Implausibility of technological research and lack of progress

[c00ky1970]

What are your thoughts on that? Or do you just handwave it?

Handwave it.

If you want an environment where technology advances progresses, you then have a need for some rules to be created so you can track what technology is at what level in what part of charted space. Additional rules for how technology breakthroughs occur and how quickly they are adopted. Alot of extra overhead which for a majority of Refs and players adds little to playing a game of Traveller.

However, if your player group are keen to see tech advancement and feel its is a critical part of their gameplay experience then sit down with them thrash out what is agreeable and make up your own homebrew rules.

 

[Iracundus]

The paradigm of technological progress need not be steady or accelerating. It could be a case of diminishing returns for effort, requiring ever more material and time invested in order to advance.

If you reduced modern day Earth to the Stone Age again but had a village of scientists and engineers, they still would not be able to recreate modern society. There is too much required infrastructure (which in turn may require a sufficiently large population to maintain) and too many prerequisites for them to be able to recreate a world of functioning consumer technology like a laptop computer from scratch within their lifetime, even if they know such things are possible.

So I would use IMTU this idea that steady escalation of resources required with each TL is why the Imperium seems to stagnate. A true breakthrough, going beyond the ceiling of each "tier" of TL requires such a coordination and allocation of societal resources that it is effectively impossible for current interstellar polities to accomplish, though they may creep upwards slowly until they hit the ceiling.

Maybe this also influenced by the Vilani mindset. Rather than going for revolutionary breakthrough, the focus is on polishing and refining what already exists, resulting in only very modest incremental improvements over long timespans, until the limits of a tech is reached.

 

[GamingGlen]

For the life of a character, tech growth isn't much in the Imperium. (unlike 19th-20th century Terrans)

For a campaign of Pocket Empires that may have times of peace, it could matter. We had this problem back in the Trillion Credit Squadron days (before T4's Pocket Empires, or even T4) when we wanted to run that type of campaign. We each had our little subsector of a few worlds, built our fleets, and looked at the empty worlds between us and wanted to know how to colonize them. We didn't need to go to war, yet (failure by the referee in setup, IMO). Colonizing and tech progress was lacking. The campaign ended before it even got started. *sigh* I even had a slight tech edge: everyone else was TL 11, my main world TL 12, but only 10% of my fleet could be TL 12 (something about I had just reached that TL). *double sigh* I even made world maps of my 6 controlled worlds. *long sigh*

 

[ottarrus]

Marc Miller has always said that Tech Levels were a guideline, not a rigid classification. He is also careful to say that there is a difference between an improved technology and a Tech Level. A Tech Level bump comes with the advent of 'change-everything' paradigm shifting technologies. Industrial Revolution type technologies.

As for Tech Level in the Third Imperium, you have to take several things into account...
- The Rule of Man got to very early TL 13. Then it promptly regressed in TL under the stress of trying to absorb the Ziru Sirka.
- Then you have the Long Night. For most worlds in Charted Space, this meant a severe reduction in Tech Level. Worlds with gravitic vehicles were reduced to pre-industrial farming levels. And the Long Night lasted almost 2000 years.
- Then Cleon I founds the Third Imperium. His initial push is to clear Core sector of enemies and then push up the Star Lane to Vland.
- At this point about half the people of the Third Imperium are culturally Vilani. And Vilani strongly believe that anyone who seeks to innovate for curiosity's sake is an intellectual deviant, a 'pervert'.
- So there is a tremendous drag on technological development through most of Imperial history as the Imperium uplifts regressed worlds and convinces the Vilani Luddites that they are pacing technological development appropriately.
- And it isn't as if the Imperium didn't have it's own flirtations with a new Dark Age in the Civil War and the Psionic Suppressions.

So there are good reasons why the Third Imperium is just reaching TL 16 in 1105.

 

[Iracundus]

Tech Level at least my view/understanding of it represents the widespread availability and ability to repair/maintain technology of that level. A low TL planet's affluent may have imported high TL items, but they are out of luck if they should break down, and would have to resort to importing a replacement.

