 April 4, 2019 - 5:22pm | Caveat: there is now a finished article Evaluating the canonicity of Villians of Volturnis in the magazine submission cue. This thread stems from working on the same thing with Captive Planet. Protagonist is son of 2 scientist technicians working for the company, PGC on New Pale. He has been invited to the "Computer Institute" on Gran Quivera which happens to be housed in PGC building. New Pale is described as a PGC colony. The issue, of course is does this make sense if Streel dominates in the "Truane sector" as the book puts it. (there is apparently a New Pale sector as well- according to the book) How to harmonize this? Position it back in time? It has to be post Sathar War 1. Note: I'm only half way thru Its clear to me that I'm going to be treating this story as a Star play holo drama same as Villain of Volturnis. Lots of reasons- interstellar scouted ship with anti grav. And the like. Also Brim Darkstar's back story is a hard swallow for the setting purist- discovered a baby by Star law after his unknown parents and their colony were swallowed by a black hole. Named Darkstar by the star law agent. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 4, 2019 - 5:34pm | Also one has to wonder at all the references to him as a handsome man dressed in a blue skin tight skien suit with that 70s porn star mustache in the illustrations if there isn't a slight undercurrent of homosexual eroticism in the book from the author. I kept wanting to call him Brim Porn Star. In fact every time I read handsome man, my brain supplied Arnold Swarchenaggar s voice from that dog of an early movie by him called "The Handsome Stranger" where he tells everyone that he is "the handsome stranger" in that thick Austrian accent he had back in the day. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 4, 2019 - 5:42pm | Other tid bits: capitol city of New Pale is Truane City. There is also a Truane City Star Port and an Alpha Station outside the defenses of Truane City. The mannakan crop is relied on by "every planet in the Federation" Since its " manna" as in the bread that God miraculously fed the Israelites with in the desert, im assuming its an analog to wheat. There are harvester/agbots tending to it so that sounds like wheat. Brim Porn Star's ship also has a radar screen whatever that is. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 4, 2019 - 5:45pm | Harvester / agbots have a nuclear reactor that will blow if the bot takes a little bit of damage. This results in destruction of everything in 20 kilometer radius. Farm equipment that doubles as a nuke. Boom! Any you thought cow farts were bad. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 5, 2019 - 5:42am | Lots of robots everywhere in this adventure team has an anthropomorphic vrusk cybot named Kit for short, full name is Bi-zkit (biscut) opposition has cybots (armed) lots of these warbot agbots (harvesters) garbot- garbage robot- big vacuum cleaner basically a level 6 robotic brain running things It actually thanks the team for giving it a useful robotic assistent after they jack Kit into the computer network. New quipment: Biocort Ointment and Stardrive technology which seems to eliminate astrogation computations. New equipment details sonic devastator vibrates your molecules until they heat up then you disintegrate. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 5, 2019 - 5:44am | Vrusk physiology and cultural details a vrusk's "shell" will glow in anger they chop their mandibles when thinking. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 5, 2019 - 11:16am | Harvester / agbots have a nuclear reactor that will blow if the bot takes a little bit of damage. This results in destruction of everything in 20 kilometer radius. Farm equipment that doubles as a nuke. Boom! Any you thought cow farts were bad. Not very eco friendly! Joe Cabadas |
April 5, 2019 - 11:17am | Lots of robots everywhere in this adventure team has an anthropomorphic vrusk cybot named Kit for short, full name is Bi-zkit (biscut) opposition has cybots (armed) lots of these warbot agbots (harvesters) garbot- garbage robot- big vacuum cleaner basically a level 6 robotic brain running things It actually thanks the team for giving it a useful robotic assistent after they jack Kit into the computer network. New quipment: Biocort Ointment and Stardrive technology which seems to eliminate astrogation computations. New equipment details sonic devastator vibrates your molecules until they heat up then you disintegrate. Some of this stuff is useful. Joe Cabadas |
April 5, 2019 - 8:39pm | Harvester / agbots have a nuclear reactor that will blow if the bot takes a little bit of damage. This results in destruction of everything in 20 kilometer radius. Farm equipment that doubles as a nuke. Boom! Any you thought cow farts were bad. Not very eco friendly! I'm of the strong opinion that the only way to treat the 3 star frontiers endless quest books is as movies produced by Star Play for the young teen market. Which lets us hand wave major contradictory material in technology or setting. So harvesters that blow like a nuke lets call that Star Play Wood. Star Drive and anti gravity? More hand wavium on Star plays part. However, as inconvenient as New Pale being a PGC corporate planet is I think that should speak to real facts in setting. Maybe as part of the Laco War settlement PGC ceded New Pale to Steele which already had taken control of it and Steele relinquished its claim to Laco? Such that the details on New Pale setting wise are "yes and amen" just history at this point. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 5, 2019 - 8:48pm | So after finishing collating the setting details from this book it might be good to collate all other canon data on it and maybe SFman and FE data. Volturnis Connection from dragon gives some detail. A few creatures and plants introduced in SFman and Fe over the years. There has been at least one fan generated system brief, which I would look at but I wouldn't want to give it a lot of weight preferring to do compile a detail canon brief from all sources as a base document. The non canon material of an adventure pet or creature from new pale or a food crop from new pale do little "damage" and would get included an appendix might list all fan material connected to new pale. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 5, 2019 - 11:10pm | Captive Planet might generate these submissions: A evaluation article discussing the story, its contradictions, setting details we learn from it, and discussion on using it for adventure seed. Another article would be "the robots of captive planet" and could include the cybodragons Another might be suggested stats for Unit 5 members even though we've ruled them characters in a movie the each would have character portraits from the book. Might even do up actor profiles- the actors name and actual skills and maybe a random personality table slanted to produce a Hollywood" celebrity and advice on working one of the actors as an NPC into an adventure. Based off details in the book I think a map might be worked up for Truane City that could be another submission. