Low Tech sophonts

[MasterGwydion]

No one is born with the ability to field strip an AR15, clear minor malfunctions and the like.

It doesn't take long to teach it.

This is simple rote learning. Anyone can learn it. You do not need to know any of the underlying principles of how the device actually works. Like most of Us can learn to drive a car by rote, but most of Us cannot build a car from scratch.

Learning the maths to understand quantum field theory and general relativity on the other hand...

Math can be learned by rote as well, but learning by rote will not teach you how to apply your knowledge in novel ways.

 

[MarkAlexander]

How does it function in Traveller if you want to train a person from a low tech world to be an Engineer on a TL-15 starship? Like Noricum, TL-1. They don't even know about electricity, but they have contact with high tech ships at the starport. How do you still not know about electricity? It is not like they have to discover the tech. They just have to read a higher TL science book. As far as I am aware, there is no mechanic for playing a low tech character in a high tech setting. Anyone know of any rules for this in MgT2?

Edit: Can you imagine Roman galleys using a human-powered propeller instead of oars? The propeller hasn't been invented by TL-1, but if they learned of a propeller, one can be designed to use the technology available to a TL-1 society to power it. (think of a long crankshaft given it's force by teams of men using it like bicycle pedals.) Is that still TL-1 or is that a higher TL?

I often think of these situations, like the Roman galley, where the technology was available or very close, but they didn't use it. Napoleon could've had a tethered hot air balloon as a recon platform at Waterloo. The Titanic could've had a sea-plane with search lights scouting ahead for icebergs or even an airship.

 

[Condottiere]

Napoleon could have had an early prototype of a prefusion reactor.

 

[MarkAlexander]

Napoleon could have had an early prototype of a prefusion reactor.

Very steampunk.

 

[MonsterX]

Obviously, TL has to be "what is generally available", and this means that people can and will carry items from other planets with higher TL. They may also sell them there. There is nothing fuzzy or mysterious about this. Say you have a TL 15 world with 10.000 pop with law level 0. The rules suggest you can buy an FGMP if you want. But most of it will be wilderness. Just because it is TL 15 doesn't mean you can buy an FGMP when you are standing on a mountain top 5000 kms from the nearest shop. Or maybe you an order it on Amazon and a little drone will come and bring it to you. The referee needs to decide - does the shop have it? Do they do deliveries? Do they deliver to mountain tops? It is not violating the rules to say no; it is also not violating the rules to say yes.

It goes the same on the next planet over which has Tech 0. The referee can say that you can order Tech 15 stuff delivered from the planet next door; it takes 2-3 weeks at least to arrive, and costs a lot extra because that the the schedule for the liner that comes through the system. Or the referee can say you can't get it, because there is no shipping service, or because there are restrictions against bringing in high tech stuff, or whatever the referee wants to say that makes the game interesting, or makes sense to the referee and fits with the rest of the context.

There is nothing "hard coded" about TL. It also means something different depending on the worlds other stats. A pop 3 TL 15 world just has TL 15 stuff, and maybe some ability to maintain it, but basically imports it all, but is called TL 15 because that it the tech of the stuff that the world population uses. If it is a research station , it might do TL 15 research but only in a very specific area. A pop A TL 15 world also manufactures, develops new products, researchers at the cutting edge of science - probably all sciences. On a TL 15 research station, you might find TL 15 research equipment - probably you can't buy it but it will be there and maybe you can use it if you ask nicely - maybe you can order delivered since they probably do that with regular supply ships. But you won't find every kind of thing: just items that make sense in the context. It might actually be easier to buy a particular TL 15 item at a low tech trade nexus world than at a TL15 outpost.

There are rules related to TL: use them when they make sense and fit your objectives. Ignore or modify them when not. There is no way for Mongoose to make a rule that fits every contingency, so the assumption is that the referee will use the TL concept intelligently.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Obviously, TL has to be "what is generally available", and this means that people can and will carry items from other planets with higher TL. They may also sell them there. There is nothing fuzzy or mysterious about this. Say you have a TL 15 world with 10.000 pop with law level 0. The rules suggest you can buy an FGMP if you want. But most of it will be wilderness. Just because it is TL 15 doesn't mean you can buy an FGMP when you are standing on a mountain top 5000 kms from the nearest shop. Or maybe you an order it on Amazon and a little drone will come and bring it to you. The referee needs to decide - does the shop have it? Do they do deliveries? Do they deliver to mountain tops? It is not violating the rules to say no; it is also not violating the rules to say yes.

