Ageing by Tech Level

[mike wightman]

Subsector dukes are at the least billionaires, affording anagathics is trivial.

What is absent from Traveller are other rejuvenation and age reversal medical technologies common in sci fi and getting closer in the real world.

 

[kilemall]

Given 2030 is only 7 years away, and there are no cures for may age related illnesses even now, that view seems optimistic even if otherwise correct.
The immortality view is covered by the use of anagathics. The rules for anagathics cost vary considerably across traveller and would usually bankrupt all after a term or two. Even Nobles can't afford this technology (with one of the Mongoose versions combined with one of their Career books being the only exception).

Also, I read an interesting article today that suggests that the career chosen should determine if you age faster than "normal". Being a travelling entertainer is (apparently) bad for longevity. Such individuals would (to meet the aging rates cited) need to gather a DM of between -1.5 and -2 per term served!

What anagathics is Keith Richards using?

 

[whartung]

What anagathics is Keith Richards using?

Cigarettes and alcohol. The secret is that he started using them before the were bad for you, so you can't start now and get the same effects.

 

[Condottiere]

3 likely reasons the world’s oldest person lived to 122

1. She was wealthy
Calment benefitted from “growing up in a bourgeois family in the south of France, so she was living in a nice neighborhood,” says Robine.

This allowed her to go to school until the age of 16, which was not very common for women during that time period, he adds. She also went on to receive private classes in cuisine, art and dance until she got married at 20 years old.

Another factor that likely helped her live longer, and stress less, was that “she never worked,” says Robine.

“She always had someone at home to help her,” and didn’t have to cook for herself or even shop for her necessities.

2. She didn’t smoke cigarettes until much later in life
Until marriage, Calment was not allowed to smoke, says Robine. “We have to remember where we were, at the end of the nineteenth century in a little town in the South of France,” he says.

“Of course it was absolutely forbidden, and impossible, for a girl, and specifically in a bourgeois family, to do that.”

Yet just after getting married, Calment’s husband offered her a cigarette. And though she was extremely happy to do something that she wasn’t allowed to do before, “when she was smoking for the first time, she did not find it nice, and she quit smoking.”

Interestingly enough, Calment didn’t smoke for most of her life, but picked up the habit at around age 112 while living in a nursing home.

3. She had a great social life
With so much free time, Calment had “absolutely nothing to do except to take care of [herself], to visit France and have social activities,” says Robine.

She spent most of her time attending social events and meeting new people, especially because “people were organizing balls at home.”

With her husband, she was also able to travel often and go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, which was under construction at the time. “She was discovering this fascinating world at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century.”

“Even if she [died] at the age of 119, it would have been exceptional, and it would have been the same with 120,” says Robine. “But she [lived] to 122 and a few more days.”

The world's oldest person made it to 122—3 reasons she lived so long, from a longevity expert who knew her

Jeanne Calment is the world's oldest person on record, and she lived to age 122. Here's what a longevity expert says about why she was able to live so long.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Given 2030 is only 7 years away, and there are no cures for may age related illnesses even now, that view seems optimistic even if otherwise correct.
The immortality view is covered by the use of anagathics. The rules for anagathics cost vary considerably across traveller and would usually bankrupt all after a term or two. Even Nobles can't afford this technology (with one of the Mongoose versions combined with one of their Career books being the only exception).

Also, I read an interesting article today that suggests that the career chosen should determine if you age faster than "normal". Being a travelling entertainer is (apparently) bad for longevity. Such individuals would (to meet the aging rates cited) need to gather a DM of between -1.5 and -2 per term served!

I think the argument is kids born in 2030 might be immortals... but, yeah. You got a point.

Traveller anagathics is expensive as can be. T5's "Relict" is less than kcr150 every 20 years or so. There's some ethical/philosphical/psychological questions about that being immortality or not.

I wholeheartedly endorse your comment about travelling entertainer: I spent 10 years as a consulting programmer, on the road about half the time. I think that aged me 15 years. Maybe the thing to do for rules would be to work it the opposite of the "don't age during cold sleep" thing: time spent in Profession X counts as bonus aging.

 

[Grav_Moped]

What anagathics is Keith Richards using?

Cigarettes and alcohol. The secret is that he started using them before the were bad for you, so you can't start now and get the same effects.

I sometimes just wonder what kind of world we're leaving for Keith Richards.

 

[Condottiere]

Despite of, not because of.

Environmentally, I would say that the majority of the planet will be exposed to pollutants.

Economically, it's unlikely treatments will be generally affordable, whether through actual or artificial pricing.

Sociologically, nihilistic hehaviour will lower average lifespan.

 

[kilemall]

I think the argument is kids born in 2030 might be immortals... but, yeah. You got a point.

Traveller anagathics is expensive as can be. T5's "Relict" is less than kcr150 every 20 years or so. There's some ethical/philosphical/psychological questions about that being immortality or not.

I wholeheartedly endorse your comment about travelling entertainer: I spent 10 years as a consulting programmer, on the road about half the time. I think that aged me 15 years. Maybe the thing to do for rules would be to work it the opposite of the "don't age during cold sleep" thing: time spent in Profession X counts as bonus aging.

Along those lines, career survival rolls should give a clue as to how much stress and damage may have piled up during terms.

Maybe an extra survival roll at the end of service, failing means rolling a round of aging even if technically the character isn’t old enough.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Along those lines, career survival rolls should give a clue as to how much stress and damage may have piled up during terms.

Maybe an extra survival roll at the end of service, failing means rolling a round of aging even if technically the character isn’t old enough.

Or just allow "stress aging" as an explanation for injury on failed survival rolls
"At this point, I realized the job was killing me and changed careers"

 

[Condottiere]

And then you have kidz.

 

[McPerth]

Remember in some versions of Traveller, Anagathics are not always effective, being more prone to fail the more you use them. I guess that's why there's no true immortality in OTU...

 

[infojunky]

I sometimes just wonder what kind of world we're leaving for Keith Richards.

And Willy Nelson.... Just sayin'

 

[Baroun Tardis]

And then you have kidz.

Having children is the most effective birth control there is
It's months before you have privacy and energy to have sex again.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

And Willy Nelson.... Just sayin'

And Dick Clark.. Or did he finally, after hosting 127 consecutive "Rockin in the New Year" specials pass away?

 

[Grav_Moped]

And Dick Clark.. Or did he finally, after hosting 127 consecutive "Rockin in the New Year" specials pass away?

Regrettably, he passed in 2012.