Traveller General--Hivers do it Just As Planned Edition

I wish I could remember where I saw it. Could it have been in Shadis?

>Blakes 7 anti-Federation campaign

Always thought it would be fun to reboot Blake and crew as Gelflings - then run the Dark (Crystal) Federation as the puppets of hidden Skeksis manipulators. Then adding in the Mystics to give a Arisia vs Boskone backstory. Imagine the reactions when an Arisian created Lensman showed up to reclaim the Liberator.

>They can employ violence if they're corned and have no choice.

The Hivers are in no way pacifists. There is a difference between being a physical coward and a pacifist. Cowards can also be murderers.

The Hivers prefer "violence at a distance". They've elevated passive-aggressive behavior to an art form. They also routinely poison each other and arrange plausibly deniable "accidents".

Check out TNE's "Aliens of the Rim" for a more adult and nuanced version of the Hivers than the "Happy Mute Starfish" presented in Classic.

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>the "Happy Mute Starfish" presented in Classic.

Hey, now, I'll admit that TNE really upped the dark'n'gritty factor to suit the 90s, but the Classic rendition of Hivers does not paint them as some sort of care bears. They have a standing military, including masses of Ithklur infantry who relish doing the close-up fighting for them, and their victory in the Hiver-K'kree war is downright scary.

>Selecting several worlds within Kilong sector deep in the K'kree's Two Thousand Worlds, major secret expeditions were dispatched to work a variety of manipulations on native K'kree populations. Over a period of years (-2018 to -2013), the expeditions were successful in changing altering K'kree culture from its consistent and static mold, introducing such aberrations as meat sauces for foods and acceptance of isolation as a recreation.

>n 2013, the Hivers succeeded in drawing the K'kree to the negotiating table by hinting that they were ready to surrender. During the discussions, the Federation horrified K'kree negotiators by demonstrating to them the success of their expeditions, and revealing plans to radically alter the K'kree social order if the war were to continue. Several months of serious negotiation (and frantic checking by the K'kree) finally resulted in an armistice which returned the occupied worlds to the Hivers and established a secure border which remains stable to this day.

>The K'kree were extremely disturbed by the Hiver tampering with their culture. The four K'kree worlds which had been tampered with were sterilized immediately; they remain inter-
dicted worlds even today.

Culture war is crazy to think of, that is the state of modern and future warfare. I mean with that recent CIA leak thing they mentioned how they have a "memetic warfare" division.

Is there any fun compedium of OTU which I can read or is everything spread over tens of books?

It's more or less the latter; I check the Traveller wiki a lot, but it could use some more work. A really good collection of the OTU stuff would be nice.

There's the OTU timeline, it's not much, but it helps, in the archive under general universe, file related

There's the OTU timeline, it's not much, but it helps, in the archive under general universe, file related

shit, thought those'd be in the same post

Nice one, definitely useful. Thanks!

>They have a standing military, including masses of Ithklur infantry who relish doing the close-up fighting for them, and their victory in the Hiver-K'kree war is downright scary.

1st, the Ithklur are allotted about four paragraphs in Classic's Hiver alien module along with a few other Hiver "servitor" races. Much of the regarding them came later and was a result of fan enthusiasm 'cause any sci-fi setting simply MUST have "Klingons". As it did with the Hivers, TNE's "Aliens of the Rim" presents a more mature and nuanced version of the Ithklur as did GT's alien books. The MT and GT books dealing with the Solomani show Fed ground forces made up of several servitor species.

2nd, the "We trolled your culture LOL" story the armistice is the Hivers' version of what happened. The Ithklur tell a story which, while having the same result, is very different.

3rd, the Hivers are MANIPULATORS and celebrate that aspect of their culture. Manipulating perceptions of events AFTER the fact is far easier than actually manipulating conditions as those events occur. TNE suggests that one of the reasons the Hivers are so good at cybernetics is their constant need to "cook the books" in order to claim prescience and credit where none are actually due.

