Brain uploading

Okay, we have some regions where it's mentioned that brains can be uploaded, Neumann among them. Buit the closest we seem to get to rules for brain uploading is cyborging, which is not the same thing, at all.
So are there any rules in the main traveler setting for uploading (destructively or no) a brain into a computer?

It's hinted that is what happened to lucan in 1248, but I'm thinking any7 rules in Mongoose Traveller.

Thanks!
It's a major aspect of the upcoming Singularity campaign and rules are included for the process. I referenced T5 and other sources. The project is still in development but it's on the fast track now!
 
Same place participation trophies come from. People not wanting to just use numbers as they are defined. People would rather expand the definitions until they mean nothing, just like participation trophies.

Oh bog rot, MG.
TL's don't have to be uniform across the entire spectrum of technological development. They aren't in real life, so why should they be in a sci-fi game? Each civilization on each world is gonna focus on the developments they think are important and they won't be as advanced in the things aren't important to them. I don't see the downside in that.
 
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on differing TL's, I only have a problem if they're super radically different, because technology isn't something you can pick and choose beyond a certain point. Being able to build say, TL 16 jump drives probably requires underlying materials tech and computer tech that a TL9 society just couldn't do. So at most, I'd argue that "General TL+/- 2" is probably a good rule of thumb.
 
on differing TL's, I only have a problem if they're super radically different, because technology isn't something you can pick and choose beyond a certain point. Being able to build say, TL 16 jump drives probably requires underlying materials tech and computer tech that a TL9 society just couldn't do. So at most, I'd argue that "General TL+/- 2" is probably a good rule of thumb.
That's a good rule of thumb. There will be outlier worlds out there just to make things interesting, and they might exceed +/- 2, but those are noted as being really unusual. Belgard/Egyrn in the Trojan Reach is one such outlier.
 
Right, the point is that TL (like all UWP numbers) is a very macro level look at an entire world. Once you dial in on the details, you are going to get more specific things and there's going to be more variance. Just because a world has a strong transhumanist tradition of genetic engineering and man-machine interfaces doesn't mean that it's going to be state of the art in Jump technology or whatever.

And that's before you deal with the fact that nearly every world is exposed to interstellar trade and the vast majority of them are colonies. If your whole colony was a bunch of cyberneticists, that knowledge and specialist equipment might have been maintained when other aspects of your technology fell back.
 
Same place participation trophies come from. People not wanting to just use numbers as they are defined. People would rather expand the definitions until they mean nothing, just like participation trophies.
The better example of participation trophy would be if you were on the job for two weeks and you got nominated for a prestigious award in an effort to legitimize your hiring and in the hopes that you would do a good job and actually earn the award.
 
That device is a personality overlay in both Adv 6 Expedition to Zhodane and in subsequent Mongoose sources, sort of like a form of technological 'brain washing'. It isn't the wholesale harvesting of sophont's intellect and personality into an electronic format.
You're right, it is. But what extra do you need to add to it? Besides a Personality, there's Memories, and Desires (Wants). Fears are learned (memories) or ingrained. A Personality has to be uploaded to it to download it to someone else. With Mongoose's wafer jack system, you could probably upload the whole persons Personality, Memories, Desires, and Fears into that device just by extending the device's storage with a wafer array.

What I'm saying is that the device to upload a brain really already exists in Classic Traveller. And would just need some storage modification.

How long would it take to upload? That would really be up to you.

But you can use that overlay device as a template for creating what you want.
 
If there is a variation across the industrial base, it shouldn't be greater than one more than listed technological level, and to be fair, not lower than three for others.
 
I don't mind having different TLs for different technologies, I think it adds to the setting more than it detracts.

What I dislike is the prototype and experimental way of doing things.

A nuclear power station at TL4? Sure just take two disadvantages. A prototype fusion power plant in a TL7 experimental jump ship? Of course. I'm not saying I dislike it to the point of removal, it makes for some interesting 1950s themed sci fi or steampunk (the atomic powered Nautilus of Hollywood).