It goes the same on the next planet over which has Tech 0. The referee can say that you can order Tech 15 stuff delivered from the planet next door; it takes 2-3 weeks at least to arrive, and costs a lot extra because that the the schedule for the liner that comes through the system. Or the referee can say you can't get it, because there is no shipping service, or because there are restrictions against bringing in high tech stuff, or whatever the referee wants to say that makes the game interesting, or makes sense to the referee and fits with the rest of the context.

There is nothing "hard coded" about TL. It also means something different depending on the worlds other stats. A pop 3 TL 15 world just has TL 15 stuff, and maybe some ability to maintain it, but basically imports it all, but is called TL 15 because that it the tech of the stuff that the world population uses. If it is a research station , it might do TL 15 research but only in a very specific area. A pop A TL 15 world also manufactures, develops new products, researchers at the cutting edge of science - probably all sciences. On a TL 15 research station, you might find TL 15 research equipment - probably you can't buy it but it will be there and maybe you can use it if you ask nicely - maybe you can order delivered since they probably do that with regular supply ships. But you won't find every kind of thing: just items that make sense in the context. It might actually be easier to buy a particular TL 15 item at a low tech trade nexus world than at a TL15 outpost.

There are rules related to TL: use them when they make sense and fit your objectives. Ignore or modify them when not. There is no way for Mongoose to make a rule that fits every contingency, so the assumption is that the referee will use the TL concept intelligently.

Nice explanation. It works well, as long as you do not use the Trade system, or any of the other mathematical formulas that use TL as a variable, such as the new WBH.

 

[J. L. Brown]

The problem is that 'technology level' is the result of a 2d6 roll. This is great for a quick & dirty approach, but it fails under scrutiny. This leads to all sorts of work-arounds, and different approaches: 'What is in common usage', vs 'What is made locally', vs 'What the world, in isolation, can sustain'.

I think that, as knowledge progresses, more and more sophonts are required. A village of tens of people is not going to have sufficient production to support a bunch of specialists -- maybe a few, like a metalworker or a medic, but not everyone will be a specialist. Most of the population will be dedicated to just making sure the village has enough food (or other production) to survive. As technology becomes more complex, more and more new specialties are created -- and those specialists have to be supported. To advance a specialty, there has to be a sufficient number of specialists in the same (or closely related) area all concentrated in one place where they can interact and share ideas.

So, population & productivity are the cornerstones of technological development. At the very least, the population needs to equal or exceed the number of specialists -- but this is not really represented in the rules for world building or trade.

 

[Galadrion]

The problem is that 'technology level' is the result of a 2d6 roll...

Actually, a 1d6 roll, and a large number of modifiers.

 

[Condottiere]

Congratulations - this planet now has a world wide digital communications system, with minimal censorship; minus one to technological level, due to electorate complacency.

 

[MonsterX]

Nice explanation. It works well, as long as you do not use the Trade system, or any of the other mathematical formulas that use TL as a variable, such as the new WBH.

It works just fine for the trade tables and as a world-building variable. In fact, that is when it really works best. It's really only when the players are playing a scenario out in detail that you have to start doing common sense interpretations what the TL really means, as in what kind of guns are the baddies carrying, what kind of communications network is prevalent, what products can they buy in the stores?

 

[MasterGwydion]

It works just fine for the trade tables and as a world-building variable. In fact, that is when it really works best. It's really only when the players are playing a scenario out in detail that you have to start doing common sense interpretations what the TL really means, as in what kind of guns are the baddies carrying, what kind of communications network is prevalent, what products can they buy in the stores?

They can have gear up to 2 TLs above the world's TL, unless something special has occurred, such as buying equipment from elsewhere. That is in the write up for TL. Outback regions can be up to 2 TLs lower than the world's TL. Special cases exist such as the uncontacted tribe in the Indian Ocean that is still TL-0. These are outliers though. Most stuff fits into the TL plus or minus 2.

The real problem is that I can build a TL-15, self-supporting, mining and manufacturing facility at around 1,700-tons turning out 6 tons of Specialist Goods per day. Or 10 tons of Advanced Goods. Or 81.5 tons of Basic Goods. That facility can build roughly 6MCr worth of goods/infrastructure per month. That takes roughly 400 people and that includes food for them from a Biosphere. Call it 500 people to be on the safe side. If I make it robotic, I can do it with no people. TL-15 Infrastructure, Pop 0. So having Pop and TL linked, only really seems to work for lower TL civilizations. By the rules anyhow.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The issue is that the rules originally, and even to this day, consider a world in isolation.