Ever see the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"? There's scene with Pee Wee quickly pedaling his bike through a neighborhood. He wipes out in front of a group of kids, falling off the bike, and rolling across a lawn only to pop up on his feet without a bruise or scratch on him. Realizing that he's embarrassed himself in front of a bunch of grammar school kids, Pee Wee boldly claims "I meant to do that...".

That's exactly what the Hivers most often do when claiming they've performed a manipulation. They claim control and/or guidance of events AFTER the fact. Putting it in current terms, the Hivers control the narrative. They obfuscate and spin the facts in favor of the "fake news" which supports their claims.

>The Hivers are in no way pacifists.

Agreed. I always viewed them as more cowardly than pacifistic. They'd gladly stab you in the back if they could get away with it. Look what they do to their own children.

>Check out TNE's "Aliens of the Rim"

I think that's what most of us are basing our views on. I'm not all that familiar with the GURPS version.

>I think that's what most of us are basing our views on. I'm not all that familiar with the GURPS version.

I doubt most are basing their views on the TNE product. In my experience, most views are usually a mix of Classic and fanon. The GT version shares more with TNE than Classic.

Has Mongoose fucked up the Hivers yet?

>The Ithklur tell a story which, while having the same result, is very different.

The Ithklur version is correct.

Who was it that said TNE was more adult? Ho ho humbug!

>Has Mongoose fucked up the Hivers yet?

Dunno. I just collect their shit. I don't actually read it. :)

Has anybody here actually tried to play T5?

Travelleronomicon? I tried chargen, but had to start rolling Sanity checks IRL.

IIRC someone tried to make it readable. I didn't try improved version, though.

Are they still going to release the rumored Player's Guide Edition?

>Who was it that said TNE was more adult? Ho ho humbug!

That was me and it was a poor word choice. I should have written "mature".

>Has anybody here actually tried to play T5?

Setting, alien, world, etc creation and such, yes. Play? Fuck no. It truly is a game kit and not a game.

>Are they still going to release the rumored Player's Guide Edition?

People are working on it, but people worked on T5 for for close to 2 decades so don't get your hopes up. Hell, I've T5 "update" emails talking about it being released "soon" dating from 2005.

What IS the Ithklur version?

>We trolled your culture LOL

Dude, they drove several entire planets clinically insane by K'kree standards. Like horrifically insane, to the point the K'kree nuked their own people from orbit..

You're free to have your own headcanon that that stuff never happened and that it was just the Hivers making stuff up or taking credit for things they had nothing to do with or whatever, but none of that appears to be in the Classic text.

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>Dude, they drove several entire planets clinically insane by K'kree standards.

Dude, read "Aliens of the Rim". It's just as much canon as the Classic module.

In fact, AotR is written in a way Veeky Forums users may find interesting. The text from the Classic module is presented followed by what is best described as a GREENTEXT commentary on how most of that text is self serving bullshit.

It was "only" 4 planets by the way.

>>You're free to have your own headcanon that that stuff never happened

I'm not saying it never happened, fuckwit. I'm saying ACTUAL CANON has two versions of the events and the Ithklur one is far more plausible. This isn't headcanon, this is stuff published by GDW.

>>
>>What IS the Ithklur version?

Ithklur ground troops were left behind when the Hivers in the Fed navy ran away. Ithklur being Ithklur and knowing what the K'Kree did to carnivores and omnivores, they decided to fight to the last. Captured supplies kept the Ithklur in the fight while K'Kree CORPSES kept the Ithklur FED. That triggered an escalating cycle of atrocities committed by both sides which culminated with K'Kree troops beginning the ceremonial consumption of dead Ithklur as an act of revenge.

The Hivers continued to lose the war on the strategic level and had opened surrender negotiations. A Hiver in charge of trying to relieve the cut-off Ithklur had learned about what was going on and created backdated fictitious orders claiming it had manipulated carnivorous practices among the K'Kree involved.

