Tech Levels - Are They Needed?

[flykiller]

well, first you have to define what is meant by "tech level". if the simple presence of goods of a certain tech level means that that location is at that tech level then yes, there's no reason to distinguish tech levels between trading star systems. but saying tech level represents local capablities seems to make more sense.

(how that locality is defined is an issue - planet earth is tech level 8, but tropical africa is fairly described as being tech level 1.)

if local capabilities are the definition then there are any number of reasons why tech levels will vary. drive, ambition, religion and other kinds of value systems, education, local wealth, government, corruption, property rights or lack thereof, life satisfaction, greed, war, resources, available free time, competition, and any number of other factors may bear on local tech level variation.

as for purchasing tech from elsewhere, simple cost is not the only issue. first, the item must be paid for in terms that the seller recognizes. a computer manufacturer isn't going to accept a dozen chickens as payment. two, the item must have support. a mediaeval peasant may buy a computer, but he'll have no power outlet for it. three, it must be useful to the buyer. a mediaeval peasant may buy a computer, but he won't have much use for it.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Barter works!

a computer manufacturer isn't going to accept a dozen chickens as payment. two, the item must have support. a mediaeval peasant may buy a computer, but he'll have no power outlet for it. three, it must be useful to the buyer. a mediaeval peasant may buy a computer, but he won't have much use for it.

Actually, I think chickens are tasty, and would gladly accept 2 dozen (killed, plucked and gutted, of course) in exchange for putting together a very basic computer. And, I'm sure a peasant would find a use for it - it makes a really nice footstool (one of the mid-towers) or a heater if he does have a power plug. And, I also happen to have a portable fusion generator right here, that I would sell you for a couple of cows (killed, gutted, skinned - I keep the leather, previously tanned - and butchered, of course). :file_22:

 

[Anthony]

well, first you have to define what is meant by "tech level".

For 'tech level' to be a useful term, it has to mean 'something that usefully describes what technology people visiting the world will encounter'. Which is to say, what goods are present, not what goods are made there.

The presence of Lo-pop worlds with a TL above 3 argues that manufacturing is not the key definition of TL.

 

[aramis]

Sorry, Anthony, but TL is pretty clearly, in Traveller rules, a hybrid of both common goods AND manufacturing capability. See also book 7, where goods are ID'd by the TL of the system of origin...

See TTA, where a TL4 world has plenty of TL5 filter masks and TL 10 Explosives... ... but the locals still farm by hand, and use steam locomotives... (Psaydi) One of several examples.

As for useful? I find it just as useful, perhaps more so, to know what the locals can make, and figure they can buy anthing within a single jump, if they can scrape the credits up.

The best bit, though, is that I can use the maps for more than just "Where do we go" that way.

(Mind you, if trade flowed like GTFT implies, Every world should have access to TL15 goods all the time... and thus TL for anything OTHER than local manufacture would be irrelevant.)

By definitions in various rulesets, we know that any world with an A port has the ability to maintain and repair TL9 ships, no matter what the local TL is (it's possible to get it down to a 6...), simply because they can repair Jump Drives.

TL of production in a low-flow trade setting is likely to be at or close to (±1TL) the common TL of the general populace...

In a high flow, they are likely to be the TL of the nearest Hi-Pop Ind world...

 

[flykiller]

For 'tech level' to be a useful term, it has to mean 'something that usefully describes what technology people visiting the world will encounter'. Which is to say, what goods are present, not what goods are made there.

if one understands it this way then for example one must describe antarctica as being tech level 8. this seems less useful than describing it as tech level 0.

The presence of Lo-pop worlds with a TL above 3 argues that manufacturing is not the key definition of TL.

it does, but poorly. a better argument (or rationalization, if you prefer) is that citizenship on such worlds is restricted to an oligarchy, while everyone else is defined as a temporary guestworker or as chattel and not part of the world's population. modern kuwait is a good example of such a situation.

 

[Anthony]

if one understands it this way then for example one must describe antarctica as being tech level 8. this seems less useful than describing it as tech level 0.

Antarctica is clearly TL 8. If you grabbed Antarctica and turned it into a world, it would be a pop-1 world with a TL of 8, not a pop-1 world with a TL of 0.

 

[flykiller]

Antarctica is clearly TL 8. If you grabbed Antarctica and turned it into a world, it would be a pop-1 world with a TL of 8, not a pop-1 world with a TL of 0.

approaching it this way leads to some strange situations. for example consider retinae, population 9 tech level 5. if major imperial navy fleet elements arrive and set up a base is the planet now tech 15? equivilant to glisten or rhylanor?