I uses stages within the same TL - so the experimental then prototype jump drive are early versions but still TL9.
 
You're right, it is. But what extra do you need to add to it? Besides a Personality, there's Memories, and Desires (Wants). Fears are learned (memories) or ingrained. A Personality has to be uploaded to it to download it to someone else. With Mongoose's wafer jack system, you could probably upload the whole persons Personality, Memories, Desires, and Fears into that device just by extending the device's storage with a wafer array.

What I'm saying is that the device to upload a brain really already exists in Classic Traveller. And would just need some storage modification.

How long would it take to upload? That would really be up to you.

But you can use that overlay device as a template for creating what you want.
The wafer technology of Agent of the Imperium, T5, and the cursory mention in MgT sources, records the personality.

The personality is defined as your memories and behavior patterns, so includes fears, memories, desires etc.

There is a possible mechanism for this if you accept:
1 consciousness is quantum
2 it is emergent from the quantum behaviour of microtubule structures within brain cells.


Wafer jacks and wafer headsets (and the personality overlay machine) overlay the recorded microtubule structure.
 
Right, the point is that TL (like all UWP numbers) is a very macro level look at an entire world. Once you dial in on the details, you are going to get more specific things and there's going to be more variance. Just because a world has a strong transhumanist tradition of genetic engineering and man-machine interfaces doesn't mean that it's going to be state of the art in Jump technology or whatever.

And that's before you deal with the fact that nearly every world is exposed to interstellar trade and the vast majority of them are colonies. If your whole colony was a bunch of cyberneticists, that knowledge and specialist equipment might have been maintained when other aspects of your technology fell back.
Which again means that the numbers mean nothing. If 2+2 does not = 4 everytime without using advanced math, then those numbers mean nothing. If they want to break down the TLs by subject, fine, but until they start doing that, then the system We have now means nothing. If I say someone is 6'4" tall and measured that using a ruler and the next person comes by and says that 6'4" is actually 5'0", then the numbers mean nothing if both are correct.

Very macro doesn't mean inaccurate.

I use variations within the rules. You advocate, as does Matt, that violating the rules is what the game is about. Not just changing it for your table, but saying I don't know how to read the rules is just insulting. For population it specifically states a range of numbers, yet for some reason, even a range of numbers isn't good enough for you guys. Pop 6 = 1,000,000 - 9,999,999. Simple and an exact range. This is the rule eventhough Matt tried to tell Me different and he works for the damn company. You want the numbers to be meaningless. At your table, that is fine, but most neurodivergents, like myself, can't play that way. They need rules that are consistent and mean something. You argue that that number can't encompass everything. Really? Then tell Me what numbers are missing from the Population rules? They cover every number from 0 up past whatever the hell number is covered by the letter Z. I'll wait.
 
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The world TL is already a fudge.
For an isolated world the TL tells you what the world has available.

But for a world that is in a subsector with regular trade there could be items of TLs from anywhere in the subsector.

I know there is no way the UK could build i-phones from raw materials, but they could easily be assembled from parts that are bought in, the technical knowledge for assembly exists. In the future the government could invest in the industries necessary to make the parts for the i-phone and we could be self sufficient. Then all we need is to find the raw materials...

You could land on a TL 6 world and be surprised by the TL8 fusion power stations and air/rafts that have been imported, the world can't build them but can import the spares and the knowledge to maintain them.

Now extend that to a sector or an empire, with full knowledge of TL15 and industrial high population world mass producing "i-phones"...
 
I kinda suspect lowest common denominator.

What's the lowest possible technological level that a society will feel comfortable in.
 
The world TL is already a fudge.
For an isolated world the TL tells you what the world has available.

But for a world that is in a subsector with regular trade there could be items of TLs from anywhere in the subsector.