As AotR then explains: "Tschudi arrived at the Hiver surrender negotiations in the nick of time and turned the tables by terrifying the K’kree with this putative master-stroke, in fact a shrewd, if disingenuous, portrayal of other realities. For saving the Federation, Tschudi was granted the title of Manipulator. To this day, M. Tschudi is remembered by the lthklur with contempt as the archetype of Hiver opportunistic deceit."

Hey there spacers, would any of you guys be interested in an online Traveller game?

Caveat 1: No guarantees I'll actually run anything, just throwing out an interest check
Caveat 2: I'm GMT/BST and apparently have a thick Irish accent
Caveat 3: I've never refereed Traveller before, and never GMed online. However I am IRL forever GM, and I have experience with stuff like 5e and OSR
Caveat 4: I'm not a massive OTU fan, so I'll probably be running something smaller scale, somewhere between the Classic implied setting and Stars Without Number

I've just been reading MgT2 and the LBBs, and I really want to run this shit.

>Dude, read "Aliens of the Rim". It's just as much canon as the Classic module.

Irrelevant, since we were talking about the Classic Traveller depiction, not the TNE one that we all agreed was darker. Don't move the goalposts and then call me a fuckwit, you ass.

You said the TNE version was darker than the Classic one, which was fine, and you also said CT depicted them as "Happy Mute Starfish." I showed, with citations from Classic, that that claim was bullshit and the CT Hivers were still scary and dangerous to fuck with. If you want to show that they are "Happy Mute Starfish" using only Classic Traveller sources, go ahead. But pointing out that TNE retcons it like that is a waste of time that could have been spent conceding the point.

>It was "only" 4 planets by the way.

That's still 4 planets that, thanks to the work of a handful of Hiver agents each, had turned into Jeffrey Dahmer theme parks from the K'Kree standpoint.

I'd be interested in it, not saying I could make it, but I'm interested

Does anyone have any good alternative character sheet suggestions? The ones I downloaded from Mongoose's website are a bit wonky in my opinion.

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I'd be interested, any ideas on the plot?

Does anyone have some good interior art/plans for ATVs?

I'd be in, depending on specific times.

Jump-1

GMT here, I'd be interested depending on specific timing.

I love these threads when they stay up, so much nicer that the Star Wars threads. Shitposting in those is unreal sometimes.

>Are Hiver entirely pacifistic, like in GURPS Traveller, or can they commit acts of violence if need be, even if they'd prefer not to?
They are based on Nivin's Puppiters from the Known Space/Ringworld universe, but seeing as how they actualy have fleets of drone warships they are not entirely reliant on fucking over your entire socio-economic structure or instigating wars between other races and the hostile alien empires they fear. I would not however refer to eaither species as pacifist, as they have no moral quams about conflict just an overwhelming fear of being directly involved in it..

>Does anyone have some good interior art/plans for ATVs?

Interior plans? Sorry, I've never seen any beyond the very simple plan in Classic's Double Adventure and another very simple one in the old "dead tree" JTAS mag.

It's odd when you think about it. We've deckplans for all sorts of smallcraft down to 5dT and smaller but no one has bothered to detail an ATV.

One work around may be to use a grav carrier deckplan and call it an ATV. IIRC, there are two good interior plans for g-carriers in the "World Builders Handbook" for MegaTraveller.

New to Traveller (Mongoose 2nd), reading through the core rulerbook.

In what situations would you change the difficult of a task check vs using boons and banes.

Shooting an enemy as your moving on a fast train is going to be difficult, but does the speed count as a bane? I don't understand.

Not quite sure when to run, maybe Sunday evenings?
I won't be starting anything for a couple of weeks definitely.

As for setting, I've been cooking up about two Trav subsectors, most of which is ruled by a paternalistic Confederation, a successor state of the Terran Mandate (think SWN). Said Confederation just won a pretty nasty civil war and is currently in the process of rebuilding what you did during the war is gonna be a special term at the end of chargen
I'm not going to lie, I've taken a lot from Firefly already, so I'm thinking standard Traveller "Here's a ship, here's crippling debt, use A to solve B"
We'll see closer to the time sure, I'm not too hung-up on specifics

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Any thoughts on venue? (Hangouts, Discord, Text Chat, Roll20?)

