And now for something completely different or more on Fermi's Universe

I haven't posted a lot of stuff about the Tiber-Beltain Referendum (TBR) before this for two reasons. The main one is a mistake I have repeatedly made in the past which is getting caught up in doing stuff the GM needs (more truthfully might want) to know rather than what is needed to actually allow a group to play. The second is I don't want a set of house rules longer than the Cepheus Engine (CE) itself so I want to go through the rules as presented and create from that base as much as possible. The Colonist career presented a problem for me as I disliked the skill choices because I didn't see how they represented what I thought a government would train colonists for. However to present what I think they would be trained for I need to flesh out the government in question so I can create the Colonial Administration (TBRCA). I am a little apprehensive because the internet seems to bring out the easily offended and exaggeratedly combative in people and creating a government is in effect talking politics. This is not my ideal government to live under nor is it meant to represent any current or past government, I am presenting a government to allow the widest possible interpretation for GMs and players that is it.

So far what little I have presented can be summarized as a classic empire as defined by Google, "an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority". This is modified in that the empire, the TBR, has no say in internal world affairs and complete control of interstellar ones. In game this is primarily represented by the fixed prices for passages and freight and the ban on worlds having jump capable military or paramilitary ships. I decided while looking at the Aerospace Defense career that the three planetary military forces do not count as TBR forces which also means that the Scouts and Marines will only be TBR careers. I like this dynamic in that to invade a planet you have to get worlds to lend you their armies but the army has to travel on TBR ships. This helps represent a very tense relationship that I envision typifies the TBR. However this presents a glaring problem namely jurisdiction for crimes. Worlds want no interference from the TBR but also have no way of going after a criminal who flees their system. Worlds can make specific diplomatic requests but it is haphazard at best and with no centralized coordination escaping the system means no one is actively looking for you. What they can not do is sign extradition treaties as the TBR forbids interstellar treaties except those it creates. I am not a huge fan of this idea but it makes sense in the context of the TBR and does leave open all kinds of scenarios depending on the GM and players desires. Further thought also makes me like my idea that everyone has a noble to complain to. I didn't really have a firm idea what they would be doing but this gives a probably reoccurring task for nobles to deal with. Nobles owe their titles (and allegiance supposedly) to the TBR even though they represent the population of one world. So Calvin of New Earth (planet Bob) gets robbed but the crook flees the system. He complains to Sir Loin (of Bob) who takes it to the subsector peer council and convinces them to declare the crime as one against the TBR so jurisdiction is no longer an issue. World governments wouldn't like the TBR asserting authority but would like someone else to do the work and pay for it and the TBR would prefer not to get bogged down in every petty (or not so petty) crime however this does justify their existence to the average person.

Okay I will stop there as I probably got more involved than I needed too. The TBR is a relatively weak central government whose member worlds view it with suspicion. This will impact the TBRCA because the member worlds would be unhappy about creating new members inherently loyal to the TBR or at least more loyal to it. On the other hand it doesn't explain why the TBR would have a service dedicated to colonization. Why does the TBR want colonies? My idea behind the TBR is the behind the curtain power is the rich leading to the weak decentralized government and limited opportunities for worlds to cooperate. So colonies are primarily a way for them to get richer however economic enslavement of a captive market isn't going to be wildly profitable so the goal is to get colonies up to the point of self sufficiency quickly so people have a disposable income. So the TBRCA has a goal of getting a colony to population 5 and a tech level of 4 for habitable environments or 7 for hostile ones. When those goals are met all TBR assistance above what any member gets ceases. Having the goal in mind I can now look at the career and propose changes. The generation table doesn't need any as I am good with those values, the base skill and rank titles. The mustering out table I am thinking of replacing one middle passage with +1 education (EDU) and the high passage with an additional weapon to show a reluctance to let citizens leave although as I am also proposing this doesn't represent a reward for service but instead winnings from a game show I don't know if I will change anything. The cash table doesn't need anything changed that I can see.

I am good with the majority of the personal development table excepting only the lack of an EDU boost so I will replace the Gun Combat with that. My thinking here is to me EDU represents all the things not represented by a specific skill and for a small group to be successful they need as wide a knowledge base as possible so the TBRCA provides a lot of formal education. Athletics is fine because again I can see the TBRCA emphasizing physical fitness to quickly grow the population. The service skills need careful consideration as the overwhelming majority of colonists will know all these skills well enough to at least have no penalty. I am thinking Survival, Gun Combat, Melee Combat, Carousing, Animals and Vehicle. The first three seem to me to be the most basic things you would teach to people going some place with no infrastructure to speak of. I added Melee Combat because not needing ammo to defend yourself could be helpful on an undeveloped world. Carousing is one I would not have thought of on my own and is straight up theft from CE. The TBRCA does it's best to promote a beer commercial attitude in colonists to cut down on interpersonal friction and once again increase population growth. Animals and Vehicle are related as transportation is going to be an issue while building a world so both are going to be pervasive. For specialist skills I propose Survival, Animals, Electronics, Mechanics, Jack o' Trades (JOT) and Comms. The first two are because I think that most colonists would encounter situations using them more than any other skills. Electronics, Mechanics and JOT cover fixing just about any mundane piece of equipment and finally Comms I think would be a widely taught skill to keep tabs on everyone in the wilderness. As Comms also cover sensor operations I can definitely see this being taught as worlds are big places and I suspect quite a lot of a planet will be unexplored even when colonization starts. That leaves the advanced education table for which I propose Leadership, Medical, Computer, Admin, Sciences and Recon. I replaced Advocate and Linguistics because I see the TBRCA discouraging off world relationships other than with the TBR. Leadership boosts group endeavors so it should be desired in the colony skill mix. Medical, Computer and Admin are all skills someone on the colony is going to have to master for it to prosper. Sciences I added because settling a new world should guarantees encountering unknown things so you need a group capable of figuring them/it out. Finally I added Recon to account for the reasonable (to me) desire to thoroughly explore the colonists new home. I welcome any other viewpoints on this as I suspect CE might be better thought out than my version.

Farmer in the Sky or the Colonist Career in Cepheus Engine

I recall reading this years ago I believe it is by Robert Heinlein and was pretty good although I doubt the science holds up. This is the first time I have really looked at an attempt in Traveller to have this as a career the versions I am most familiar with (CT and MT) didn't have one. Right off the bat it seems to me that a distinction between where you are from and what you do for a living needs to be made. Having this as a career means to me that it is a government sponsored job you sign up with a colonial service to populate a world rather than just having a colony as a homeworld I expect this will affect how I view the career as a whole.

Diving into it you need to get a 5+ with Endurance (END) as the controlling characteristic. Which is a reasonable choice as you would want sturdy people on your new world. Survival requires a 6+ with the controlling characteristic being END again. That is not a good omen for a lengthy career. Helping my view of this representing an organization there is advancement in the career. A commission requires a 7+ with intelligence (INT) as the controlling characteristic so it is not easy to start your rise to colonial domination. Promotion requires a 6+ controlled by education (EDU) so quick thinking will get you started by knowing a wide range of information gets you promoted. Re-enlistment is on a 5+ roll which seems to be the Cepheus Engine (CE) standard. Not a guarantee of retirement but not impossible or unlikely either. Completing your first term you get Survival -1 as the base skill and rank -0 in Mechanics, Gun Combat, Animals, Electronics. and Vehicle. An interesting mix; Gun Combat and Survival cover hanging out in a virgin wilderness; Mechanics and Electronics should let you repair most common equipment and Animals and Vehicle cover transport and heavy work. I wonder if Comms shouldn't be here though for both staying coordinated and operating sensors. There is one rank skill earned at Three Council Adviser being Liaison -1 so the service trains you to listen to people on your rise through the ranks. Mustering out offers low passage, middle passage twice, a mental boost, weapon, high passage and for rank 5 and 6 characters a social standing (SOC) boost. None of these are bad but I am thinking it is odd that 4 out of 7 possibilities are traveling opportunities to escape a backwater world. The cash table ranges from 1,000 to 50,000 with 5,000 coming up 3 times bringing to mind for me the deal Amazon offers it's warehouse people. I might have understood this wrong but I believe the deal is something along the lines of try it for a year and at the end if it isn't for you you can leave with 1,000 dollars for at least trying.

The personal development table offers the three physical characteristics and INT, Athletics and Gun Combat. I am really unsure about the lack of EDU on the table as it seems to me that would be in the agenda of any group trying to get a world from zero to break even. The specialist skills are Athletics, Carousing, Jack o' Trades, Engineering, Animals and Vehicle. Huh? I am mystified by Engineering being a skill available to potentially any colonist as it's description specifies starship drives. Carousing seems a bit odd but apparently the Colonial Administration realizes training people to be enjoyable company is a good idea. The advanced education table has Advocate, Linguistics, Admin, Medicine, Liaison and Animals. I am not happy with the skill set overall for the colonist career. Lacking a way to improve EDU doesn't seem right and having no training for operating communication and sensor gear also seems unlikely. Athletics shows up twice and where I can definitely see physical fitness being desired I think that it might be over represented. Animals being on 3 different tables including the advanced education one isn't so far fetched people like animals and they increase in numbers without a manufacturing base although again I think it might be a little to prevalent. I find it odd that Gun Combat is present twice but melee weapon skill would only be available through the mustering out table. Survival and Medicine are only present on one table each and again this strikes me as implausible if you are setting up a new world. I already mentioned Engineering being totally out of left field for me. I suppose I will have to actually come up with the Tiber-Beltain Referendum Colonial Administration (TBRCA) and figure out why they found colonies before I can decide on what I would like for skills available though.

