Scholar - A New Book

[alex_greene]

I think it might come down to the types of Sci-Fi envisioned... "shiny high tech" or "retro hands on".

The difference between TL 8-11 and 12-15.

 

[GypsyComet]

I think it might come down to the types of Sci-Fi envisioned... "shiny high tech" or "retro hands on".

The difference between TL 8-11 and 12-15.

More the difference between a climbing "all is new" society (Star Trek) and a relatively static technology situation where bright Cub Scouts do projects for a High Energy Racing badge and build their own robots, and you can find luxury spares in junk yards (Star Wars).

In the former, Scientists are constantly pushing the Known, Possible, and Understood; Theoreticians, Researchers and Engineers are all important. They are still finding new uses for the recent developments. In the latter, Science is less about expanding the Known or Possible, and more about turning those into the Understood; emphasis will be on the Engineer, Researchers will be a respectable second, and Theoreticians a distant third.

 

[alex_greene]

I think it might come down to the types of Sci-Fi envisioned... "shiny high tech" or "retro hands on".

The difference between TL 8-11 and 12-15.

More the difference between a climbing "all is new" society (Star Trek) and a relatively static technology situation where bright Cub Scouts do projects for a High Energy Racing badge and build their own robots, and you can find luxury spares in junk yards (Star Wars).

In the former, Scientists are constantly pushing the Known, Possible, and Understood; Theoreticians, Researchers and Engineers are all important. They are still finding new uses for the recent developments. In the latter, Science is less about expanding the Known or Possible, and more about turning those into the Understood; emphasis will be on the Engineer, Researchers will be a respectable second, and Theoreticians a distant third.

Star Wars is not science fiction.
Hawk The Slayer is more science fiction than Star Wars.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Star Wars is not science fiction.
Hawk The Slayer is more science fiction than Star Wars.

I tend to think of Star Wars as Space Opera.

 

[GypsyComet]

Star Wars is not science fiction.
Hawk The Slayer is more science fiction than Star Wars.

For the broader purpose of inspiring Traveller, that is irrelevant. Star Wars inspires Traveller play, whether or not it inspires your play. I'll note that fantasy can have the same divisions within its "scientists".

As an alternate example, look at the inspiration for Traveller that has come up a lot recently, the original Foundation trilogy and the Empire trilogy that precedes it. For quite a lot of that, the majority of the galaxy is static or surging back and forth over centuries, concentrating on political matters, and even Terminus is not moving forward. The tech base is thousands of years old and very comfortable in the hands of those who use it.

Even Traveller's default setting has embraced both modes at different times. The Era of the Vilani is largely static technologically. The setting spends 4000 years in TL9 and 10, at least as measured by jump capability, and well over another thousand at TL11. Arguably that period at TL11 stretches to the Chanestin Wars period just before the founding of the Third Imperium, since the brief period at TL12-13 under the Second was a two or three century blip in the center of a three thousand year island of stability. As the Third Imperium starts to expand, it has shiny and new TL12 equipment in a sea of old and comfortable TL11 hardware.
Ironically, a perfect period to run a Star Wars style campaign.

 

[Condottiere]

I like Hawk the Slayer, it's quirky, and obviously based on some D&D session, where the participants may have been a mite high.

If you look beyond some rather bad acting, terrible dialogue and unsatisfying plot in the prequels, and revolting Ewoks, it's ambiance and aesthetics tend to be inspiring.

 

[alex_greene]

If you look beyond some rather bad acting, terrible dialogue and unsatisfying plot in the prequels, and revolting Ewoks, it's ambiance and aesthetics tend to be inspiring.

Apart from that nobody in Star Wars can apparently read.

At all.

 

[alex_greene]

Actually, that is a good point. I can see how functional illiteracy could be a feature common to TL 1-3 and TL 13 - 15; the former, because mass literacy was not even an idea that had occurred to the rulership, and the latter because, when every bodily and spiritual need is taken care of by machines, the human population could be effectively reduced to little more than those corpulent, bloated blob people in that animated movie Wall-E.

TL 15 Travellers might be those rare mutants driven by an anomalous need to get up off those couches, and an urge to explore the world with their own two eyes, rather than have the universe predigested into comprehensible bits and spoonfed to them by some hologram.

 

[GypsyComet]

R2D2's speech gets translated in written form on a screen in Luke's X-Wing, and Luke appears to be reading it. (ESB)
Han scans a screen for nearby worlds within reach of the malfunctioning Millenium Falcon. It isn't providing audibles, so he must be reading it. (ESB)
The Death Star plans are silent, and would be difficult to interpret or label without some literacy. (ANH)
Twenty-odd years earlier, Obi-Wan consults the Jedi Library looking for Kamino, which certainly indicates an attitude of literacy, even if the specific skill is not indicated. (AotC)

There is certainly literacy there, subtle though it may be. The point has been made elsewhere that these are action movies emulating the Pulp Serial style. Flash Gordon wasn't a reader either, given on-screen evidence.

I can see how functional illiteracy could be a feature common to TL 1-3 and TL 13 - 15; the former, because mass literacy was not even an idea that had occurred to the rulership, and the latter because, when every bodily and spiritual need is taken care of by machines, the human population could be effectively reduced to little more than those corpulent, bloated blob people in that animated movie Wall-E.

There are certainly dark interpretations of the Traveller setting out there, and more than enough room for worlds like this, but it is a stretch to inflict this sort of thing across thousands of worlds and hundreds of billions of people. Cultural homogeneity is a localized phenomenon.

 

[Condottiere]

It's open to interpretation, but could be the casualty of the production team not fleshing out their universe, or not considering it important enough to devote any airtime and/or reference to it, or believing it would just hobble the story flow.

 

[alex_greene]

It's open to interpretation, but could be the casualty of the production team not fleshing out their universe, or not considering it important enough to devote any airtime and/or reference to it, or believing it would just hobble the story flow.

Any and all of the above.

Wait till Disney and Jar Jar Abrams start on it. :roll: