High Tech Low Tech Items

[JAFARR]

I posted something along this line before, but can't find it now so I'm asking again. Maybe I should have have said High tech materials ...

What brings this on is trying to write a book about building an American western era colony by a higher tech civilization. What 1850 to 1900 items could you make with today's (and higher) technology that would be invaluable by virtue of lasting almost forever? I have a couple ideas, but I would like to hear yours.

1. Firearms (I work in a pawn shop. We get lots of black powder fire arms that would have worth more than their weight in gold back in the Civil War era.) Add knives, hand tools, and composite bows (not compound bows with all the moving parts to break) to the list also. Add fiberglass handles for tools.

2. Simpler steam engines (like the kinds I was informed about in the Navy), but not the turbine types in use today.

3. Water wheels to produce hydro power.

4. My wife says cast aluminum cooking pans and maybe some of the newer coated types.

What else?

 

[flykiller]

superior medicine, hygene, and nutrition.

drought-resistant and pest-resistant crops.

solar-powered equipment.

stainless steel.

superior education.

refrigeration.

communications.

superior entertainment.

 

[aramis]

The most important thing is germ theory... Lye soap is good enough for combatting transmission.

Sadly, the guys with the theory of germs proven conclusively enough to themselves were confederates...

 

[Brian Blank]

More durable fabrics and footwear and maybe more comfortable as well
Cold weather clothing would be lighter, and warmer , maybe waterproof as well.

Some building materials would be more durable . Better insulation

 

[Icosahedron]

Plastic.

Are you looking for things that could be made in a high tech society and then sold to the frontier colony along with adequate spares, or things that could be produced on site from imported know-how and/or raw materials?

 

[veltyen]

Of course I ride a Horselope. Had any luck breeding your ATV lately?

As already commented, really well made cookware and weaponry can last generations, but there is only one way to have something unbreakable.

Plant the colt 45 tree next to the ammo tree

 

[Golan2072]

The most important thing is germ theory... Lye soap is good enough for combatting transmission.

Alcohol would serve as a superb antiseptic, and 19th century technology is more than enough to produce high-concentration ethanol (i.e. very strong booze) that would kill germs quite effectively (and sometimes kill whoever drinks them as well ). Just washing hands and sterilizing equipment before and after surgery would reduce the number of combat fatalities dramatically.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Heck, high-quality steel would improve sterilization, as well. No pits for nasty stuff to hide in.

 

[atpollard]

A lot of modern chemistry could be performed at a lower TL.

Synthetic fibers (nylon rope)
Smokeless powder
metal ammo cartridge for breechloading weapons.

The biggest advantage would be high-tech alloy machine tools - allow the construction of better (everything else).

 

[deniable]

Tools to make more tools.
Stainless steel and high quality glassware.
Reference books.

Rather than guns and ammo you could use high tech bows. Arrows may be easier to fab locally.

Small testing / scanning units to test the local flora and fauna.

Long shelf life anti-biotics as well as soaps and detergents.

 

[mbrinkhues]

+ Anestetics aside from Chlorophorm and the gear to use them safely
+ Aspirin (Acetyl-Salicid Acid)
+ Sulphonamides and Penicillin
+ X-Ray Maschines (modern ones use far less power)

+ Actually steam turbines would work, the Turbinia ran around the Royal Navy in 1897 and was build three years before. They also make good power generators

+ Wireless Radio and the Telephone. The technology is there, even auto-dialing (relais-based) will work nicely

+ Madame Soixante Quinze is doable (she was borne 1897)

+ Dirigibel Airships

 

[JAFARR]

Thanks for the input. To clarify; what could be made at higher techs to equip colonists with equipment that would not wear out or would wear out very slowly so as to make it worthwhile to offset the cost of importing it. My thinking concerning projectile weapons is as someone mentioned, arrows could be made locally and black powder can be manufactured almost on the kitchen table. Make the guns out of stainless or some other corrosion resistant metals, make the stock and make bows out of composites for light weight and high durability. Compound bows are nice, but have all the little cams and bearings etc that wear out and break, requiring stocking of those consumables. Modern smokeless powders require more equipment to manufacture as well as things like cartridges and reloading dies to think about.

Someone mentioned clothing and that sort of thing. Nylon and velcro. Great!

I had an idea that if there was a way to get the pressure high enough high tech air rifles might work also, but I have never seen any mention of that sort of thing. Even if there is a way without electricity to operate an air compressor at that high a pressure, would the valving to operate such a weapon be to complex for it to be supported at the lower tech?

 

[veltyen]

I had an idea that if there was a way to get the pressure high enough high tech air rifles might work also, but I have never seen any mention of that sort of thing. Even if there is a way without electricity to operate an air compressor at that high a pressure, would the valving to operate such a weapon be to complex for it to be supported at the lower tech?

Um Yes. Air rifle designs from the late 1800's. Hand pumping works, it just takes longer (with a lower maximum pressure normally, but that depends on your pump apparatus).

http://www.beeman.com/history.htm

 

[JAFARR]

Small complex parts that require higher quality steam. Trust me on this one. I was a steam plant operator in the US Navy. They are great, but repairs require more than this tech level can supply. Colonys are not the Royal Navy.

"Skinner Uniflow" and tripple expansion steam engines are what this tech level can handle, but made of modern materials.

 

[Golan2072]

Use biogas (i.e. a mixture of methane produced from the anaerobic digestion of organic matter) instead of coal-gas for your gas-lamps. This has the advantage of being somewhat cleaner, locally producible from nearly anything organic (no need to mine coal; no need even to have coal deposits on planet), easy to produce (a third-world peasant could easily operate the typical digester) and using dirt-cheap equipment (digester prices are a few hundred US$ today at most; some designs are below 50 US$). It is also perfectly producible at TL4-5 (see this page). In an urban setting, you could produce it out of solid waste, which is a great thing for sanitation.

