Yeah, it's one of the hallmarks of Traveller. Essentially, you get a minigame to play out your character's backstory. So instead of "Yup, I was a ruthless criminal, but I decided to quit out from under the don's nose!", you actually have to check to see if you survived each 4 year chunk of backstory from like 18 years old to the start of the game. It also frames the things your character learns and such on the way up. Prevents a lot of possible min-maxing.