What would post-FTL, post-'pre-stellar', science actually discover that it didn't know already?

[Limpin Legin]

Ie, apart from new habitats for a growing population, mining and prospecting, more weapons, more armour, what did the enablement of Faster Than Light (FTL) technology actually discover that challenged or provided advantage in the way science or it's mysteries are understood?

 

[Nelphine]

Grav tech is the pre stellar (9-11) huge step.

AI seems to be the 15-18 huge step.

I'd personally put abundant energy (and a lesser extent, makers/fabricators) in the 12-14 step, but that doesn't seem to be played up in Traveller. But the step at TL12 for fusion seems like it actually matches really well with the Star Trek Federation model of abundance...

 

[Arkathan]

Isn't this somewhat like someone in 1940 asking about advances that occurred concurrently around the development of the solid state transistor?
The cultural changes alone are on par with the difference between the pony express and television.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Isn't this somewhat like someone in 1940 asking about advances that occurred concurrently around the development of the solid state transistor?
The cultural changes alone are on par with the difference between the pony express and television.

Yes, I did think that before posting question. I just though people do write fiction, and a fictional narrative would be sufficient to satisfy me - so long as we all know it is fiction. Trying to establish something that far ahead as fact is quite absurd (same goes with AI, and that is somewhat nearer.)

 

[Limpin Legin]

Grav tech is the pre stellar (9-11) huge step.

AI seems to be the 15-18 huge step.

I'd personally put abundant energy (and a lesser extent, makers/fabricators) in the 12-14 step, but that doesn't seem to be played up in Traveller. But the step at TL12 for fusion seems like it actually matches really well with the Star Trek Federation model of abundance...

Thanks for your thoughts. Although jump travel itself is completely destroyed by the effects of gravity, actually being at a proximity of 100 stellar-object diameters, or more, avoids that problem rather than solves it.
The CRB mentions something about "high energy exotic particles into an artificial singularity ..." but doesn't elaborate beyond that whether these exotic particles can also be discovered and harnessed at sub-FTL speeds, etc - for purposes other than FTL. Which could be an exciting prospect for far far future scientists.

 

[Arkathan]

Yes, I did think that before posting question. I just though people do write fiction, and a fictional narrative would be sufficient to satisfy me - so long as we all know it is fiction. Trying to establish something that far ahead as fact is quite absurd (same goes with AI, and that is somewhat nearer.)

Sort of like Battletech with the Davion fax machines or CT with large tonnages allocated for computers. No one at the time envisioned carrying the equivalent of a Cray supercomputer in your pocket, much less using ALL that computational power to play Sudoku while you are supposed to be working.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Sort of like Battletech with the Davion fax machines or CT with large tonnages allocated for computers. No one at the time envisioned carrying the equivalent of a Cray supercomputer in your pocket, much less using ALL that computational power to play Sudoku while you are supposed to be working.

He heh. Some fiction does go that way. Some of it, like Issac Asimov, is quite prophetic. But he had the right background, motivation and writing ability, which is a rarer combination to have. But anyway, "the explanation of the day" would still suffice. Needn't flag it as NSFW.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The CRB mentions something about "high energy exotic particles into an artificial singularity ..." but doesn't elaborate beyond that whether these exotic particles can also be discovered and harnessed at sub-FTL speeds, etc - for purposes other than FTL. Which could be an exciting prospect for far far future scientists.

As the "inventor" of the exotic jump particles I regret to this day using that language.

A particle is an excitation of a quantum field, a jump particle is the excitation of the jump field.

We know that earth discovered jump thanks to research into gravitics, so my fanon for it is that some idiot researcher was using a brute force approach to gravitics - increase the amount of fusion energy going into the gravitics to produce a faster m-drive. Fortunately other researchers investigating quantum fields noticed the strange spikes in their data.

Could the jump field be used in other ways? The empress wave suggests yes, psionic research suggests yes. Tachyon weapons and drives... note a tachyon field and tachyon particles are not "FTL" rather they are imaginary mass eg the Higgs field

Tachyon condensation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sigtrygg]

The major discoveries post TL9 are in the field of nuclear dampers and mesons.

Canonically Nuclear dampers allow manipultation of the strong force - problem is there are two mechanisms for the strong force - mesons and gluons.

Meson guns and screens are unlikely to actually interact with meson - more likely they are based on manipulations of gluons to create things like glueballs and pentaquarks, and also the weak force.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If your campaign includes psionics here is one more thing I have discussed before - did jump travel activate latent psionic ability within Terrans?

 

[MonsterX]

In Traveller it seems like thousands of years go by without much in the way of major scientific discoveries. IRL, advancement has just gotten faster and faster over the past 500 years; 500 year ago, a person might die of old age in basically the same kind of life they were born to, but by 200 years ago this was no longer true, and today this level of change is compressed in to single digit years. A 20 year olds' life these days is dominated and structured by the capabilities of smart phones, 10 years ago these were new, and 20 years go they basically didn't exist. Over the next few years, the development of AI is probably going to make allot of the futuretech in Traveller look kind of silly retro. Traveller assumes a kind of slow advance over the centuries, with some worlds going forward, and others regressing, and the slowness of travel basically meaning they do this independently. I find this kind of unlikely, but I guess it might happen this way, given this speed of travel in the game and it works for the setting.