You are magnetic ink or the Bueaucrat Career in Cepheus Engine

If this turns out uninspired blame me. I have always wondered about this career in the various T versions as I can't fathom why someone would want to play it. I am not saying it doesn't make sense as a career but rather as a choice for an alter-ego in a game most of us play to escape from our own here and now. The description says this is a government official although I believe it is applicable to any large group acknowledging that it is necessary to have them to run. Let's get down to it then, shall we? Surprisingly it is hard to qualify for this career needing a 6+ with social standing (SOC) as the controlling characteristic. It seems that bureaucrats are a someone elite group so I may backtrack here on my NGO viewpoint. Thinking on this it seems likely to me that this career isn't the clerk at the registry of motor vehicles but perhaps more along the lines of a civil rights enforcement organization leading to a more positive public image. Survival is a fairly easy 4+ with education (EDU) as the controlling characteristic. Commission is fairly easy at 5+ with SOC giving a boost of hindrance. Promotion on the other hand is a difficult 8+ with Intelligence (INT) controlling any possible modifier. So it appears nepotism will get your foot on the bottom rung but you need an agile mind to climb the career ladder. Re-enlistment is 5+ giving a moderate chance to retire if you pursue this career to the exclusion of others. The base skill is Admin -1 unsurprisingly with Advocate -1 awarded at rank 4 Chief.  At the completion of your first term you know Computer, Carousing, Bribery, Leadership and Vehicle at rank 0. Again this skill set is not the one I originally imagined for a government desk jockey however it does suggest someone who gets out and mingles to find out what is going on. Mustering out offers low passage, middle passage twice, high passage, boosts to both mental characteristics and finally (to 5 and 6 characters) a SOC boost. All of this seems fine and the SOC boost helps with my re imagined career being one the average citizen admires. Cash wise the table ranges from one thousand to fifty thousand credits (still disliking English and it's rules) which seems okay to me.

The personal development table offers boosts to your dexterity (DEX), endurance (END), both mental characteristics, Athletics and Carousing. I am not sure what I make of this beyond being the kinds of things a regular person could accomplish in their free time. A quirk of mine regarding character generation is that the awards are what the career trained you to do however rather than as leisure activities which I view as covered by background skills. END, INT, EDU and Carousing can all be explained as coming from doing your job possibly for unexpected long shifts in the case of END. That leaves DEX and Athletics to explain in the context of a bureaucrat which I am struggling with at the moment. Then again I am positing the society as a whole is encouraged to gamble and compete so perhaps a part of the job is to run and compete in local versions of the Showcase of Worlds. The specialist skills are Admin, Computer, Perception, Leadership, Steward and Vehicle. The only ones that stand out enough for comment are Leadership a skill that boost a group rather than an individual; Steward which covers not only catering to others but appearing in high society and finally Perception which seems to have been left out of the rules. My version goes from Ocean Ships to Physical Sciences and with English having at least two meanings for the word, "I perceive that man is falling out a window" and "He appears unhappy about it" what is intended isn't immediately clear. I am going to go with noticing things being modified by INT and noticing an emotional state being modified by EDU. Advanced education skills are Advocate, Computer, Liaison, Linguistics, Medicine and Admin none are odd enough to comment on. So at the end I have gone from a faceless minion of the triplicate gods to a troubleshooter for the Referendum who wanders about trying to identify and solve discontent with the system. It is not meant to represent a rebel leader however as the most prevalent skill is Admin which is used to get the system to work rather than disrupt it. This is probably a concept I would have never had if I wasn't looking at the careers beyond just their titles and can see this actually being a character trope that someone could want as a background.

*insert something clever wordplay-ish here* or the Belter Career for Cepheus

The only two things that had come to mind for me were Bobby Darin's "Clementine" and "Quark" from the early eighties, one has lyrics that are no longer mainstream acceptable and the other I don't remember well enough to quote. Regardless let us have a look, a belter mines the asteroid belts for minerals or salvage. Which is why you should read the rules before getting too attached to a concept. Much like the Barbarian turned out to be more of a survivalist I had never considered the salvage aspect of being a belter. In Fermi's Universe (FU) I set out the idea that there had been lots of aliens in the past and that the all somewhat mysteriously disappeared and left it at that. Having read the description of belter I now am thinking that the were litterbugs and there is a ton of crap drifting around in systems waiting to be found. None of that changes any rules Per se but does offer a piece of filler fluff for the setting which is good. Having a career that does this also means it is reasonable (to me) that on the whole archaeology is probably closer to the 1850's kind than the more modern idea being more find stuff and take it rather than study it in place.

Wow it is ridiculously easy to qualify for the belter career needing only a 4+ with Intelligence (INT) being the controlling characteristic. Survival doesn't have the best chance even if you have the maximum bonus from your Dexterity (DEX) so lots of people die or get critically injured doing this job. With no formal ranking that only leave your re-enlistment at a 5+ meaning retirement is possible but not likely. At the end of your first term you get Zero-G -1 and Comms, Demolitions, Gun Combat, Gunnery, Prospecting and Piloting at rank 0. We can pause here to spew hatred at the English language for its ungodly rules on punctuation and whether numbers should be words or numerals. This list of "everyman" skills is even more pleasing to me than the barbarian one including every one I conceive as necessary to do the job. I am also intrigued that the base skill is Zero G rather than Prospecting which I agree with completely.  Moving on to the mustering out table your character can receive all three types of passage, a weapon (and possibly skill in its use), a boost to a mental characteristic and finally ship shares. The only one needing comment is the ship shares because I stated in a prior post I am not a fan of them. The problem is what to replace them with? I waffled for a while on this before deciding to change it to rank 1 in any skill of the player's choice allowing for skills not otherwise available. A ship would be a huge award so it's replacement should be as well in my line of thought. To be confusing though you can't use this award to increase a skill you have only to add another skill at rank 1 as I am offering it as a way to say a character devoted considerable free time to learn something above and beyond what normal characters do with their free time during generation. The money table ranges from 1,000 to 50,000 with 5,000 being awarded three times giving me (the GM) an idea of a standard find should be worth.

Keep in mind on the skill tables that a belter will get two rolls for each term as there is no advancement in the career. The personal development table offers the three physical characteristics, Zero G, Melee Combat and Gambling. I dislike having no chance for mental improvement however I also can't plausibly offer any replacements so it will go unchanged. The specialist table has Zero G, Computer, Electronics, Prospecting, Sciences and Vehicle which I am content with. Finally the advanced education table has Advocate, Engineering, Medicine, Navigation, Comms and Tactics and again I am satisfied with the table. On the whole I am satisfied with the career but I am dubious with the lack of two skills those being Mechanical and Jack of Trades. The problem is the skill tables presented give a wide range of skills so you can be a jack of all trades without the skill. As for Mechanical the only skill I could see replacing is Vehicle but that one makes sense as well so I don't like doing that. I will leave the skill tables alone after all.

At Law Level 2+ it is illegal to punch a horse while wearing a furry speedo or the Barbarian Career

The description says it represents citizens of a tech level 4 or less world capable of surviving without advance technology. Hearing (or reading) the career title however brings Conan to mind even though TL 4 is actually on par with WWII so lets see how this goes. It is fairly easy to qualify to join this career and you are helped or hindered by your END. Your survival chance is a moderately high 6+ modified by your STR. There are no commission or promotion rolls leaving only the re-enlistment check of 5+ which is not a guarantee of retirement by any means but still is possible. At the end of your beginning term you get Melee Weapon - 1 (a cascade skill) and mechanics; gun combat; recon; survival and animals all at level 0. This already has more of a survivalist than hulking swordsman feel to it. Mustering out benefits are low and middle passage; weapon x2; a mental boost and a boost to your END. Nothing bothers me about any of those so we can move on to cash which ranges from 0 to 10,000 cr which does bug me a little. A personal dislike of mine is rolling and getting a nothing result during character generation mostly because players are going to fail enough during play to not screw then out of the gate as it were. However this is a minor and personal enough quibble that I doubt I will change it.

On to the skill tables keeping in mind you get 2 per term as there is no chance for formal advancement in the Barbarian career. Personal development offers improvements to the 3 physical stats and INT; athletics and gun combat. Although I usually dislike players having no chance to improve their EDU thereby locking out a entire table unless they already have a high score to begin with I am okay with it here. The kinds of non-formal education things you would learn are covered pretty well by the skills available even without the advanced table I am content. No chance to improve SOC is also non-troubling as I can't see living rough leading to interstellar renown. Specialist skills offered are gun combat; J-O-T; melee combat; recon; animals and tactics. Again I have no trouble with any of these and like the inclusion of J-O-T to represent self reliance. The advance skills are advocate; linguistics; medicine; leadership; tactics and broker. It strikes me that this represents a set of skills necessary to interact with off worlders rather than to live off the land which is why I am okay with a character either having access to them before they start or never getting them as I don't see these as very common on low tech worlds.

I really like this career. The skills available do seem to suggest to me worlds that are not that interested in joining interstellar society but prefer to go it on their own which could easily explain everyone else calling them barbarians. I am a little iffy squaring my new outlook with getting melee combat as a base skill but I do like the rest of it. Melee and gun combat in this case are more likely (to me) to come from hunting than fighting other people. Athletics implies there are few people who don't have a job that involves manual labor. Recon and survival means that most people probably spend a significant amount of time in the wild. Animals shows up twice correctly emphasizing the importance they play in less industrialized societies. Tactics can be learned by anyone as described in Cepheus Engine (CE). Mechanics and J-O-T are nice additions to show a bias toward fixing it yourself rather than just buying it again. The advanced skills are realy well thought out in my opinion seeming to represent a special individual who is used to dealing with off world people and ideas represented by advocate; linguistics and broker. Leadership; medicine and tactics makes me think village elder even though there is no age requirement on the table. There is a thought perhaps it should be EDU 8+ or 4+ terms.

