Drakon's Inspiring Infrastructure

[redwalker]

(Off-topic: "Drakon's Inspiring Infrastructure" sounds like a 1st edition D&D spell, trying to rip off Vance's Dying Earth...)

Drakon (#3785) recently posted some inspiring comments on infrastructure. The resulting posts moved me to dredge up some of my old links on organic farming, a topic which I think almost qualifies as "environmental engineering" because a good, high-tech organic farm is really a managed ecosystem.

Drakon and others made comments about horses being justifiable, about information being more important than technology, etc.

The topic has many ramifications that go beyond mere technology. For example, the thread mentioned professions, which I won't discuss in this thread.

For example, I can start a high-tech organic farm in real life. However, I need to pick individuals who are very educated and motivate them to stay loyal to the goals of organic farming. That fact is a little counter-intuitive to folks thinking like
game refs. In a game, you're tempted to say, "You can't get
lots of smart people. You can't even get 13 Intelligence. You
have to work with 9 or A intelligence at best, and those folks
will try to mutiny." That makes a fine Traveller game. But it's
simulating Marc W. Miller's vision, not reality.

In reality, the people who start ambitious enterprises often have unusual levels of skill and motivation. In real life, people make huge sacrifices in order to have horses rather than machines. In real life, people conduct irrational suicide attacks. Etc. Humans are complicated -- much more complicated than fictional characters, even Traveller or SpaceMaster characters.

In this thread, then, I'll try to mention the similarities I see between Drakon's intuition and Buckminster Fuller's theories.
I will conclude by saying it can't be done with un-patched Classic Traveller rules.

1. Drakon seems to be inspired by the possibility of a campaign that includes an unfolding infrastructure, and character efforts which make increased complexity possible. This is great. It taps into the big audience of SimCity and Civilization fans that play RPGs. I love the idea. I also like games that offer constructive game actions instead of endless diplomacy rolls. Combat is better than diplomacy, but in-character creative action can be better than combat. (How many of us loved the game "Alpha Centauri"?)

2. Buckminster Fuller wrote that technology consists of both artifacts and information, and that by increasing the level of information one can increase the power of technology. This seems to be central to Drakon's intuition that the highly skilled colonists would be able to sacrifice some capabilities of a high tech level without losing essential infrastructure for the eventual re-establishment of a high tech level.

3. The Traveller rules for tech level are crude. They do not distinguish between artifact and skill. They do not identify social substructures that might be necessary to utilize given technology patterns. And perhaps worst of all they do not show that a given level of effectiveness might be reached by multiple different paths. The colonists in Drakon's vision would be pursuing a radically different behavior pattern than the parent society and thus they would have the potential for greater efficiency and productivity than could have been achieved in the parent society or in previous societies.

4. Therefore if one wishes to play with Drakon's vision, the Traveller rules must be upgraded above Classic Traveller, probably to some custom form that gives greater detail in description of social structures, skills, technological behaviors, and infrastructures. In fact, one would have to design so many new rules that one coud probably dispense with the Traveller rules altogether, since the primary conflict would have to be resolved with entirely new rules.

 

[redwalker]

An example of a linear vision of technology would be a rule system where the designer/referee ruled, "Your culture must develop internal combustion engines before you can have cars."

An example of a more flexible vision of technology would be a system where the designer ruled, "Your culture must have motors powerful enough to move at least one person's weight before you can have cars, but those motors might be powered by steam, gasoline, electricity, tightly wound springs, etc."

The more fluid vision requires a much greater level of abstraction and much more design work. However, it is closer to simulating historical fact.

 

[Spiderfish]

Upgrade them yourself then. Invent new skills and technologies.

Or if you really dont like CT go play another form of traveller.

 

[Slink182]

OK, so CT doesn't do what you would like it to do. Let me say the following:

You're using the wrong game system.

If you are interested in constructing a society, in a game as a simulation, as opposed to constructing a society in a game as a game, then you are DEFINITELY using the wrong game system.

CT isn't going to fulfill your requirements. Your requirements fall well outside the scope of the original 27 y.o. game system, and a goodly number of the supplements that came along in the 8-9 years that followed.

Nope, what you want is a game system that is similar to either Fantasy Games Unlimited's Aftermath (which DOES provide skills and rules for constructing an infrastructure from the ground up) or Living Steel (1st printing, before it was "simplified"; sorry, can't remember the game manufacturer). LS1 actually had a task system that, assuming you only had the skills and wanted to build something, would require the character to build all the sub-assemblies first.