 

[Spinward Scout]

So if it's local population only that affects TL, then what do you do about Colonists that emigrate who bring their own supplies?

I think we're using a Balkanized world (Earth) and should look at government as well.

To me, it seems that the Imperium would try to set up a basic technical infrastructure at least for schooling - you don't want those Navy recruits to all be Barbarians. On the other hand, the Army is always looking for a few good Grunts.

 

[Straybow]

If colonists bring supplies that isn't the same as bringing manufacturing capacity. Yes, they have TLxyz stuff, but they can't manufacture Air/rafts to sell to the indigenous TL3 farmers. If you land there and your a/r breaks down, they can't fix it even though they have dozens of a/r in service. They can only do routine maintenance with the parts they have in stock.

 

[Anthony]

approaching it this way leads to some strange situations. for example consider retinae, population 9 tech level 5. if major imperial navy fleet elements arrive and set up a base is the planet now tech 15? equivilant to glisten or rhylanor?

If the Imperium imports 9 billion fleet personnel, sure. Otherwise, it winds up as a mixed-TL planet, with a high-tech enclave. The IN enclave is certainly TL 15.

 

[Spinward Scout]

If colonists bring supplies that isn't the same as bringing manufacturing capacity. Yes, they have TLxyz stuff, but they can't manufacture Air/rafts to sell to the indigenous TL3 farmers. If you land there and your a/r breaks down, they can't fix it even though they have dozens of a/r in service. They can only do routine maintenance with the parts they have in stock.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court comes to mind.

If the TL1 population doesn't know how to make firearms, but you brought the technology and knowledge with you, if you take over the world, does it then become TL4 or 5? Or are you just considered a Wizard and burned at the stake? hehe

One cargo hold full of equipment to make firearms would pretty much render any TL1 opposition nullified. (Or 10 tons of FCMPs. And a squad or two of Mercs.) You could then uplift the TL using knowledge from the Library Data. Start an industrial revolution if you had enough equipment to make MORE equipment. I figure all it would take is one Subsidized Merchant with a hold full of the right equipment and personel on a very low tech world to be able to take over and do whatever you want - maybe not raise it to TL15, but still...

How long would it take for TL15 equipment to wear out?

 

[Anthony]

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court comes to mind.

If the TL1 population doesn't know how to make firearms, but you brought the technology and knowledge with you, if you take over the world, does it then become TL4 or 5? Or are you just considered a Wizard and burned at the stake?

If you take over the world, you probably did it by upgrading the TL, so it's probably become TL 4-5. If you get burned at the stake, it probably remains TL 1. There's a limit to how fast you can bootstrap your industrial base up, however, and getting past TL 5-ish is probably the work of generations even with extremely thorough data.

 

[aramis]

rules for that are in TNE's World Tamer's Handbook. I can't find mine to check them at the moment, Scout, but given the overhaul rules, major equipment should last some 40+ years, and setting up an industrial base will fill about 3 Type R's, if I recall correctly.

 

[whartung]

Actually, having a disaparity between the lower tech levels and the higher tech levels isn't interesting. Industrializing the Amazon and Africa is a real trick, for all sorts of reasons.

Getting from TL-4 up to TL-10+ is quite the leap (and it will be a leap, you don't iterate your way through the TLs to advance, you just flat out jump), and the High TL civilizations may have little need for the lower TL ones, so there's not a lot of trade at all, particularly not on a large scale. A single air raft on a planet does not a TL make.

But you really need to puzzle when you see a TL-12 a parsec away from a TL-15. The differences between the too both technologically, and, most likely, culturally, are really quite slim and you'd think that a TL-12 world would "upgrade" as soon as practical.

Part of this is overcoming the momentum of in place infrastructure. How long did we continue to use steam locomotives in the U.S. before they were completely replaced in commercial use by diesel electrics. That wasn't a technology problem so much (in some cases it was), but, rather an infrastructure and capital problem.

But you could bring a TL-12 population up to TL-15 in probably 15-20 years if you made a concerted effort, and you certainly wouldn't need to hit -13 and -14 on the way. How many modern dealership mechanics have worked professionally on a carbureted car today? Fewer and fewer every year I would imagine.

You can take someone with no knowledge of the internal combustion engine or computers and train them to repair a modern EFI engine.

