Backwards Engineering

[Elliot]

By backwards engineering I don't mean Compaq copying IBM but TL15 techs putting together machinery that could be built and serviced by lower tech worlds. I think an agro collector was developed for this purpose in MT or TNE.

The sought of thing I am thinking of is 'if they had our understanding of gear ratios in 1650 they could have made push bikes, lets go to a tech 3 world and sell them the kit'.

I am not technically minded so can anyone suggest products that could be developed by TL+ worlds to be manufactured in TL- worlds.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Did you watch Rough Science on BBC2? Basically, they took a bunch of scientists, dumped them in the middle of nowhere, and got them to make various things (like a camera, a generator, a radio, etc), using just basic tools and natural resources. The web site is here. It's quite surprising what a low tech society could do if they knew how.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

There's a 'refrigerator' of sorts being used today in various backwaters that allows vaccines to be kept cool. It consists of little but two clay pots, some sand, and some water. You need to understand thermodynamics to design one; the pots must be certain sizes in relation to each other, there needs to be X amount of sand and Y amount of water, etc., but the technique and the idea can easily be taught.

'Scientific American' had an article in the last 2 years or so on this very topic.

Gears could have been used in the 1650s or earlier for pedal bikes IF quite a number of other things were introduced along with them; cheap steel makingfor a start and screw lathes rather than hand lathes. Those two items don't require much more knowledge than gearing either.

Communications is an interesting angle to explore. Digital semaphores instead of flag/lantern semaphores could give a society fast, long distance comms well before they could make the 1000s of miles necessary for an electric telegraph. Pratchett features digital semaphores; the 'clacks', in his more recent 'Discworld' novels.

A digital semaphore would have a 3x3 arrangement of 'shutters' or 'windows' that between alternate between white and black. The towers could be tall, free-standing structures; think windmills - another nifty hi-to-lo tech gift, or simple huts built aloft on spars; much like the cranes the classical world used. With a pretty crude telescope (yet another hi-to-lo gift), one tower can read the other tower's signas at 20km or so depending on terrain. At night, lanterns are hung in which of the nine positions are required for symbol in a message.

L. Sprague de Camp's wonderful 'Ancient Engineers' is a neat place to start.

And, of course, there's always gunpowder. If they have alchemy, they can have gunpowder.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[mike wightman]

How about paper, the printing press and movable type. Simple voltaic cells. Thinking about it if you can make copper wire and know what magnets are then simple motors or even better muscle/wind/water powered dynamos are possible.
I have found James Burkes' books and TV programs useful for "what if" technologies and could give you some good ideas for the sort of products a higher TL world would target a lower TL.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

This does, of course, mean that most low-tech worlds that are part of the interstellar community will be almost nothing like their historical Terran equivalents.

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"This does, of course, mean that most low-tech worlds that are part of the interstellar community will be almost nothing like their historical Terran equivalents."


Mr. Boulton,

Yes, you are correct. The Third Imperium *setting* with it's Imperial-mandated free trade and other bits cannot work with any strict application of the tech levels listed in the Traveller RPG *system*. Chartered Space would have to be full of Amish, Neo-Luddites, and other technophobes belonging to each sophont species.

There are primitive worlds, worlds which for various reasons are actually living at Stone Age, Bronze Age, and up to pre-Stellar tech levels. However, most folks now use TL as a measure of poverty. That TL-6 world does live at TL-12 or TL-F because they can't afford all the skills, education, and equipment to do so. That doesn't mean that the TL-6 are stupid or that they don't have bits of higher TL equipment however.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Hecateus]

Ah yes Mos Eisley Stationesque environments would likely abound within the empire. ie stone and adobe fitted with high tech do dads.

one thing that bothers me: a high tech level society can produce items at a few levels lower TL at as much as %10 the cost. This makes interstellar trade competetive with another lower TL society. This could create civil strife in the low TL place, especially if there is little or no means to retrain the populace. I think we see this effect in RL today.

I don't know, but there may be organizations and laws in the Empire set to minimize the impact of unchecked free trade. If only to prevent civil strife.

