Sustainable Tech Levels?

[jawillroy]

*LOGORRHEA ALERT*

SO. I've been reading Jared Diamond's 2011 book on societal collapses, and it's been bouncing all around the Traveller parts of my brain.

Greenland, for example.

Here we have a Norse population trying to maintain themselves as culturally and technologically European in the most remote European settlement of its time, barring Vinland. Ultimately, their unwillingness to dispense with their cattle and their sheep leads to destruction of their soil, total loss of their trees, total loss of the ability to produce metal... their insistence upon participating in trade with Europe (rather than self-sustainability) meant that weeks better spent on nurturing their marginal hayfields were spent walrus and bear hunting for ivory and furs for export, to trade for iron and luxuries.

Their pressures wouldn't have been as deadly if they were as close to Europe as, say, the Faroes - which were as barren but close enough to import everything they needed.

So I'm wondering about non-industrial Traveller worlds with technological levels dependent on industrial production. For example, the TL 13 world with a population of forty thousand, or five thousand. Or three hundred.

In order to maintain that technology, how close does that world have to be to a population 7+ world of TL 13 or better?

Suppose you've got one little TL15 world with a population of 300 or so, and within 10 parsecs there's one TL 11 industrial world and a mess of other systems between TL 5 and 9.

Do you just handwave it all, and say yep, that's a TL 15 world?
Is it a TL 11 world with a few TL 15 gadgets?
Those Norse Greenlanders did everything they could to avoid behaving like the Inuit. Apparently they didn't even eat fish, not even when they were still able to keep boats afloat. That's akin to our TL 15 enclave refusing to adopt nearby TL 9 methods when their own gear fails - are those non-industrial enclaves just lining up to die off?

***

Suppose our TL 13 pop 2 world is moderately isolated; let's say there's no major environmental stress: a shirtsleeve world of Atmosphere 8 with 50% oceans. Humans can survive there at tech 0, notionally.

The highest tech *producing* world is a jump away, TL11 pop 7.

The nearest TL 13 *producing* world is 6 parsecs away: two J3 or three J2, or some other combination with a leg or two of J1 thrown in. To get something there, you really have to WANT to get it there. No easy one-leg routes.

So the easiest imports for our TL13 outpost are liable to be TL11 stuff. Is the REAL TL of our outpost TL11? Or less, even?

Or do we assume the TL13 outpost exists because what it produces is of such high value (economically or scientifically or strategically) that the ships from the homeland will be there sufficiently regularly to maintain TL13 standards, despite the distance?

Supposing there's NO nearby worlds of high enough population to produce goods for export: Does that world get to stay TL13? Or do we say it's a TL1 world with a lot of broken TL13 ornaments?

***

And another thing. Supposing that the TL13 world with population 2 has a type A starport.
Can those few hundred people still build my starship?

 

[whartung]

In order to maintain that technology, how close does that world have to be to a population 7+ world of TL 13 or better?

2-3 months round trip travel, arguably more, 6 months to a year, depending on the tech.

Simply put, anything "vital" enough that it can't be down for the travel time, should have spares on hand.

This is not a matter of travel time per se as it is a matter of stores and expertise.

It doesn't help travel times to have your single Fusion Plant engineer die in a bowling accident just before winter.

But 2-3 months is isolated enough, but not that isolated.

A simple example are the trappers annual rendezvous that happened in the Rockies. Each year, essentially, everyone would come out of the wood work to bring in their furs, load up on bullets, powder, and backy, then head back out for another year of work.

But for a technological society, you want spares for the machinery, medications for routine illnesses. Best to have, say, an 18-24 month supply of antibiotics if the medical ship is coming every 6 months. That's something you want to over provision, and not store all in the same refrigerator.

Then there's consumables, like fuel, and such, but with reliable fusion power, less of an issue.

And any colony could do a lot worse than having a spare starship or two just standing by (Scout ship, small trader, even a pinnace or a gig). For local lift capacity, extra power, search and rescue, driving herds of Grasscloppers off the cliff for extra meat.

But, simply, areas with some redundant systems that can degrade gracefully (if X fails, we always have Y, and Z after that) can sustain themselves for quite some time.

