General Wouldn't any Tech proliferate as fast as travel throughout the Imperium?

[whartung]

My big example is Nevada during the gold and silver rush, where luxuries and tech hardly seen in NYC or London were routinely shipped to a remote arid mining district.

That's a frontier thing.

I love the scene from Tombstone where Doc referred to Tombstone as "just another mining camp" and Behan commented something akin to "Oh really? Dressing awfully tony for a mining camp. We'll be as big as San Francisco in a few years." Then there's the gun fight in the street. "Very cosmopolitan" from Doc.

Within a few year, Tombstone would be dying. These are some of those 10, 20, 30 year anomalies. Temporary civilization.

I think this would impact the spread of "ubiquitous technology" across an Imperium at the "speed of travel".

Indeed, to a point. But, again, we're talking 100's of years. Yea, TL-15 may be "only" 100 years old, but -14 has been around a lot longer.

Civilizations are created, rise, dominate, stagnate, and die in that much time. TL-12 is older than the Imperium, which "dies" in, what, 1120, 1130? From the Rebellion, virus, et al?

But travel is cheap, energy is free, and capital is not patient and willing to fill any vacuum opportunity provides.

We can point to things like North Korea and talk about limitations and protections and boycotts. But what's NK going to look like in 100 years? Who can say. Folks will say the same thing about the US. But I bet, barring calamity, I bet one thing NK and US won't be is "lower tech" than they are today. Especially when the galaxy is at your door and 2 weeks away from anything.

 

[Condottiere]

We still have boomtowns.

Doesn't have to be resource mining, quite a lot of Chinese provincial cities are going to empty as production is shifted anywhere else.

 

[Condottiere]

Also, sometimes it depends on least effort for best bang for buck.

I could easily live with early fusion reactor for power, at technological level eight, even if a technological level fifteen one has double output.

 

[Krikkitone]

That's a frontier thing.

I love the scene from Tombstone where Doc referred to Tombstone as "just another mining camp" and Behan commented something akin to "Oh really? Dressing awfully tony for a mining camp. We'll be as big as San Francisco in a few years." Then there's the gun fight in the street. "Very cosmopolitan" from Doc.

Within a few year, Tombstone would be dying. These are some of those 10, 20, 30 year anomalies. Temporary civilization.



Indeed, to a point. But, again, we're talking 100's of years. Yea, TL-15 may be "only" 100 years old, but -14 has been around a lot longer.

Civilizations are created, rise, dominate, stagnate, and die in that much time. TL-12 is older than the Imperium, which "dies" in, what, 1120, 1130? From the Rebellion, virus, et al?

But travel is cheap, energy is free, and capital is not patient and willing to fill any vacuum opportunity provides.

We can point to things like North Korea and talk about limitations and protections and boycotts. But what's NK going to look like in 100 years? Who can say. Folks will say the same thing about the US. But I bet, barring calamity, I bet one thing NK and US won't be is "lower tech" than they are today. Especially when the galaxy is at your door and 2 weeks away from anything.

I think the problem is travel is Not that cheap and things are not 2 weeks away. To get TL 8 vehicles you need a supply chain measured in hundreds of millions of people for all the components and parts for tools for making components etc. I would say only Ind (and some Hi) worlds are actual sources of High tech (10+) goods (pop 7,8 worlds may manufacture a few parts or assemble the final product.)

This means if I want the Final product I don’t need 2 weeks (1Jump) I need the number of Jumps to a Hi(probably Ind) world of sufficient TL. So probably 3-4 jumps some of which may be 3-4 parsecs. So 6-8 weeks for the Final product OR any maintenance/replacement.

But money moves mountains…but only if you have money. Imagine 1900(TL4) median income v 2000(TL8)…If we could send iphones back in time they couldn’t afford it. The AustroHungarian Empire probably couldn’t afford a modern jet fighter. and they definitely couldn’t afford to maintain it. So part of TL is the $ available to pull goods and development to a location.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I would say only Ind (and some Hi) worlds are actual sources of High tech (10+) goods (pop 7,8 worlds may manufacture a few parts or assemble the final product.)

I would modify that to a perspective in which Industrial worlds are the most efficient producers of finished goods (as a general rule of thumb), primarily due to economies of scale (and all that) ... but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to automagically "crowd out" all competition in all finished goods in all world markets effectively by default. Finished goods from Industrial worlds will tend to be competitive economically, but they aren't necessarily always going to be "better" in all ways to all people in all circumstances.

