Random thought of the morning... TL-16

Two of the three can't be real. 10,000 asteroid miners couldn't get there and support it. The other is a poor, nonindustrial world with 80k people that doesn't have the industry to support TL-16. Only Vincennes seems to have created a supportable tech base. The other two are either erroneous or are bleed over from the advanced work done by a small group of people in each system.
The other two are both cutting-edge research facilities. Low population because you are likely looking at the total staff in the research facilities and that is the only real population on those worlds. Just takes one TL-16 mining and manufacturing facility (Seed Factory) to maintain TL-16 infrastructure for small colonies such as these two. That takes about 300 people to run and can turn out 14.7MCr worth of TL-16 items every month.
 
The other two are both cutting-edge research facilities. Low population because you are likely looking at the total staff in the research facilities and that is the only real population on those worlds. Just takes one TL-16 mining and manufacturing facility (Seed Factory) to maintain TL-16 infrastructure for small colonies such as these two. That takes about 300 people to run and can turn out 14.7MCr worth of TL-16 items every month.
One system is mostly belters (out of 10,000) while the gearheads are working on sensors and the computers to support them. The other is an 80,000-population poor, nonindustrial world where the research station is focused on jump tech. The locals don't even know what they are researching.

I personally agree with you, but someone else pointed out that other research stations didn't confer tech level when I made the argument earlier that you are making now. Either way, they don't compare to Vincennes, which is a true TL-16 system.
 
Not related to your question, but looking at Pashus, it is a poor, nonindustrial world with 80k people. The tech level there is solely because of Research Station Zeta and its work on jumpspace, and the cutting edge work they are doing on jump drives in the push for J6. So, not really a TL-16 "world" in my opinion.

Gannvair has a group of "mad scientists and engineers." The asteroid belt system has 10,000 people, most of them just belters mining stuff. The scientists are working on sensors and related computing and the engineers on power systems. This is more like an unofficial research station, and not really a "world" at that tech level either.

Vincennes is a major industrial world with ten billion people that has actually achieved TL-16 and it is permeating through their society and spreading to other worlds via trade in TL-16 good and via TL-16 ships being built. That's not really relevant, but I wanted to know how the three systems related to one another. Thanks for sharing.
This is why I don't like using other people's interpretations of UWPs.

Take those raw UWPs and there are a lot of possibilities for how you explain them.

And before the chorus of Mongoose current canon - this is the second version of MgT Deneb, which is different to the previous incarnations. My universe, my descriptions, especially when there are at least three different versions of the same sector. And some of the previous stuff is interesting...

Digging out the Regency sourcebook for TNE we learn that Depot system world is actually called Sika'im A100644 G, and Pashus A232455 G has an interesting tale to tell (someone really needs to rescan these supplements, the pdf is awful)

"Pashus is the site of Research Station Zeta (RSZ), which continues the work of Ashak Moroyanga (B:818-D:881). Moroyanga was a controversial leader in the field of temporal physics. He began his career at the Jumpspace Institute where his studies convinced him that the basic principles of time were themselves other expressions of the same phenomena that are utilised by jump technology.
Moroyenga earned both popular celebrity and professional contempt with these views, and eventually died under mysterious circumstances. Nevertheless, the Imperium took his work seriously enough to create Deneb's RSZ to pursue Moroyanga's inquiries."
 
Two of the three can't be real. 10,000 asteroid miners couldn't get there and support it. The other is a poor, nonindustrial world with 80k people that doesn't have the industry to support TL-16. Only Vincennes seems to have created a supportable tech base. The other two are either erroneous or are bleed over from the advanced work done by a small group of people in each system.

And the OP is right that none of this back and forth answered his original question.
TL is infrastructure nothing more both of those can definitely have the infrastructure to support TL 16. Industry is not required otherwise a good third of the TL15 system wouldn’t be. So yes those two can definitely be real.
 
