Looking for Input and Help (longish)

[Kaiddin]

Using my Language Latin skill of 0, how about Pax Romana Astris. Even if there is or isn't peace taking up their time.

Roman ranks of the Imperial age:
*Legionary - Legionaire is in the French foreign legion.
*Principales
*(Signifer) - Century standard bearer
*(Aquilifer) - Legion standard bearer
*Optio - Adjutant to the Centurion
*Centurion - several grades from commander of the sixth century of the tenth cohort through pilus prior, primi ordines and primus pilus.
*praefectus castorum - Legates Adjutant
*Tribune - usually a political posting
*Legate - commander of the legion

triarii are a type of soldier from the earlier republic deployed behind the hastati and principes.

[AslanC]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Don:
Are you saying they are from Earth originally? (That's what your statement implies above.) That's not how I took this conversation to mean. Hodgkin's Law is about parallel planet development -- not kidnapping or a mass exodus from Earth and starting anew (i.e. the Romulans). I'll admit though, it's been awhile since I've seen "Bread and Circuses."</font>

No no, they would be from an identical world called Terra in an identical system called Sol.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Whatever turns your crank. I think you're pressing the boundaries of Hodgkin's Law a bit too much though. (IMO)</font>

Ya think?

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">My hesitation isn't with the idea, it's with the execution of it. Change the names to protect the innocent. I don't think Hodgkin's Law states that entire cultures are ripped from our past and duplicated perfectly and then allowed to run amuck.</font>

Which is why I wanted to do soemthing that isn't just the Romans...I let myself be swayed. My original idea was a Federation Parallel...down to the Humans and others to some extent. I may swing back that way I think.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">My $.02 worth. Do with as you will. </font>

As always Don I will put it to good use. You have solid ideas, and I do enjoy reading your opinions. You always ask "Why?" and check to see if there is a better or less travelled way of doing things. So don't stop commenting as your opinions make me check mine and that is a good thing.


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Aslan Collas
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Star Trek:Strange New Worlds;
http://www.geocities.com/aslan_collas/
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Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

[Don Mappin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by AslanC:
Okay I snipped here. I have read Fading Suns (our Engineer is in love with the game) An interesting idea, but unfortunately it is not what I am looking for here. Like I said this is a case of Hodgkin's Law so of course they are from Sol and Terra and are Romans. The framiliarity is the sci-fi aspect of it.</font>

Are you saying they are from Earth originally? (That's what your statement implies above.) That's not how I took this conversation to mean. Hodgkin's Law is about parallel planet development -- not kidnapping or a mass exodus from Earth and starting anew (i.e. the Romulans). I'll admit though, it's been awhile since I've seen "Bread and Circuses."

Whatever turns your crank. I think you're pressing the boundaries of Hodgkin's Law a bit too much though. (IMO)

1) Another system, with humans, with a fully-developed culture that mirrors ancient Roman culture nearly exactly, even to the point of calling their home "Terra" and "Sol" is considered plausible?
2) As already mentioned, TOS has already covered this ground with their Magna Romans.
3) The Romulans are based off the Roman culture. So, Magna Romans, the Romulans, and now these guys -- wow the Romans sure did get around a lot.

My hesitation isn't with the idea, it's with the execution of it. Change the names to protect the innocent. I don't think Hodgkin's Law states that entire cultures are ripped from our past and duplicated perfectly and then allowed to run amuck.

Would it be interesting to see what would have happened in the 24th century if the Roman Empire never fell? Hell yes! But, be subtle about it, don't hit the players over the head with it and a large glowing neon sign in orbit that says: "These guys are Romans in design and in name."

My $.02 worth. Do with as you will.


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Don
trekrpg@trekrpg.net


[This message has been edited by Don (edited 03-28-2001).]

[Phantom]

This is probably going to be pretty far fetched, but I was thinking about the idea put forth in that TNG ep. (can't remember the title) about most of the major races having been "seeded" on their respective worlds by other aliens...Now this is the far out idea(yeah, and the first part isn't. LOL) what if the aliens had their own Hodgkins Law of sorts...And simply tested it out by taking specimens from one planet and drop them on to a similar planet...Wouldn't they develope on fairly similar lines? Assuming that the new planet was almost, if not, exactly the same as the "control" world, they would have their own culture to fall back on and an environment that would offer the same type of tools and "technology" available to them in their homeland.

To follow the Roman example, if those aliens took members of the Etruscan empire, complete with slaves, servents and guards, and seeded them on a new world similar to Mediterrean Earth, what is to say the Italian servents would not still revolt against the Etruscan overlords in this new environment as well? The same animosities would be there. As would the future Roman ideals.