 

[Enoki]

So I'm wondering about non-industrial Traveller worlds with technological levels dependent on industrial production. For example, the TL 13 world with a population of forty thousand, or five thousand. Or three hundred.

Suppose you've got one little TL15 world with a population of 300 or so, and within 10 parsecs there's one TL 11 industrial world and a mess of other systems between TL 5 and 9.

This would depend a lot on exactly who the people were that were there and what they did.
Taking a real world modern example, you have a bunch of islands around the world that have very small populations and are quite distant from easy economic and technological support.
But, many maintain a high level of both by one means or another.

For example, you might have one that has a valuable resource that is scarce but in abundance there. Nauru with phosphate was one such island. The small population got rich selling the rights to a mining company. Yea, they squandered the wealth, but while they had it they could live quite well.

Kawajalein atoll or Guam are good examples of another means. Both house considerable US military and government facilities thus they have a population that is paid well to be there to do something. Everything gets imported but the islands themselves are not very well economically established.

The Falklands are another. They get by fairly well even as nearby Argentina is unfriendly to them.

So, you could easily have such instances that parallel these in the Traveller universe. A system that has an abundant resource. A really nice planet that has low population but all of them are filthy rich and it's their retreat.

I did one that was low population and listed as low tech. But, there were pockets of cutting edge tech on the world in the form of a handful of resorts / spas and the planet was a recreational "playground" that also did things like safaris, going so far as to import specific animals that hunters wanted to hunt from elsewhere (including endangered ones). They would charge the wealthy through the nose to get the exclusivity of being able to go there and get away from it all, or shoot the rare animal of their choice.

There are really no limits to what you could come up with to explain a high tech low pop world in the proverbial "Middle of Nowhere."

 

[mike wightman]

A TL11 world is TL11 because it has the infrastructure to make stuff at TL11. An industrial world classification is earned if it has the capacity to export a large amount of its manufactured goods.

TL11 is three point two TLs beyond our current TL.

They have cheap fusion power, control of gravity; their robotic/computer controlled resource exploitation, refining and manufacturing capability make out primitive AI controlled robotic factories look like something Leonardo would have drawn.

By TL13 they are two TLs beyond this, their robots can now learn as they are going about their business, they can manufacture synthetic workers as they are needed...

 

[jawillroy]

An industrial world classification is earned if it has the capacity to export a large amount of its manufactured goods...

Well, I'm not sure how the other systems do it, but in CT (which I'm using) the designation whether a world is Industrial or Non-Industrial is dependent upon population (and pollution).

So I suppose the question is whether at higher techs, the ability to produce *that tech* at an industrial level is (should be?) dependent on population.

 

[kilemall]

I've posted before on how well many things 'travel well' because they are intrinsically valuable- you get into MCr per dton resources or starship drives or computers or other equipment, you can pay Cr100000 per ton to ship 100 parsecs and it's just 10% of their value.
Fortunes are made on transport margins much greater then that.

So the economics as presented suggests a few IND worlds dominate big ticket production for 50-100 parsecs around, right in keeping with the megacorps.


Where local production would matter comes in much cheaper raw materials and foods and finished products that don't travel so well.
The lower the per dton cost, the greater increasing pressures to buy within the subsector and then ultimately develop an indigenous production/support capability.


So your TL15 remote colony may be shipping something valuable enough to sell 25 parsecs away at Cr250000 dton each and earning import money, but TL15 basic appliances are produced at 5% margin via the local maker industrial park.

 

[nobby-w]

Some studies about space habitats and other related topics came up with some figures:

• Several hundred is the minimum necessary to maintain sufficient genetic diversity.
• About 100,000-200,000 is the minimum to maintain a self-sustaining economy.
• About 500,000-1,000,000 is the minimum to maintain a culture with more esoteric functions such as research universities.

That would imply that population 6 is really the minimum to sustain a technological society without external support. How high a tech level this could sustain is left as an exercise for the reader, but one could presume that at least TL8-10 could be sustained in this way, and maybe higher levels of technology. If the R&D was available externally (i.e. the intellectual property could be purchased) then an arbitrarily high tech level could be sustained under these circumstances. Even if the world is not primarily industrial, it could have enough industry to be self-sustaining and perhaps import some items externally.