TL is infrastructure nothing more both of those can definitely have the infrastructure to support TL 16. Industry is not required otherwise a good third of the TL15 system wouldn’t be. So yes those two can definitely be real.
I hear you. I just don't agree with the premise. Tech level doesn't develop in a vacuum.

They would have nothing close by to import the tech level from, but TL-15 systems do have that. Your TL-16 do-dad breaks. Whoops. Can't fix it. Mail order the next one from Vincennes and wait a long while for it to get there.

Let's look at them. Pashus is 12 parsecs away from Vincennes, so import is possible, though unlikely.

Pashus is a poor, nonindustrial world.

  • As a nonindustrial world, it requires extensive imports of outside technology to maintain a modern, star-faring society. The need to import most manufactured and high technology goods drives the price of these goods up in the open market.
  • This world has few prospects for economic development.
  • It is a member of the Third Imperium in the Zeng Subsector of Deneb Sector in the Domain of Deneb.
  • This is a "high technology" world with technology achievements at, near, or over technology standards for Charted Space.
  • This world has a research station engaged in the scientific pursuit of knowledge.
As a nonindustrial world, it has to import technology extensively and only Vincennes can be the source. That is very pricy, and they are 80,000 people on a poor world. They didn't bootstrap themselves, so the research station is the only likely tech source.

It's studying jump science, so it likely is TL-16 in that field, but someone complained when I said that had to be the source of the tech level. I still believe the research station has to be the source and the vast majority of people on the world are at a much lower tech level. They don't even know what is being researched.

Then there is Gannvair.

Gannvair is a ring of many small worldlets (planetoids AKA an "asteroid belt"), not capable of retaining an atmosphere or water, and is also a low-population vacuum environment with a population less than 10,000 sophonts in population size, warranting hazardous environment precautions.

These belters are living their lives mining, not setting up a TL-16 infrastructure for the hell of it, as if they could do so with no examples anywhere near them. There is a mad science commune or two working there, and I still believe they are the source of the tech level, though they are only working on sensors and the computers that support that work.

Only Vincennes has 10 billion people and widespread use of TL-16. Again, I submit the other two are not really TL-16, though the science nerds in those enclaves would be in their limited fields.

Feel free to disagree, but I'll stick with my opinion on this.
 
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I hear you. I just don't agree with the premise. Tech level doesn't develop in a vacuum.

They would have nothing close by to import the tech level from, but TL-15 systems do have that. Your TL-16 do-dad breaks. Whoops. Can't fix it. Mail order the next one from Vincennes and wait a long while for it to get there.

Let's look at them. Pashus is 12 parsecs away from Vincennes, so import is possible, though unlikely.

Pashus is a poor, nonindustrial world.

  • As a nonindustrial world, it requires extensive imports of outside technology to maintain a modern, star-faring society. The need to import most manufactured and high technology goods drives the price of these goods up in the open market.
  • This world has few prospects for economic development.
  • It is a member of the Third Imperium in the Zeng Subsector of Deneb Sector in the Domain of Deneb.
  • This is a "high technology" world with technology achievements at, near, or over technology standards for Charted Space.
  • This world has a research station engaged in the scientific pursuit of knowledge.
As a nonindustrial world, it has to import technology extensively and only Vincennes can be the source. That is very pricy, and they are 80,000 people on a poor world. They didn't bootstrap themselves, so the research station is the only likely tech source.

It's studying jump science, so it likely is TL-16 in that field, but someone complained when I said that had to be the source of the tech level. I still believe the research station has to be the source and the vast majority of people on the world are at a much lower tech level. They don't even know what is being researched.

Then there is Gannvair.

Gannvair is a ring of many small worldlets (planetoids AKA an "asteroid belt"), not capable of retaining an atmosphere or water, and is also a low-population vacuum environment with a population less than 10,000 sophonts in population size, warranting hazardous environment precautions.

