Explaining traveller's 'limited' technology.

[Lexx]

Some people seem to not like traveller because it doesn't have a lot of the 'advanced' tech we associate with hardcore SF games. I.E. no nanotech, no AI, no genetic engineering, etc.

Well, as I see the traveller iniverse from my newbie perspective, I see answers for these issues.

First off, As to no nanotech, how do we know they didn't develope it and run into a frankenstein scenario? Maybe the stuff got out of control and devastated a planet, or nearly spread to other worlds but ate the ships it was on before they jumped? Maybe nanotech was too dangerouns and uncontrollable and nearly lead to a disaster?

See the novel "Bloom" by Wil Macarthy for an example of a 'nanoclysm', and why people may not develop nanotech or use it.

As to AI, same reason: Maybe they created an AI and it turned into Skynet or Colossus and they had a hell of a hard time killing it, and found out that AIs tend to not be as obedient as people want them to be.

Genetic engineering? Again, can we say 'frankenstein'? Look at the star trek episode "space seed" in which it was said that 'superior ability breeds superior ambition' as a reason against genetic engineering humans. No one wants to create another 'khan'.

As to other technologies, maybe the imperium found out that automation leads to unemployment, and unemployed people are not happy citizens, so automation is banned to prevent unemployment.

 

[alanb]

The main point to remember with all this stuff is that people tend to have exaggerated ideas about what it could do.

It is entirely possible to assume that it all exists in the OTU.

Who knows what kind of stuff is used in OTU factories and hospitals? How do we know that they aren't full of nanotech devices and artificial intelligences? No doubt OTU farms are full of genetically modified species - how else could they be adapted to so many unlikely environments? It's a safe bet that there are plenty of genetically engineered vaccines and so on.

All this stuff is there, it's just that the more absurd dreams of their present day advocates didn't come true.

And it's quite likely that they won't come true in the real world, either. Maybe Traveller is more realistic than we imagine.

 

[Shadowdancer]

There are instances of genetic engineering in the OTU -- several "uplifted" races such as dolphins, orcas, apes and bears (Ursa).

There are also some human races which were genetically engineered, most (if not all) by the Ancients.

 

[Straybow]

Yes, the "full automation = unemployment" paradigm as Imperial Policy is one of the characteristics of OTU.

Many feel that Virus (an intelligent computer worm that sweeps through known space taking over spaceships) is bad science akin to nanotech fears, and totally ignore that version of Traveller.

 

[Spiderfish]

There plenty of genetic engineering in the OTU the Solomani really erm "dig" the genetic modification.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Lexx; I think all that stuff's there, it just isn't fully fleshed out or addressed by the rules and/or milieu.

 

[DaveChase]

I like having a universe that is open and basic. Because I can expand upon it as I want, add as I want.
Since Traveller has a good solid basics to it and leave much to the individuals (GM) mind it does take some more work than some other RPG, but at the same time you are not limited to what can be done.

I like the Pocket Empires concept and that attitude/culture is a determining factor of advancement as compared to some other games.

Just my thoughts on why some things are "Missing" or left out.

Dave

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Genetic engineering by Ancients doesn't really count in this matter; it's just part of the OTU backstory.

What Lexx is surely referring to is the general absence of genetic engineering, nanotech, artificial intelligence etc in the "active" OTU. That is, none of these things are key elements of the Traveller universe in which players play (Virus notwithstanding), and they are not discussed in the rules. I think the reason for this is mainly that it's not interesting, or wasn't to the game designers. Another way of putting it is that Traveller is not about hardware, it's about the human experience.

People have also mentioned that all of this sci-fi clobber could exist in the OTU, it's just not really discussed. For example, who's to say that some of the various drugs in the OTU aren't pharmaceuticals, but are in fact nanotech and/or gene therapy concoctions?

Personally, I just assume all of that stuff is the technological equivalent of a toaster: a product of technology, certainly, but hardly interesting in and of itself. In a universe full of potential wonders, things like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering are really just window dressing.

