[TML] Prototype

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Oct 30, 2007, at 6:53 PM, <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au>
> <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> Whatever you wish to use in your Traveller universe is between you
>> and your
>> God.  That's fine.  But I like to apply a grain of salt of reality
>> to the
>> game and make it a richer, more realistic setting.  Things change.
>> Period.
>> That's not just a game, it's life.  That's Human Nature.
> 
> But many of these people aren't Human, as we know it. The Vilani
> spent a huge part of their prehistory as slaves for a godlike alien
> being, who then went to war with other GAB's which wiped most of them
> out.
> 
> They then spent a sizeable chunk of their early recorded history
> building up a civilization that was then squashed like bugs by GAB
> technology. They "originated" on a world where their food will *kill*
> them if they don't prepare it properly. ALL their food.
> 
> This will make Human Nature far less of the universal trait you think
> it is.

I think to a large degree it's not about "human nature", but the nature of
life in general.

The only constant is change.

If the Vilani had been that static, some neighbor would not have been.  And
that neighbor would have taken over the empire.  It's simply absurd to think
that the Vilani could stagnate, yet remain the big man on the block.