Engine, Cepheus Engine or the Agent Career

Sorry for my horrible work ethic, no excuses I am afraid.

So next up is the Agent career which is meant to encompass spy and secret agents although it could also be a undercover police officer or insurance claims investigator I suppose. Basically anyone who gathers information under false pretenses. It is moderately easy to join up with your social position helping or hurting you. That is an interesting choice to me although the predecessor to the CIA was the OSS which was said to mean Oh So Social! as it was staffed by all the right families. Survival is a slightly riskier proposition than either of the first two I have covered, being quick on your feet mentally helps you as INT is the bonus (or penalty) characteristic. Commission and promotion is helped or hindered by EDU although neither are terribly difficult to obtain. Re-enlistment is pretty high at 6+ leaving me to believe no one stays for long. Possibly because of paranoia on the part of the Tiber-Beltaine Referendum (TBR) in regards to the loyalty of it's agents. At the end of your first term you gain Streetwise - 1 and level 0 in admin; computer; bribery; leadership and vehicle. The lack of a combat skill as part of basic training implies they aren't expecting you to go in or come out with all guns blazing as your first course of action. At rank 4 you also get Admin - 1 to account for all the bureaucracy you will be dealing with. Mustering out offers passage of all three types; a mental boost; weapon (and possible training); A SOC boost and possible membership in the Explorer Society. All of these I am fine with and I like them even more as prizes for a game show rather than awards from a spy agency. The money table goes from 1,000 to 50,000 which strikes me as a little low but not enough to change anything.

The personal development table offers a boost to DEX and END but not STR and both mental stats, it also has carousing and athletics which seem like handy things to pick up. I am not sure about not being able to get a STR boost but that can be left until after I look at hand to hand combat to know if it is as disadvantageous as it seems. It does seem to imply (again) that you are not supposed to be getting in fights which makes sense. How good a spy can you be if you keep getting caught after all? The specialist skills are gun and melee combat; bribery; leadership; recon and survival. This seems to again imply the goal is not to get caught. It is true that combat skills show up but the other four entries are skills to avoid direct confrontation. Finally the advanced table has advocate; computer; liaison; linguistics; medicine and leadership. Interesting to note that the premier agent skill is leadership not streetwise. Realizing this changes my view on the career as a whole, Leadership provides a pool of points that can be doled out to members of a team to accomplish a common goal. So our spy becomes a team leader rather than a lone wolf. Coupling this with the general low emphasis on combat skills leads me to the view that agents are more Mission:Impossible than James Bond. They get a mission but little manpower support from the agency and assemble their own team to accomplish whatever task is set before them. In Fermi's Universe (FU) it goes along with my view of a very weak central government having deniable assets with little to tie them back to the TBR. Also with so many internal (effectively rival) governments I imagine this to be a common career which goes back to the relative low bar to entry. The only other skills to show up more than once are bribery and computer again implying a preference to avoid situations where you could be identified.

And this is why I am doing this series of blog posts. Just looking at the Career name I was thinking James Bond but actually delving into the skills awarded changed that view into a different but still valid one.

Calling Sky Captain or the Aerospace Defense Career in Cepheus Engine

First a totally random and unrelated thing try listening/watching The Piano Guys on Youtube I like their stuff and maybe you will as well.

My view of the Tiber-Beltaine Referendum (TBR) has been changing as I go through this. I had wanted a 3I clone but I am moving away from that. I am currently thinking it is much more like an European Union (EU) as understood by a not very interested American. The 3 big drivers of it are Tiber; Beltaine and Kent. Tiber is the industrial tech engine run by noble scientists. Beltaine is a rich agricultural world run by a plutocracy which I haven't decided if it is a corporate government or a charismatic oligarchy. Finally Kent is a conservative to reactionary culture within the Referendum. The reason they get worlds to join without having to invade or threaten them overtly is the TBR has little power on the worlds themselves. It only controls interstallar matters leaving what happens on worlds to the government of that world. In exchange the worlds get membership in a large open market and someone else has to defend them from anyone else. I am bringing it up now because this means that the Aerospace; Maritime and Surface Defense careers are not Government service as I imagine the draft to be. Not a giant problem as the Cepheus Engine (CE) already allows you to change careers and only the first term is required to be in service to the TBR. Because it is a mandatory draft for the first term I am interested in opinions on whether or not the DM -2 for switching services should apply?

As presented the Aerospace Defense Force operates on a world out to close orbit which I am calling 10 diameters, cases where the world is a satellite it is 10 diameters of the main world. If the world is instead an asteroid belt it covers what is defines by astronomers as the belt and changes all instances if Aircraft to Piloting. To enlist you need a 5+ with endurance as the controlling characteristic however you would also face a DM -2 because of the mandatory draft by the TBR which gives around a 50% chance for an average citizen. Survival is 5+ with dexterity giving a boost or bane. The service has ranks so there is a commission roll of 6+ and a promotion roll of 7+ both of which have education as the characteristic providing a modifier meaning what you know is more important than your physical capacity or problem solving skills. Finally re-enlistment is on a 5+ which seems to mean you can have a reasonable chance to serve long enough to retire. Provided you make it through the term you get Aircraft - 1 which is a cascade skill and then level zero in Electronics; gun combat; gunnery; melee combat; survival and aircraft but you already have that. This implies everyone who enlists is trained to fly an aircraft which is different than today but acceptable. The rest of the skills nicely simulate basic training with electronics being my only possible quibble as comms seems to be a better choice as it covers sensors and comms and electronics is more general. Moving through the ranks at rank 3 (Squadron Leader) you gain Leadership - 1 which makes sense. The mustering out benefits are one of each kind of passage; weapon x2 ; +1 to Edu and Soc (requiring rank 5 or 6). These are all possible awards from the Showcase of Worlds! so I don't see the need to change anything beyond my earlier stated change of +1 Edu being +1 Edu or Int. The cash table has a range of 1,000 to 50,000 so you can expect to come out reasonably set for awhile. If it has been clear before this is not separation pay but winnings as well.

The personal development table offers a +1 to the physical characteristics; athletics; melee combat and vehicle which is fine except a very gameist personal quirk of mine it means that if you don't come into the service qualified for the advanced education table you never get access to it. We covered the srvice skills during term resolution. Specialist skills are comms; gravitics; gun combat; gunnery; recon and piloting. My only current concern is gravitics because on worlds with a tech level below 9 (?) this wouldn't be all that sensible. The advanced education skills are advocate; computer; jack of all trades; medicine; leadership and tactics all are plausible. Again I am satisfied with the individual tables but a little concerned about the range of skills on the whole. I feel like mechanical should be available and computer should be more prevalent. On the other hand with everyone knowing how to fly it isn't hard for me to imagine that the Technician career are the ones who fix the planes. You know I kind of like this idea warriors fight and technicians keep things working. It is a way of the setting not being just like today with starships but without introducing more house rules.

I have been working on a man with blonde hair and a tan or the athlete career in Cepheus Engine

A side note to start I hate computers. Or maybe just linux, no it's computers. I have spent an hour trying to type 4 lines for my blog and it has been a nightmare. If you are using a wired connection there is no problem but if I want to use my laptop on a wifi connection it drops the connection whenever there is no data transfer. which wouldn't be such a pain if it then didn't take 30 seconds to reconnect; look up google; establish a secure connection and do whatever the hell else it was doing. By the time all that crap happened blogger had detected a problem with the autosave and then ignored the crap out of me. why do I suspect linux? Because I am currently typing this using my old slow netbook that has Windows XP on it without the same problem. Thanks for a super safe operating system that prevents any online dangers by keeping me from using my effing computer at all.

Anyways the Athlete career in Cepheus Engine (CE). It can be thought of as a professional athlete but there are other possibilities as well. I am calling for everyone to serve the Referendum for four years and where there could be that many official teams considering the farm system I also am including PE teachers and personal trainers and the like. To qualify you need to get 8+ with Endurance as the relevant characteristic which means you need to be a little luckier and/or sturdy than the average being to get in. Survival is a 5+ with a boost for Dexterity which needs a little thought if you go with the failure equals death rule. I leave that as the player's option on every survival roll so your Athlete career coming to an end from an injury is not surprising. There is no commission or advancement which leaves a re-enlistment roll of 6+ meaning it is rare that someone serves to many terms as an Athlete. At the end of your first term you get Athletics - 1 from the service and level 0 in Admin; Carousing; Computer; Gambling and Vehicle. Admin is the tyrannical papery fist that rules all known space so any service can account for learning it. Carousing is the skill of being personable which is handy if you are either self promoting or trying to get people to do something most people don't want to, exercise. Computer would presumably be something any star citizen would know with higher levels possibly representing how to work social media to an Athlete's advantage. Gambling is another skill I think of as wide spread in Fermi's Universe (FU) as the government pushes gambling to provide the illusion of limitless opportunity for every citizen. Vehicle is again a skill everyone could be expected to pick up I am adding Animal to the list to account for low tech worlds and equestrian style events.