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Any good books about the Vegan?

Good question. They're nicely alien and yet not much has been done with them.

There is some info about them out there. GURPS "Rim of Fire" and "Interstellar Wars" has the most. There's also their first appearance is in Classic's "N-Z Library Data". All of those can be found in the Archive naturally.

I can't remember whether they're in any of GURPS 4 alien books for Traveller. Hopefully another user will let us know.

Just those three books I think

The Vegan Autonomous Zone is described in CT's Solomani Rim supplement.

There's a really good sci-fi art thread on /hr/ with heaps of Traveller inspiration.

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>Any good books about the Vegan?

wiki.travellerrpg.com/Vegan
wiki.travellerrpg.com/Children_of_Earth
web.archive.org/web/20001206223800/http://www.siscom.net/~hdhale/COE.htm

The Traveller Chronicle, Issues 10-13.

>I'm not saying it never happened, fuckwit.

Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.

This beats the fuck out of CotI.

I'd be interested depending on the timing. Roll20? Voice chat?

hello, I own a copy of OG traveler but i've never actually done anything with it, I admit the wall of rule text has always intimidated me. Is it worth it for be to put the time to try the system out? Is the original one good?

>Is the original one good?

Yeah, it's great. It took over thirty years and many, many tries before they managed to make a new edition of Traveller that most folks would agree was better, or at least not worse than Classic, and there yet remain some folks (like me) who think CT is still the best.
You have the three little black books, or one of the later revisions?

three little black books.
also empire of the petal throne but thats not related

I know this isn't Traveller related, but I have secured permission from schlockmercenary to reproduce some of the current pdf of Planet Mercenary RPG and am running a PM thread over in /qst/, if anyone wants to try it out
Anyway, back on topic of Traveller.
Has MGP fixed all the broken crap from HG2e yet?

Roll20 I guess? I've fucked around a bit with it, and it seems to be decent enough.
I don't particularly want to do anything grid based, but being able to draw out "you guys are here, those guys are here, this squiggle is a crevice" would be handy

The Traveller Wiki is little more than a fanon-infested pile of shit. It's routinely denigrated at COTI.

Harold Hale's CoE is perhaps the most cringe worthy 3rd party TNE setting and one which MWM ordered specifically ignored when the M:1248 materials were being written.

Traveller Chronicle ranges from meh to okay. It was one of the better fanzines but it's a still a fanzine.

>Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.

Sure thing. Anything to help a fellow user.

Fuckwit sniffed that AoT was irrelevant to the conversation because only Classic was under being discussed. That's a lie, naturally, as the OP's initial question specifically asked how GURPS portrayed the Hivers. Other versions were part of the conversation from the first.

Fuckwit's bleating about only examining the Classic module also fails because AoT quotes the text of the Classic module in full. As I explained with the greentext analogy, AoT essentially "deconstructs" the information PROVIDED by the Hivers by use of a running commentary interleaved with the text of the Classic module.

The Classic alien modules were written "in character", that is the aliens in question were said to be writing the material. Which is why many of those module have GM eyes only section where various lies are exposed.

Traveller has always been about "wheels within wheels". The Aslan were a Major Race, then they weren't, then it didn't matter. The Zhos were mind rapers, then the happiest human polity in Charted Space, and then something very frightening indeed. The list stories within stories and reinterpreted facts in Traveller is a lengthy one.

The Classic module is what the Hivers claim. AoT is what the Hivers' VICTIMS claim. The truth, as always, lays somewhere in between. That's why I wrote that AoT was a more "mature" source; it acknowledges uncertainty.

You can go with the childish & derpy "Super meme masters" version the Hivers claim they are. You can go with the mature and nuanced "Pathological liars who use opportunistic deceit to claim ownership of events" version the Hivers' various victims and wogs claim the Hivers are. Or you can go with something in the middle.