Smaller populations with any significant technology base would have to be dependent on external parties by this reasoning.

You could stipulate a larger population as being needed to sustain higher tech levels without access to external sources of intellectual property and R&D.

 

[kilemall]

Some studies about space habitats and other related topics came up with some figures:

• Several hundred is the minimum necessary to maintain sufficient genetic diversity.
• About 100,000-200,000 is the minimum to maintain a self-sustaining economy.
• About 500,000-1,000,000 is the minimum to maintain a culture with more esoteric functions such as research universities.

That would imply that population 6 is really the minimum to sustain a technological society without external support. How high a tech level this could sustain is left as an exercise for the reader, but one could presume that at least TL8-10 could be sustained in this way, and maybe higher levels of technology. If the R&D was available externally (i.e. the intellectual property could be purchased) then an arbitrarily high tech level could be sustained under these circumstances. Even if the world is not primarily industrial, it could have enough industry to be self-sustaining and perhaps import some items externally.

Smaller populations with any significant technology base would have to be dependent on external parties by this reasoning.

You could stipulate a larger population as being needed to sustain higher tech levels without access to external sources of intellectual property and R&D.

Makers and transportable sperm/ovum/DNA and unlimited data storage and robots/biobots can change that equation.

 

[GypsyComet]

Both MT's Hard Times and TNE's core have rules and/or guidelines for determining what TL a world needs to be self sustaining. The minimum can be safely ignored in a large polity as someone will cheerfully sell you the parts and tech you need to survive. Once that commerce link is severed, however, you adapt, settle above the minimum, leave, or die.

 

[Carlobrand]

...Suppose you've got one little TL15 world with a population of 300 or so, and within 10 parsecs there's one TL 11 industrial world and a mess of other systems between TL 5 and 9.

Do you just handwave it all, and say yep, that's a TL 15 world?
Is it a TL 11 world with a few TL 15 gadgets? ...

Even with bots and fabricators, there's not enough there to make all the parts and dig up all the resources they need to keep everything running. So it's a TL15 world until whatever critical import they've been importing to keep the bots and fabricators running stops coming in. Then, whatever they were having the bots do to produce exports to buy the parts starts getting harder to do, the fabricators start breaking down, and things get ... interesting.

Depending on other stats, it could be a TL15 world that's likely to get very hungry, or at least very tired of Soylent, if it doesn't have an environment that already has edibles available to fall back on. Even then, it might be a real struggle for a community that small to figure out how to gather those resources without the help they were used to before things go completely downhill, but it might come slow enough for them to figure that out.

Be a hell of a thing to have everything go bad because you hadn't bothered to scout out deposits of gold to replace the little bit you were importing for your electronics or some similar thing, especially since the experts in that sort of thing aren't likely to be living in your little colony.

 

[jawillroy]

One bit that I noted is that if you apply the "Shipyard capacity" rules from TCS, worlds of population 4 tend to have shipbuilding capacity in the tens of tons, population 5 can manage within the hundreds, and population 6 in the thousands. So even setting budget limitations aside, the smaller worlds don't have the infrastructure to maintain shipyards capable of building major fleets, starport type and tech notwithstanding. I'd say that the type A port with population 3 has the parts and technical knowhow to fix or replace, or build a jump drive - but they don't have the facility for building a whole ship.

In order to maintain that high tech capability, they'd need a regular supply of tools, spares, and so on.

So should that *fail* then it seems as though a few options might follow:
1) the high tech outpost adopts the tech and culture of the nearest, highest developed exporter (Not trivial: there are not many among us who would willingly adopt a tech 6 lifestyle. I suspect abandoning tech level 15 to adapt to a TL 9 or 10 existence would be akin to the population of New York City choosing to live like the Sentinelese*)
2) the outpost collapses, devolving to the lowest tech and population that can survive in isolation on that world, up to and including a complete die-out.

*though I can sympathize with the urge to shoot arrows at incoming traffic on the George Washington Bridge.

 

[jawillroy]

There's something to be said for the notion that interstellar tech levels *require* an interconnected interstellar society by definition, and that without connection to other worlds of at least adjacent tech, they'll be hampered at best.

 

[nobby-w]

Makers and transportable sperm/ovum/DNA and unlimited data storage and robots/biobots can change that equation.

