Traveller's direction; history and future

[atpollard]

No Air Rafts to orbit in my Universe. Altitude limit is about 4000 feet above sea level, Earth Atmosphere. Thin atmosphere it is about 1000 feet, very thin it has to be enclosed and pressurized, ditto trace and vacuum. I have not put in a compensation for difference in planetary radius as the Raft gets further away from the planetary equator. This assumes that the contra-gravitiy field is acting against the planetary center of mass at the core of the planet. You can go higher on lower gravity planets, but then enclosure and pressurization is a mandate, which does make them a tad more expensive. Also more sensitive to winds as well.

Sorry, I deleted my post.
I wasn't sure it was contributing to the topic.

I had a recent opportunity to wrestle with this issue in my PbP game.
[IMTU] The world (Biter) had historically been TL 10 and was in the grips of a long, slow decline that is triggering a crisis.
So the front line military has access to TL 9 (that gives them actual grav vehicles and fusion PP).
The second string reserves and top of the line civilians have access to TL 8 ... which in CT means flying cars, but no anti-grav. For a world with almost no paved roads, I translated that to air-cushion versions of the air rafts with limited WIG capability. So above the ground, but less than 10 meters of altitude.
The typical average Joe civilian transport would be TL 7, so that equates to tracked vehicles to deal with the rivers of sand/mud that are unpaved roads/paths.

 

[Timerover51]

Sorry, I deleted my post.
I wasn't sure it was contributing to the topic.

I was wondering where it suddenly went. And I viewed it as contributing to the thread, as it points out the dichotomy of hard science and "Handwavium" in Traveller. It keeps trying to straddle both worlds, without being one or the other.

That is why I try to use as much Real World in my Traveller Universe, and keep the "Handwavium" to the minimum necessary to run the game.

 

[whulorigan]

But it's like that became the focus of the game, and stuff like the actual story and environment almost, or rather essentially, took a back seat to "leveling up". Traveller didn't have that (thank goodness), and focused on the adventure itself. But maybe RPers want the whole XP thing.

All I know is that I didn't ... and still don't.

If I had to play a character who had to start out as a teenager with only rudimentary skills and abilities, I would want some type of mechanism to "level-up" as well, or at least a provision for increases in skill-levels for particular skills (e.g. Runequest). But that I think is part of the genius of Traveller: you do all of your "leveling-up" and/or skill increases as a part of CharGen, and you build the character you want to play (young or old, experienced or not). Then you don't need to focus on character-building and abilities - you focus on role-playing.

 

[Frankymole]

I do agree that somwhere you need a TL9+ world to build this stuff, but commo, GPS, surveillance satellite net tech should be the first thing a scout/courier places in orbit around a new world to be explored.

Followed by super adventure possibilities when, mid-exploration by the ground team, they satellites are fried by a burst from the local flare star

Won't there be meson comms by then, direct line and so not requiring satellites?

 

[Blue Ghost]

If I had to play a character who had to start out as a teenager with only rudimentary skills and abilities, I would want some type of mechanism to "level-up" as well, or at least a provision for increases in skill-levels for particular skills (e.g. Runequest). But that I think is part of the genius of Traveller: you do all of your "leveling-up" and/or skill increases as a part of CharGen, and you build the character you want to play (young or old, experienced or not). Then you don't need to focus on character-building and abilities - you focus on role-playing.

I can see that, and I think in one of the JTAS, TAS or Challenge issues there was the "generate your character from birth or school" article, which to me seemed pretty cool at the time. I mean you could, in theory, start your character from age 10 or 12, and then level up through adventuring by playing a young character who ages and matures.

Of course, remembering having fired rifles as a kid, you won't be able to handle weapons like you could as an adult, and, even more interestingly, you won't have as many hit points ...

But I think this is the genius of the game that you can do that. Too bad there are still some barriers it needs to leap. Time for lunch..........