I know there is no way the UK could build i-phones from raw materials, but they could easily be assembled from parts that are bought in, the technical knowledge for assembly exists. In the future the government could invest in the industries necessary to make the parts for the i-phone and we could be self sufficient. Then all we need is to find the raw materials...

You could land on a TL 6 world and be surprised by the TL8 fusion power stations and air/rafts that have been imported, the world can't build them but can import the spares and the knowledge to maintain them.

Now extend that to a sector or an empire, with full knowledge of TL15 and industrial high population world mass producing "i-phones"...
The thing that sticks in my thoughts is that 99% of the worlds out there originated as colonies. So they were all TL 9+ at some point and probably more like TL10 or 11 if they weren't settled by STL colony ark. Yeah, Long Night, gray goo, other disasters. Lots of reasons that they fell back in effective tech level. Maybe even literally forgot some stuff. But most worlds wouldn't collapse to barbarism. And they wouldn't necessarily lose the knowledge, just the resources.
 
The thing that sticks in my thoughts is that 99% of the worlds out there originated as colonies. So they were all TL 9+ at some point and probably more like TL10 or 11 if they weren't settled by STL colony ark. Yeah, Long Night, gray goo, other disasters. Lots of reasons that they fell back in effective tech level. Maybe even literally forgot some stuff. But most worlds wouldn't collapse to barbarism. And they wouldn't necessarily lose the knowledge, just the resources.

You can't just plop several thousand colonists down on a world and expect them to pick up where their mother world left off.

Presuming the mother world or the Ministry of Colonization did a proper survey of the world, the colonists land on a site that meets several vital needs... clean water, land able to produce food, and within a reasonable distance to key basic resources [copper, iron, petroleum, etc].
The colonists spend the first couple years assembling the infrastructure necessary to support a civilization... homes, power, sewage, a data net, etc. By this point the mother world has sunk a lot of time and money into the colonial project. It understands that ongoing support is just as necessary as the initial funding was. They're willing to replace broken equipment, send food and engineers [some of whom will but most will not want to become colonists themselves] and so on. However, after a few years of happy vid-casts telling the mother world how great the colony is doing, they're gonna get bored with it. Every news blurb about the colony will remind them that that is where their taxes are going and they haven't seen any return for that money.
And right about the time the fusion plant and computers start to wear out, the mother world is gonna want to start seeing some return on its investment. And that means a fair percentage of the colonists are going to have to start working on resource extraction that does absolutely nothing to build the colony. All those resources are going back to the mother world to 'pay back' the whole colonial effort.

Let me point that all of this assumes nothing goes wrong... and something ALWAYS goes wrong. Even Star Trek's hunky-dory 'everything is fine' civilization faces problems when humans intrude on another planet's biosphere like a virus. Unknown sicknesses, environmental disasters, poor equipment, lousy planning, any one a million different things can and WILL go wrong on a project of this magnitude.

The end result is that the colony will [hopefully] build itself up to self-sustainability and then have to develop industries that manufacture goods the mother world wants at a reasonable enough rate of exchange that the colony can start to advance its own condition. And if they can't generate income for themselves, their technology WILL regress as high-tech items wear out. And this is perfectly normal and even expected in a colonial operation.
 
The world TL is already a fudge.
For an isolated world the TL tells you what the world has available.

But for a world that is in a subsector with regular trade there could be items of TLs from anywhere in the subsector.

I know there is no way the UK could build i-phones from raw materials, but they could easily be assembled from parts that are bought in, the technical knowledge for assembly exists. In the future the government could invest in the industries necessary to make the parts for the i-phone and we could be self sufficient. Then all we need is to find the raw materials...

You could land on a TL 6 world and be surprised by the TL8 fusion power stations and air/rafts that have been imported, the world can't build them but can import the spares and the knowledge to maintain them.

Now extend that to a sector or an empire, with full knowledge of TL15 and industrial high population world mass producing "i-phones"...
As I understand TL, it is what they can support locally. It doesn't mean that you won't find other TLs on the world, but TL says the max that can be supported by the local world.
 