The mustering out benefits are low passage; +1 Int; weapon; high passage; Explorer's Society and high passage again. FU has the Showcase of Worlds! media circus, I mean talent show with fabulous prizes like the above as the reward. This changes the Explorer's Society into a to be determined cool name for former winner. Why some careers get a boost to thinking on their feet and other get tons of facts memorized I am unsure of and am going to change all of them to +1 Int or Edu and leave it to the player to decide. The cash table ranges from a kind of lame 2000 to a very respectable 100,000 which makes sense to me considering the wide range in player salaries we see today.

The service skill table was summarized at the end of term resolution. The personal development puzzles me somewhat because there is no provision to increase your strength or endurance. It has Dex; Int; Edu; Soc; Carousing and Melee Combat. I don't have any problem with those as I can see them all being things helpful to anyone in the Athlete career as I imagine it. The specialist skills are Zero-G; Athletics x2; Computer; Leadership and Gambling all of which make sense to me. The advanced education skills are Advocate; Computer; Liaison; Linguistics; Medicine and Sciences which again all make sense. I have no problems with any one table but I am somewhat dissatisfied with them overall. Computer shows up on three tables but Athletics only on two. Likewise gambling and carousing are on two tables but strength; endurance and gun combat are not available. I am inclined to replace carousing with +1 Str and melee combat with +1 End on the personal development table. In the case of the specialist table I am thinking of replacing computer with melee combat and gambling with gun combat. However I am not sure I am actually going to make those changes without generating a few characters to see how I like the table as is and with the changes made.

More Cepheus less broken English hopefully

Hopefully not being exhausted means I can write in something closer to American Standard English than my last post, we shall see. The comments on the last post gravitated toward a ship being available without depending on random chance which I am not to surprised by because it is the standard for most games. However that assumption does miss what I was trying to get at. Giving a ship by whatever means won't necessarily setup a game your player want to play in. I tried to run Star Hero (1st edition) years ago and it fell apart because I planned a standard Cepheus Engine style game. The Hero system is a point buy, build what you want system and the players built a teen idol, a spy, an ex-space marine and a Han Solo clone (I think it was a long time ago) it ended poorly. A part of the game failing was we made all or most of the choices in isolation before we started and it became too difficult for my GM skills at the time to create a game fusing them all together.

Perhaps if I had used the advice from the last post it could have worked. I will set out an example next but even so it will not be completely valid because it is still just me doing it. Hopefully it will demonstrate why it may be a valid way to approach a game. So for our hypothetical game group we have a GM and four players. The GM goes through the Cepheus Engine (CE) and only creates enough setting for a starting point including any modifications to the rules. The five meet up in a google hangout to babble at each other of what they want to play. Alpha wants to be a teen idol striving to become interstellarly famous, Beta has been reading Raymond Chandler and wants a film noir detective, Epsilon wants to be a girl scientist/inventor and Delta is good with whatever. Some snickering and snark later our teen idol is a twenty something idol, our detective is an ex-agent who is now a bodyguard, the girl inventor is the idol's kid sister and Delta rolls up a standard Fermi's Universe (FU) character ending up as a former soldier/scout/drifter who is now the roadie. The GM knows from his background the group can be on the TBR Showcase of Worlds! expanding the separation games concept into an on going government run traveling contest the Idol is trying to win. That's great and all but what if any of the first three don't manage to roll the qualifications to get into the right careers? Basically the GM should waive the minimum number of rolls to get the players the character they want.

So Idol Alpha wanted a teen idol the GM could say that his draft service was in the Entertainer career which is the easiest by skipping rolling the draft and qualification roll or he could have the player roll a term as an Entertainer and then go through the draft saying the first term was from 14-18 before the government interrupted his dream. For Beta Bodyguard the standard draft is fine and if agent isn't what is rolled the second term it can be selected. Scientist Epsilon is harder because the concept is a teenage genius which is unlikely to be created randomly. A little thought and the GM allows Str 1D6; Dex 2D6; End 1D6; Int 3D6; Edu 3D6; Soc 2D6; 1 term as a scientist and 1 term as a tech with no mustering out for either and setting the characters age at 16. Delta becomes the GM's favorite for not requiring anything special. None of the characters have a skill set oriented toward starship operations and none of the players are all that interested in running a starship. That implies 3 different possibilities for how the group is wandering the stars. Buying regular passages on ships which would mean finances will be a part of play to pay for all of them. Government ships transporting all show contestants and their entourages which means the group has little control over their movements. Last would be a corporate sponsor providing transport which needs the corporation to be fleshed out. The player decide on the Corporate sponsor. From here the GM can plan a series of adventures his players would actually want to pursue. The players have an idea for why they are adventuring together and some expectation of the general course of the game.

Okay none of that is an thing different or new from the standard sit down and talk it over advice every rule book mentions. Why beat a dead horse then? Mostly because I believe it is a really good idea to do this in a sci-fi game. People being what they are will have expectations of how things work and if you don't hash them out before you start a modern/future game it will come up in the middle of  play. Having to stop playing the game to have an explanation of what the characters should know will derail at least the scene you are in. Having everyone on board for the general theme of a campaign is super helpful when you are using a rule set that allows for anything. "You are all in a bar" works for fantasy but not so much in genres resembling our own lives (to the extent of being adults with jobs) as a reason to risk your lives together.

What do mean no ships? Or why I think my previous Traveller games have failed

As much as it pains me to admit it the times I have tried to run a Traveller game I failed badly, on the bright side so did every one of my peers. I have thought about this a lot because I really want to run a sci-fi game and have it last and be fun. What I finally concluded was that calling it sci-fi was the first and biggest mistake. Unlike fantasy there is no baseline assumptions everyone will have. In fantasy you have some variation on the four base characters using swords and magic to kill orcs and then take their stuff. FTL travel is about the only constant trope people will share when starting a game. I like Andre Norton so a scenario I come up with is going to have a wildly different set of assumption than a player who loves Gibson's cyberpunk stories. Then you need to consider the real world constraints of one person creating a universe and all the information for it. We have a huge amount of information organized and nearly instantaneously available to us through the web which I don't think is ever going to be replicated in anyone's game ever but it is what was expected even by me. It is not satisfying to say or hear "you should be able to do that but the GM and game system can't provide it" but without the acceptance of this limitation I think any campaign will fail. Even more broadly without the group as a whole accepting the need for a lot more cooperation in planning a campaign the game will probably fail. It may look like sci-fi but should have the same expectations as a fantasy campaign. Which is not the same as blast open the iris valve kill all the denebian traders and take their credits but instead don't assume everything works like today's tech.

In a fantasy game to find out about a place you are okay with maybe digging up some old books in a library having sketchy information but to really find out something you travel there. GM and Player's need to come up with a way to be comfortable with this as the norm in a space game as well. It isn't as far fetched a concept as it first may appear though. First a world needs to be at least TL7 to have a WWW of it's own, then it needs a Pop of 6+ to have enough people to make it work and finally it has to be important somehow to the surrounding area otherwise no one would bother making the information available off world. A GM only has so much time to create their game so every world can't be the Forgotten Realms all available on Wikipedia from the ship's computer. This magnifies the problem of it has a map it must be the place we're supposed to be. There are tools around to rapidly create world and location maps so you could have red herrings equal to the North Sea annual herring catch but then your players will be likely to miss what the adventure you created. It is going to be pretty difficult to generate all kinds of stuff if you (as the GM) don't have a need for it but if the only place and people who get fleshed out are necessary to the current adventure the players are going to end up feeling like tourists rather than the star of the show.

I did a crappy job dealing with this conundrum in the past and am still a little unsure how to deal with it. My current line of thought is the GM and player should sit down before starting a campaign and come up with a campaign idea everyone is interested in. I do realize every game in every genre has said this however I do think lip service to this rather than actually doing doomed every game I tried to run. I came up with a cool idea, developed it enough to start and then tried to run it for people who had very different ideas about what would be cool to do for a sci-fi game and it sucked for us all. There is a product put out by Avalon Games called "How to run a great campaign" (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/84392/How-to-Create-a-Great-Campaign?cPath=1658_5872) which presented an idea that never occurred to me namely start with the end of the campaign. Why do I think this is a great idea to use for a CE game? The universe is to big a canvas to paint so instead you need to have a smaller goal.

Finally we get to how this all ties in with ships and why I don't think they should be given out as random awards. Pretty much everyone's first goal will be getting their own ship. Why throw away the best idea to start a campaign with on a random roll? With a group goal of getting a ship you have the first ending in the campaign. What kind of ship a free trader? One capable of system survey? Pirate ship? The answer to that question gives the GM an idea of where to start and the kind of adventure and details to create, it also will probably influence the decisions players make when generating characters. I should note that the ending I mean here is of a story arc not necessarily the whole campaign. Assuming you get 2 sessions in a month just reaching this goal can take 3 or 4 months of real time to reach without it becoming a seemingly unreachable goal. At the conclusion I would suggest doing the other thing everyone says, talk over the whole thing at the end and find out what worked and what didn't not just for the GM's benefit other players may not realize how much one of them enjoyed rebuilding the junkbox air/raft into a hotrod. For the GM doing this can provide solid gold because if possible when you start playing again returning the elements everyone liked should pay off.

I feel like this was a disjointed rambling post but I have tried a couple of times to write it and none of them made more sense . My apologies.

Cepheus Engine vs sooo many Youtube videos

Yeah well I got nothing for valid excuses to explain blog tardiness.

