On 17 February 2016 at 13:33, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:

Don’t forget, the Vilani learned the very hardest way about exuberant exploration. Their prehistory was one of fighting gods who kept trying to destroy them and their “Apollo 11” brought back both proof of extra-Vilani technology and an engineered bioweapon that beat them back to the stone age.

Imagine if Neil, Mike and Buzz had brought back a virus with an incubation period a couple weeks longer than their quarantine. Even in 1969 they could have infected enough people in their New York parades to infect the entire world.

Bruce,

I think you're conflating the Vilani and Zhodani here.

The _Zhodani_ Apollo 11 kicked them back to the middle ages, technologically speaking.

The Vilani actually seem to have expanded into space quite quickly. The "technophile" Geonee and the Vilani developed jump drive at the same time (give or take 5 years), and immediately faced the same challenges of negotiating J2 gaps in stellar mains. Within 10 years, the Vilani are making contact with a minor race 20 jumps away from Vland (an expedition that would have taken, what, 2-4 years to get there and back? Columbus managed 3 expeditions of about 6 months each in his first 10 years.) Within 150 years, the Vilani had already surveyed Sylea (how long would that trip have taken at J1??), while the Geonee are making first minor race contact with the Llyrn, only 5 parsecs away (albeit over 2x J2 gaps). [Reference: Megatraveller Aliens 1, GURPS: Humaniti]

I tells ya, Vilani conservatism is a product of their megacorps, not of the Vilani themselves! The Vilani early explorers leave 16th century Europeans in the dust!

Cheers,

KenB

ps. Why is the Timeline no longer available at Don McKinney's site? Is it available elsewhere?