Tech Levels - Different Enough?

Mithras said:
I think I've always had this problem ... I can instantly conjure up images of what a TL 6 or 5 or 7 society is like, transport, medicine, etc and the implications based on the planetary characteristics.

Past TL 8, it gets fuzzier, but after TL 10 Traveller's TLs seem to blur together. Grav vehicles, high energy guns and jump drive seem to typify TLs from A to F.

Can we match up higher level Traveller TLs with the tech from novels or films? Or can we fill in extra items, breakthroughs, inventions for these higher TLs?

What kind of tech could be expected at TL 16, 17 and 18? Do they match Star Trek, or some other famous sci-fi universe?

I’ll take a shot a differentiating the Higher TLs:

At TL 7-9, society and ‘everyday’ technology advance beyond the “National” and “Planetary” view typical of Earth’s historic time periods and advances to a “space” and “interplanetary” character. One world government becomes the norm. Asteroid mining and gas-giant skimming facilitate a culture of “infinite stuff”. This does not mean that everyone has all the stuff that they want, but rather that the concept of running out of resources becomes foreign to such a culture – similar to the concept of worrying about what humans will do when Earth’s sun starts to burn out. We don’t think about the sun burning out because it exists only as an abstract concept, and a TL 7-9 culture will not view resources as being limited because, for all practical purposes, they will never run out. Robots to perform simple/menial tasks also becomes more common in this era, advancing from perhaps robot welders at TL 7 to automated factories at TL 8 to robotic busboys at TL 9.
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At TL 10-12, FTL travel allows the society to advance beyond a single world or star system as the center of focus to a multi-system outlook. This could be viewed similar to the shift from being French or German or Japanese to being part of the EU or Asian ‘blocks’. With broad interstellar travel and trade, what happens in the next star system could seriously affect you.
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‘Time’ becomes a new measure of distance. A TL 10 company director needing advice from HQ sends his assistant 6 jumps away at J1 with 2 weeks per jump. The assistant will arrive at HQ in 12 weeks, spend a week meeting with the Board and spend another 12 weeks travelling home. The time lag from asking the question to getting the answer is 25 weeks – roughly half of a year. It becomes impractical for even a wealthy and powerful individual to exert influence beyond this 6 jump limit. At TL 10 (J1) the 6 jump limit imposes a 6 parsec radius on the worlds sphere of influence. By TL 12 (J3) the same 6 jump limit now imposes an 18 parsec radius on the worlds sphere of influence. So ‘life’ on a TL 9-10 world revolves primarily around that system and the adjacent systems within one or two parsecs. By TL 12, the ‘interstellar culture’ of the world encompasses all of the worlds within perhaps a 6 parsec radius creating a local interstellar culture for roughly a sub-sector worth of worlds.
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At TL 13-15, the local interstellar culture expands to an 8 parsec to 24 parsec radius of influence and the Imperial Society dominates the sector. The J4 limit on practical non-military transportation tends to limit the difference between a TL 13 and a TL 15 society – higher TL goods are simply not widely dispersed enough to impact the average citizen significantly at these TLs. However, there is another ‘game changing’ technology that transforms society at TL 13 – Holography. Holographic crystals, 3D projectors, Neural interfaces and Holographic controls allow the creation of a virtual society that is at least as real as the physical society – and perhaps more so. It suggests new frontiers of human experience and new definitions of many basic concepts. Robots advance from being common appliances to companions, helpers and ultimately beings – in the same sense as any other citizen.
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Beyond TL 16, technology alters society beyond modern recognition. Matter and energy are mastered blurring the differences between the virtual world of TL 13+ and reality. Imagine an entire society of beings living their whole life within the Enterprise Holodeck. Nothing is impossible and ‘reality’ has lost most of its meaning. What is real when matter can be disassembled and reassembled into new forms based on the individual and collective will?

Just my thoughts.
 
I really like that explanation of 'local interstellar culture' based on jump range and influence, that's quite an interesting twist to your typical subsector. Thanks for that!
 
Mithras said:
I really like that explanation of 'local interstellar culture' based on jump range and influence, that's quite an interesting twist to your typical subsector. Thanks for that!
Seconded!
 
Ken Pick wrote an article on this topic about eleven years ago; it might make interesting reading for the participants in this thread. Take a look at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/culture/reference/tech.html for his take on the question.
 