That being said, I don't think there's any reason why people shouldn't incorporate artificial intelligence, nanotech etc in their Traveller games if they think it appropriate to drive an adventure, explain an aspect of a high-tech society, or pose an interesting problem to the players.

Intriguing example: Bram Stoker's Dracula is a gripping read, but few people think of it as sci-fi. However, it's chock full of 1800's high-tech: namely, novel methods of communication and transportation. Here, the technology is simply part of the world where the story unfolds. The book would certainly not be the same if the technology was removed, but the story would be roughly the same, as evidenced by countless film versions that utterly ignore the role of technology in the original novel.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by FlightCommanderSolitude:
I think the reason for this is mainly that it's not interesting, or wasn't to the game designers. Another way of putting it is that Traveller is not about hardware, it's about the human experience.

Another explanation might be that a lot of this stuff was only thought up after Traveller was first written, way back in 1977.

It can really only be fitted into the game as a refit, or in a non-OTU setting.

That doesn't include artificial intelligence, of course. But then, the way a lot of SF, particularly the early, classic SF that Traveller is best at emulating, handles artificial intelligence in a rather silly way. I'm personally quite happy not to have a bunch of R2D2s cluttering up the universe, let alone machines that operate according to Asimov's laws. And I'm not in the slightest bit interested in Skynet type systems that, for some reason, decide to take over the world, (except, of course, when I'm playing TNE!)

Such things snap my reality suspenders.

I'm perfectly happy to have factories that are pretty much totally automated. I am even happy to have starships that are close to totally automated, but, of course, they aren't consistent with the initial portrayal of Traveller ships, and really belong in an alternate setting. More to the point, however, they are boring as far as roleplaying is concerned. Essentially, any PC on such a vessel is a passenger, or at best a technician trying to repair damaged systems. They would not be the pilot, they would not be gunners, and generally speaking they would not be anyone interesting when it comes to actually playing combat. So a less automated system is actually more fun.

But, of course, why shouldn't the ship itself be a PC? Well... I suppose so. All you have to do is explain why a ship is interested in anything apart from being a ship, that is, in, essentially, carrying out the orders it has been given by its human passengers.

Of course, you could go all the way and play in Iain M Banks' Culture setting. This could be quite a cool game, but it's an outlier compared to the mainstream of Traveller games.

And, well, anyway, Piper, Heinlein, Asimov, Smith, Vance and all that lot wrote lots of fabulous stuff without all the current fads. If Traveller allows you to play in their worlds, well, uhh, maybe people will find themselves still playing it 25 years after the first time.

Is that conservative? Sure. But the best of the current SF writers are also fans of the masters. Even writers that openly detest the politics of people like Heinlein and Pournelle admit that they were influenced by their books, but that's another story.

 

[Toribergquist]

Something worth considering about technology in a large and heavy populated universe: the more sophisticated the tech, the more difficult it is to maintain, repair, or upgrade when you are too far removed from a center of civilization.

The impression I have always received about Traveller is that it reflects a baseline of tech which can be considered common at some level to most regions, and the high and lower tech levels are abnormal extremes. Even in CT, you had high tech words with floating cities, and low tech rim worlds where a few inches of heavy aluminum were all that kept you safe from vaccuum. The range of technology was not propogated randomly, or evenly, but reflected the population, terraformed level or a world, and center of importance in a region. Imagine, for example, if you were a belter with a sophisticated AI which went on the fritz....and it was wired in to life support and other functions. That would be very, very bad. But a lower tech computer (or back-up to the ai, if these were rich belters, which they probably aren't) with plenty of redundant systems or automated fallbacks would be more practical. And in a universe where mankind is known to exist, but you're trapped on some podunk backwater planet, you migth be likelier to take risks with doing space walks, belting, and other activities with the equivalent of 20th century tech, simply because there's no perceived disincentive to go in to space like in the actual 20th century....you actually know someone else is out there, and they might be along to trade soon, and share news, while offering technology that seems fabulous and almost magical. If the real world had such an option today....everyone would be in a space race, regardless of how primitive or sophisticated the means, as you'd have an entire galaxy of economies and resources to try and hook in to. And of course, when you covet the higher tech stuff....the sellers of such goods will be sure to price their product accordingly.

