What TL is Traveller?

[phild]

I was thinking about the tech level of the Imperium, not as described by the TL scale so much as described in the day-to-day reality as the rulebook sets it out. It strikes me that the Universe which is described to us isn't really a true ultra-high-tech society at all.

There are energy weapons, but the damage they do is only a little higher than current projectile weapons - or they carry risk of mass area radiation contamination

There is fusion power - but the fuel consumption is relatively high, suggesting a fairly inefficient fusion technology

There is some artificial intelligence - but the suggestion is that the most powerful computer will only be as good as a high-skilled professional

There is some advanced medical biochem - but anagathics aren't exactly risk free or ubiquitous and apparently high TL medkits are actually no better at healing than low TL ones: and don't talk about cryogenics, they got the mortality rate down so far and then left it, deciding that was good enough for mass transit

There is gravity tech - but it is relatively simple "anti-grav push" and doesn't appear to be able to create gravity fields, so people still live on planets and spaceships still rely on solid material hulls

There is interstellar trade from the technological heart of the Imperium out to the rim planets - but also the other way, because rich high-tech planets cannot synthesise food but require it to be imported at great expense.


Now this isn't a criticism of the game, because actually this sense of being high tech yet not high tech is part of the charm of the setting, and really distinguishes it from, for example, the likes of Star Trek. But what, therefore, is the functional TL of the Imperium? It feels more like maybe TL9 or 10, with some of the trappings of advanced society but, outside of their spaceships, not a huge amount of really advanced, Arthur C. Clark magic quote-esque, hyper technology.

 

[captainjack23]

I was thinking about the tech level of the Imperium, not as described by the TL scale so much as described in the day-to-day reality as the rulebook sets it out. It strikes me that the Universe which is described to us isn't really a true ultra-high-tech society at all.

There are energy weapons, but the damage they do is only a little higher than current projectile weapons - or they carry risk of mass area radiation contamination

There is fusion power - but the fuel consumption is relatively high, suggesting a fairly inefficient fusion technology

There is some artificial intelligence - but the suggestion is that the most powerful computer will only be as good as a high-skilled professional

There is some advanced medical biochem - but anagathics aren't exactly risk free or ubiquitous and apparently high TL medkits are actually no better at healing than low TL ones: and don't talk about cryogenics, they got the mortality rate down so far and then left it, deciding that was good enough for mass transit

There is gravity tech - but it is relatively simple "anti-grav push" and doesn't appear to be able to create gravity fields, so people still live on planets and spaceships still rely on solid material hulls

There is interstellar trade from the technological heart of the Imperium out to the rim planets - but also the other way, because rich high-tech planets cannot synthesise food but require it to be imported at great expense.


Now this isn't a criticism of the game, because actually this sense of being high tech yet not high tech is part of the charm of the setting, and really distinguishes it from, for example, the likes of Star Trek. But what, therefore, is the functional TL of the Imperium? It feels more like maybe TL9 or 10, with some of the trappings of advanced society but, outside of their spaceships, not a huge amount of really advanced, Arthur C. Clark magic quote-esque, hyper technology.

<soapboxery, and my own dog-headed pure opinion follows>
It's the future that the thirties and forties expected, and passed on to classic science fiction of the sixties and seventies. Look at most of Heinlein, Asimov, Anderson, Dickson and Clarke's (and etc's) stuff. Its far less about Technopunk and extrapolating the future than it is about people in a future.

Consider that nowadays we expect and believe progress to be exponential; until recently, SF really wasn't looking beyond earlier sociocultural ideas of incremental advance. Realistically, the tech scale should be like the Richter scale, with each advance indicating (perhaps) an order of magnitude advance, not a linear yardstick . But it isn't.

One can either assume that traveller is and always will be broken in this regard (the easy way), or assume that the tech levels above ten do not scale equally -and may just be part of the whole "we're better than you" attitude of the advanced core worlds to the bumpkins in the marches.
Or realize that cutting edge extrapolation isn't and never was Traveller's brief; rather a style of futuristic play in a style of SF that the originator (and 30 years of fans) enjoy...somewhere past Flash Gordon and Star wars, but between Foundation and Star Trek, really.

