Revising the science of Traveller

[mike wightman]

DGP 101 robots, page 47. Sabmiqys/Antares 2117 was/is/will be interdicted by the scout service. The native race who built the TL17 robots only ever sent out one sub-light ship to a world one parsec away, implying a TL of 8-9 for space tech.
Their medical tech was unable to cope with a virus that returned with the ship implying a TL of 5.

 

[jappel]

A HUGE gap in Traveller science has always been biotechnology. Cloning and genetic engineering get mentions but there's not much behind them. Gene therapy and gene cleaning, regeneration and the like could use a more thorough treatment and still not go down the "cyberpunk" road.

For that matter, no one has mentioned the awesome potential of nanotechnology yet. Where on the TL tree should molecular assemblers appear?

John

 

[William]

Originally posted by jappel:
For that matter, no one has mentioned the awesome potential of nanotechnology yet. Where on the TL tree should molecular assemblers appear?

John

Well, nano does get a mention in G:T, however I
think later versions have, rightly, chosen to ignore it for the most part. Heat is the main reason I doubt you'll ever see working nanotech.

The other objection is philosophical - how do
you prevent a NextGen Star Trek-ish "we'll just fab that out of thin-air" kind of approach? This is not to say it can't be done righ, but I highly doubt it.

As GM I usually either say that it never worked as hoped, just like AI was _much_ harder than expected, or that planet X in the Solomani Rim was the site of a greygoo disaster in the Interstellar War period.

William

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Or what about memetics (ideas, information manipulation,etc)? We know the Hivers are master manipulators, and that the Imperium has practised psychohistory...

 

[TheDS]

Another strike against nano-assemblers, besides heat, is the sheer size of the task. Anyone know how many atoms are in a gram of material? Something like 10^21 or so (depends on the material), and that's a LOT of stuff to move. Just how quickly are a hoard of little robots going to be able to stack all those BeeBees? Even if it's good enough that you can stack a trillion a second, that's still about 30 years to construct ONE gram of material.

There are plenty of ways to build a lot faster than that. Nanoassemblers will be used when nothing else can do the job, like in really small jobs where a trillion can get it done in a few days.

And just how big will this trillion of things be? How many atoms will be in a single nanite? And how much will this pile of critters weigh? Too many obstacles in the way of getting this tech off the ground. If it's ever made, it will only be small scale stuff. No starships made out of scrap metal in 10 minutes.

 

[Sophiathegreen]

Originally posted by TheDS:
Another strike against nano-assemblers, besides heat, is the sheer size of the task. Anyone know how many atoms are in a gram of material? Something like 10^21 or so (depends on the material), and that's a LOT of stuff to move. Just how quickly are a hoard of little robots going to be able to stack all those BeeBees? Even if it's good enough that you can stack a trillion a second, that's still about 30 years to construct ONE gram of material.

There are plenty of ways to build a lot faster than that. Nanoassemblers will be used when nothing else can do the job, like in really small jobs where a trillion can get it done in a few days.

And just how big will this trillion of things be? How many atoms will be in a single nanite? And how much will this pile of critters weigh? Too many obstacles in the way of getting this tech off the ground. If it's ever made, it will only be small scale stuff. No starships made out of scrap metal in 10 minutes.

I agree with you Nano tech will most likely be use in medine to do some operateion and to quickly heal
wounds from the inside out and repair magor organs.

 

[Drakon]

Originally posted by kaladorn:

One William Gates seemed to think we'd only ever need 640Kb of memory at one point, IIRC.

OTOH, other futurists predicted by now we'd have moon colonies, everyone would own a flying car, and we'd use atomic charges for civil engineering projects.

So keep that in mind when making your optimistic predictions. As much as Traveller looks dated now, anything you replace it with will look both under optimistic in some areas and over optimistic in others. [/QUOTE]

I have heard reports that the Soviets did just that, use nuclear explosives for civil engineering projects. It released radioactive contanimation along a large section of the Volga river. Basically it turned out to be a bad idea.

There is a guy who has flying cars. Mueller, works in Davis California, last I heard. There are problems dealing with cost, reliability, (looks like he has solved), and legal issues out the butt. It is an expensive multiengine experimental aircraft right now, but who knows.

Last I heard, he got a contract from DARPA, then the press went away, and have heard nothing about his work since.

General rule of thumb: Anyone placing a limit on human imagination, or human desire, has been proven wrong too many times to be taken seriously.

 

[DED]

Originally posted by Drakon:
There is a guy who has flying cars. Mueller, works in Davis California, last I heard. There are problems dealing with cost, reliability, (looks like he has solved), and legal issues out the butt. It is an expensive multiengine experimental aircraft right now, but who knows.

Last I heard, he got a contract from DARPA, then the press went away, and have heard nothing about his work since.

The website is here.

 

[daryen]

One William Gates seemed to think we'd only ever need 640Kb of memory at one point, IIRC.

Actually he believed we would never need more than 512K. The 640K was a hack to move an extra 128K from the "system" half into the "user" half.

The truly sad part is that even after being so completely embarrassed by this, Microsoft went and made the exact same mistake with NT! There, they believed that no one would need more than 2 GB of RAM.

