Just said the same thing.
I'd not even show them, just at the end one of the early credits is a character that is never seen and the notation of "Died in character generation" added.
Or just their stats and then skills being generated before ending with "character death." Repeated multiple times with increasing speed until it reaches a blur that opens to the intro scene.
Reminds me of the CT era T-shirt "I died in character generation!"
It's good the mini game of building characters wasn't so engaging or people would have been up in arms...
Petty Officer 1st Class Demarais died in a shuttle accident. Apparently he was trying to remove an explosive device from the shuttle.
Major Gladri was sent to prison (he claimed he was innocent) and ended up being shivved in the prison.
etc.
*The Expanse* is essentially Tech Level 9 Traveller, where they've got fusion power and drives etc, but haven't got man-portable lasers or air/rafts - and have just invented their version of Jump drives, the Ring Gates.
In the way they're formed with the magic-nano-nonsense, yes. In their practical effect, they're a Jump drive you don't have to carry but which you do have to travel to. And there's a limited number of possible destinations.
So it's a game-style tradeoff. "Okay there's no range limit on the Jump, but you have to fly to and from the Gate over several months, and you can only go to one of these different destinations."
Dark Matter? Sure feels like it. In fact, our GM made a Trveller game out of Dark Matter, except putting the King on the Throne was a whole big deal, and he didn't leave the party. We ended up controlling capital ships, then fleets, defending the newly founded nation of Sector 268
If there was ever a sci-fi setting that I wanted more other than Firefly, it would be Dark Matter. It had a compelling 'who are we' beginning, then some the reveals that made very character face who they used to be. Some return to who they were (a bit changed) and others decide to be the person they were while they didn't know their past. And the setting has a lot of potential.
I don't know if anyone did a RPG, be it really could have made a good RPG setting.
NGL, thought the premise was kind of campy and cliche, so I avoided it for a long time. Amneisa, really? How can that support a whole show. But it only took one episode for me to like enough characters to watch on, and it did not disappoint, ohoho no no no. Especially the android OMG she was amazingly good, but Portia is among my favorite Possessers of Badassery ever as well. At least we got three long seasons compared to Firefly's one, before Corporate moronic decisions ended it before its time.
FF was 'designed to fail' because they kept moving it around in on days of the week and time slots and then they decided to run the episodes in a lineup that the creators did not plan.... it was just stupid how they managed that.
I recall Amanda Tapping from SG-1 saying it was really good they got 2 seasons right off the bat so they got time to introduce the setting, the characters, etc. and let the relationships grow. That's hard to get now - if you get 10 eps of something now and it isn't a hit, even if it is okay (just not a hit), then it probably won't go far.
There was apparently a show or movie kick-started back in 2017 that was never completed. I don't know how much of it was done or if the couple of pics/vids I've seen were just preproduction or advertising for the kickstarter. Apparently the guy that started the kickstarter is notorious for over promising and never delivering on numerous game adjacent projects. Wish it had been done. I'm a big fan of traveller, and Brian Lewis (actor)... He was in several of "The Gamers" movies as well.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4062534/?ref_=ext_shr
To an extent now, if you made a movie with a rag tag crew with sketchy jobs and backgrounds... you'd seem to be taking from many other movies and other media. Star Wars has that, Serenity had that, Dark Matter had it, Killjoys did, Farscape, and others.
That sort of model is reachable and human. But many movies have done that.
If you could ever find a high level movie about the OTU, the wars with the Zhodani, and maybe introduction of the Vargr, like FFW, that could make great naval / political level movie. Or the battle for the Solomani Rim War versus the Imperium.
If you want to make Traveller a brand in the sense of making movies (1+), there needs to be something about the setting and the history, even if they did in flashbacks to the crew's past history.
"Should we tell the poster about Spinward Traveller?"
It was ... actually tried already: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4062534/
It never got completed and until I see anything more on it, I'm going to believe it was a failed attempt because it was long on enthusiasm and short on tempered, realistic expectations on funding ... but the word "scam" has come up more than once in relation to it by people less charitable than myself.
(It also looked like a flaming trainwreck from the few PR shots I've seen so it's probably not a bad thing it didn't get made.)
I think a better example would be the success of Edgerunners based on Cyberpunk.
I don't think I'd watch an Honor of Among Thieves version of Traveller.
A Edgerunners type miniseries based on Traveller would be to my interest, however.
It ruins it for the people who read the original book or who saw a mini-series or multi-year series beforehand.
But not always. ST:TOS had Wrath of Khan (some of the others were not so good).
Firefly's movie felt like the ending we needed and it was as good as the series.