I have however done some thinking about my premise that prior careers are all government service and decided it made some sense where I was going on the Starter Traveller (ST) posts but not so much for Fermi's Universe (FU). That being said the first term is still a mandatory draft as laid out in my last post but after that first term it is up to the Player what is in the character's backstory as it should be. I will be going through the tables for character generation to see how the possible results can help shape the setting. What skills and how often you get them lead me to develop a different view of the ST careers than when I started and I am looking forward to doing the same with the Cepheus Engine (CE).

The only changes to the Character Creation Checklist are Step 3 a) Choose a career becomes submit to the draft and Step 3 b) ... -2 DM for each previous career doesn't apply if remaining in a government service branch and changing to a related career as explained in the last post. The next change is rolling the Psionic score. I am torn about whether and/or who should roll it at character generation. I will delve into the whole topic in more depth when I reach that point in the rules however in this case I am leaning toward having the player roll it at the start. My reasoning is it provides several possible motivations and hooks for a character. If you have a high score it will most likely affect your choices on how long your pursue prior careers before you start adventuring to minimize losing Psionic Strength Points. It can also be used to explain results during character generation if for example you have a moderate score and are turned down for re-enlistment perhaps your sixth sense was a little to pronounced and rumors started about you being one of them so you were unfairly bounced. I am torn about going with doing it upfront mostly because of GDW's original rules where you didn't know until you were tested. Meh, I think if you had a high potential it would manifest itself noticeably before you got tested but most likely not in any game mechanic effecting way. Aliens only deserve a mention to clarify one of my starting premises, there are no alien races that rise to significance on an interstellar scale. Mostly this is to avoid having to do a massive retcon if I come up with an idea that needs an alien rather than implying I am planning on presenting any aliens on their own.

The Universal Persona Profile (UPP) is familiar to us all and the Universal Character Format seems like a clearly thought out way to present a consistent stat block. Normally that wouldn't interest me however I hope to eventually reach a point of putting stuff on the blog other people can use so it is important. Background skills are encountered next and I am okay with them for the most part although I have one quibble in that not every character will have the option to have experience in operating a vehicle which I am ambivalent toward at the moment. Perhaps the various careers make getting a skill in a vehicle a given or I may decide that almost all member worlds of the TBR have a decent public transportation system. Actually I am going to go with the widespread public transportation idea as it will certainly help explain what the Referendum is doing with all those 18-22 year olds. Moving to the non-specific part of the Career section brings up few changes as I am okay with most of it. Let me specifically praise the inclusion of rules for mishaps; injuries and anagathics so the lazy GM (raises hand) doesn't have figure this out on there own. Non-lazy GM will do what they wish which is why I envy them their self confidence.

I did say I was okay with most of the section and the one thing I am going to mention will probably be a little controversial. I have no problem with the rules as presented however there is a legacy of Traveller I have never been to comfortable with while wearing my GM hat but really wanted while as a player. I am of course speaking of a ship or its equivalent as a mustering out benefit. As a player you want your own ship to go where you and do what you wish. As a GM what happens if two players get ships? Or none of them do and your adventure needs one? If the ship has a mortgage you risk your players turning into non-adventurers either from the need to pay for the damn thing or because they can work the math out on the trade tables to just rack up credits in a somewhat unexciting fashion. So I will be replacing the ship and ship shares on mustering out with some other benefit. As I suspect the reasoning for why will be of moderate length and involve more of my own gaming philosophy than anything to do with CE I will make a separate post about the whole topic.

Setting out the background for the careers in Fermi's Universe

I was going to keep going with the very basic history to introduce the careers but that seems destined to just be confusing. So I presented the Unification War from how it started to who won and why. The aftermath saw a very disorganized union of worlds faced with ruling their foe who were a much more culturally unified block of 15 or so worlds. Real problems start almost immediately. The Tiber-Beltaine Referendum only has the power to demand military support from it's members to face a threat once that threat was dealt with that power diminishes. With the war over it doesn't take long before most worlds want to bring their forces home and stop spending to support the war effort. There are also those worlds pushing for brutal reparations and other draconian measure against the Kingdom of Kent. It takes around 100 years for this to all shake out with the realization that the Referendum has to be more intrusive than originally set out and the KoK has to be integrated into the TBR to eliminate having more wars in the future. Mostly this happens because the driving forces in the TBR are merchants and a stable and relatively peaceful state with uniform trade rules is the best way to make huge amounts of cash. The requirement to provide military forces to the TBR cause changes into a mandatory four year enlistment into the Referendum Defense Forces. This quickly changes into a more general four years in service to the Referendum not merely the RDF. The PR version of the tale is to foster a sense of brotherhood and provide universal employment for all 18 to 22 year olds. The unspoken reason is that demographic is the easiest to influence so while they will always think of themselves as a native of their homeworld, hopefully they will also develop a sense of duty to the TBR or at least an acceptance of TBR rules.

So the first change to the character Generation system is the Draft table is altered

Roll    Draft Career
1         Military Space
2         Military Planet
3         Civilian Space
4         Entertainment
5         Government Service
6         Forgotten

You roll on the Draft table as step 1 of your career resolution on your first term only. Your result allows you the opportunity to enlist in a subset of careers if you fail to enlist you randomly get assigned to one of the careers.

Military Space You can try for Navy (1-3); Marine (4-5) or Scout (6) the number in parenthesis is to determine which service you end up in if you fail to enlist.

Military Planet Available careers are Surface Defense (1-4); Maritime Defense (5); Aerospace Defense (6).

Civilian Space careers are Merchant (1-3); Belter (4); Scientist (5) and Scout (6).

Entertainment Careers are Athlete (1); Entertainer (2-5); Hunter (6);

Government Service careers are Agent (1); Bureaucrat (2); Diplomat (3); Physician (4); Noble (5) and Technician (6)

The Forgotten are those unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks none of these fulfill the a character's service requirement and allow another roll on the Draft table on the second term if desired. The fates possible are Barbarian (1); Colonist (2-4);Pirate (5) and Rogue (6).

Two careers do not appear above Mercenary and Drifter. Mercenary is available to anyone serving at least one term in a Military Planet career and Drifter is available to anyone with no Qualification roll even in place of submitting to the initial draft but it does not count toward the term of service to the Referendum.

So why require a restrictive start to character generation? It is to set the tone for the citizens of the TBR expecting to serve the government for at least 4 years in some sense. All except the Forgotten and Drifter careers are government services. You leave serving the Referendum and start putting yourself first when you leave the character creation process. Even knowing the metagame reason why it is required people being what they are will resent it which I also think represents how the common person would view it in my fictional universe. I will expand on why I think some jobs can be explained as government service but for the most part the descriptions provided work fine.

Scout shows up in both Military and Civilian Space because they are tasked with two different jobs. Exploration which falls under the Military in case you run into someone else and courier carrying messages to known worlds. Keep in mind that the TBR knows there are a bejeezus load of human worlds out there anyone of which could have jump tech. Also there where many Forerunner races that no one knows what happened to them so unknown space is viewed with an amount of paranoia. Government mandated happy fun time? Are you for real? With little to initially tie the worlds of the TBR together fairly early on the government started making Nat Geo specials and then Wide World of Sports finally sinking to its nadir with reality tri-vee from 400 worlds. There is a not unrealistic need for the TBR to try and produce information that people will actually watch and again using ourselves as examples that will be Sports and Game Shows. It does not represent the civilian efforts which are just as pervasive. It can be argued everyone serves as a government entertainer for a short while as the mustering out benefits are won during the separation games. Scientist is a Space career because they serve aboard a lab ship doing researching or supplementing a worlds educational system. Physician and Technician are careers where the TBR sends well trained people to assist worlds that are lacking in either of the areas to assist. The Forgotten are people who aren't integrated into interstellar society for one reason or another, Barbarians are literally just missed by a government who doesn't know they are there. Pirates and Rogues are those who didn't fit in or where raised by those outside society. Colonists are just screwed. To expand it's territory the TBR finds it necessary to colonize worlds and no one in their right mind wants to go to an uncertain fate on a world that either can't support human life or worse used to. The Colonists are almost all made up of people who are completely dependent on a world government for some reason and that government fills it's colonist quota with them. Mercenary is a specialized enough career that I think it is reasonable (considering mandatory service) to only recruit ex-military. And Drifter is just that someone wandering along not being in one place long enough to end up as a colonist. The reason this is a no roll option is to avoid figuring out what to do if a PC fails to qualify for a different career and then fails for this one as well. A few other house rules to finish this section off the DM-2 for each prior career doesn't apply within the career field you are currently serving in. For example your first term you end up as Bureaucrat the next term you can try and qualify for any other Government service career without getting a DM-2. But you have the heart of a loin and your inner beast was not meant to prowl the cube jungle poorly lit with fluorescent light while stalking the wily expense report so you instead Try to Qualify for Hunter and succeed. On your 3rd term you can try and change to any other entertainment job with no DM but if you miss your desk if would be a DM-4 to go back. The Forgotten and drifter careers do not count as previous services so you can more easily escape from what is essentially the Referendum failing you in the first place.

Some random thoughts on Fermi's Universe

When I originally started this series of blog posts it was to go through the the source material and put my own spin on it. Then I heard about Cepheus Engine and decided to switch to it because it was an OGL system. Which is not to imply anything negative about FFE it just meant I didn't have to worry I would muck up and accidentally post something I shouldn't. Seeing as I wasn't going to be using the 3I but still wanted to be thematically compatible so anything I did create would be as widely useful as possible. Am I going to jump into the indie publishing market with this? Probably not as I know my limitations and to actually produce something requires more concentrated effort than I am capable of to date but CE also means if I get that far I actually can do it. That is damn awesome and I am grateful to Samardan and FFE for that possibility. I am also coming to appreciate how much work it is to come up with a setting. I have stated my general goal and given a very general universe wide background. Having reviewed the rules in a general sense I am trying to figure out what to do next. It is a tricky thing in that it would be really easy to get sucked into writing the whole of the history for my base empire no one will read. Instead I need to develope enough of the history and astrography (geography of space??) so I know how to modify character generation if at all.

