On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 02:56:50PM -0800, C. Berry wrote:
>    Oh, of course you can do whatever you want IYTU; that's a given. I
>    figure the TML is (more) about sticking close(r) to canon and trying to
>    make sense of the results.
>    It is very definitely the case that if you let entirely plausible
>    automation and AI into the TU, it stops being the TU very quickly. You
>    almost need to posit something like the Butlerian Jihad from Dune to
>    make sense of it. But then you run up against several problems with
>    *that* model, and despair follows. :P Basically, you have to eliminate
>    most AI and automation by fiat, and then put an ill-fitting fig leaf
>    over the resulting oddities in the background.
>

I would agree in general regarding the TML with exceptions. In some
cases canon so completely missed the mark that its almost impossible
to follow. Computers, AI, and automation of society in general tends
to be the biggest one. I can see some people being happy working in
the somewhat Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers mechanical universe that Canon
traveller describes, but I wouldn't be surprised if most people don't
modify Canon in this area when they run a real campaign.

Regarding Dune, one of the realities of writing Science Fiction is
that world is constantly changing under your feet. That's not
new. Niven wrote about having to change the settings in Known Space
constantly during the 1960s and 1970s as NASA probes discovered more
and more truths about setting that he used in his short stories. He
was also affected by the economy of CPU cycle availability when
students as some college (Stanford?) were able to do computer analysis
of Ringworld. More to the point though, you can see it to this
day. Niven and Lerner's "...Worlds" series is set in Louis Wu's known
space and you can almost see things being retconned as you read it.

I'm lucky, I'm not running a traveller campaign right now. But as a
computer scientist, I'd be adding a lot of flesh to CT Book 8 if I
were.

--
Chris

      __o          "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
    _`\<,_           -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)____.___o____..___..o...________ooO..._____________________
Christopher Sean Hilton                    [chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]