Ditzie/meta
From Traveller Wiki - Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far future
It should be noted that Ditzie and her family are not only non-canonical, they (and especially their inventions) are downright contra-canonical.
Lady Ditzamer Iishuuru "Ditzie" Spofulam is the niece of Lord Hengabar Spofulam, head of Famille Spofulam Yards, a niche starship-and-sundry manufacturer in the Core sector.
[edit] History
FS, established by Feringapar Spofulam, was currenly run by his son, Hengabar Spofulam. Hengabar, through some selective genetic enhancement programmes, managed to produce a number of notable nieces and nephews, but Ditzie is the forefront, achieving notoriety in her abusingly excessive use of Fusion Plus.
As far as we can tell, Ditzie was born in year -005, Day 327 (November 23) Imperial. Known siblings include Shidaar (also born -005) and Niipita Indifar, head of the starship weapons division, who is apparently much older.
Shortly after turning 7, Ditzie (and others, apparently) was moved out of Compliance and promoted to Executive Vice-President of Famile Spofulam's High Energy Solutions branch, where she turned out such abominations as:
- A battledress-mountable PAW gun with a 600km range.
- A 4-meter-long meson gun.
- An elephant-mounted PAW.
- An overpowered PAW that fits on a 200t ship.
- A 100-ton a SDB mounting a 600 megajoule laser, impenetrable armor, a nuclear damper, and more.
- A grav bike capable of 5.7 G's, with room for a weapon.
- A semi-automatic 120 mm gauss gun firing twenty 30 kilo steel darts at 4000 meters per second in thirty-six seconds.
You get the idea.
[edit] Background (OOC)
Back around 1997, when Fire, Fusion, and Steel 2 was being readied for production, many members of the Traveller Mailing List tested the system out by designing equipment and ships. One notable designer, Ian Whitchurch, crafted truly amazing things, under the guise of a Milieu 0 company (created by Roderick Darroch Elliott and shared by other TML members) named Famille Spofulam, or FS for short.
Ian, seeing too much power in Fusion Plus, used FS in general, and Ditzie as particular, as a platform for editorializing on an error that saw its way to print.
Unfortunately, Ditzie became a popular celebrity due to her audacity, and the whole point about the abusability of FFS2 was largely ignored.
Ian here. Ditzie might have been part of campaigning against The Abomination Known As Fusion Plus (mostly because it broke the economics of Trav), but she was mostly an excuse to build really, really abusive thing with lots lots lotttssss of fun writing them up up up in a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay that would keep me sane during a fairly crappy part of my life.
On more specific matters, you forgot the Jet Bike (a FFS2-legal TL6 personal aircraft, powered by a hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide rocket. Zero to a thousand and forty in ten point five flat) But I'm glad the EmPAW got remembered.
3jun08 I'd also argue some specific things, like the PAWs for 200 dton ships, are canonical - at least, they were legal FFS2 implementations of stuff you could do in High Guard. Also, if anyone has classic Ditzie posts/designs from the TML, I'd like them linked *hint* Finally, FS is so Canon - check the stencils on crates on the covers illustrated by Jesse de Graf on various G:T products.
[edit] Links
Leslie Bates' "Friends in High Places" fiction.