So lets lay out the default empire for the setting. First thing is to name it seeing as I didn't like my first try. I am going to call it the Tiber-Beltaine Referendum which gives me the names of the two most important worlds of the winning side of the unification war. It is called a Referendum because worlds must hold one to join agreeing to the terms of the union. Tiber needs to be an industrial world with a feudal technocracy government and as close to Earth normal stats as possible and will be the capital of the empire. Beltaine needs to be an ideal agricultural world within two parsecs of of Tiber. These two worlds formed the original referendum setting in place the scope of interstellar rule. Fearing Tiber would just take them over Beltaine (famed for being pragmatic) came up with the idea of a insterstellar union leaving members with almost complete autonomy on their world. No planetary government can pass or enforce any laws concerning anything outside of 10 diameters. So no trade rules or tariffs however it also means things generally found abhorrent like slavery are not banned out right. In exchange for this local autonomy a world cedes the ability to make any exo-system agreements and must provide men; arms and or material support to the Referendum on demand. It also meant that criminals could get away be just leaving a system. The first change to the Referendum was the establishment of the personal noble. For every 200 citizens of the TBR there is a Knight that they may petition to seek redress to a wrong against them. Every 200 Knights have a Baron they can elevate a situation to, Every 50 Barons have a Count they swear fealty to every 25 Counts are under a Marquis. All the Marquis in a subsector owe fealty to a Duke who is elected for life by the Knights of the subsector. All the Dukes a direct vassals of the Emperor or King depending on which family is currently ruling. Counts and higher can issue imperial/royal demands to apply to all member worlds. In most cases these are issued for criminals such as murderers and the like. However they can also be used to ban the import or export of goods from a certain world.  These are the landed nobles and PCs who are direct vassals of the throne. PC nobles don't have people who are sworn to them and they are responsible for instead they operate as free lance observers for the TBR on the whole. They are also who make up the juries in trials for landed nobles and do have the right to vote on imposing or repealing decrees if they are physically present during a moot or meeting of nobles. This gives some meaning to having a widespread noble social status and to provide the GM with hooks to involve PCs in a situation as they will be expected to look into a situation if asked.

Meanwhile the Kingdom of Kent was a charismatic oligarchy and spread more slowly than the TBR because they forced member worlds to assimilate to their culture and laws. It lead to a more unified society and technology base. They held off the more numerous TBR due to a more integrated military and they didn't have the myriad self interests the looser TBR government did. Numbers were against them and they definitely lost the PR war on the unaligned worlds. As the unification war raged it became apparent to the world who did not belong to either polity that they would have to join one way or another. The choice between the two sides came down to which one would leave the native society most intact which was pretty obviously the TBR not the KoK. In the antebellum it became apparent that many of the advantages of the KoK could and should be adopted by the TBR. The noble system above was one example. The other significant ones were a referendum armed forces as opposed to the TBR method of the individual worlds providing homegrown forces and then trying to integrate them.

This part of history took place in an area of about 3 subsectors with the TBR on the left, KoK on the right and the center one being where J1 main linked all the world and lead out into the rest of the sector. Guesstimated sizes would be TBR having around 22 members at the start vs KoK with around 15 and a bunch of independents. My idea for these choices is to be big enough a threat to the other to provoke a war with out supporting large enough force to wipe out worlds. So Tiber and Kent achieve interstellar tech around the same time and start to expand. Tiber and Beltaine form the Referendum and use the power of being able to significant amounts of food and goods to entice other worlds to join but the Referendum was pretty weak as a central government.  KoK on the other hand expanded slower because they reformed the worlds that either joined on their own or where forced into the KoK. This goes on for around 200 years before they become aware of each other. By this point they have computers capable of jump 3 (dedicated systems as mentioned in CE general computer only capable of jump 2). With that in mind when I get around to mapping the subsectors I will put in J2 rifts on the far edges of both polities to provide a reason they went after each other rather than expand in another direction. You get 25 years of client state recruitment in the Tangles which is what I am calling the central subsector because I envision the jump routes looking tree like. THe whole situation goes up in flames as a war. KoK does good at the start because they have a larger and better integrated military this scares numerous formerly independent worlds to join the TBR. Numbers start to change the fortunes of war Beltaine force the TBR to offer to negotiate. During the negotiation a cut off squadron of KoK ships use nuclear weapons against an unaligned world that was allowing the use of it's spaceyards. The outcome of this is within a year the KoK surrenders in the face of the threat of retaliation in kind and almost all other worlds in the local area joining the TBR. The rogue squadron flees when it realizes they will be executed. Most pirates in the TBR still claim ties to this group. So the whole war takes 10 years or less and results in the weak and disorganized power winning and the strong centralized government still being in charge (mostly) of it's core worlds.

I will stop here as this has turned into a giant wall of text.
Takeaways:
1. Reason for noble titles and why PC nobles aren't in charge of stuff.
2. Reason for the randomness of world governments and technology
3. Reason for Army; Navy and Marines in feudal disorganized state.
4. Some more basic astrography
5. Basis for KoK to still be a separate identity.
6. Origin for pirates, Yarrgh!

Holy crap Book 3 of Cepheus Engine is awesome!

You might suspect from the title I am quite enamored of the changes to the CT system generation presented in Book 3 of Cepheus Engine (CE) and you would be right. However we'll go in order through the book. Chapter 11 is the environment and hazards which are mostly rules for things I never really gave much thought to. Acid; disease; temperature; falling; poison; radiation; sustenance; exposure to vacuum and weirdly enough in the middle of all that is carrying capacity. Do you need these rules? Maybe or maybe not but to have them makes winging it easier for me. Like most GMs (I suspect) I know the rules for things that happen commonly in a session and vaguely recall those that rarely come up. Mostly I wouldn't stop the flow of a session to look up a rule so to have at least a vague idea of how to represent a challenge in the system gives me a point to make a better snap decision then just pulling one completely out of thin air. The only one that really stands out to me is the radiation section because it does point out radiation is a life time gift in that it is a cumulative rating. I am torn on this as it adds (maybe but probably not) something else to track. Fortunately there is a simple in game way to remove rads to go along with where to get irradiated in the first place and how much protection common things give from radiation. The reason I say this probably won't add something to track is I suspect unless it is part of the session neither I or my player will care.

Chapter 12 covers creating worlds and I am chuffed (I have been watching commonwealth comedians again) by the changes in here. It covers the UWP which remains unchanged that I saw. Star mapping is also pretty similar with DMs changing the likelihood a star is present rather than giving a table with different probabilities for each density. I can't honestly say I know if it makes a difference or not. On to the meat of it as it were. You generate the size of a world first and handily there is a table of the surface Gs of the sizes assuming a standard composition. Next it a paragraph on how to introduce DMs  to show some kind of effect for being in a gravity field different from your own. Next is atmosphere with an extended range of atmosphere types and a description of what the types are. Hydrographics is next and has additional modifiers for size and atmosphere introduced. Population is the fourth thing to be generated and the part that really impressed me. It is the standard 2D6-2 roll but it gets modified by the physical world stats so the crappier the planet the lower it's population will be which is something I had already decided I was going to do in FU. To me it just makes over all good sense that a planet with a lesser ability to support human life will have a lower population. Population modifier comes up for those who want to use it however I never really worried about it before. The next big change which I hadn't thought of before and makes amazing sense to me is that you generate the starport after you know the worlds population. More people should mean more traffic which would lead to a better port. Thinking back to the passenger and freight tables being based exclusively on the starport might make a little more sense now and it also means I no longer am sure what the most common starport type is. The next thing you generate is the government type with a quibble that there is not a description of  the types just a name. Law Level is the next step being influenced by government type. Technology level is generated in the expected manner with a table of certain minimums based on world characteristics which I think was also in the LBBs but am to lazy to look up right now. After generating the world you can flesh out the system some by checking for gas giants; planetoid belts and various bases. You can also figure the worlds trade codes and likely trade routes. Travel zones; world allegiance and communications routes will depend on your setting more than random rolls or at least will in my case.

Chapter 13 covers wilderness encounters and the creation of animals and encounter tables. Animals get created with the same characteristics as PCs for the most part simplifying using them. Chapter 14 covers social encounters which means the NPCs of the setting. Chapter 15 covers starship or space encounters with sample encounter tables. These sections are more in depth that my summary would otherwise suggest but without actually playing the game I can't really say much about the material in them.

Chapter 16 covers refereeing the game which is usually my favorite section of any rule book. Most often this is where the developer of the game talks to the reader most directly and shares their experiences playing intentionally or not. Much like posting this blog and reading the comments is valuable to me because it is where I will most often encounter something I have either never thought of or have a different opinion of. It is my belief anything I may create will be better by getting input from people who are not part of my own echo chamber. Even if I don't appear to use a suggestion or differing point of view I will have thought through the point made and my own idea will be more fully thought out for it. I would advise reading the chapter as it has some good ideas but I will also admit if you have been playing RPGs for any length of time it is things you will have heard before.

Chapter 17 is suggestions on how to create adventures and much like the previous chapter you may or may not have heard everything in it before. I do still advise reading it. Some people know the five act structure and some have never heard of it regardless it never hurts to have a checklist of things to consider when making up an adventure or getting ready to play a sandbox.