The utility of high TL items may also be limited by local infrastructure. Bringing a smartphone back to the medieval era for example is only going to be of limited benefit as the infrastructure does not exist to recharge it or make use of the item's capabilities. This means the spread of practical high TL items for the average consumer may be limited by the spread or uplifting of worlds and their infrastructure to that higher TL. Upgrading or even just uplifting a world's TL is a long task that may have little immediate reward, especially to the individual, and the typical short sightedness of people may mean they choose instead to go for the quick profit (e.g. "The Resource Curse")

 

[ottarrus]

Tech Level at least my view/understanding of it represents the widespread availability and ability to repair/maintain technology of that level. A low TL planet's affluent may have imported high TL items, but they are out of luck if they should break down, and would have to resort to importing a replacement.

The utility of high TL items may also be limited by local infrastructure. Bringing a smartphone back to the medieval era for example is only going to be of limited benefit as the infrastructure does not exist to recharge it or make use of the item's capabilities. This means the spread of practical high TL items for the average consumer may be limited by the spread or uplifting of worlds and their infrastructure to that higher TL. Upgrading or even just uplifting a world's TL is a long task that may have little immediate reward, especially to the individual, and the typical short sightedness of people may mean they choose instead to go for the quick profit (e.g. "The Resource Curse")

You illustrate part of the genius of Cleon Zhunastu as he was forming the Third Imperium... He didn't arrange for a captive markets or seek to put worlds into economic servitude. He had a carrot and stick approach to worlds the Imperium contacted.
- Carrot: we will GIVE you enough clean power to uplift your technology. What's more, we'll GIVE you the means to reproduce that technology once you get your industry up and running. All we ask in return is fealty.
- Stick: We are building a trade federation the likes of which haven't been seen since the Rule of Man. And this time, we mean to sustain that prosperity with the full effort and power of the State. People who swear fealty will be part of it. People who don't will be isolated and will reap none of the benefits.
Big carrot, pretty small stick. "We can substantially improve the situation for you and your worlds by leaps and bounds. Or you can just stay in the cesspit you live in now..."

 

[Iracundus]

The Hard Times of such timelines as the Rebellion revealed that there were economic vulnerabilities and it could be argued captive markets with regards to high level TL items or vital life support systems. A relatively small number of high TL manufacturing powerhouses provided goods in such quantities and economies of scale that it was cheaper or easier for many other worlds to just import needed items rather than invest inbar uplifting their TL or own manufacturing base. Now the other extreme would be autarky but that is economically inefficient, as there would be little point to develop large self-sufficient manufacturing on some of the barely inhabitable worlds.

One could even draw an analogy of this to the current supply chain disruptions.

 

[Condottiere]

That would be short term economic gain.

Exploiting favourable economic factors in simulation type games is logical, but the national security aspects were foreseeable and foretold.

In a simulation, knowing the algorithms, the player can predict when the excrement is likely to hit the ventilator.

 

[Iracundus]

That would be short term economic gain.

Exploiting favourable economic factors in simulation type games is logical, but the national security aspects were foreseeable and foretold.

In a simulation, knowing the algorithms, the player can predict when the excrement is likely to hit the ventilator.

Simulations would have limits as to how they are set up and what the people running it would consider plausible results or predictions, so they might not accept the results. The scale of the Rebellion and the all out war (as opposed to past Imperial civil wars) that wiped out infrastructure on such a scale was not anticipated, or the outcomes dismissed as ridiculously implausible outlier outcomes.

Military leaders wargaming out scenarios in WW2 have done the same mistake. The current supply chain snarl as a result of the pandemic was perhaps similarly unanticipated or dismissed.

Miss the more simulationist Pocket Empires system. Rising in TL or being uplifted was expensive and time consuming. The more recent Glorious Empire release has made me think about whether it could be gamed as a Pocket Empire game, and whether it is possible for the Glorious Empire to survive. Not meaning to glorify or condone slavery but as a Hard difficulty challenge for a player. I would imagine one of the necessary conditions would be to try and restore the failing TL and patch up the creaky fleets.

