CotI Project: Technologies

[Peter Schutze]

>If they could make steel, they clearly had the metallurgy.

and thats exactly why we went straight from (cross)bows to the m16 rifle and 155mm howitzer skipping about 400 years of musketry and cannon foundry development !

gunpowder weapon development was as much a matter of metallurgy (steel quality) as casting skill.

even simple low pressure water(steam) tight tubing in steel is a long way from basic flat steel products.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Yes, I remember Sparta was never noted for its achievements other than military ones because of its slave economy.

and yet Athens is noted for everything but (ground) military skills despite being a slave economy just like all its neighbours. Sparta's difference was that 'people' didnt focus on anything except the political/military. The middle tier (not slaves but not spartan citizens) were usually not important enough to record.

It escapes people's attention that "people" usually equated to citizen ie "not slave" . Sparta's society had a middle tier who were not spartans (citizens) but also not slaves.

 

[pendragonman]

>If they could make steel, they clearly had the metallurgy.

and thats exactly why we went straight from (cross)bows to the m16 rifle and 155mm howitzer skipping about 400 years of musketry and cannon foundry development !

gunpowder weapon development was as much a matter of metallurgy (steel quality) as casting skill.

even simple low pressure water(steam) tight tubing in steel is a long way from basic flat steel products.

Herr Schultze, you missed the rest of the post. All of the technologies you pointed out took industrialization, not better metallurgy, to create. It takes a metal lathe to make a musket barrel, let alone a howitzer barrel. Lathes have nothing to do with the metallurgy.

Gunpowder weapon development had to do with the volume of high quality steel created, not the creation of high quality steel itself. A product of industrialization, the Bessemer process, allowed the necessary increased steel for howitzers.

 

[pendragonman]

I would still contend that without the ability to record and disseminate knowledge, and without a number of scientific and engineering areas pervading the culture itself, they could not have done it.

I suggest rather than the inability to disseminate the knowledge, the Greeks and Romans were far more interested in spreading other ideas instead. After all, we still have copies of Homer, Sappho, Catulus, Cicero, Plato, and many others.

It seems to me they preferred to spread philosophy, religion, politics, history, and popular literature to engineering principles.

If the Romans had ever done it, it may well have been literally one engine, made by one guy, and it sucked, and then he died, and nobody knew how the heck it worked, and so they turned it into chariot wheels or plates for the kitchen.

Actually, the first steam engine was a Greek invention. It was used, in several forms, to create "miracles" and other wonders for the Temples. Examples include the singing bird mechanism in Alexandria, the soap and water dispenser (put in a coin, a ball of soap and a premeasured amount of water are dispensed to clean your hands before entering the Temple) and of course the spinning ball engine itself.

In fact, around 1000 AD (IIRC) the Muslims made a huge mechanical clock that had several robotic features, which kept time quite well. This was strictly a water operated mechanism though (not steam).

 

[Tysis]

I suggest rather than the inability to disseminate the knowledge, the Greeks and Romans were far more interested in spreading other ideas instead. After all, we still have copies of Homer, Sappho, Catulus, Cicero, Plato, and many others.

It seems to me they preferred to spread philosophy, religion, politics, history, and popular literature to engineering principles.



Actually, the first steam engine was a Greek invention. It was used, in several forms, to create "miracles" and other wonders for the Temples. Examples include the singing bird mechanism in Alexandria, the soap and water dispenser (put in a coin, a ball of soap and a premeasured amount of water are dispensed to clean your hands before entering the Temple) and of course the spinning ball engine itself.

In fact, around 1000 AD (IIRC) the Muslims made a huge mechanical clock that had several robotic features, which kept time quite well. This was strictly a water operated mechanism though (not steam).

You are thinking about Heron of Alexandria. This guy was brilliant on the order or Einstein (maybe smarter). The “steam cup” he invented was not practical but it was obvious from his other inventions (such as lighting a brazier that opened temple doors) that he understood pistons, steam, mechanics and such.

That steam cup was a piston away from becoming a steam engine. Not sure when this was but Heron was born around 60 to 75 AD (I have seen a couple of dates from different sources).

Heron may not have made the connection, or may have been limited by the technology of the time (materials, machining, etc).