<end soapbox>

 

[Infojunky]

Now this isn't a criticism of the game, because actually this sense of being high tech yet not high tech is part of the charm of the setting, and really distinguishes it from, for example, the likes of Star Trek. But what, therefore, is the functional TL of the Imperium? It feels more like maybe TL9 or 10, with some of the trappings of advanced society but, outside of their spaceships, not a huge amount of really advanced, Arthur C. Clark magic quote-esque, hyper technology.

Though many will argue with me, I have always felt the core of is somewhere between 8 and 12. For me Traveller has always been a working mans universe. Have lived overseas in Southeast Asia, though that was it the military 20+ years ago, I daily encountered people living 4 or so TLs below what I was used to at home. Looking back I was using mostly equipment that was old even when I was born....

Well, day to day once you have enough, the difference between the TLs on daily life wasn't so much.

Taking this forward into the Traveller universe, I see most of the universe looking a lot like Southeast Asia in the late 80s, pretty much doing what you need to do to get by in most places, with a few Big cities thrown in.

-------
For the most part when I'm running a game the specific TL doesn't matter. The biggest issue is is whether or not a planet has a yard. The specific parts to build a ship come from where they can be built.

Or to put it another way I have really only 3 Tech Levels Low, Industrial and Stellar. The Majority of systems are at the cusp between Industrial and Stellar.

 

[Infojunky]

One can either assume that traveller is and always will be broken in this regard (the easy way), or assume that the tech levels above ten do not scale equally -and may just be part of the whole "we're better than you" attitude of the advanced core worlds to the bumpkins in the marches.

Hey that describes most of my universe.

 

[captainjack23]

Oh. And to answer the actual question (sorry 'bout that ) , I assume that we are talking about the general imperial culture (as opposed to that of the individual planets) that one finds across the empire, in the spaceports, etc. For my campaign, I assume it's mostly 12 on the interior, 10-11 on the edges, and rapidly falls off once one hits the borders. In other words, one can always get access to tech 10+ stuff wherever one is in the empire, and generally up through TL 12, as well, if there is at least an imperial presence. Higher stuff is less likely, or very mission specific. The 13 + worlds tend to be the cosmopolitan powerhouses, with the 15 worlds likely being the most important worlds, or those worlds with only imperial culture (core, reference, capital, etc.) .

I generally assume that miltary tech is (intentionally) higher than the average (or common) TL. TL 13 gives Jump 4 which is military standard, so since I assume that Milspec needs specialized maintainance at Naval bases , the common level is 12 -giving J3 tech. The fringes need frequent J2 support, as they also tend to be on the sparser areas of space, so it can't go too low. The cores support faster and bigger civilian ships, and since the 13+ worlds are the main ports, that isn't a problem.

As an example/Rule of thumb, I use starports as a yardstick (I run a spaceship based game with lots of repairs); a type B port can repair and refit a TL 11 ship with ease, and TL 13 with difficulty. Type C ports handle TL9 easily and strain at 11.Type A is less limited, and I assume that easy fixes are 13 and the tricky stuff at 15.

This specifically doesn't include actual construction of ships, which is as outlined. Refit/repair is black-box parts, plans and expertise, not technical and technological capacity.

 

[captainjack23]

One can either assume that traveller is and always will be broken in this regard (the easy way), or assume that the tech levels above ten do not scale equally -and may just be part of the whole "we're better than you" attitude of the advanced core worlds to the bumpkins in the marches.

Hey that describes most of my universe.

Broken ? Or condescending ?

 

[Infojunky]

One can either assume that traveller is and always will be broken in this regard (the easy way), or assume that the tech levels above ten do not scale equally -and may just be part of the whole "we're better than you" attitude of the advanced core worlds to the bumpkins in the marches.

