Beyond TL16

[mike wightman]

While replying to a post about The Emperor's Arsenal I started thinking about the really high TLs, 18 and above. Thanks to MT, FF&S(TNE), T4 and T20 it is straightforward to integrate up to TL17 into a campaign but beyond that the improvements and technologies become quite "magical" in nature.
This started me wondering if the very high Tls are only achievable by psionic races or races with an in-depth knowledge of the multi-dimensional nature of the Traveller universe (real space, jump space, "psionic space"???,pocket universes etc.) and the means to access them. Can this be done by almost magical high technology or are psionics a pre-requisite?
Both(?) of the very high tech races in the OTU (Knightfall is a MT adventure therefore the Primordials are still allowed) are psionic.
Anyway, does anyone out there have any further ideas?

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

You may want to take a look at DP9's Core Command RPG if you want to see a TL16+ game. Disintegrators, Weapons that take apart stars, nanotech, handguns hooked up by micro-wormholes to antimatter reactors, kilometre long starships, blackholes converted into intergalactic transit systems (the fare being a white dwarf that you toss into the thing to open the gate)...

 

[William]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
While replying to a post about The Emperor's Arsenal I started thinking about the really high TLs, 18 and above. Thanks to MT, FF&S(TNE), T4 and T20 it is straightforward to integrate up to TL17 into a campaign but beyond that the improvements and technologies become quite "magical" in nature.
This started me wondering if the very high Tls are only achievable by psionic races or races with an in-depth knowledge of the multi-dimensional nature of the Traveller universe (real space, jump space, "psionic space"???,pocket universes etc.) and the means to access them. Can this be done by almost magical high technology or are psionics a pre-requisite?
Both(?) of the very high tech races in the OTU (Knightfall is a MT adventure therefore the Primordials are still allowed) are psionic.
Anyway, does anyone out there have any further ideas?

See, it's really simple - when a race hits TL17, Grandfather comes out of hiding and hammers them. This is, obviously, the real origin of virus

Huh? Who's pounding on my door

 

[Anthony]

Considering the fate of the Darrians and the inhabitants of Sabmiqys, not to mention Virus, there's good reason to suspect exactly that.

As they say, once is accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a conspiracy. I count three..

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Considering the fate of the Darrians and the inhabitants of Sabmiqys, not to mention Virus, there's good reason to suspect exactly that.

As they say, once is accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a conspiracy. I count three..

If Grandfather is involved in all that (I doubt it myself), then I'd say that certainly makes him an enemy of sentient life in Charted Space. It'd make for an interesting campaign - certain groups figure that Grandfather is behind the calamities that keep a civilisation hobbled at TL15, and decide to take the fight to him.

(then again, my view may be biased by the fact that I'm currently reading 'Redemption Ark' by Alastair Reynolds. In the prequel 'Revelation Space', an ancient race called the Inhibitors is woken up when inquisitive spacefaring humans trigger a 'trap' designed to activate when a sufficiently advanced race finds it. The idea is that the Inhibitors home in on the signal and totally annihilate the race. In the second book, the Inhibitors are starting to show up...)

 

[Andrew Boulton]

If Grandfather is involved in all that (I doubt it myself), then I'd say that certainly makes him an enemy of sentient life in Charted Space.

Maybe not. TL16+ gives you the power to do serious damage (mmm, Kentucky Fried Darrian!), so maybe he's just trying to protect us until we're evolved enough to handle it. Look at the damage his kids did...

(Ick! I just had an image of GF & family on the Jerry Springer show...)

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
[QB] </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> If Grandfather is involved in all that (I doubt it myself), then I'd say that certainly makes him an enemy of sentient life in Charted Space.

Maybe not. TL16+ gives you the power to do serious damage (mmm, Kentucky Fried Darrian!), so maybe he's just trying to protect us until we're evolved enough to handle it. Look at the damage his kids did...
</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, but humans aren't his kids. Who is Grandfather to limit what everyone is allowed to know? What gives him the right to strike down millions or trillions of sentients because he's so insecure and paranoid?

(Ick! I just had an image of GF & family on the Jerry Springer show...)