FreeTrav said:
Ken Pick wrote an article on this topic about eleven years ago; it might make interesting reading for the participants in this thread. Take a look at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/culture/reference/tech.html for his take on the question.

Great article, thanks for the link.

I suppose the only way to break the TL15 barrier properly would be to find a way round the firehose-into-a-teacup issue, presumably through full-bore AI as envisioned by the singularity movement. Briefly, that once you have true AI that is better than human intelligence, it can design more advanced AIs than humans could, which then design even more advanced AIs in an exponential chain reaction that quickly leads to the most advanced conceivable artificial intelligences. Something like Culture Minds.

Simon Hibbs
 
FreeTrav said:
Ken Pick wrote an article on this topic about eleven years ago; it might make interesting reading for the participants in this thread. Take a look at http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/culture/reference/tech.html for his take on the question.

Sadly, as a Historian (well, university trained History teacher anyway :wink: ) I'd say that it is reasonably obvious that the author in question really has little understanding of, for example, why China was relatively backward, technologically speaking, and why it does everything but support the supposed TL3 Plateau.

He then fails to provide any justification at all for the TL7/Semiconductor plateau ... I presume he lacks any knowledge of the pre-war progress in printed circuits made by the Germans (on pressed cardboard, IIRC) or that semiconductor properties (transistors) were patented in the 1920s and 1930s as well as developmental work being done during WW2.

There is no particular mystery in the linear progression, someone is going to develop them, and sooner rather than later.

The so called paradigm shift that supposedly prevents development of TL11 is, likewise, dubious.

The whole problem is the old one of thinking along the lines of "water empires" ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire

... which seem megastable, but only as long as outside elements don't brink them crashing down.

Since, based on the historical record of earth, there has always been "outside elements" ... usually many-many-many of them ... no water empires have survived.

Even Imperial China was a "water empire" in that sense - the choices they made as to their economic development (devote tech money to providing food for the large urban populations, mostly, rather than other, more profitable but less socially responsible, technological areas, largely) which, in turn, meant their technological development, were seemingly OK to begin with, as China was the Big Dog of Asia (the oldest civilisation) and, as long as civilisations didn't develop non-muscle technology to any extent, their size gave them clout.

Once something like the industrial developments of the late Medieval period in Europe began to occur, China was doomed by being wedded to that path, and remaining so wedded.

In any planet without a Pangaea like single supercontinent with no really major geographical borders to promote the development of multiple different societies (and allow them to survive) which pursue multiple different survival strategies (aka "economic and technological development strategies"), a water empire isn't likely to survive even on a single planet.

And the likelihood of something as reactionary as the Vilani Empire developing and then conquering the whole of Known Space, more or less, is low ... unless its the very first, in which case the very size of space will mean its eventual demise as it will eventually come up against someone like Terra, which has made a whole set of different, non-Water Empire, decisions.

There's been a lot of work done in the last 30 years or so about the inter-relationships between technology and society and on the development of technology which show that the whole idea of some sort of technological stasis that underpins these sorts of silly claims as to some amazing technological barrier preventing progress are, at best, ill informed, and, at worst, completely silly.

The evidence is quite strong that even in periods of what we have previously thought to be complete or almost complete technological stasis there were significant technological developments going on un-noticed until recently, and probably a hell of a lot more that we still haven't noticed.

So, historically and economically speaking, the article is bunk.

Or that's my .02 Pacific Pesos worth, for whatever that is worth, anyway :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

YMMV of course!!! :wink:

Phil McGregor
 
Another great post. It's important to make sure our feet are firmly planted on the ground.

I didn't read the article as a serious analysis, and I doubt that's how it was intended. In particular the TL7 plateau as you say has no factual basis.

The issue here is that the article appears to be written from the point of view of someone at TL15 looking back. Since we aren't at TL15 and have no real idea what theories of historical analysis or tech development might exist at that time, the author just made one up. There really is no other way to write such an article, and it's not reasonable to expect an article like that to hold up to much rigorous analysis.

The whole point of SF is to imagine a future development or developments and then speculate about the possible consequences. Whether or not that development is realistic is not really the point. The classic example of a non-technological development used in SF in this way is Asimov's Psychohistory. Whether or not Psychohistory is realistic or credible or not isn't the point of the Foundation books, the point is clever and imaginative exploration of the possible consequences of such a discovery.