Hey that describes most of my universe.

Broken ? Or condescending ?

Too be quite honest, Both.

 

[aspqrz]

I was thinking about the tech level of the Imperium, not as described by the TL scale so much as described in the day-to-day reality as the rulebook sets it out. It strikes me that the Universe which is described to us isn't really a true ultra-high-tech society at all.

If you assume that we're currently TL9 in many areas, I'd say the Imperium is about TL7-8 in most areas except Jump Drives and AGrav, pretty much.

YMMV.

Phil

 

[EDG]

AFAIK nobody's really made much of an attempt in Traveller to describe what a TL15 society would be like. I can't really grok how it'd work with all the artificial tech-crippling inherent in the setting myself (i.e. no AI, no geneering, no nanotech, etc), and the other implications of technologies like gravity manipulation haven't really been dealt with much in Traveller either (sure there's grav belts, and impossible buildings, but there's got to be more offshoots than that). And of course socially it's assumed that a TL15 society would be recognisable to our TL8 society, which is complete nonsense but I guess comes from the aforementioned setting-dictated tech-crippling.

Personally I think an advanced society would be more like what is shown in things like Orion's Arm or Anders Sandberg's excellent Big Ideas Grand Vision setting.

 

[Gee4orce]

I think it's got a lot to do with the fact that beyond 1 or 2 TL difference from what we are used to in our own lives it becomes very hard to actually conceptualise what life would be like. That applies in both directions: none of us REALLY know what it'd be like to live in the Middle Ages, any more than we do a super high tech society.

I think Travellers assumption of 'modern day, just with cool toys' is there to make things easy and understandable for players.

GURPS Transhuman Space is a brilliant setting that really attempts to define what it would be like in a high tech society (albeit limited to the Solar System). It is, however, pretty strange, and notoriously hard to run as a game unless you keep the scope very narrow.

 

[phild]

GURPS Transhuman Space is a brilliant setting that really attempts to define what it would be like in a high tech society (albeit limited to the Solar System). It is, however, pretty strange, and notoriously hard to run as a game unless you keep the scope very narrow.

Hmm, never really been a fan of GURPS, but I might look out for that, sounds interesting...

 

[alex_greene]

Page 4 of the core book describes the rough conditions of each tech level:

TL 0 - 3: Primitive.

TL 4 - 6: Industrial.

TL 7 - 9: Pre-Stellar (roughly where we are now).

TL 10 - 11: Early Stellar.

TL 12 - 14: Average Stellar.

TL 15: High Stellar.

So the average tech range of Traveller is set between Tech Level 12 and Tech Level 14. That means heavy reliance upon grav transportation, ubiquitous computers and networking and starships capable of Jump-3 and Jump-4 at the most. Jump-5 and Jump-6 vessels are thought of as being like Larry Niven's Long Shot: impractical for most purposes.

Well, most purposes non-Travellers would consider useful, that is. I'm sure Travellers can find some uses for high-Jump ships.

 

[phild]

Page 4 of the core book describes the rough conditions of each tech level:

But my point was that, with the one exemption of space travel, it doesn't feel like the way the game is described is a TL12-14 society - most of the functional technology the PCs are exposed to is of a fairly moderate tech level.

 

[rust]

For my own non-OTU settings I mostly use descriptions of today's real
world cutting edge technology, the kind of gadgets that is already avai-
lable or expected to become available in the very near future.

According to Traveller's tech levels, this would make my setting about
TL 9, but in fact it feels far more futuristic than even Traveller TL 15
where it comes to the "everyday technology" used by average citizens
of the setting's society.

One reason for this is that Traveller technology almost completely igno-
res modern bionics and biotechnology, and the low efficiency of Travel-
ler's computers and much of the other electronics has also been men-
tioned before.

So, in a way Traveller's OTU is "retro SF", a science fiction universe ba-
sed upon the technology assumptions of at least thirty years ago and
then frozen in that state. Give it another ten years, and it will feel more
like steampunk or Space 1889 than like modern science fiction, I guess.

