Editing Jovian Chronicles

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After Ianus decided to split into two ventures in 1995 — Protoculture, which would publish ''Protoculture Addicts'' magazine; and Dream Pod 9, which would design and market miniatures and gaming books,<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|271–272}} ''Jovian Chronicles'' was re-published as a full-fledged game line in 1997 by Dream Pod 9, this time using their own in-house rule system. This edition, because of its white cover, is known as the "White Edition", and subsequent supplements are also called this, even though several of the supplemental books feature a dark blue starfield cover.

Ianus Publications had licensed the anime-related games of [[R. Talsorian Games]], and ''Jovian Chronicles'' (1994) by Marc A. Vezina featured an original campaign setting for the ''[[Mekton]]'' role-playing game from R. Talsorian. Vezina had intended ''Jovian Chronicles'' to be published as a serial in the company's ''Mecha Press'' magazine. ''Jovian Chronicles'' was instead published as a standalone setting and supplemented soon after with ''Europa Incident'' (1994). [[Dream Pod 9]] was soon split out from Ianus as a separate company, and their second game after ''[[Heavy Gear]]'' was ''Jovian Chronicles'' (1998), a game based on Dream Pod 9's Silhouette system, and a variant of the setting they previously published for ''Mekton''. The new edition changed the theme to encompass an anime mecha game, a space-opera starfighter game, as well a near-future game using hard science. Many of the mecha were redesigned to accommodate a video game that would have been released by Activision but was never published.<ref name="designers"/>

The later ''Silhouette CORE Rulebook'' (2003) offered a new standalone version of Silhouette that turned it into a generic system, and was immediately followed by the ''Mecha Companion'' (2003), which offered [[D20 System|d20]] stats for all the mecha from ''Heavy Gear'', ''Jovian Chronicles'' and ''[[Gear Krieg]]'' using [[Guardians of Order]]'s ''d20 Mecha'' (2003) mech description rules. ''Jovian Chronicles'' second edition was also released in 2003.<ref name="designers">{{Cite book|author=Shannon Appelcline|title=Designers & Dragons|publisher=Mongoose Publishing|year=2011| isbn= 978-1-907702-58-7}}</ref>{{rp|271–273}}

The game world shows one possible future, a time in which Mankind has expanded and settled the [[Solar System]], going as far as [[terraforming]] [[Venus]] and [[Mars]]. The colonists living around [[Jupiter]] are at odds with the government of [[Earth]], driving much of the series' intrigue. The game features a blend of action/adventure and hard-science [[space colonization]] facts.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZnLkqqG1tg |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/xZnLkqqG1tg |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live|title=Game Geeks #103 Jovian Chronicles & Core Command|last=Wiegel|first=Kurt|date=June 4, 2009|website=YouTube|publisher=Game Geeks © PugKnows Productions|access-date=July 18, 2019}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|date=November–December 1993|title=Jovian Chronicles|url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1738/Mecha-Press-10?term=mecha+press++10|journal=[[Mecha Press]]|publisher=[[Anime News Network|IANVS Publications]]|issue=10}}</ref> The books are based on plausible technical details to maintain a realistic [[hard science fiction]] setting.

The concept has its origins on a campaign played by the authors [[Mark A. Vezina]] and [[Etienne Gagnon]] since 1987, using [[R. Talsorian]]'s [[Mekton]] system. After 5 years of development, IANVS publications licensed the Mekton II rules and published the ''Jovian Chronicles'' Campaign Setting, a 112-page letter sized book which describes the JC universe, timeline, technologies and introduces players to the setting thru a 12 episode campaign. The JC campaign works as an extension of the Mekton rules set, with minimum changes required and then only for character status and wealth, however, compared to other Mecha depicted in Mekton, JC Exo-armors tend to be less resilient and their weapons are less powerful. It is also of note that at this stage, ''Exos'' tend to be more balanced with little differences among them, while on later editions, ''grunt'' exos are intentionally inferior to ''hero'' machines, for example, a CEGA Syreen and a JC Pathfinder are equally balanced in power, armor and weapons, and similar in capabilities to larger machines.

Mecha designs also vary on this edition, being more complex and elaborated in design than on latter iterations, during this release, there were also a number of metal miniatures for six of the exo-armors in the setting, these were produced by Canadian manufacturer [[RAFM Company|RAFM]] and were based on the campaign book technical designs by [[John Moscato]]. Miniatures were in 1/325 scale due to the fictional size of the exo-armors and presented one of the finest and most dynamic mecha sculptings of the era.

Both the RPG and miniature games are built on the same basic rule mechanics. ''Silhouette'' which defines characters in terms of 10 base attributes (agility, knowledge, etc.), 5 derived attributes (health, etc.), and a variety of skills. Skill rolls make up the backbone of the system, which focuses on effect-based speed of play over grainy detail. The core mechanic involves rolling a number of 6-sided dice, taking the highest result, adding in modifiers for attributes and/or situation, and then comparing it to a set threshold number. If the result is higher than the threshold the test is a success; if it is lower the test is a failure. The margin by which the test succeeded (Margin of Success, MoS) or failed (Margin of Failure, MoF) helps to determine the outcome. Combat is handled by the same system, with characters taking penalty-inflicting wounds rather than depleting a set number of health points. As a result, the system can be lethal, especially on inexperienced characters.

