CT Only: Looking Up The Line

[Supplement Four]

I'm reading Asimov's Foundation and Empire, and there's an early scene where a personal shield is being discussed. At the current tech level, this item--a belt--is basically magic. The power source at the current tech would be huge. Here, the power source is the size of a walnut that fits on the belt.

And, when the walnut is examined, it is solid state. It looks like a solid piece of metal. The tech is so far beyond current tech that it is almost like magic.

And, this made me think about Traveller.

Do we play the differences in TL as strongly as we should?

What Traveller TL distance would duplicate the above? In the scenes above, the tech level is still somewhat high. They have space ships. But, they don't have personal force fields. So, in Traveller, could that scene take place between a level 15 world looking at Darrian TL 16 stuff? Or a TL 13 world looking at TL 16?

Thoughts?

 

[GypsyComet]

Do we play the differences in TL as strongly as we should?

In a setting like the Imperium, when TL is as much an infrastructure index as it is a discovery tracker, we're probably about right.

In a more diffuse setting, even as close by as Crucis Margin or Fulani in Charted Space, the swing toward discovery index is strong, and a TL difference of 3 or more could easily invoke Clarke's Third Law.

 

[Fovean]

Tech has to travel pretty darn far to find an untouched world in the Trav universe. With the whole “trade is the lifeblood of the Imperium” meme as well as various military forces, megacorps and free traders running all over the place, it’s not magic so much as it is unaffordable or unsustainable. Even Ancient discoveries aren’t so awe-inspiring as to feel magical, they just need to be puzzled out.

Charted Space needs serious alien artifacts or fearsome new visitors with serious new tech to evoke an “it’s magic” response IMO.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

BB-8's mobility is magic to some, even though it is our own tech level. Or is it a higher one, if thinking movieland-wise?

 

[GypsyComet]

Even Ancient discoveries aren’t so awe-inspiring as to feel magical, they just need to be puzzled out.

Part of that is the RPG interface, and part of it is that the Imperium sits at the edge of magic itself. Just past TL15 is basically Singularity level stuff as far as a TL11 person is concerned; inventions a TL11 wouldn't even understand the need for, much less the basics of. Rules that empires have lived by for ten thousand years don't just give way like the gradual climb of Jump range, they simply vanish. The Third Imperium citizen *knows this*, so even objects seven or twelve TL out are just another puzzle.

It should be noted, though, that discovering which button to push is not the same as knowing how the button was made.

 

[Fovean]

It should be noted, though, that discovering which button to push is not the same as knowing how the button was made.

True, and pushing the wrong button could have any number of catastrophic consequences.

 

[GypsyComet]

pushing the wrong button could have any number of catastrophic consequences.

A classic example being the Star Trek Animated episode "The Slaver Weapon" and its Niven's Known Space version, "The Soft Weapon".