MGT and MT

[zonk]

I certainly don't have a problem with this (as if Mongoose needed my permission) but I do wonder if the OTU can survive the upgrade. It's so obviously a middle sixties (late 50s?) SF background that ... well I don't know if you can incorporate nanotechnology, massive electronics changes into the game. 3D printers, for instance, would seem to be a major change. Why do you need trade in such a universe? Sell the programs yes, but once you can make your own... why import? And 3D printers can make themselves so production will increase. Of course the printers do require raw materials (or raw materials that have been processed) and wet nanotechnolgy also requires processed raw materials so there might well be a market for that but I would think in the mega or giga tonnage.

That's my experience also. When running an OTU game I find I have to constantly tell players, "well, according to the setting, you can't do that". And that's not good. Modern players have different expectations out of a sci fi setting than the OTU supplies.

It's no the basic precepts, which is neo-feudal politics, 1 week jump, and no FTL comms. They're easy to spell out. It's all the other stuff that came out of expressions of the rules, like house sized computers and 'no nanotech'. Since there is a very vocal minority of old timers that cannot abide changes from the CT era setting, it becomes difficult modernise or reform the Original Traveller Setting.

Personally, I think Mongoose should go ahead and update the OTU for modern expectations from its core market. It's already doing that somewhat in subtle ways by introducing new gear and functionality in the main books (magrails notwithstanding ), and given that (hopefully) a lot of new OTU material will come out of the Foreven license, it seems the Classic setting is getting the 'freeing up' it deserves.

 

[mike wightman]

All that is required to include nanotech in the OTU is a sidebar - like the one in GURPST - that explains nanotech is very much a background technology. It is used in manufacturing processes TL9+, the effects of the various drugs can be attributed to nano/biotech, etc.

As for room sized computers - stop thinking PC and start thinking of the supercomputer that is really needed to control the various systems on a ship (take a look at the computers on modern warships or in nuclear power stations).

 

[deniable]

All that is required to include nanotech in the OTU is a sidebar - like the one in GURPST - that explains nanotech is very much a background technology. It is used in manufacturing processes TL9+, the effects of the various drugs can be attributed to nano/biotech, etc.

My best example for this is modern games that don't deal with advancements like transistors or incandescent lights. It's almost like they take them for granted. Who knows what happens in a TL15 factory.

As for room sized computers - stop thinking PC and start thinking of the supercomputer that is really needed to control the various systems on a ship (take a look at the computers on modern warships or in nuclear power stations).

Industrial control systems come to mind. I saw a structural engineer have a problem with a 'computer' [1] for a ship loader that came in at 18 tons. [2] That was 1999, twenty two years after Traveller came out. Then again, we've had this discussion many times before, and probably will into the future.

[1] The whole thing was a small building, fully insulated and air-conditioned. It included the control systems as well as all of the supporting hardware and access space for maintenance.
[2] The machine had to be craned onto a ship and then onto a wharf. Weight management was an issue. The biggest lift was ~500 tons and the final weight was ~600.

 

[zonk]

All that is required to include nanotech in the OTU is a sidebar - like the one in GURPST - that explains nanotech is very much a background technology. It is used in manufacturing processes TL9+, the effects of the various drugs can be attributed to nano/biotech, etc.

As for room sized computers - stop thinking PC and start thinking of the supercomputer that is really needed to control the various systems on a ship (take a look at the computers on modern warships or in nuclear power stations).

I understand this but... at least to me those kind of changes would radically change the society. It would lead, IMO, to something like GURPS Transhuman space and really I don't like it. Sure, maybe that's where we are going but I don't have to like it and I don't want to game it.

Why, if Traveller has 3D printers and nanotech, does it have Free Traders? Or merchant shipping of any sort? Why are planets manufacturing technologies so different if 3D printers and nanotech are available. You no longer need a factory with lots of workers, or even all the factories that make the products so your factory can assemble them. The 3D printer just makes the whole thing and so does nanotech.

I can see shipment of gourmet foodstuffs and raw materials but what else would need to be shipped? Programs and new nanotech assemblers would take up a very small amount of space. A single 3D printer, with the appropriate programs, would replicate itself as many times as necessary.

This just seems to change the entire Traveller culture, at least to me. I suppose there is no reason for other character types (other than merchants) to be effected but it does, or should, change the background.

 

[Kharum1]

Can anyone say "Stargate"? The one with the replicators making it to earth. Chaos I tell you.

If the tech reached that level than you would have matter transporters, FTL comms, etc. You would not be playing Traveller anymore but Star Trek. I do have to say that the size of the computers would become smaller. With our ability to print smaller and smaller circuitboards and multi-level processesors now, it should not be far fetched to see a computer the size of a suitcase run an entire ship in say, I don't know, 1000 years

 

[GypsyComet]

The simple answer is that nanotech doesn't scale well as an industry. This may be due to immediate concerns of using it, or it may be a matter of it being a technology that keeps a lengthy up-stream technology requirement. If nanotech is still far from being self-replicating at TL15/16, the tools to build and replace it have to be handy anywhere it is going to be used. Any of those tools that have significant up-stream requirements will also need to have them present.

