 Goto [ Index ] |
The Twilight Sector Campaign Setting Sourcebook (henceforth, Twilight Sector) is a 128-page book that provides background for the whole Terra/Sol universe, as well as the smaller Twilight Sector that's being presented as the main focus for their upcoming campaign (which kicks off with the aforementioned Somnium Mundus adventure).
An Overview of the Book
Twilight Sector defines a totally new campaign universe for Traveller--for those who don't want to play in the "Original Traveller Universe" (OTU)--or any of the other settings thus far published. Beyond just being different, Twilight Sector offers a very different take on a Traveller setting.
It's much more Earth-centric and the technology (which includes brief references to biotech, cybertech, and nanotech) feels more modern than that presented in OTU. I've heard some people describe it as "Transhuman"--meaning that it's about the transition from human to posthuman. Though I don't believe there's enough focus in this product to definitively say that's the intent, the authors do certainly have the right pieces in hand--including a mutating human race, uplifted animals, and artificial intelligences (AIs) which are taking on bodies of their own.
If you look at the other modern Traveller settings, you can find: a Golden-Age-SF feel (the OTU), a militaristic feel (Slammer's Hammers) or a dark-and-gritty feel (Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog), but I'm not immediately aware of any other publishers offering up a more modern science-fiction setting, let alone a Transhuman one.
The setting also contains one very strange peculiarity. Far, far from Earth, in the distant Twilight Sector, lies a planet that's been named Terra/Sol for the fact that it's an identical copy of the planet Earth. Yep, it's another Traveller Universe with mysteries, a topic I'll return to.
With that background out of the way, let me address the contents of the book in a more organized fashion. Twilight Sector somewhat uncomfortably covers three different scopes: the universe as a whole, the Twilight Sector, and the world of Terra/Sol. That's laid out among six major sections:
The introduction introduces the foundation of the universe via an 11-page history which spans the era from the 21st century to the 30th. There are three main focuses in the history: how exploration of the stars has been conducted over a number of waves; how a variety of interstellar states have broken away from the origina Terra Union as time has gone on; and how mutants have begun to arise among humanity, creating new problems for human society.
The scope of history reminds me more of 2300AD than the original Traveller universe (which goes toward that aforementioned more modern SF feel). I thought of Gamma World a bit when I was first readi1ng the book, but as I went further, I decided that the mutations of Twilight Sector are more biotech in feeling, not the random mixture of changes you'd find in Gamma World, hence the possibility of Transhuman leanings.
Stellar Nations is an extensive chapter that discusses the half-dozen or more nations which fill known space. They're all well differentiated from each other, giving the GM easy handles on each. For example, you have the independent Orion Confederation, the bigoted Oster Confederation, and the AI-controlled Deramus Enclave. To a certain extent, I feel like the various nations are too differentiated; each one tries so hard to be unique that it ends up a little one-note. However, that could be corrected as the various nations were given more depth in future releases.
Beginning the Campaign starts off suggesting how you might get a Twilight Sector campaign started, but then it fades somewhat gracelessly into a jumble of topics that describe what makes the Terra/Sol universe unique. Thus there's a section on mutants, a section on AIs, a section on transportation, a section on economics, etc.
The result is unfortunately very scattershot. Though some of the topics are interesting (such as the fact that humans have found alien tech, but no aliens, and that AIs create physical presences for itself in various unique ways), the cacophony of topics fails to create a big picture. I was also frustrated by the absence of game stats. Though mutants turned out to be covered in the next section, there are no mechanics for other topics like the Jump-8 City-ships, and that's a shame in a campaign book of this sort.
The only section of Twilight Sector with much in the way of crunch is the Playing Mutants section. It includes rules for creating both natural mutants and scientifically induced mutants, along with about 20 positive mutations and 15 negative ones.
The actual rules for selecting mutations are a little weak, primarily because they're laid out in paragraphs rather than clearly stating the rules in a box or outline. However, the mutations themselves are quite nice (with my main complaint being that I wanted more than the three dozen or so mutations listed in this book, though some of those mutations are variable enough to actually offer a lot more possibilities). The chapter ends with "mutation packages", which I like quite a bit. They show off how some of the variable mutations can be specialized to produce thematic and practical sets of mutations, like "aqua mods" and "belt mods". It fits in nicely with both Transhuman leanings and the idea of mutations breeding true. Overall, this Playing Mutants chapter is probably the best section of the whole book.
For some reason the chapter on mutations ends with "What Has Changed", a page listing some social and technology differences between the OTU and the universe of Terra/Sol. It's useful, but its locations underlines the problems the book has with organization.
Twilight Sector Systems takes up almost half of the book. It details the six known worlds and two known space stations of the Twilight Sector.
Before I get into them, I should take a step back and note that there's a major discrepancy in Twilight Sector's use of the term "sector". Though the main maps lays out the Twilight Sector as a Traveller sector and though the history of the Terra/Sol universe makes it clear that those sectors match the size of standard Traveller sectors, inexplicably the detailed description of the Twilight Sector lays it out as a subsector.
I have to guess that the designers just don't understand what Traveller sectors and subsectors are, which is a bit discouraging if you're considering using this book for your Traveller game. There's no way to make the two main maps in Twilight Sector internally consistent unless you presume that all spaces between planets are 4x as great as those in the standard Traveller game and that similarly all Jump Drives are 4x better. Which is OK, I suppose.