And the game goes on...

>It's routinely denigrated at COTI.

>denigrating a wiki instead of fixing it

It's not like the thing has a large user base that could defend its turf like on Wikipedia, any concerted effort could repair it.

I see you're still not providing any citations for Classic depicting them as "Happy Mute Starfish," just using later sources that modify it to fit your argument.

Sure, AoT may retcon shit from Classic to be "in character" and unreliable, but that's because that was the popular thing in the 90s, and even so it's STILL beside the point I was arguing -- you were flat-out wrong when you claimed that Classic depicts them as "Happy mute starfish" and you keep avoiding that and trying to point at TNE texts written a decade later to defend your inaccurate portrayal of what Classic says. Also, quit being a douchebag and shitting up the general.

>I see you're still not providing any citations for Classic depicting them as "Happy Mute Starfish,"...

They stopped a genocidal race of psychotic herbivores WITHOUT fighting a catastrophic war. All they "did" was claim to deliberately fuck up 4 worlds out 2000 and the resulting peace has lasted thousands of years. The Hivers' claim they don't need to fight nasty wars.

They also claim to guide their "federation" not through naked force but because they alone can determine what is best for all the "wogs" they contacted. The Hivers claim everyone under their control is all one big happy family.

Here's the bit you still can't understand, Fuckwit. The Hivers' story in the Classic module is one of them being "happy mute starfish" who only want the best for all the "child species" they encounter. I'm not claiming the Hivers ARE happy mute starfish. I am claiming the text "written" by the Hivers in the module wants us to believe they're happy mute starfish. Understand, Fuckwit?

>Sure, AoT may retcon shit from Classic

It's not a retcon when it's designed that way from the first. Like the Pathfinder/Aslan story, the fact that the Hivers are lying monsters isn't a retcon but instead is a revelation.

>>you were flat-out wrong when you claimed that Classic depicts them as "Happy mute starfish"

Again, that's what the Hivers' text wants to portray, Fuckwit, and not what the facts are.

>>you keep avoiding that and trying to point at TNE texts written a decade later to defend your inaccurate portrayal of what Classic says.

Sorry, Fuckwit. I've explained at least twice now that there is a difference between what the Classic text claims to be and what it actually is. The Hivers' story is supposed to be one thing and, if you read it uncritically, you'll believe it. However, when you read between the lines like you have, that story is something else entirely.

>>quit being a douchebag

Right back at you, Fuckwit. Nice chatting.

>I am claiming the text "written" by the Hivers in the module

There's the point of contention. You accept the TNE retcon that the CT text is written by the Hivers, I do not. If you accept this non-Classic text, then the Classic text retroactively can be reinterpreted the way what you claim it does. If you look only at Classic sources, none of that "unreliable narrator" stuff is in there, or you'd have provided a citation instead of just hot opinions and pointing at TNE over and over.

>there is a difference between what the Classic text claims to be and what it actually is

...according to TNE, not Classic. Which was my entire point.

>reinterpreted the way

*to be the way

Please try to maintain a civil tone in the general, people. I've worked hard to build these threads up over the past year and a half, and so far they've been largely courteous and mature, and I'd prefer that to continue.
I'd like to think that everyone can disagree politely like adults without descending into the nasty childishness seen elsewhere.

Thank you.

>the nasty childishness seen elsewhere
I miss the old Star Wars generals, now it's just Disney vs Legends and Empire dindu nuffin all day every day. I just want to have a fun thread that isn't full of autistic jackasses.

This thread is nowhere near as bad as the others, but I do appreciate your efforts to keep a good tone in here.

>If you look only at Classic sources, none of that "unreliable narrator" stuff

There's no unreliable narrator stuff in Classic? MWM says there is. The late LKW said there was.

I choose to believe them and, for whatever reason you do not.

And the game goes on...

>MWM says there is. The late LKW said there was.