In any case, I feel that the latest incarnation of Traveller (T20) has done a nice job of bringing the tech issues of the universe up to current expectations, even if it doesn't portray a Transhuman Space sort of universe. Call me crazy, but I suspect that in 100 years, the world as we know it will still look a lot more like a Traveller kinda place than a Transhuman Space kind of place. Much of our future-shock fiction, the cyberpunk genre, are looking kind of long in the tooth, largely because they predicted social changes in response to sweeping tech advances that would create the dystopian futures so portrayed.....and in fact, that has not actually come to pass, as we move in to the futures so described, as our society has proven to be more resilient to change, and better at harnessing new technology than expected.

Some other tech which makes good SF but doesn't necessarily have to be prominent in any Traveller universe: nanotech. A lot has been made of this prospective hypothetical technology, but in spit eof doom and gloom fiction featuring nanites run amok, I suspect that, should nanites ever become a reality, they will suddenly look a lot like most medicine does today: clear liquid in an injector, and something that makes you feel a bit better with some side effects. If you presume nanites could be used for military and destructive purposes, keep in mind that those prospects alone might be sufficient in the universe of the Imperium to make that a restrictive, rarely-seen technology. Just like nuclear weapons are restrictive and limited now, so too would dangerous nanites.

Now, I must get backt to pondering how to adapt the Riddick universe to Traveller...

 

[Glen Allen Mcinnes]

in all the trav games i'v played in since the mid 80's the stuff was their it just was so in the back ground that it hardly got noticed until it wasn't their (as most things you take for granted)and when TNE jumped the crue requerments we explaind it as geting rid of a lot of cuber-assist systoms and ships Bots and stuff.

 

[Glen Allen Mcinnes]

also fogot the only other time when you notice somthing is when some one makes somthing of it

 

[Rotters2]

There's a lot of valid points made so far, folks. I also think that the Tech is there, but in the background. and also tend to agree with Toribergquist about the ease-of-maintenance idea too. My own slant on the Tech idea is along the 'if it aint broken, don't fix it' stream.

If you look at the amazing technology available today for military hardware - the M3 Bradley for example, then the first question is 'why doesn't everyone use that technology?'. For instance, in Australia, we still use the M113 as our main APC - a design going back to the Vietnam war. I suppose, other than budget constraints, the reason is that the M113 still does a darn good job. It achieves it's role to an acceptable level, and therefore is kept in service. If you get a new model for something, not only do you need to buy the items themselves, you also need to buy the spare parts, the task-specific tools and equipment to maintain the new model, and train up the maintenance personnel to be able to fix 'em. That is costly enough for an army of approx 35,000 people - imagine the headache for an army the size of the Imperial army .

I mean, I'm sure we currently have the technology to place super-duper computer chips and control mechanisms in toasters that create the perfect toast, but how many toasters actually HAVE those chips in them?

To me, it boils down to the fact that getting beaten about the head by a pointed stick hurts just as much in 30,000 BC as it does in the 25th Century AD.....

But, having said that, I do like the idea of a fair amount of automation etc in the OTU. If for no other reason than by the time we get to the Virus era, it becomes an even bigger threat.

 

[DaveChase]

Don't forget that we have forgotten how to do many things.

In the future if enough things are automated then will we take time how to learn to make them by hand?

I have made angel food cakes from scratch. Most people today don't even know how to make a cake correctly even when following the instructions.