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 6, 2019 - 10:20am | Laura Mumma covered some of this in her musings under Tch's Projects. I know someone wrote a system brief on Truane's Star for Star Frontiersman magazine, but one could certainly write an article about this topic with a fresh take. I think it is entirely plausible that New Pale could have started off as a Pan Galactic Corporation owned world -- but one with a heavy human population -- before the First Sathar War. It suffers greatly during the occupation. With its subsequent liberation, the PGC resumes operations there. With the founding of the United Planetary Federation, it begins bringing in a number of non-human workers, which causes resentment among a faction of the original human colonists. HUSP gets formed and attacks start happening on non-humans... One would think that with New Pale's high gravity, Yazarians might not be inclined to go to such a world, so it might be Vrusk and Dralasites that are settling there... Meanwhile, Streele is growing and resents the PGC's presence in "its" home system. It lobbies the government of Pale to intervene on New Pale, on behalf of the victims of Husp terrorism. The PGC is portrayed as uncaring and only out for profits by raping the beauty of New Pale... Pale intervenes -- i.e. invades -- New Pale to "end the slaughter" by the racist Husps. The PGC is forced to give up corporate ownership and everyone lives happily ever after... OK, maybe not... Joe Cabadas |
April 6, 2019 - 10:21am | So after finishing collating the setting details from this book it might be good to collate all other canon data on it and maybe SFman and FE data. Volturnis Connection from dragon gives some detail. A few creatures and plants introduced in SFman and Fe over the years. There has been at least one fan generated system brief, which I would look at but I wouldn't want to give it a lot of weight preferring to do compile a detail canon brief from all sources as a base document. The non canon material of an adventure pet or creature from new pale or a food crop from new pale do little "damage" and would get included an appendix might list all fan material connected to new pale. Fresh looks are always good. Joe Cabadas |
April 6, 2019 - 8:22pm | I like the idea of Streel supporting HUSP to cause trouble for PGC. Its the same tactic they use with the Liberation Front on Clarion. so maybe it was used on Pale first then policy gets continued in White Light where is blows up in STreel's face. There is the post SW1 Laco war and i would lean toward the settlement resolution where Streel had effectively seized New Pale early in the contest known as Laco's war. Portraying themselves as liberators but later they suppress HUSP possibly because terrorist are not good for business. at some point the government of Pale can become more involved, local populations agitate for self determination sort of thing I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 7, 2019 - 4:24am | I like the idea of Streel supporting HUSP to cause trouble for PGC. Its the same tactic they use with the Liberation Front on Clarion. so maybe it was used on Pale first then policy gets continued in White Light where is blows up in STreel's face. There is the post SW1 Laco war and i would lean toward the settlement resolution where Streel had effectively seized New Pale early in the contest known as Laco's war. Portraying themselves as liberators but later they suppress HUSP possibly because terrorist are not good for business. at some point the government of Pale can become more involved, local populations agitate for self determination sort of thing That would make sense Joe Cabadas |
 April 7, 2019 - 5:21pm | Pre-SW1 puts it in nicely with my Historic Adventures |
April 7, 2019 - 7:27pm | PGC in Truane's Star? If you try to harmonize the canon material AD and KHs are not a big deal. Other material causes problems so where the problems exist you need to try to explain. Zebs is problematic- time line dates cause lots of problems. from founding and discovery of the two planets to the date of SW1 is just not enough time. SW1 has "the Great Exodus to Dixon's Star" which only makes sense if its just refugees escaping on whatever ships they can but if its a Great Exodus then no. Then a short time later the Blue Plague strikes Pale (New Pale is not mentioned) and depopulates Pale yet we have a planet with a high population code for Pale. Then we get things like Alorne Zebulon and Seccitte Zebulon discovering Zebulon system. from Dragon magazine's Volturnus Connection and Zebs Guide. Both of these sources have problems in my opinion although I want to give the least wt to Zebs. Tote that Barge tells us that New Pale exports 90% ag goods to Pale and imports 85% industrial goods from Pale. One has to wonder if the tote that barge prices should not be reduced since none of this cargo leaves the system and you dont have the expense of an interstellar journey for them Then we get into Captive planet which tells us that the mannakan crop is derived from the earth crop cassava. That Pale is a red planet when Volturnus connection says its a cold planet. with ice packs. All told these are the original sources for information on New Pale: AD KH Zebs Guide dragon articles Volturnus Connection and Tote that Barge Endless quest book Captive Planet. and Villians of Volturnus although Villians material can kind of be ignored unless you want to just say that the mega corp in Villians is a subsidy of Streel. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 7, 2019 - 7:35pm | We also have all this trade going back and forth between the two planets according to Tote that Barge which actually makes a lot of sense. and 4 canon space stations- a Space Fortress, docking station and trade station around Pale and an Armed space station at New Pale plus a mid sized miliatia and the mythical Cygnus Omicron IX where Pale conducted a police action. There is a lot of activity going on in space in the Truane's Star star system. I would possit that with Pale conducting a police action on Cygnus Omicron IX and a military action on New Pale (as described in Volturnus Connection) that they have a lot of system ships in their militia that are not listed in the KHs campaign game. lots of troop transports and landers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 9, 2019 - 10:35pm | Just a thought on the Red Planet vs Cold Planet... Mars is cold, but there could be other reasons the ice could be red for some reason. The planets lichens, Moss, algae’s, grasses etc are red not green so all flora is red to purple leaf colors. Just some thoughts. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