Care to elaborate on that?

 

[Carlobrand]

Some studies about space habitats and other related topics came up with some figures: ... That would imply that population 6 is really the minimum to sustain a technological society without external support.

So, tech-level dependent. Primitive agrarian societies did quite nicely with smaller numbers. Things actually got tricky when their population density got up beyond a certain point: they'd start fighting each other and needing to form more complex societies. Probably TL4 or below is fine down to a few hundred population.

There's also the other end: once robots of sufficient ability appear on the scene, they begin to compensate for lower population.

... there are not many among us who would willingly adopt a tech 6 lifestyle. ...

Well, maybe there's a Society for Creative Anachronism chapter.

There's something to be said for the notion that interstellar tech levels *require* an interconnected interstellar society by definition, and that without connection to other worlds of at least adjacent tech, they'll be hampered at best.

Hard to argue that for populations in the billions since interstellar trade is such a very small part of their economy, at least in the versions that give you data to judge such things by.

 

[Timerover51]

I guess I first look to historical examples of what size populations could support a given Tech Level. First, it might be a good idea to state which edition you are using for Tech Levels, although they are all similar. I will be using the Tech Level Chart in The Traveller Book for Tech Levels.

First, it should be noted that under Tech Level "0", the Stone Age, the following advances were made: the bow and spear-thrower were developed, agriculture appeared along with irrigation, animals were domesticated, pottery was developed, ships of sufficient size and seaworthiness to settle the islands in the Mediterranean and the numerous archipelagos in the Pacific, brick and stone architecture appears, large monuments are built over periods of time, and city-states comprising thousands of people developed, including fortifications. Textiles appeared, made from a variety of materials, and in some cases, small villages and towns were built out over the water, presumable for protection.

The Greek and Italian city-states did not seem to have many problems supporting a Bronze or Iron Age Tech Level of 1, so a few thousand would be adequate for that Tech Level.

Tech Level 2, circa 1400 to 1700, so the introduction of gunpowder and cannon into the technology base, as well as the developed sailing ship and warship. Against that, none of those developments was that excessively labor intensive, so a population level of a few thousands to tens of thousands of inhabitants should be more than adequate.

Tech Level 3, circa 1700 to 1860, and Tech Level 4, circa 1860 to 1900, probably are going to require a larger population, on the order of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands

Once you get to Tech Level 5 and 6, the population needs go up. Great Britain had no problem producing all of the material for Tech Level 5 with a population in the tens of millions, with about 46 million people all told. It they had not had their economy so badly damaged by World Wars One and Two, Tech Level 6 should not have been a major problem. Tech Level 7 might be a bit iffy, but attainable.

Once you get into Tech Level 8 and higher, I start thinking of a population in the upper tens of millions to hundreds of millions for self-sufficiency. You probably could manage with a population in the mid tens of millions for Tech Level 8 and higher if some of the information is imported, or basic models to be duplicated are available.

 

[mike wightman]

Automation and robotics/computer control mean that the population requirements then start dropping from TL7+

A car factory today employs an order of magnitude less staff, similarly farms can produce an order of magnitude more produce thanks to automation and machinery.

As TL rises to the science fictional rather than historical you can expect even greater productivity.

 

[jawillroy]

Automation and robotics/computer control mean that the population requirements then start dropping from TL7+

A car factory today employs an order of magnitude less staff, similarly farms can produce an order of magnitude more produce thanks to automation and machinery.

As TL rises to the science fictional rather than historical you can expect even greater productivity.

At the same time, don't those factories still depend on resources from other countries produced at lower levels of automation? We might have some gee-whiz-awesome factories assembling a car, but you've still got assembly lines producing the individual components elsewhere.

 

[kilemall]

Care to elaborate on that?

Sure.


The makers and robo/biobots would be all about supplanting human labor so major populations are freed up to do creative or engineering things.

The genetic material is an easy way to promote genetic diversity on even the farthest colony worlds- if you can get a low berth to the planet and they can do fertilization, the colony can introduce new genes on low impact infertility treatments or support major birthing/gene pool enhancement efforts.

