[TML] Scientific realism

[Richard Aiken]

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> Err... being left adrift in a lifeboat (pre-radio) is basically a death
> sentence.

Not adrift.  You'd have the lifeboat's sail.  And especially not in
the Carribean.  Given the prevailing winds, even an incompetent sailor
would make landfall in a few days . . . somewhere.  By the time he
did, though, the pirates would already have disposed of their booty
and be busily engaged in drinking and whoring away the profits accrued
therefrom.  In a Traveller setting, you'd want to specify that
lifeboats/small craft included emergency low berths, in order to get
something like the same effect.  Or else have organizations like TAS
maintain emergency survival stations in systems without habitible
planets.

> Being marooned on an island without civilization is about the
> same for the vast majority of people.

Modern people.  Not seventeenth century people.  But the chance of
inappropriately-skilled people being marooned in Traveller *should*
mean that lifeboats would carry "Survival For Dummies" guides, in all
the appropriate flavors.

But marooning - historically - *was* a punishment for wayward *pirate*
crew members.  It's written into the surviving pirate "constitutions"
we have, along with exactly what equipment the marooned individual
would be provided.  If the island had water - and the allowed
equipment included a hatchet or other large blade - the punishment was
likely meant only as a temporary inconvenience.  Given those
conditions - in the congenial Carribbean - any sailor worth his salt
could get back to what passed for civilization fairly quickly,  But if
the miscreant was not provided with a good blade and *particularly* if
the island was dry (without water sources other than rain), that was a
much tougher proposition.  This is why the constitution also provided
for a pistol with powder and shot . . . it wasn't for hunting.

Historically, crew members of surrendering boats were usually invited
to join the pirates.  Perhaps surprisingly, many accepted . . . which
says a lot about the relative attractions between working for scant
pay for a harsh captain and working for booty for yourselves.  Never
mind the eventual hanging.  There were many things that could kill
even a peaceful sailor in those times, so a noose in his future held
little terror.

Translating this fatalistic, devil-may-care attitude to Traveller is a
challenge.  Life expectancies in the game are generally long and
working conditions are generally at least tolerable, so there's little
incentive for common space crew to turn pirate.  You'd have to have a
real hardscrabble economic situation to make it believable, I think.
Maybe near the Sword Worlds in 1120 or the region along the axis of
the Imperial advance in the Solomani Rim, in the decade or so right
after the Rim War . . . or just about anywhere in MT/TNE (as I
understand the setting).

(Oh, yeah!  And the pirates would usually ask the crew if their
captain was a "hard horse," someone who liked to flog overmuch.  If
they said he was, the pirates would cheerfully take turns flogging
him!)

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein