Fantasist's Scroll

So, it’s been a long time since I wrote here, but this is the best place to share this.

Back in the early 80’s, I played a great science-fiction role-playing game called Traveller.  It was relatively simple and straight-forward and didn’t even require fancy dice, just regular 6-sided dice like everyone has.  It had a fairly generic feel to it, which some people found annoying, but really opened things up for the game master to let loose and develop a setting.  Of course, there was a lightly sketched background setting that was considered “official”, but it was fairly generic.
Anyway, I loved the game.  Recently, there was a ridiculously inexpensive sale on the scanned PDF documents from those original books.  Two of them were ones that I had never owned before, but only seen in bits and pieces.  Namely, “Supplement book 08-Library Data A-M” and “Supplement book 11-Library Data N-Z”.  Skimming through these really brought back memories!

A lot has changed since those good, old days of table-top gaming and there are a whole raft of fun tools that add a new dimension to gaming.  In the old days, one of my favorite things was always the various encyclopedias of in-game information, like those two supplements.  Now, one of my favorite things are wikis, like Wikipedia.  And, for some of my more creative work, I’ve really enjoyed using “personal wikis”, that never leave my desktop or private network.  (In fact, I wrote about just that on one of my other sites that’s updated more often; JKHoffman.com!)
Well, the other day, it occurred to me that I should combine the two!  So, I have, and I’m offering it here for you to download for free, per the very kind copyright restrictions of Far Future Enterprises: Traveller Library Data Wiki.

Now, this is not the same as or even derived from the excellent Citizens of the Imperium Traveller Wiki, but it’s also completely private for you and your players to edit as you please.  Also, per the requirements of Far Future Enterprises, this is being offered free and must remain free if you add to it and share it!  I did this mainly as an obsessive-compulsive exercise in data normalization in a private wiki, though also as a labor of love because I just can’t resist beautiful, well-organized, hyper-linked data about a reality that doesn’t quite exist except in our imaginations.
As faults go, this one isn’t bad.

I’m always looking for new twists on old themes.

And, frankly, the whole “alternate Earth” thing is a very old theme. But, I have to admit, it’s one that I can’t get away from in my own head. One of the alternate Earths that I contemplate on a regular basis is an inverted Earth. An Earth with its North and South poles swapped. I guess it’s an idea that grabbed me when my mother told me that people think at some point in the future, the magnetic core of Earth is going to, well, flip and send all our compasses out of whack, among other things.
Well, apparently, I’m not the only one who’s fascinated by this. Chris Wayan explores it all quite fully on a page titled Welcome to Turnovia.

Check it out.

It’s the birthday of one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov, who was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920. He came with his family to the United States when he was three years old and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. Issac grew up to become a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of medicine and in 1950 he published his first novel Pebble in the Sky.

About the same time Asimov took part in writing a textbook for medical students and he found that he loved explaining complicated things in ordinary language, and so he set out to write about science for the general public, in language they would understand. He said, “Little by little my science writing swallowed up the rest of me.”
Asimov developed a regimen of working ten hours a day, seven days a week, producing between two and five thousand words a day. Asimov’s method was to write a book about any subject that interested him but which he didn’t fully understand. He used writing as a way of teaching himself about everything.
By 1970 Asimov had written more than a hundred books and he began branching out into areas other than science. He wrote about nuclear physics and organic chemistry, history, Greek mythology, astronomy, religion, in addition to his collections of limericks, mystery novels, autobiography and science fiction. By the time of his death in 1992 he had published more than 400 books.

Today is the birthday of two very important science-fiction writers.
The first is science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick, who was born in Chicago in 1928. He began to suffer from visions and hallucinations in the 1950s. He once thought he saw a face in the sky, which he described as “a vast visage of evil with empty slots for eyes, metal and cruel, and worst of all, it was God.” He wasn’t sure if his visions were authentic or if they were symptoms of mental illness, and he was fascinated that he could no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t.
He wrote many novels that pushed the edge of science-fiction a little further out, making room for the cyberpunk movement to follow him. Some of his work includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Minority Report (which is a collection of short stories), We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (another short story collection), and A Scanner Darkly. Since his death in 1982, many of his novels and short stories have been made into movies, including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002).

It’s also the birthday of the science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who was born in Somerset, England in 1917. He’s the author of many science fiction novels, including Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey(which was written in the year of my birth!), and Rendevous with Rama. He is also famous for inventing the concept of the communications satellite.

Today is William Gibson’s Birthday!

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past twenty years, or have been freshly cloned, William Gibson is the primary progenitor of the cyberpunk movement. He’s generally credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and popularizing a somewhat more realistic, if somewhat bleak, view of the future.
He also ran away to Canada in 1968 to avoid the draft. Which is the only bad thing I can say about him. I otherwise admire his work and thought processes. Certainly his literature is beyond compare. I admire his work very much and occasionally will reread some of his short stories, just to capture the feel of his prose.

Anyway, celebrate his birthday with a little science-fiction in thanks for what he’s done for the genre.

It’s the birthday of one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov, who was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920. He came with his family to the United States when he was three years old and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. Issac grew up to become a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of medicine and in 1950 he published his first novel Pebble in the Sky.

About the same time Asimov took part in writing a textbook for medical students and he found that he loved explaining complicated things in ordinary language, and so he set out to write about science for the general public, in language they would understand. He said, “Little by little my science writing swallowed up the rest of me.”
Asimov developed a regimen of working ten hours a day, seven days a week, producing between two and five thousand words a day. Asimov’s method was to write a book about any subject that interested him but which he didn’t fully understand. He used writing as a way of teaching himself about everything.
By 1970 Asimov had written more than a hundred books and he began branching out into areas other than science. He wrote about nuclear physics and organic chemistry, history, Greek mythology, astronomy, religion, in addition to his collections of limericks, mystery novels, autobiography and science fiction. By the time of his death in 1992 he had published more than 400 books.

Today is the birthday of two very important science-fiction writers.
The first is science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick, who was born in Chicago in 1928. He wrote many novels that pushed the edge of science-fiction a little further out, making room for the cyberpunk movement to follow him. Some of his work includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Minority Report (which is a collection of short stories), We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (another short story collection), and A Scanner Darkly. Since his death in 1982, many of his novels and short stories have been made into movies, including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002).

It’s also the birthday of the science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who was born in Somerset, England in 1917. He’s the author of many science fiction novels, including Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey(which was written in the year of my birth!), and Rendevous with Rama. He is also famous for inventing the concept of the communications satellite.

Okay, here’s some real data for ProFantasy’s Fractal Terrains.

Been looking for Fractal Terrains Real World Data? Well, look no further!
I got tired of everyone asking for this on the Profantasy CC2-l list and thought I’d take a minute while I’m getting my chemotherapy to import the ETOPO2 data and save it as a Fractal Terrains file. Hope it comes through for everyone okay.
Enjoy!