 

[Supergamera]

So, in a way Traveller's OTU is "retro SF", a science fiction universe ba-
sed upon the technology assumptions of at least thirty years ago and
then frozen in that state. Give it another ten years, and it will feel more
like steampunk or Space 1889 than like modern science fiction, I guess.

There is a difference between what people like to read, and what they would like to game in. Many advanced settings could easily become cases of what technology can do, whereas many people prefer to play in a setting that is based on what people can do. The previously-mentioned Transhuman Space tries to capture both, and becomes a setting that is great to read, but very difficult to execute.

Battlestar Galactica shows modern science fiction can be done in a "retro SF" setting.

 

[Valarian]

The way I tend to play the Third Imperium setting is that the "standard" TL for the Imperial military naval fleets is TL13. Some systems (like Capital for instance) have more advanced technology in the system fleet, like Black Globes (TL15). This is to ensure that most major systems can lend assistance to a Naval vessel.

Civilian tech levels are generally lower (TL9 to TL12) for the same sort of reasons, more systems can support the vessel in terms of repair and manufacture of parts. If you've got a TL15 yacht, you may be the envy of everyone in the starport while it's working; but you'll have to wait a few months while the correct part gets shipped in if you have problems.

 

[rust]

Many advanced settings could easily become cases of what technology can do, whereas many people prefer to play in a setting that is based on what people can do.

While I see your point, this could only make the OTU technology more
playable, but not more plausible.

Besides, a high and convincingly described technology does not have to
become a roleplaying problem. Just take a look at the (also rather old)
Ringworld RPG. It has a far more advanced technology than Traveller,
but that does not reduce its playability.

In my view, in the end the question is not what technology can do or what
people can do, it is what people can do with the available technology.

 

[EDG]

Many advanced settings could easily become cases of what technology can do, whereas many people prefer to play in a setting that is based on what people can do.

I prefer settings where at least some effort has been made to consider the effects of the technology on people and society. The OTU makes no such attempt, which is why we're pretty much blank on how a high tech society works in it. I suspect that if one starts to look more deeply at it, one will find many thing that can't make sense (as is often the case with the OTU - on the surface it looks fine, but dig a little deeper and you'll find the justifications are flimsy if they're even there at all. This is why there are endless arguments about trade and piracy and fleets and things like that - the foundations for those in the game are purely arbitrary and not based on any deep speculation for how it'd actually work).

The previously-mentioned Transhuman Space tries to capture both, and becomes a setting that is great to read, but very difficult to execute.

Ghost In The Shell is a great anime SF setting that would work perfectly with TS.

 

[rust]

Actually the introducting of the Ringworld-Tech ended the universe (Known Space) as a place to write decend stories in. At least that's what Larry Niven things about it.

Well, it did obviously not hinder him to write a couple of sequels ...

 

[Supergamera]

Besides, a high and convincingly described technology does not have to
become a roleplaying problem. Just take a look at the (also rather old)
Ringworld RPG. It has a far more advanced technology than Traveller,
but that does not reduce its playability.

In my view, in the end the question is not what technology can do or what
people can do, it is what people can do with the available technology.

I would love to see someone update the Ringworld RPG. The technology level is certainly higher than base OTU, although it could be argued that a lot of Ancient trappings are based on Ringworld elements. And while a lot of Known Space fiction does address the social impacts of technology, the premise is that Humanity in the 27th (?) century is perhaps more mature, but not too much different than today.

Known Space also is very light on the type of bio/nano/pervasive computing technology that is in a lot of more "modern" SF. Too often, those technologies become the equivalent of Trek Transporters, either potentially becoming a deus ex machina or requiring some dodge to limit their power.

Science Fiction contains elements of "Adventure" and "Speculation". Traveller happens to focus more on "Adventure", and generally lets the technology follow the setting, rather than the other way around.