So it goes with the article. As a GM I can for example use this article as a serious Scout Service report and weave it into a campaign in which the players get involved in plots to manipulate the technological development of worlds. Or I can use it as a basis for a tweaked world generation system. In that setting, the theory is true. That has little to do with whether the theory is really true at any level, any more than that the theory of Jump Drive or Contragrav are true.

Simon Hibbs
 
simonh said:
Another great post. It's important to make sure our feet are firmly planted on the ground.

I didn't read the article as a serious analysis, and I doubt that's how it was intended. In particular the TL7 plateau as you say has no factual basis.

The issue here is that the article appears to be written from the point of view of someone at TL15 looking back. Since we aren't at TL15 and have no real idea what theories of historical analysis or tech development might exist at that time, the author just made one up. There really is no other way to write such an article, and it's not reasonable to expect an article like that to hold up to much rigorous analysis.

The whole point of SF is to imagine a future development or developments and then speculate about the possible consequences. Whether or not that development is realistic is not really the point. The classic example of a non-technological development used in SF in this way is Asimov's Psychohistory. Whether or not Psychohistory is realistic or credible or not isn't the point of the Foundation books, the point is clever and imaginative exploration of the possible consequences of such a discovery.

So it goes with the article. As a GM I can for example use this article as a serious Scout Service report and weave it into a campaign in which the players get involved in plots to manipulate the technological development of worlds. Or I can use it as a basis for a tweaked world generation system. In that setting, the theory is true. That has little to do with whether the theory is really true at any level, any more than that the theory of Jump Drive or Contragrav are true.

Simon Hibbs

I doubt many people would understand/know enough history or economics to come up with the objections that I have noted (and they are only the more obvious ones! :cry: ) even though, in my experience anyway, RPGers tend to be quite well read (not always in History or Economics, of course! :wink: ) ... so it's not an objection likely to be voiced by many ... though some of the work done in recent years by people like Diamond, McNeill and lots of others are likely to mean that there will be an increasing (but still likely small!) number who will.

I mean, would I have known enough to make the comments I did 30 years ago? Maybe, for some of them, but probably more on a gut level rather than academic level.

So, does it matter?

Well, to me it does because it is annoying. And, of course, in my SF games of whatever system I would not even bother with such a flawed and silly claim.

So what would *I* suggest?

Ignoring the 3I and the Traveller background completely, pretty much, because none of it makes sense from an economic or historical point of view.

Well, a number of SF books/series have, over the years, suggested some sort of social construct that prevents or limits progress in key technological areas ... the attitude towards AIs and the like in the Dune books, for example, or towards genetic manipulation (the Saurons) in Pournelle's Codominium universe.

Or the conspiracy between the USA and USSR proposed in the Codominium books as well - the problem is that you are positing a Water Empire again, and any outside force that doesn't operate under the same strictures is going to doom it.

A slightly better idea would be to have key pieces of High Tech be so advanced and beyond it that no-one, no matter how advanced, has a clew as to either a) why they work or b) how they work or c) both ... take the Jumpgates/Annunaki in Fading Suns, for example ... there's simply a level beyond which no known race has progressed ... but, obviously, someone has, somewhen.

Really, the whole basis of the OTU is so flawed that it probably cannot be explained and/or justified in any reasonable way ... only unreasonable ones.

I don't really see a "solution", as such, because of this ... except living in a state of knowing denial :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

However, I have had fun playing things reasonably close to the OTU in the past, mainly because Tech Levels never played any real role in those games, beyond modifiers for Trade (which, of course, doesn't work either) ... but that limited the scope of the game so that they really didn't last very long.

So that's probably best - ignore TLs entirely. Assume that the whole of the Imperium is on the continuum TL13-15 or so and that any world rated as less than that is really a net importer of technology, and that TL13-15 stuff is available, at modest markups and, perhaps, slight delays in availability for non-consumer items.

I have non expectation whatsoever that anyone should adopt any of the above, or even accept any of the above ... it truly is your/their game once you buy it and anything you/they/your group/their group enjoy is really fine by me.

But when I sit down and design something that will be the lineal heir to Space Opera, I won't be following anything like the TL rules of Traveller (or even Space Opera Mark 1 :wink: )

Like I said, that's my .02 Pacific Pesos worth!

