Setting
Originally, Traveller had no established setting, and was promoted as a rules system for running general science fiction role-playing games. It was published at a time when role-playing games did not typically feature a well-defined fictional universe, but instead offered rules appropriate to the conventions of a particular genre. Each role-playing group used and altered published rules to suit their setting and play style.
Within a short time, however, a default setting was crafted to take advantage of all aspects of those rules, which has come to be known as the Official Traveller Universe (OTU), also known by the primary political entity in the setting, The Third Imperium. The starting point for this appears to be the board game Imperium.
The OTU details a small piece of the galaxy, known as Charted Space. Within this space once lived a race called the Ancients, who died out in a massive war 300,000 years ago.
More recent history details the Third Imperium, which is the largest and human-dominated interstellar empire in Charted Space. Logically, it was preceded by two previous human-dominated empires. The Third Imperium is a feudalistic union of worlds. Local nobility operate largely free from oversight, restricted by convention and feudal obligations.
Most Traveller adventures take place between the Imperial years 1100 and 1125, in or near the Third Imperium. Some adventures take place in the "New Era" years of 1200 to 1248.
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