would go away.
--
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for
it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their
kids pay for it."
Not only that, I still have not received some of the items invoiced
particularly four t-shirts and a correct nobility card that were
invoiced nearly a year ago by MM. I have emailed him several times
with no joy.
It seems that MM believes that a Viscount nobility rank is worth the
price of four t-shirts and postage. A shame for my wife and kids who
were looking forward to their sci-fi t-shirts. Not to mention a T5
game book that I can actually use to play the game not just as a GM
toolbox.So I have given up on T5 as a viable gaming system.
I certainly will not be asking for any more invoices from MM or Far
future Frontiers or whatever.
I have also given up on COTI due to the bullying that I witnessed by
some of the higher ups of various members.
Hmmmm.
-Craige Cook
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Cc:
Sent:15 Jul 2014 13:11:33 -0700
Subject:[Traveller_TNE] Anyone
See on Kickstarter what they are trying to do. Man,if I didn't think
Marc was trying for evety doller beore now I do
Spinward Traveller (T.V. Pilot) [1]
[2]
Spinward Traveller (T.V. Pilot) [3] Spinward Traveller is
based on the award winning role-playing game. Launch your imagination
into the Traveller universe at Jump 6.
View on www.kickstarter.com [4]
Preview by Yahoo
So instead of focusing on gaming stuff he is devoting time/engergy to
this?
I really wish people would stop claiming that Firefly is based on Traveller. It's not a "fact", it's wishful thinking based on circumstantial evidence.
I never said fact. If you read and hear what Joss has said he hints very
strongly that it is based on it. He never comes right out and says it for
obvios reasons but he hints at it a number of times.
Wherever you go there you are-Buckaroo Banzai
We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to
visit violence on those who would do us harm. (Winston Churchill)
When in doubt I think of the immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I
just drank what?"
On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 4:42 PM,
[Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
>
> I really wish people would stop claiming that Firefly is based on
> Traveller. It's not a "fact", it's wishful thinking based on circumstantial
> evidence.
>
>
You said "Joss Weldon has skirted around the fact that Firefly is based on Traveller."
The "fact" is that he supposedly stated in an online interview that has (conveniently) long since been taken down that Firefly was influenced by a roleplaying game he played in university. People then took that and made a lot of deductions and claimed that he clearly played Traveller, and so Firefly was based on Traveller. He hasn't "strongly hinted" about it since or indeed said anything about it at all.
Never mind the fact that hardly anything in the show resembles Traveller, and that he's officially stated that the main influence for it was a book about the US Civil War:
"Whedon developed the concept for the show after reading The Killer Angels, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Shaara chronicling the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. He wanted to follow people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards as pioneers and immigrants on the outskirts of civilization, much like the post-American Civil War era of Reconstruction and the American Old West culture.[26] He intended the show to be "a Stagecoach kind of drama with a lot of people trying to figure out their lives in a bleak pioneer environment".[27] Whedon wanted to develop a show about the tactile nature of life, a show where existence was more physical and more difficult.[11] After reading The Killer Angels, Whedon read a book about Jewish partisan fighters in World War II that also influenced him.[26] Whedon wanted to create something for television that was more character-driven and gritty than most modern science fiction. Television science fiction, he felt, had become too pristine and rarefied.[28]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)#Origin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)#Origin
---In , <captnchuck67@...> wrote :
I never said fact. If you read and hear what Joss has said he hints very strongly that it is based on it. He never comes right out and says it for obvios reasons but he hints at it a number of times.
Wherever you go there you are-Buckaroo Banzai
We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. (Winston Churchill)
When in doubt I think of the immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"
On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 4:42 PM, evil_dr_ganymede@... evil_dr_ganymede@... [Traveller_TNE] < > wrote:
I really wish people would stop claiming that Firefly is based on Traveller. It's not a "fact", it's wishful thinking based on circumstantial evidence.
Keep in mind that what you are seeing is what people put together with zero budget. Hopefully with more money for f/x and time to develop green screen sets and whatnot the final result will be "Traveller-worthy", not cringe worthy.
Truthfully what I'd love to see, but I don't know that anyone wants to go there, are a series of Traveller graphic novels. Something along the lines of what is being done with "Firefly" would be fantastic as well (short run comic books that are later turned into bound volumes).
Unfortunately Traveller has always suffered from inconsistent art (with aliens being drawn in multiple styles even within the same publication).
Anyway, if anyone knows a illustrator willing to work for not a whole lot starting out, there's your next kickstarter.
==============================
I would think that a good graphic novel would be the best route. There are so many cool adventures already published that could serve as a basis for a novel that you wouldn't need to dig very deeply. It would be SO much easier to create a professional product than with a movie.
The 'Verse isn't anything like Traveller universe, in that it appears to be some sort of multiple star system with multiple habitable planets. FTL is fuzzy on details--if in fact it actually happens and isn't just intersystem travel (again, Firefly is vague on the details...), as it is implied. FTL communications however appears to be a real thing, unlike Traveller, and terraforming seems to be something that the Alliance can do with relative ease, whereas in Traveller it takes many years and can go horribly wrong, even when the Ancients do it.