 

[rancke]

I ran a naval campaign where the PCs were members of a ship's crew. I doled out the crew slots before character generation and let the players roll until they achieved the rank needeed to fill the position.

I also came up with an old Navy aphorism: "To get ahead in this navy you have to be either good or noble." The way that worked was that if a character either had an appropriate skill at 2 or better OR a high social level, he rolled for promotion according to the RAW. If he had both, he either got a bonus to the throw or was allowed to throw (with no bonus) if his last promotion was less than four years ago, and if he had neither he got a minus.


Hans

 

[rnadams2]

The trick is that no matter what setting you strip out, another will creep in just from the rules written.

"Generic Sci-Fi" doesn't sound cool for an RPG title. And when the game says that it takes play in the year blah blah after the blah blah event blah blah years ago, there's the game's setting starting to show. And since most players want their space combat spelled out for them, the setting then really takes over.

Yeah, but "Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future" isn't too tight a straightjacket (unless you want a setting "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" ).

To me, technology--particularly as it applies to space travel--is the biggest setting-specific thing in the rules. But I think we all get bogged down in the "it's in print, therefore it can't be changed" mindset, which isn't so at all. Maybe it's because the old original D&D was where I cut my RPG chops, but I've always seen much of the rules as open to modification. Probably harder to reconcile if you're coming from a wargaming background--if somebody wanted to dump a bunch of "house rules" on me while playing Advanced Squad Leader, I'd most likely have a fit.

The toughest part of altering the rules, whether setting-based or game mechanic, is making sure everyone playing in your game understands them--where they conform to published rules and where they don't.

But I'll agree that it can be hard to break from what's been published. I, too, would love to see a few more degrees of separation between the rules of the game and the Third Imperium setting. And I believe it would be very good for the overall health of the game. Sell and market 3I-specific items apart from the rules, and open things up for new, creative settings to be commercially introduced, not to mention giving a little more encouragement for referees to be creative themselves and build something uniquely theirs.

The cool thing is, it's all there already. The presentation just needs to be tweaked a bit.

 

[salochin999]

The trick is that no matter what setting you strip out, another will creep in just from the rules written.

"Generic Sci-Fi" doesn't sound cool for an RPG title. And when the game says that it takes play in the year blah blah after the blah blah event blah blah years ago, there's the game's setting starting to show. And since most players want their space combat spelled out for them, the setting then really takes over.

I think this is the key point. Game rules are full of implicit setting e.g. char gen, ship design, tech etc so a generic sci-fi game would need a very slim set of core mechanics followed by a template structure for each setting.

 

[Timerover51]

Followed by super adventure possibilities when, mid-exploration by the ground team, they satellites are fried by a burst from the local flare star

Won't there be meson comms by then, direct line and so not requiring satellites?

Considering that mesons have a life expectancy of a few hundredths or a microsecond, and the only way currently to produce them is by use of particle accelerators, I would say no meson communications.

I very much doubt if a Scout ship is going to be carrying a complete set of GPS and surveillance satellites onboard ship. The current GPS system uses 24 satellites in 12 hours orbits in 6 different orbital paths for coverage. Your scout is going to be carrying 24 satellites? As for surveillance satellites, for best definition, those are going to have to be in low orbit, circa 90 to 120 minutes, and for planetary coverage a satellite is going to have to be in polar orbit as well. I would expect the Scout to do the initial orbital mapping, from low polar orbit with its own equipment. Think about how many satellites you will need for complete 24 hour a day coverage of an entire planet. A Scout is not going to be carrying that many satellites, and by the way, satellites do cost a tiny bit of cash to build. Add that to the price of your Scout Ship, and then tell me where a retired Scout is going to get that cash for his own satellites.

 

[salochin999]

Considering that mesons have a life expectancy of a few hundredths or a microsecond, and the only way currently to produce them is by use of particle accelerators, I would say no meson communications.