Well those guys are authorities, sure, but they're still outside sources when it comes to what Classic itself actually says about the Hivers. (And we both know "unreliable narrator" is really a dodge used for fixing the contradictory lore that piled up over the years)
If you just take what Classic says about the Hivers and ignore all the later editions' changes and stuff, they are pretty scary. (I'll also admit I like some of the TNE changes to Hivers, which is funny since I don't like most of what TNE did)

Let me expand on this a little bit. When we're talking about "how Classic portrays the Hivers" I don't feel we can take anything that's not in the Classic text as an authoritative source. Even if it's published as official Traveller stuff in later editions, or handed down from on high by Marc Millar later on, it should still be viewed no better than headcanon when you're talking about Classic itself.

I mean sure, MWM is The Guy, and he can change his interpretations, and those new interpreattions then become official, but it doesn't change what he put out in the past. Once you put something out there, it no longer belongs to you entirely.
At this point, I feel even the creator has no special rights to alter the original -- we can choose to take his new reading or leave it, just the same as if it came from any other source.

The alternative is accepting that alien-hunting secret government agents only carry walkie-talkies in E.T., or that "It was Midichlorians all along!" is the "real" story, and what was presented originally is now either false, or irreversibly modified by the new version. That's not something I'm prepared to accept.
People change, their ideas shift, and the only real authority on what a text says is the text itself.

So: IMO Prequel George Lucas is not really the same guy as Original Trilogy George Lucas, and therefore "midichlorians" are little more than new-George Lucas' headcanon, and can safely be ignored as a stupid idea that should have been left on the cutting room floor, and which has no relevance for talking about what happens in the original trilogy.

So I'm brand new to Traveller, as in only started looking today new. Other than death from reduced stats, what's to stop me from making a 70 year old character with a huge amount of skills? I don't quite get it. Why would a 66 year old be a better brawler than an 18 year old?

inb4 read the rules, it's what I'm doing right now.

In Classic LBBs? The odds are he'll die in chargen if you keep pushing it that far. In later Classic with the optional survival rules, or later editions where death in chargen was reduced to an optional rule, well, your referee will likely say "no more than x terms" where x is like 4-7.
Playing with the survival rule just ruins the whole "Push Your Luck" gambling thing that the original had going on, IMO.

Eh, you hit them with an injury that hits the stats hard. Eventually, nobody'll want them.

Additionally, CT had limits to the total skills if I recall

As for Brawling in particular, think of it a bit like a kung fu movie, or Red, where you should respect your elders because they may have taught the guy who taught you how to fight.
That said, stat loss due to aging means that while they'll be ahead on technique, they're also squishier than you and more likely to go down after you land one good hit.

>CT had limits to the total skills if I recall

Not in the original LBBS, but the Traveller Book had a maximum limit where your skills couldn't add up to more than the sum of your INT and EDU scores. (I've never thought about this before, but it sort of implies that you'd have to lose skills in old age)

>it sort of implies that you'd have to lose skills in old age

I think the idea is that as you grow old you start to get rusty in some areas.
Skill-0 doesn't count toward it right?

Nope, it explicitly states that a 0 skill is not counted. IE, it counts as a zero.

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>(And we both know "unreliable narrator" is really a dodge used for fixing the contradictory lore that piled up over the years)

It used as a dodge in some cases, just not in this one. The reason is part of Trav's design.

Trav doesn't have the in-game rewards seen in other RPGs. There are no XPs. levels, easy increases to skills/stats, etc. Instead, Trav's in-game rewards are money, equipment, influence, and - most importantly - in-game KNOWLEDGE. The various sidebar and advice sections littered throughout Classic constantly talks about puzzles, enigmas, and the players' "incomplete knowledge of the universe".

If knowledge is going to be a reward, than it can't be laid out for everyone to read. That's why from the very beginning, Trav's "lore" has featured wheels within wheel, easter eggs, puzzles, unreliable narrators, and all the rest.