Objectively speaking however, there are too many parallels between Traveller and Firefly for Traveller not to have been an influence (heck I can essentially lift the plot of a Firefly episode and use it in Traveller with minimal effort). This is not to say that Joss owes Marc money, not even close. There are clearly enough unique elements in Firefly that is a clearly something new.
Actually the 'verse is pretty well structured and well defined.
It's a single star system with multiple helioformed and terraformed worlds.
There is no FTL flight but FTL coms appear to be a real thing, mind you who
wants to watch a movie where Capt. Tightpants yells at a screen then walks
away saying to Wash, "Lemme know what they say when the reply comes back in
3 hours okay?"
I had the impression from the TV show that the worlds were in different
systems light years apart like most sci-fi fare. When you watch Serenity it
becomes very apparent that this is not the case and all the worlds are
confined to a single mega star system.
I'm uncertain how the Terraforming works, there's evidence in some of the
expanded universe stuff that they tried on Venus and Mars but were
marginally successful but the efforts failed in the end. By the time they
reached the 'verse a few hundred years later they'd largely figured it out
on paper and despite a number of failed attempts they managed to get things
working. Somehow they're compressing the gas giants and igniting them and
compressing the planets to give them a surface gravity of 1 regardless of
their diameter. This is never really explained and lets face it do you care
how a jump drive works or are you happy it does and willing to leave the
wibblie wobblie timie whimie stuff alone?
While there is a strong possibility that Traveller and Firefly have some
kind of relationship it's like saying Star Wars and Traveller are related.
From: []
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2014 8:10 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Anyone
The 'Verse isn't anything like Traveller universe, in that it appears to be
some sort of multiple star system with multiple habitable planets. FTL is
fuzzy on details--if in fact it actually happens and isn't just intersystem
travel (again, Firefly is vague on the details...), as it is implied. FTL
communications however appears to be a real thing, unlike Traveller, and
terraforming seems to be something that the Alliance can do with relative
ease, whereas in Traveller it takes many years and can go horribly wrong,
even when the Ancients do it.
Objectively speaking however, there are too many parallels between Traveller
and Firefly for Traveller not to have been an influence (heck I can
essentially lift the plot of a Firefly episode and use it in Traveller with
minimal effort). This is not to say that Joss owes Marc money, not even
close. There are clearly enough unique elements in Firefly that is a clearly
something new.
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).
The idea of Traveller actually owes more to the classic sci-fi novels of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s (the things that Marc, Loren, and Frank grew up reading and read as young adults) than anything else. As for 'Star Wars', Lucas admits to being heavily influenced by the Science-Fiction and Western movie shorts that ran in serial form (new episode on a regular basis) in the 1930s through the 1950s.
However, in the back of '76 Patrons' you will find Traveller versions of
Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from the 'Star Wars' movie. Personally speaking, I had a player who is a good friend who insisted on running some sort of variation of Han Solo as a character in every single Traveller campaign for a period of years...until he discovered Horatio Hornblower of course...
"...until he discovered Horatio Hornblower of course..."
LOL
or in today's SciFi it might be Weber's Honor Harrington - who in one story was found reading Horatio Hornblower and finding it a good read.
On Monday, July 21, 2014 10:49 AM, "Harold Hale [Traveller_TNE]" <> wrote:
>
>
>
>The idea of Traveller actually owes more to the classic sci-fi novels of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s (the things that Marc, Loren, and Frank grew up reading and read as young adults) than anything else. As for 'Star Wars', Lucas admits to being heavily influenced by the Science-Fiction and Western movie shorts that ran in serial form (new episode on a regular basis) in the 1930s through the 1950s.
>
>However, in the back of '76 Patrons' you will find Traveller versions of
Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from the 'Star Wars' movie. Personally speaking, I had a player who is a good friend who insisted on running some sort of variation of Han Solo as a character in every single Traveller campaign for a period of years...until he discovered Horatio Hornblower of course...
>
>
>
>
>
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).
>
Speaking of 76 Patrons, on the occasion of James Garner's death, Loren and
John Harshman took many of the 76 Patrons scenarios from Rockford Files
episodes.
> The idea of Traveller actually owes more to the classic sci-fi novels of
> the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s (the things that Marc, Loren, and Frank
> grew up reading and read as young adults) than anything else. As for
> 'Star Wars', Lucas admits to being heavily influenced by the
> Science-Fiction and Western movie shorts that ran in serial form (new
> episode on a regular basis) in the 1930s through the 1950s.
>
> However, in the back of '76 Patrons' you will find Traveller versions of
> Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from the 'Star Wars' movie. Personally
> speaking, I had a player who is a good friend who insisted on running some
> sort of variation of Han Solo as a character in every single Traveller
> campaign for a period of years...until he discovered Horatio Hornblower of
> course...