SO MANY discussions about Traveller seem to center on the REAL or a PERCEIVED divergence between the Traveller TL progression set in stone in 1977 and the almost 50 years that have transpired since. Let's beat that horse one more time in a TOPIC created specifically for that discussion.
Setting aside TL 0-3 for a moment since the "historic" periods are a discussion all on their own about "what defines each TL", there was a 40 year per TL progression started at TL 4 (1860-1900), continued to TL 5 (1900-1940) and then broken in the official TL TIMELINE after that as a wargame company focused on WW2 then Korea then Vietnam as the TL cornerstones. I believe this was a mistake. I think the 40 year TL makes sense for HUMAN CULTURAL and GENERATIONAL reasons. I advocate a continuation of this 40 year trend as a better "fit" for Traveller TLs vs Real World TLs.
From Traveller, we have a progression of a new Technology from Experimental (TL-2) to Developmental (TL-1) to Commercial (TL). Let's map that to 20 year Human Generations.
Let us use "Automobiles" as a historic example. The Experimental Automobiles were TL 4 (resembling steam, electric and gasoline bicycles). The Developmental Automobiles were TL 5 (where every driver was also a mechanic). The ubiquitous Commercial Automobiles are TL 6 (1940-1960).
So let's look at the population in 1960, when Automobiles are ubiquitous technology.
- The population under the age of 20 remembers from 1940 to 1960 and cannot remember a time when automobiles were not ubiquitous technology.
- Their parents: The population from age 20 to 40 remembers from 1920 to 1960 and cannot remember a time before automobiles. They watched automobiles improve from expensive and unreliable (1920) to inexpensive and reliable (1940) plus 20 years of automobiles as ubiquitous technology.
- Their grandparents: The population from age 40 to 60 remembers from 1900 to 1960 and watched automobiles improve from expensive and unreliable (1900) to inexpensive and reliable (1940) plus 20 years of automobiles as ubiquitous technology.
- Their great-grandparents: The population from age 60 to 80 remembers from 1880 to 1960 and can remember a time before automobiles. They read about experimental automobiles for 20 years (1880-1900), watched automobiles improve for 40 years (1900-1940) and experienced 20 years of automobiles as ubiquitous technology (1940-1960).
- Their great-great-grandparents: The population from age 80 to 100 remembers from 1860 to 1960 and can remember a time before automobiles. They read about experimental automobiles for 40 years (1860-1900), watched automobiles improve for 40 years (1900-1940) and experienced 20 years of automobiles as ubiquitous technology (1940-1960).
From a HUMAN perspective, the technology is "ubiquitous" because there exists no segment of the population that either has not grown up knowing nothing else, or has watched the technology develop over a lifetime [long enough to accept it].
We should continue this 40 year per TL progression forward because HUMAN GENERATIONS remain unchanged. Lack of familiarity and acceptance is a gap to "ubiquitous". If you leave the older generations behind with new Technology, then "ubiquitous" will still be delayed until they die off and are replaced by people that know only the new Technology. So you can adopt technology faster, but "ubiquitous" cannot really be accelerated too much.
Using the 40 year TLs, I propose a revised timeline of:
TL 4 (1860-1900) Steam
TL 5 (1900-1940) Internal Combustion
TL 6 (1940-1980) Jets
TL 7 (1980-2020) Computers
TL 8 (2020-2060) Lasers
TL 9 (2060-2100) Fusion
TL 10 (2100+) Gravity/Jump
I really have no idea what the "correct" progression is for mythical technology like FTL travel or reactionless drives. Perhaps 100 years per TL seems as good a starting point as any.
So, I was thinking about this as it pertains to actual gear, and it occurs to me that anything that we have today that didn't exist in 1980 (to pick a round number, now almost 45 years ago) ought to count as TL8 gear. So what do we have today that we didn't have
commercially, for civilians, in 1980 that we have in 2020, a short list:
- Cell phones that can act as computer terminals (I suppose cell phones of a sort existed in 1980, but were primitive and not widespread)
- Internet (Same, ARPANet existed in 1977, but was not publically accessible and filled with everyone.)
- GPS (Same, military-only, though it apparently was operational for the military in 1968 in a primitive incarnation, and was made available to civilians in 1983, so maybe GPS is TL7. I am inlined to count 1980's GPS gear as TL-1, though, as it was pretty primitive.)
- Electric Vehicles (They've been around forever, but only recently become commercial.)
- Compact Disks (we didn't have them until 1982, though technically laser disks predated them, and now they're passe, it seems.)
- TCAS (the aircraft system that keeps you from bumping into other planes in the sky, in development in the 1980's, now ubiquitous). and a lot of other safety avionics like TAWS (which keeps you from bumping into the ground, or tries very hard to), and in general the whole modern aircraft cockpit has changed from a zillion guages to a bank of computer screens (often depicting guages, ironically).
- Body Armor, which I know very little about, has come a very long way since 1980's primitive flak vests, and is now commercially available to citizens in many places (local laws vary wildly).
These are the first things that come to mind. I know I'm missing things, but a one-word summary of developments at a modern TL seemed inadequate. The computer game civilization divides tech advances into bite-sized chunks, one tech at a time, and groups them into eras akin to Tech Levels, so maybe we could make a map like that. I have begun but it turns out the one from the game is weird in places, or is keyed to certain events. I have included something like TL 0 and TL1 from the Civ 5 tech tree with wikipedia dates for certain technologies.
TLs seem like a good way to know at a glance what a world can support, and in 1980, it was a useful way to represent a region with different access to technology: If the US was TL7 in 1980, a lot of Europe was TL6, and a lot of the rest of the world was back at TL5 or before. But different planets may prioritize different parts of a TL, or may have TL (x) in one thing, and TL (x-1) in others.
I guess my main point is that TL is far more nuanced than a single number can possibly represent. If the listed TL is the peak TL supportable on a world, how do you denote how narrow or broad that support is? Do you have everything at that TL? Just one thing at that TL? The TL linked to Pop makes a lot of sense to me, too, and I think it may get adopted IMTU.
I think I have diverged a bit from the main point of the discussion, but I am curious how this is dealt with in other's games?