I still stand amazed that the same company (Microsoft) and man (Gates) made the exact same mistake twice!

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi,

somehow I do not believe, that Mr. Gates made a mistake.
He just provided something, which might be enough for most of the actual market.
So, thats a kind of marketing.
If he or anybody would provide a perfect product, there would be no need to buy another

At least, nearly all the Unix systems made similar steps (16-32-64 bit systems).

Regards,

Mert

 

[Anthony]

Actually, the whole 640K quote is apocryphal.

As for a 2GB limit on memory use, that's hard to get around while using a 32 bit processor. Most unix versions had to be extensively modified to allow >2GB. Letting the limit continue to exist in Win2k is probably an error, but not a horrible one as long as it's fixed in the next major release.

 

[MrMorden]

I agree that the TLs in Traveller are in need of some update if this is to remain a sci-fi game. Most updates will be relatively minor, except for the area of computers. When we play CT I already pretty much ignore the computer rules and assume all ships computers can run any & all software it might need simultaneously. I still use model numbers to match with drive numbers, etc.

At first, I hated the concept of thruster plates. As time goes on, however, I am starting to like them. Boeing, Lockheed, British Aerospace, etc. all have programs investigating gravitic propulsion, and some people even claim the B2 already has a gravitic drive in it to assist the main engines! It's just not as far-fetched as it once was.

Plus the real world physics of ANY reaction drive (yes, even antimatter) means that to get anywhere fast you need a LOT of propellant. And I like Fusion better than antimatter for power plants, because why would you want to worry about having this ultra-rare stuff on board with all kinds of containment problems, when you can use Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the Universe?!? Just cost of operation alone should point to fusion.

 

[robject]

Since T5 succeeds T4, we could look at where T4 is different from CT and infer an intent.

IIRC, T4 updated the computer rules in two ways:

(1) Size and price no longer seem to be significant for craft.

(2) Moore's Law was used in the Central Supply Catalog to describe size + cost per computational power at TL levels. They're more in line with modern trends.

These rules were done by Greg Porter, and so they're generic and sound sensible.

For example, their baseline is the most powerful supercomputer (or is that network?) available at TL 7 or so as an R-0 computer; that is, a baseline for computational power ratings (Rating 0). Subsequent TLs can build computers at Rating TL minus 7. Additionally, a network of 10 computers at a certain rating operate at R+1, a network of 100 at R+2, etc. Thus a powerful institution on a TL-7 world could build a network of 1000 R0 computers, which is essentially an R3, but at terrible cost and volume. But a citizen of a TL-10 world could buy an R3 from a consumer electronics outlet for a few thousand Cr and put it on his desk to play Tomb Raider VII with his friends over the Ultranet. Or something like that.

 

[MT++]

The problem with the Traveller Tech is that they were too conservative in their estimates

Better that than "gosh-golly" tech or Star Trek "Quantum Flux Re-inhibitor"

Maybe the Traveller computers are like they are because they are built tougher than anything we have now.

C'mon, who hasn't screamed foul epithets at their computer as it locks up for no apparent reason?

 

[Commander Drax]

Hi Guys, I hope you don't mind me joining this discussion but the standard model I use for manuver drives is gravitic but with a twist... Allow me to explain:

The thruster plate assembly contains gravity wave generators, physicists know that gravity bends space, so it can easily be imagined that the drives bend space (within the plate assembley), causing it to collapse before the drive whilst simultaneoulsy expanding it behind the drive thus moving the craft without expending reaction mass, all that it needs is electrical power. With this rational space itself becomes the reaction mass, akin to air being sucked through a jet engine and blasted out the back. This explanation is something that is being seriously researched by scientists at the moment and fits perfectly within the established canon of Traveller, as detailed from MegaTraveller onwards, and as per MT allows densitometers to easily and quickly detect spacecraft.

The small article on this type of space propulsion akin to a warp drive was actually published in Focus Magazine (a scientific journal) a few years ago, if I can find my copy I will publish the reference numbers here so that you can all check.

Also I like Heplar, but take the T4 line on it that it is an intermediate technology useful before tech-11. I think that any future version of traveller should allow differing design philosophies such as Contra Grav and Heplar, fusion rockets, ion drives, mass drivers, etc, etc along side tl-9 Anti Grav (MT) thrusters and their TL-11 deep space counterparts.

Happy New Year to Traveller Fans everywhere

 

[Straybow]

Toss out the old tech tree

This is a two-edged problem. They want each TL to last a long time, given the 1100-year span of the milieu. Play is difficult if the TL changes every decade. On the other side, a lengthy TL interval gives too much wiggle room.

Preindustrial TLs lasted ages. The next few showed the acceleration of tech in the industrial age. TL 7-9 are just a couple decades each. Then the scale changes and speed of development stalls. By TL 12+ each stretches for a century or more. That doesn't make sense at all.

If MWM, et al., want to preserve their timeline of broad steps through the jump drive techs, find some reason that doesn't influence unconnected techs. Let miniaturization and cost decreases and fuel economy progress incrementally through several TLs before the next jump drive comes along, and continue long after.