By the same token, Population: 7-8 worlds may have local laws of a "protectionist" nature to prevent interstellar imports from totally flooding local economies ... or they may simply be far enough away from "powerhouse" Industrial worlds that the cost of shipping makes particular finished goods "uncompetitive" relative to domestic producers and suppliers because the cost of transport is "too high" for certain classes of finished goods.

It's these kinds of details that can add texture to a campaign setting, elevating the experience of "being places" above simply being a simulation of stats, codes and rules.

 

[Krikkitone]

Its more that a pop 7,8 high tech world Can’t produce most high tech goods without importing lots of high tech parts. See number of countries on Earth (most pop 6-8) that produce something TL4+ without importing anything other than raw materials.

(They might be where the finished product is assembled so it can be “Made in Freeland”/“Caramoz Quality” but most of the parts have to be made in the places the “grav capactation forges” are.)

 

[Kakistocrat]

Would anyone be using old or substandard equipment if they can afford otherwise?

Speaking personally, yes—I’d used my previous laptop for 13 years, and I’ve used my current laptop for 10 years (and counting). I wasn’t the first owner of either of them.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Its more that a pop 7,8 high tech world Can’t produce most high tech goods without importing lots of high tech parts. See number of countries on Earth (most pop 6-8) that produce something TL4+ without importing anything other than raw materials.

Once you can build Humanoid Robots ... your economy is no longer constrained by the quantity of human labor.

 

[Condottiere]

Laptops (and computing) has plateaued in price/performance.

A second hand four core laptop can fulfill most functions most humans need them for, and their previous owners are quite willing to let them go for quite less than two hundred greenbux, so I'm collecting them and distributing them around the apartment.

The Fifty Six Hundred Gee(s) Ryzens do four kay very well, so I don't feel I need an upgrade for that, in terms of media.

You can pretty much coast on Ay Em Four socket.

 

[Commander Truestar]

There have been some excellent statements of most I would have said if I'd come to this thread sooner.

But, in the end, the only thing I'd add is "Look at reality"
We have nations that "have it all" right next to nations that have nothing but sand.
We have nations which "HAD" it all, but are seeing it all torn down....so, they'd have nothing but garbage soon

We have wonderful things that no one in a large number of nations can afford.

We have many people who "can" buy that IPhone you mentioned.....but their country, or their region of a country...has no service infrastructure.
......And that country is not gonna spent the cash to create that infrastructure...
......"OR" that country restricts access to what infrastructure they have........(Couth-North Korea).....So, you "can" buy an IPhone, but it's no more than an expensive rock which is easily damaged

In the end, there are so often questions of "why don't we have it all"...>

Well, most of the worlds in the Spinward Marches can't afford to have it all
Systems based on mining belts (Robin - Mora/Spinward Marches) don't have the cash Glisten system has to deploy it all where there is no "planet"
to deploy it on....

Start asking yourself what a world needs to "have it all"
Start with a population.....a few tens of thousands aren't enough to create and manage the infrastructure
Next is the economy.....so many worlds in the Marches can't buy a handful of customs space craft....they certainly haven't the cash for "it all"

The list goes on

 

[Condottiere]

To be fair, a Traveller starship is ridiculously cheap, in comparison.

Civilizations run on energy, then convenience - at some point, you hit diminishing returns.

 

[warwizard]

If we look at world tamer's handbook we see a detailed examination of the economics of establishing a colony, dealing with low population levels and what happens when you hit the 20 year point and must now start maintaining your industrial capacity. (90% of your heavy industrial capital (HIC) output must now be dedicated to maintaining itself, leaving little left over for maintaining the Agricultrial capital (AC), Light industrial capital (LIC), Construction Capital (CC) and the Material industrial capital (MIC).) I saw cases where the colonies would give 90% of it's population TL 2 Agricultrial capitol that costs 2 Cr to buy, producing a minimal standard of nutrition. There might be a few 10's of TL 8 Agricultrial capitol to provide enough extra food to support the entirety of the other 10% of the population that is working the HIC, LIC, CC, and MIC. The export industry... well that comes from the MIC group that is in excess of the needs of the HIC CC, and LIC groups. If the colony had a richer start, it could focus it's excess production based on what nearby markets need. That <HI IN> world 1 parsec away is going to subdize your world into being an <AG>, minimal HIC LIC, CC, and MIC and everything they can is put into the best AC they can afford. In this way a pop 7 world that is agricultural is created, but has little in the way of heavy industry or even consumer goods production, and the mineral production, well most likley only sufficient to operate it's existing industry. Need bulk grains, well sorry, thoes are under contract, we have a few people raising rabbits, so I could sell you a ton of packaged rabbit meat. (Disclaimer: my books are in storage this is from memory).