The Aslan/Major Race puzzle is a good example of this. The "Major Races Invent Jump Drive" definition was stated, along with suspicions that it's more of an excuse than a rule. Next, hints were dropped in various materials for years that the Aslan didn't develop jump drive. Finally the Pathfinder story was revealed, the fact that the Aslan didn't independently develop jump was acknowledged, and - here's the fun bit - the Aslan were still regarded as a Major Race.

All of that took over a decade and NONE of it was a retcon. It had been planned from the first. It was a bit of in-game knowledge PCs could discover as a "reward".

The Classic/AotR Hiver material is much the same. To the casual reader - which you are not - Classic's text portrayed "happy mute starfish" whose curiosity alone led them to the stars, whose paternal feelings lead them to uplift "child" races, who fight wars by not fighting wars, and who benevolently preside over a happy multi-species federation.

Discerning readers - of which you are one - saw all that as bullshit and rightfully perceived the Hivers as amoral, lying monsters. (cont.)

(continued)

After Trav presented the 'happy mute starfish" version, TNE's AotR then TOOK THE SAME TEXT FOUND IN THE CLASSIC MODULE and added commentary pointing out the bullshit which discerning readers like you had noticed all along.

AotR didn't change anything. AotR didn't retcon anything. AotR even used the same text as Classic. All AotR did was point out the lies, tautologies, logical errors, deliberate omissions, and whatnot that already existed in Classic's text and which casual readers had ignored.

Like the Aslan not inventing jump drive, AotR's take on the Hivers had been truth from the beginning. AotR uses the same words, names, dates, facts, and whatnot as Classic and tells a very different, more accurate story and the solution to another long term in-game puzzle was revealed.

All this is akin to how children's nursery rhymes often have several different meanings despite using the same text.

>As for Brawling in particular, think of it a bit like a kung fu movie, or Red, where you should respect your elders because they may have taught the guy who taught you how to fight.
Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!

bump

Sounds pretty cool mate, as others asked; venue?

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why do people say that traveller aliens are better than just humans in rubber foreheaded suits, just curious?

Read up on some of them. Even the most human-like are still strange -- the Vargr may be uplifted canines from Earth, but they don't think or act the same as humans. To them, we seem weirdly single-minded and driven. They often think that you shouldn't bother offering a job to a human if he already has one, because "everybody knows humans never change jobs." The Imperium is a huge, disturbing, impossible thing to them. No organization could possibly get so big, or last so long, and yet it just goes on and on forever. Humans all over will gladly obey a guy they've never even seen in their lives! What the hell?

And those are the most human of the various alien species. From there on out it just gets weirder. (pic related)

[Reposting without accidental quote]

That's the thing, I don't think that's some kind of secret that's "hidden" in the CT Hiver text, it's blatantly right there in the open. There is no big "reveal" happening here. I don't think anybody would read that book and just think that Hivers are happy, friendly guys who wouldn't hurt anyone.

Reading it, they come off as weird and creepy. I think you're pushing the analogy to the Aslan jumpdrive thing too hard -- that really IS a secret that's buried in the original lore and which gets slowly revealed later on, but that doesn't mean everything else is. And the authors like to pretend everything is just as planned, but there's a lot of contradictions, mistakes, and retcons in the lore, too.

I really think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thought Hivers were innocuous just based on CT alien module 7.

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>That's the thing, I don't think that's some kind of secret that's "hidden" in the CT Hiver text

That's because you were able to read between the lines. Other people, not so much.

>I really think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thought Hivers were innocuous just based on CT alien module 7.

I had a player who thought so. He took AM:7 at face value and wanted to play a Hiver from a Spinward Marches topical club who was touring around trying to reduce tensions between the various powers. He had even come up with the name M. Ghandi.

I sat down with him, went over the text, and pointed out the stuff that you, I, and everyone else noticed. He rejected it out of hand claiming I was simply looking for the bad side in everything.

People are strange. The more you meet, the stranger they become.

Uh, I think your player might just be dumb, man.

>I just want to have a fun thread that isn't full of autistic jackasses.

You do realize where you are, right?