Tech Levels and Culture levels...

[« Spinward Scout »]

I've had a hard time reconcilling the idea of Tech Levels being used by mundane adventurers. I would think that only Scouts on survey, Sociologists and other technical scientists would use the different Tech classifications. I would think that TAS would simplify it for the average citizen. So I came up with this:

Cultural Classifications

Culture A is Primitive (spears, axes, fire, and bows and arrows is about it, and the culture is found on only part of the planet) - example: Neandertal

Culture B is Planetary (cultures that extend across a planet) - example: The British Empire

Culture C is Stellar (a culture that spans a solar system) - example: the Regina system

Culture D is Interstellar (able go between star systems) - example: The Imperium

Culture E is Galactic (the culture spans the entire Galaxy). - example: possibly the Ancients

Culture F is InterGalactic (the culture travels between galaxies)

Culture G is Universal

Earth right now stands at the top end of Planetary (Culture B) and just about to break into Stellar (Culture C).

Let me know what you think,

Scout

[mike wightman]

It's similar to the general descriptions MT uses to group TLs by:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> TL General Description
0-3 pre-industrial
4-5 industrial
6-8 pre-stellar
9-A early stellar
B-D average stellar
E-G high stellar
H-L extreme stellar
M+ ???????????????</pre>[/QUOTE]

[Chuck Anumia]

Both work for me but will it ever become more official I will just use whatever works best in my group I supose

[aramis]

The MT labels are also in TNE and T4, so they ARE official.

[mike wightman]

Sir Dameon,
I should have said earlier that I like the idea of extending the TL/Culture types beyond the Traveller norm.

GT:AR3 suggests using the three levels of advanced civilization proposed by Nikolai Kardashev, which is based on energy production/usage:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">CIVILIZATION ENERGY PRODUCTION
type I all planet based sources
type II the total energy produced by stars,
i.e. Dyson sphere like energy collectors
type III the total energy of thousand or millions of stars;
or pulsars;
or black holes;
or the energy of a galactic core</pre>[/QUOTE]On this scale pre-stellar TL worlds would be type 0-I, the stellar TL worlds would be type I, and the Ancients would be type II.

I would like to borrow your "galactic level" cultural label and extend the MT/TNE/T4 for MTU as follows:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> TL General Description
M-N early galactic
P-R average galactic
S-U high galactic
V-W extreme galactic
X+ ????????????????</pre>[/QUOTE]

[Chuck Anumia]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Sir Dameon,
________________________________________________-

I would like to borrow your "galactic level" cultural label and extend the MT/TNE/T4 for MTU as follows:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> TL General Description
M-N early galactic
P-R average galactic
S-U high galactic
V-W extreme galactic
X+ ????????????????</pre>

[/quote]_________________________________________________
I Like This idea even better. TY, [img]smile.gif[/img]

[RainOfSteel]

X = Technology = Magic

[Straybow]

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">CIVILIZATION ENERGY PRODUCTION
type I all planet based sources
type II the total energy produced by stars,
i.e. Dyson sphere like energy collectors
type III the total energy of thousand or millions of stars;
or pulsars;
or black holes;
or the energy of a galactic core</pre>[/QUOTE]That's one of those "egghead" ideas that looks profound but in practical terms falls flat.

I don't think the basis of scale alone is a good measure of energy production. For example, stars aren't an efficient "engine" by any means. The unimaginable cost of construction for a Dyson sphere imposes an excessive return on investment period.

Controlled fusion (even the remarkably inefficient kind envisioned in Traveller) yields far more useable power. An advanced culture that siphoned hydrogen from stars to put into use with higher efficiency would be better off. That's after you swallow the idea that there isn't enough hydrogen from non-stellar sources to power this hypothetical super-culture.

Singularitites, zero-point energy and the like are no farther-fetched than harnessing "galactic" energies. Does that mean constructing multi-light-year scale structures to dwarf Dyson spheres? Talk about a waste...

[Fritz_Brown]

Straybow,
The other problem is that everything in Traveller basically falls into "type I". It doesn't give much of a distinguisher between civilizations in the Imperium.

[jatay3]

Culture is more than just technology don't forget. If they weren't pressed deep into our cultural memory and we only knew them from archeological diggings, we would only know the Greeks as "a few little fisher villiages in the Balkans". They did of course make some impressive technological acheivments but many of these would have gone unnoticed if we didn't know where to look.
Cultural level includes art level, intellectual level, political level, and general quality of life level among other things all of which are harder to grade than tech.