For example, the build a house, a PC would need to build the tools necessary to build a house (e.g., hammer, saw, nails, etc). Before they could even get to the tools, they would have to build simple tools just to build decent tools. Heaven forbid someone wanted to build a motorcycle - the skills and equipment to just construct an internal combustion engine were incredible (they had to build torque wrenches, nuts & bolts, even create lubricants), but even if they managed to build the bike, they would still need to build the equipment to process fuel.

However, both these systems came at a cost - mainly in terms of complexity (high - you'd likely enjoy them) and social skills (very very low - but then, that's why it's called Role-Playing Games).

Good luck in your endeavors.

 

[Spiderfish]

I could build a motorbike easy...

One thing you have failed to notice Red Walker is you can easilly adapt CT by adding new skills and rules. The first 3 books (well 4 if you count 0) were very open ended and i'm sure with a bit of work you could change them.

Dont forget the CT rules were designed for people who wanted to be soldiers of fortune, merchants, explorers and criminals(mainly criminals).


And the inteligence thing that represents an 18 year old. Send them to uni or something if you want a better educated or smarter individual.

After all if you could get the maximum statistics at 18 what would there be to strive for?

 

[Slink182]

"I could build a motorbike easy..."

I'm sure you could. But could you build all the supporting equipment just to get to the motorbike part? i.e., build the raw tubing (metallurgy, forging, metal extrusion), machine all parts from a raw block, fashion the hardened tools, extrude wires, coat wires, manufacture rubber tires, etc.?

Building anything can be rather straight-forward, if you have all the necessary raw materials and tools available. His underlying point (from what I understood of it - I wish he would use clear language instead of being obtuse) is that "you build A to get to B, then use B to get to C, etc." but that CT doesn't allow for that.

 

[Spiderfish]

Just saying I could.
I reckon I could manufacture some crude tools and components but the whole thing would be abit hard. You'd probably have to canibalise old behicles assuming any existed.

Raw tubing? Are you talking about the frame?

 

[aramis]

not just frame, but fuel tubing.

Think of it this way: given a world with all the natural resources oen could want, but NOTHING manufactured, could you build that bike?

 

[Spiderfish]

Fuel tubing, not really the technical term for it but okay.

Certainly not on my own, do I know what one looks like though? Or have I lived here my whole life.

I certainly couldent design a motorcycle from scratch if I had never seen one and manufacturing all the tools would be incredibly hard.

I would need to mine and then smelt metals and I have never done any mining so i would need some assistance on that.

Also finding the fuel might be hard, though with a suitably robust engine you might be able to use a different fuel. (rotting biomatter?)

 

[Slink182]

Aramis: Thanks for the clarification. Apparently, *I* was being obtuse.

The general idea of building "up" the tech tree from, effectively, nothing wrt tools, but everything wrt raw materials and knowledge, was what I think Red was talking about. I think. Anyways, it dealt with what I think was constructing a colony infrastructure from nothing but knowledge.

CT rules don't support that kind of detail. FGU's Aftermath does (as a detailed abstraction in terms of "tasks") and Living Steel also (it provided a list of skills, time and "parts" in order to achieve a goal - if something is complicated, the goal would become a "part" for the next stage of construction).

Ah... Living Steel, the only game system that I'm aware of that had (imo, ridiculous) requirements just to build a decent hammer and a set of nails...

 

[aramis]

Nails are hard, but hammers aren't, according to the blacksmiths i've known.

 

[Spiderfish]

Thats because you cant just beat a nail into shape I suppose. And the hammer is a simple tool really its just an evolution of the rock.

 

[Drakon]

First off, thanks for starting this thread. However now I need to buy a new hat, as the old one has gotten too small

I am trying to do this more realistically, or possibly more in keeping with how *I* think things will turn out. I can see a use for horses on a low tech level colony, because horses require different maintenence and care than say, a car. In a world without gas stations, cars are going to be tough to justify. In THAT case, then it makes sense to use something that takes advantage of the natural resources available and harvestable with the present tech level on the planet. And it has advantages, in terms of political control for one thing, over dependence on out system supplies.

Would having a car or jeep be better than a horse? It depends. Again, a world with no gas, the car is useless. But a horse might work, if not as effectively as the car, at least more so in the present situation, (where the car can't get fuel)

I would go with the looser version rather than mandating technology. You can have cars, if you have an engine powerful enough to make them practical AND have a ready fuel supply. If you have say, a fusion power plant on a vehicle, that runs off water, then you will get your cars, just in a different form than ones found here.