You can't just plop several thousand colonists down on a world and expect them to pick up where their mother world left off.

Presuming the mother world or the Ministry of Colonization did a proper survey of the world, the colonists land on a site that meets several vital needs... clean water, land able to produce food, and within a reasonable distance to key basic resources [copper, iron, petroleum, etc].
The colonists spend the first couple years assembling the infrastructure necessary to support a civilization... homes, power, sewage, a data net, etc. By this point the mother world has sunk a lot of time and money into the colonial project. It understands that ongoing support is just as necessary as the initial funding was. They're willing to replace broken equipment, send food and engineers [some of whom will but most will not want to become colonists themselves] and so on. However, after a few years of happy vid-casts telling the mother world how great the colony is doing, they're gonna get bored with it. Every news blurb about the colony will remind them that that is where their taxes are going and they haven't seen any return for that money.
And right about the time the fusion plant and computers start to wear out, the mother world is gonna want to start seeing some return on its investment. And that means a fair percentage of the colonists are going to have to start working on resource extraction that does absolutely nothing to build the colony. All those resources are going back to the mother world to 'pay back' the whole colonial effort.

Let me point that all of this assumes nothing goes wrong... and something ALWAYS goes wrong. Even Star Trek's hunky-dory 'everything is fine' civilization faces problems when humans intrude on another planet's biosphere like a virus. Unknown sicknesses, environmental disasters, poor equipment, lousy planning, any one a million different things can and WILL go wrong on a project of this magnitude.

The end result is that the colony will [hopefully] build itself up to self-sustainability and then have to develop industries that manufacture goods the mother world wants at a reasonable enough rate of exchange that the colony can start to advance its own condition. And if they can't generate income for themselves, their technology WILL regress as high-tech items wear out. And this is perfectly normal and even expected in a colonial operation.
This is all dependent on the "mother world" not just dropping a "Mining and Manufacturing Seed Factory" on the planet and calling it done. (After all of the proper surveys have been done. Obviously.) It is mining bots, fuel bots, refineries, smelters, manufacturing plants, fabricators, power plants, etc. Everything a colony needs to be self-sustaining from the word go. To do any less than this is to invite disaster and be entirely dependent on shipments from the "mother world" that may never come. If the "Seed Factory" is TL-16, then their planet is TL-16 from the very beginning. If the "Seed Factory" is TL-14, then the world is TL-14 from the beginning.
 
This is all dependent on the "mother world" not just dropping a "Mining and Manufacturing Seed Factory" on the planet and calling it done. (After all of the proper surveys have been done. Obviously.) It is mining bots, fuel bots, refineries, smelters, manufacturing plants, fabricators, power plants, etc. Everything a colony needs to be self-sustaining from the word go. To do any less than this is to invite disaster and be entirely dependent on shipments from the "mother world" that may never come. If the "Seed Factory" is TL-16, then their planet is TL-16 from the very beginning. If the "Seed Factory" is TL-14, then the world is TL-14 from the beginning.
Are you reading my game notes? This is what is about to happen to a T with a TL-16 "seed factory" and prototype TL-17 fabricator technology.
 
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I'm gonna be honest, while I like the tech for a lot of games, the addition of fabricators and such to traveller really hammers some of the underpinning assumptions of the setting, given their relative lack of expense (at least in governmental terms).
A Tl13 fabricator is: Cr50000 per litre, and can either produce entire Tl11 and below items, OR produce components for higher tech level items, although you may need a different factory for that. It's one explicitly called out thing it can't do is make superdense alloys which require industrial processes.

Okay, 1 litre is Cr50000. Expensive, yes. Or is it... 100 litres are 5MCR, for something that can build any tool you need from TL11 down, or components for a larger unit. An external fabricator takes more time and at TL13 you'd only be able to make TL10 materials, but it's cheaper.