Steam engines appeared later (I think the first one was a water pump), but if memory serves the first commercial engine appeared in the 1700s. That roughly 1600 years after Heron. We could have seen the industrial revolution centuries earlier.

 

[atpollard]

Unless TL 1 is more like the Germanic Tribes of AD 200 than Rome of AD 200.
Are TL 1, Pop 7 worlds that common in Traveller?

How many large villages (able to make a sword) coud build a Steam Engine?

 

[Thunderbolt]

Heron may not have made the connection, or may have been limited by the technology of the time (materials, machining, etc).

Steam engines appeared later (I think the first one was a water pump), but if memory serves the first commercial engine appeared in the 1700s. That roughly 1600 years after Heron. We could have seen the industrial revolution centuries earlier.

This is where the lack of an industrial base comes in, along with the lack of communications and the printed word. He was one guy, clearly ahead of his time. How would his invention be improved upon, who else in the 'known world' could have known about and applied the principles he had worked on. How could those theoretical and practical principles be documented and explained so that others could verify and go further, where was the infrastructure to manufacture replicas to an acceptable degree of tolerance and reliability or the communication system and knowledge base to interpret the steps.

I would venture to suggest that any push by the Romans to build railways would have been the Manhattan Project of the era, a huge investment in manufacturing technology, mass production techniques, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, mining, education, communications and organisation of manpower. I would also venture that they did not have an economy big enough measured in terms of money or energy consumption to do it either, they would likely have failed and bankrupted themselves at the same time.

Remember, we are comparing a muscle / animal powered culture that operated in a world defined by the size of the Mediteranean, with one that was circumnavigating the globe in the full flood of a scientific and technical Rennaissance, coupled with nascent industrialisation - how could the Romans have made a jump like that?

 

[Tysis]

Thunderbolt,

You point out something I never thought about; the printing press. If memory serves it was in the 1400s, but books were still a bit of a luxury. At least some of Herons work was lost for a time (until the 1800s); you can imagine how rare distributed writings were.

I do agree with your comments on infrastructure. I imagine the bulk of our technical limitations come from our tools. Modern machines for example require tolerances that would probably be imposable to do by hand. Machines such as odometers could be made by hand, but imagine the labor. I believe it was Archimedes that made the first odometer so the Romans could place mile markers.

Clock work mechanisms, such as the Antikythera mechanism where possible but would have been difficult to make. This would make them very impractical.

Ideas such as interchangeable parts and the assembly line seem so simple in retrospect. I would not be surprised that if they had not been tried before.

 

[aramis]

Thr printing press was in use at TL2, maybe even TL1 in china, before 200CE, using woodblock relief.

Had it made the crossing, it could have revolutionized Rome. Combine roman cement and chinese printing....

 

[Thunderbolt]

Here's another angle to ponder that you can have lots of fun with...

What if key setbacks had not occurred, say for example, the Roman Empire had not fallen to the Vandals / Goth hordes etc, no Dark Ages perhaps?

What if the Black Death hadn't happened?

Bringing it closer to the present, knowing that war is a key technology driver, imagine if World War I hadn't happened, and by extension, no Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler through to WWII.

I seem to remember a fiction book recently about a Roman Empire in the twentieth century, right down to crucifictions (presumably on TV).

Given the serendipity that can often accompany a discovery, there's no inevitability about certain technologies occurring at Traveller tech levels, although once interstellar contact takes place, you imagine any final kinks would get ironed out through trade.

 

[Icosahedron]

I, for one, was not suggesting that the Romans would suddenly up and build a railroad from Carlisle to Cairo, bankrupting their TL1 society, but simply stating that if the 1st Century Romans had taken up the existing knowledge of steam and adapted it to industrial and civil engineering projects instead of allowing it to languish as a curiosity, then related inventions would have followed as necessity sired them, the population would have grown, and there was no need for a thousand year delay before the Industrial Revolution. I don't see any reason why the IR could not have occured prior to 400AD, except that the Romans couldn't see how steam power held an advantage over slave labour.

 

[rust]

... except that the Romans couldn't see how steam power held an advantage over slave labour.

I think there simply was no such advantage. Machines usually were developed
and introduced when manual labor became unavailable, too expensive or too
inhumane or dangerous. To the Romans, slaves were available and inexpensi-
ve, and working under inhumane and dangerous conditions was their fate and
job. So, there simply was no incentive to introduce machines for tasks that
could just as well be done by slaves.
Besides, what would have become of the slaves ?

