What do we like about traveller!!!

[mike wightman]

It comes down to economics - the driving force behind the Imperium setting - if the TL7 bod can afford it, he/she can have it. Most, I would argue, can't afford it
That's not to say there hasn't been genetic engineering done on some of his/her ancestors, but I don't think it would be anything immediately obvious to us.

There is another kind of genetic engineering that has been conducted in the real world and in Traveller - eugenics .
I think I'd rather medics intervened to correct genetic faults rather than sterilizing those considered unfit to breed.

 

[BetterThanLife]

With all the cosmetic operations available, and other things of that nature, you still don't see much variation. Most people opt for enhancing their looks and looking more like the ideal human. (Full head of hair, thinner, bigger boobs, smaller boobs, etc.) Aside from the occasional Green or Purple hair or the weird color contacts (and those are rare) there is no real attempt to change what a human looks like, though we are obviously capable of that now. Elf/Vulcan ears, Antenna, Webbed hands and feet, is obviously all possible now.

About the only thing I could see become acceptable in people is a DNI (Direct Neural Interface) for computers. And with a little ingenuity that doesn't even have to be visible. Induction pads or WIFI equivalent or perahps even going in and out through the visual spectrum and the eye. Much cooler than sticking a plug in your head. People in general change appearance to attract the opposite sex, or in some cases the same sex. But it is generally to be more attractive not to be more efficient. The things people will opt for in terms of appearance changing is a full head of hair, nice big perky boobs, flat stomache, and muscles. (Everyone wants to be Arnold or Kevin Sorbo, or Alyssa Milano, or Cory Everson. Those are the kinds of changes you can expect. Natural selection still works. THe people predisposed to go the weird route would generally be taking themselves out of the gene pool, so you are likely to see healthy, beautiful people not strange half machine/half human combinations. (Though you may see a few.)

 

[TheEngineer]

Sigg noted

The thing is Traveller technology doesn't advance over the whole 3000 year future.

Ehh, it does not ?
When were the different TLs reached in the OTU timeline ?
Anyway I read quite a lot of stuff dealing with real world future technology, where a kind of advancement decrease is expected because of "approximation to physical borders".
Why does not the same apply to the OTU ?

Malenfant noted:

Though that's one of the things I don't like about the OTU - the technological disparity between worlds, especially worlds that are in the Imperium. IMTU I'd have the worlds a LOT closer together in terms of technological capability (probably 3 TLs apart at most).

Do you thing that technological uniformity is realistic ? (OK, 3 TL diff still is a gap..

)
Take a look at our real world and the technological differences between countries just a few hours away from each other.
Spreading of technological advancement is a matter of ability, finance and last but not least - sense (sadly sense is neglegted often).

In contrast to quite a few I really like the conservative and reluctant view of Traveller regarding technological "advancement".
Perhaps the reason, that Traveller "high tech" is sometimes considered to be "boring" might be, that it never was described in a very detailed and vivid way.

If its about genetic engineering / cloning I am pretty sure, that
- if it can be done
- if it can be financed
- if it makes sense for someone
it might happen.
If it is about health the sense is very obvious. In a Traveller setting genetic engineering might be a valueable way to support long term colonisation or work in "different" environments. Here there might be impacts on physical appearance, but still only on a local level.
One other note may be that appearance in order to attract somebody is a matter of ever changing fashion, strangely combined with peoples strive for individuality.
So, all in all I expect that the universe keeps/increases its diversity

 

[phil644441]

Depends how you think science advances (Kuhnian, Popperian, etc.). A new 'level' of science might equate to a traveller TL - the change from Aristotelean to Galilean physics, for example, sparked a whole series of new technologies - but that has limits until a radical breakthrough is achieved - e.g. Newtonian physics. This, in turn, sparks off another flurry of technologies (steam engines, railways, etc.) even if they are not necessarily all directly related to the advance in physics. Einsteinian similarly and (presumably) quantum or whatever the next 'level' might be. Of course, the 'levels' here might be more or less all-encompassing than Traveller TLs. The advances in genetics, cloning, etc. might be seen as a TL advance in biology so that a whole flurry of new technologies may (I agree - WILL) come along. But they will have a limit and we will wait for the next TL advance beyond that. Scientific advancement is not basically steady - science as a whole advances by leaps and bounds, rather than by steady development over time.

My opinion, anyway.

AK