 

[whartung]

In the end, there are so often questions of "why don't we have it all"...>

The problem isn't "why don't we have it all", it's "why don't we have it all after HUNDREDS OF YEARS of contact".

Communist China is, what, roughly 75 years old? Most of the nations in Africa, specifically their governments, are between 20 and 50 years old.

In many ways, we are transitioning to "power is almost free". Texas and California at times post "negative" electricity rates. Solar panels are getting cheaper and cheaper.

The 3rd world is not quite benefitting from that abundance, not yet. But it will, in time.

A YouTube Guy(tm) went over somewhere in Africa and drilled 100 wells. I'm guessing that they, too, are solar powered. "Free(tm)" water for those communities.

Imagine what happens when folks start dropping "clean, ubiquitous, cheap, cheap, cheap" fusion power every where. "Who needs a UPS when you can buy a fusion power plant from a blister pack next to the gum by the check stand at WalMart". "Honey, I got another couple megawatts at the store!" "Yes, but you forgot the milk again!"

Long term, NK will not survive as we know it. Something(tm) will happen and tear that country apart. NK could be another industrial powerhouse if they wanted to be.

Cell phone towers are scattered across Africa, the poorest countries rely on cellular devices. Consider how prevalent they are in India, which has WIDE swings of demographic, but handhelds are ubiquitous. Anyone that can afford a terminal can get Internet from the sky almost anywhere in the world.

As they say, the poorest of America are the richest of the poor. There will always be disparity, but abundance has ways of creeping in, everywhere, over time. And there have been 100's of years of span for folks to fill opportunity (and opportunity is everywhere).

 

[Marcatlas]

As to the gauss pistol, I would like to buy a DD AR-15 and a Glock 21- I can't because I live in the UK and it is illegal.

The problem isn't "why don't we have it all", it's "why don't we have it all after HUNDREDS OF YEARS of contact".

Communist China is, what, roughly 75 years old? Most of the nations in Africa, specifically their governments, are between 20 and 50 years old.

Because hundreds of years of "contact" at a few thousand kilometers distance is not the same as "contact" light years away.

 

[whartung]

It's not the distance, it's the time. These systems are closer than you think.

It's weeks away, not years. And once you've arrived, travel is "instant". Hours, to anywhere on the planet, not days. Instant point to point communications. "Here, take this, and we can keep in touch."

You can build (with appropriate investment) a Class C starport in less than 2 years (and there's no reason it can't be a C+ with refined fuel). Trade is now "open". "Build it, and they will come." The US built the Transcontinental Railroad using picks and shovels with engineers having to commute through Panama or going around the horn in 6 years, and not all of them survived the passage.

The starport needs a supply chain, not an industrial base. The Imperium is one, huge, galactic supply train in action.

 

[Marcatlas]

It's not the distance, it's the time. These systems are closer than you think.

It's weeks away, not years. And once you've arrived, travel is "instant". Hours, to anywhere on the planet, not days. Instant point to point communications. "Here, take this, and we can keep in touch."

You can build (with appropriate investment) a Class C starport in less than 2 years (and there's no reason it can't be a C+ with refined fuel). Trade is now "open". "Build it, and they will come." The US built the Transcontinental Railroad using picks and shovels with engineers having to commute through Panama or going around the horn in 6 years, and not all of them survived the passage.

The starport needs a supply chain, not an industrial base. The Imperium is one, huge, galactic supply train in action.

No, it is also distance. Because with distance less people and material flows. I DO know the distances involved. And the cost for individuals and goods to travel them. The greater the distance, the larger the barriers to all forms of communication, trade, ideas, etc.

 

[kilemall]

No, it is also distance. Because with distance less people and material flows. I DO know the distances involved. And the cost for individuals and goods to travel them. The greater the distance, the larger the barriers to all forms of communication, trade, ideas, etc.

I worked out an assumption for the distance goods can travel and potentially still be profitable.

This is predicated on CT speculation, with a freight rate of Cr1000 per parsec.

In general, figure 30% of the commodity/product cost at 100% value, divided by 1000 for parsec range.

So cheap items like ag products or raw metal do not ‘travel well’, for example say a Cr5000 per ton item at 30% thus Cr1500 transport budget can reasonably go 1 parsec. A cheaper production cost or high demand can carry it a little further, but a real challenge to even get it across the subsector.

A MCr1 per ton item would have Cr300000 legs, or potentially 300 parsecs. If the item is produced at an IND planet, it has that 30% discount built in and can beat the local production price easily at 200 parsecs while being more profitable baked in.

This alone can explain why local production sources/TL can be suppressed, not to mention in the case of the 3I a nobility and emperor who profit from megacorps dominance.