If a world is part of a subsector wide polity, or even a group of only a few worlds, the TL of the group or the polity should be taken into account by the referee with regards to the availability of equipment beyond the world's TL but within the TL of the group/polity.

Taking the CT->MgT Spinward Marches, there are enough TL15 high population worlds to manufacture everything the half a sector of Imperial world need. Every Imperial world has access to the TL15 database, how the rulers of those worlds choose to restrict that knowledge to their populations is up to them. One of the reasons for Dulinor assassinating Strephon was he was of the opinion that the Imperium should intervene in repressive world governments to raise the standards of the population of every world.

 

[MonsterX]

The issue is that the rules originally, and even to this day, consider a world in isolation.

If a world is part of a subsector wide polity, or even a group of only a few worlds, the TL of the group or the polity should be taken into account by the referee with regards to the availability of equipment beyond the world's TL but within the TL of the group/polity.

Taking the CT->MgT Spinward Marches, there are enough TL15 high population worlds to manufacture everything the half a sector of Imperial world need. Every Imperial world has access to the TL15 database, how the rulers of those worlds choose to restrict that knowledge to their populations is up to them. One of the reasons for Dulinor assassinating Strephon was he was of the opinion that the Imperium should intervene in repressive world governments to raise the standards of the population of every world.

Exactly. There are probably a lot of TL 10-15 items around because there are worlds at those TLs in the Spinward Marches with a high level of industrial production. Really high tech stuff outside of high tech systems probably leans toward items that don't require much maintenance, or are disposable - though sometimes people will need a high tech solution and will pay for it, and deal with a lot of expense and inconvenience to be able to have their high tech kit. The only actual limits, though, will be political/legal restrictions, transportation/logistics, and the market strategies of the companies that make and sell the products. Transportation costs and time are significant, so price and availability will be restricted, particularly if the market is small, so the planet might not attract regular shipping line service. It is plausible that systems that are off the main trade routes will only get tramp traders like the PCs, which only move a comparatively tiny volume of goods in the scheme of things. Also, it is a lot more likely there will be a variety of TLs near starports, with TL settling to the planet's listed TL as you move out into the hinterland - particularly in very low tech cases where getting around on local transport is going to be slow.

 

[Anstett]

Also sometimes the local situation is better with low tech that can be maintained than high tech brought in from other places.

Girl's Gotta Eat ebook

Girl's Gotta Eat Homestead is a ruined world. The entire population wouldn’t fill an Imperial cruiser’s low berths. They barely survive by mining the ruins for old technology. Salvagers don’t live long, falling prey to dangerous mutated fauna, grit storms

www.mongoosepublishing.com

 

[lategamer]

At what age does a persons paradigm get rooted so that they can't be taught advanced science?

If we take a newborn from 1600 and put them in a modern school they can learn physics etc, go to MIT etc
At what age do we think we can't do that because their home paradigm has made it impossible.
And therefore do we think people in modern day developing countries who've grown up without technology can't go to MIT? (we do not)

I'm always reminded of the numbers of genius physicists, engineers and musicians the world has lost because they were born in the wrong time, wrong place, wrong 'caste'.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I am of the opinion that TL needs to, fundamentally be about 'what this population, in isolation, can sustain'; and that technology should be examined as 'technology in these areas of expertise'. Technological advancements in communication allow more people to work together to maintain & advance technology; technological advances in transportation allow tools and other artifacts to to moved around and shared. Both are important.

With 'high tech world supporting other worlds by supplying high tech items', we can see the effects of of high technology transportation. It can be argued that the only reason the Third Imperium is TL 15 is because it has a huge population, and supports an amazing array of specialists through interstellar communication & trade -- take that away and you have The Long Night.

One TL 15 world does not support ten thousand TL 0 worlds at a TL 15 living standard -- there are limits to how far a population can be stretched over distance before it becomes more-than-one population; there are limits to productivity of a population to support not-doing-agriculture specialists.

 

[lategamer]

t can be argued that the only reason the Third Imperium is TL 15 is because it has a huge population, and supports an amazing array of specialists through interstellar communication & trade -- take that away and you have The Long Night.

"We don't shoot people when we want them to buy our stuff"

 

[Condottiere]

Medical care.

Service with a smile.

 

[AndrewW]

Medical care.

Service with a smile.

That's only dental.

 

[MasterGwydion]

That's only dental.

No more dental. Drink the protein paste. lol