I very much doubt if a Scout ship is going to be carrying a complete set of GPS and surveillance satellites onboard ship. The current GPS system uses 24 satellites in 12 hours orbits in 6 different orbital paths for coverage. Your scout is going to be carrying 24 satellites? As for surveillance satellites, for best definition, those are going to have to be in low orbit, circa 90 to 120 minutes, and for planetary coverage a satellite is going to have to be in polar orbit as well. I would expect the Scout to do the initial orbital mapping, from low polar orbit with its own equipment. Think about how many satellites you will need for complete 24 hour a day coverage of an entire planet. A Scout is not going to be carrying that many satellites, and by the way, satellites do cost a tiny bit of cash to build. Add that to the price of your Scout Ship, and then tell me where a retired Scout is going to get that cash for his own satellites.

I think that would be the kind of job non-detached scouts do. So they don't usually carry 24 satellites around with them but one job might be maintaining a minimal network of navigation satellites in unimportant systems a bit like the coastguard and shipping buoys.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a3851/4295243/

 

[Timerover51]

I think that would be the kind of job non-detached scouts do. So they don't usually carry 24 satellites around with them but one job might be maintaining a minimal network of navigation satellites in unimportant systems a bit like the coastguard and shipping buoys.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a3851/4295243/

I assume that the Scout Service will be doing many of the jobs that the Real World Coast Guard performs.

 

[GypsyComet]

I assume that the Scout Service will be doing many of the jobs that the Real World Coast Guard performs.

Its a reasonable cover for their intel operations in a "big, nosy Imperium" take on things.

 

[aramis]

I can see that, and I think in one of the JTAS, TAS or Challenge issues there was the "generate your character from birth or school" article, which to me seemed pretty cool at the time. I mean you could, in theory, start your character from age 10 or 12, and then level up through adventuring by playing a young character who ages and matures.

Of course, remembering having fired rifles as a kid, you won't be able to handle weapons like you could as an adult, and, even more interestingly, you won't have as many hit points ...

But I think this is the genius of the game that you can do that. Too bad there are still some barriers it needs to leap. Time for lunch..........

It's in Traveller's Digest, and covers Imperial Humans and Vargr.

 

[mike wightman]

Considering that mesons have a life expectancy of a few hundredths or a microsecond, and the only way currently to produce them is by use of particle accelerators, I would say no meson communications.

Not by TL11 they don't.

But then the general consensus is that meson weapons and communications are not based on our real world physics knowledge of mesons.

I very much doubt if a Scout ship is going to be carrying a complete set of GPS and surveillance satellites onboard ship. The current GPS system uses 24 satellites in 12 hours orbits in 6 different orbital paths for coverage. Your scout is going to be carrying 24 satellites? As for surveillance satellites, for best definition, those are going to have to be in low orbit, circa 90 to 120 minutes, and for planetary coverage a satellite is going to have to be in polar orbit as well. I would expect the Scout to do the initial orbital mapping, from low polar orbit with its own equipment. Think about how many satellites you will need for complete 24 hour a day coverage of an entire planet. A Scout is not going to be carrying that many satellites, and by the way, satellites do cost a tiny bit of cash to build. Add that to the price of your Scout Ship, and then tell me where a retired Scout is going to get that cash for his own satellites.

If you mass produce TL9 satellites they are going to be a fraction of the cost of our TL7 efforts. Not to mention that the electronics in satellites are pretty cheap even today - its the transport costs that makes them so expensive.

As to size the standard scout/courier has a 3dt cargo hold, that's 42 cubic metres. At one cubic metre per TL9 satellite you could carry lots of them no problem.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The other thing to keep in mind are the capabilities of the actual technology. A hand held "phone" in the 3I at around 1100 probably doesn't need a lot of infrastructure support in orbit or on the ground in the form of cell towers / antennae. And, also, it probably has an app that measure it's position on a world in relation to a vessel, and thereby give an approximation of where the user is in relation to the vessel, and the size of the world.

