TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
pasuuli said:
Personally, I'd like to see robots being refered to as Artificial Intelligences as standard.
Computer/Cyber/Bio Technology in the new Traveller setting?
- Thread starter AikiGhost
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Personally, I'd like to see robots being refered to as Artificial Intelligences as standard.
Lorcan Nagle
Mongoose
I'm not 100% au fait with OTU - I've read a few of the core T4 books and the Megatraveller box, and I don't recall any of them having a cultural proscription against cybernetics (and from what I know of TNE, Virus was a rogue AI so the computer tech was there), so is this just modenr handwaving to keep cybernetics out of Mongoose Traveller, or was it expanded in something I've not read?
Lorcan Nagle said:
it's a handwave.
In the OTU, a person ceases to be human when they are less than 50% meat. Less on some worlds, where the Society for the Sovereignity of Man over Machine (SSMM) holds sway. In MegaTraveller, Margret's domain and the Solomani Rim are the hotbeds of this group's ideology. See Rebellion Sourcebook.
Lorcan Nagle
Mongoose
Does that then change legal status? it'd be interesting to see someone need heavy cyborgisation to survive an injusry only to discover he no longer counted as a citizen
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
AKAramis said:
"John, we want to thank you for saving that bus full of school kids. Unfortunately, you lost both of your legs and part of one arm. Cyborg 23GD32-8, report to Section 13 for auction."
I think the most serious problem with Traveller and technology, even more serious than the other issues raised, is the whole basis of the system and how it is implemented ... the idea of "Tech Levels".
Look at Weaponry and, with a straight face, tell me that there is really a difference between the tech levels needed to manufacture a cartridge firing revolver (TL4) and an auto rifle (TL6) and a an Assault Rifle (TL7).
There *is* no difference in the technology required. None. They all require (to a greater or lesser degree) the use of precision machine tools. The materials are the same. The cartridges they fire are the same (except for caliber). The only real difference is that, in reality, the Assault Rifle is actually simpler to produce and requires less expensive machining than does the auto rifle or carbine, say.
There shouldn't be a differentiation between these four TLs in terms of weapons because ... there is *no* technological difference.
It would be better to rate *manufacturing/materials tech" bringing in (say) Interchangeable Parts (early) and Precision Machining at TL/4 (say), Mass Production at TL/5 (say), Simplified Mass Production at TL/6 (say), Just in Time Production at TL/7 and so on. Makes more sense.
Likewise, Energy ... is anyone out there so truly ignorant of history that they believe that wind energy wasn't harnessed until TL/1? Or that coal (or charcoal) wasn't used as a source of energy Until TL/4?
<sigh>
You start out with muscle, fair enough, and progress through passive use of wind (sailing ships) through active use of wind and water (windmills, waterwheels -- the latter actually predating the former to hell and gone), then you could consider heat engines (external) such as the Watt atmospheric engine and the later Steam Engines (high pressure, double, triple, quadruple expansion etc.), Steam Turbines. I'm not sure you can justify more than one, perhaps two at most, TLs for them ... and there's really no technological reason why, for example, Diesels or Internal Combustion engines should be differentiated.
Nuclear fission is fairly obviously different as a source of heat energy, but still generates power through steam. Fusion is much the same.
I think probably what would be better would be the *energy density* of the generators ... that is, how much energy each kilo of generator produces ... as a measure of "energy".
The underlying problem is that Traveller looks at technology on the basis of what we *did* at a particular historical era rather than what the technology *allowed* us to do. And some serious consideration as to changing the definitions of technology in the new Traveller should be of importance.
My .02c worth, anyway
Phil McGregor
=====
Author: Space Opera (FGU), Rigger Black Book #1 (FASA); Farm, Forge and Steam (PGD), Displaced (PGD), Orbis Mundi (PGD), Road to Armageddon (PGD)
Look at Weaponry and, with a straight face, tell me that there is really a difference between the tech levels needed to manufacture a cartridge firing revolver (TL4) and an auto rifle (TL6) and a an Assault Rifle (TL7).
There *is* no difference in the technology required. None. They all require (to a greater or lesser degree) the use of precision machine tools. The materials are the same. The cartridges they fire are the same (except for caliber). The only real difference is that, in reality, the Assault Rifle is actually simpler to produce and requires less expensive machining than does the auto rifle or carbine, say.