Often enough that's the way things work anyway. Steam power was gradually improved until around 1930 the technology hit its peak power:weight ratio. But by then electrical, diesel, and diesel-electric became economical with power levels and weight ratios unreachable by steam engines. However, steam continued in use through WWII.

Perhaps jump tech encounters natural barriers related to 11-dimensional physics: Jump-1 is 6 diminsional, Jump-2 is 7 dimensional, etc. Each jump tech would require entirely new devices to work, so miniaturization and cost reductions of previous jump tech would be of no effect. The "clock" is reset, as it were.

This means the size and cost of jump drives would have to be made independent of each jump type and independent of power plants and maneuver drives. With several incremental TLs between jump drives TL might be 40 or higher by the time Jump-6 is available.

 

[jfwking]

A point to ponder with regard to the time it takes tech levels to pass.

The single largest factor in advancing technology is comunication. Any new idea spreads at the spead of local comunication, once a new idea is recieved, considered, changed and passed on a by lots of people does it become new technology.
The industrial revolution became self sustaining because it included transport and communications methods which spread its ideas faster and faster allow more people input.

In our present day I have access to more information than has been available over the life of our species, and it sits at the other end of a hi spead line from my PC.

In the traveller universe transport and comunication again become massive problems. A scientist now can publish a paper, have hundreds of his peers consider and duplicate the work and in turn add to the body of data. A scientist in Traveller may be months of travel time from his peers and a years worth (present day) of cooperative work may take a life time when the scientists involved are on seperate worlds.

 

[savage]

May I jump (pun intended)in on this thread...

In the traveller universe transport and comunication again become massive problems.

Agree completely with this. And if we start making dramatic changes to the scientific timeline we'll
end up Star Trek instead of Traveller.

IMTU I never used Xboats. I figured if mini-universes are created for ships why not just say that information packets can be sent to pre-destinations the same way...all at J6. So,
my Xboat Tenders are more like the telegraph. They still use the X-boat term but it means info packets.

Getting back to the original topic. If the Tech Ladder were to be re-written, it could be more agressive, but should include 2 timelines. One for bleeding edge research and the other for public assimilation of the tech. This allows the ref to clearly communicate where the universe is on the development track to a specific technology.

As for anti-gravitics, as I understand it, its up in the air (ohh, no another one). Anyhow, the only signs we've seen of it are on a Galactic scale. A really "clean" explanation of Traveller AG would be nice.

Savage

 

[mike wightman]

In the traveller universe transport and comunication again become massive problems. A scientist now can publish a paper, have hundreds of his peers consider and duplicate the work and in turn add to the body of data. A scientist in Traveller may be months of travel time from his peers and a years worth (present day) of cooperative work may take a life time when the scientists involved are on seperate worlds.

A good point but what about all of those high population, high-tech industrial worlds?

On a TL15 planet with a population measured in tens of billions there are going to be many more scientists engaged in research than here on Earth today. They have access to faster computers etc and a communications net that probably puts our interweb to shame.

Never mind Imperial Research Stations, IMTU the high pop/high tech worlds are the ones making all the running with leading edge scientific breakthroughs.

 

[Straybow]

On a TL15 planet with a population measured in tens of billions there are going to be many more scientists engaged in research than here on Earth today. They have access to faster computers etc and a communications net that probably puts our interweb to shame.

At least two thirds of the world's present population is isolated by economics and politics from modern education and science. A more egalitarian society could have an equivalent participation in science with a far smaller total population.

This would be amplified for a highly motivated scientific culture; think Beta in Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. In the extreme a pop 7 planet could be on the cutting edge of galactic tech.

The other point about communication is good, except research institutions wouldn't sit idle while waiting for somebody to respond. They make opportunities. They hold conferences and make regular use of private courier services.

So what if it takes years to propogate through known space. Feedback is only one reason for sharing data. The quest for knowledge itself is a driving force.

...if we start making dramatic changes to the scientific timeline we'll end up Star Trek instead of Traveller.

All we need to prevent that is:

1. No free energy
2. No time travel
3. No radiation/particle of the week
4. No Borg
5. No Q
6. No Wesley

I'd be far more worried about Star Wars munkinification than ST. The sample d20 psionics seems headed that way...

But seriously, having jump tech and other things come sooner in the timeline doesn't have any impact on Virus, for example, or so many other aspects of canon TU. I haven't read much of the background material but it seems the story line is nearly independent of tech.

Errr, except the Xboats, which require, um, earlier introduction of Jump technology. But that doesn't mean introducing higher jump technology won't spoil something. We'll think of it later.


The prodigious fuel demands make high jump ratings economically limited anyway. By definition 60% of your displacement tonnage will be fuel. Want Jump-6 on your Mercenary Cruiser? Only if you can fit the oversize drive and powerplant and find somewhere to put another 240 dtons fuel in a hull with only 165 tons to unclaimed. Leave out the cutter hangars for another 100 makes room for the fuel but only 25 tons for the added drive capacity. A sacrifice in maneuver rating is required.

If drop tanks are permitted they would increase the effective hull size, with still larger drives and more fuel required.