The unlimited data part is about the knowledge transfer to maintain the educational systems to keep up the tech. It would also have the tech skill packages for the robots, possibly mRNA skill implants for sophonts/biobots, and at a high enough tech level the captured templates for creating sperm/ovum out of tissue makers from raw data.




What lower pop would do to research is limit how many lines of work could be done at a time, stretching out development over longer periods and/or having to do just a few critical items. Such a planet would likely stalemate on just maintaining it's setup tech.

A smaller pop would be vulnerable to tech crash due to a critical segment being harmed/destroyed by events, sophont-made or natural, or moving onto another planet. If the maker engineers were gone for instance, I would expect the TL to devolve quickly.

So that is an argument again for the pop to be increased to your levels for disaster redundancy, through a concentrated babymaking initiative.

Another factor is that only a certain percentage of the population si going to be good for high-end engineering/manage bots and the rest not, so you have to have numbers for that unless it is some sort of dystopian eugenics society.




So initial TL and then challenges to maintaining and growing, which probably involves growing to your suggested levels long term but which can do reasonably well with less pop.

Note I am talking about a setup colony, not an entirely isolated civilization.

 

[Timerover51]

Automation and robotics/computer control mean that the population requirements then start dropping from TL7+

A car factory today employs an order of magnitude less staff, similarly farms can produce an order of magnitude more produce thanks to automation and machinery.

As TL rises to the science fictional rather than historical you can expect even greater productivity.

The agricultural production increases are already cranked in, and I did allow for Tech Level 8+ at population levels of the tens of millions. There is a limit as to how much food you can produce per acre no matter how advanced you get, unless you can produce continuously, which is not cheap unless you are in the tropics on a fairly standard atmosphere planet.

You still need a certain amount of people in infrastructure work and also as the Tech Level rises, you are going to have increases in service industries. I see a population in the tens of millions, and the higher tens of millions at that, as the minimum for very high Tech Levels.

 

[whartung]

At the same time, don't those factories still depend on resources from other countries produced at lower levels of automation? We might have some gee-whiz-awesome factories assembling a car, but you've still got assembly lines producing the individual components elsewhere.

Not necessarily. Considering car parts, the entire supply chain is heavily automated. At all levels, workers are there to either support the machines, or for the specific stages of assembly and evaluation where the modern robots simply don't have the dexterity or judgement to be able to do the job. Any major subsystem is a series of automated steps with
manual intervening steps.

The industry is large and lucrative enough to be able to afford continual improvements in automation and streamlining manufacturing.

Part of the issue, specifically with things like cars, especially cars to America and Europe, is simply standards of manufacture require modern automation to be met. Materials, tolerances, assembly, etc. We pay a premium for it. That's why you don't (necessarily) want to buy, say, an Indian or Chinese vehicle compared to a Japanese or Korean one. And 30 years ago, folks said the same things about Korean cars.

It's not that the Chinese or Indians CAN'T make higher quality components, they simply service markets with less money that can't afford the prices of the higher quality components.

iPhones are assembled in China to very high standards, yet you just know that right next door is another factory assembling some other gizmo to a lower quality standard for less money.

BMWs has motors manufactured in China. It's an Austrian design, "German engineering", and I don't know where the parts are sourced (but also likely China), but the assembly is in China. For some consumers, this is a point of contention. But it's a knowledge sharing, education, training, and workplace culture thing -- and much of that can be transplanted to a new labor force. But don't think that this line is any more primitive than one in Munich. It's more a overall labor savings plus parts sourcing and logistics thing to place the plant in China.

As robotics get better, more dextrous, better vision, better judgement, better "feel" for soft "fit" issues, better working with soft materials (like sewing fabric), they will slowly replace manual labor. Add in "light-sentience" (for lack of a better word) to make them easier to train (vs "move 34.7 cm left, drop 5cm down, rotate at 3700 RPM using tool 7...") and make them more general purpose. But even if they're bone stupid, they're likely worth programming.

Also, in a realm like Traveller, it's not like this level of automation doesn't exist. Even better, it's a durable good. No reason you can't import "TL15 robot seamster" to stitch clothing together, train up a staff to replace FRU (field replaceable units) that are kept in stock to maintain the line. Don't need to be an AI wiz to run a robot, just to make one in the first place.