There shouldn't be a differentiation between these four TLs in terms of weapons because ... there is *no* technological difference.
It would be better to rate *manufacturing/materials tech" bringing in (say) Interchangeable Parts (early) and Precision Machining at TL/4 (say), Mass Production at TL/5 (say), Simplified Mass Production at TL/6 (say), Just in Time Production at TL/7 and so on. Makes more sense.
Likewise, Energy ... is anyone out there so truly ignorant of history that they believe that wind energy wasn't harnessed until TL/1? Or that coal (or charcoal) wasn't used as a source of energy Until TL/4?
<sigh>
You start out with muscle, fair enough, and progress through passive use of wind (sailing ships) through active use of wind and water (windmills, waterwheels -- the latter actually predating the former to hell and gone), then you could consider heat engines (external) such as the Watt atmospheric engine and the later Steam Engines (high pressure, double, triple, quadruple expansion etc.), Steam Turbines. I'm not sure you can justify more than one, perhaps two at most, TLs for them ... and there's really no technological reason why, for example, Diesels or Internal Combustion engines should be differentiated.
Nuclear fission is fairly obviously different as a source of heat energy, but still generates power through steam. Fusion is much the same.
I think probably what would be better would be the *energy density* of the generators ... that is, how much energy each kilo of generator produces ... as a measure of "energy".
The underlying problem is that Traveller looks at technology on the basis of what we *did* at a particular historical era rather than what the technology *allowed* us to do. And some serious consideration as to changing the definitions of technology in the new Traveller should be of importance.
My .02c worth, anyway
Phil McGregor
=====
Author: Space Opera (FGU), Rigger Black Book #1 (FASA); Farm, Forge and Steam (PGD), Displaced (PGD), Orbis Mundi (PGD), Road to Armageddon (PGD)
Mongoose Pete
Mongoose
It would be quite within the bounds of normal human culture to perceive life as a semi-cyborg as being worse than death...Lorcan Nagle said:
...or...Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
"John, we want to thank you for saving that bus full of school kids. Unfortunately, you lost both of your legs and part of one arm.
[proffers his side arm]
Will you be taking the gentleman's way out, or will you be taking the (polite distasteful cough) cybernetics option?"
ross
Cosmic Mongoose
I do not think Traveller necessarily needs a facelift. I do think that the game needs some good rationalizations. Frank Herbert had good reasons for Mentats instead of computers and another four or five thousand years is a long time to develop cultural biases. Computers can work any way we want them too, they just need a rationalization as to why.
Klaus Kipling
Mongoose
I think the new tech is great. It's simple to apply and you can make all the funky stuff that's been thought up over the past few decades if you want to.
It seems that the OTU has always been treated as, if there ain't rules for it, it can't exist, but there's never been an outright ban on newer concept high tech items in CT.
In fact, you can see Virus as an attempt to update the OTU to then current popular sci fi thinking.
I would also like to see more weapon types, with more emphasis on the higher tech, sci-fi-ier weapons. All Traveller weapon lists seem to model all types of modern contemporary firearms but never extrapolate this to the higher tech lasers and gauss pistols.
It's nice to see a stunner and the plasma rifle, though.
It seems that the OTU has always been treated as, if there ain't rules for it, it can't exist, but there's never been an outright ban on newer concept high tech items in CT.
In fact, you can see Virus as an attempt to update the OTU to then current popular sci fi thinking.
I would also like to see more weapon types, with more emphasis on the higher tech, sci-fi-ier weapons. All Traveller weapon lists seem to model all types of modern contemporary firearms but never extrapolate this to the higher tech lasers and gauss pistols.
It's nice to see a stunner and the plasma rifle, though.
Lorcan Nagle
Mongoose
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
That does actually give some ideas for Ghost in the shell-style adventures - have the characters as heavily cyborgised government operatives who's bodies are legally owned by the state.
qstor said:
You can have a happy medium. Leave nanotech to heavy industrial applications (they have nano-scale manafacuring procedures, but breeder robots remain undeveloped), and leave Cybernetics at a relative abstraction - it costs X to boost stat Y by level Z, you can only get a certian amount of cybernetics stat increases before it impacts SOC and maybe INT, and do a similar thing for headware where you can replicate a limited amount of computer or skill levels before it begins to impact on your SOC and EDU.
