I've gotten way behind on my reading, mostly because of lack of
funds. But an online friend agreed to meet at Powells the other week
and I picked up the Vicky Peterwald trilogy (a spin-off of the Kris
Longknife books).

Anyway, there are problems aplenty in the Greenfield Empire. and the
emperor's daughter, Grand Duchess Victoria Peterwald is in the thick
of it, whether she wants to be or not.

Dear old Dad has remarried, and Vick'y stepmother is pregnant. and
doesn't want anything in the way of her child-to-be's line to the
throne. So Vicky has a price on her head.

Dear old Dad is very distracted by his new Empress, and her family is
grabbing power (and planets hand over fist.

Meanwhile, as Vicky discovers after deciding to leave Greenfield (the
planet) for "health reasons" (an assaination attempt got way too
close), winds up visting some "less important" planets on her way to
one she hopes to find safety on.

They are suffering from the results of the major shuffle in the
empire. Loans called in or too hard to get, few ships visting, lack
of necessary imports, etc. And are on a short route to a bad end.

In the second book, "Survivor", Vicky manages to get some folks
together to try to aid a couple of the planet (and more later, I'm
only half way thru that book).

What is going on on them is worse than we'd been led to believe, and
strikes me as a darn good model for how planets slipped into the
"Long Night" in Traveller.

Might work well for the post-Rebellion era in Traveller as well.

Anyway, the books are good reading, and in spite of *major* tech
differences from Traveller a lot of social/ciuultural stuff is easy
to swipe. Especially if you are running a game not set in oner of the
"official" Traveller universes.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com