Also, use compost as an agricultural fertilizer; the technique of producing it from organic waste is easily doable at very low TLs, only the knowledge of how to make it effectively is a higher-tech invention (based on modern knowledge of microbiology). This is a locally-producible good substitute for chemical fertilizers which also washes more slowly through the soil; it is far more effective than traditional organic fertilizers (i.e. raw cow dung) due to its fermentation process.

And, of course, there are always the applications of modern knowledge of microbiology (and cultures of genetically engineered yeast and bacteria) to the alcoholic beverage industry...

 

[mbrinkhues]

A word on Blackpowder. There are two types:

a) The basic "mix these incrediences, pour into barrel, fire" powder from the early age of firearms

b) The more complex "mix, water, dry, mill" set from the second part of the blackpowder era.

You want Typ b) because it can be stored long-time, tailored for the task and gives a constant performance. Than add paper cartridges of the Dreye/Sharps/LeChauchat/Remington type (that are loaded like a cartridge instead on disassembled) and a sturdy lock (Sharps, Remington)

That way you get resonably gas-sealed, fast-firing guns with good effective ranges (200+m) that don't use metal cartridges that are actually complex to produce (Just ask Custer and the Brits at Isandlwana)

If you insist on metal cartridges use either a Mauser, Martini or Enfield lock as those are extremly rugged, easy (The Mauser-Lock goes back to the Dreyse-Rifle of 1848) and those locks work nicely (Mauser 1871) with black powder

 

[atpollard]

Small complex parts that require higher quality steam. Trust me on this one. I was a steam plant operator in the US Navy. They are great, but repairs require more than this tech level can supply. Colonies are not the Royal Navy.

Given your initial assumption of high TL manufacture of goods usable at low TL, how would you go about breaking a turbine made of "bonded armor" (collapsed atoms in a 'neutron star' dense matrix) with TL 4 resources?

I understand your point based on 'modern' technology in an archaic civilization, but some of the 'Traveller Tech' would be virtually indestructible.

 

[Captain Midnight]

Thanks for the input. To clarify; what could be made at higher techs to equip colonists with equipment that would not wear out or would wear out very slowly so as to make it worthwhile to offset the cost of importing it.

I guess it would depend on what sort of cost and general hassle you're looking at for importing. If there's going to be a Fat Trader stopping by every couple of weeks who can take orders in advance, and that won't have to go very far to get the items, then the additional cost for importing should be fairly low. However, if it's going to take eighteen months to get anything and costs will be multiplied by a factor of 100, that's a different story entirely. In this situation, would it be more economical to build something that has a mean time between failures that's measured in decades or centuries, or would it be cheaper to send resupply missions every 25 years?

Knowledge is going to be essential. Just because a world can't produce a given thing doesn't mean they don't know that it exists, or the principles behind it. For example, they'll know about radio, and about lighter-than-air craft, and about renewable energy sources. Can a TL 14-15 dirigible be made of material that essentially WON'T tear? How about an effectively-invulnerable boat hull? The MT rules talk about different materials for starship hulls, but we don't get a lot of information about the overall level of materials tech.

We also need to know about what might be needed -- mining tech? Farming equipment? Transportation? Personal weaponry? Heavy weapons? Life-support gear? What sort of environment are we talking about here? Will communications be needed? Will there be any high-tech gear available at all?

Even if there is a way without electricity to operate an air compressor at that high a pressure, would the valving to operate such a weapon be to complex for it to be supported at the lower tech?

Why wouldn't they have electricity? They'd know about the industrial benefits and general niftiness of all the things electricity can do for them; with the knowledge of what is possible, a lot can be done within the possibilities of the technological base of the time.

 

[veltyen]

It may be an idea to extrapolate from modern day societies that do not have an industrial base (and hence could be considered to have a very low TL) but are isolated for whatever reason. I am thinking more military blockade, rather then just distance, but both have some lessons that could be learned.

Smuggling has the high cost/infrequent occasion effect similar to what you I think you are aiming for.

The first example I can think of is the Bougainville blockade. After ten years of enforced isolation due to military sanction the blockaded natives still had working vehicles, power generation and electrical lighting, and were continuing to fend off the far better equipped Papuan troops (who had helicopter support, against a resistance that started out using slingshots).

The second is Amundsen-Scott Base in antarctica back when it was originally manned. Currently daily flights make the comparrison less useful, but when it was only resupplied a couple of times each summer it might be able to tell us about more harsh environment colonies.

 

[JAFARR]

Atpollard & Captain Midnight,

Thanks for your input. More clarification. I envision a company (mega-corp or slightly smaller obtaining rights to colonize a system in some spacial backwater. No known sentient beings. Possibility of illegal activity by persons unknown that leads to small scale combat like high tech rustlers or poachers. These would be the only human adversaries. Others would possibly be animals, or the world itself. Maybe like hurricanes etc.

I had not thought of steam/gas turbines made of that high tech materials. What damages modern day turbines? Water that has not completely boiled but is carried by the steam, foreign materials in the steam, etc. Also note that even a very minor damage can throw the turbine rotor out of balance which if the speeds are high enough, might result in in metal to metal contact of parts not designed to make contact.

As far as electricity goes, no infrastructure built for it yet. Possibilty of some small hydro-electric plants or even using a near worn out space ship near a water supply as a power generating station. Have not fully decided those details yet.