Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I was introduced to the Traveller RPG universe by GURPS Traveller. Which means, of course, that I am familiar with a setting where Traveller: The New Era simply never happened. I dunno how old-school grognards feel about us coming in and idly shifting the timeline like that, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t at least a little head-shaking, or something.
At any rate: Bundle of Holding is doing the PDFs for TNE. Now’s your chance to revisit the original timeline!
Speaking as an old-school grognard… I’m totally freakin’ fine with it. I am a minority opinion, I’m sure, but I’ve already laid my marker down.
Somewhat ironically, the only Traveller books I ever owned were set during the civil war.
However, from what I’ve heard here and there, the majority of Traveller grognards are quite happy ignoring The New Era and the later Star Vikings.
I started playing Traveller in the LBB, and I progressed through MT, TNE, and T4. I personally didn’t care for the setting in TNE – it felt like they were trying to pull the feel of the Twilight:2000 setting into Traveller.
I played in the LBB + MT eras, TNE always looked very interesting, but was NEVER something I wanted to play.