TL15 as Maximum Imperial Tech Level

[Grav_Moped]

You missed the best bit, it is still TL9 in S:9 despite the change in jump TL paradigm introduced in HG, and the xboat is TL10 (jump 4 is TL13).

HG specifically didn't supersede LBB2, but LBB2'81 broke the XBoat as written.

 

[whulorigan]

Like bad historical movies that take liberties or ignore facts for artistic license?

Roman movies are particularly egregious that way.

Partially, but more like historical-based movies working from limited historical records, so the producers and scriptwriters need to infer and improvise based on known history, guesswork, legend and contradictory tales that have managed to come down from multiple independent sources. The "Galaxiad" to which Aramis is referring is what has managed to survive in records, legends, and distortions through the destruction and loss of the Collapse, the Empress Wave, and a further later societal collapse ca 1400 before the final reemergence of a semblence of stability and superior TL by about year 1900.

It is somewhat like trying to piece together: Just who was the historical Arthur in Britannia ca 450AD?

 

[Dragoner]

I figure that this factor (high tech secrets) is probably one of the reasons why the Type-S Scout/Courier, which is ubiquitous to the point of being BORING, hasn't been "updated" into a shiny maximum tech level form. If one goes missing, the engineering/hardware is NO BIG LOSS (although the information/data onboard might be). From a "military industrial secrets" standpoint, the antiquated Type-S has no secrets left to give up from its now long since obsolete hardware and construction for any rival power or polity.

IMTU the Type 2 is a courier, such as delivering data: media, stl's etc. plus government officials such as a plenipotentiary to distribute aid from Earth:

Plenipotentiary - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It can do routine patrols such as a police cruiser does today. LRRP's are often done by a pair of old cruisers, destroyers, or a mix; similar to missions such as the original Star Trek. These ships are handed over to the scout corps from the navy, and refurbished before being sent out. Scout purview is also to act as interstellar sheriffs or marshals for Earth, a duty the navy won't touch, they can be called in for support, "Vaporize not Mirandize" as the traditional saying goes. If you see navy and the scouts after you run to the scouts to surrender, because the navy will only be target acquired, target destroyed.

 

[mike wightman]

The Third IISS type S is a courier, it takes messages to worlds not on the xboat links.

The scout/courier is the final part of the network, although this type of ship is not restricted to working with the express boat system. The xboat network is a general framework of routes connecting major worlds and population centers with other similar worlds. Economic considerations make it impossible for the network to reach every single world in the Imperium; the scout/courier is used to fill the gaps. When a message 'can no longer be forwarded by xboat along the major routes, it is transferred to a scout/courier which then carries it to the specific world in question. Main routes are plotted to come within several parsecs of every star system in the Imperium, so the added transit time is rarely more than an extra three or four weeks.

While the xboat system provides fast forwarding of messages and information along the major xboat routes within the Imperium, it falls to the Scout Service's fleet of scout1couriers to relay information from worlds along the routes to outlying fringe worlds. The jump-2 capability of the scout/courier places nearly all such worlds within its range.