Traveller is one of the first role-playing games. Originally published in 1977 by Game Designers Workshop, the game has had a number of versions and editions since then. Traveller was originally written by Marc M. Miller.
Traveller allows for generic space-opera setting. However, most Traveller adventures and the standard setting for Traveller is the Third Imperium, a massive, sprawling space empire, set approximately 3,500 years in the future.
Traveller5 (or T5) is (as of 2013) the latest edition of Traveller, also written by Marc M. Miller and published by Far Future Enterprises. The core rules (aka "The big black book") provide game mechanics
Argushiigi is several things:
The main aim of Argushiigi is to provide a way of describing T5 characters, objects, worlds, etc. in such a way that machines can unambigiously read information about these things without the need for special formats. The RDF way of describing data makes it relatively easy to extend information about something, so that individual campaign settings and house rules can be handled without difficulty. Encoding data using ontologies and RDF allows Traveller resources to be placed on the semantic web, making it possible to locate and use Traveller resources. Using linked open data principles allows many users to link resources together, reusing information that has already be developed.
Some of these terms probably require some explanation. Read on ...
The semantic web is a movement led by the W3C to convert the current web of unstructured and semi-structured documents into a web of data.
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is the basic way of describing resources on the semantic web. Essentially, RDF allows you to make statements about resources (either real things, things on the web or purely imaginary constructs) using subject-verb-object statements.
Characters, objects etc. in the T5 universe are identified by URIs (think extended URLs). Information about a specific item in the T5 universe can be stored by linking these URLs to other informaion. For example, the world Regina may be identified by http://data.travellerrpg.com/setting/traveller/third-imperium/sector/spinward-marches/subsector/regina/world/regina. From there, we can link the type of thing Regina is (a T5 World), information about the nature of the world, such as its size, and links to other resources, such as its subsector.
The Web Ontology Language (OWL) provides a way of describing the vocabularies used to make statements in RDF. OWL also allows you to link vocabulary information together (eg. a Desert World is also a World) and allows a machine reasoner to deduce implied information about something.
Argushiigi uses OWL to describe how something like a character, a starship or a world should be described.
Linked Open Data (LOD) is a set of principles that allow information to be shared. In theory the URIs used by RDF do not have to be resolvable in the sense that you can put them into a browser and get information back. LOD allows the URIs to be resolvable and feed back information about the resource -- in human readble form for humans and a machine readable form for machines.
Argushiigi uses LOD principles so that someone using Argushiigi can simply link to a concept (such as a Naval rank) that has already been defined, rather than carrying about a (probably stale) copy of the information.
Argushiigi Admegulasha Bilanidin, AAB, or the "Vilani Repository of All Knowledge" in the Vilani language, is an organisation in the Third Imperium. It seemed like a good name for something that is intended to encode Traveller5.