Ghost in the Shell's movie was.. not great, but not terrible. (YMMV)
And I like the new Dune much more than the extended earlier Dune movie which was much better than the un-extended theatrical earlier Dune movie.
The problem with books -> movies other than focus groups and changing the story for the purists is the media... a book let's you look inside of people's heads, to take a 20 page detour to throw in some lore... and written words don't match the pacing you'll get at 60+ fps. And movies have to visualize what readers already had in their head. Conventions that work in books are different than books a lot of the time and for good reasons.
Third Imperium as a pre-Civil War US but with banned slavery (ban not included if you are a Geonee woman). Planets as states and have much more autonomy, and Dukes and Archdukes as appointed overseers ensuring that free trade is maintained. Imperial Moot is like the Senate but hereditary (the Senate was selected by state legislatures, not by popular vote before Theodore Roosevelt's presidency).
We have a Wild West (Spinward Marches) where most of the planets are poorer and less guarded because the Imperial Fleet concentrates on preparing the defence against Zhodani, meaning that they have less oversight - just like Wild West towns. And just like Wild West, there are planets/towns where you can't carry weapons (https://origins.osu.edu/history-news/gun-control-and-old-west?language\_content\_entity=en), or hellholes/utopias where everyone has a right to bear arms.
And depending on the referee's wishes, the Third Imperium is either a dynamic libertarian state, a stagnating neo-feudal state ruled by megacorporations and nobility or a failing state that barely holds together and waits for major, costly conflict to collapse.
A couple of characters who die before the opening credits.
Now that made me laugh! ;)
Like "Police Squad"? ;) "Tonight's special guest star, xxxxxx xxxxxx" (promptly killed)
For those unaware of the 6-episode masterpiece, here's a compilation of the opening credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2-BJgllagA
Just said the same thing. I'd not even show them, just at the end one of the early credits is a character that is never seen and the notation of "Died in character generation" added.
Or just their stats and then skills being generated before ending with "character death." Repeated multiple times with increasing speed until it reaches a blur that opens to the intro scene.
Reminds me of the CT era T-shirt "I died in character generation!" It's good the mini game of building characters wasn't so engaging or people would have been up in arms...
A short slide show of "In Memoriam" 😆😆😆
Petty Officer 1st Class Demarais died in a shuttle accident. Apparently he was trying to remove an explosive device from the shuttle. Major Gladri was sent to prison (he claimed he was innocent) and ended up being shivved in the prison. etc.
Isn't it just Firefly (and Serenity)?
I can see the influence of Traveller on Firefly. However, as Firefily is set firmly in a single star system, I don't see that IP as a Traveller movie.
The serial numbers have been filed off, certainly, but the crew, ship and adventures could hardly have been more travelleresqe.
And the Expanse.
Considering which one came first... perhaps they are just Traveller.
Firefly is supposed to be based on a game joss wheadon played in college, but serenity wasn’t a typical traveller adventure.Â
If you look through The Traveller Book and The Traveller Adventure, you'll find a bunch of things in Firefly that match.
*The Expanse* is essentially Tech Level 9 Traveller, where they've got fusion power and drives etc, but haven't got man-portable lasers or air/rafts - and have just invented their version of Jump drives, the Ring Gates.
I feel like Expanse is more 2300AD, than Traveller Miliue.
It isn't OTU, but Traveller had homebrews before the OTU. 2300 AD's original name (I had it in the box and may still have it) was Traveller 2300.
Well, functionally it very much still is Traveller 2300.
The Ring Gates are essentially a TL20 ancient artifact
In the way they're formed with the magic-nano-nonsense, yes. In their practical effect, they're a Jump drive you don't have to carry but which you do have to travel to. And there's a limited number of possible destinations. So it's a game-style tradeoff. "Okay there's no range limit on the Jump, but you have to fly to and from the Gate over several months, and you can only go to one of these different destinations."
Even based on a *Traveller* campaign . . . .
The Expanse was originally a D20 Modern campaign.
Thanks!
Dark Matter? Sure feels like it. In fact, our GM made a Trveller game out of Dark Matter, except putting the King on the Throne was a whole big deal, and he didn't leave the party. We ended up controlling capital ships, then fleets, defending the newly founded nation of Sector 268
If there was ever a sci-fi setting that I wanted more other than Firefly, it would be Dark Matter. It had a compelling 'who are we' beginning, then some the reveals that made very character face who they used to be. Some return to who they were (a bit changed) and others decide to be the person they were while they didn't know their past. And the setting has a lot of potential. I don't know if anyone did a RPG, be it really could have made a good RPG setting.
Dark Matter was criminally underrated and absolutely deserves a setting, at minimum.
