A Short-ish Vid That Completely Explains the IISS

[ottarrus]

So I found this video on youtube about those who live and work at McMurdo Sound Antarctica.
You want to see what a burgeoning, but not quite ready to fully lift off colonial operation looks like?
You want to see what a low-tech version of an Imperial Research Station looks like?
Want to see what makes the Scout Service different from the Navy?
And this isn't the scientists... this is the roughly 1000 people it takes to support those scientists [about 300 of them]
Now obviously you're going to have to translate much of this into Traveller. After all, 3000 years is a long time. But I think the motivations and attitudes of the people shown here are pretty Scouts-like.

Well, here it is.
Take ten minutes and enjoy What It's Like To Live At The End Of The World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UqjS1RGRzo

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

More to do with woke culture than with the IISS. But whatever.

 

[ottarrus]

More to do with woke culture than with the IISS. But whatever.

I don't know about 'woke' culture. I didn't detect any rabid SJW stuff in it. Do you have a 'for instance'? What did I miss?
What I saw was some pretty smart people doing difficult jobs at the ass end of nowhere where dealing with the environment is half the job. Sure, it's not a deployed infantry company; sure many of the people are probably more liberal than your average Texican, but nobody was on a crusade of any sort. And frankly, I don't think Antarctica leaves a lot of room for political nonsense anyway. The weather doesn't care what you believe, it just cares whether you the the jobs that needed to be done to survive.

 

[Condottiere]

Maybe early interstellar exploring.

If we assume base level technological levelling twelve, I'm pretty sure there's an abundance of energy and creature comforts available.

And, if always, space onboard a starship is an issue, you drag along some three dee printers.

 

[ottarrus]

Maybe early interstellar exploring.

If we assume base level technological levelling twelve, I'm pretty sure there's an abundance of energy and creature comforts available.

And, if always, space onboard a starship is an issue, you drag along some three dee printers.

Well, I'm also seeing the video as an inhospitable environment colonization attempt in a 2300AD sense as well.

Assuming your 'base TL 12', I submit that energy and creature comforts are NOT 'abundant'... available yes, but abundant no. The depicted enclave has lots of maintenance ability, but NO production ability at all. It can fabricate some needed items [and more with industrial fabricators ['3-d printers'], but the base feed stocks for those fabricators is VERY limited. Even at TL 15 you can't turn dung into diamonds, after all. While there isn't much information about fabrication units other than 'they exist and they work', it's reasonable to assume those fabricators require basic materials in a usable form in order to produce finished goods. You can't just break an item down into its constituent atoms or elements to feed it back into the system. As an analogy that would be like trying to substitute blue latex paint for 'cyan' in your laser printer at home.

 

[Arkathan]

... Even at TL 15 you can't turn dung into diamonds, after all. ...

Yes. Yes you can. You just need a lot of it. Separating the carbon from fresh coprolites is a simple matter. Once you have the carbon, making small low quality diamonds is a routine achievement at our high TL7 industrial capabilities.
At TL 15, you should be able to have cheap engagement ring quality artificial diamonds... or huge death ray focusers...

 

[ottarrus]

... Even at TL 15 you can't turn dung into diamonds, after all. ...

Yes. Yes you can. You just need a lot of it. Separating the carbon from fresh coprolites is a simple matter. Once you have the carbon, making small low quality diamonds is a routine achievement at our high TL7 industrial capabilities.
At TL 15, you should be able to have cheap engagement ring quality artificial diamonds... or huge death ray focusers...

I can see it now...
"This is just for you, honey. I made it myself!" :shock:

 

[Condottiere]

We can repolish it. We have the technology. We can make it better than it was. Better, shinier, harder.