These belters are living their lives mining, not setting up a TL-16 infrastructure for the hell of it, as if they could do so with no examples anywhere near them. There is a mad science commune or two working there, and I still believe they are the source of the tech level, though they are only working on sensors and the computers that support that work.

Only Vincennes has 10 billion people and widespread use of TL-16. Again, I submit the other two are not really TL-16, though the science nerds in those enclaves would be in their limited fields.

Feel free to disagree, but I'll stick with my opinion on this.
Congratulations. You just made My previous argument against TL being misused. Everyone says they want it vague so they can do what they want, but here are two very concrete examples where using TL as being that vague is completely non-functional.

If Non-Industrial means "must import to maintain its TL" and TL means "what the world can support locally" You can never have a Non-Industrial world with an accurate TL if those definitions continue to be used.
 
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Congratulations. You just made My previous argument against TL being misused. Everyone says they want it vague so they can do what they want, but here are two very concrete examples where using TL as being that vague is completely non-functional.

If Non-Industrial means "must import to maintain its TL" and TL means "what the world can support locally" You can never have a Non-Industrial world with an accurate TL if those definitions continue to be used.
It’s just like real life. If your country can’t manufacture the high tech goods that the most advanced countries have, you have to import it. If you have to import it, you really aren’t as advanced as where it came from.
 
It’s just like real life. If your country can’t manufacture the high tech goods that the most advanced countries have, you have to import it. If you have to import it, you really aren’t as advanced as where it came from.
Although it occurs to Me that a colony of 10 thousand requires a lot less infrastructure to maintain TL-16 than a colony of 10 million.

I am working on a project currently that had Me put a TL-15 seed factory on a Pop 7 TL-1 world. I am using the rules in Pocket Empires to deal with uplifting them to TL-15. After 37 and a half years, the planet as a whole is TL-11, but has a city of 1,000,000 people that is TL-15 that was built from the seed factory. So, 1,000,000 people are at TL-15 and the other 79,000,000 are at TL-11.
 
Is the United Kingdom (still) considered an industrial centre, within the context of Traveller?

Might need to add financial and tourism as descriptors.
 
There is a programme to reshore these industries.

There seems to be a question of access to resources, financial, material, human.

And, apparently, political will.

We know off shoring was due to cost factors, which include stuff like regulatory regimes, wages, and environmental damage.
 
Oh they can design them, but can't manufacture them in bulk. So what is the TL?
Considering that US research is the powerhouse driving global development, it is the global maximum alongside Japan.
The US exports tech that others use, just like Japan, only in different but occasionally overlapping areas.
Bankrupt either of those countries and the global TL will decline.
 
But if they can't manufacture the necessary components in bulk, therefore they are not TL7. but insured lag behind Holland, Taiwan and China - according to the TL definitions used in previous posts.
 
I’d have to believe it is lower than Taiwan. They’ve dropped in many areas. Now they have to import to maintain their tech level.

If the criterion is to be able to manufacture as well, then China is probably the highest overall TL on the planet right now. It's also leading in research in the majority of technology fields now according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (hardly a Chinese mouthpiece):

 
If the criterion is to be able to manufacture as well, then China is probably the highest overall TL on the planet right now. It's also leading in research in the majority of technology fields now according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (hardly a Chinese mouthpiece):

I wish Mongoose would spell out the actual criteria. It would make trying to shoehorn edge cases and the real world in easier.
 
If the criterion is to be able to manufacture as well, then China is probably the highest overall TL on the planet right now. It's also leading in research in the majority of technology fields now according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (hardly a Chinese mouthpiece):

Chinese "research" involves a high degree of stealing IP from other people.
Dry up the main drivers of research, and China has nothing new.
 
Chinese "research" involves a high degree of stealing IP from other people.
Dry up the main drivers of research, and China has nothing new.
That's simply racist xenophobic nonsense that has been debunked repeatedly year after year. That's the same accusation leveled at the Japanese in the 1980's.
 
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