 

[atpollard]

Let's settle the Planet Average with a POP 7 (20,000,000 people). People will CHOOSE (absent a command economy) to live in communities of proportional sizes in equal numbers (roughly the same TOTAL NUMBER of people live in Towns of 1000 as live in Cities of 1 million). So for our total population, the communities will break down as follows:

4 x POP 6
40 x POP 5
400 x POP 4
4000 x POP 3
40000 x POP 2 (500 people form a stable, self-sufficient neighborhood or community)

So if we wanted to provide FUSION ELECTRIFICATION to every community, we would need to import 44,444 Fusion Power Plants at over a million credits each. That works out to over Cr 10 per month in taxes for each man, woman and child, just to pay for the equipment. We still need Fuel and 44,444 engineers and the power distribution network to transmit the energy through the city.

Someone may suggest building fewer central plants and running lines to remote locations (like we do on earth). You will discover that a population of only 20 million across a globe (where the resources are scattered) will be hard pressed to support infrastructure like Roads and Power Transmission lines. It will be like rural Alaska and Canada where settlements are so far apart that planes are the most logical transport from one community to the next.

@warwizard touched on this from "world tamer's handbook" where the cost of infrastructure sucks all the surplus out of the Government coffers. This will create a drag on technology spread.

As far as the issue of "hundreds of years" is concerned, Traveller is a game of Classic Science Fiction ... it is related to the slow advance of TLs and the metagame goal of not modeling a "singularity" event of infinitely accelerating progress.

 

[Enoki]

It gets worse with smaller populations too. Let's say you have a planet with a few thousand people living on it. How would you install and operate something like modern cell phone service? This would require a pretty substantial investment in equipment, then you'd need technician(s) to service and operate it. The whole would likely be prohibitively expensive.

If the population were spread out, then it makes little sense to try and even electrify all the places they live unless you can use wind, solar, or some other method not requiring a grid and that method is reasonably cost effective.

Sure, some higher technology could easily be imported but where it requires a lot of infrastructure, support, or centralization, it's unlikely to be adopted on a low pop planet.

On high pop worlds there are all sorts of reasons technology might not be widely adopted. Oppressive government where the ruling class has very high tech--maybe 1 to 5% of the population--but leaves the masses living in poverty and squalor. Or, the world might be religious and have prohibitions against technology (think something like the Amish). There are lots of reasons technology isn't imported or adopted, and careful review of a system's or world's UPP will often show what those reasons might be.

Now, worlds with small pops may have a specific purpose that goes with them. For example, let's say there's a low pop world of about 10,000 inhabitants and that they are there to operate a mining operation for a specific rare ore that happens to be easily obtained there. The company owning the mine ensures their employees are given as many amenities as possible, and there is also a 'free' market where goods are sold, the owners knowing that the miners have regular pay to spend.
So, such a world might have a fusion plant because it's necessary to run the mine but it also produces enough excess power to run everything else. Because of regular ship arrivals to haul off the refined ore, these ships also bring in technology that the locals expect and demand.

The distance for hauling freight to a planet is less important than having a market when it arrives. If there are dozens of potential buyers for something on a world, then only dozens of what they want to buy will end up there at a whatever price the market has to bear to make bringing it there profitable. On the other hand, if most of the population has little or no money to spend, then it becomes no different than a low pop planet even if there are a billion inhabitants on it. They can't buy high tech because they have no money to buy it with.

 

[coliver988]

The GURPS Far Trader has rules for how far things can go and still make money. Though it is a big-ship universe, and the mechanics are different, there is still value in looking at that model as well I believe.

Essentially each system has a World Trade Number based TL, population, port type and trade classifications. Then between systems there is a BTN, Bilateral Trade Number based on distance, both sets of trade classifications. That number determines the amount of trade between any two systems. Years ago, I actually wrote software to do all that (my first Traveller trade program 20+ years ago, and the reason I started my blog honestly. I was laid off, and I had time on my hands).

Some examples of the BTN:

• BTN 1: 10-50CR/year. no cargo at at
• BTN 5: 100-500KCr/year, 10-50 tons/year,
• BTN 10: 10-50GCr (billions of credits)/year, 1-5 million tons/year, 50-100K tons/week, 1-5 thousand tons a day

I personally think the distance modifier needs to be larger than it is, but the underpinnings of GURPS is a bit different than Classic.

I tend to divide the volumes of trade (and that includes passengers) by 10 as I prefer a small-ship universe, and the GURPS Traveller universe is a lot busier than Classic seems to be.

edit: I think this is the large, commercial scale trade, not the tramp trading.