Phil
 
aspqrz said:
Assume that the whole of the Imperium is on the continuum TL13-15 or so and that any world rated as less than that is really a net importer of technology, and that TL13-15 stuff is available, at modest markups and, perhaps, slight delays in availability for non-consumer items.

Which of course doesn't jibe with our real world experience also. So, why do it that way.
 
DFW said:
aspqrz said:
Assume that the whole of the Imperium is on the continuum TL13-15 or so and that any world rated as less than that is really a net importer of technology, and that TL13-15 stuff is available, at modest markups and, perhaps, slight delays in availability for non-consumer items.

Which of course doesn't jibe with our real world experience also. So, why do it that way.

Which actually does gel with the real world.

I am assuming you are misreading "available for modest markups" to mean "at the same relative price to income ratio as on the world of manufacture" which I am not!

Or, possibly, you are unaware as to just how high a penetration key modern technologies have even in the world's s***holes. Like Mobile Phone availability in Mogadishu, for example.

Which isn't to say that the further you get away from the world's spaceport(s) that there won't be some decrease in availability or cost, if only because of transport costs (like POL costs more in country NSW than in Sydney for the simple reason it has to be hauled there by truck, at considerable relative expense).

But if I want a PowerMac in Lower South West Black Stump, population 5, I can order it by mail and it will be there in a week or two. Assuming that LSWBS residents have the money/income to buy one in the first place.

Phil
 
aspqrz said:
Or, possibly, you are unaware as to just how high a penetration key modern technologies have even in the world's s***holes. Like Mobile Phone availability in Mogadishu, for example.

You need to get out to more 3rd world countries, more often, and see prices (in USD) for yourself.
 
DFW said:
You need to get out to more 3rd world countries, more often, and see prices (in USD) for yourself.
It can vary enormously from country to country, but in my experience it's not unusual for common equipment to be 50% higher and rarer specialist kit to go for double, trebble or more. But if you really need the kit, you can get it. However there are often ways round the worst barriers (ridiculous tax systems, corruption). If these are excessive, the black Market will pick up the excess demand. But that's only an option for locals.

Having said that I've never been to Mogadishu, but sold some kit and provided training to an Iraquie mobile network. I only ever went to Amman though for that deal. I did go to Ramallah once, luckily just before the Israelies went into Lebanon in 2006 and things went crazy again. Bangladesh as well, but none of those are the real pits (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Sudan, etc), just developing regions that have some issues. Even for fairly stable places like Saudi the barriers to doing business are a real pain.

Simon Hibbs
Looking at things the other way round. If a planet is very backward, clearly there must be reasons why. So then the question is what are those reasons and how do they lead to this outcome.
 
simonh said:
DFW said:
You need to get out to more 3rd world countries, more often, and see prices (in USD) for yourself.
It can vary enormously from country to country, but in my experience it's not unusual for common equipment to be 50% higher and rarer specialist kit to go for double, trebble or more. But if you really need the kit, you can get it. However there are often ways round the worst barriers (ridiculous tax systems, corruption). If these are excessive, the black Market will pick up the excess demand. But that's only an option for locals.

Exactly. The areas where the TL is very divergent have prices that are VERY high compared to the TL of origin. The system in GT (from my quick study) does justice to this real life, econ axiom.
 
I have to say that I agree with aspqrz on this.
Availability of tech is uniform across the real world, but its penetration into areas and markets probably follows wealth distribution. Most individuals, even in rich countries, and especially in poor countries, cannot afford fancy ,hi-tech gadgets.
Even in the poorest countries, an individual who can afford to pay the costs ( manufacturing cost+profit ) and then the shipping costs ( transport costs + profit ) can have high tech items.
So, its costs and availability of necessary infrastructure* that limits 'tech level'

*example, cell phones are worthless without cell towers
computers are worthless without electricity

in the end, its about supply and demand, and if a gadget costs more than the consumer can afford to pay, there won't be demand at that price point.
Therefore, tech availability is proportional to wealth or income distribution.
 
Ishmael said:
Availability of tech is uniform across the real world, but its penetration into areas and markets probably follows wealth distribution.
And political geography (which is often the same), because most capitals
even of otherwise extremely poor and backward countries usually have
a few "islands" of high technology, from the equipment of the presidential
guard to the hospital where the elite is treated. The regional centers usu-
ally also have such high tech "islands", although on a smaller scale, and
only the truly remote rural regions usually are "high tech free".
 