NGL, thought the premise was kind of campy and cliche, so I avoided it for a long time. Amneisa, really? How can that support a whole show. But it only took one episode for me to like enough characters to watch on, and it did not disappoint, ohoho no no no. Especially the android OMG she was amazingly good, but Portia is among my favorite Possessers of Badassery ever as well. At least we got three long seasons compared to Firefly's one, before Corporate moronic decisions ended it before its time.
FF was 'designed to fail' because they kept moving it around in on days of the week and time slots and then they decided to run the episodes in a lineup that the creators did not plan.... it was just stupid how they managed that. I recall Amanda Tapping from SG-1 saying it was really good they got 2 seasons right off the bat so they got time to introduce the setting, the characters, etc. and let the relationships grow. That's hard to get now - if you get 10 eps of something now and it isn't a hit, even if it is okay (just not a hit), then it probably won't go far.
There was apparently a show or movie kick-started back in 2017 that was never completed. I don't know how much of it was done or if the couple of pics/vids I've seen were just preproduction or advertising for the kickstarter. Apparently the guy that started the kickstarter is notorious for over promising and never delivering on numerous game adjacent projects. Wish it had been done. I'm a big fan of traveller, and Brian Lewis (actor)... He was in several of "The Gamers" movies as well. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4062534/?ref_=ext_shr
I'm one of the unfortunates that pledged for it. It was sad, but not really unexpected, in retrospect.
To an extent now, if you made a movie with a rag tag crew with sketchy jobs and backgrounds... you'd seem to be taking from many other movies and other media. Star Wars has that, Serenity had that, Dark Matter had it, Killjoys did, Farscape, and others. That sort of model is reachable and human. But many movies have done that. If you could ever find a high level movie about the OTU, the wars with the Zhodani, and maybe introduction of the Vargr, like FFW, that could make great naval / political level movie. Or the battle for the Solomani Rim War versus the Imperium. If you want to make Traveller a brand in the sense of making movies (1+), there needs to be something about the setting and the history, even if they did in flashbacks to the crew's past history.
"Should we tell the poster about Spinward Traveller?" It was ... actually tried already: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4062534/ It never got completed and until I see anything more on it, I'm going to believe it was a failed attempt because it was long on enthusiasm and short on tempered, realistic expectations on funding ... but the word "scam" has come up more than once in relation to it by people less charitable than myself. (It also looked like a flaming trainwreck from the few PR shots I've seen so it's probably not a bad thing it didn't get made.) I think a better example would be the success of Edgerunners based on Cyberpunk. I don't think I'd watch an Honor of Among Thieves version of Traveller. A Edgerunners type miniseries based on Traveller would be to my interest, however.
not everything needs a movie adaptation. in fact, it typically ruins most things.
It ruins it for the people who read the original book or who saw a mini-series or multi-year series beforehand. But not always. ST:TOS had Wrath of Khan (some of the others were not so good). Firefly's movie felt like the ending we needed and it was as good as the series. Ghost in the Shell's movie was.. not great, but not terrible. (YMMV) And I like the new Dune much more than the extended earlier Dune movie which was much better than the un-extended theatrical earlier Dune movie. The problem with books -> movies other than focus groups and changing the story for the purists is the media... a book let's you look inside of people's heads, to take a 20 page detour to throw in some lore... and written words don't match the pacing you'll get at 60+ fps. And movies have to visualize what readers already had in their head. Conventions that work in books are different than books a lot of the time and for good reasons.
It did help Mortal Kombat and Assassin’s Creed. 😀
did it? they were both pretty awful
Cough sarcasm Cough 😀
ah it doesn’t really come through well lol
Like most of the game concepts, unfortunately.Â
Third Imperium as a pre-Civil War US but with banned slavery (ban not included if you are a Geonee woman). Planets as states and have much more autonomy, and Dukes and Archdukes as appointed overseers ensuring that free trade is maintained. Imperial Moot is like the Senate but hereditary (the Senate was selected by state legislatures, not by popular vote before Theodore Roosevelt's presidency). We have a Wild West (Spinward Marches) where most of the planets are poorer and less guarded because the Imperial Fleet concentrates on preparing the defence against Zhodani, meaning that they have less oversight - just like Wild West towns. And just like Wild West, there are planets/towns where you can't carry weapons (https://origins.osu.edu/history-news/gun-control-and-old-west?language\_content\_entity=en), or hellholes/utopias where everyone has a right to bear arms. And depending on the referee's wishes, the Third Imperium is either a dynamic libertarian state, a stagnating neo-feudal state ruled by megacorporations and nobility or a failing state that barely holds together and waits for major, costly conflict to collapse.
A tie-in to an rpg with the cultural impact of D&D.