It would take one orbit, and the phone or peronsal computer, would measure angular momentum in relation to the pull of the world, and give a size mass and density reading, and give a GPS like reading. The only thing it couldn't do on its own is map the planet, but there's probably an app that could feed it data from the ship's sensor suite.

And this is the barrier that Traveller continually runs into. If I had thrown up the explanation in the previous paragraph to you in 1980, 1979, or before, and told you it would be done by a hand held "communicator", or Star Wars "com-link", you would have laughed at me and said "yeah, right!"

But if I had articulated some of the technology, then you might have nodded your head and said "Yeah, but maybe in a hundred years or so.", and yet it took less than half that time for the technology to be realized.

You can't fault Traveller for want of trying, but this was my point about letting the adventures evolve and write their background as opposed to running everything through licensing to make sure it fits with the established canon.

There's no going back now, but there's room for improvement.

 

[mike wightman]

What is needed IMHO is someone or a group of people to get together and think about the applications of breakthrough Traveller technology and its effect on societies and cultures.

By TL9 you have cheap fusion energy, gravitics and the ability to exploit any resource in your system. Never mind that you can jump to another system and build stuff there.

What are cultures and societies like at this TL?

As you advance through the TL scale there are further breakthroughs - the ability to manipulate nuclear forces (just think how damper technology can be used beyond the battlefield) for example.

 

[Shonner]

What are cultures and societies like at this TL?

Humans will be humans still. Technology just allows them to do bad things all the quicker. How people govern themselves will be the main thing as always. Technocrats? Communists?

 

[atpollard]

What is needed IMHO is someone or a group of people to get together and think about the applications of breakthrough Traveller technology and its effect on societies and cultures.

IMTU, I postulated about three levels of evolutionary change leading to a transformational game changer technology breakthrough.

At TL 1-3, the majority of the population is engaged in food production, creating a predominantly rural and agrarian character to society.

At TL 4-6, the agricultural revolution frees people up to work at things other than agriculture. This creates an explosion in manufacturing and brick and mortar retail sales and services. This creates a society of a more industrial and urban character.

At TL 7-9, automation has taken over manufacturing and the e-commerce is taking over the lower level service industry (like bank tellers and dish washers). The two great forces for social transformation are the explosion of professional/intellectual services and the drive into space to obtain greater resources. Society is now defined by a more suburban character, an explosion of cultural centers and the dominance of the space sector over the economy.

At TL 10-12, energy becomes limitless, planets develope a unified identity, culture spans multiple star systems and the sky is literally the limit. Flight becomes the standard mode of travel and arcologies (cities towering into the sky) become the norm. Manufacturing has moved to nanotechnology and print on demand as the norms with little need for large centralized production centers.

At TL 13-15, holography and virtual reality mature to the point where the virtual world becomes as economically and culturally important as the real world. Cutting edge artists are creating virtual experiences and virtual places that offer experiences unimaginable at lower TLs. Space continues to be important, it just ceases to be the cutting edge of society.

At TL 16-18, technology advances to the point where thought and reality merge. Welcome to life in a holodeck.

YMMV

 

[Frankymole]

TL10-TL12 societal changes from replicators, as per Arthur C Clarke's 2040 in the list below?

http://flashbak.com/arthur-c-clarke...2100-future-visions-from-1964-and-2001-30275/

Some of the event listed here, particularly the space missions, are already scheduled. I believe all the other events could happen, although several, I hope, will not. Check me for accuracy – on December 31, 2100.

2001 Cassini space probe (launched 1997) begins exploration of Saturn’s moons and rings. Galileo probe (launched 1989) continues surveying Jupiter and its moons. Life beneath the ice-covered oceans of one moon, Europa, appears likely.

2002 The first commercial device producing clean, safe power by low-temperate nuclear reactions goes on the market, heralding the end of the Fossil Fuel Age.