Nah, he'd be taunted by the morons in the audience for being a freak with leathery skin and bat wings. He's Satan, clearly!

 

[vegascat]

The Darrian Star Trigger incident was clearly Grandfathers work. It seems that he is refining his methods to hide evidence of his involvment in disasters. Just look at what happened when the Imperioum started to spread TL 16 ideas, An emprorer assasinated, followed up by a killer virus. The simple evidence is evident. Look at where Grandfather maintains his clos connection with the outside universe, right in the Spinward Marches. What area was least affected by TL 16 equipment, the wars, and the virus? The Spinward Marches.
The obvious answer to move to TL 16 and beyond is to first track down Grandfather and eliminate him.

I shall now go into hiding from Grandfather who will certainly attempt to silence this entire thread by causing Sol to go nova.

 

[RainOfSteel]

What is Grandfather, then, doing about the 79 worlds in the Imperium that show up at TL-16?


Or rather, a better way to phrase that is: Why did he let so many get to TL-16 in the first place?

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Or rather, a better way to phrase that is: Why did he let so many get to TL-16 in the first place?

To borrow once again from Redemption Ark: because his detections systems and drones are getting flaky, and can't be everywhere at once. He's starting to miss some of the 'upstarts', and he can't very well go in now and deal with 79 widely separated systems without it looking VERY suspicious now.

In short, the tide is turning, technology is advancing (well, it is in the GT universe anyway

) and before long, civilisations will be getting to TL17 and beyond. In that case, Grandfather is going to have to either remain hidden for longer, or get very worried and start blowing stuff up anyway, or come out and negotiate (which is likely to end with him being attacked by the humans anyway).

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Oh, just as a smoking gun useful for blaming Grandfather for Virus...

Late in the 1200s, an archeological mission exploring the blasted Highlands of Cymbeline and looking for any surviving Chips discover the wreck of a starship on the surface, miraculously missed by the nuclear 'cleansing' onslaught in the Civil War.

Examination of the wreckage indicate that it was an ANCIENT ship, and that this was the method by which the Chips originally arrived on the planet - they evolved from AI chips that the Ancients had in their computers. Over the intervening 300,000 years, they regressed until a Solomani ship arrived and they absorbed the computer core.


The rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Maybe not. TL16+ gives you the power to do serious damage (mmm, Kentucky Fried Darrian!), so maybe he's just trying to protect us until we're evolved enough to handle it. Look at the damage his kids did...

Um.. it was Grandfather who set off the Final War, not his kids. He also showed little reluctance to blow up planets when hunting his kids...

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
What is Grandfather, then, doing about the 79 worlds in the Imperium that show up at TL-16?

Unleashing Virus? Recall that those 79 worlds are from Megatraveller information...

 

[spank]

this smacks of "Revelation Space"

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by spank:
this smacks of "Revelation Space"

I did actually mention that earlier

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
In the prequel 'Revelation Space' [by Alastair Reynolds], an ancient race called the Inhibitors is woken up when inquisitive spacefaring humans trigger a 'trap' designed to activate when a sufficiently advanced race finds it. The idea is that the Inhibitors home in on the signal and totally annihilate the race. In the second book, the Inhibitors are starting to show up...)

(Shudder) Sounds like a great adventure hook...

 

[mike wightman]

I'd like to thank everyone who has replied to this post. There are some very interesting ideas. I quite like the Grandfather conspiracy theory (the Droyne went invisible on the grassy knoll) and having never read Revelation Space I think I'll give it a go.
How about this for a scenario hook:
Archaeologist (majoring in extinct TL15/16 cultures) hires Travellers for crew/security/cannon fodder to investigate ruins or whatever located ... Unfortunately he is too close to learning what no man is meant to know and very soon something turns up to stop him. I leave the rest to your imagination.

 

[spank]

Sorry I missed you earlier comment.

The trigger in the game could be something more like tl-16 plus {civil} war

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by spank:
Sorry I missed you earlier comment.

The trigger in the game could be something more like tl-16 plus {civil} war

Or it could be entering the Ancients' facility in 'Secrets of the Ancients'?

 

[spank]

I was thinking tl 16 because that's 1 TL before Anti-mater and antimater + war could be really bad.