Another preventative is with regards to the Virus. Cheap locally made low tech solutions, even if they are inferior (ie no importing Higher tech stuff) would be an effective firewall against a Virus 'Infection'. And thus of value to any society.

 

[Whipsnade]

Hecateus wrote:

"One thing that bothers me: a high tech level society can produce items at a few levels lower TL at as much as %10 the cost. This makes interstellar trade competetive with another lower TL society. This could create civil strife in the low TL place, especially if there is little or no means to retrain the populace. I think we see this effect in RL today."


Mr. Hecateus,

You're looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Take a 'widget' - a product of some sort that the lo-tech society uses, in the classic 3I-OTU we can't assume that the lo-tech society was ever even making this 'widget' in the first place! At some time in the past, the lo-tech society was a colonial venture of a higher tech world and they brought those first widgets with them. This isn't like our RL world in which hi and lo tech societies developed simultaneously.

There is no local 'widget' industry for hi-tech production to displace and there are no local 'widget' workers losing their jobs to hi-tech imports because local 'widget' production never existed in the first place.

The effects you write about did occur in T4's M:0 setting, over 1000 years in the past. The 'troubles' they caused were cynically exploited by the nascent Third Imperium as a tool of conquest in the 'Cleon School of Contact'. (I paraphrased that name as I can't quite remember the true title.) This 'school' was a hotly debated feature of T4, one of the few debated points that didn't involve IG's horrific lack of production standards.

"I don't know, but there may be organizations and laws in the Empire set to minimize the impact of unchecked free trade. If only to prevent civil strife."

From CT to T4 and on through GURPS and T20, there has been no Star Blecch-ish 'Prime Directive'. T4 explicitly renounces the idea and GURPS says 'trade with the locals if you think you're smarter with them'.

Despite Traveller's realistic dismissal of Star Blecch's silly and childish 'Prime Directive', there does exist a mechanism for protecting societies within the Third Imperium; Interdiction - aka Red Zones*. Canon baldly states in many locations that the IISS requests interdictions to 'protect developing cultures' while the IN requests interdictions to 'punish worlds'.

Another point to remember is that free trade covers goods moving between starports. Worlds can still tax or prohibit goods that cross their extrality line as long as they impose those tarrifs and restrictions evenly; i.e. tax ALL wheat and not just wheat from Trin.

"Another preventative is with regards to the Virus. Cheap locally made low tech solutions, even if they are inferior (ie no importing Higher tech stuff) would be an effective firewall against a Virus 'Infection'. And thus of value to any society."

Yes and TNE specifically addresses that point. Of course, those societies that benefited from their inferior technology's resistence to Virus hadn't exactly *planned* for that effect. They were just simply too poor to purchase or operate the 'latest and greatest' and had to make do with hand-me-downs or cobbled together lo-tech substitutes.


Sincerely,
Larsen

* - Amber and Red Zones are strictly speaking TAS-only labels. The Imperium either interdicts; a TAS Red Zone, or issues travel advisories; a TAS Amber Zones. Sometimes with respect to Amber Zones, the Imperial and TAS designations may not exactly match; one body issues an advisory and the other doesn't. The Imperium considers most worlds beyond its border to be worthy of travel advisories while TAS doesn't issue a blanket Amber Zone for those regions.

 

[Elliot]

Andrew your comment is partly what I am driving at: the proponderance of TL+ worlds makes TL1-8 worlds far different to C21 Earth. We can make bio-computers now in theory, we just dont understand the mechanics fully. What if someone told us how from 200 years in the future. We wouldn't need the processes and complex machines, just the knowledge. We would jump TL+ in a decade.

However, i'm too cynical to think that high tec humans would give it away for free. Lets imagine it takes over a month to get to Africa and its not economical to go once a month (Jump travel makes the universe inherently like C19th shipping). We want the Africans to be our cash crop growers for a certain pharmacetical plant coz we can sell in a 10 parsec radiuc for mega credits. Do we let them till the land with hoes, no we give them the knowledge to build a Jethro Tull seed drill and come back every year to pick up the proceeds. We also tell them about microbes (a thing not known about until C18th/19th) and sewers. We also analyse their local herbs and tell them which ones work. They live longer, work better and produce more and we profit. They, of course, have a stagnant tech level because we are responsible for their basic intellectual developments.