You can have some degree of amusement by stumping a character who's gone for a headware computer with wireless net access, only to have his communication protocols not be compatible on other worlds
aspqrz said:
This isnt an original observation but given that Traveller has extensive free trade then TL is really a measure of a soceities wealth.
The TL is better thought of as the level of technology generally affordable by a planet's population and hence *easily* available to visiting PCs
Golan2072
Cosmic Mongoose
TLs for worlds with interstellar contact IMHO equal local productive capabilities, NOT available tech. This would be especially true in colonies, where almost all tech is imported and the locals hardly have an industrial base yet. The lower the tech is, the greater TL mix you'll get - the government and the rich would probably live at the interstellar standard; the middle class would have several imported goods to make their lives better but would also have to use a lot of lower-tech stuff; and the peasantry would live in low-tech conditions with a used high-tech gadget thrown in for good measure.
steelbrok said:
Indeed, you are entirely correct. But I think that this should be explicitly stated.
For any planet with a Starport of any sort other than X the planetary TL is substantially and essentially meaningless as long as they are within "reasonable shipping time" from a High Tech world.
High tech products will be as readily available as, say, Mobile Phones are in Somalia (effectively an anarchy to all intents and purposes). Which is to say, widely available in and around the bigger cities (and Somalia is increasingly urbanised, despite the ongoing anarchy cum clan feuding cum religio-civil war).
Effectively, local sustainable Somali tech would probably be mid 19th century levels, perhaps late 19th century if one were outrageously generous. But they have cutting edge cell phone service.
And Assault Rifles, RPGs and AFVs all equivalent, in Traveller Tech, to late 20th century or early 21st century.
In an Imperium which is stated as being specifically a facilitator of interstellar trade (and minimal taxes on this trade pay for the many many "Trillion Credit Squadrons" the Scout Service etc.) then to say that, where the local TL is less than a higher TL "nearby", is an absolute limiter of what is available on the lower TL planet is a crock.
Unfortunately, in my experience, the way that most GMs see it is that the low TL is and absolute upper limit for TL on that planet ... and it takes some hard arguing (on the level of getting their attention with a carefully applied 2x4) to get them to see reason.
So Mongoose Traveller really needs to point out that higher tech items are still available on lower tech planets, but will cost more, may be more difficult to purchase outside of the major cities etc.
That's my .02 Cr worth anyway.
Phil
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
I totally intend to use whatever interesting technology I find from any sci-fi source in my games, be that cyberpunk, transhumanism or whatever.
I'll be damned if any vague notion of 'cannon' will stop me - in my view, anybody who holds that Traveller should be fixed to a particular style of sci-fi emerging from the mid 20th century is nuts. Frankly, it just totally misses the point of the game entirely.
I'll be damned if any vague notion of 'cannon' will stop me - in my view, anybody who holds that Traveller should be fixed to a particular style of sci-fi emerging from the mid 20th century is nuts. Frankly, it just totally misses the point of the game entirely.
Pete Nash said:
When playing MegaTraveller in days gone past my group and I used Travellers Digest #12, 13, & 14 to get some cybernetic implants on our characters. The rule that we had was if you failed your Survival role well you got VERY badly injured (usually one role per point missed w/ exception of snake-eyes) and time to look at the bionic or cloned body parts dealers. We invariably went the bionic route as it was more exotic and fun(ny) to role-play. We also took a page from R. Talsorian Games Cyberpunk and added a humanity stat. Then all those bionics upgrades would detract from that, particularly things that were more exotic or unhuman-like. 12 was Saint, 2 was genocide is an option kind of thinking.
We were unaware of the OTU 50% bionic = property rule but with the Mongoose rules about "connections" I could see that one character has owner/guardianship over another character. To me that sounds like let the hilarity ensue. As for the school bus hero I think he could be "owned" by his wife, if married. Or, if there are some unpaid bills well maybe it's the hospital or insurance company. Yikes! There are too many ways to go with this and Mongoose's new character generation rules could enable some great role-playing moments...
It's not 50%, it varies from 15% to 100% by world. During the rebellion, Margaret's faction pretty much goes with 25%. (In short, the second limb does you in...)
But, given the TL's in the MT medical articles (which Gabonator references), and limb regrowth, there is little reason any imperial service character should be cybered up besides personal choice.
But, given the TL's in the MT medical articles (which Gabonator references), and limb regrowth, there is little reason any imperial service character should be cybered up besides personal choice.
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