And that ends the overview of the Cepheus Engine as written. I decided to go through the rule book as written before making any changes. I am happy I did because I more or less assumed CE would be just the SRD version of classic traveller and it is not. some people won't like that it has some important changes but I am okay or happy with the changes I did notice. Also I did it this way to avoid my most common trap. I have a really cool idea for a Starship or adventure or world or even a campaign and start there. Then I have to do the non really part of editing rules and lose interest. This bottom up approach doesn't work to well in a sci-fi game at least it doesn't work as well as it does in fantasy. For me knowing the basic way the universe works is a good thing so I can make specific things up and not have to fight them into the general way things work.

Cepheus Engine and it's effect on sheeple

The sheeple in the title applies to me specifically. I am okay at adapting other people innovations like The Cepheus Engine but would never come up with the idea and courage to do something like it. And it does take courage to say, I can rewrite an iconic game and release it online where there are a lot of not so nice people. This came to mind for me going through Book Two of The Cepheus Engine (CE). There are things I am ambivalent about and am most likely going to change. Normally I would not do that with a rule set and would never think to put it out in public. However for whatever bizarre reason I am okay doing it with a set of someone else's version of GDW's rules. I guess I am a sheeple but I am also grateful to Samardan Press for letting my own hangups get around themselves.

On to Book Two then. The high level overview is there are more changes to this section from the LBBs of yore and I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. I mean it is good in the sense of getting the rules in one place and providing a consistent usage for skills but I am somewhat thrown by some of the choices made. Interplanetary travel is the first topic and is fine the way it is. Next up is interstellar travel introducing the CE standard jump theory of a hull grid and the effect of gravity wells on jump drives. It also mentions jump plots either created by the ship's navigator or a purchased tape and how they are negatively effected by time passing. Then a more in depth version of the jump procedure is presented. I like giving the Ship's Engineer a part in the course of a jump and a higher skill in Navigation having an effect and longer jumps being harder. What I am unsure of is an jump roll under 8 causing a critical hit to the ship. It seems quite harsh to me that even when you don't misjump and only come out further from your destination than intended your ship takes a significant amount of damage. Well maybe significant as I can't find critical hit defined in the section on Starship Combat. The thing is most starship components are extremely expensive and unless the Trade and Commerce rules allow the rapid accumulation of wealth any damage can strand the PCs with no way to fix it. All because your Navigator got a 7 rather than an 8 on his jump roll. I don't know if I am keeping this or not as until I go through the rules and tweak them the first time I can't really tell how often this would happen.

The next section covers standard operations of a starship including what the various levels of passage are. Here I have some trouble as I like the number of passengers a steward can attend to increases with their steward skill and I dislike formalized double occupancy for High and Middle passage. I have never been on a cruise but I would like to think if I am paying for a cabin the ship can't stick a random person in the same cabin as me. True it seems to imply if you pay the full rather than discounted rate you are in the cabin yourself but if you are paying for the whole cabin and two people can occupy it why does allowing someone else in your cabin suddenly cost 6,000 more instead of the 2,000 more for the cost of life support, Next expenses are discussed most of which I am okay with. My biggest quibble isn't in the expense section so much as in ship construction and that is the common availability of fuel processors. I think a government would try to restrict this to government ships. If you can get fuel for free most anywhere in system it is less likely you will go to the main world. The size of a star system precludes any kind of comprehensive sensor net so if you are going to be doing something naughty you'll do it in the remote part of the system. I can see governments doing whatever they can to get civilian starships to only go where they are supposed to be to reduce crime and search and rescue costs. Requiring flight plans also means a ship will draw attention to missing blocks of time or excessive fuel use. On the other hand I have to actually use the Trade and Commerce rules to see if a starship is viable without fuel processors. Routine maintenance seems to be a monthly expense rather than a once a year two week event. Revenue is the next section and the next thing I find odd. There is a random number of passengers and freight based on the the starport. That is actually something I always found odd in the old system even after the revisions of Book 7 however there is no effect based on technology or population of the source or destination. Assuming the math works the same the average starport is a C so on average there are 2 High, 7 Middle and 10 Low passengers and 20 tons of freight for the average world or 87 Kcr (life support deducted) on an average run or 174 Kcr a month assuming 2 such voyages. The basic Trader (not Frontier) has a mortgage that runs 160 Kcr a month and it can't even haul all the awake passengers where most of the money comes from and that doesn't include any other ship expenses. I am dubious of a table with no modifiers as it reduces player involvement but I am also aware the highly simplified rules for starship finances make it really easy to make a major mistake and turn ships into gold factories. Next up are miscellaneous topics such as airlocks; docking ships together; boarding and landing on a world. None are really necessary but like a lot of things in CE it is nice to have the topic covered. Ship security is the next section and covers both physical and cyber security which are topics it never occurred to me to think about in the past so are a welcome addition. Character actions on other worlds are briefly discussed in the final section including causing trouble, leading to arrests and finally sentencing.

Chapter seven deals with Trade and Commerce. I guess I am okay with this section equivocating in a cowardly fashion. Figuring out the purchase and sale price of speculative goods is different than it used to be but not terribly so and it is easy enough to understand I just don't know how well it works until I make some characters and play with it some. One oddity I see is the seller's broker skill gives the buyer a crappier deal. I sort of understand this on a buying a car level but on the level of interstellar trade it seems to me everyone would look for inexperienced sellers reducing the demand for skilled ones. I said before I am not an economist and really don't want to be one but this seems simple enough to cause a problem. Unlike the LBBs you are not committed to a purchase or sale prior to rolling the dice which I am also ambivalent toward. The old system could be a narrative tool to say you get a great price on used ATV bikes but when you sell them the taxes and fees mean you break even at best aka Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones". Meh I will reserve judgement until I actually play with the system some. It is an easier system as only the best modifier from the world trade code is applied from both the Purchase and Sale price.

Chapter eight covers starship construction and I am okay with it on the whole. There are more options for stuff to put in or on a ship and that is always a good thing. I am iffy on the inclusion of bay weapons and screens but as I said elsewhere that is my personal desire to keep ships less important than characters which I don't see military weapons helping. I will do chapter nine in this paragraph as well which covers the standard designs. None of them offend me and none make my kokoro go doki doki (if you don't know what that means and don't mind offensive language I recommend the Urban dictionary example of usage). My above usage of a standard design in my take on standard freight and passenger service means I am dubious of some of the design choices but that happens no matter who is making the ship.

Chapter ten covers space combat and I was pleasantly surprised by it. First off I understand it and would mind running one unlike the LBB version. Also an attempt is made to include rolls for everyone not just the pilot and gunner so you can hopefully keep the whole table engaged in the combat which was a problem before. The damage system seems much more workable to me although not chipping away at drive letters seems wrong to my traditionalist self. My only real problem is no discussion of repairing things damaged in combat. I say damaged not outright destroyed because it does seem like a way to involve the players and avoid the whole any damage bankrupts and derails the campaign problem.

As always I welcome opinions.

Pulling myself free of the mass of snow and bodies and into the Cepheus Engine

I could try and claim I was doing research on the Cepheus Engine (CE) and important adulting stuff but the sad reality is I was goofing off in IWD. However I did read through the first 102 pages of CE and have some thoughts before I get into FU the CE version. First off there are two things that will generate some passion as they have in the past. A standardized task resolution system and armor absorbing damage. The first I have taken part in discussions in this group concerning and the second I don't recall happening specifically in this community but is pretty universal in RPGs. The reason I am doing blog posts rather than keeping my amateur efforts to myself is interaction with a diverse group with differing opinions always makes my final ideas better. I understand the view of the LBBs as written but feel with the limited time most people have to game these days a unified mechanic speeds things up which is also handy when using a VTT. The armor issue I am neutral toward. Mostly because I don't think an RPG is going to accurately simulate combat regardless if armor reduce the effect of getting hit or if it makes you harder to hit in the first place. I willingly suspend reality to play these games and as long as the rules let you have fun I am good with it. A fantasy game I own but never got to play is Altus Adventum which has a Yahtzee like to hit mechanic and your armor adds hit points (called wound levels) both of which are definitely game-ist as opposed to simulation-ist but it seems like it would be fun.

On to CE proper in my case I have the PWYW PDF version clocking in at 208 pages. Those are letter sized pages not the usual digest sized ones so there is quite a bit there. The table of contents is hyperlinked which is always helpful. It is subdivided into the introduction and then 3 books. The introduction is fairly standard stuff with the addition of setting out the task resolution system including modifiers from your attributes. I like having the Attributes having a modifier that is known from the start as it is a helpful shortcut for players to know when you start to shine or stink. Also included is a glossary of common terms which is standard the only thing standing out for me was The Explorer's Guild to take the place of Traveller's Aid Society. The books are in order Characters; Starships and finally Referee's Guide. This is better organized than the LBBs because they move all the relevant stuff into the appropriate book making find things easier. For instance drugs and wound recovery are in Book One not Book Two.