I believe that is the essential way the TI works. I think Dulinor had an understanding of this too (bang bang).

 

[Elliot]

Actually this discussion reminds me of an old cold war Star Trek where Kirk visits a peaceful race of primitives to find that the Klingons had given their (new) enemies a musket. Kirk gives his mates a rifled barrel and so on and so forth (this retelling is a bit inaccurate but you get the point). One tech level proceeds the other depending on the competing high tec interests.

 

[Hecateus]

Larsen W.,
My thought had more to do with:
Massive sudden unplanned for influx of labor saving widgets probably will cause a significant number of people to be out of work, bored, and with nothing better to do (no reeducation schools) than to join anti-imperial terrorist organizations.

GT: Starports regularly mentions the possibility that imperials are not well liked, but generally fails to mention why. Unbalanced tech and free trade without provisions often results in this chaos and hatred...IMO

 

[Whipsnade]

Hecateus wrote:

"My thought had more to do with: Massive sudden unplanned for influx of labor saving widgets probably will cause a significant number of people to be out of work, bored, and with nothing better to do (no reeducation schools) than to join anti-imperial terrorist organizations."


Mr. Hecateus,

Massive, sudden, and unplanned from where? All those labor saving widgets you're worried about *already* exist and people *already* know about them; they just can't buy them in sufficient quantities to make a difference. The only reason these lo-tech societies don't already have them is either they cannot afford them (even at the miniscule price hi-tech worlds can mfg. them at) or they do not have the necessary skills and education to operate or maintain them.

This isn't a case of horseless carriages putting buggy whip makers out of business. This a case of poverty, both in dollars and skills. If a world is making do with a lo-tech widget or method it is because it cannot afford anything better or cannot operate anything better.

The Imperium has increased it's TL very slowly over the centuries. The 'Future Shock' style problems you're worried about would be very hard to engender as only a few societies are on the bleeding edge. The rest are playing catch-up when and how they can.

"GT: Starports regularly mentions the possibility that imperials are not well liked, but generally fails to mention why. Unbalanced tech and free trade without provisions often results in this chaos and hatred...IMO"

The Imperium is hated for the same reason America is hated; it is a convenient target. The Powers That Be on every world can simply redirect their population's anger outward and blame those 'Imperials' who 'tell every one what to do'. The Imperium is also hated because it stops the Little-endians in one system from bringing the 'truth' to the Big-endians in another system and making them open their eggs the 'proper' way.

I have also failed to explain that 'free trade' in the Imperium means free trade between starports. A world may erect any tariffs or prohibitions it wishes at the extrality line just as long as they are imposed impartially.

A tech imbalance in the Imperium exists for the same reasons a tech imbalance exists on 21st Century Earth; poverty - both financial and intellectual. Zaire has no CAT scan machines because they cannot afford one and could not operate one even if they could.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[eclipse]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
A tech imbalance in the Imperium exists for the same reasons a tech imbalance exists on 21st Century Earth; poverty - both financial and intellectual. Zaire has no CAT scan machines because they cannot afford one and could not operate one even if they could.
Sincerely,
Larsen

This is the key bit. You may find that Zaire does have one CAT Scan system, in the hospital used only by the senior government officals and is staffed by imported technicians and doctors.

Low tech worlds typically have some high tech items. Imported and maintained at great expense for use by the Rich and Powerful (tm), which may or may not be the planetary government.

The Imperium isn't interested in "agrarian land reform" or any other catch phrase for draining cash from the rich, as long as they get their cut, ahem...tax revenue, and golden egg laying goose is not killed in the process.

It's a dog eat dog view of the Imperium, but at least one dogs gets to eat. It's more fun to run campaigns in than a too perfect ST Federation set up too.

There are real world examples on why low tech spots stay low tech. There are examples of governments shutting down clinics in places there were desperately needed. The reason being that the government didn't want the people to receive any assistance that didn't come from the government. It set a bad example and was against their political world view.

In such a case in a Traveller setting, the Imperial government wouldn't get involved unless it effected interstellar trade or Imperial Security.

This is a good plot hook for the enterprising GM.