In any case, the planets of the Twilight Sector are nicely detailed and definitely varied. Each one has at least a couple of adventure hooks, and though I would have liked to see more (as I have in other Traveller products), the descriptions here are good enough. The overall territory suggests an interesting, somewhat combative environment around the world of Terra/Sol.
I've already talked about Terra/Sol, that mysterious Earth clone. It's something I'm interested in seeing explored further, but unfortunately, Twilight Sector only gives it about 10 pages. Maybe the publisher is intending an additional book at some time in the future, but the lack of much description of the campaign-centric nation of the Republic of the Plains and the lack of a world map at all are both a bit discouraging if you're trying to put together a campaign from what you can find in this Campaign Setting Sourcebook.
The final section of Twilight Sector is the Encyclopedia Galactica. It's like Traveller's Library Data, offering up details on various elements of the gaming universe. I also think it's the most successful section of the book, because the details on technology and science which are much more evocative to me than anything in the "Beginning the Campaign" section. Similarly there are some nice details for both the Twilight Sector and the Terra/Sol system.
This, however, goes to my main problem with the Encyclopedia. It's a pretty chaotic collection of three different topics: general universe info; system info for worlds in the Twilight Sector; and planetary info for Terra/Sol. I find the latter particularly misplaced, because it includes details that should have been in the Terra/Sol system writeup--stuff that you really need to run it right--and currently you have to pull it out from amidst all of this other data.
(Somewhat inexplicably, the sourcebook provides a short, separate Encyclopedia for another system, Dorlass, but mixed all the Terra/Sol info up with universal stuff.)
As you've probably already guessed, I have serious problems with the organization of Twilight Sector, but I think that's more an issue of "Style", so I've largely saved it for the next section. However, what I find problematic when considering the "Substance" of Twilight Sector is that it's unfocused.
Perhaps the authors just tried to fit too much into one book, but I find a lot of the material, particularly the extensive info on the various stellar nations, pretty irrelevant for a campaign set in the Twilight Sector. Similarly, if you were going to run a big-picture campaign, the info on the Twilight Sector itself would be too much. As a result, Twilight Sector is left in an uncomfortable middle ground, where it doesn't cover either area with sufficient depth to make it particularly easy to run a campaign.
Before I finish off, however, I also want to discuss one of the positives of Twilight Sector, one which I've already touched upon: the mysteries. I think one of the great elements of the original Traveller game was that it was full of mysteries, the greatest of which was, "Who or what are the ancients". Though Traveller: The New Era endured a lot of well-deserved criticism, editor Dave Nilsen did do some great setting work, bringing back mystery to the Traveller universe by introducing things like the Black Curtain, the Vampire Highway, and (most importantly) the Empress Wave.
Authors Cross & Hope have done the same things here, with at least three major mysteries set up in this sourcebook:
- Where are the aliens?
- How and why were Terra/Sol created?
- Why have mutation rates increased greatly for humanity?
Overall, I have some issues with giving a coherent rating for Twilight Sector. There are a lot of interesting ideas and neat mysteries, suggesting an interesting setting that's a bit different from any thing else available for Traveller. However the tripartite focus and the organizational problems result in a book that doesn't have enough depth and clarity to easily start running a campaign. As a result, I think the success of the Terra/Sol and the Twilight Sector campaign are going to be based largely on whether the supplements can better organize, present, and expand what's in this first book. Thus I've given Twilight Sector an average "3" out of "5" for Substance.
Applicability to Mongoose Traveller
Twilight Sector is a sourcebook for Mongoose's Traveller, set in a new universe. As I already noted, it might be a nice alternative for those looking for a more scientifically realistic Traveller universe. It also may be a good choice for those looking for a campaign arc, if the additional books to define the campaign come out.
Style & Design
If I had to guess, I'd say that a lot of the problems of Twilight Sector were due to the lack of a professional editor who could have done some development of the manuscript and organized it better. I've already discussed a lot of those organizational problems--both in the focus of the book overall and in the organization of a few of the individual chapters. The proofreading is also a bit rough, most notably with lots of possessives missing their apostrophes and "it's" often incorrectly having one.
Unfortunately, Twilight Sector also looks like it could have been served by a professional layout artist. There are a lot of little things which I (as an ex-layout artist) think look bad, like: a huge body font, an even huger leading, section heads that sometimes appear at the very bottom of pages, a section font that calls too much attention to itself, and paragraphs separated by carriage returns instead of first-line indentation. Some might disagree with my specifics, but I think a general problem with layout would shout out to most readers looking at the book.
The art is more varied. There's some art that looks just like sketches and a few pieces that clearly were reproduced at too low of a resolution. However, there's also quite a bit of very nice grayscale and black art (though some of it ended up printed too dark). The surface maps and especially the stellar maps look very good too.
Overall, though, the layout and organizational issues cause serious problems for Twilight Sector and thus I've given it a "2" out of "5" for Style.
Conclusion
Twilight Sector was a supplement that I really wanted to love, because I was intrigued by the idea of a new (and Transhuman) Traveller universe with a serious campaign arc supporting it. However, I feel like the product ended up as a bit of a science-fiction heartbreaker. What could have been a great setting--a strength that shines through at times in the manuscript--was let down by editing, development, and layout.
I still have hope for the campaign arc, though, as there's enough of interest here that something very cool still could rise from it.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
