Technology & Progression

[ross]

Someone asked what major differences each TL has. I found another one.

TL-13+ has no more waste. No more landfills. No more storing hazardous byproducts. TL-13 is where humanity ceases to be a plague of locusts who only consume.

TL-13 is where Deconstruction Chambers occur. They can break down anything on a molecular level. The ultimate recycling system. Its output is feedstock for manufacturing and has 100% efficiency. So, every bit of trash generated by a society, can be broken down with no material losses and remade into new things. Using recycled materials would become cheaper than mining and refining materials in the traditional manner.

A lot of anachronistic and static thinking in the replies to your post. Here is a different take.

What if the listed deconstruction is just the smallest possible version? It could take a few decades or even a hundred years to upgrade the infrastructure and embrace new methods, but just look at how quickly modern society has embraced computing and the internet. Whole spacecraft could be deconstructed and reconstructed. Components on military vessels could be rebuilt and recreated, even as more advanced versions of themselves with newer plans. These seemingly small changes in society could revolutionize how we see everything. I really like your train of thought here. I think it is positive and forward-thinking.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Absolutely! Randall Monroe (of XKCD) does a popular science series called "What if" and one chapter was on what would happen if you try to collect samples of all the elements, and it goes wrong very quickly (he says the first two rows are not much problem but they'd have to be in boxes: you don't want to defab and have your oxygen and your flourine in elemental form in the same place.)

One thing about defabricators that means "just ignore it and let the space magic work": the amount of energy required to break some of the compounds down would be huge, and some of them really, really want to immediately recombine.

View attachment 6237

Also, lossless defab/refab isn't possible. We (usually) obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics on this fine forum...

It says breaks down on the molecular level, not the atomic level.

So, you wouldn't have to worry about anything in elemental form unless it is already in elemental form in whatever you are deconstructing.

 

[Terry Mixon]

It says breaks down on the molecular level, not the atomic level.

So, you wouldn't have to worry about anything in elemental form unless it is already in elemental form in whatever you are deconstructing.

A follow up thought about not recording a pattern when deconstructing. That’s perhaps a bit close to the grey goo scenario. Not sure they would want uncontrolled deconstruction. Admittedly they aren’t reproducing but still.

 

[Arkathan]

What Geir said was at Advanced and above, the deconstruction chamber and fabrication chamber are combined in a single unit. As for multiple units per controller, I’d imagine if they cost a million a pop, no matter the size of the chamber, I think it might be tied to a single chamber.

So... what if the chamber was distributed? Pay for a large chamber and distribute it across several apartments/staterooms? Like the main computer or putting one half of the M-Drive to port, one half of the M-Drive to starboard and one half of the M-Drive centerline. (paraphrased from Rich Little's Reaganomics)

 

[MasterGwydion]

A follow up thought about not recording a pattern when deconstructing. That’s perhaps a bit close to the grey goo scenario. Not sure they would want uncontrolled deconstruction. Admittedly they aren’t reproducing but still.

Can't be Grey Goo if it cannot operate outside of a controlled environment. You'd need external deconstruction combined with external fabrication.

 

[rinku]

Whatever the process, without transmutation there will be fabrication bottlenecks with particular critical elements. If you need a gram of gold or a kilogram of titanium, you won't be able to source it from air and water.

In the fab economy, I can see a move to robust, general purpose electronics boxes that a fabricator might build the rest of the device around. Those themselves might be kept from deconstruction and cycled into the next device fabricated, programmed to work it.

Oh, and regarding the post scarcity angle... Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age has a few takes on that. That has matter printers, but definite poverty and inequity. And a great scene where a young kid prints out a bunch of mattresses, blowing the family's mass budget, and the big brother has to get them un-printed to get it back. Required reading for anyone with an overly utopian view of nanotech/fabricators but be warned there are some heavy themes at times.

 

[Galadrion]

View attachment 6236
It says that in most aspects it functions like an enhanced fabricator, so an hour a pop.

I would imagine that the Controller is an electronic part, so therefore should be subject to the retrotech electronics rule. TL-15 should be 25% the size and price.

Okay, I just completely missed it. Well, that gives me some critical data, anyway.

 

[J. L. Brown]

One interesting take on 'Recycling with Deconstruction Chambers' -- there is no reason to be confined to second-hand or worn out gadgets. You could just as easily throw in dirt, rocks, streams, and trees. What comes out the other side is piles of pre-fabber resources (whee! Fun -- but not really my point) PLUS all the information to build them.

The information might be regarded as a waste product; but an enterprising young empire might also wish to build an entire Gaia world from such blueprints. At a smaller scale, it is possible to put everything 'back' when you are done with it, or when you happen to have a surplus.