Straybow
SOC-14 1K
When I see "revised" I think on two dimensions. On one you have the way tech levels are counted. As noted above, more Tech Levels in general allow more "room" for things to develop. Another possibility first brought up by Sophiathegreen in Tech Level Revisions is the notion of sublevels. I agreed, saying,
Not only am I interested in that advantage, so is every starship owner and captain. Large corporations are going to invest in drive research. Most important, the Imperium (or Consulate, or whoever is in charge) is going to be interested, especially when it comes to getting ahead of their competition.
There's a saying: "Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put the lid back on." In the Ancient and Medieval ages technology was viewed wholistically. A piece of technology, a lock for example, was something that existed as a whole. A locksmith was trained in making locks; he made them the same way his father did, and his father or master before him, etc. Improvement was a cross cultural thing, since locksmithy in China emerged independent of locksmithy in Greece. At some point the cultures met and the products exchanged. Eventually the differences in technique were learned and generally spread both ways. Now locksmiths had two ways to make locks. Change was very slow.
Leonardo da Vinci worked with a German locksmith on improving the design of locks, and he looked at each piece of the lock as a separate entity which could be improved or entirely changed. Not only that, he looked at the way a lock was made and saw that the same technology could be applied to an entirely different problem: the ignition of a gun's powder charge. The first matchlock was the synthesis of arts of gunsmithy and locksmithy.
The German locksmith took both ideas across the Alps, and German craftsmanship began to transform by the power of invention.
Gentlemen, the genie has been out of the bottle for centuries. And unless MM et al are proposing that in the future people will mystically forget how to "invent" the genie isn't going back in. If a certain government fears the inability to control technology and wants to suppress it, that's more power to the competition. The genie just goes somewhere else. Such a short-sighted policy would be a matter of milieu, not of TLs and timelines as a general principle.
Along this line of thinking I feel there needs to be a general revision of fuel requirements and usage. My first thought on this, years ago, was on efficiency. Why should a TL12 Jump-1 engine have the same fuel requirements as the first commercial Jump-1 engines? Why should the size of the engine stay the same? If I (or my company's research department) can find a way to improve efficiency by 1-2%, or decrease weight/size by 1 dton that represents a huge competitive advantage. I am going to do everything I can to make that happen. My competition is going to do the same.
Not only am I interested in that advantage, so is every starship owner and captain. Large corporations are going to invest in drive research. Most important, the Imperium (or Consulate, or whoever is in charge) is going to be interested, especially when it comes to getting ahead of their competition.
There's a saying: "Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put the lid back on." In the Ancient and Medieval ages technology was viewed wholistically. A piece of technology, a lock for example, was something that existed as a whole. A locksmith was trained in making locks; he made them the same way his father did, and his father or master before him, etc. Improvement was a cross cultural thing, since locksmithy in China emerged independent of locksmithy in Greece. At some point the cultures met and the products exchanged. Eventually the differences in technique were learned and generally spread both ways. Now locksmiths had two ways to make locks. Change was very slow.
Leonardo da Vinci worked with a German locksmith on improving the design of locks, and he looked at each piece of the lock as a separate entity which could be improved or entirely changed. Not only that, he looked at the way a lock was made and saw that the same technology could be applied to an entirely different problem: the ignition of a gun's powder charge. The first matchlock was the synthesis of arts of gunsmithy and locksmithy.
The German locksmith took both ideas across the Alps, and German craftsmanship began to transform by the power of invention.
Gentlemen, the genie has been out of the bottle for centuries. And unless MM et al are proposing that in the future people will mystically forget how to "invent" the genie isn't going back in. If a certain government fears the inability to control technology and wants to suppress it, that's more power to the competition. The genie just goes somewhere else. Such a short-sighted policy would be a matter of milieu, not of TLs and timelines as a general principle.
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Oops, looks like that 4 dtons (8 tons mass Deuterium) of power plant fuel aren't going to last very long after all: about 24 seconds!!! On the most optimistic, let us suppose that jump fuel is recycled: fusion produces a He4-heavy mix which is cooled through multi-stage turbines and superhot thermocouples for power to jump drive. The waste is stored onboard without baking the ship and its crew (suspend disbelief here). Now we use that for reaction mass, heated in the maneuver drive by the maneuver fuel. We still only have 20 dtons waste + 4 dtons fuel, or 48 tons of D/He4 to exhaust through our rocket nozzle. 144 seconds.