 

[Drakon]

The point that Spiderfish, Slink and Aramis are batting around was sucintly posited by Milton Freedman when he said, "Nobody can make a pencil"

What he meant was that no single person has all the skills needed to manufacture a single #2 pencil. No one knows enough about rubber tree farming, chemistry, metalurgy, graphite, wood working, machining, paint, etc. to make a pencil. Yet pencils are plentiful and cheap.

Because you got a lot of folks all who know a bit about it, this guy knows about rubber trees, that guy knows how to turn the sap into erasers. This other guy knows were we can get the metal for the little band that holds the eraser on, and another guy altogether knows how to make graphite for the pencil. (Although he may not know how to extract the raw materials)

The whole reason behind my speculation on the subject is to try to improve my own Traveller Universe, to reduce the suspension of disbelief. More complex technology requires more infrastructure to support it, which means more people. If you ain't got the people, the complexity you are able to achieve is limited.

However, I don't think this is a strict linear thing. One cool thing I see is that sometimes technology can REDUCE the required infrastructure, or make the infrastrucure more portable. Instead of learning all the stuff you would need to know to make a pencil, you can look it up on the web, or in the library. (Assuming you brought a library with you. And if you didn't, well, you got more serious problems on hand.)

So the question boils down to, what is the minimum require infrastructure for a given technical component? If I have a fusion plant that runs on water, I won't need as many oil derricks. I won't need horses, because I can build cars with this instead of gasoline engines.

Or put another way, how many people are required to support a particular tech level? And what other social memes are necessary to advance that tech level.

(How do you count off world contributions? If you have two systems trading with each other, their volumn of trade is going to affect the tech level of each system. I am not sure just how to work that out yet. And would love to hear some ideas.)

 

[DaveChase]

So, how many Expert robots do you need to build a ____________.

If you got the money but don't have the people or the time, buy some well programed robots.

Never complain, work 24/7, and easy to upload new information.

Dave

 

[Slink182]

Drakon: Yes, I agree with you. In the book "The Design of Everyday Things" (don't recall the author, will have to dig out that book) there is a simple discussion of the evolution of the paperclip. Early paperclips apparently took one craftsman about 6 hours to make, or 8 lineworkers about 10 minutes to make. or 4 lineworkers and some machinery about 2 minutes to make.

The tradeoff, obviously, was that machinery required maintanence by outside workers (not the craftsman or lineworkers). Historically, a low-tech society is populated by "generalists" (eg., blacksmith, woodcutter) with a few "specialists" (banker, merchant) sprinkled in. As tech level rises, more and more generalists give way to specialists just to maintain the society (blacksmith subdivides into armorer, weaponsmith, foundryman, etc.) while some generalist skills get rewrapped into new professions (barrel maker, cartwright). Specialists also subdivide into more refined positions.

To maintain a low TL society, you could probably get away with a few hundred people easily, possibly even less. A higher TL rises (and hence society advances technically), more people would be required simply to maintain it. Specialization of jobs would eventually require a qualified team of people just to maintain/produce an artifact of that TL.

Having a portable/handy reference (e.g., the web) in order to reduce the required infrastructure is tenuous (MO). Having a reference and applying the reference are still two different things. Knowing the theory of how to "fix" a problem is very different from actually fixing a problem. At some point, knowledge has to be applied practically, but most people will not actually know how to apply it. Even if they do, it may take them weeks, months, possibly years before they are skilled enough to perform an adequate job of it. For example, I can read all I want about guns and the manufacturing methods of guns, the a gunsmith that does not make me.

Socially, I suspect in order to advance a society in TL, you would require the equivalent of a "rennaissance" or a war. Most advancements in society, historically, have been the result of those two factors. Rennaissance's usually require some form of catalyst - often in the form of the dissemination of knowledge (schools, universities). Wars force advancement, but usually have civilian applications after it's all said and done. Both of these applied between countries and continents - I can't see any reason why it can't also apply towards worlds. In the OTU, private wars are sanctioned as long as they obey the Imperial rules of warfare.

Would trading between systems have a significant affect on each system's TL? Maybe. Maybe not. Europe traded immensely with China during the 19th and early 20th centuries (still do). Europe had a much higher TL than China did. China resisted most of Europe's technology influences due to ideology. Yes, they still advanced, but at a much slower pace, and only in the late 20th C have they stepped up that pace (still lags behind, though). Also, just because two systems trade doesn't mean that the trade will be equitable - one system may wish to maintain their TL superiority and only trade lower TL goods and services (e.g., Western Block trading with Eastern Block during the Cold War). Trade could also be purely foods/medicines for money (again, Cold War example), or weapons for money (US during WWI). Equal trading (or just trading, for that matter) may only occur between ideologically/technologically similar societies (SAAB dealerships in North America - but how many (legal) SAAB dealers are in, say, central Africa).

