Re: [OFFICIAL] Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers) - LONG POST!

At 11:55 11/02/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Me too. (Although I don't play Traveller...) Courier vessels make the
>game more interesting strategically, and, as another poster pointed
out,
>give that proper 'High Colonial' feel to the game. 
>(This "High Colonial"/Napoleonic feel is more or less your inspriation
for
>the 'offical' GZG background, isn't it, Jon? British Empire & German
>allies vs nasty French, only the Russians have changed sides...)
>
>One idea I kind of like is the idea of FTL comms being possible, but
>hugely power-intensive, to the extent that only large, dedicated
stations
>can mount FTL comms, therefore only larger or vital colonies have the
>things - the rest of the colonies and all fleets make do with couriers,
>probably following some sort of semi-regular scheduale - interstellar
>postman, anyone?
The problem I have with that is that this sort of campaign by definition
requires FTL travel and I never really liked the idea (even back when I
played 1st edition traveller) that a culture could somehow develop FTL
travel without developing FTL comms. It's like having invented a
teleporter
but yet not invented a Fax machine or radio.

I can cope with the idea that FTL comms requires a huge power output and
then you get these comms 'nexi' - which then of course make nice
strategic
targets - but then you would have to say that FTL travel would also
require
a massive power output, in which case you shouldn't be able to jump in
your
corvette, unless we persume corvette's are actually quite large and
Dreadnoughts and absolutely bloody enormous.

			TTFN
				Jon
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