The scaling may also work the other direction. Enough nano to work on tons of raw material at once may be a hot enough process that it must be done in space, or is pretty much a guaranty to pothole the planetary crust.

Another factor could be that nano simply cannot do certain things. The absence of vastly longer lifespans in the TU is a clue here. Nano *might* be useful for short-term medical use, but is not up to long-term medical or sustained biological use. It can't make (or be made safe for) living beings for any great length of time. Foodstuffs are beyond it.

These add up to huge multi-tech facilities that do tiny jobs, can't do many jobs at all, and can't be well-loved by most population-serving governments.

As for the "but this is TL15!" argument, just keep in mind that nano may have a much longer prototype chain (the time or TL between discovery and practical application) than other technologies, AND we (RW Earth, that is) may well be ahead of the Traveller TL chart. Again. Also, MT had an artificial bias towards TL15, so it seemed far more common than it really is. TL12-13 is still the "Imperial Default". Add all the above factors together, and you get the cutting edge systems toying with nano as a still-not-quite-practical technology, while everyone else still does it the old-fashioned way.

 

[rust]

This may be due to immediate concerns of using it, or it may be a matter of it being a technology that keeps a lengthy up-stream technology requirement.

I have a little language problem here: What exactly does "up-stream techno-
logy" mean ?

Thank you very much for a short explanation !

 

[Renaissance Man]

I've said this before, but it seems to me that nanotechnology is implied by the existing OTU TL progression.

How do they make "crystaliron" for example? Perfect crystals are de facto nanotech; you can't have them without being able to manipulate matter at the molecular level. That could be with tiny robots or with sonic waves or whatever you think makes the most sense, but nanotech is staring you right in the face at TL 10.

 

[zonk]

I have a little language problem here: What exactly does "up-stream techno-logy" mean ?

Thank you very much for a short explanation !

I'm not GypsyComet but I think he means that nanotechnology requires preprocessing before the nanites can begin their assembling. That is what I believe is "wet" nano. The assemblers cannot disassemble matter and reassemble it. Instead it's a more limited nanotechnology. Assemblers can only assemble what they have been programmed to do and cannot be reprogrammed so you need a set of assemblers for each step of the construction. You need to supply those assembers with the proper raw materials (which may not be "raw" but instead already pre-processed ready for assembly) for the particular product they are assembling.

There is no possibility for nano "grey goo" with type of nanotechnology because the assemblers cannot disassemble matter. There may be assemblers who's job IS to disassemble types of matter, storing the different materials for a latter assembler to use. If so that would be part of the up-stream technology.

As [FONT=arial,helvetica]Renaissance Man said Traveller techonology implies nanotech of some sort. The more limited the better it fits, IMO, with Traveller's background. Nevertheless the economic system of Traveller really doesn't fit with nanotech or even 3D printers.

At least IMO

But, as I said before, I don't like gaming where such a society leads. Unless there is some social mechanism in the Imperium that prevents that. The ostracism of psionics and the prejudice against bionics, robots, and AI leads to some conclusions that there is such a mechanism in the body politic but our sources never explicitly state that.

Sorry. That wasn't short was it?
[/FONT]

 

[rust]

Sorry. That wasn't short was it?

It was perfect, I would not have understood a shorter one - Thank You !

I also would not like that kind of society, and in my setting I have restricted
cybertechnology, nanotechnology and some other problematic technologies
to the highest technology levels and the core worlds of the background uni-
verse only, in the frontier regions where my setting is located these techno-
logies are not normally available.

To give an example, there are 3D Printers in my setting, but the versions in
the frontier regions can only produce the most basic consumer goods of the
"cups and plates" kind, anything more complicated - like electronics - still
requires more conventional production facilities (although most of these are
automated, which already creates enough economic and social problems).

 

[robject]

Assuming I'm right about Mongoose then this reopens the debate about whether Traveller is the rules or the setting. For example, is playing a game with the Babylon5 setting and the MGT rules a game of Babylon 5 or a game of Traveller? Are people who play GT playing GURPS or Traveller?

To me, the game would "feel" like a house-ruled ATU, where "house rules" in this case means Mongoose's extensions supporting B5 assumptions.

 

[GypsyComet]

I have a little language problem here: What exactly does "up-stream techno-
logy" mean ?

Thank you very much for a short explanation !

Note that my discussion is specifically aimed at nano-machines (nanites, etc), not at remote nano-manipulation field tech (such as could account for crystaliron).

The advance of technology is a steady progression of tools that make other tools. If nano is the "last" tool in the chain, there are other tools that made the nano, and tools that made those tools, and so on. If nano is not self-replicating, at least one prior generation of tools must be present if nano is to be used on a regular basis.

As noted by Zonk, there may also be parallel processes that aren't upstream of nano (the way I defined "upstream"), but are necessary for nano to do its job. Some of these may not be trivial.

These caveats allow the existence and use of nano without it becoming the defining technology of the setting, as it is often portrayed in fiction.

The additional bit that keeps nano from being easily weaponized is the general lack of an "off" button. If you can't tell nano to not do its job, you have to go to some fairly extreme measures to keep a batch around for very long. Try selling the Navy a weapon that will be useless two weeks after delivery and see how far you get...