I went through Book One and am okay with most of it. My only issues are multiple careers and inclusion of certain skills. Both of these issues stem from the elements of FU I am bringing over from my original series of posts. My central premise of the original series of blog posts was a mandatory service for 4 years upon reaching eighteen. The reason I had conceived of that was a means to unify the citizens at the end of the civil war in the OTU. There is a strange dynamic to the OTU in that there are few things the Imperium does for or too it's citizens. I pondered that this was an explanation for the civil war and seeming willingness of everyone to break the law in almost every published adventure. Warming to the idea I used the universal draft to explain the very random nature of character creation. Nothing is guaranteed, you can't count on being in a given service or getting any given skill. So dealing with a huge number of recruits across the career spectrum made it plausible to me that you were assigned somewhere and trained to do whatever the Imperium  wanted/needed with no regard for your own desires and then you may or may not keep your job randomly. More importantly it gave a narrative tool I really liked, your prior career was largely out of your control when it ended the players were in charge of their own destiny at last. A clear demarcation between the end of generation and the start of play. None of that makes a difference to how the rules worked by descriptively it is very different than the way past careers are usually presented. The skills I a probably going to remove are Spinal Weapons; Bay Weapons; Screens and Battle Dress. I don't see myself ever running a Mobile Infantry campaign or a main battle fleet one so these would just be a waste of player skill choices. There can be a case made for battle Dress I suppose however sticking with my idea of universal service it would be reserved of elite units and because of what one being wearing it could do I posit it is closely monitored to the point of being almost impossible to encounter in civilian life. As for heavier ship weapons I like the dynamic of turrets only. The biggest difference in ships in LBB terms was the computer (I think) adding to your to hit otherwise the weapons on a merchant ship were the same as on a naval one. Naval vessels only had advantages in not needing to pay for themselves so redundant systems and armed small craft made tangling with them a bad but not impossible idea. Also It means it is unlikely in fleet actions ships fight to the death as one hit and the ship blows up doesn't really happen. Most importantly it keeps the focus on individuals rather than technology.

A very brief overview of Book One without any changes. Characteristics are generated normally with the rolls recorded in order as the standard rule, any order is mentioned as an option. Calculate the Characteristic modifier. The UPP is explained and a proposed character stat block is given. Then come the first innovation (for me at least) background skills. You get 3+ your EDU mod in level 0 background skills. I know MT had some based on your homeworld and even further back one of the Judge's Guild products had a similar concept but in both case it was one skill that was explicitly listed. In CE you get from one to five skills only one is dictated by your homeworld the other coming from a kind of everyman list of skills. Level 0 I hear you cry in derision! How lame! Not so if you have no skill you get a -3 DM if you try a task but level 0 get rid of the DM so it is worthwhile. Also setting up my desired tension during creation of limited choices to make players want to start playing. Then you go on to careers and there are twenty-four of them. Enlistment is called qualification now and it confused me at first as I thought it meant minimum characteristic required as opposed to a target number and the characteristic whose DM you use. If you fail to get into the career you attempt yo have to submit to the draft or try and qualify as a Drifter a rootless vagabond. I can't decide if the rules as stated mean every time you fail to qualify for a different career you get drafted or is that only on the first go round at 18. After qualifying or being drafted you do basic training which gives level 0 in everyone of the skills on the Service Skill table which I think is genius. Then comes the standard survive; commission; promotion; re-enlist cycle. Two skills per term is standard for all careers not offering ranks. As long as you have served less than seven total terms you can change careers if you get the boot from your current one or just decide to leave. There is a progressively worse DM for each prior career you have had except for getting into the Drifters which is the only career you can join more than once. Then comes mustering out which is pretty standard except for the addition of ship shares each worth 2 Mcr toward the cost of a ship. I have a quibble here as well as it isn't applied consistently as Scouts and Scientists get the use of a ship rather than a ship share or in most cases 1D6 shares. The gods of polyhedral randomness guarantee your play group will get a player with a ship and at least one other with at least one share.  Character generation finishes up with so advise for finishing touches and some sample alien races.

Chapter Two covers skills and how to use them. It covers the task system in detail then gives a list of skills. An major difference is handled in one short paragraph that ends the chapter namely gaining new skills and improving ones you have. The total of all your skills plus the level of the skill you want is the number of weeks you need to spend. Chapter Three covers Psionics which handily are handled like skills. It also covers some Psi/Anti-Psi tech and some notes on psionics in society. Chapter Four covers equipment with many examples including suggest related tasks. The only real standouts are the section on computers and software and the one on robots and drones. Chapter Five is the personal combat rules which I didn't try to analyze to deeply but there is a section on vehicles which is handy. This also where the rules for injury and healing are.

In summary The Cepheus Engine is clearly laid out; more completely covering the sci-fi genre and quite different that Classic Traveller while still being pretty compatible. I am trying to decide if I should go through the rest of CE and then adapt it all at once or dive into characters right off.

Mind reading about nobility and taxes

Okay here are the last three topics to lay out a sentient on the street view on before I start. People weren't freaked out by a small number of people having Psionics because their leaders (in almost all cases) were people who could touch a rock and get a magic picture show. When the organized study and training meant most people had some ability it was still a meh kind of thing. I view it as having the same kind of following as the metaphysical or spiritual aspects of yoga today. Everyone has heard of yoga and thinks anyone could do it fewer people are aware there is a belief (I am not sure that is the right description) system that goes along with it. No government support so it remained a kind of fringe element. Why do I say most people have some ability? Because you get a roll at 18 for strength which declines every 4 years afterwards so everyone starts with some power. The minimum strength required for most talents means only a few people will have a game effect even if they got training right at 18. Sorry my hard copy is at least 6 feet away from me and I don't have TK to get it so I can't give hard numbers but I recall you need around a PSI of 5 to get any of the cooler base powers and the average PSI is 7 at age 18. As it is a fringe thing most people have to do the adulting thing for awhile before they can afford training to stop the decay of PSI so I would guess without prejudice 5 would be the average score. So until meeting up with the Enlightened Order TBR/KoK viewed  psionics like we view the magicians on [your country goes here]'s Got Talent! EO is a very different place with testing and training provided by the state and being lead by people who have higher PSI scores the common view changed from amusing party trick to Orwellian police state. Add a couple marketing savvy ambitious politicians who learn the EO sends telepaths to prospective worlds first to figure out how best to change public opinion for the purpose of easing integration and mental McCarthyism is born.

Nobles as I have said get their initial boost from activating the obelisks. This leads to two problems a lack of dynastic succession and it is a terrible way to get competent leadership. So I see it as likely that people from commoner parents who can activate obelisks would get adopted into noble families (or seized in creepier states) at first. Eventually non-noble individuals get ennobled for merit leading to the current situation of nobility not necessarily running things regardless of their obelisk affinity. It has lead to two kinds of nobles, the O.B.E are those who can activate obelisks which in game are characters who start with a SOC of B or C. Knights can activate an obelisks but the information shown is not comprehensible; Counts activate a known or comprehensible idea. Merit nobles gain SOC due to their own actions regardless of their initial SOC score.

And finally everyone's least favorite but undeniably necessary thing taxes. I am not an economist. I don't want to be an economist. So there various taxes; fees and surcharges the government imposes don't need to be laid out. However I don't want to pretend (while pretending) they don't exists. The explanation for no interest on savings; lack of investment opportunities and random value of trade goods is that all the unseen taxes gobble up these things. It also makes it easier to use this as an adventure hook if I want. The TBR/KoK needs more money then a tax increase shows up as a +1 on the landing fee roll and a -1 on the resale value table. No one at the table needs to fool around figuring out an exact amount and in reality just telling the PC's their taxes went up without it having any effect will cause teeth gnashing and many shaken tiny fists.

My soul twists slowly in the cold Ice Wind blowing through the Dale

Having just figured out how to apply Windows Mods to my Linux IWDEE I was remiss in doing more on Fermi's Universe which I now regret as a naming choice as it become FU :sigh:. Anyways I have the general history and layout of FU set up the next thing to do is setting out the Patriarchy/Kent government and society so I can actually begin applying the rules. First thing though is dealing with the name which I have become increasingly displeased with. I had seen a video where an unpleasant person continuously repeated the word "Patriarchy" and I used to smoke Kent cigarettes. Okay for spur of the moment but Patriarchy needs to go because it is a real world divisive political issue and I want none of that in gaming, I still smoke so I am okay with Kent.

My idea is that To Be Renamed (TBR) was a Feudal Technocracy that operated much closer to historical feudalism. Individuals, in this case worlds, swore fealty to a single authority exchanging control over external policy for independence on internal policy. The Kingdom of Kent (KoK) was a more traditional fictional version of a kingdom with the royal family having control over much more of the territory and it's citizens. Both homeworlds need to be very close to Earth in physical characteristics because the short history means evolution would not have time to compensate for any really drastic changes. The further away for earth like a world is the smaller the population will be. The smaller the population the slower the rate of technological advance because a smaller group produces fewer exceptional members in either direction. I also think they need to be in a sector isolated by a rift of around jump 3. This gives around 400 worlds (Spinward Marches has 440 worlds I believe) enough to grow two powers to a large enough size to constitute a reasonable threat to each other and with limited expansion making war a likely course of action considering both are lead by totalitarian government styles. The war which I need to come up with a catchy name for starts between client states leading to escalating assistance from the two major powers until full out war. Devastation; destruction widespread misery follows. TBR ultimately forces a surrender as more independent worlds side with them do to the nature of TBR's local autonomy . One event was a rogue KoK squadron using nukes on a system triggering the capitulation in the face of similar retaliatory attacks. Post war there is political unrest until several historical figures make some really cool as yet undefined decisions leading to an amalgamation of the two major powers with the crown rotating between the two "royal" families. TBR traditions are the most prevalent but  KoK shows up as the mandatory rates for ship passages and freight also the creation of "imperial" services each world is subservient to.

I think that covers a different reason for a society that is comparable to 3I. I welcome any comments in case I am missing glaring flaws in this chain of ideas.