Engineering is a different problem, but even that wouldn't take that long. How many electrical engineers create tube circuits today? Hell, how many create ANALOG circuits today? How many even use discrete components instead of going straight to an FPGA for logic today? And that's happened only in the past 10 years or so.

3rd world communities are forgoing classic land line phone service today to ubiquitous cell service simply because it's cheaper to build and maintain. No "Ringy Dingy" for these people. It's rings tones and SMS.

Agrarian societies don't raise as quickly. But industrial ones do. That's why folks want industry, local industry, as it tends to be a great enabler.

If fusion power is as prevalent and low maintenance as it seems to be, then that's the life blood for any low tech world. That's the boot strap. A single Free Trader produces 150MW, and that can power almost 100K modern U.S. homes. Bring along a bunch of shovels, a WHOLE lot of power line, and some water processing plants, and civilization is on its way. The rest is just labor and training. A low tech planet can go from TL-1 to TL-15 in 100 years, and most of that is simply generational and social engineering, getting folks to advance. Old dogs, new tricks, etc.

So, I think TL's should advance in leaps and bounds.

 

[flykiller]

Bring along a bunch of shovels, a WHOLE lot of power line, and some water processing plants, and civilization is on its way.

tech == civilization?

The rest is just labor and training. A low tech planet can go from TL-1 to TL-15 in 100 years, and most of that is simply generational and social engineering, getting folks to advance. Old dogs, new tricks, etc.

well that's a whole lot of old dog and new trick, and when our ancestors plodded through it one tech level at a time it was not simple. new ideas of freedom and government brought on thousands of years of warfare. the first steps of industrialization brought on hundreds of years of social upheaval. industrialized warfare brings on casualties numbered in the millions. we have yet to see if the western nations will survive the introduction of birth control and womens' rights, and if we gain the ability to manipulate our DNA and brain chemistry then who knows in what form anything we recognize as human will remain.

"... simply ... getting folks to advance"? doesn't happen overnight, especially if they don't see a need for it.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Several issues comparing how we are advancing to how it would probably work in Traveller.
1. We advance slowly but we are doing it on our own.
2. We don't have the advanced tech to learn from.
3. We don't have the teachers to instruct us in the use of the higher tech items.

In Traveller all of these things exist. In fact there are very serious reasons that other systems would want to uplift a neighboring system. After all if the next system is more than 5 tech levels lower than yours there isn't much market for your goods. And if your system is more than 5 tech levels below your neighbor's then you don't have a market for your goods either.

 

[atpollard]

"... simply ... getting folks to advance"? doesn't happen overnight, especially if they don't see a need for it.

Who could say no to an IPOD or a PDA?

 

[far-trader]

Well our own history is replete with well meaning (and not so well meaning) advanced civilizations trying to uplift the backward primitives ending in nothing but destruction BTL I see no reason to presume that it would be any different in a Traveller setting of disparate tech levels.

In fact it may be harder as there's a good chance those "backwards" societies are that way for a very good reason, very personal reasons maybe. I figure the game is set up to produce the results and it's up to us to play it that way and work out reasons why, not try to "correct" the problem. Unless you want to of course, but then you're in for a lot more work for the ultimate YTU. More work is more rewards of course and I'm not saying it wouldn't be Traveller, just not Traveller as we know it

 

[BetterThanLife]

Well our own history is replete with well meaning (and not so well meaning) advanced civilizations trying to uplift the backward primitives ending in nothing but destruction BTL I see no reason to presume that it would be any different in a Traveller setting of disparate tech levels.

In fact it may be harder as there's a good chance those "backwards" societies are that way for a very good reason, very personal reasons maybe. I figure the game is set up to produce the results and it's up to us to play it that way and work out reasons why, not try to "correct" the problem. Unless you want to of course, but then you're in for a lot more work for the ultimate YTU. More work is more rewards of course and I'm not saying it wouldn't be Traveller, just not Traveller as we know it

I think we all know that the reason there is such a disparity of Tech Levels. Each system is randomly determined in isolation. There is nothing but coincidence linking the way any two systems on any of the maps in the OTU are related. There is no big plan. Though there are plans involved with some of the distribution of the systems, interstellar borders and X-Boat routes, the individual systems are obviously the product of the Traveller random system generation.

 

[flykiller]

3. We don't have the teachers to instruct us in the use of the higher tech items.

learning how to use it is not an issue. using it is. a culture adapted over ten thousand years to living one way, when suddenly presented overnight not only with the ability to override and bypass every limitation but also to do things it never before conceived, will not respond well.