Now yes, something could happen to your fabricator, but... yeah, themore that happens, the more it sounds like: "Star trek transporters, which work up until you need them." Most colonists from even a relatively advanced world, unless they're castaways or people with just the clothes on their back should be able to get themselves set up without a lot of problem.

Honestly, I think this i the issue of thigns changing in the real world--when Taveller was first printed, and it's underlying assumptions were put down, things like 3d printing/nanotech/fabrication systems were actually fairly rare even in Sci-fi. The underlying assumption was if you wanted to build stuff, you needed a big honking factory with thousands of people, which explained a lot of setting issues. Now? It's harder.
 
You can't just plop several thousand colonists down on a world and expect them to pick up where their mother world left off.

Presuming the mother world or the Ministry of Colonization did a proper survey of the world, the colonists land on a site that meets several vital needs... clean water, land able to produce food, and within a reasonable distance to key basic resources [copper, iron, petroleum, etc].
The colonists spend the first couple years assembling the infrastructure necessary to support a civilization... homes, power, sewage, a data net, etc. By this point the mother world has sunk a lot of time and money into the colonial project. It understands that ongoing support is just as necessary as the initial funding was. They're willing to replace broken equipment, send food and engineers [some of whom will but most will not want to become colonists themselves] and so on. However, after a few years of happy vid-casts telling the mother world how great the colony is doing, they're gonna get bored with it. Every news blurb about the colony will remind them that that is where their taxes are going and they haven't seen any return for that money.
And right about the time the fusion plant and computers start to wear out, the mother world is gonna want to start seeing some return on its investment. And that means a fair percentage of the colonists are going to have to start working on resource extraction that does absolutely nothing to build the colony. All those resources are going back to the mother world to 'pay back' the whole colonial effort.

Let me point that all of this assumes nothing goes wrong... and something ALWAYS goes wrong. Even Star Trek's hunky-dory 'everything is fine' civilization faces problems when humans intrude on another planet's biosphere like a virus. Unknown sicknesses, environmental disasters, poor equipment, lousy planning, any one a million different things can and WILL go wrong on a project of this magnitude.

The end result is that the colony will [hopefully] build itself up to self-sustainability and then have to develop industries that manufacture goods the mother world wants at a reasonable enough rate of exchange that the colony can start to advance its own condition. And if they can't generate income for themselves, their technology WILL regress as high-tech items wear out. And this is perfectly normal and even expected in a colonial operation.
Who said that it would pick up where the motherworld left off? The point is that they have that technical knowledge, they have some amount of that technology brought with them. Are they going to be an industrial world mass producing that tech from day one? Of course not.

But the number of worlds that are particularly recent settlements isn't all that high. There's a few certainly. But even that's not really relevant to my point.

I'm not saying that all these lower tech worlds that abound in the Imperium shouldn't exist. I'm saying that treating them like they organically developed to that tech level the way Earth did ignores what actually happened. Barring a major disaster, they have high tech know how. What they probably don't have is high tech production capacity due to lack of population, resources, or just financial capacity. And they are going to have higher tech things available to them. Just like out of the way "low tech" places on Earth still have some kinds of high tech, like cellphones. Might be just a couple per community rather than one in every pocket, but they aren't absent.

So when we look at a world that is TL 6, they probably don't have legacy TL 4 and 5 stuff or the ruins of TL 2 buildings. Their past was TL 10 prefab colonial not ancient Rome in the majority of cases. And, while their general technical capacity is TL 6, that doesn't mean that they don't have some better capacities in small quantities or narrow areas. It especially doesn't mean that their knowledge is TL6. They are going to know modern medical theories, know chemistry and physics that might be beyond their industrial capacity to take advantage of. Unless there is a reason they don't, like being space Amish or some back to nature commune type place.

Obviously, a place like the Trojan Reach where trade is somewhat limited and worlds were intentionally stomped on without any kind of recovery assistance are quite different from the worlds of the Imperium. But even there you'll have a lot of Canticle for Leibowitz potential messing with your "clean" TL.
 
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