Although there would have to have been a massive amount of people taken from the control world, hard to hide, so that this new proto-rome would have the genetic stock to keep the lines going as well as others to conquer and bring into the new Empire. I don't know just an idea.

I'm not a big fan the Hodgkin's explaination either. However, just because the original writers didn't take the time to come up with an explaination, what's stopping us from doing it?

[Don Mappin]

So as not to interfere with ideas for Alsan’s adventure, I’ve started a new thread on discussing Hodgkin’s Law here.

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Don
trekrpg@trekrpg.net

[Roy Cowan]

Has anyone here read the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens novel Preserver? It had an interesting suggestion along these lines, based on the various worlds discovered in TOS that resembled Earth (Miri's homeworld, the Roman planet, etc.)...

SPOILERS:

********
(The Preservers had created duplicates of various Federation worlds, Terra, Vulcan, Tellar, etc. to experiment with the different historical results. Thus, Hodgkin's law was not a coincidence so much as the discovery of a vast galactic experiment. Another question raised by this was whether or not our (the Federation's) Earth was in fact a duplicate of some other original Earth loacted somewhere else)
*********

END SPOILERS

I think it would be useful to have some form of explanation for the parallel development. IMHO, Whether it's a major part of the show or just a throw-away line to introduce the Roman group depends on you and your group. If all of you like the idea, then attaining the necessary willing suspension of disbelief shouldn't be too difficult.

Also, as mentioned in the "Patton" thread, it would be neat to see a parallel timeline (or in this case, parallel culture) that didn't fall into the cliche of being worse than "our" own history.

-- Roy

[Imagus]

Well, I don't know about anyone else - but I think I just found my mirror universe setting I like the idea of what looks like Star Fleet ships with Romanised NCC (ICC?) numbers, and communicating in Latin...

A couple of ideas to throw in to the mix:

Wrt ranks - don't try to duplicate Star Fleet ones. Use Kaiddin's list - possibly with a few extras added in, and some with new jobs (communications officers might always have a standard bearer rank for example).

In organisation, they might use legions instead of fleets (although this is getting very close to Way of Dera's Romulans), and the crew of a ship might always be the whole of a specific cohorts. Remember that a century was very rarely 100, often only 60-80. A centurion is kind of like a petty officer as far as I know.

I'm not that much of an expert, but wasn't the early expansion of the Roman Empire politically driven? A prospective senator finances a legion, conquers a couple of tribes, then uses the prestige to gain his position? This empire could have taken the same approach in the early years, but since then the conquered worlds might have decided the Pax worked for them...

Incidentally, if you're looking for a ready-made history as to how the early history of such a world might look, you could do worse than take a look at Roma Aeterna in GURPS Alternate Earths


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Slartibart-Jon

[Dan Gurden]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Imagus:
In organisation, they might use legions instead of fleets (although this is getting very close to Way of Dera's Romulans), and the crew of a ship might always be the whole of a specific cohorts. Remember that a century was very rarely 100, often only 60-80. A centurion is kind of like a petty officer as far as I know.</font>

Well, if usiong this idea as an alternate universe concept that can suit quite well too... Imagine a universe were Romulan D'era is equalled by a near identiac Earth... A universe where the common traits of those two species far outnumber the uncommon traits...

What if they formed an alliance of equals? Mirroring the Federation but not quite the same?

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Dan.

"A couple of thoughts from a random mind!"

[Fortunae]

This wanders a bit off topic, but hopefully keeps the spirit of it.

First: Excellent resources for alternate earth development lines can be found in two really keen GURPS supplements, conveniently named Alternate Earths and Alternate Earths II.

Second: An easily usable game book to mine for ideas along the lines of the Roman Empire would be GURPS Imperial Rome.

The second alternate earths book is particularly sweet in the context of this discussion because it offers a *spacefaring* culture based on an alternate timeline where the spread of the Muslim faith took a different turn; that parallel setting has them with offworld colonies, encounters some alien species, and an unpleasant war about to explode back "home". With only a little tweaking you could adapt this to a parallel development culture for your Trekian heroes to encounter. Also, changing a few things like species appearance and the names of faith involved and you could spring a completely new "minor species" power for your players to have first crack at contacting and negotiating with.

Ahh, the joy of meeting some aliens who wish to convert you to thier enlighted faith, and who might be forced to Jyhad on the Federation for it's own good...of course, that isn't so much different from the Tarhuti I guess.

Well, enough on that from me. Peace.