A third edition [[Jovian Wars]] was put on kickstarter during March–April 2017 and is in the process of delivering to its backers, the new edition is a fleet scale tactical game, whose rules are distributed for free at the DP9 website and changes (again) the scale of the miniatures to 1/1000 to exo-armors and fighters and 1/4000 for the spaceships.

==Product Line==

=== IANUS Games ([[Mekton]] Supplements) ===

* IMP-01: Jovian Chronicles: Campagne (January 1993).

* IMP-02: Europa Incident: Campagne (January 1995).

=== Dream Pod 9 ===

* DP9-PJC: Jovian Chronicles - Promotional Poster(2002).

* DP9-300: Jovian Chronicles - Lightning Strike Demo Game (2002).

* DP9-301: Rules & Background for Jovian Chronicles - Enter the Saga of Mankind (June 1997).

* DP9-302: Companion to Jovian Chronicles - Advanced Rules & Background(October 1997).

* DP9-303: Mechanical Catalog - Exo-Armors & Spacecraft (July 1997).

* DP9-304: Chaos Principle - Original Cinematic Adventure (April 1998).

* DP9-305: Game Aid for Jovian Chronicles - Gamemastering Made Easy (April 1998).

* DP9-306: Ships of the Fleet - Volume 1: Jovian Confederation (November 1998).

* DP9-307: Spacer's Guide - A Guide to Life in the Twenty-third Century (May 2001).

* DP9-308: Solapol - Sourcebook (May 1999).

* DP9-309: Ships of the Fleet - Volume 3: CEGA Navy (November 1999).

* DP9-310: Earth - Planet Sourcebook (June 2000).

* DP9-311: Mechanical Catalog Two - Civilian Equipment & Spacecraft (August 2000).

* DP9-312: Jovian Fleet - Blueprint File(1998).

* DP9-313: Ships of the Fleet - Volume 2: Jovian Confederation (February 1999).

* DP9-314: Lightning Strike - Fleet Combat Rules(1999).

* DP9-315: CEGA Fleet - Blueprint File (1999).

* DP9-316: Lightning Strike - Behind the Veil: Venus (1999).

* DP9-317: Jupiter - Planet Sourcebook (February 2000).

* DP9-318: Lightning Strike - Call to Arms (1999).

* DP9-319: Ships of the Fleet - Volume 4: Venus (May 2000).

* DP9-320: Shadow of CEGA - Planet Sourcebook (March 2001).

* DP9-321: Space Equipment Handbook - Advanced Tools & Weapons (December 2000).

* DP9-322: Lightning Strike - Second Edition (2000).

* DP9-323: Nomads - Planet Sourcebook (July 2001).

* DP9-324: Lightning Strike - Companion

* DP9-325: Mercury - Planet Sourcebook (January 2002).

* DP9-326: Venus - Planet Sourcebook (May 2002).

* DP9-327: Mars - Planet Sourcebook (August 2002).

* DP9-328: Cislunar Space - Planet Sourcebook (Mars 2003).

* DP9-920: Jovian Chronicles Second Edition - RPG Player's Handbook (July 2003).

''Jovian Chronicles'' was featured on the front cover of the March–April 1997 edition of [[Pyramid (magazine)|Pyramid]] (Vol. 1, Issue 24), and a sneak preview of the game was offered inside the same issue.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG30-8824|title=Warehouse 23 - Pyramid Classic #24|website=www.warehouse23.com|access-date=2019-07-19}}</ref>

In the February 1998 edition of ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' (Issue 244), [[Rick Swan]] reviewed both the ''Jovian Chronicles'' setting and the ''[[Heavy Gear]]'' setting (also published by Dream Pod 9), and praised the high production values: "Both are beautiful games, into which a lot of effort has been invested." Swan admired the "Silhouette" game system, calling it "the smartest set of universal rules this side of the [[GURPS]] game." But he criticized the combat rules, which he called "more work than fun", and he found little to be excited about in the setting, saying, "There's nothing terribly interesting going on here, and the game's ambitions seem awfully modest compared to the wide screen spectacle of ''[[Trinity (role-playing game)|Trinity]]''." Given the setting's emphasis on robot combat, Swan believed that "''Jovian Chronicles'' aims at players more interested in hardware than human beings." He concluded with an ambivalent shrug: "Other than the lifeless settings, I couldn’t find anything seriously wrong with... ''Jovian Chronicles''. But I couldn’t find much to be excited about either."<ref name="dragon">{{cite journal|last=Swan|first=Rick|author-link=Rick Swan|date=February 1998|title=Roleplaying Reviews: To the Stars!|journal=[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]|publisher=[[TSR (company)|TSR, Inc.]]|issue=244|pages=101–104}}</ref>

*''Backstab'' #6<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/backstab-magazine-french-06/page/n47/mode/2up|title = Backstab Magazine (French) Issue 06}}</ref>

*''[[Casus Belli (magazine)|Casus Belli]]'' #109<ref>{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/casus-belli-109/page/n15/mode/2up | title=Casus Belli #109 | date=1997 }}</ref>

[[Category:Fiction about Earth]]

[[Category:Fiction set on Jupiter]]

[[Category:Fiction set on Mars]]

[[Category:Fiction set on Mercury (planet)]]

[[Category:Fiction set on Titan (moon)]]

[[Category:Fiction set on Venus]]

[[Category:Campaign settings]]