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.