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This is Tech Level 9?

Drakon

Drakon

SOC-14 1K
I found a couple of interesting announcements in the news today.

1) MAHEM: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/12/darpa-has-been-working-on-hand-held.html An electromagnet explosive for armour and hardened structures.

2) CRISPR: They held a big meeting recently in Washington DC to discuss a new faster, easier, cheaper and more flexible gene editing technology called CRISPR. Which led me here http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-the-disruptor-1.17673

3) Bacteriophages: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/medicalizing-viruses-that-attack-bacteria/
 
Personally, I say that it isn't even TL 8 until I can cruise around in my flying car.
 
mike wightman said:
Agrees - we haven't made TL8 in CT terms yet.

No fusion power plants, no air/rafts and no man portable laser weapons.
Click to expand...

Not exactly true, read an recent article about a "laser shotgun" some whizkid built. Multiple emitters, pop balloon's melt plastics etc.

NO antigrav, but some hover/vtol craft.

Limited experimental fusion power.

Close, but not TL9 yet.
 
Not even TL8.

Melting plastic and popping a balloon I can do with a presentation laser. I have yet to see a man portable laser weapon that can put a hole through a person and cause that same damage as a gun.

We do not have any fusion power plants capable of powering a city, let alone a large vehicle.

And definitely no air/rafts (gravitics technology not clever aircraft)
 
Anyone think our alternate Earth is actually woefully behind the tech level curve? Sounds like Traveller Earth didn't land on the moon then give up on further exploration leading to the flurry of inspired invention that would make TL 8 and 9 a reality.
 
Reynard said:
Anyone think our alternate Earth is actually woefully behind the tech level curve? Sounds like Traveller Earth didn't land on the moon then give up on further exploration leading to the flurry of inspired invention that would make TL 8 and 9 a reality.
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You have that backwards.

It is documented that the rate of technological advancement was faster during (and was directly derived from) the manned space program - the post-1986 drawdown in NASA spending is directly parallel to the reduction in actual technological innovation since then (lots of refinement & improvement of already-invented tech, but a distinct drop in the numbers of new technological developments).

Note that we walked the moon in the first 15 years of the space program, and in the next 12 had built long-occupation space stations and re-useable spacecraft.

In the 33 years since, we have failed to take men beyond orbit (achieved on February 20, 1962 - BEFORE I WAS BORN), and have continued to use the spacecraft designs and space habitat tech from before 1982 (even the newest manned spacecraft can be described as "Apollo built with new materials", and the ISS is basically made of modules patterned after and using inventions made for Salyut & Skylab), and developed nothing new.
 
nobby-w said:
But I do have a TL11 Samsung Galaxy hand computer. ;)
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A hand computer is equivalent to a Model/1 starship computer (IIRC), so have you run the Generate program to create the calculations necessary for a micro jump to the Oort Cloud? :)
 
By Book 1, when were we supposed to hit TL 8 (gravitic cars commonly available)? The 1980s?

By the canonical timeline, we hit TL 9 just around 2100, yeah? (I think Book 1 put it at 1990 though?)

We have vehicle-mounted laser weapons... surely that's worth a fraction of a TL. So, TL 7.5? It's only a matter of time before we get the MP version ("not in five years" says Wired magazine).


"Philosophically", one TL represents a multiplying of productivity or production (say, an order of magnitude). Computers are more capable, and flexible-cell controllers came into their own in the 1990s, digital switching took over, and we all benefited to some degree (cell phones), but I'd say the finance sector is the biggest beneficiary of the last few decades of tech.

I could be wrong. Materials tech slogs on, but IT leaped forward.

I'd say that a subset of materials tech will be pushed forward by IT. Energy storage, gorilla glass, super capacitors.

We need some mad scientist genius to discover gravitics. In his basement, perhaps, next to the old coal chute? That might well help to bring practical fusion closer to reality.
 
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robject said:
By Book 1, when were we supposed to hit TL 8 (gravitic cars commonly available)? The 1980s?

By the canonical timeline, we hit TL 9 just around 2100, yeah? (I think Book 1 put it at 1990 though?)

[FONT=arial,helvetica]We have vehicle-mounted laser weapons... surely that's worth a fraction of a TL. So, TL 7.5?[/FONT]
Click to expand...

It always amused me that someone in the 1970s thought that we would have a J-1 Jump Drive before the year 2000. :)
 
Personally, I think that TL 4-5 got the minimum pace right at about 2 generations (40 years) for a new technology paradigm to transform society.

So I stick with
  • TL 4 = 1860-1900 = Farmers become Craftsmen (dominant sector)
  • TL 5 = 1900-1940 = SMG, Radio, auto, airplanes = Craftsmen become Factory Workers (dominant sector)
  • TL 6 = 1940-1980 = Missiles, Fission, Television = Service Economy replaces Manufacturing (dominant sector)
  • TL 7 = 1980-2020 = Lasers as common as missiles, hovercraft as common transportation, live and work in space = Technology replaces Service (dominant sector).
  • TL 8 = 2020-2060 = Registration of civilian Laser Carbines, flying cars, fusion powered vehicles, weather control
  • TL 9 = 2060-2100 = Interstellar Travel, regrow limbs as standard medical treatment.

Research and prototypes and early concept models will appear at earlier, but the TL is defined by widespread adoption that substantially impacts the society ... there were some experiments in mass production and standardized parts before 1860, but the TL 5 of post WW1 would need to wait until most of society lived in a city and worked in a factory.
 
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robject said:
By Book 1, when were we supposed to hit TL 8 (gravitic cars commonly available)? The 1980s?

By the canonical timeline, we hit TL 9 just around 2100, yeah? (I think Book 1 put it at 1990 though?)

We have vehicle-mounted laser weapons... surely that's worth a fraction of a TL. So, TL 7.5? It's only a matter of time before we get the MP version ("not in five years" says Wired magazine).


"Philosophically", one TL represents a multiplying of productivity or production (say, an order of magnitude). Computers are more capable, and flexible-cell controllers came into their own in the 1990s, digital switching took over, and we all benefited to some degree (cell phones), but I'd say the finance sector is the biggest beneficiary of the last few decades of tech.

I could be wrong. Materials tech slogs on, but IT leaped forward.

I'd say that a subset of materials tech will be pushed forward by IT. Energy storage, gorilla glass, super capacitors.

We need some mad scientist genius to discover gravitics. In his basement, perhaps, next to the old coal chute? That might well help to bring practical fusion closer to reality.
Click to expand...
Remember: Solomani have +1 TL for medicine, –1 for gravitics...
 
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