Yeah, it really doesn't make sense. If the Zhos had had a reasonable chance of grabbing some valuable territory and then offering an armistice where they get to keep their gains, it might have made sense. Say, if a lot of the Marches fleets had been drawn away by some crisis in another sector. As it stands, it made no sense at all. The Zhos had no reasonable chance of gaining anything, and guaranteed that the 3I would continue to see them as a threat and possible preemptive-strike target for decades (if not centuries) to come.

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 11:52 AM, David Shaw <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
Which is why I've always had a problem with the Frontier Wars - the Fifth in particular. Why would the Zhodani attack a numerically and technologically superior foe? Especially without provocation and *especially* especially when your one tactical and strategic advantage has been nullified by the development of psi-shields?

OK, it makes for a fun and interesting background to run a campaign in, but it seems like it's just one more in the list of Dubious Facets of Traveller.

Ho-hum. :-)

David Shaw




On 23 Jan 2018 7:25 pm, "Kurt Feltenberger" <xxxxxx@thepaw.org> wrote:
On 1/23/2018 3:07 AM, Caleuche wrote:
Taking a look at the systems broken down by Allegiance:
https://i.imgur.com/9rwo92c.png
- white circles represent >= TL15 and yellow circles represent population >= 5*10^10 - it appeared that there is no Zhodani TL15 world, and there's not, at least in the official data. Has that always been that way? Is it intentional?

Naturally.  When the game was developed, the Imperium were the good guys (aka "the US/NATO") and the Zhodani were the bad guys (aka "the SU and WarPact"), so the good guys *had* to be smarter, more created, better educated, and better at researching & developing than the bad guys.
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