Ishmael said:
Therefore, tech availability is proportional to wealth or income distribution.

And, overall wealth is linked to production capability, which is linked to TL...

That is the whole point of the econ system in GT I was mentioning.
 
DFW said:
aspqrz said:
Makes a lot of sense, but it's never been the way the "Traveller Universe" works ...Phil

Basic econ. Look at the real world. Marc did this on purpose and created a broken trading system for his own GMing reasons. Unfortunately, gamers, in the main, have been stuck with his errors (that are 180 from actual econ). Someone told me that GURPS Trav dealt with this subject well. I don't know though.

etc., etc., etc...

Or maybe you have just never come across the Classic Traveller rules that had it. There's more than one place it was addressed in CT, and it was also addressed in MT and later versions as well I think. I'm tempted to let you find it for yourself as some posters think that is the way it should be done. But I'll at least give you the first one that leapt to mind - CT Book 7 - Merchant Prince (but I seem to recall the rules being in a JTAS issue before that even).

...but don't let that stop you from idle uninformed speculation or slow the CT hate fest, I love the irony :)
 
far-trader said:
Or maybe you have just never come across the Classic Traveller rules that had it. There's more than one place it was addressed in CT,

ACTUALLY, if you remember Merchant Prince (book 7), computing cost of goods (buying at source world) was 180 degrees from real econ (more expensive than lower tech world production). So, as I said, CT muffed it royally.
 
DFW said:
ACTUALLY, if you remember Merchant Prince (book 7), computing cost of goods (buying at source world) was 180 degrees from real econ (more expensive than lower tech world production). So, as I said, CT muffed it royally.

Agreed, CT had some really weird economic assumptions. E.g that average income in Imperial Credits is independent of TL. Yet presumably the logic behind low TL worlds goods being cheaper was that labour to make them is cheaper, in which case what was that about average incomes again?

I think some of the later supplements and articles may have improved the situation a bit.

Simon Hibbs
 
DFW said:
ACTUALLY, if you remember Merchant Prince (book 7), computing cost of goods (buying at source world) was 180 degrees from real econ (more expensive than lower tech world production). So, as I said, CT muffed it royally.

Pardon? How is that different from RW? Perhaps you are misremembering since you had forgotten it was addressed there. It costs more in modern (high tech) settings to manufacture than in less modern (low tech) settings on Earth (generally, comparatively). That's part of the reason so many jobs are shipped off to developing countries (lower tech) on Earth, because widgets are cheaper to make (and buy)

simonh said:
Agreed, CT had some really weird economic assumptions. E.g that average income in Imperial Credits is independent of TL. Yet presumably the logic behind low TL worlds goods being cheaper was that labour to make them is cheaper, in which case what was that about average incomes again?

Again, an issue addressed decades ago in CT by the Imperial Standard Cr as a TL15 base and adjusted for lower TLs (by 5% per step iirc but that's not certain). And the only wages paid in Imperials are those of ship crews. Local labour is paid in local currency which may or may not be convertible to Imperials at a fair rate (or even at all) iirc (though that may have been an interpretation from hints).

simonh said:
I think some of the later supplements and articles may have improved the situation a bit.

Ah, perhaps that's the disconnect, what to include as "rules" for any Core set. Though at this late date and given the availability pretty much all of CT production could be.

I'll grant there are some contradictions, or failures to overwrite earlier rules in favour of later additions. Nothing a ref can't take the rudder on and steer the course they desire though. The simplest is more than enough for a non-Trading campaign and even sufficient for that in the spirit it was intended (it was never meant to be a full interstellar economic simulation despite some people's insistence and intentions to beat it into that), that of Free-Traders trying to scrape an independent living on the margins and maybe, just maybe*, get lucky on a spec trade deal and get rich. Most of the time though they need to take questionable jobs to cover that big payment on their home coming up.

* weighted in favour of getting it actually, hey, dreams should come true in a game

You're tilting at windmills (at the best) trying to figure out what interstellar trade in the far future in a 1000 world empire is going to be by comparing it to trade on Earth, and basing it all on rules that were only meant to apply to a Jump-1 small trader in special circumstances...

...but that doesn't have to mean such discussions can't be interesting and fun :)
 
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