This could explain why Tech has a tendency to slide backwards (or at least not move forward) in the masses.
Dave

 

[Psion]

I've never assumed that nanotech and genetic engineering doesn't exist. And in some cases, in OTU material, it explicitly does.

As Glen explains, much of it is possibly is the background, part of the tech you already use. Who is to say that your self sealing vacc suit isn't sealed by nanites? Or that your cloth armor is woven by genetically engineered spiders.

I think some representations of Nanotech as it exists in some SF is over the top. For example, some Nano-SF has posited that nanites would enhance our bodies, but a quick visit to some medical and nanotech SF communities will reveal that there are some practical limitations that make this unlikeley.

 

[nobby-w]

Some people seem to not like traveller because it doesn't have a lot of the 'advanced' tech we associate with hardcore SF games. I.E. no nanotech, no AI, no genetic engineering, etc.

...

Traveller does touch on genetic engineering, with several genetically enhanced organisms (by human or other agency) being mentioned by name - e.g. Miniphants, Vargr.

Nanotech wasn't really a thing when the OTU was originally developed but you could trivially retcon a nanotech-lite into the Traveller universe. Arguably the Cymbelline critters that became the AI virus could be described as a nano-organism.

When CT was released, The Six Million Dollar Man was at the height of its popularity, and bionics get a mention in the technology section in Book 3, although there aren't any specific rules published for them. They're treated as something that could happen in the OTU, but not something of such central importance that they would merit a substantial rules section. You could have a character with a bionic arm, but Traveller wasn't intended to principally be a role playing game of cyborgs in the far future.

You don't see neuromancer style AI's in the OTU, outside of a passing mention of them at TL16-17 (ergo outside the envelope of technology available within the third imperium).

There are a few tropes in the basic CT materials that are somewhat dated - the size of ship's computers being perhaps the best known, and perhaps a lack of attention to ubiquitous computers, global internetworking and 'soft' (special purpose) AI. However, semi-sentient robots are implied from the robot design system in JTAS onwards.

You could retcon some of this tech in to the 3I universe and make it up IMTU, which wouldn't be hard as there isn't much in the OTU material that would clash with it.

Alternatively you could find some sociological reason that people ultimately reject it ("The inhabitants of this planet are so primitive that they still think a ubiquitous, automated, insecure mass-surveillance platform is a really neat idea.").

Making up some nanotech-based medical or other technology could equally be done without clashing too badly with OTU canon. You could (for example) limit the effectiveness of micro-miniature drones with laser insect fences like the one demonstrated in the TED talk video. I think it isn't too hard to find reasons to limit certain technologies without being too heavy handed.

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller's technology is only limited by the imagination of the referee.

It's how you describe stuff: eg characteristic gains during character generation could be down to cyber enhancement or bio-engineering

The various 'drugs' can be down to bio/nanotech etc.

 

[Dagrill]

Yes, the "full automation = unemployment" paradigm as Imperial Policy is one of the characteristics of OTU.

Many feel that Virus (an intelligent computer worm that sweeps through known space taking over spaceships) is bad science akin to nanotech fears, and totally ignore that version of Traveller.

Long Live Strephon (or his clones)!
Totally agree, it's why I gave GURPS a try

Kind Regards

David

 

[Jason M Durkish]

Lexx
You pretty much took my ideas .

 

[sabredog]

You can also just point out that there are many paths to the same destinations, and this one led to Traveller as it is. It doesn't have to be the same future history of us right now - it can be an alternate one where different choices were made, some things never figured out or against physics, or some guy was never born to invent a widget. Maybe civilization nuked itself and had to start over and some things just couldn't be done the same way.

Or societies had different priorities than we do now so some paths were not fully exploited until later or not at all. Like say, genetic manipulation and cybertechnology turned out ot have some really bad side effects so research was pretty much dropped or limited to very narrow areas.

I also think that the popularity of a show like Firefly is an example of why all the shiny chrome and whoosh of sooper-scifi isn't always needed to make an absorbing, fun game.