 

[videopete]

I always thought that the reason that there are not alot of TL 15 or 16 planets or the slow speed of development, is culture, set backs, and scale. The Imperium is a mix of Valani and Solamani dominated cultures. The Valani (I think I'm misspelling it) are incredibly conservative and during their rule they had what appeared to be a TL that did not budge, if it did it was super slow. The Solamani (not sure about that spelling either) were faster, and jumped TL in a matter of decades and centuries. The problem was that they got greedy and spread too far too fast. They unlike the Valani had thier empire fall apart in less than 500 years while Vilani empire lasted thousands. That fall hurt really bad. It set everyone back by a large margin, some had to reinvent the wheel as all they had were grav vehicles. So the 3rd Imperium is taking a middle route of making progress and but not overwhelming themselves with change.
Each TL not only includes paradigm shifts but new potentials in setting your self back to the stone age. So research is done in not just building new cool stuff but studying it's applications before releasing it into the wild. Just look at that dang Virus just looming like a dog turd in the future cannon of what happens when you play with newer toys. Then there is the fact that stuff takes a hot minute to spread, and a hotter minute to figure out how to keep all this stuff with in industrial standards, else you get a drawer full of power connectors for I phones.

 

[Iracundus]

I always thought that the reason that there are not alot of TL 15 or 16 planets or the slow speed of development, is culture, set backs, and scale. The Imperium is a mix of Valani and Solamani dominated cultures. The Valani (I think I'm misspelling it) are incredibly conservative and during their rule they had what appeared to be a TL that did not budge, if it did it was super slow. The Solamani (not sure about that spelling either) were faster, and jumped TL in a matter of decades and centuries. The problem was that they got greedy and spread too far too fast. They unlike the Valani had thier empire fall apart in less than 500 years while Vilani empire lasted thousands. That fall hurt really bad. It set everyone back by a large margin, some had to reinvent the wheel as all they had were grav vehicles. So the 3rd Imperium is taking a middle route of making progress and but not overwhelming themselves with change.
Each TL not only includes paradigm shifts but new potentials in setting your self back to the stone age. So research is done in not just building new cool stuff but studying it's applications before releasing it into the wild. Just look at that dang Virus just looming like a dog turd in the future cannon of what happens when you play with newer toys. Then there is the fact that stuff takes a hot minute to spread, and a hotter minute to figure out how to keep all this stuff with in industrial standards, else you get a drawer full of power connectors for I phones.

I admit I like GT: Interstellar Wars and their explanation of Vilani and the Ziru Sirka. That the Vilani are not innately uncreative but that the creators of the Ziru Sirka decided social stability was more important and tried to create a deliberate social engineered stable society, but that stability required certain conditions such as a stable TL (with the Vilani holding the advantage) and a rigid social structure that did not allow for mobility outside of prescribed channels. Once those conditions no longer fully held true, the structure started to totter. Once the Solomani swept away the rigid social structure, the resulting social mobility unravelled supply chains and institutions. Without those stable static conditions, the situation spiralled and became too complex for Solomani administrators to manage or predict, with troubleshooting attempts causing unexpected or unforeseen ripple effects through the whole structure, weakening it further and ultimately bringing it all down.

One does wonder what the alternative might have been if instead of trying to take over the whole Ziru Sirka, the Confederation had instead settled for more modest gains on a scale it could actually integrate, and left the rest of the Ziru Sirka to fend for itself. The collapse and Long Night probably left a bad taste and legacy about technological advancement in the histories of all the survivors.

 

[Condottiere]

I suspect the Vilani suppressed a lot of disruptive technology, and inventors had an abnormally high mortality rate.

Whether this was the original concept or not, the takeover by the Terrans of the First Imperium resembles a lot that of the Greeks of the Persian one.