 

[Anthelios]

Energy and Tech

The Kardashev scale might be a good place to look for higher technology levels, though it is theoretical it is a pretty straightforward way to judge technology levels independently of events/flukes or nature and even species.

According to your current list of TL, TL16 would probably put us into a Type I civilization. A technology to produce or capture large amounts of antimatter cheaply allows us to produce an amount of energy equal to what is available on a single planet.

Because of the size of the Kardashev scale, TL18 or 19 could represent the ability to produce mass Dyson spheres to harness solar power, and the ability to collapse stars artificially to harness the power. Such technology would probably have to include extra-dimensional energy storage.

Type III would probably be in the TL300 range, as my puny human mind cannot comprehend being able to harness the power of an entire galaxy.

I also have some inventions for your ages.. Now, I am not a physicist, physics are just a hobby, so I'm sure my science is wrong in some of this! Feel free to correct.

Also my view tends to be very transhumanist/technological singularity, as you can see from my inventions here. I feel we will eventually self-evolve beyond the physical and begin converting matter/energy into usable forms for increased galactic computing. >.>

11 Fusion Age (2040-2070) Discovery of reliable and economical fusion power systems. - Research into magnetic and gravitation research allows the creation of controlled fusion engines, which create controllable sustained fusion and tap into the available power. The engines use high gravity and magnetic force to maintain the "explosion" and produce helium and nickle byproduct, like small stars.

Computers - Fiber optic and light based computing replaces electrical computer circuitry. Computing and communication speeds increase to just below light speed.

12 Solar Era (2070-2097) Expansion into the local planetary system. Discoveries in physics unlock the secrets of gravity and mass. The First Gravity Generator is constructed, with allows the radical alteration of relative mass and gravity, allowing for the creation of gravity wells and hills, allowing for quicker transportation and reducing fuel consumption for space ships. The first anti-gravity fields are created.

Computers - With a finer control of mass and gravity, fine crystal structures are created for data storage. These crystals are manipulated by small changes in their structure when exposed to light. They replace other forms of media for data storage, with near limitless space and speed of access.

13 Diaspora or Colonial Era (2098+) The discovery of the means to reach extra-solar planets within the lifetime of the crew begins an exodus of the race from their homeworld out into the vast galaxy itself. - Advances during the previous era grant understanding of nuclear force. At TL13 a group of worldwide scientists develop a device that can weaken nuclear force. With a controllable source of low nuclear force hydrogen, cold fusion becomes possible. Energy output of fusion devices becomes substantially higher.

Travel - With increased fusion output and the ability to reduce relative mass, the race is able to travel near the speed of light. Travel between stars takes years, instead of lifetimes.

Computing - Photon plasma manipulation creates holographic matter. This matter is still "soft" (breaks apart from touch) but is fully visible. Virtual Intelligence is born, subroutines deciding what responses a computer can make.

Medicine - Increases in computing power and understanding of the body allow the race to begin to advance the speed of it's own evolution through genetic modification.

14 Interstellar Era: The race is firmly established on multiple extra-solar planets and has developed a viable form of cooperation, trade and governance between these worlds. - Discoveries into the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy allow its manipulation. Such energy fields allow the speed of light to be broken, as the universal constant is removed from the artificial gravity drives.

Travel - Channels of space are made faster than light, allowing travel between stars in weeks instead of years.

Computers - Photon based holograms must be maintained but can function like "real" matter. Science begins to advance faster as simulations of theoretical sciences can be tested more readily. A. I. computing begins to replace the V. I. as discovers are made that allow the A. I. to create its own subroutines through trial and error.

Medicine - Photon Holograms are used to perform microscopic surgery and gene manipulation in real time. Injury becomes a temporary setback.

15 Age of Empires: Local space is dominated by large empires and alliances spanning thousands of worlds and star systems.

Computers - Photon holographic matter replaces the standard processor, self-propagating computations causing changes in matter state are faster than light. A I programming begins to advance beyond control as photon processors allow a program to self-improve through its own "imagination".

