Fimbulwinter

The Fimbulwinter (Sagamaal: Fimbulvinter) was the period between the end of the War of the First Rebellion in -88 and the re-establishment of interstellar contact among the Sword Worlds in -11. It is named after a three-year winter with no summers from Norse mythology.

The latter half of the war had been characterized by extensive use of massive kinetic-kill missiles. From -92 onwards the use of such weapons escalated in a spiral of retaliatory attacks aimed at the ecological balance of enemy worlds rather than at military targets. As a result, when the war wound down due to lack of resources and the complete destruction of shipbuilding capacity everywhere, the local climate around the main cities on most Sword Worlds had been thoroughly disturbed. Every major settlement experienced lowered temperatures and harsh weather due to massive amounts of water and dust in the atmosphere. The resulting natural catastrophes and attendant agricultural problems caused great anxieties and impeded postwar recovery. Despite all efforts interstellar contact between the Sword Worlds almost completely stopped for a time.

Although it is popularly thought that all interstellar contact ceased during the Fimbulwinter, this is not quite true. Interstellar trade did halt, but some of the worlds managed to keep a few minor warships in commision most of the time. However, no new ships were built anywhere until -11.

References

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Paul Drye, Hans Rancke-Madsen, Robert Prior. Sword Worlds (Steve Jackson Games, 2004), 84.
• Martin Dougherty. Sword Worlds (Mongoose Publishing, 2020), 6.