 

[Sigtrygg]

For thousands of yoears the Vilani were explorers, merchants and adventurers. They began colonising worlds using STL technology and after the invention of jump drive spread far and wide.
It took them nearly five thousand years to advance from TL9 to TL11.

Now here is the interesting thing, during their explorations they encountered worlds with higher TL cultures, but those worlds lacked jump drive. They avoided trading with those worlds - if they got hold of jump and were higher TL to start with they are a big threat.

When the Vilani achieved TL11 and with it jump 2 they launched a war of conquest and consolidation which lasted a thousand years. Many of the higher TL worlds were revisited and bombed back to the stone age.

The Vilani built secret repositories of the forbidden high TL knowledge but with the founding of the Ziru Sirka came the deliberate cultural shift to tech stagnation.

Ask yourself which TL12 technologies the Vilani were terrified of adopting...

Now nearly a thousand years later the Ziru Sirka encountered the TL9 Terrans. For 'reasons' the Terrans were able to win a few skirmishes and learned an awful lot about TL10-11 in a very short time. They could reverse engineer Ziru Sirka tech, but also during inter-war years they traded with Vilani worlds.

It is my belief the Terrans learned of the secret Vilani repositories and made it a priority to learn the secrets. They succeeded and were thus able to:
build AI robots (MT canon) - note that these are not sentient, just artificial general intelligent.
invent jump 3
invent meson and damper technology.

 

[Iracundus]

The Terrans mostly won the Interstellar Wars for a variety of reasons, but it wasn't til near the end of them that the tech edge flipped. Meson guns and Jump 3 did not appear until the 9th Interstellar War for example. Most of the reasons were political or social. The Vilani in that area near Terra were kimashargur, and were "dissidents" closer to the pre-stagnant Vilani so they certainly may have been more amenable to the Terrans than their stuffy counterparts further towards Vland. In turn, as the Terrans absorbed Vilani worlds or just had more Vilani trade, they would have been able to absorb more Vilani tech. Uplifting tech is easier than having to discover it from scratch. Even knowing something is possible may help direct research towards those ends.

The Terran burst of innovation may have also been aided along from a feeling of existential threat and thus desperation. For the Vilani, the collapse of the Ziru Sirka came relatively suddenly near the end, catching many of them by surprise. For most Vilani deep within the Ziru Sirka, the Interstellar Wars had been a series of distant border skirmishes with strange barbarians which did not seem to affect their regular regulated lives and seemed of curiosity value at best.
GT: Interstellar Wars went into a section breakdown of how the Vilani and Terrans differed in tech, beyond simply pure TL comparison. Vilani were deficient in biological sciences and their computer systems were rigid and specialized for specific tasks. I am reminded of how Japan in the 1990's had certain things ahead of the rest of the world but fell behind because of proprietary file formats and incompatibility of devices with others. Vilani culture with the lingering cultural memories of Ancient death machines may have also led to a reluctance to go far down the path of research towards autonomous robots.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Iracundus]

Of course it was. Without aliens, there would be only Solomani.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

These arguments might well apply to Vilani/Solomani cultures, but how do you explain the Zhodani?

Their interstellar state is thousands of years old - continuously controlled. They started at TL9 and after about 4000 years are only TL14. How does that make sense?

Also, given their slow growth, most of their worlds should be TL12+. Gravitic vehicles should so common it is weird to see a ground vehicle, even among the Proles.

 

[Condottiere]

Psychological block?

 

[Iracundus]

Zhodani I would say used essentially the same rationale as the Vilani, thinking that uncontrolled or too rapid technological change would cause social upheaval and unhappiness. The Zhodani Consulate has lasted longer than the Ziru Sirka because their psionic psychological skills on top of their stratified society seems more effective than the Vilani method, which has only the stratification but no psionics.

The Solomani attitude towards technology seems to be the outlier. Whereas it seems virtually all other Humaniti takes a cautious approach to technology, only the Solomani seem to go full speed ahead on technology to see where it goes first and pick up the pieces later.

 

[Condottiere]

Or their society kills inventivity dead.