I assume that TL level is really about the tech that is available for purchase on a world (either manufactured, or imported), and does not mean that the world has that level of science. The tech and science are related but not exactly the same. The major scientific developments: i.e. understandings of how the universe works, are not going to be fenced off by TL. If you want to read a research article which is pushing the frontiers of basic physics, it is going to be available as soon as the news of its publication reaches your world. We can assume that information flow is not very good in low tech societies and probably those that have mid-tech levels might not be as plugged in.

To do cutting edge science, it helps to have the highest possible tech, but it isn't the only thing. And how much it helps depends on which science, and what kind of research question you are tackling. A low tech world could still have biologists publishing important new discoveries about the life forms on their planet, but discoveries in genetic engineering will depend more on lab tech. If you want to push the frontiers of physics, you'll probably need Tech 15 or 16 equipment.

 

[Iracundus]

In Traveller it seems like thousands of years go by without much in the way of major scientific discoveries. IRL, advancement has just gotten faster and faster over the past 500 years; 500 year ago, a person might die of old age in basically the same kind of life they were born to, but by 200 years ago this was no longer true, and today this level of change is compressed in to single digit years. A 20 year olds' life these days is dominated and structured by the capabilities of smart phones, 10 years ago these were new, and 20 years go they basically didn't exist. Over the next few years, the development of AI is probably going to make allot of the futuretech in Traveller look kind of silly retro. Traveller assumes a kind of slow advance over the centuries, with some worlds going forward, and others regressing, and the slowness of travel basically meaning they do this independently. I find this kind of unlikely, but I guess it might happen this way, given this speed of travel in the game and it works for the setting.

I assume that TL level is really about the tech that is available for purchase on a world (either manufactured, or imported), and does not mean that the world has that level of science. The tech and science are related but not exactly the same. The major scientific developments: i.e. understandings of how the universe works, are not going to be fenced off by TL. If you want to read a research article which is pushing the frontiers of basic physics, it is going to be available as soon as the news of its publication reaches your world. We can assume that information flow is not very good in low tech societies and probably those that have mid-tech levels might not be as plugged in.

To do cutting edge science, it helps to have the highest possible tech, but it isn't the only thing. And how much it helps depends on which science, and what kind of research question you are tackling. A low tech world could still have biologists publishing important new discoveries about the life forms on their planet, but discoveries in genetic engineering will depend more on lab tech. If you want to push the frontiers of physics, you'll probably need Tech 15 or 16 equipment.

That assumes that TL progress continues on the same trend/curve. I think one way to rationalize Traveller is that there is a point of diminishing return for research investment and plateau effect at certain higher TL. At some point it may require so much in resources and personnel to advance or even just maintain a TL that it becomes difficult or impossible for smaller scale polities to achieve.

An analogy by way of reverse example is if you took several hundred highly educated engineers and scientists and threw them back into the Stone Age. They might be able to create a village and survive, but they aren't going to be able to recreate a modern industrial infrastructure in their lifetime. There simply aren't the resources and existing infrastructure for them to do so quickly enough. Their children would likely also be too occupied with the basics of survival to be able to pick up their parents' theoretical knowledge, that is effectively useless to them as they lack the means to make use of it. You need as society of a certain minimum size that can afford to let enough people specialize in areas of abstract esoteric knowledge.

 

[MasterGwydion]

That assumes that TL progress continues on the same trend/curve. I think one way to rationalize Traveller is that there is a point of diminishing return for research investment and plateau effect at certain higher TL. At some point it may require so much in resources and personnel to advance or even just maintain a TL that it becomes difficult or impossible for smaller scale polities to achieve.

An analogy by way of reverse example is if you took several hundred highly educated engineers and scientists and threw them back into the Stone Age. They might be able to create a village and survive, but they aren't going to be able to recreate a modern industrial infrastructure in their lifetime. There simply aren't the resources and existing infrastructure for them to do so quickly enough. Their children would likely also be too occupied with the basics of survival to be able to pick up their parents' theoretical knowledge, that is effectively useless to them as they lack the means to make use of it. You need as society of a certain minimum size that can afford to let enough people specialize in areas of abstract esoteric knowledge.

Or you use robotic labor (once it is perfected) and then everyone has extra time. lol

 

[Nelphine]

This is also why I'm specifically making my variant link TL to population, in the name of game playability, and ignoring time invested. Obviously not 'correct', but I want something that works for a game, rather than something completely realistic.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This is also why I'm specifically making my variant link TL to population, in the name of game playability, and ignoring time invested. Obviously not 'correct', but I want something that works for a game, rather than something completely realistic.

My way seems to be working, but is progressing slower than other canon races. Currently, they will reach TL-16 in 1,061 3I. That is the fastest they can do it if absolutely nothing goes wrong. Couple of bad dice rolls and it could be more like TL-12 by that date.