2003 The motor industry is given five years to replace all fuel-burning engines with the new energy device. The same year, NASA’s robot Mars Surveyor is launch

2004 First (publicly admitted) human clone.

2005 First sample sent back to Earth by Mars Surveyor.2006 Last coal mine closed.

2008 A city in a developing country is devastated by the accidental detonation of an atomic bomb in its armoury. After a brief debate in the United Nations, all nuclear weapons are destroyed.

2009 The first quantum generators (tapping space energy) are developed. Available in portable and household units, from a few kilowatts upwards, they can produce electricity indefinitely. Central power stations close down: the age of pylons ends.

Electronic monitoring virtually phases out professional criminals.

2011 Largest living animal filmed: a 76-metre octopus in the Mariana Trench. By coincidence, even larger creatures are then discovered when the first robot probes drill through the ice of Europa.

2012 Aerospace-planes enter commercial service.

2013 Prince Harry becomes the first member of the British royal family to fly in space.

2014 Construction of Hilton Orbiter Hotel begins by converting the giant shuttle tanks previously allowed to fall back to Earth.

2015 An inevitable by-product of the quantum generator is complete control of matter at the atomic level. Within a few years, because they are more useful, lead and copper cost twice as much as gold.

2016 Existing currencies are abolished. The “mega-watt-hour” becomes the universal unit of exchange.

2017 On his hundred birthday, December 16, Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of the first guests in the Hilton Orbiter.

2019 A major meteor impact occurs on the north polar ice cap. The resulting tsunamis cause considerable damage along the coasts of Greeland and Canada. The long-discussed “Project Spaceguard,” to identify and deflect potentially dangerous comets or asteroids, is finally activated.

2020 Artificial Intelligence reaches human level. From now on there are two intelligent species on Earth.

2021 The first humans land on Mars.2023 Dinosaur facsimiles are cloned from computer-generated DNA.

2024 Infrared signals are detected coming from the centre of the Galaxy, obviously the product of a technologically advanced civilisation. All attempts to decipher them fail.

2025 Neurological research finally leads to an understanding of all the senses, and direct input becomes possible, bypassing ears, eyes, skin, etc. The result is the metal “Braincap.” Anyone wearing this close-fitting helmet can enter a whole universe of experience, real or imaginary.

The Braincap is a boon to doctors, who can now experience their patients’ symptoms (suitable attenuated). It also revolutionises the legal profession, as deliberate lying is now impossible.

2040 The “Universal Replicator,” based on nanotechnology, is perfected: any object, however complex, can be created – given the necessary raw materials. Diamonds or gourmet meals can, literally, be made from dirt. As a result, agriculture and industry are phased out – along with work. There is an explosion in the arts, entertainment and education. Hunter-gathere societies are deliberately recreated, with huge areas of the planet allowed to revert to their natural state.

2045 The totally self-contained mobile home (envisaged almost a century ago by Buckminster Fuller) is perfected. Any additional carbon needed from food synthesis is obtained by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

2050 Bored in this era, millions decide to use cryonic suspension to emigrate into the future in search of adventure.

2057 On October 4, the centenary of Sputnik 1, the dawn of the space age is celebrated by humans on Earth, the Moon, Mars, Europa, Ganymede and Titan, and in orbit around Venus, Neptune and Pluto.

2061 Halley’s Comet returns – first landing by humans, And the sensational discovery of both dormant and active life forms vindicates Wickramasinghe and Hoyle’s century-old hypothesis that life exists through space.

2090 Burning of fossil fuels is resumed to replace carbon dioxide “mined” from the air and to try to postpone the next Ice Age by promoting global warming.

2095 The development of a “Space Drive” – a propulsion system reacting against the structure of space-time – makes the rocket obsolete and permits velocities close to that of light. Human explorers set off to nearby star systems.

2100 History begins…


But dude, where’s my flying car..?

 

[Timerover51]

Most of those were clearly not going to happen even when he predicted them. I suspect he was showing his age. Also, he did die in 2008.