 

[Drakon]

Many good points. I would like to re-interate a few things.

The point is not to maintain a low tech level. That is not my goal. My goal is to find the highest self sustaining tech level a colony can support by itself, without assistance from another planet. Self sufficiency of the colony is what I see as the primary, or really only goal. If you can do that with lower tech, or with selectively "teching" the colony, or some other method, all the better. Low tech is a means to an end, rather than an end unto itself.

But you do make a good point that as tech level advance, the population becomes more specialized in specific tasks. And that reading about gunsmithing does not make you a gunsmith in and of itself. I will point out that you reading up on gunsmithing does make you more an expert, and more capable of accomplishing a task, than one who hasn't. You may not be as good as someone who has been working at it for years, but you would be far better than the person who has not read up on it.

"rennaissance" or a war: You have a good point, sadly. Societies advance (technically) when they have to. Usually this is the result of outside stresses and threats, (war). But another means is if society (or rather, the ruling political party) adopt some appropriately difficult goal. Such as putting a man on the moon in Earth history.

Good example about China versus European trade. And the clash of ideology that can prevent advancement. There is a direction of technology that higher tech levels means more and more capability by fewer and fewer people. Governments having star triggers is bad enough. Imagine individual folks, not beholding to anyone else, nor not caring.

Which is the idea behind the Fermi plague. And also why some governments may object to technical advancement.

Equitable trade, I am not sure I understand you. Trade is always going to balance out, because folks ain't gonna let themselves be short changed. You may trade your guns for cash, but it is going to be a cash that is usable, that you can then exchange for goods and services that you want.

I think part of the problem is attempting to look at it objectively. Economic values are rather subjective, dependent on the individual's unique circumstances, desires and what not. So I may sell you this island for 24 dollars worth of beads, and you may feel that you got a good deal out of the bargain. But I accepted your deal, so on some level, the beads must have been worth more to me, than the island. I got a good deal as well. (Or so I think, but what I think about the deal is really what is important, ain't it?)

One can look at utility of a product and establish a somewhat objective measure of value. But even this is limited by time and place and circumstance. A parka would be valuless to you in the mid day heat of the Sahara. But a matter of life and death in the Artic. But utility is only part of the equation. Desire also enters into it as well.

Or why else would someone spend 106 million dollars on a painting?

 

[DaveChase]

Drakon,
Before you can determine the highest TL a colony can sustain you will need to know a couple of things.

1. What resources are on the planet
2. are the people native to the planet or the planet type (ie it is easier to work on/with a planet that is like home)
3. what is the technology based on (mechanical, physical, biological, energry) and you can't say all because we are physical based and from that we have modified the others to fit that type of life.
4. social structure/beliefs. (extreme examples given) Nature boy, reglious fanatic, hive/group mind, hermits

Dave

 

[Drakon]

Very good points, one and all.

Could you expand a bit on #3? I am not sure I understand what you mean by "physical based technology" Or for that matter just what an "energy based technology" would be. I will note that even today, there is a large mixture of biology, chemistry, physics, and energy that go into various technical artifacts we have today. But perhaps I am just not getting you here.

 

[DaveChase]

Physical based: use leverage, power, strength. An extreme anology would be Martial arts theatre showing the strength of man to defeat/break/move things. Amnish (spelling), more what man and horse can do than technology. All technology still relies on physical effort.

Mechanical based: gearhead, tinker, robots. Organic is OK but look at what we can do if we add some gears here, a motor over here and some levers here. There you go now you have a walker so you don't have to actually walk any more. Everything is built to replace what is done by man/nature in a mechanical way.

Energy based: this can be broken down into 2 different categories. (Summary: NonPhysical)
1. actual enegry from atoms, positive/negative, power, using the natural state of flux, the wind, the sun, water, gravity. Here you work with the enviroment and harness the effort/power of the universe
2. high tech, living robots, energy beings, silicon based living off solar energy, chemical/atomical breakdown of atoms to produce enegry. Destroy and create using energy in the 'pure form'.

Biological: This is different than others as it relies on pure biology to create, grow, develop and move. Think living ships, specialized growth or creation of living things.

In our current society, we use all the above and we have a tendency to think in all the above at the same time. One reason that some aliens/movies scare/intrigue us is because they think/focus on only 1 or 2 of the above.

Also we have developed (not completely) from each one of these depending on what culture you look at which in turn effects what type of base is used to move forward.

Hope that helps.
If not ask more questions

Dave