16 Antimatter Age: Using a combination of Dark Energy acceleration, heavy gravity, and photon holographic hydrogen researchers create highly cost effective anti-matter reactors. Using the near limitless photons as fuel, the antimatter power plant soon replaces all other forms of power generation.

Computing - A. I. systems continue to advance, the race begins to "download" their weak and dying into similar photon matrix systems - thus allowing their continued existence.

Medicine - Cloning of new bodies becomes extremely cost effective, and with photon holographic manipulation of neural tissue the exact brain patterns of a person can be "reinstalled" in a clone.

17 Age of Transformation: The combination of antimatter and alteration of nuclear force allow for the creation and manipulation of atomic matter. Life can be accelerated or slowed. Self-replicating changes in matter are released on worlds, altering the makeup of planets and allowing for easy terraformation.

Medicine / Computer - Genetic modification and technological modification begin to merge into one path, as A. I. sentience is indistinguishable from basic intelligence.

 

[fiat_knox]

Medic Article

I'm about to make a few medical suggestions but I've noticed a 900 year gap between TL3 & TL4.

May I recommend my article Medic! in Mongoose Publishing's Signs & Portents Magazine? Part 1 might be of particular interest to you here ...

Signs & Portents 63 with Part 1 of my article

Signs & Portents 64 with Part 2 of my article

 

[shadowdragon]

i think that 2 things, mostly overlooked here, had a significant effect on when advances in technologies across the board took place on earth:

1. the prosecution of inventors / suppression of inventions by the church
2. the loss of the libraries at Alexandria

if either of those, or better yet, both of those, had not happened i feel we would be considerably more advanced than we are now.

i apologize if any feel this is pushing the "no politics/religion" rules but honestly you cannot deny that these two events put a serious hurt on our advancement.

also, let us not fall into the trap of "they were primitive so they could not possibly have done X" thinking. too many hundreds and thousands of years have passed for us to definitively know what kind of ability any of the past civilizations had to accomplish anything. we can only guess by what little has passed down to us through time. and i feel many of those guesses are quite wrong, personally. How many dinosaurs have been fully illustrated and their probable mothering techniques discussed, when in fact the only proof we have they ever existed are a few ankle bones and a rib? how many inventions disappeared because a large organization was threatened in some way by the possibility it would catch on? stainless steel engine blocks and 400mpg carburetors come to mind......

oh- assembly line manufacturing is not a requirement for technological advancement at any level, its just one way to do it.

dont mind my rambles- have a day

 

[Thunderbolt]

oh- assembly line manufacturing is not a requirement for technological advancement at any level, its just one way to do it.

Although without it, technology cannot become pervasive and cheap, and if everything was a boutique constructed item, where would the revenues come from to fund further development.

 

[aramis]

Development comes from the ability to modify.

Mass production actually stifles innovation; Ford didn't retool bodies until the old ones were no longer adequate, rather than no longer good.

15 years of Dodges with fins.

20 years of nearly interchangable Ford Caprices.

Certain fields, computers especially, can be built in boutiques (at frightful costs per chip), and essentially the development cycle is (very roughly) draw, print, test, repeat until a release is demanded, then send the curent drawings to production. Mass production reduces the demand for, and willingness to, experiment with both incompatible processors and new architectures.

 

[rancke]

I don't understand how I missed this thread the first time around, seeing as its one of my own hobby-horses.

At one point I tried making a list of what I had to call 'tool levels' (I would have liked a term that didn't abbreviate to 'tl'). Tl0 was anything someone with the requisite knowledge and access to an adequate supply of material (materials that could be collected without any special tools were also tl0)could make by himself. TlX+1 was anything you needed a tlX tool or material to create/collect.

My idea was that when these tool levels had been defined, one could lump 1them together as appropriate to correspond to various tech level schemes (Traveller TL, GURPS TL, GURPS Traveller TL, etc.), but I never got further than the tl0 list and a very incomplete tl1 list.

.


Hans

 

[Thunderbolt]

Mass production actually stifles innovation

Agreed.

I was thinking more that without some mass production, a culture could not claim to be a particular tech level if that technology was unaffordable and not generally available.

 

[aramis]

Agreed.

I was thinking more that without some mass production, a culture could not claim to be a particular tech level if that technology was unaffordable and not generally available.

That merely pushes it out from being the high common TL, but doesn't precude it from being within the overall TL.